Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

Krongli closed his eyes and thought, yes, it is possible to kill a person you have loved. Easily possible. But, no, you’re never free. Never. He would never come here again.

Johan Krohn enjoyed the limelight. You don’t become the country’s most popular defence counsel without enjoying it. And when he had agreed to defend Sigurd Altman, Prince Charming, without a second’s hesitation, he knew there was going to be more limelight than he had hitherto experienced in his remarkable career. He had already reached his goal of beating his father as the youngest lawyer ever entitled to attend the Supreme Court. As a defence counsel in his twenties he was already being proclaimed the new star, the wonder boy. But that might have gone to his head a bit; he had not been used to so much attention at school. Then he had been the irritating top pupil who always waved his hand too eagerly in the classroom, who always tried a bit too hard socially and yet was always the last to know where the Saturday-night party was – if he knew about it at all. But now young female assistants and clerks might giggle and blush when he complimented them or suggested a dinner after work. And invitations rained down, to give talks, participate in debates on radio or TV and even to the odd premiere his wife valued so highly. Such events may have occupied too much of his attention over recent years. At any rate, he had detected a downward trend in the number of legal triumphs, big media cases and new clients. Not so many that it had begun to affect his reputation, but enough for him to be aware that he needed the Sigurd Altman case. Needed something high profile to put him back where he belonged: at the top.

That was why Johan Krohan sat listening quietly to the lean man with the round glasses. Listening while Sigurd Altman told a story that was not only the least likely story Krohn had ever heard but also a story he believed. Johan Krohn could already see himself in the courtroom, the sparkling rhetorician, the agitator, the manipulator, who nonetheless never lost sight of legal justice, a delight for both layman and judge. He was therefore disappointed at first when Sigurd Altman revealed the plans he had made. However, after reminding himself of his father’s repeated admonition that the lawyer was there for the client, and not vice versa, he accepted the brief. For Johan Krohn was not really a bad person.

And when Krohn left Oslo District Prison where Sigurd Altman had been transferred during the day, he saw new potential in the assignment, which in its way, despite everything, was extraordinary. The first thing he did when he got back to his office was contact Mikael Bellman. They had met only once before, at a murder trial of course, but Johan Krohn had immediately known where he was with Bellman. A hawk recognises a hawk. So he appreciated how Bellman was feeling after the day’s headlines about the County Officer’s arrest.

‘Bellman.’

‘Johan Krohn. Nice to talk to you again.’

‘Good afternoon, Krohn.’ The voice sounded formal, but not unfriendly.

‘Is it? I imagine you feel you’ve been overtaken down the final straight, don’t you?’

Short pause. ‘What’s this about, Krohn?’ Teeth clenched. Angry.

Johan Krohn knew he was on to a winner.

Harry and Sis sat by their father’s bed at Rikshospital. On the bedside table and on two other tables in the room there were vases of flowers that had appeared from nowhere in the last few days. Harry had done the rounds and read the cards. One of them had been addressed to ‘My dear, dear Olav’, and was signed ‘Your Lise’. Harry had never heard of any Lise, even less considered the notion that there may have been any women in his father’s life other than his mother. The remaining cards were from colleagues and neighbours. It must have reached their ears that the end was nigh. And despite knowing that Olav would not be able to read the cards, they had sent these sweet-smelling flowers to compensate for the fact that they had not taken the time to visit him. Harry saw the flowers surrounding the bed as vultures hovering around a dying man. Heavy, hanging heads on thin stalk necks. Red and yellow beaks.

‘You’re not allowed to have your mobile on here, Harry!’ Sis whispered severely.

Harry took out his phone and read the display. ‘Sorry, Sis. Important.’

Katrine Bratt got straight to the point. ‘Leike has undoubtedly been in Ustaoset and the surrounding district a fair bit,’ she said. ‘In recent years he’s bought the odd train ticket on the Net, paid for fuel with a credit card at the petrol station in Geilo. The same with provisions, mostly in Ustaoset. The only thing to stand out is a bill for building materials, also in Geilo.’

‘Building materials?’

‘Yep. I went onto the lists of invoices. Boards, nails, tools, steel cables, leca blocks, cement. Over thirty thousand kroner’s worth. But it’s four years old.’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘He’s been building himself a little annexe or something up there?’

‘He didn’t have a registered cabin to build an annexe on to, we’ve checked. But you don’t stock up with provisions if you’re going to live in a hotel or Tourist Association cabins. I reckon Tony built himself an illegal bolt-hole in the national park, just as he told me he dreamed about. Well hidden from view, of course. A place where he could be very, very undisturbed. But where?’ Harry realised he had got up and was pacing to and fro in the room.

‘Well, you tell me,’ said Katrine Bratt.

‘Wait! What time of the year did he buy this?’

‘Let me see… The 6th of July it says on the printout.’

‘If the cabin has to be hidden it must be somewhere off the beaten track. A desolate area without roads. Did you say steel cables?’

‘Yes. And I can guess why. When Bergensians built cabins in the most wind-blown parts of Ustaoset in the sixties, they generally used steel cables to anchor the cabins.’

‘So Leike’s cabin would be somewhere wind-blown, desolate, and he has to transport thirty thousand kroner’s worth of building materials there. Weighing at least a couple of tons. How do you do that in the summer when there’s no snow, so you can’t use a snowmobile?’

‘Horse? Jeep?’

‘Over rivers, marshland, up mountains? Keep going.’

‘I have no idea.’

‘But I do. I’ve seen a picture of it. OK, bye.’

‘Wait.’

‘Yes?’

‘You asked me to look into Utmo’s activities during the final days of his life. There’s not very much on him in the electronic world, but he did make some calls. One of the last ones he made was to Aslak Krongli. Just got voicemail, looks like. The very last conversation on his phone was with SAS. I went through their booking system. He booked a plane ticket to Copenhagen.’

‘Mm. He doesn’t seem the type to travel much.’

‘That’s for sure. A passport was issued to him, but he isn’t registered in a single booking system. And we’re talking many years here.’

‘So a man who has barely left his home district suddenly wants to go to Copenhagen. When would he have travelled by the way?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

Harry rang off, grabbed his coat, turned in the doorway. Looked at her. The attractive woman who was his sister. Was about to ask if she was coping on her own, without him. But managed to stop himself asking such an idiotic question. When had she not coped without him?

‘Take care,’ he said.

Jens Rath was in the reception area of the shared office block. Inside his jacket and shirt, his back was drenched with perspiration. Because he had just received a call from the office that the police were paying him a visit. He had had a skirmish with the Fraud Squad a few years ago, but the case had been dropped. Nevertheless, he still broke out into a sweat whenever he saw a police car. And now Jens Rath could feel his pores opening big time. He was a small man and looked up at the officer who had just risen to his feet. And continued to rise. Until he towered half a metre above Jens and gave him a cursory, firm handshake.