Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘Harry Hole, Crime Sq- Kripos. We’ve come about Tony Leike.’

‘Anything new?’

‘Shall we sit down, Rath?’

They took a seat in a pair of Le Corbusier chairs, and Rath signalled discreetly to Wenche in reception that she shouldn’t serve them coffee, which was standard policy when investors came visiting.

‘I want you to show us where his cabin is,’ the policeman said.

‘Cabin?’

‘I saw you cancel the coffee, Rath, and that’s fine – like you I don’t have much time. I also know that your Fraud Squad case has been dropped, but it would take me one phone call to reopen it. They may not find anything this time, either, but I promise you that the documentation they will demand you make available…’

Rath closed his eyes. ‘Oh my God…’

‘… will keep you busy for longer than it took to build a cabin for your colleague, pal and bedfellow, Tony Leike. OK?’

Jens Rath’s sole talent was that he could calculate worthwhile risks faster and more efficiently than anyone else. Accordingly, it took him approximately one second to respond to the calculation with which he had just been presented.

‘Fine.’

‘We’re leaving at nine tomorrow morning.’

‘How…?’

‘The same way you transported the materials. Helicopter.’ The policeman stood up.

‘Just one question. Tony’s always been terribly concerned that no one should know about this cabin – I don’t even think Lene, his fiancee, knows about it – so how…?’

‘An invoice for building materials from Geilo, plus the photo of you three in work gear sitting on a pile of timber in front of a helicopter.’

Quick nod of the head from Jens Rath. ‘Course. The photo.’

‘Who took it by the way?’

‘The pilot. Before we left from Geilo. And it was Andreas’s idea to send it with the press report when we opened the offices. He thought dressing in work clothes was cooler than in suits and ties. And Tony agreed because he reckoned it looked as if we owned the helicopter. Anyway, the financial papers use the photo all the time.’

‘Why didn’t you and Andreas mention the cabin when Tony was reported missing?’

Jens Rath shrugged. ‘Don’t get me wrong, we’re just as keen as you for Tony to return pronto. We’ve got a project in the Congo which will go belly up unless he can find ten million readies. But whenever Tony goes walkabout it’s always because he wants to. He can look after himself. Don’t forget he was a mercenary. I would guess that right now Tony is sitting somewhere with a shot of the hard stuff, some exotic wildcat of a woman on his arm and grinning because he’s come up with a solution.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘I assume the feline chomped off his middle finger then. Fornebu Airport nine tomorrow.’

Jens Rath stood watching the policeman. The sweat was pouring off him, he was being washed away.

When Harry returned to Rikshospital Sis was still sitting there. She was leafing through a magazine and eating an apple. He surveyed the kettle of vultures. There were more flowers.

‘You look worn out, Harry,’ she said. ‘You should go home.’

Harry chuckled. ‘You can go. You’ve been sitting here on your own for long enough.’

‘I haven’t been on my own,’ she said with a mischievous smile. ‘Guess who was here.’

Harry sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Sis, I do enough guessing as it is in my job.’

‘Oystein!’

‘Oystein Eikeland?’

‘Yes! He brought a bar of milk chocolate with him. Not for Daddy, but for me. Sorry, there’s none left.’ She laughed so much her eyes shrank into her cheeks.

When she got up to go for a walk, Harry checked his phone. Two missed calls from Kaja. He pushed the chair into the wall and leaned back.

At ten minutes past ten the helicopter landed on a ridge west of the Hallingskarvet mountains. By eleven they had located the cabin.

It was so well hidden from view that even if they had known more or less where it was, they would have struggled to find it without Jens Rath’s help. The cabin was built on rock high up to the east, the leeward side of the mountain, too high to be affected by avalanches. The stones had been carried there from surrounding areas and cemented in against two enormous rocks forming the side and rear walls. There were no conspicuous right angles. The windows resembled gun slits and were set so deep into the wall that the sun did not reflect off them.

‘That’s what I call a decent cabin,’ Bjorn Holm said, unstrapping skis and immediately sinking up to his knees in the snow.

Harry told Jens that they no longer needed his services, and that he should go back to the helicopter and wait there with the pilot.

The snow was not so deep by the front door.

‘Someone’s been digging here not that long ago,’ Harry said.

The door was fitted with a plate and a simple padlock which ceded to Bjorn’s crowbar without much protest.

Before opening the door, they removed their mittens, put on latex gloves and blue plastic bags over their ski boots. Then they entered.

‘Wow,’ Bjorn said under his breath.

The whole cabin consisted of one single room of around five by three metres and was reminiscent of an old-fashioned captain’s berth with porthole-like windows and compact, space-saving solutions. The floor, walls and ceiling were clad with coarse, untreated boards that had been given a couple of coats of white paint to exploit the little light that was let in. The short wall to the right was taken up by a plain worktop with a sink and a cupboard underneath. Plus a divan obviously doubling up as a bed. In the middle of the room there was a table with a single spindleback chair spattered with paint. In front of one window stood a well-used writing desk with initials and snatches of songs carved into the wood. To the left, on the long wall where the rear rock was revealed, there was a black wood burner. To make maximum use of the heat, the flue was diverted around the rock to the right, then rose vertically. The wood basket was filled with birch and newspapers to get the fire started. On the walls hung maps of the local area, but there was also one of Africa.

Bjorn looked out of the window above the desk.

‘And that’s what I call a decent view. Jeez, you can see half of Norway from here.’

‘Let’s get cracking,’ Harry said. ‘The pilot’s given us two hours. There’s cloud coming in from the coast.’

As usual Mikael Bellman had got up at six and jogged himself into consciousness on the treadmill in the cellar. He had been dreaming about Kaja again. She had been riding pillion on a motorbike with her arms around a man who was all helmet and visor. She had smiled so happily, showing her pointed teeth, and waved as they rode away. But hadn’t they stolen the bike? Wasn’t it his? He didn’t know for sure as her hair, which was fluttering in the wind, was so long it covered the number plate.

After running, Mikael had taken a shower and gone upstairs for breakfast.

He had steeled himself before opening the morning paper that Ulla – also as usual – had placed next to his plate.

Lacking a photograph of Sigurd Altman, alias Prince Charming, they had printed one of County Officer Skai. He was standing outside the police station with his arms crossed, wearing a green cap with a long peak, like a bloody bear-hunter. The headline: PRINCE CHARMING ARRESTED? And beside it, above the photograph of a smashed yellow snowmobile: ANOTHER BODY FOUND IN USTAOSET.

Bellman had scanned the text for the word Kripos or – worst of all – his name. Nothing on the front page. Good.

He had opened the pages referred to, and there it was, photo and all: The head of Kripos, Mikael Bellman, has said in a brief comment that he does not wish to make a statement until Prince Charming has been questioned. Nor has he anything in particular to say about the arrest of the suspect by Ytre Enebakk police. ‘In general, I can say that all police work is teamwork. In Kripos we do not attach too much importance to individuals who receive the hero’s garlands.’