Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘Except that in this instance he does,’ Mikael Bellman said. ‘You’ve been talking to Iska Peller, Harry.’

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘But first I’d like to hear more about your plan to use her as a decoy.’

The Pelican cleared her throat. ‘It hasn’t been formulated in detail. For the time being, our plan is to bring her to Norway, make it public that she’s staying at a place where it’s obvious to the killer that she would be easy prey. And then sit back and hope he swallows the bait.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Simple.’

‘Experience tells us simplicity works,’ said the Swiss army knife man in the GDR suit concentrating on the nail of his index finger.

‘Agreed,’ Harry said. ‘But in this instance the decoy won’t play ball.’

Groans and sighs of despair.

‘So I suggest we make it even simpler,’ Harry said. ‘Iska Peller asked why, if we were paid to catch the monster, we couldn’t be the bait ourselves.’

He looked around the table. At least he had their attention. Convincing them would be harder.

‘You see, we have an advantage over the killer. We assume he has the page torn from the Havass guest book, so he has Iska Peller’s name. But he doesn’t know what she looks like. We’re working on the assumption he was at the cabin that night but Iska and Charlotte Lolles got there first. And Iska was ill and spent the evening alone in a bedroom she shared solely with Charlotte. She stayed there until all the others had left. In other words, we can set up a little role play with one of our own number acting the part of Iska, without the killer being any the wiser.’

Another sweeping scan of the table. The scepticism on their faces was layers thick.

‘And how had you envisaged getting someone to come to this performance?’?rdal asked, snapping the knife shut.

‘By Kripos doing what they do best,’ Harry said.

Silence.

‘Which is?’ asked the Pelican at length.

‘Press conferences,’ Harry said.

The silence in the room was tangible. Until the laughter shattered it. Mikael Bellman’s. They looked at their boss in astonishment. And realised that Harry Hole’s plan had already been given the go-ahead.

‘So…’ Harry began.

After the meeting Harry took Bjorn Holm aside.

‘Nose still sore?’ Harry asked.

‘That you trying to apologise?’

‘No.’

‘I… well, you were lucky my nose didn’t break, Harry.’

‘Could have been an improvement, you know.’

‘Are you apologising or not?’

‘Sorry, Bjorn.’

‘Great. And I suppose that means you want a favour?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that is?’

‘I was wondering if you’ve been to Drammen to check Adele’s clothes for DNA. She did meet this guy she was at the cabin with a few times.’

‘We’ve been through her wardrobe, but the problem is that the clothes have been washed, worn and probably been in contact with lots of other people afterwards.’

‘Mm. She wasn’t a skier as far as I know. Checked her skiing gear, have you?’

‘She didn’t have any.’

‘What about the nurse’s uniform? Perhaps it was only used once and may still have sperm stains on.’

‘She didn’t have that, either.’

‘No cheeky miniskirt and bonnet with a red cross?’

‘Nope. There was a pair of light blue hospital trousers and top there, but nothing to get you going exactly.’

‘Mm. Perhaps she couldn’t get hold of the miniskirt variety. Or couldn’t be bothered. Could you examine the hospital stuff for me?’

Holm sighed. ‘As I said, we went through all the clothes there, and whatever could be washed had been washed. Not so much as a stain or a hair.’

‘Could you take it to the lab? Give it a thorough going-over?’

‘Harry…’

‘Thanks, Bjorn. And I was only kidding, you’ve got a terrific conk. Really.’

It was four o’clock when Harry fetched Sis in the Kripos car Bellman had placed at his disposal until further notice. They drove to Rikshospital and talked to Dr Abel. Harry translated the bits Sis didn’t understand, and she shed some tears. Then they went to see their father who had been moved to another room. Sis squeezed Olav’s hand and whispered his name again and again as if to rouse him gently from sleep.

Sigurd Altman popped by, put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, not too long, and said a few words, not too many.

After dropping off Sis at her little flat by Lake Sognsvann, Harry drove to the city centre where he kept going, twisting this way and that through one-way streets, roadworks and dead ends. He drove through the red-light district, the shopping area, the drugs zone and it wasn’t until he had emerged and the town lay beneath him that he was aware he had been on his way to the German bunkers. He rang Oystein, who appeared ten minutes later, parked his taxi beside Harry’s car, opened the door, turned up the music, came over and sat on the brick wall next to Harry.

‘Coma,’ Harry said. ‘Not the worst thing that could happen, I suppose. Got a smoke?’

They sat listening to Joy Division. ‘Transmission’. Ian Curtis. Oystein had always liked singers who died young.

‘Shame I never got to talk to him after he fell ill,’ Oystein said, taking a deep drag.

‘You wouldn’t have done, however long it had taken,’ Harry said.

‘No, that’ll have to be my consolation.’

Harry laughed. Oystein sent him a sideways glance, smiled, unsure whether you were allowed to laugh when fathers lay on their deathbeds.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Oystein asked. ‘Go on a bit of a binge? I can ring Tresko and-’

‘No,’ Harry said, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘I have to work.’

‘You’d prefer death and depravity to a glass or two?’

‘You can drop by and say goodbye while he’s still breathing, you know.’

Oystein shivered. ‘Hospitals give me the creeps. Anyway, he can’t hear jackshit, can he?’

‘It wasn’t him I was thinking about, Oystein.’

Oystein screwed up his eyes against the smoke. ‘The little upbringing I had, Harry, I got from your father. D’you know that? My own dad wasn’t worth a bloody fly’s droppings. Go there tomorrow, I will.’

‘Good for you.’

He stared up at the man above him. Saw his mouth move, heard the words issuing forth, but something must have been damaged, he couldn’t assemble them into anything sensible. All he understood was that the time had come. The revenge. That he would have to pay. And in a way it was a relief.

He was sitting on the floor with his back to the large, round wood burner. His arms were forced backwards around the stove, his hands tied with two ski belts. He threw up from time to time, probably due to concussion. The bleeding had stopped and sensation had returned to his body, but there was a mist over his vision that came and went. Nonetheless, he was not beset by doubt. The voice. It was a ghost’s voice.

‘You’re going to die quite soon,’ it whispered. ‘As she did. But there is still something to gain. You see, you still have to choose how. Unfortunately, there are only two options. Leopold’s apple…’

The man held up a metal ball perforated with holes and a small loop of wire hanging from one of them.

‘Three of the girls have tasted it. None of them liked it much. But it’s pain-free and swift. And you only need to answer this: How? And who else knows? Who have you been working with? Believe me, the apple is preferable to the alternative. Which you, as an intelligent man, have probably worked out is…’

The man stood up, flailed his arms in an exaggerated manner, to keep warm, and put on a broad smile. The whisper was all there was to break the silence.