The Leopard

41
The Blue Chit

‘So,’said Aslak Krongli, twirling his coffee cup. Kaja thought it looked like an egg cup in his large hand. She had taken a seat opposite him at the table closest to the window. The police canteen was situated on the top floor and was of standard Norwegian design, that is, light and clean, but not so cosy that people would be tempted to sit for longer than necessary. The great advantage of the room was its view of the town, but that didn’t seem to interest Krongli much.

‘I checked the guest books at the other self-service cabins in the area,’ he went on. ‘The only people who had written in the book that they were planning to spend the next night at Havass cabin were Charlotte Lolles and Iska Peller, who were in Tunvegg the night before.’

‘And we already know about them,’ Kaja said.

‘Yes. So in fact I have only two things that might be of interest to you.’

‘And they are?’

‘I was speaking on the phone to an elderly couple who were at the Tunvegg cabin the same night as Lolles and Peller. They said that a man had turned up in the evening, had a bite to eat, changed his shirt, then went on his way heading south-west. Even though it was dark. And the only cabin in that direction is Havass.’

‘And this person…’

‘They barely saw him. Seemed as if he didn’t want to be seen, either; he didn’t take off his balaclava or his old-fashioned slalom goggles, not even when changing his shirt. The wife said she thought he might have had a serious injury at one time.’

‘Why was that?’

‘She could only remember thinking this, couldn’t say why. Nevertheless, he might have changed direction when he was out of sight, and skied to another cabin.’

‘Suppose so,’ Kaja said, checking her watch.

‘Anyone come forward in response to your crime alert, by the way?’

‘No,’ Kaja said.

‘You look as though you mean yes.’

Kaja’s eyes shot up at Aslak Krongli, who reacted by holding up his palms. ‘Country clod in town! Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that.’

‘Alright,’ Kaja said.

They both inspected their coffee cups.

‘You said there were two things I might be interested in,’ Kaja said. ‘What’s the second?’

‘I know I’m going to regret saying this,’ Krongli said. The quiet laughter was back in his eyes.

Kaja guessed immediately which direction the conversation was going to take and knew he was right: he would regret it.

‘I’m staying at the Plaza and wondered if you would like to have dinner with me there tonight.’

She could see by his expression that her own was not difficult to read.

‘I don’t know anyone else in town,’ he said, contorting his mouth into a grimace that might have been intended as a disarming smile. ‘Apart from my ex, that is, and I daren’t ring her.’

‘Would’ve been nice…’ Kaja began, and paused. Conditional past. She saw that Aslak Krongli was already regretting his approach. ‘… but I’m afraid I’m otherwise engaged.’

‘Fine, this was short notice.’ Krongli smiled, threaded his fingers through his unruly, curly hair. ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘I… er, I’m pretty busy these days, Aslak.’

Krongli nodded, apparently to himself. ‘Of course. Of course you’re busy. The man who was in your room when I arrived is perhaps the reason?’

‘No, I’ve got new bosses now.’

‘It wasn’t bosses I had in mind.’

‘Oh?’

‘You said you were in love with a policeman. And it seemed to me he didn’t have much difficulty persuading you. Less than me anyway.’

‘No, no, that wasn’t him! Are you out of your mind? I… erm, must have had too much to drink that night.’ Kaja could hear her own inane laughter and felt the blood rising up her neck.

‘Oh well,’ Krongli said, finishing his coffee, ‘I’ll have to go out into the big, cold city. I suppose there are museums to visit and bars to patronise.’

‘Yes, you have to make the most of the opportunity.’

He arched an eyebrow and his eyes shed tears and laughed out loud. The way Even’s had at the end.

Kaja accompanied him out. As he shook her hand, she couldn’t help herself. ‘Ring me if it gets too lonely and I’ll see if I can slip away.’

She interpreted his smile as gratitude for allowing him the chance to decline an offer or at least to decide not to take her up on it.

Standing in the lift to the sixth floor, Kaja was reminded of what he had said, ‘… didn’t have much difficulty persuading you.’ How long had he actually been standing there by the door eavesdropping?

At one o’clock the telephone in front of Kaja rang.

It was Harry. ‘I’ve finally got the blue chit. Ready?’

She could feel her heart beating faster. ‘Yes.’

‘Vest?’

‘Vest and a weapon.’

‘Delta will take care of weapons. They’re ready in a vehicle outside the garage, just have to go down. And bring the blue chit from my pigeon hole, would you?’

‘OK.’

