The Leopard

30
Guest Book

A sign on an unassuming yellow station building announced that they were in Ustaoset. Kaja checked that they had arrived on schedule, 10.44. She looked out. The sun was shining on the snow-covered plains and porcelain-white mountains. Apart from a clump of houses and a two-storey hotel, Ustaoset was bare rock. To be fair, there were small cabins dotted around and the odd confused shrub, but it was still a wilderness. Beside the station building, almost on the platform itself, stood a lonely SUV with the engine idling. From the train it had seemed as if there wasn’t a breath of wind. But when Kaja alighted, the wind seemed to pierce right through her clothing: special thermal underwear, anorak, ski boots.

A figure jumped out of the SUV and came towards her. He had the low winter sun behind him. Kaja squinted. Light, confident walk, a brilliant smile and an outstretched hand. She stiffened. It was Even.

‘Aslak Krongli,’ the man said, giving her hand a firm squeeze. ‘County Officer.’

‘Kaja Solness.’

‘It’s cold, yes? Not like in the lowlands, eh?’

‘Exactly,’ Kaja said, returning the smile.

‘I can’t join you at the cabin today. There’s been an avalanche. A tunnel’s closed, and we have to redirect traffic.’ Without asking he took her skis, swung them over his shoulder and began to walk towards the SUV. ‘But I’ve got the man who keeps an eye on the mountain cabins to drive you there. Odd Utmo. Is that alright?’

‘Fine,’ said Kaja, who was only too pleased. It meant perhaps she could escape all the questions about why Oslo Police were suddenly interested in a missing persons case from Drammen.

Krongli drove her the five hundred metres or so to the hotel. There was a man sitting on a yellow snowmobile in the icy square in front of the entrance. He was wearing a red snowsuit, a leather hat with ear flaps, a scarf around his mouth and large goggles.

When he pushed up the goggles and mumbled his name, Kaja saw that one eye was a white, transparent membrane, as though there had been a milk spillage. The other eye studied her from top to toe without embarrassment. The man’s erect posture could have belonged to a youngster, but his face was old.

‘Kaja. Thanks for turning up at such short notice,’ she said.

‘I’m paid,’ Odd Utmo said, looked at his watch, pulled down the scarf and spat. Kaja saw the glint of an orthodontic brace between the snus-stained teeth. The gobbet of tobacco made a black star on the ice.

‘Hope you’ve had a bite to eat and a piss.’

Kaja laughed, but Utmo had already straddled the snowmobile and turned his back on her.

She looked at Krongli, who in the meantime had firmly stowed the skis and poles under the straps so they now spanned the length of the snowmobile, together with Utmo’s skis and a bundle of what looked like red sticks of dynamite plus a rifle with telescopic sights.

Krongli shrugged and flashed his boyish smile again. ‘Good luck, hope you find…’

The rest was drowned by the roar of the engine. Kaja quickly mounted. To her relief she saw handles she could hold on to, so that she wouldn’t have to cling to the white-eyed old man. The exhaust fumes surrounded them; then they started with a jerk.

Utmo stood with his knees like shock absorbers and used his body weight to balance the snowmobile, which he guided past the hotel, over a snowdrift into the soft snow and diagonally up the first gentle slope. On reaching the top with a view to the north, Kaja saw a boundless expanse of white spread out before them. Utmo turned with an enquiring nod. Kaja nodded back that everything was OK. Then he accelerated. Kaja watched the buildings disappear through the fountain of snow spraying off the drive belts.

Kaja had often heard people say that snowy plains made them think of deserts. It made her think of the days and nights with Even on his ocean racer.

The snowmobile sliced through the vast, empty landscape. The combination of snow and wind had erased, smoothed over, levelled the contours until they were one huge ocean in which the tall mountain, Hallingskarvet, towered like a menacing monster wave. There were no sudden movements; the weight of the snowmobile and the softness of the snow made all movements gentle, cushioned. Kaja rubbed her nose and cheeks carefully to ensure enough blood was circulating. She had seen what even relatively minor frostbite could do to faces. The engine’s monotonous roar and the terrain’s reassuring uniformity had lulled her into a drowsy state until the engine died and they came to a standstill. She woke up and looked at her watch. Her first thought was that the engine had cut out and they were at least a forty-five-minute drive from civilisation. How far was it on skis? Three hours? Five? She had no idea. Utmo had already jumped off and was loosening the skis from the scooter.

