The Leopard

52
Visit

Something had woken him. a sound. there were hardly any sounds out here, none he didn’t know anyway, and those didn’t wake him. He got up, placed the soles of his feet on the cold floor and peered through the window. His terrain. Some called it a deserted wasteland, whatever that meant. Because it was never deserted here, there was always something. Like now. An animal? Or could it be him? The ghost? There was something outside, that was for certain. He looked at the door. It was locked and bolted on the inside. The rifle was in the storehouse. He shivered in the thick, red flannel shirt he wore both day and night up here. The sitting room was so empty. It was so empty out there. So empty in the world. But it wasn’t deserted. There were the two of them, the two of them who were left.

Harry was dreaming. About a lift with teeth, about a woman with a cocktail stick between cochineal-red lips, a clown with his smiling head under his arm, a bride dressed in white at the altar with a snowman, a star drawn in the dust of a TV screen, a one-armed girl on a diving board in Bangkok, the sweet smell of urinal blocks, the outline of a human body on the inside of a blue plastic waterbed, a compressor drill and blood spurting into his face, hot and death-bringing. Alcohol had acted as a cross, garlic and holy water against ghosts, but tonight there had been a full moon and a virgin’s blood, and now they came swarming from the darkest corners and deepest graves and tossed him between them in their dance, fiercer and wilder than ever, to the cardiac rhythms of mortal fear and the incessant shrill fire alarm here in hell. Then there was sudden silence. Complete silence. It was here again. It filled his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. It was cold and pitch black and he was unable to move, he.. .

Harry twitched and blinked in the darkness, dazed. An echo reverberated between the walls. An echo of what? He grabbed his revolver from the bedside table, placed the soles of his feet on the cold floor and went downstairs, into the living room. Empty. The empty drinks cabinet was still lit. There had been a solitary bottle of Martell cognac. His dad had always been careful with alcohol – he knew what genes he was carrying – and the cognac was to offer guests. There had not been many guests. The dusty, half-full bottle had disappeared in the tidal wave with Captain Jim Beam and Able Seaman Harry Hole. Harry sat down in the armchair, stuck his finger through the tear on the armrest. He closed his eyes and visualised himself filling a glass half full. The deep gurgles from the bottle, the sparkling golden-brown liquid. The smell, the quiver as he put the glass to his mouth and he felt his body fighting it, panicstricken. Then he emptied the contents down his throat.

It was like a blow to the temple.

Harry opened his eyes wide. It had gone all quiet again.

And just as suddenly it was there again.

It bored its way along his auditory canals. The fire alarm in hell. The same one that had woken him. The doorbell. Harry looked at his watch. Half past twelve.

He went into the hall, switched on the outside light, saw an outline through the wavy glass, held the revolver in his right hand while grabbing the lock with his left thumb and forefinger and tore the door wide open.

In the moonlight he could see ski tracks crossing the drive. They were not his. And ghosts didn’t leave trails, did they?

They went round the house, to the back.

At that moment it struck him that the bedroom window was open, he should have… He held his breath. Someone seemed to be breathing with him. Not someone, something. An animal.

He turned. Opened his mouth. His heart had stopped beating. How could it have moved so quickly, without making a sound, how could it have got so… close?

Kaja stared at him.

‘May I come in?’ she asked.

She was wearing an oversized raincoat, her hair was sticking up in all directions, her face was pale and drawn. He blinked hard a couple of times to check he wasn’t still dreaming. She had never been more beautiful.

Harry tried to spew as quietly as he could. He hadn’t tasted booze for more than a day, and his stomach was a sensitive creature of habits that rebelled against sudden bouts of drinking and sudden abstinence. He flushed, carefully drank a glass of water and returned to the kitchen. The kettle was making rumbling sounds on the stove and Kaja was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs looking up at him.

‘So Tony Leike’s gone,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Mikael had given instructions that he was to be contacted. But no one could find him; he wasn’t at home, in his office, and he hadn’t left any messages. No Leike on any airline or ferry passenger lists for the last twenty-four hours. Eventually a detective managed to contact Lene Galtung. She believes he may have gone into the mountains. To think. Apparently he does that. If so, he must have caught the train because the car’s still in the garage.’

‘Ustaoset,’ Harry said. ‘He said that was his terrain.’

‘Anyway, he’s definitely not gone to a hotel.’

‘Mm.’

‘They think he’s in danger.’

‘They?’

‘Bellman. Kripos.’

‘I thought that was we. And why would Bellman want to contact Tony Leike anyway?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Mikael has concocted a plan. To lure the killer out.’

