Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

Utmo stood with his knees like shock absorbers and used his body weight to balance the snowmobile, which he guided past the hotel, over a snowdrift into the soft snow and diagonally up the first gentle slope. On reaching the top with a view to the north, Kaja saw a boundless expanse of white spread out before them. Utmo turned with an enquiring nod. Kaja nodded back that everything was OK. Then he accelerated. Kaja watched the buildings disappear through the fountain of snow spraying off the drive belts.

Kaja had often heard people say that snowy plains made them think of deserts. It made her think of the days and nights with Even on his ocean racer.

The snowmobile sliced through the vast, empty landscape. The combination of snow and wind had erased, smoothed over, levelled the contours until they were one huge ocean in which the tall mountain, Hallingskarvet, towered like a menacing monster wave. There were no sudden movements; the weight of the snowmobile and the softness of the snow made all movements gentle, cushioned. Kaja rubbed her nose and cheeks carefully to ensure enough blood was circulating. She had seen what even relatively minor frostbite could do to faces. The engine’s monotonous roar and the terrain’s reassuring uniformity had lulled her into a drowsy state until the engine died and they came to a standstill. She woke up and looked at her watch. Her first thought was that the engine had cut out and they were at least a forty-five-minute drive from civilisation. How far was it on skis? Three hours? Five? She had no idea. Utmo had already jumped off and was loosening the skis from the scooter.

‘Is there something wrong…?’ she began, but stopped when Utmo stood up and pointed to the little valley in front of them.

‘Havass cabin,’ he said.

Kaja squinted through her sunglasses. And, indeed, at the foot of the mountain face she saw a small, black cabin.

‘Why don’t we drive…?’

‘Because people are stupid, and that’s why we have to creep up on the cabin.’

‘Creep?’ Kaja said, hurriedly clipping on her skis as Utmo had done.

He pointed the pole to the side of the mountain. ‘If you drive the scooter into such a narrow valley, sound ricochets to and fro. Loosens new snow…’

‘Avalanche,’ Kaja said. She remembered something her father had told her after one of his trips to the Alps. More than sixty thousand troops had died in avalanches there during the Second World War, and most of them had been caused by sound waves from artillery fire.

Utmo stopped for a moment and faced her. ‘These nature freaks from town think they’re being clever when they build cabins in sheltered areas. But it’s just a question of time before they’re covered in snow, too.’

‘Too?’

‘The Havass cabin has been here only three years. This year is the first winter with decent avalanche snow. And soon there’s going to be more.’

He pointed westwards. Kaja shielded her eyes. On the snowy horizon she could see what he meant. Heavy, grey-white cumulus clouds were building giant mushroom formations against the blue background.

‘Going to snow all week,’ said Utmo, unhitching the rifle from the snowmobile and hanging it over his shoulder. ‘If I were you, I’d hurry. And don’t shout.’

They entered the valley in silence, and Kaja felt the temperature fall as they reached the shade and the cold filled the depressions in the ground.

They undid their skis by the black timber cabin, rested them against the wall, and Utmo took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.

‘How do overnight guests get in?’ Kaja asked.

‘They buy a skeleton key. Fits all four hundred and fifty Tourist Association cabins nationwide.’ He twisted the key, pressed down the handle and pushed the door. Nothing happened. He cursed under his breath, placed his shoulder against the door and shoved. It came away from the frame with a shrill scream.

‘Cabins shrink in the cold,’ he muttered.

Inside it was pitch black and smelt of paraffin and a wood-burning stove. Kaja inspected the cabin. She knew the lodging arrangements were very simple. You came, entered details in the guest book, took a bed, or a mattress if it was crowded, lit the fire, cooked your own food in the kitchen where there was a stove and cooking utensils, or – if you used the food provided in the cupboards, you put some money in a tin. You paid for your stay in the same tin or you filled in a bank authorisation slip. All payments were a matter for your own conscience and moral integrity.

The cabin had four north-facing bedrooms with four bunk beds in each. The sitting room faced south and was kitted out in traditional manner, that is, with solid pine furniture. There was a large open fireplace for a homely effect and a wood burner for more efficient heating. Kaja calculated that there was seating space for twelve to fifteen people around the table, and sleeping space for double that if people squeezed up and used the floor and mattresses. She visualised the light from candles and the fire flickering over familiar and unfamiliar faces as conversation covered the day’s skiing and the morrow’s plans over a beer or a glass of wine. Even’s ruddy complexion smiled at her, and he toasted her from one of the darkened corners.

‘The guest book’s in the kitchen,’ Utmo said, pointing to one of the doors. Still standing by the front door with hat and gloves on, he seemed impatient. Kaja was holding the door handle and about to press when an image flashed into her mind. County Officer Krongli. He had looked similar. She had known the thought would reappear, she just hadn’t known when.

‘Can you open the door for me?’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s stuck,’ Kaja said. ‘The cold.’

She closed her eyes as she listened to him approach, heard the door open without a sound, felt his astonished gaze on her. Then she opened her eyes and went in.

There was a smell of slightly rancid fat in the kitchen. Her pulse raced as her eyes skimmed over the surfaces, cupboards. She spotted the black, leather-bound register on the worktop under the window. It was attached to the wall by a blue nylon cord.

Kaja breathed in. She walked over to the book. Flicked through.

Page after page of handwritten names, scribbled by the guests. Most had observed the rule and noted down their next destination.

‘In fact, I’d been going to come here over the weekend to check the book for you,’ she heard Utmo say behind her. ‘But obviously the police couldn’t wait, could they.’

‘No,’ said Kaja, thumbing through the dates. November. 6 November. 8 November. She flicked back. And forward again. It wasn’t there. 7 November was gone. She laid the book flat. The jagged edges of the torn sheet stood upright. Someone had taken it.

The airport at Kigali, Rwanda, was small, modern and surprisingly well organised. However, it was Harry’s experience that international airports said little or nothing about the country in which they were situated. In Mumbai, India, there was total calm and efficiency; at JFK in New York, paranoia and chaos. The passport queue took a tiny lurch forward, and Harry followed. Despite the pleasant temperature, he could feel sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades under the thin cotton shirt. He thought again about the figures he had seen at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam where the delayed Oslo plane had landed. Harry had worked up a sweat running through the corridors, the alphabet and the ever larger numbers of the gates to catch the flight to Kampala, Uganda. As corridors crossed he had seen something out of the corner of his eye. A figure that had seemed vaguely familiar. He had been looking into the light and the figure was too far away for him to make out the face. Once on board the plane, the last passenger, Harry had concluded the patently obvious: it had not been her. What were the chances of it happening? There was no chance the boy next to her had been Oleg. He couldn’t have grown that much.