‘Is there something wrong…?’ she began, but stopped when Utmo stood up and pointed to the little valley in front of them.

‘Havass cabin,’ he said.

Kaja squinted through her sunglasses. And, indeed, at the foot of the mountain face she saw a small, black cabin.

‘Why don’t we drive…?’

‘Because people are stupid, and that’s why we have to creep up on the cabin.’

‘Creep?’ Kaja said, hurriedly clipping on her skis as Utmo had done.

He pointed the pole to the side of the mountain. ‘If you drive the scooter into such a narrow valley, sound ricochets to and fro. Loosens new snow…’

‘Avalanche,’ Kaja said. She remembered something her father had told her after one of his trips to the Alps. More than sixty thousand troops had died in avalanches there during the Second World War, and most of them had been caused by sound waves from artillery fire.

Utmo stopped for a moment and faced her. ‘These nature freaks from town think they’re being clever when they build cabins in sheltered areas. But it’s just a question of time before they’re covered in snow, too.’

‘Too?’

‘The Havass cabin has been here only three years. This year is the first winter with decent avalanche snow. And soon there’s going to be more.’

He pointed westwards. Kaja shielded her eyes. On the snowy horizon she could see what he meant. Heavy, grey-white cumulus clouds were building giant mushroom formations against the blue background.

‘Going to snow all week,’ said Utmo, unhitching the rifle from the snowmobile and hanging it over his shoulder. ‘If I were you, I’d hurry. And don’t shout.’

They entered the valley in silence, and Kaja felt the temperature fall as they reached the shade and the cold filled the depressions in the ground.

They undid their skis by the black timber cabin, rested them against the wall, and Utmo took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.

‘How do overnight guests get in?’ Kaja asked.

‘They buy a skeleton key. Fits all four hundred and fifty Tourist Association cabins nationwide.’ He twisted the key, pressed down the handle and pushed the door. Nothing happened. He cursed under his breath, placed his shoulder against the door and shoved. It came away from the frame with a shrill scream.

‘Cabins shrink in the cold,’ he muttered.

Inside it was pitch black and smelt of paraffin and a wood-burning stove. Kaja inspected the cabin. She knew the lodging arrangements were very simple. You came, entered details in the guest book, took a bed, or a mattress if it was crowded, lit the fire, cooked your own food in the kitchen where there was a stove and cooking utensils, or – if you used the food provided in the cupboards, you put some money in a tin. You paid for your stay in the same tin or you filled in a bank authorisation slip. All payments were a matter for your own conscience and moral integrity.

The cabin had four north-facing bedrooms with four bunk beds in each. The sitting room faced south and was kitted out in traditional manner, that is, with solid pine furniture. There was a large open fireplace for a homely effect and a wood burner for more efficient heating. Kaja calculated that there was seating space for twelve to fifteen people around the table, and sleeping space for double that if people squeezed up and used the floor and mattresses. She visualised the light from candles and the fire flickering over familiar and unfamiliar faces as conversation covered the day’s skiing and the morrow’s plans over a beer or a glass of wine. Even’s ruddy complexion smiled at her, and he toasted her from one of the darkened corners.

‘The guest book’s in the kitchen,’ Utmo said, pointing to one of the doors. Still standing by the front door with hat and gloves on, he seemed impatient. Kaja was holding the door handle and about to press when an image flashed into her mind. County Officer Krongli. He had looked similar. She had known the thought would reappear, she just hadn’t known when.

‘Can you open the door for me?’ she said.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s stuck,’ Kaja said. ‘The cold.’

She closed her eyes as she listened to him approach, heard the door open without a sound, felt his astonished gaze on her. Then she opened her eyes and went in.

There was a smell of slightly rancid fat in the kitchen. Her pulse raced as her eyes skimmed over the surfaces, cupboards. She spotted the black, leather-bound register on the worktop under the window. It was attached to the wall by a blue nylon cord.

Kaja breathed in. She walked over to the book. Flicked through.

Page after page of handwritten names, scribbled by the guests. Most had observed the rule and noted down their next destination.

‘In fact, I’d been going to come here over the weekend to check the book for you,’ she heard Utmo say behind her. ‘But obviously the police couldn’t wait, could they.’

‘No,’ said Kaja, thumbing through the dates. November. 6 November. 8 November. She flicked back. And forward again. It wasn’t there. 7 November was gone. She laid the book flat. The jagged edges of the torn sheet stood upright. Someone had taken it.