‘Uh-uh?’

‘The killer’s trying to remove everyone who was at the Havass cabin that night. So he wanted to try to persuade Leike to be the decoy in a set-up. Get Leike to go for an interview with a newspaper, talk about the tough time he’s been through and how he was going to relax on his own at a particular place to be revealed in the paper.’

‘Where Kripos would set a trap.’

‘Yes.’

‘But now the plan’s up the creek, and that’s why you’re here?’

She gazed at him without blinking. ‘We have one person left we can use as a decoy.’

‘Iska Peller? She’s in Australia.’

‘And Bellman knows she’s under police protection, and you’ve been in contact with her and someone called McCormack. Bellman wants you to persuade her to come here.’

‘Why should I agree?’

She looked down at her hands. ‘You know. Same coercion tactics as last time.’

‘Mm. When did you discover there was opium in the cigarette carton?’

‘When I was putting the carton on the shelf in my bedroom. You’re right, it has a strong smell. And I remembered the smell from your hostel. I opened the carton and saw the seal on the bottom packet had been broken. And found the clump inside. I told Mikael. He told me to hand over the carton whenever you asked.’

‘Perhaps that made it easier for you to betray me. Knowing I had used you.’

She slowly shook her head. ‘No, Harry. It didn’t make it easier. Perhaps it should have done, but…’

‘But?’

She shrugged. ‘Passing on this message is the last favour I do for Mikael.’

‘Oh?’

‘Then I’m going to tell him I won’t see him any more.’

The kettle’s rumbling noises stopped.

‘I should have done this a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of asking you to forgive me for what I’ve done, Harry, that’s too much to ask. But I thought I would tell you face to face so that you can understand. That’s actually why I’ve come to see you now. To tell you that I did it out of stupid, stupid love. Love corrupted me. And I didn’t think I was corruptible.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I deceived you, Harry. I don’t know what to say. Except that deceiving myself feels even worse.’

‘We’re all corruptible,’ Harry said. ‘We just demand different prices. And different currencies. Yours is love. Mine is anaesthetisation. And do you know what…?’

The kettle sang again, this time an octave higher.

‘… I think it makes you a better person than me. Coffee?’

He spun right round and stared at the figure. It was standing straight in front of him, unmoving, as if it had been there a long time, as if it were his shadow. It was so quiet; all he could hear was his own breathing. Then he sensed a movement, something being lifted in the dark, heard a low whistle through the air, and at that moment a strange thought struck him. The figure was just that, his very own shadow. He…

The thought appeared to falter, time was dislocated, the visual connection was broken for a second.

He stared before him in amazement and felt a hot bead of sweat run down his forehead. He spoke, but the words were meaningless, there was a fault in the connection between brain and mouth. Again he heard a low whistle. Then the sound was gone. All sound – he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. And he discovered that he was kneeling and that the telephone was on the floor beside him. Ahead, a white stripe of moonlight ran across the coarse floorboards, but it vanished when the sweat reached the bridge of his nose, ran into his eyes and blinded him. And he understood it was not sweat.

The third blow felt like an icicle being driven through his head, throat and into his body. Everything froze.

I don’t want to die, he thought, and tried to raise a protective arm over his head, but he was unable to move a single limb, and realised he was paralysed.

He didn’t register the fourth blow, but from the wood smell he concluded he was lying face down on the floor. He blinked several times and sight returned to one eye. Directly in front of him he saw a pair of ski boots. And slowly sounds returned; his heaving gasps, the other’s calm breathing, the blood dripping from his nose onto the floorboards. The other’s voice was a mere whisper, but the words seemed to be screamed into his ear. ‘Now there’s only one of us.’

As the clock struck two they were still sitting in the kitchen talking.

‘The eighth guest,’ Harry said, pouring more coffee. ‘Close your eyes. How does he appear to you? Quick, don’t think.’

‘He’s full of hatred,’ Kaja said. ‘Angry. Out of balance, nasty. The kind of guy women like Adele run into, check out and reject. He’s got piles of pornographic magazines and films at home.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know. His asking Adele to go to an empty factory dressed in a nurse’s uniform.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s effeminate.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, high-pitched voice. Adele said he reminded her of her gay flatmate when he spoke.’ She drew her cup to her mouth and smiled. ‘Or perhaps he’s a film actor. With a squeaky voice and a pout. I still can’t remember the name of the macho actor with the feminine voice.’

Harry held up his cup in a toast. ‘And the things I told you about Elias Skog and the late-night incident outside the cabin. Who were they? Had he witnessed a rape?’

