Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘That’s enough!’ Bellman said, raising a hand. ‘Are you hard of hearing, Hole? I told you to stay away from this case.’

‘We can catch this killer, Bellman. Right now that should be more bloody important than who’s in charge afterwards, shouldn’t it?’

‘Don’t you…!’ Bellman shouted, but held back when he saw a couple of heads turn in their direction. He took a step closer to Harry and lowered his voice. ‘Don’t you talk to me as if I were an idiot, Hole.’

The wind blew the smoke from Harry’s cigarette into Bellman’s face, but he didn’t blink. Harry shrugged.

‘Do you know what, Bellman? I don’t think this has much to do with power or politics. You’re a little boy who wants to be the hero who saves the day. Simple as that. And you’re scared I’ll ruin the epic. But there’s an easy way of resolving this. What about unzipping and seeing who can piss as far as the divers’ dinghy?’

When Mikael Bellman laughed this time, it was for real, with volume and everything. ‘You should read the warning signs, Harry.’

His right hand shot out, so quickly that Harry didn’t manage to react, struck the cigarette between his lips and knocked it away. It hit the water with a hiss.

‘Smoking kills. Have a good day.’

Harry heard the helicopter take off as he watched his last cigarette floating in the water. The grey, wet paper, the black, dead tip.

Night had started to fall as the diving team’s boat dropped Harry, Kaja and Beate ashore by the car park. There was sudden movement amid the trees followed by camera flashes. Harry instinctively held up an arm, and he heard Roger Gjendem’s voice from out of the darkness.

‘Harry Hole, there are rumours flying around that you’ve found a young woman’s body. What’s her name and how sure are you that this is connected with the other murders?’

‘No comment,’ Harry said, ploughing his way through, half blinded. ‘For the moment this is a missing persons case, and the only thing we can say is that a woman has been found who might be the missing person. As far as the murder cases I assume you’re referring to are concerned, talk to Kripos.’

‘Woman’s name?’

‘She has to be identified first and relatives informed.’

‘But you’re not ruling out-’

‘As usual, I’m not ruling out anything, Gjendem. Press conference to follow.’

Harry got into the car; Kaja had already started the engine and Beate Lonn was sitting on the back seat. They trundled onto the main road to the flashes of cameras behind them.

‘Now,’ Beate Lonn said, leaning forward between the seats, ‘I still haven’t been given an explanation as to how your search for Adele Vetlesen led here.’

‘Deductive logic, pure and simple,’ Harry said.

‘Goes without saying,’ Beate sighed.

‘In fact, I’m embarrassed I didn’t twig before,’ Harry said. ‘I went round wondering why the killer had made the effort to go all the way out to a disused ropery just for a piece of rope. Especially since that rope – unlike what he could have bought in a shop – could be traced back here. The answer was, of course, obvious. Nevertheless, it was only when I sat looking into a deep African lake that I realised. He didn’t come here for the rope. He must have used the rope for something here – because it happened to be lying around – and then taken it home where he later used it to kill Marit Olsen. The reason he came here was that he already had a body he needed to dispose of. Adele Vetlesen. The local man, Skai, spelt it out for us the first time we came here. This is the deep end of the lake. The killer filled her trousers with rocks, tied up the waist and legs with rope, then dropped her overboard.’

‘How do you know she was dead before she came here? He might have drowned her.’

‘There was a large cut around her neck. It’s my bet the post-mortem will show that there wasn’t any water in her lungs.’

‘And that ketanome is in her bloodstream, the same as with Charlotte and Borgny,’ Beate said.

‘I’m told ketanome is a fast-working anaesthetic,’ Harry said. ‘Strange I’d never heard of it before.’

‘Not so strange,’ Beate said. ‘It’s an old cheapo version of ketalar, which is used to anaesthetise patients with the advantage that they can still breathe by themselves,’ Beate said. ‘Ketanome was banned in the EU and Norway in the nineties because of side effects, so now you generally see it in underdeveloped countries. Kripos considered it a major clue for a while, but got nowhere with it.’

As they dropped Beate off at Krimteknisk in Bryn forty minutes later, Harry asked Kaja to hang on and got out of the car.

‘There was one thing I wanted to ask you,’ Harry said.

‘Oh yes?’ Beate said, shivering and rubbing her hands together.

‘What were you doing at a potential crime scene? Why wasn’t Bjorn there?’

‘Because Bellman assigned Bjorn to special duties.’

‘And what does that mean? Cleaning the latrines?’

‘No. Coordination of Krimteknisk and strategic planning.’

‘What?’ Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s a bloody promotion.’

Beate shrugged. ‘Bjorn’s good. It wasn’t before time. Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye. Oh, by the way, just a moment. I asked you to tell Bellman where we’d found the rope. When did you pass the message on?’

‘You rang me at night, remember, so I waited until the following morning. Why’s that?’

‘No reason,’ Harry said. ‘No reason.’

When he got back into the car, Kaja quickly slipped her phone into her pocket.

‘News of the body’s already on the Aftenposten website,’ she said.

‘Oh yes?’

‘They say there’s a big pic of you with your full name and that you’re referred to as “heading the investigation”. And of course they’re linking this case with the other murders.’

‘So, that’s what they’re doing. Mm. Are you hungry?’

‘Quite.’

‘Have you got any plans? If not I’ll treat you to a meal.’

‘Great. Where?’

‘Ekeberg restaurant.’

‘Ooh. Exclusive. Any particular reason you chose that one?’

‘Well, it came to mind when a pal of mine was recounting an old story.’

‘Tell me.’

‘There’s nothing to tell, it’s just the usual adolescence thi-’

‘Adolescence! Come on!’

Harry chuckled. And as they approached the city centre and it started snowing at the top of Ekeberg Ridge, Harry told her about Killer Queen, the darling of Ekeberg restaurant, once the most attractive functionalist building in Oslo. Which today – post renovation – it is again.

‘But in the eighties it was so run-down that people had actually given up on the place. It had become a boozy dance restaurant where you went to tables and asked for the pleasure, trying not to knock over the glasses. And then shuffled round the floor propping each other up.’

‘I see.’

‘Oystein, Tresko and I used to go to the top of the German bunkers on Nordstrand beach, drink beer and wait for puberty to pass. When we were seventeen we ventured over to the restaurant, lied about our ages and went in. You didn’t have to lie much – the place needed all the cash it could get. The dance band stank, but at least they played “Nights in White Satin”. And they had a star attraction who guested almost every night. We called her Killer Queen. A female man-o’-war, she was.’

‘A man-o’-war?’ Kaja laughed. ‘Set your cap at?’

‘Yup,’ Harry said. ‘Bore down on you like a galleon in full rig, mean, sexy and dead scary. Equipped like a fairground. Curves on her like a roller coaster.’

Kaja laughed even louder. ‘The local fun-fair, no less?’