Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

Kaja gently let go of the door handle. She felt a warm current of air on her neck. As though someone was breathing on her. She cancelled the ‘as though’ and turned.

There were two of them. Their faces melded into the darkness.

‘Looking for someone, lady?’

The feeling of deja vu struck her before she had answered. ‘Wrong door, that’s all.’

At that moment she heard a car start up; she turned and saw the rear lights of her taxi swaying along the street.

‘Don’t worry, lady,’ the voice said. ‘We paid him.’

She turned back and looked down. At the pistol pointing at her.

‘Let’s go.’

Kaja considered the alternatives. Didn’t take long. There weren’t any.

She walked ahead of them towards the two Range Rovers. The rear door of one swung open as they approached. She got in. It smelt of spiced aftershave and new leather. The door slammed behind her. He smiled. His teeth were large and white, the voice gentle, cheerful.

‘Hi, Kaja.’

Tony Leike was wearing a yellow-and-grey combat uniform. Holding a red mobile in his hand. Harry’s.

‘You were told to go straight in. What stopped you?’

She shrugged.

‘Fascinating,’ he said, angling his head.

‘What is?’

‘You don’t seem the slightest bit afraid.’

‘Why should I be?’

‘Because you’re going to die soon. Have you really not understood?’

Kaja’s throat constricted. Even though part of her brain was screaming this was an idle threat, that she was a police officer, he would never take the risk, it was unable to drown the other part, the one that said Tony Leike was sitting in front of her and knew exactly what the situation was. She and Harry were two kamikaze clods a long way from home, without authorisation, without backup, without a plan B. Without a hope.

Leike pressed a button and the window slid down.

‘Go and finish him off, then take him up there,’ he said to the two men, and the window slid back up.

‘I think it would have added a touch of class if you had opened the door,’ Leike said. ‘I sort of think we owe Harry a poetic death. Now, though, we’ll have to opt for a poetic farewell.’ He leaned forward and peered up at the sky. ‘Beautiful red colour, isn’t it?’ She could see it in his face now. Heard it. And her voice – the one that told the truth – told her. She really was going to die.

Kinzonzi pointed to Van Boorst’s brick house and told Oudry to drive the Range Rover right to the door. He could see the light behind the curtains and remembered that Mister Tony had determined it was to be left on when they were not there. So that the white man could see what awaited him. Kinzonzi got out and waited for Oudry to pocket the car key and follow. The order was simple: kill him and take him there. It aroused no emotion. No fear, no pleasure, not even tension. It was a job.

Kinzonzi was nineteen years old. He had been a soldier since he was eleven. The PDLA, the People’s Democratic Liberation Army, had stormed his village. They had smashed his brother’s head with the stock of a Kalashnikov and raped his two sisters while forcing his father to watch. Afterwards the commander had said that if his father didn’t perform intercourse with his younger sister in front of them, they would kill Kinzonzi and his elder sister. But before the commander had finished his sentence, Kinzonzi’s father had impaled himself on one of their machetes. Their laughter had filled the air.

Before leaving, Kinzonzi had eaten the first decent meal he’d had for several months and was given a beret which the commander said was his uniform. Two months later he had a Kalashnikov and had shot his first human, a mother in a village who refused to hand over her blankets to the PDLA. He had been twelve when he queued with other soldiers to rape a young girl not far from where he had been recruited. When it was his turn it suddenly struck him that the girl could have been his sister, the age would have been right. But when he studied her face he saw that he could no longer remember their faces: Mum, Dad, his sisters. They were gone, erased from his memory.

Four months later, he and two comrades chopped the arms off the commander and watched him bleed to death, not out of revenge or hatred but because the CFF, the Congo Freedom Front, had promised to pay them better. For five years he had lived off what the CFF raids in the northern Kivu jungle brought in, but all the time they had had to watch out for other guerrillas, and the villages they came to had been so plundered by others over time that they could barely feed themselves. For a while the CFF had negotiated with the government army: disarmament for an amnesty and employment. But discussions broke down over wages.

Hungry and desperate, the CFF attacked a mining company extracting coltan, even though they were aware that mining companies had better weapons and soldiers than they did. Kinzonzi had never had any illusions that he would live a long life or that he would die any other way than fighting. So he hadn’t even blinked when he came round and found himself staring up the gun barrel of a white man speaking to him in a foreign language. Kinzonzi had just nodded for him to get it over with. Two months later the wounds were healed, and the mining company was his new employer.

The white man was Mister Tony. Mister Tony paid well but showed no mercy if he saw the slightest sign of disloyalty. Yes, he spoke to them and was the best boss Kinzonzi had ever had. And yet Kinzonzi would not have hesitated for a second to shoot him if it had been worth his while. But it wasn’t.

‘Hurry up,’ Kinzonzi said to Oudry, loading his pistol. He knew it could take time for the white policeman to die from the metal apple that would be activated in his mouth when they opened the door, so he would shoot him at once in order to get going to Nyiragongo, where Mister Tony and the women were waiting.

A man who had been seated on a chair smoking outside the adjacent shop got up and was lost in the darkness, mumbling angrily.

Kinzonzi regarded the door handle. The first time he had been here was to pick up Van Boorst. It was also the first time he had seen the legendary Alma. At that time Van Boorst had been spending all his money on Singapore sling, protection and Alma, who was not exactly cheap to maintain. Then Van Boorst, in his desperation, committed the final mistake of his life: blackmailing Mister Tony with threats of going to the police. The Belgian had seemed more resigned than surprised when they came, and had finished his drink. They had carved him up into suitably large pieces to feed to the paradoxically fat pigs outside the refugee camp. Mister Tony had taken over Alma. Alma of the hips, gold tooth and the sleepy fuck-me look that could have given Kinzonzi another reason to put a bullet in Mister Tony’s head. If it had been worth his while.

Kinzonzi pressed the handle. And pulled the door hard. It swung open but was stopped halfway by a thin steel wire fastened to the inside of the door. The moment it tightened, there was a loud, clear click and the sound of metal on metal, like the sound of a bayonet thrust into an iron sheath. The door opened with a creak.

Kinzonzi stepped in, dragged Oudry after him and slammed the door. The bitter smell of vomit stung their nostrils.

‘Switch on the light.’

Oudry did as he was ordered.

Kinzonzi stared at the end of the room. On the wall, drenched in blood, a banknote hung from a bare nail, from which a red stream led down to the floor. On the bed, in a pool of yellow sick, lay a bloodcovered metal ball with long needles sticking out, like rays of a sun. But no white policeman.

The door. Kinzonzi whirled around with his gun at the ready.