Ten minutes later they were in one of Delta’s blue twelve-seaters heading west through the city centre. Kaja listened to Harry explaining that he had rung Leike half an hour earlier at the building where he rented an office and they had said he was working off-site today. Harry had called his home number in Holmenveien, Tony Leike had answered and Harry had rung off. To lead the operation, Harry had specifically requested Milano, a dark, squat man with massive eyebrows, who did not have a drop of Italian blood in his veins, despite his surname.

They passed through Ibsen Tunnel, and rectangles of reflected light slid over the helmets and visors of the eight elite officers who appeared to be in deep meditation.

Kaja and Harry sat on the rear seat. Harry was wearing a black jacket with POLITI written in large yellow letters at the front and back, and had taken out his service revolver to check that there were bullets in all the chambers.

‘Eight men from Delta and a blender,’ Kaja said, referring to the blue light rotating on the roof of the MPV. ‘Sure this isn’t a bit over the top?’

‘It has to be over the top,’ Harry said. ‘If we want to attract attention to the person who initiated this arrest, then we need a bigger party factor than usual.’

‘Leaked it to the press?’

Harry clocked her.

‘If you want attention, I mean,’ she said. ‘Imagine it, Leike, the celebrity, being arrested for the murder of Marit Olsen. They would pass up on the birth of a princess for that.’

‘And what about if his fiancee is there?’ Harry said. ‘Or the mother? Are they going to be in the papers and on live TV, too?’ He jerked the revolver and the cylinder clicked into place.

‘What are we going to do with the big party factor then?’

‘The press come later,’ Harry said. ‘They question the neighbours, passers-by, us. They find out what a magnificent show it was. That’ll do me. No innocents involved, and we get our front page.’

She sent him a sideways glance as the shadows of the next tunnel passed over them. They crossed Majorstuen and went up Slemdalsveien, past Vinderen, and she saw him staring out of the window, at the tram stop, a naked expression of torment on his face. She felt an urge to place a hand over his, to say something, anything, that could remove that expression. She looked at his hand. It was holding the revolver, squeezing it, as though it was all he had. This could not go on, something was going to burst. Had already burst.

They climbed higher and higher; the town lay beneath them. They crossed the tramlines and then the lights began to flash behind them and the barrier was lowered.

They were in Holmenveien.

‘Who’s coming with me to the door, Milano?’ Harry shouted to the passenger seat at the front.

‘Delta 3 and Delta 4,’ Milano shouted back, turning and pointing to a man with a large figure 3 chalked onto the chest and back of his combat suit.

‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘And the rest?’

‘Two men on each side of the house. Procedure Dyke 1-4-5.’

Kaja knew this was code for the formation. It had been borrowed from American football, and the aim was to communicate quickly without anyone else understanding, in case they had managed to tune into the radio frequencies that Delta used. They came to a halt a couple of houses down from Leike’s. Six of the men checked their MP5s and jumped out. Kaja saw them move up through the neighbours’ large gardens of brown, withered grass, bare apple trees and the tall hedges they had a proclivity for in west Oslo. Kaja checked her watch. Forty seconds had gone when Milano’s radio crackled. ‘Everyone in position.’

The driver released the clutch, and they drove slowly towards the house. Tony Leike’s recently acquired home was yellow, single storey, impressively large, but the address was more resplendent than the architecture, which lay somewhere between functionalist and a wooden box, as far as Kaja could judge.

They stopped outside two garage doors at the end of a shingle drive leading to the front door. Several years back, during a hostage crisis in Vestfold where Delta had surrounded a house, the hostage-takers had escaped by strolling down a path from the house into the garage, starting up the house owner’s car and simply driving off, to the open-mouthed amazement of the heavily armed police bystanders.

‘Stay back and follow me,’ Harry said to Kaja. ‘Next time it’s your turn.’

They got out and Harry immediately made for the house with the two other policemen one step behind and to the side, in a triangle formation. Kaja could hear from his voice that his pulse was accelerated. Now she could see it in his body language too, from the tenseness of the neck, from the exaggeratedly supple way he was moving.

They went up the steps. Harry rang the bell. The other two had positioned themselves at each side of the door, backs against the wall.

Kaja counted. Harry had told her in the car that in the FBI manual it said you had to ring or knock, shout ‘Police!’ and ‘Please open up!’, repeat and then wait ten seconds before you entered. The Norwegian police had no such precise instructions, but that didn’t mean there weren’t guidelines.

On this afternoon in Holmenveien, however, none of them were in evidence.

The door burst open. Kaja automatically recoiled a step when she saw the Rasta hat in the doorway, then saw Harry’s shoulders swivel and heard the sound of fist on flesh.