Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

She looked as she always had. As she always would. The dark hair, the gentleness in her brown eyes, the slim neck. Sod her. She was so beautiful it hurt.

‘Harry,’ she said.

‘Rakel.’

‘Your face. I saw it in church. What happened?’

‘Nothing. They say it will heal fine,’ he lied.

‘Come in and I’ll make some coffee.’

Harry shook his head. ‘I have a taxi waiting down on the road. Is Oleg here?’

‘In his room. Do you want to see him?’

‘Another day. How long are you staying?’

‘Three days. Maybe four. Or five. We’ll see.’

‘Can I see you both soon? Would that be OK?’

She nodded. ‘I don’t know if I did the right thing.’

Harry smiled. ‘Well, who knows what that is?’

‘In church, I mean. We left before we… got in the way. You had other things to think about. Anyway, we went for Olav’s sake. You know that he and Oleg… well, they got on. Two reserved personalities. You can take nothing for granted.’

Harry nodded.

‘Oleg talks about you a lot, Harry. You mean more to him than you ever realised.’ She looked down. ‘More than I ever realised, too, perhaps.’

Harry cleared his throat. ‘So everything here is unchanged since… ?’

Rakel nodded quickly so he was spared from having to complete the impossible sentence. Since the Snowman had tried to kill them in this very house.

Harry gazed at her. He had only wanted to see her, hear her voice. Feel her eyes on him. He hadn’t wanted to ask her. He cleared his throat again. ‘There’s something I have to ask you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can we go into the kitchen for a minute?’

They went in. He sat at the table opposite her. Explained slowly and at some length. She listened without interrupting.

‘He wants you to visit him at the hospital. He wants to ask you for forgiveness.’

‘Why should I agree?’

‘You have to answer that one for yourself, Rakel. But he hasn’t got much time left.’

‘I’ve read you can live for a long time with that disease.’

‘He hasn’t got much time left,’ Harry repeated. ‘Think about it. You don’t need to answer now.’

He waited. Saw her blink. Saw her eyes fill, heard the almost noiseless crying. She gasped for breath.

‘What would you do, Harry?’

‘I would say no. But then I’m a pretty bad human being.’

Her laughter mixed with the tears. And Harry wondered at how much it was possible to miss a sound, a certain oscillation of the air. How long you can yearn for a certain laugh.

‘I need to be off now,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I have three meetings left.’

‘Left? Before what?’

‘I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

Harry got up. He had heard music from the first floor. Slayer. Slipknot.

After getting into the taxi and giving the next address, he thought about her question. Before what? Before he wanted to have everything finished. To be free. Maybe.

It was a short drive.

‘This one might take a bit longer,’ he said.

He breathed in, opened the gate and went to the door of the fairytale house.

He thought he could see the turquoise eyes following him from the kitchen window.

Mikael Bellman stood inside the entrance door of Oslo District Prison watching Sigurd Altman and a prison officer sauntering towards the counter.

‘Checking out?’ the officer behind the counter asked.

‘Yes,’ said Altman, handing over a form.

‘Anything from the minibar?’

The second officer chuckled at what was undoubtedly a stock-in-trade at releases.

Personal effects were unlocked from a cupboard and returned with a broad smile. ‘Hope your stay met expectations, herr Altman, and that we see you again soon.’

Bellman held the door open for Altman. They walked down the stairs together.

‘The press are outside,’ Bellman said. ‘So let’s go through the culvert. Krohn’s waiting for you in a car at the rear of Police HQ.’

‘Master of bluffs,’ Altman said with a barbed smile.

Bellman didn’t ask which he was alluding to. He had other questions. The final ones. And three hundred metres within which to have them answered. The lock buzzed, and he pushed open the door to the culvert. ‘Now the deal is done I thought you might be able to tell me a couple of things.’

‘Shoot, Bellman.’

‘Like why you didn’t correct Harry as soon as you realised he was going to arrest you?’

Altman shrugged. ‘I considered the misunderstanding a priceless treat. I understood entirely, of course. What was not understandable was that the arrest would take place in Ytre Enebakk. Why there? And when there’s something you don’t understand, it’s best to keep your trap shut. So I did, until the blinding light, until I saw the whole picture.’

‘And what did the whole picture tell you?’

‘That I was in a see-saw situation.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I knew about the conflict between Kripos and Crime Squad. And I saw it gave me an option. Being in a see-saw situation means that you’re in a position to apply weight to one side or the other.’

‘But why didn’t you try the same deal with Harry that you did with me?’

‘In a see-saw situation you always turn to the losing party. That’s the party which is more desperate, more willing to pay for what you have to offer. It’s a simple gambling theory.’

‘Why were you so sure that Harry wasn’t on the losing side?’

‘I wasn’t sure, but there was another factor. I had begun to get to know Harry. He’s not like you, Bellman, a man of compromises. He couldn’t care less about personal prestige, he only wants to catch the bad boys. All the bad boys. He would have seen things in the following way: if Tony was the main actor, I was the director. And therefore I should not get off lightly. I reckoned that a career man like you would see things differently. And Johan Krohn agreed with me. You would see the personal gain in being the person who caught the murderer. You knew that people were keen to know who did it, who physically performed the killing, not who did the thinking. If a film flops, it’s great for a director to have Tom Cruise in the main role because he’s the one people will slaughter. Audiences and the press like to have things simple, and my crime is indirect, complicated. A court of law would undoubtedly have handed down a life sentence, but this case isn’t about courts of law, but about politics. If the press and the people are happy, the Ministry of Justice is happy, so everyone can go home more or less happy. Getting away with a slap on the wrist, maybe a suspended sentence, is a cheap price to pay.’

‘Not for everyone,’ Bellman said.

Altman laughed. The echo drowned his footsteps. ‘Take some advice from someone who knows. Let it go. Don’t let it eat you up. Injustice is like the weather. If you can’t live with it, move. Injustice is not part of the system’s machinery. It is the machinery.’

‘I’m not talking about me, Altman. I can live with it.’

‘And I’m not talking about you, either, Bellman. I’m talking about the person who can’t live with it.’

Bellman nodded. For his part, he certainly could live with the situation. There had been telephone calls from the Ministry. Not from the minister himself, of course, but the feedback could be interpreted in only one way. That they were happy. That this would have positive consequences, both for Kripos and for him personally.

They went up the stairs and into the daylight.

Johan Krohn stepped out of his blue Audi and extended a hand to Sigurd Altman as they crossed the road.

Bellman stood watching the released man and his counsel until the Audi disappeared round the bend to Toyen.