Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘My wife,’ said the little Belgian. ‘Well, one of them.’

‘Mistress Van Boorst?’

‘Something of that kind. You want to buy? You have money?’

‘First I want to see what you’ve got,’ Harry said.

Eddie Van Boorst went to the door, opened it a crack and peered outside. Shut it and locked up. ‘Only got your driver with you?’

‘Yes.’

Van Boorst puffed on his cigarette while studying Harry through the folds of skin that gathered when he squinted.

Then he went to a corner of the room, kicked away the carpet, bent down and pulled at an iron ring. A trapdoor opened. The Belgian waved Harry down into the cellar first. Harry assumed it was a precaution based on experience, and did as he was told. A ladder led into pitch darkness. Harry reached solid ground after only the seventh rung. Then a light was switched on.

Harry looked around the room; the ceiling was full height and there was a level cement floor. Shelves and cupboards covered three of the walls. On the shelves were the day-to-day products: well-used Glock pistols, his Smith amp; Wesson. 38, boxes of ammunition, a Kalashnikov. Harry had never held the famous Russian automatic rifle known officially as the AK-47. He stroked the wooden stock.

‘An original from the first year of production, 1947,’ Van Boorst said.

‘Seems like everyone down here has got one,’ Harry said. ‘The most popular cause of death in Africa, I’ve heard.’

Van Boorst nodded. ‘For two simple reasons. Firstly when the Communist countries started exporting the Kalashnikov here after the Cold War, the gun cost as much as a fat chicken in peacetime. And no more than a hundred dollars in wartime. Secondly, it works, no matter what you do with it, and that’s important in Africa. In Mozambique they like their Kalashnikovs so much it’s on their national flag.’

Harry’s eyes stopped at the letters discreetly stamped on a black case.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Harry asked.

‘Marklin,’ said Van Boorst. ‘A rare rifle. It was manufactured in very limited numbers as it was a fiasco. Much too heavy and large a calibre. Used to hunt elephants.’

‘And humans,’ Harry said softly.

‘Do you know the weapon?’

‘World’s best telescopic sights. Not exactly something you need to hit an elephant at a hundred metres. Perfect for an assassination.’ Harry ran his fingers along the case as the memories streamed back. ‘Yes, I know it.’

‘You can have it cheap. Thirty thousand euros.’

‘I’m not after a rifle this time.’ Harry turned to the shelving unit in the middle of the room. Grotesque white wooden masks grimaced at him from the shelves.

‘The Mai Mai tribe’s spiritual masks,’ said Van Boorst. ‘They think that if they dip themselves in holy water, the enemy’s bullets cannot hurt them. Because the bullets will also turn to H2O. The Mai Mai guerrillas went to war against the government army with bows and arrows, shower hats on their heads and bath plugs as amulets. I am not kidding you, monsieur. Naturally, they were mown down. But they like water, the Mai Mai do. And white masks. And their enemies’ hearts and kidneys. Lightly grilled with mashed corn.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘I hadn’t expected that such a basic house would have such a full cellar.’

Van Boorst chuckled. ‘Cellar? This is the ground floor. Or was. Before the eruption three years ago.’

Everything fell into place for Harry. Black boulders, black icing. The floor upstairs that was lower than the street.

‘Lava,’ Harry said.

Van Boorst nodded. ‘It flowed straight through the centre and took my house by Lake Kivu. All the wooden houses around here burned to the ground; this brick house was the only one left standing, but was half buried in lava.’ He pointed to the wall. ‘There you can see the front door to what was street level three years ago. I bought the house and just put in a new door where you entered.’

Harry nodded. ‘Lucky the lava didn’t burn down the door and fill this floor too.’

‘As you can see, the windows and doors are in the wall facing away from Nyiragongo. It’s not the first time. The bloody volcano spews lava on this town every ten or twenty years.’

Harry cocked an eyebrow. ‘And still people move back?’

Van Boorst shrugged. ‘Welcome to Africa. But the volcano is bloody useful. If you want to get rid of a troublesome corpse – which is a fairly normal problem in Goma – you can of course sink it in Lake Kivu. But it is still down there. Whereas if you use Nyiragongo… People often think that volcanoes have these red-hot, bubbling lava lakes at the bottom, but they do not. None of them. Apart from Nyiragongo. A thousand degrees centigrade. Drop something down there and, pouf, it is gone. It returns as a gas. It is the only chance anyone in Goma has to reach heaven.’ He broke into a hacking laugh. ‘I witnessed an overenthusiastic coltan-hunter drop a tribal chief ’s daughter on a chain into the crater up there once. The chief wouldn’t sign the papers giving the hunters the right to mine on their territory. Her hair caught fire at twenty metres above the lava. At ten metres above, the girl was burning like a candle. And five metres further down she was dripping. I am not exaggerating. Skin, flesh, it flowed off her bones… Is this what you were interested in?’ Van Boorst had opened a cupboard and taken out a metal ball. It was shiny, perforated with tiny apertures and smaller than a tennis ball. From a slightly larger opening there hung a wire loop. It was the same instrument Harry had seen at Herman Kluit’s house.

‘Does it work?’ Harry asked.

Van Boorst sighed. He stuck his little finger in the loop and pulled. There was a loud bang and the ball jumped in the Belgian’s hand. Harry stared. From the holes in the ball were protruding what looked like antennae.

‘May I?’ he asked, and put out his hand. Van Boorst passed him the ball and watched with great vigilance as Harry counted the antennae.

Harry nodded. ‘Twenty-four,’ he said.

‘Same as the number of apples made,’ said Van Boorst. ‘The number had some symbolic value for the engineer who designed and made it. It was the age of his sister when she took her own life.’

‘And how many of them have you got in your cupboard?’

‘Only eight. Including this piece de resistance in gold.’ He took out a ball which gleamed matt in the light from the electric bulb, then returned it to the cupboard. ‘But it is not for sale. You would have to kill me to get your paws on that one.’

‘So you’ve sold thirteen since Kluit bought his?’

‘And for ever increasing sums. It is a guaranteed investment, Monsieur Hole. Old instruments of torture have a loyal body of followers who are keen to pay, croyez-moi.’

‘I believe you,’ Harry said, trying to press down one of the antennae.

‘Spring-loaded,’ Van Boorst said. ‘Once the wire has been pulled, the victim will not be able to remove the apple from their mouth. Nor will anyone else for that matter. Do not take step two if you want to retract the circular ridges. Don’t pull the wire, please.’

‘Step two?’

‘Give it to me.’

Harry passed Van Boorst the ball. The Belgian carefully threaded a biro through the loop, held it horizontal and at the same height as the ball and then let go of the ball. As the wire became taut there was another bang. The Leopold’s apple jiggled fifteen centimetres below the biro and the sharp needles sticking out of each of the antennae glistened.

‘A faen,’ Harry swore in Norwegian.

The Belgian smiled. ‘The Mai Mai called the device “Blood of the Sun”. This sweet child has several names.’ He placed the apple on the table, put the biro in the opening where the wire came from, pushed hard, and the needles and antennae retracted with a bang, and the royal apple regained its smooth round shape.