The Leopard

PART THREE
24
Stavanger

‘It smells of…’ Kaja said.

‘Shit,’ Harry said. ‘Cow variety. Welcome to the district of J?ren.’

The dawn light leaked from the clouds sweeping across the springgreen fields. From behind stone walls cows stared mutely at their taxi. They were on their way from Sola Airport to Stavanger city centre.

Harry leaned forward between the front seats. ‘Could you put your foot down, driver?’ He held up his ID card. The driver beamed, gave it some gas, and they accelerated onto the motorway.

‘Are you afraid we’re too late?’ Kaja asked as Harry fell back.

‘Didn’t answer the phone, didn’t turn up for work,’ Harry said, not needing to complete his reasoning.

After he had spoken to Katrine Bratt the night before, Harry had skimmed over what he had noted down. He had the names, telephone numbers and addresses of two living persons who had probably stayed in a cabin in November with the three murder victims. He had checked his watch, worked out it was early morning in Sydney and rung Iska Peller’s number. She had answered and sounded very surprised when Harry broached the topic of the Havass cabin. She hadn’t been able to tell Harry much about the overnight stay because she had been stuck in a bedroom with a high temperature. Perhaps because she had been wearing wet, sweaty clothes for too long, perhaps because skiing from cabin to cabin had been a baptism of fire for an inexperienced langlaufer like herself. Or perhaps simply because flu strikes at random. At any rate, she had only just managed to drag herself to Havass, where she had been ordered straight to bed by her companion Charlotte Lolles. There, Iska Peller had drifted in and out of dream-filled sleep as her body ached, sweated and froze in turn. Whatever had gone on between the others in the cabin, whoever they were, well, she hadn’t picked up anything, as she and Charlotte had been the first to arrive. The next day she had stayed in bed until the others had left, and she and Charlotte were collected on a snow scooter by a local policeman Charlotte had managed to contact. He had driven them to his place where he had invited them to stay overnight as the only hotel was full, so he informed them. They had accepted, but that night they changed their minds and caught a late train to Geilo to stay at a hotel there. Charlotte hadn’t told Iska anything in particular about the night in the Havass cabin. An uneventful night, apparently.

Five days after the skiing trip Iska had left Oslo for Sydney, still with a temperature, and had kept in regular email contact with Charlotte but hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Until she received the shocking news that her friend had been found dead behind a wrecked car on the edge of a wood by Lake Daudsjoen, just outside the urban sprawl of Oslo.

Harry had explained to Iska Peller with some care, but without beating around the bush, that they were worried about the people who had been in the cabin on the night of the 7th of November and that, after ringing off, he would call the head of Crime Squad in Sydney South Police District, Neil McCormack, whom Harry had worked for on one occasion. McCormack, he said, would require further details from her and – even though Australia was a long way from Oslo – provide police protection until further notice. Iska Peller seemed to accept this with equanimity.

Then Harry had rung the second number he had been given, the number in Stavanger. He had tried four times, but no one had answered. He knew, of course, that this did not mean anything in itself. Not everyone slept with their mobile switched on beside them. But Kaja Solness clearly did. She answered on the second ring, and when Harry said they were going to Stavanger on the first flight and that she should be on the airport express by five past six, she had uttered one word: ‘OK.’

They had arrived at Oslo’s Gardemoen Airport at half past six and Harry had tried the number again, without success. An hour later they had landed at Sola Airport, and Harry rang with the same result. On their way to the taxi queue, Kaja managed to contact the employer, who said that the person they were looking for had not turned up for work at the usual time. She had informed Harry, and he had gently placed his hand on the small of her back and led her firmly past the taxi queue and into a taxi in the face of loud protests, which he met with: ‘Thanking you, and may you have a wonderful day, folks.’

It was exactly 8.16 when they arrived at the address, a white timber house in Valand. Harry let Kaja pay, got out and left the door open. Studied the house front, which revealed nothing. Inhaled the damp, fresh, though still mild Vestland air. Braced himself. Because he already knew. He might be mistaken, of course, but he knew with the same certainty that he knew Kaja would say ‘Thank you’ after being given the receipt.

‘Thank you.’ The car door closed.

The name was next to the middle of the three bells, by the front door.

Harry pressed the button and heard the bell ring somewhere in the house’s innards.

One minute and three attempts later he pressed the bottom bell.

The old lady who opened the door smiled at them.

Harry noted that Kaja instinctively knew who should speak. ‘Hello, I’m Kaja Solness. We’re from the police. The floor above you isn’t answering. Do you know if anyone is at home?’

