Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘So?’

‘When we predicted potential threats in the Security Service we did nothing but look for possible connections, without talking to a living soul. We had a NATO-built search engine long before anyone had heard of Yahoo or Google. With it we could sneak in anywhere and scan practically everything with any connection to the Net. That’s what we have to do here as well.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And that’s why in one and a half hours I’ll be sitting on a plane to Bergen. And in three hours I’ll be talking to an unemployed colleague who I hope can help us. So let’s finish up here, shall we? Kaja and I have talked a fair bit, Bjorn. What have you got?’

Bjorn Holm jerked in his chair as if roused from sleep.

‘Me? Er… not much, I’m afraid.’

Harry rubbed his jaw carefully. ‘You’ve got something.’

‘Nope. Neither forensics nor the detectives on the case have got so much as a lump of fly shit. Not in the Marit Olsen case, nor in either of the other two.’

‘Two months,’ Harry said. ‘Come on.’

‘I can give you a summary,’ said Bjorn Holm. ‘For two months we have analysed, X-rayed and stared ourselves stupid at photos, blood samples, strands of hair, nails, all sorts. We’ve gone through twenty-four theories of how and why he’s stabbed twenty-four holes in the mouths of the first two victims in such a way that all the wounds point inwards to the same central point. With no result. Marit Olsen also had wounds to the mouth, but they were inflicted with a knife and were sloppy, brutal. In short: nada.’

‘What about those small stones in the cellar where Borgny was found?’

‘Analysed. Lots of iron and magnesium, bit of aluminium and silica. So-called basalt rock. Porous and black. Any the wiser?’

‘Both Borgny and Charlotte had iron and coltan on the insides of their molars. What does that tell us?’

‘That they were killed with the same goddam instrument, but that doesn’t get us any closer to what it was.’

Silence.

Harry coughed. ‘OK, Bjorn, out with it.’

‘Out with what?’

‘What you’ve been brooding about ever since we got here.’

The forensics officer scratched his sideburns while eyeballing Harry. Coughed once. Twice. Glanced at Kaja as if to solicit help there. Opened his mouth, closed it.

‘Fine,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s move on to-’

‘The rope.’

The other two stared at Bjorn.

‘I found shells on it.’

‘Oh yes?’ Harry said.

‘But no salt.’

They were still staring at him.

‘That’s pretty unusual,’ Bjorn went on. ‘Shells. In fresh water.’

‘So?’

‘So I checked it out with a freshwater biologist. This particular mollusc is called a Jutland mussel, it’s the smallest of the pool mussels and has been observed in only two lakes in Norway.’

‘And the nominations are?’

‘Oyeren and Lyseren.’

‘Ostfold,’ Kaja said. ‘Neighbouring lakes. Big ones.’

‘In a densely populated region,’ Harry said.

‘Sorry,’ Holm said.

‘Mm. Any marks on the rope that tell us where it might have been bought?’

‘No, that’s the point,’ Holm said. ‘There are no marks. And it doesn’t look like any rope I’ve seen before. The fibre is one hundred per cent organic, there’s no nylon or any other synthetic materials.’

‘Hemp,’ Harry said.

‘What?’ Holm said.

‘Hemp. Rope and hash are made from the same material. If you fancy a joint, you can just stroll down to the harbour and light up the mooring ropes of the Danish ferry.’

‘It’s not hemp,’ Bjorn Holm said over Kaja’s laughter. ‘The fibre’s made from the elm and the linden tree. Mostly elm.’

‘Home-made Norwegian rope,’ Kaja said. ‘They used to make rope on farms long ago.’

‘On farms?’ Harry queried.

Kaja nodded. ‘As a rule every village had at least one rope-maker. You just soaked the wood in water for a month, peeled off the outer bark and used the bast inside. Twined it into rope.’

Harry and Bjorn swivelled round to face Kaja.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘is this general knowledge everyone ought to possess?’

‘Oh, I see,’ Kaja said. ‘My grandfather made rope.’

‘Aha. And for rope-making you need elm and linden?’

‘In principle you can use bast fibres from any kind of tree.’

‘And the composition?’

Kaja shrugged. ‘I’m no expert, but I think it’s unusual to use bast from several different trees for the same rope. I remember that Even, my big brother, said that Grandad used only linden because it absorbs very little water. So he didn’t need to tar his.’

‘Mm. What do you think, Bjorn?’

‘If the compositon is unusual, it will be easier to trace where it was made, of course.’

Harry stood up and began to pace back and forth. There was a heavy sigh every time his rubber soles relinquished the lino. ‘Then we can assume production was limited and sales were local. Do you think that sounds reasonable, Kaja?’

‘Guess so, yes.’

‘And we can also assume that the centres of production and consumption were in close proximity. These home-made ropes would hardly have travelled far.’

‘Still sounds reasonable, but…’

‘So let’s take that as our starting point. You two begin mapping out local rope-makers near lakes Oyeren and Lyseren.’

‘But no one makes ropes like that any more,’ Kaja protested.

‘Do the best you can,’ Harry said, looked at his watch, grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and walked to the door. ‘Find out where the rope was made. I presume Bellman knows nothing about these Jutland mussels. That right, Bjorn?’

Bjorn Holm forced a smile by way of answer.

‘Is it OK if I follow up the theory of a sexually motivated murder?’ Kaja asked. ‘I can talk to someone I know at Sexual Offences.’

‘Negative,’ Harry said. ‘The general order to keep your trap shut about what we’re doing applies in particular to our dear colleagues at Police HQ. There seems to be some seepage between HQ and Kripos, so the only person we speak to is Gunnar Hagen.’

Kaja had opened her mouth, but a glance from Bjorn was enough to make her close it again.

‘But what you can do’, Harry said, ‘is get hold of a volcano expert. And send him the test results of the small stones.’

Bjorn’s fair eyebrows rose a substantial way up his forehead.

‘Porous, black stone, basalt rock,’ Harry said. ‘I would reckon lava. I’ll be back from Bergen at fourish.’

‘Say hello to Baa-baargen Police HQ,’ Bjorn bleated and raised his coffee cup.

‘I won’t be going to the police station,’ Harry said.

‘Oh? Where then?’

‘Sandviken Hospital.’

‘Sand-’

The door slammed behind Harry. Kaja watched Bjorn Holm, who was staring at the closed door with a stunned expression on his face.

‘What’s he going to do there?’ she asked. ‘See a pathologist?’

Bjorn shook his head. ‘Sandviken Hospital is a mental hospital.’

‘Really? So he’s going to meet a psychologist with serial killings as a speciality, is he?’

‘I knew I should have said no,’ Bjorn whispered, still staring at the door. ‘He’s clean out of his mind.’

‘Who’s out of his mind?’

‘We’re working in a prison,’ Bjorn said. ‘We’re risking our jobs if the boss finds out what we’re up to, and the colleague in Bergen. ..’

‘Yes?’

‘She is seriously out of her mind.’

‘You mean she’s…?’

‘Sectioned out of her mind.’

For every step the tall policeman took, Kjersti Rodsmoen had to take two. Even so, she was left behind as they walked along the corridor of Sandviken Hospital. The rain was pouring down outside the high, narrow windows facing the fjord where the trees were so green you would have thought spring had arrived before winter.