Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘That was what Elias Skog thought at a later point,’ Harry said. ‘His first impression was that he was watching two people having consensual sex.’

‘But a woman who takes a man with her to a cabin doesn’t have sex with a casual interloper in the middle of the night! Do you really have to be a woman to understand that!’ she hissed, and with her new, sensationally unbecoming dreadlocks she reminded Harry of a furious Medusa.

The response came from Harry’s neighbour. ‘Do you really think gender automatically affords you superior knowledge of the sexual preferences of half of the earth’s population?’?rdal paused and studied the freshly cleaned nail on his little finger. ‘Hasn’t it already been made clear that Adele Vetlesen changed partners at the drop of a hat and frequently? She agreed to have sex with a man she hardly knew at a disused factory in the middle of the night, didn’t she?’ ?rdal lowered his hand, started work on the ring finger and mumbled so low that only Harry heard it. ‘Anyway, I’ve fucked more women than you, you scrawny wader bird.’

‘Women fell easily for Tony and vice versa,’ Harry said. ‘Tony arrived at the cabin late, Adele’s boyfriend was annoyed about something and had gone to bed. He and Adele were able to flirt undisturbed. He was having trouble on the home front, and she had started to lose interest in the man she was there with. Adele and Tony fancied each other, but there were people everywhere in the cabin. So later that night they sneaked out and met by the toilet. They kissed, groped, he stood behind her, pulled down his pants and was now so excited that there was what they call in the Sexual Offences Unit “pre-ejaculatory fluid” on the tip of his penis, which went over her ski pants before he could pull them down, and they had intercourse. She was so loud in her ecstasies that she awoke Elias Skog who watched them from the window. And I believe they woke her boyfriend up as well and that he saw them from his room. I don’t think she could have cared less. Tony, on the other hand, tried to stifle her cries.’

‘If she couldn’t have cared less, why would he?’ the Pelican burst out. ‘After all, it’s women who are stigmatised by this kind of looseness while men’s status is only enhanced. Among other men, mind you!’

‘Tony Leike had at least two good motives for stifling her cries,’ Harry said. ‘First of all, you would hardly wish to broadcast extra-curricular bonking if you’re a fiance plastered across the tabloids, and especially not if your future father-in-law’s money is about to rescue your investments in the Congo. Secondly, Tony Leike is an experienced mountaineer who knows the area well.’

‘What the heck does that have to do with the case?’

A chuckle was heard, and everyone turned to the head of the table where Mikael Bellman was sitting.

‘Avalanche,’ he laughed. ‘Tony Leike was frightened Adele’s howls would set off an avalanche.’

‘Tony must have known that more than three-quarters of all avalanches provoking fatalities are triggered by humans,’ Harry said.

Guffaws of laughter spread around the table. Even the Pelican had to allow herself a smile.

‘But what makes you think Adele’s boyfriend saw them?’ she asked. ‘And that Adele didn’t care? Perhaps she was so enthralled that she forgot herself.’

‘Because,’ said Harry, leaning back in the chair, ‘Adele has done this before. She texted her boyfriend a picture of herself being screwed by another man. A heartless message that would leave no one in any doubt. Her friends said she didn’t meet the boyfriend again after the trip to Havass.’

‘Interesting,’ Bellman said. ‘But where does it take us?’

‘To the motive,’ Harry said. ‘For the first time in this case we have a possible “why”.’

‘So we’re moving away from the theory of a crazy serial killer?’ ?rdal asked.

‘The Snowman also had a motive,’ said Beate Lonn, who had just walked in and taken a seat at the end of the table. ‘Insane, but definitely a motive.’

‘This is simpler,’ Harry said. ‘Good old-fashioned jealousy. Motive for two out of three murders in this country. And in most other countries. In this sense, we humans are quite predictable.’

‘It may explain the murder of Adele Vetlesen and Tony Leike,’ said the Pelican, ‘but what about the others?’

‘They had to be eliminated,’ Harry said. ‘They were all potential witnesses of the events at the cabin and could have told the police, and provided us with the motive we lacked. And maybe even worse: they had been witness to his total humiliation – he had been cheated on in public. For an unstable person that would be motive enough on its own.’

Bellman clapped his hands. ‘I hope we have some answers soon. I’ve spoken to Krongli on the phone and he says the weather in the search area has improved, so now they can send in the dogs and use helicopters. Any reason you didn’t mention why you suspected the body of being Tony Leike before, Harry?’

Harry shrugged. ‘I had assumed we would reach the body much more quickly, so I saw no reason to speculate aloud. After all, arthritis is not that unusual.’

Bellman rested his gaze on Harry for a second before addressing the rest. ‘We have a suspect, folks. Anyone want to christen him?’

‘The Eighth Guest,’ said?rdal.

‘Prince Charming,’ declared the Pelican.

For a few moments there was total silence, as though something had come up that required time to digest before they went on.

‘Now I’m no strategist,’ Beate Lonn began, in the secure knowledge that everyone in the room knew that Beate Lonn never commented on anything she hadn’t researched thoroughly first, ‘but isn’t there something here that makes you sit up and wonder? Leike had an alibi for the times of the murders, but what about all these leads pointing to him? What about the call from his home phone to Elias Skog? What about the murder weapon that was acquired in the Congo? Furthermore from an area where Leike had financial interests. Chance?’

‘No,’ Harry said. ‘From day one Prince Charming has guided us towards Tony Leike. It was Prince Charming who paid Juliana Verni to go to the Congo because he knew that any clue pointing to the Congo would point to Tony Leike. And as far as his phone call to Elias Skog is concerned, today I checked something we should have checked long ago, but which we typically let go when we were getting close to a result. Because we resist any weakening of our evidence. Around the time the call went out from Leike’s house to Skog there were three calls made from Leike’s direct line in the Aker Brygge office block. Leike can’t have been in two places at the same time. I’d bet two hundred kroner he was in Aker Brygge. Any takers?’

Silent but wide-eyed faces.

‘Do you mean that Prince Charming rang Elias Skog from Leike’s house?’ said the Pelican. ‘How…?’

‘When Leike came to Police HQ he told me there had been a breakin through the cellar door a few days earlier. That matches the time of the phone call to Skog. Prince Charming took a bike to disguise it as a standard burglary, innocent enough for us to make a note of it, but no more than that. Leike knows we don’t do anything about that kind of break-in, so he didn’t even report it. And with that Prince Charming had planted some irrefutable evidence against Leike.’

‘What a snake!’ the Pelican erupted.

‘I buy the explanation of how,’ Beate Lonn said. ‘But why? Why finger Tony Leike?’

‘Because he knew that sooner or later we would link the murders with the Havass cabin,’ Harry said. ‘And that would limit the number of suspects in such a way that everyone who had been there that night would have the spotlight on them. There were two reasons he tore out the page from the guest book. Number one, he had the names of those who were there, so that he could find them and kill them at his leisure, while we didn’t and were therefore unable to stop him. Number two, and more important, he could keep his own name hidden.’