Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘Where Kripos would set a trap.’

‘Yes.’

‘But now the plan’s up the creek, and that’s why you’re here?’

She gazed at him without blinking. ‘We have one person left we can use as a decoy.’

‘Iska Peller? She’s in Australia.’

‘And Bellman knows she’s under police protection, and you’ve been in contact with her and someone called McCormack. Bellman wants you to persuade her to come here.’

‘Why should I agree?’

She looked down at her hands. ‘You know. Same coercion tactics as last time.’

‘Mm. When did you discover there was opium in the cigarette carton?’

‘When I was putting the carton on the shelf in my bedroom. You’re right, it has a strong smell. And I remembered the smell from your hostel. I opened the carton and saw the seal on the bottom packet had been broken. And found the clump inside. I told Mikael. He told me to hand over the carton whenever you asked.’

‘Perhaps that made it easier for you to betray me. Knowing I had used you.’

She slowly shook her head. ‘No, Harry. It didn’t make it easier. Perhaps it should have done, but…’

‘But?’

She shrugged. ‘Passing on this message is the last favour I do for Mikael.’

‘Oh?’

‘Then I’m going to tell him I won’t see him any more.’

The kettle’s rumbling noises stopped.

‘I should have done this a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of asking you to forgive me for what I’ve done, Harry, that’s too much to ask. But I thought I would tell you face to face so that you can understand. That’s actually why I’ve come to see you now. To tell you that I did it out of stupid, stupid love. Love corrupted me. And I didn’t think I was corruptible.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I deceived you, Harry. I don’t know what to say. Except that deceiving myself feels even worse.’

‘We’re all corruptible,’ Harry said. ‘We just demand different prices. And different currencies. Yours is love. Mine is anaesthetisation. And do you know what…?’

The kettle sang again, this time an octave higher.

‘… I think it makes you a better person than me. Coffee?’

He spun right round and stared at the figure. It was standing straight in front of him, unmoving, as if it had been there a long time, as if it were his shadow. It was so quiet; all he could hear was his own breathing. Then he sensed a movement, something being lifted in the dark, heard a low whistle through the air, and at that moment a strange thought struck him. The figure was just that, his very own shadow. He…

The thought appeared to falter, time was dislocated, the visual connection was broken for a second.

He stared before him in amazement and felt a hot bead of sweat run down his forehead. He spoke, but the words were meaningless, there was a fault in the connection between brain and mouth. Again he heard a low whistle. Then the sound was gone. All sound – he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. And he discovered that he was kneeling and that the telephone was on the floor beside him. Ahead, a white stripe of moonlight ran across the coarse floorboards, but it vanished when the sweat reached the bridge of his nose, ran into his eyes and blinded him. And he understood it was not sweat.

The third blow felt like an icicle being driven through his head, throat and into his body. Everything froze.

I don’t want to die, he thought, and tried to raise a protective arm over his head, but he was unable to move a single limb, and realised he was paralysed.

He didn’t register the fourth blow, but from the wood smell he concluded he was lying face down on the floor. He blinked several times and sight returned to one eye. Directly in front of him he saw a pair of ski boots. And slowly sounds returned; his heaving gasps, the other’s calm breathing, the blood dripping from his nose onto the floorboards. The other’s voice was a mere whisper, but the words seemed to be screamed into his ear. ‘Now there’s only one of us.’

As the clock struck two they were still sitting in the kitchen talking.

‘The eighth guest,’ Harry said, pouring more coffee. ‘Close your eyes. How does he appear to you? Quick, don’t think.’

‘He’s full of hatred,’ Kaja said. ‘Angry. Out of balance, nasty. The kind of guy women like Adele run into, check out and reject. He’s got piles of pornographic magazines and films at home.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know. His asking Adele to go to an empty factory dressed in a nurse’s uniform.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s effeminate.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, high-pitched voice. Adele said he reminded her of her gay flatmate when he spoke.’ She drew her cup to her mouth and smiled. ‘Or perhaps he’s a film actor. With a squeaky voice and a pout. I still can’t remember the name of the macho actor with the feminine voice.’

Harry held up his cup in a toast. ‘And the things I told you about Elias Skog and the late-night incident outside the cabin. Who were they? Had he witnessed a rape?’

‘It wasn’t Marit Olsen, anyway,’ Kaja said.

‘Mm. Why not?’

‘Because she was the only fat woman there, so Elias Skog would have recognised her and used her name when describing the scene.’

‘Same conclusion I came to. But was it rape, do you think?’

‘Sounds like it. He put his hand over her mouth, stifled her cries, pulled her inside the toilet, what else could it have been?’

‘But why didn’t Elias Skog think it was rape straight off?’

‘I don’t know. Because there was something about the way… the way they were standing, their body language.’

‘Exactly. The subconscious understands much more than the conscious mind. He was so sure it was consensual sex that he simply went back to bed. It wasn’t until long after, reading about the murders and being reminded of a half-forgotten scene, that he had formed the idea it might have been rape.’

‘A game,’ Kaja said. ‘That might smack of rape. Who does that? Not a man and a woman who have just met at a cabin and sneak out to become a little better acquainted. You have to be a bit more comfortable with each other.’

‘So it’s two people who’ve been together before,’ Harry said. ‘Which to our knowledge can only be…’

‘Adele and the mystery man. The eighth guest.’

‘Either that or someone else turned up that night.’ Harry flicked ash off the cigarette.

‘Where’s the loo?’ Kaja asked.

‘Through the hall to the left.’

He watched the cigarette smoke curl upwards into the lampshade over the table. Waited. He hadn’t heard the door open. He got up and went after her.

She was standing in the hall staring at the door. In the dim light he could see her taking gulps of air, could see a moist pointed tooth glistening. He placed a hand on her back and even there, through her clothes, he could feel her heart beating. ‘Do you mind if I open it?’

‘You must think I’m mental,’ she said.

‘We all are. I’m opening it now, OK?’

She nodded, and he opened the door.

Harry was sitting at the kitchen table when she returned. She had put on her raincoat.

‘Think I’ll have to go home now.’

Harry nodded and accompanied her to the front door. Watched as she stooped to pull on her boots.

‘It only happens when I’m tired,’ she said. ‘The door stuff.’

‘I know,’ Harry said. ‘I’m the same with lifts.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Another time maybe. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see each other again.’

She fell quiet. Took a long time to zip up her boots. Then, all of a sudden, she stood up, so close to him that he was aware of her scent following her, like an echo.