The Leopard

23
Passenger

She was alone on the bus. Stine rested her forehead against the window so that she wouldn’t see her reflection. Stared out into the deserted, pitch-black bus station. Hoping someone would come. Hoping no one would come.

He had been sitting by a window in Krabbe with a beer in front of him staring at her, motionless. Woollen hat, blond hair and those wild blue eyes. His eyes laughed, penetrated, implored, called her name. In the end she had told Mathilde that she wanted to go home. But Mathilde had just started a conversation with an American oil guy and wanted to stay a bit longer. So Stine had grabbed her coat, run from Krabbe to the bus station and got on a bus to Valand.

She looked at the red numbers on the digital clock above the driver. Hoping the doors would shut and the bus would start moving. One minute left.

She didn’t raise her eyes, not even when she heard the running footsteps, heard the breathless voice request a ticket from the driver at the front, nor when he sat down on the seat beside her.

‘Hey, Stine,’ he said. ‘I think you’re avoiding me.’

‘Oh, hi, Elias,’ she said without shifting her gaze from the rainwet tarmac. Why had she sat so far back in the bus, so far from the driver?

‘You shouldn’t be out alone on a night like this, you know.’

‘Shouldn’t I?’ she mumbled, hoping someone would come, anyone.

‘Don’t you read the newspapers? Those two girls in Oslo. And now, the other day, that MP. What was her name again?’

‘No idea,’ Stine lied, feeling her heart rate gallop.

‘Marit Olsen,’ Elias said. ‘Socialist Party. The other two were Borgny and Charlotte. Sure you don’t recognise the names, Stine?’

‘I don’t read newspapers,’ Stine said. Someone had to come soon.

‘Great girls, all three of them,’ he said.

‘Course, you knew them, didn’t you?’ Stine regretted the sarcastic tone immediately. It was fear.

‘Not well though,’ Elias said. ‘But the first impression was good. I’m – as you know – the kind who attaches a lot of importance to first impressions.’

She stared at the hand he cautiously placed on her knee.

‘You…’ she said, and even in that one syllable she could hear herself begging.

‘Yes, Stine?’

She looked up at him. His face was as open as a child’s, his eyes genuinely curious. She wanted to scream, jump up, when she heard the steps and voice up by the driver. A passenger. A man. He came to the back of the bus. Stine tried to catch his eye, to make him understand, but the brim of his hat covered the upper half of his face, and he was busy checking his change and putting the ticket in his wallet. Her breathing was lighter when he took a seat right behind them.

‘It’s incredible that the police haven’t discovered the connection between them,’ Elias said. ‘It shouldn’t be so difficult. They must know that all three women liked to go cross-country skiing in the mountains. They stayed at the cabin in Havass on the same night. Do you think I should tell them?’

‘Maybe,’ Stine whispered. If she was quick perhaps she could squeeze past Elias and jump off the bus. But she had hardly articulated the thought in her mind before the hydraulics hissed, the doors slid shut and the bus set off. She closed her eyes.

‘I just don’t want to be involved. I hope you can understand that, Stine.’

She nodded slowly, her eyes still closed.

‘Good. Then I can tell you about someone else who was there. Someone I’m sure you know.’