‘Probably. Even though it’s been quiet there this morning,’ the lady said. And, on seeing Harry’s elevated eyebrows, hastened to add: ‘You can hear everything here, and I heard people last night. Since I rent out the flat I think I ought to keep an ear open.’

‘Keep an ear open?’ Harry queried.

‘Yes, but I don’t stick…’ The lady’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘There’s nothing wrong, I trust? I mean, I’ve never had any problems at all with-’

‘We don’t know,’ Harry said.

‘The best thing to do would be to check,’ Kaja said. ‘So if you have a key…’ Harry knew a variety of set phrases would be whirring around Kaja’s brain now, and waited for the continuation with interest. ‘… then we would like to assist you in ensuring that everything is in order.’

Kaja Solness was a bright woman. If the house owner agreed to the proposal and they found something, the report would say they were summoned. There was no question of them having forced their way in or having ransacked the place without a warrant.

The woman hesitated.

‘But you can also let yourself in after we’ve gone,’ Kaja smiled. ‘And then call the police. Or the ambulance. Or…’

‘I think it’s best if you come with me,’ the woman said after a deep furrow of concern entrenched itself in her brow. ‘Wait here and I’ll fetch the keys.’

The flat they entered one minute later was clean, tidy and almost completely unfurnished. At once Harry recognised the silence that is so present, so oppressive, in bare flats in the morning, when the hustle and bustle of the working day is a scarcely audible noise on the outside. But there was also a smell he recognised. Glue. He spotted a pair of shoes, though no outdoor clothing.

In the kitchenette there was a large teacup in the sink, and on the shelf above tins proclaiming they contained teas of unknown origin to Harry: oolong, Anji Bai Cha. They advanced through the flat. On the sitting-room wall was a picture Harry thought was K2, the popular killing machine of a mountain in the Himalayas.

‘Check that one, will you?’ Harry asked, nodding to the door with a heart on it and walked to what he assumed must be the bedroom door. He took a deep breath, pressed down the handle and pushed open the door.

The bed was made. The room tidy. A window was ajar, no smell of glue, air as fresh as a child’s breath. Harry heard the landlady take up a position in the doorway behind him.

‘So odd,’ she said. ‘I heard them last night, I did. But there was only one person’s steps.’

‘Them?’ Harry said. ‘You’re sure there was more than one person?’

‘Yes, I heard voices.’

‘How many?’

‘Three, I would say.’

Harry peered into the wardrobe. ‘Men? Women?’

‘You can’t hear absolutely everything, I’m afraid.’

Clothes. A sleeping bag and a rucksack. More clothes.

‘Why would you say there were three?’

‘After one left, I heard noises from up here.’

‘What sort of noises?’

The landlady’s cheeks flushed again. ‘Banging. As if… well, you know.’

‘But no voices?’

The landlady considered the question. ‘No, no voices.’

Harry walked out of the room. And to his surprise saw that Kaja was still standing in the hall by the bathroom door. There was something about the way she was standing – as though facing a strong headwind.

‘Something up?’

‘Not at all,’ Kaja said quickly, lightly. Too lightly.

Harry went over and stood beside her.

‘What is it?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘I… just have a tiny problem with closed doors.’

‘OK,’ Harry said.

‘That’s… that’s just how I am.’

Harry nodded. And that was when he heard the sound. The sound of allotted time, of a line running out, of seconds disappearing, a quick, hectic drumming of water that doesn’t quite flow and doesn’t quite drip. A tap on the other side of the door. And he knew he had not been mistaken.

‘Wait here,’ Harry said. He pushed open the door.

The first thing he noticed was that the smell of glue was even stronger inside.

The second was that a jacket, a pair of jeans, pants, a T-shirt, two black socks, a hat and a thin wool jumper were lying on the floor.

The third was that water was dripping in an almost continuous line from the tap into a bathtub filled so full that water was escaping down the overflow at the side.

The fourth was that the water in the bath was red, blood from what he could tell.

The fifth was that the glazed eyes above the taped mouth of the naked, corpse-white person lying at the bottom of the bath faced the side. As if trying to glimpse something in the blind spot, something he hadn’t seen coming.

The sixth was that he couldn’t see any indications of violence, no external injuries that would explain all the blood.

Harry cleared his throat and wondered how he could ask the landlady in the most considerate way possible to come in and identify her lodger.

But he didn’t have to; she was already at the door.

‘OhmyGod!’ she groaned. And then – stressing every single syllable: ‘Oh my God!’ And, finally, in a wailing tone invoking even greater emphasis: ‘Oh my Lord God Almighty…’

‘Is it…?’ Harry began.

‘Yes,’ the woman said with a tear-filled voice. ‘That’s him. That’s Elias. Elias Skog.’