Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

She met the driver’s eyes and arched eyebrows in the rear-view mirror. Pointed to the car in front of them, and the driver gave a nod of comprehension, but still kept the car in neutral.

‘Double pay,’ Kaja said.

The driver jerked his head and let go of the clutch.

Kaja rang Harry. Still no answer.

They crawled their way west along the main thoroughfare. The streets were full of lorries, carts and cars with suitcases tied to the roofs. On each side, people were walking with huge piles of clothes and possessions balanced on their heads. In some places the traffic had come to a complete standstill. The driver had obviously got the point, and he was keeping at least one car between them and Lene Galtung’s Range Rover.

‘Where are they all going?’ Kaja asked.

The driver smiled and shook his head to signify that he didn’t understand. Kaja repeated the question in French with no luck. In the end she pointed to the people shuffling past their car with an interrogative grimace.

‘Re-fu-gee,’ the driver said. ‘Go away. Bad people come.’

Kaja mouthed an ‘Aha’.

Kaja texted Harry again. Trying to stave off panic.

In the middle of Goma the road forked. The Range Rover swung left. Further on it took another left and rolled down towards the lake. They had come to a very different part of town with large detached houses behind high fences and surrounded by well-tended gardens with trees to offer shade and keep out prying eyes.

‘Old,’ the driver said. ‘The Bel-gium. Co-lo-nist.’

There was no traffic in the residential area and Kaja signalled that they should hang back further, even though she doubted Lene Galtung had any schooling in detecting tails. When the Range Rover stopped a hundred metres ahead, Kaja motioned to the driver to stop, too.

An iron gate was opened by a man in a grey uniform, the car drove in and the gate was closed again.

Lene Galtung could hear her heart pounding. It hadn’t beaten like this since the telephone had rung and she had heard his voice. He had told her he was in Africa. And said she should come. That he needed her. That only she could help him. Save the fine project that was not only his, but would become hers, too. So that he could have work. Men needed work. A future. A secure life, somewhere children could grow up.

The chauffeur opened the door for her, and Lene Galtung stepped out. The sun was not as strong as she had feared. The house that stood before her was magnificent. Solid, built at leisure. Brick by brick. Old money. The way they would do it themselves. When she and Tony had met he had been so intrigued by her family tree. Galtung was a Norwegian aristocratic family, one of the very few that had not been imported, a fact Tony repeated again and again. Perhaps that was why she had decided to postpone telling him that she was like him: of normal, modest origins, a grey rock in the scree, a social climber.

But now they would create their own nobility, they would shine in the scree. They would build.

The driver went ahead of her, up the brick steps to the door, where an armed man in camouflage opened it for them. A genuine crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling in the entrance hall. Lene’s hand squeezed the sweaty handle of the metal case containing the money. Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest. Was her hair alright? Could you see the effects of the lack of sleep and the long journey? Someone was coming down the broad staircase from the first floor. No, it was a black woman, probably one of the servants. Lene gave her a friendly but not an exaggeratedly welcoming smile. Saw the glint of gold teeth when the woman acknowledged her with a cool, almost impudent smile and left through the door behind her.

There he was.

He stood by the banisters on the first floor and looked down at them.

He was tall, dark and draped in a dressing gown. She could see the attractive thick scar gleam white against his tanned chest. Then he smiled. She heard her breathing quicken. The smile. It illuminated his face, her heart, held more light than any crystal chandelier could.

He strolled down the stairs.

She put her case on the floor and flew towards him. He opened his arms and received her. And then she was with him. She recognised his smell, stronger than ever. Mixed with another strong, spicy aroma. It had to come from the dressing gown, for now she saw that the elegant silk garment was too short in the arms and not at all new. It wasn’t until she felt him freeing himself that she realised she had been clinging to him, and she let go abruptly.

‘Darling, you’re crying,’ he laughed, stroking her cheek with a finger.

‘Am I?’ She laughed too, drying under her eyes and hoping her makeup hadn’t run.

‘I have a surprise for you,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Come with me.’

‘But…’ she said, turning to see that the metal case had already been removed.

They went upstairs and in through a door to a large, bright bedroom. Long, gossamer curtains swayed gently in the breeze from the terrace door.

‘Were you asleep?’ she asked, gesturing to the unmade four-poster bed.

‘No,’ he smiled. ‘Sit here and close your eyes.’

‘But…’

‘Just do as I say, Lene’.

She thought she could hear a suggestion of annoyance in his voice and hastened to do what he said.

‘They’ll soon be arriving with champagne, and then I want to ask you something. But first I’m going to tell you a story. Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and knew. Knew this was the moment. The one she had been waiting for. The moment she would remember for the rest of her life.

‘The story I am going to tell you is about me. You see, there are a few things you ought to know about me before you answer my question.’

‘I understand.’ It was as if the champagne bubbles were already coursing through her veins, and she had to concentrate in order not to giggle.

‘I’ve told you I grew up with my grandfather, that my parents were dead. What I omitted to say was that I lived with them until I was fifteen.’

‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed.

Tony cocked an eyebrow. A delicately shaped, oh-so-beautiful eyebrow, she thought.

‘I’ve always known you had a secret, Tony,’ she laughed. ‘But I also have a secret. I want us to know everything about each other, everything!’

Tony assumed a lopsided smile. ‘So let me continue without any more interruptions, my sweet Lene. My mother was deeply religious and met my father in a chapel. He had just been released after serving time for murder in a fit of jealous rage, and while in prison had found Jesus. For my mother this was something straight out of the Bible, a repentant sinner, a man she could help to find redemption and eternal life while she did penance for her own sins. That was how she explained to me why she had married the bastard.’

‘What-?’

‘Shh! My father repented for the murder by labelling everything that was not in praise of God a sin. I was not allowed to do any of the things other children did. If I contradicted him I got a taste of the belt. He tried to provoke me, say that the sun went round the earth, as it said in the Bible. If I protested he beat me. When I was twelve I was in the outside toilet with my mother. We used to do that. When I came out he hit me with a spade because he thought it was a sin, that I was too old to go to the toilet with my mother. He marked me for life.’

Lene gulped as Tony lifted a distorted, arthritic finger and ran it along the top part of the scar on his chest. And then she noticed his missing finger.

‘Tony! What happ-?’

‘Shh! The last time my father beat me I was fifteen, and he used the belt for twenty-three minutes without a break. One thousand three hundred and ninety-two seconds. I counted them. He hit me every four seconds like a machine. Kept hitting me, his rage steadily increasing because I refused to cry. In the end his arm was so tired that he had to give up. Three hundred and forty-eight lashes. That night I waited until I heard his snoring, sneaked into their bedroom and poured a drop of acid into his eye. He screamed and screamed while I held him and whispered in his ear that if he touched me again I would kill him. And I felt him stiffen in my arms, I knew he knew I was stronger than him. And he knew I had it in me.’