Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘He’s dead,’ Harry said.

‘Couldn’t you try mouth-to-mouth…?’

‘No,’ Harry said.

‘What now?’ Kaja asked in a faint, debilitated whisper.

‘We have to get out,’ Harry said, finding her hand. Squeezing it.

‘Couldn’t we just wait here until they find us?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘The match,’ she said.

Harry didn’t answer.

‘It went out immediately,’ Kaja said. ‘There’s no air here, either. The whole cabin is buried under snow. That’s why you didn’t want to try to revive him. There’s not even enough air for us two. Harry…’

Harry was on his feet, trying to force his way up the chimney, but it was too narrow, his shoulders got stuck. He crouched down again, broke both ends off the ski pole to make it into a hollow metal tube, put it up the chimney and got to his feet again, this time with his arms stretched above his head. It just reached. Claustrophobia cut in, but vanished at once, as though the body had decided irrational phobias were a luxury it couldn’t afford right now. He pressed his back against one side of the chimney and used his legs to lever himself upwards. His thigh muscles ached, he was panting and the dizziness had returned. But he continued, one foot up, press, next foot up,… The higher he went, the hotter it was, and he knew that meant that the rising hot air couldn’t escape. And he realised that if the fire had been lit when the avalanche crashed down on them they would have died long ago of carbon monoxide poisoning. That could have been called good luck in bad. Except that the avalanche was not bad luck. The boom they had heard…

The tube hit something above him. He clambered up. Groped with his free hand. It was an iron grille. The kind they put on the tops of chimneys to keep squirrels and other animals out. He ran his finger along the edge. It had been set in concrete. Fuck!

Kaja’s faint voice reached him. ‘I’m dizzy, Harry.’

‘Breathe in deep.’

He pushed the tube through the fine-mesh grille.

There was no snow on the other side!

He hardly noticed the lactic acid burning in his thighs, as he excitedly pushed the tube further up. Only to experience disappointment when it hit something hard. The chimney cowl. He should have remembered that the cabin had such an attractive black metal cowl at the top of the chimney to protect it against snow and rain. He fumbled around until he angled the tube under the edge of the cowl and felt the hardpacked mass of snow, harder than in the cabin. But that could have been because the snow was now being forced down the opening of the hollow pole. He prayed that for every centimetre of ski pole he pushed into the snow he might feel it, the sudden absence of resistance, which would mean he had broken out of the snow hell. Which meant he could blow the snow out of this suction pipe and suck in air, fresh, life-giving air. Push Kaja up and give her the same injection of anti-death. But the breakthrough never came. He had the tube pressed right through the grille and nothing had happened. He tried anyway, sucked as hard as he could, getting cold, dry snow in his mouth and it was still blocked. He couldn’t stand the pressure on his sides any longer and fell. Shouted, stuck out his arms and legs, felt the skin on his hands being scraped off, but slid further down. He hit the body beneath with both legs.

‘Alright?’ Harry asked, climbing up into the chimney again.

‘Fine,’ Kaja said with a deep groan. ‘And you? Bad news?’

‘Yes,’ Harry said, scrambling down beside her.

‘What? You aren’t in love with me now, either?’

Harry chuckled and drew her to him. ‘Oh, I am now.’

He felt hot tears on her cheeks as she whispered, ‘Shall we get married then?’

‘Yes, let’s,’ Harry said, aware that it was the poison in his brain talking now.

She laughed. ‘Till death do us part.’

He felt the warmth of her body. And something hard. Her holster with the service revolver. He released her and groped his way to Kolkka. Already he thought he could see how Kolkka’s cold face had started to turn to marble. Through the snow by the dead man’s neck he bored his hand down to his chest.

‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled weakly.

‘I’m getting Jussi’s gun.’

He heard her stop breathing for a second. Felt her hand on his back, fumbling, like a small animal that has lost its orientation. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do it… not like that… let’s just fall asleep… Even.’

It was as Harry surmised. Jussi Kolkka had gone to bed wearing his shoulder holster. He undid the button holding the gun in position, gripped the handle and dragged the gun from the snow. Ran a finger down the barrel. No sights, this was a Weilert. He stood up, too quickly, felt giddy, looked for support. Then everything went black.

Bellman was standing looking down at the almost four-metre-deep pit when he heard the intermittent whump-whump-whump of the rescue helicopter approaching, like a carpet beater on speed. His men were using rucksacks to transport snow, lifting it up with interlocking trouser belts.

‘The window!’ he heard the man in the pit yell.

‘Smash it!’ Milano shouted back.

The glass tinkled.

‘Oh my God…’ he heard. And knew the invocation boded bad news.

‘Chuck down a ski pole…’

Bellman heard dogs barking. And tried to work out how many hours it would take to clear the snow from the cabin. Correction: days.

Harry came to with a terrible pain in his jaw and something warm running down his forehead between his eyes. He guessed he must have hit his head and jaw fracture against the rock when he fell. That was what must have woken him. The strange thing was he was still standing and still holding the pistol in his hand. He tried to inhale air that wasn’t there. He didn’t know if he had enough for a last attempt, but so what? It was simple: there was nothing else he could do. So he stuffed the pistol in his pocket and between gasps climbed up the chimney. Forced his legs against the sides when he was at the top, fumbled with the grille until he found the end of the metal pole that was still stuck in the snow. The pole was vaguely conical with the larger aperture at Harry’s end where he inserted the gun barrel. It jammed two-thirds of the way along its length. Which also meant that it was perfectly aligned with the ski pole. It was like a silencer but one and a half metres long. A bullet would not penetrate one and a half metres of snow, but what if the pole was only a short distance from the end?

He leaned on the pistol so that the recoil wouldn’t cause it to come free and fire at an angle. Then he fired. And fired. And fired. It felt as if their eardrums would explode in the hermetically sealed space. After four shots he stopped, put his lips around the pole and sucked.

He sucked in… air.

For a second he was so astonished that he almost fell back down. He sucked again, careful not to destroy the tunnel in the snow that the bullet would have made. The odd grain of snow fell and settled under his tongue. Air. It tasted like a mild, well-rounded whiskey with ice.

Roger Gjendem ran acrossKarl Johans Gate where the shops were beginning to open. In Egertorget he peered up at the red Freia clock and saw that the hands were showing three minutes to ten. He increased his speed.

He had been summoned as a matter of urgency by Bent Nordbo, their retired and, in all ways, legendary editor-in-chief, now board member and temple guardian.

He bore right, up Akersgata where all the newspapers had bunched together in those days when the paper edition was the king of the journalistic heap. He turned left towards the law courts, right up Apotekergata and stepped, out of breath, into Stopp Pressen. It didn’t seem quite to have been able to make up its mind whether it was going to be a sports bar or a traditional English pub. Perhaps both, as their aim was for all types of journalist to feel at home here. On the walls hung press photographs showing what had engaged, shaken, gladdened and horrified the nation over the last twenty years. They were mostly of sporting events, celebrities and natural disasters. Plus a number of politicians who fell into the latter two categories.