Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘Hi, Hole.’ Kaja smiled up at him.

She was sitting in the bar, on a low stool, on her hands. Her gaze was intense, her lips blood red, her cheeks glowing. It struck him that he had not seen her wearing make-up before. And it was not true what he had once believed, in his naivety, that a woman cannot be made more beautiful with cosmetics. She was wearing a plain black dress. A short necklace of gold and white pearls rested against her collarbone and when she breathed they reflected soft light.

‘Been waiting long?’ Harry asked.

‘No,’ she said, getting up before he had a chance to sit down, pulling him over, laying her head on his shoulder and holding him like that. ‘I’m just a bit cold.’

She didn’t care about other people in the bar watching her, she didn’t let go, instead she stuffed both hands under his suit jacket, stroking his shirted back up and down to get them warm. Harry heard a discreet cough, looked up and received a friendly nod from a man with body language that said head waiter.

‘Our table is ready,’ she said.

‘Table? I thought we were only having a drink.’

‘We have to celebrate the end of the case, don’t we? I ordered the food beforehand. Something very special.’

They were shown to a table by the window in the fully occupied restaurant. A waiter lit the candles, poured apple cider into the glasses, put the bottle back in the ice bucket and left.

She raised her glass. ‘Skal.’

‘To what?’

‘To Crime Squad continuing as before. To you and me catching bad men. To being here now. Together.’

They drank. Harry set his glass down on the cloth. Moved it. The base had left a wet mark. ‘Kaja…’

‘I’ve got something for you, Harry. Tell me what your greatest wish is right now.’

‘Listen, Kaja…’

‘What?’ she said, breathless, and leaned forward, eager to hear.

‘I told you I would be on my travels again. I’m leaving tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she laughed, and the smile faded as the waiter unfolded their serviettes and spread them, heavy and white, over their laps. ‘Where to?’

‘Away.’

Kaja stared down at the table without saying a word. Harry wanted to put his hand on hers. But refrained.

‘So I wasn’t enough?’ she whispered. ‘We weren’t enough?’

Harry waited until he could catch her eye. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We weren’t enough. Not enough for you, not enough for me.’

‘What do you know about what’s enough?’ Her voice was thick with tears.

‘Quite a lot,’ Harry said.

Kaja breathed heavily, tried to control her voice. ‘Is it Rakel?’

‘Yes. It was always Rakel.’

‘But you said yourself she didn’t want you.’

‘She doesn’t want me the way I am now. So I have to repair myself. I have to be well again. Do you understand?’

‘No, I don’t understand.’ Two tiny tears clung to the lashes under her eyes, wavering. ‘You are well. The scars are just-’

‘You know very well it’s not those scars I’m talking about.’

‘Will I ever see you again?’ she asked, trapping one of the tears with a fingernail.

She grasped his hand, squeezed it so tight the knuckles went white. Harry looked at her. Then she let go.

‘I won’t go and bring you back another time,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘You won’t cope.’

‘Probably not,’ he smiled. ‘But then who does?’

She tilted her head. Then she smiled with those small pointed teeth of hers.

‘I do,’ she said.

Harry remained in his chair until he heard the soft slam of a car door in the darkness and the diesel engine starting up. He looked down at the cloth and was about to get up when a soup plate came into his eyeline and he heard the head waiter’s voice announce: ‘Special order at the lady’s instructions flown over from Hong Kong. Li Yuan’s glass noodles.’

Harry stared down at the plate. She is still sitting in her chair, he thought. The restaurant is a soap bubble and now it is taking off, hovering over the town and is gone. The kitchen never runs out and we never land.

He got up and made a move to leave. But changed his mind. Sat down again. Lifted the chopsticks.

Harry left the dance restaurant that was no longer a dance restaurant, drove down the hill to the Seamen’s School that was no longer a seamen’s school. Continued to the bunkers that had defended the country’s invaders. Beneath him were the fjord and the town, hidden by mist. Cars crept forward carefully with yellow cat’s eyes. A tram emerged from the mist like a ghost gnashing its teeth.

A car stopped in front of him, and Harry jumped into the front seat. Katie Melua oozed through the speakers with her honey-dripping agony, and Harry desperately searched for the ‘off ’ switch on the radio.

‘Jesus Christ, what do you look like!’ Oystein said, horrified. ‘The surgeon must have definitely failed the sewing course. But at least you’ll save a few kroner on the Halloween mask. Don’t laugh or your mug’ll tear again.’

‘I promise.’

‘By the way,’ Oystein said, ‘it’s my birthday today.’

‘Oh, fuck. Here’s a smoke, from me to you. Free.’

‘That’s exactly what I wanted.’

‘Mm. Any bigger presents you’d like?’

‘Like what?’

‘World peace.’

‘The day you wake up to world peace, you don’t wake up, Harry. Because they’ve dropped the big one.’

‘OK. No private wishes?’

‘Not a lot. New conscience maybe.’

‘New conscience?’

‘The old one’s not so good. Smart suit you’ve got. Thought you had only the one.’

‘It’s Dad’s.’

‘Jesus, you must have shrunk.’

‘Yes,’ Harry said, straightening his tie. ‘I have shrunk.’

‘How’s Ekeberg restaurant?’

Harry closed his eyes. ‘Fine.’

‘Do you remember the leaky shack we sneaked into that time. How old were we? Sixteen?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Didn’t you dance with the Killer Queen there once?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Frightening to think that the MILF of your youth has ended up in an old people’s home.’

‘MILF?’

Oystein sighed. ‘Look it up.’

‘Mm. Oystein?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you and I become pals?’

‘Because we grew up together, I suppose.’

‘Is that all? A demographic coincidence? No spiritual fellowship?’

‘Not that I’ve noticed. As far as I know, we’ve only ever had one thing in common.’

What’s that?’

‘No one else wanted to be pals with us.’

They wound their way through the next bends in silence.

‘Apart from Tresko,’ Harry said.

Oystein snorted. ‘Who stank so much of toe-fart no one else could bear sitting next to him.’

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘We were good at that.’

‘We nailed that one,’ Oystein said. ‘But, Christ, how he stank.’

They laughed together. Gentle, light-hearted. Sad.

Oystein had parked the car on the brown grass with the doors open. Harry clambered up onto the top of the bunker and sat on the edge with his legs dangling. From the speakers inside the car doors Springsteen sang about blood brothers one stormy night and the vow that had to be kept.

Oystein passed Harry the bottle of Jim Beam. A lone siren from the town rose and fell until it lost power and died. The poison stung Harry’s throat and stomach, and he threw up. The second swig went better. The third was fine.

Max Weinberg sounded as if he was trying to destroy the drumhead.

‘It often strikes me how I ought to wish I had more regrets,’ Oystein said. ‘But I don’t give a shite. I think I just accepted from my first waking second that I was a bloody slob. What about you?’