Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

He shouldn’t have said the last bit. It was lies, would be perceived as lies and stank from some distance of a bad loser.

But it didn’t matter. For if what Johan Krohn, the defence counsel, had told him on the phone was true, Bellman had a golden opportunity to fix everything. Well, more than that. To receive the garlands himself. He acknowledged that the price Krohn would demand was high, but also that it wouldn’t be him who had to pay. But the sodding bear-hunter. And Harry Hole and Crime Squad.

A prison warder held the door to the visitors’ room open and Mikael Bellman let Johan Krohn go first. Krohn had insisted that as this was a conversation, not a formal interview, it should take place, as far as was possible, on neutral ground. Since it was inconceivable that Prince Charming would be allowed out of Oslo District Prison, where he was in custody, Krohn and Bellman agreed on a visitors’ room, one of the ones used for private meetings between inmates and family. No cameras, no microphones, just an ordinary windowless room where half-hearted attempts had been made to jolly the place up with a crocheted cloth on the table and a Norwegian tapestry, a bell-pull, on the wall. Sweethearts and spouses were granted permission to meet here, and the springs on the semen-stained sofa were so worn that Bellman was able to observe Krohn sink into the material as he took a seat.

Sigurd Altman was sitting on a chair at one end of the table. Bellman sat at the other end so that he and Altman were at almost exactly the same height. Altman’s face was lean, his eyes deep-set, the mouth pronounced with protruding teeth, all of which reminded Bellman of photos of emaciated Jews in Auschwitz. And the monster in Alien.

‘Conversations like this don’t proceed by the book,’ Bellman said. ‘I therefore have to insist that no one takes notes and anything we say does not go beyond these walls.’

‘At the same time we have to have a guarantee that the conditions for a confession are fulfilled on the prosecuting authority’s side,’ Krohn said.

‘You have my word,’ Bellman said.

‘For which I humbly thank you. What else have you got?’

‘What else?’ Bellman gave a thin smile. ‘What else would you like? A signed written agreement?’ Arrogant bloody prick of a counsel.

‘Preferably,’ Krohn said, passing a sheet of paper across the table.

Bellman stared at the paper. He skimmed over it, his eyes jumping from sentence to sentence.

‘Won’t be shown to anyone, of course, if it doesn’t have to be,’ Krohn said. ‘And the document will be returned when the conditions have been fulfilled. And this -’ he passed a pen to Bellman – ‘is an S.T. Dupont, the best fountain pen you can find.’

Bellman took the pen and placed it on the table beside him.

‘If the story’s good enough, I’ll sign,’ he said.

‘If this is supposed to be a crime scene, the person concerned tidied up after themselves pretty well.’

Bjorn Holm put his hands on his hips and surveyed the room. They had searched high and low, in drawers and cupboards, shone a torch everywhere for blood and taken fingerprints. He had put his laptop on the desk, connected it to a fingerprint scanner the size of a matchbox, similar to those used at some airports now for passenger identification. So far all the prints had matched one person in the case: Tony Leike.

‘Keep going,’ Harry said, on his knees under the sink, dismantling the plastic pipes. ‘It’s here somewhere.’

‘What is?’

‘I don’t know. Something or other.’

‘If we keep going, we’ll certainly need a bit of heating.’

‘Fire her up then.’

Bjorn Holm crouched down by the wood burner, opened the door and began to tear up and twist the newspaper from the wood basket.

‘What did you offer Skai to get him to join your little game? He risks all sorts if the truth comes out.’

‘He’s not risking anything,’ Harry said. ‘He hasn’t said an untrue word. Look at his statements. It’s the media that have jumped to the wrong conclusions. And there are no police instructions stipulating who can and who cannot arrest a suspect. I didn’t need to offer anything for his help. He said he disliked me less than he disliked Bellman, and that was justification enough.’

‘That was all?’

‘Hm. He told me about his daughter, Mia. Things haven’t gone so well for her. In such cases parents always look for a cause, something concrete they can point to. And Skai reckons it was the night outside the dance hall that marked Mia for life. Local gossip is that Mia and Ole had been going out and it wasn’t just innocent kissing in the woods when Ole found Mia and Tony. In Skai’s eyes Ole and Tony carry the blame for the daughter’s problems.’

Bjorn shook his head. ‘Victims, victims, wherever you turn.’

Harry had come over to Bjorn, holding out his hand. In the palm lay bits of what looked like wire cut from a fence. ‘This was under the drainpipe. Any idea what it is?’

Bjorn took the pieces of wire and studied them.

‘Hey,’ Harry burst out. ‘What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’

‘The newspaper. Look, that’s the press conference where we launched the Iska Peller ruse.’

Bjorn Holm looked at the photo of Bellman which had been uncovered when he had torn off the page in front. ‘Well, I’ll be…’

‘The newspaper’s only a few days old. Someone’s been here recently.’

‘Well, I’ll be.’

‘There might be prints on the front pa-’ Harry looked in the woodburner where the first pages were just going up in flames.

‘Sorry,’ said Bjorn. ‘But I can check the other pages.’

‘OK. Actually, I was wondering about the wood.’

‘Oh?’

‘There isn’t a tree for a three-mile radius. You check the papers and I’ll have a walk around.’

Mikael Bellman studied Sigurd Altman. He didn’t like his cold eyes. Didn’t like the bony body, the teeth pressing against the inside of his lips, the staccato movements or the clumsy lisp. But he didn’t need to like Sigurd Altman to see him as his redeemer and benefactor. For every word Altman said, Bellman was a step nearer his triumph.

‘I assume you’ve read Harry Hole’s report presenting the course of events,’ Altman said.

‘You mean Skai’s report?’ Bellman said. ‘Skai’s presentation?’

Altman let slip a wry smile. ‘As you prefer. The story Harry told was astonishingly accurate, anyway. The problem with it is that it contains only one concrete piece of evidence. My fingerprints at Leike’s. Well, let’s say I was there. I was paying him a visit. And we talked about the good old days.’

Bellman shrugged. ‘And you think a jury will fall for that?’

‘I like to think I can inspire trust. But…’ Altman’s lips stretched and revealed his gums, ‘… now I won’t ever have to face a jury, will I.’

Harry found the woodpile under a green tarpaulin beneath a rock jutting out from the mountainside. An axe stood bowed in a chopping block, beside it a knife. Harry looked around and kicked the snow. Not much of interest here. His boot brushed something. An empty white plastic bag. He bent down. On it was a contents label. Ten metres of gauze. What was that doing here?

Harry angled his head and examined the chopping block for a few moments. Looked at the black blade in the wood. At the knife. At the handle. Yellow, smooth. What was a knife doing on a chopping block? Could be several reasons, of course, yet…

He laid his right hand on the block in such a way that the remaining stump of his middle finger pointed upwards and the other fingers pressed down beside it.

Harry freed the knife cautiously with two fingers at the top of the handle. The blade was as sharp as a razor. With traces of the material he was always seeing in his profession. Then he ran like an elk on long legs through the deep snow.