‘It wasn’t Marit Olsen, anyway,’ Kaja said.

‘Mm. Why not?’

‘Because she was the only fat woman there, so Elias Skog would have recognised her and used her name when describing the scene.’

‘Same conclusion I came to. But was it rape, do you think?’

‘Sounds like it. He put his hand over her mouth, stifled her cries, pulled her inside the toilet, what else could it have been?’

‘But why didn’t Elias Skog think it was rape straight off?’

‘I don’t know. Because there was something about the way… the way they were standing, their body language.’

‘Exactly. The subconscious understands much more than the conscious mind. He was so sure it was consensual sex that he simply went back to bed. It wasn’t until long after, reading about the murders and being reminded of a half-forgotten scene, that he had formed the idea it might have been rape.’

‘A game,’ Kaja said. ‘That might smack of rape. Who does that? Not a man and a woman who have just met at a cabin and sneak out to become a little better acquainted. You have to be a bit more comfortable with each other.’

‘So it’s two people who’ve been together before,’ Harry said. ‘Which to our knowledge can only be…’

‘Adele and the mystery man. The eighth guest.’

‘Either that or someone else turned up that night.’ Harry flicked ash off the cigarette.

‘Where’s the loo?’ Kaja asked.

‘Through the hall to the left.’

He watched the cigarette smoke curl upwards into the lampshade over the table. Waited. He hadn’t heard the door open. He got up and went after her.

She was standing in the hall staring at the door. In the dim light he could see her taking gulps of air, could see a moist pointed tooth glistening. He placed a hand on her back and even there, through her clothes, he could feel her heart beating. ‘Do you mind if I open it?’

‘You must think I’m mental,’ she said.

‘We all are. I’m opening it now, OK?’

She nodded, and he opened the door.

Harry was sitting at the kitchen table when she returned. She had put on her raincoat.

‘Think I’ll have to go home now.’

Harry nodded and accompanied her to the front door. Watched as she stooped to pull on her boots.

‘It only happens when I’m tired,’ she said. ‘The door stuff.’

‘I know,’ Harry said. ‘I’m the same with lifts.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Another time maybe. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see each other again.’

She fell quiet. Took a long time to zip up her boots. Then, all of a sudden, she stood up, so close to him that he was aware of her scent following her, like an echo.

‘Tell me now,’ she said with a wild expression in her eyes he was unable to interpret.

‘Well,’ he said, his fingertips tingling, as if he had been cold and was warming up again. ‘When we were young my little sister had very long hair. We had been visiting my mother in hospital and were about to get into the lift. Dad was waiting downstairs, he couldn’t stand hospitals. Sis stood too near to the brick wall and her hair got caught between the lift and the wall. And I was so horror-stricken that I couldn’t move. I watched Sis being dragged up by her hair.’

‘What happened?’ she asked.

They were standing a bit too close, he thought. They were standing at the limits of their personal space. And they knew. He took a breath.

‘She lost a lot of hair. It grew back. I… lost something else. Which didn’t grow back.’

‘You think you failed her.’

‘It’s a fact that I failed her.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Old enough to fail her.’ He smiled. ‘Think that’s almost enough selfpity for one night, don’t you? My father liked you curtsying.’

Kaja chuckled. ‘Goodnight.’ She curtsied.

He opened the front door for her. ‘Goodnight.’

She moved onto the steps and turned.

‘Harry?’

‘Yes?’

‘Weren’t you lonely in Hong Kong?’

‘Lonely?’

‘I watched you while you were asleep. You looked so… alone.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was lonely. Goodnight.’

They stood there half a second too long. Five-tenths of a second before and she would have been down the steps and he would have been on his way back to the kitchen.

Her fingers closed around his neck and pulled his head down as she hoisted herself up on tiptoes. Her eyes lost focus, became a glittering sea and then she shut them. Her lips were half open as they met his. She held him and he didn’t move, just felt the sweet dagger in his stomach, like a rush of morphine.

She let go of him.

‘Sleep well, Harry.’

He nodded.

She turned and walked away. He closed the door quietly behind him.

He cleared away the cups, rinsed the kettle and had just put it away when the doorbell rang.

He went to answer it.

‘I forgot something,’ she said.

‘What was that?’ he asked.

She lifted her hand and stroked his brow. ‘What you look like.’

He pulled her close. Her skin. The scent. He fell, a wonderful dizzying spiral downwards.

‘I want you,’ she whispered. ‘I want to make love to you.’

‘And I want you, too.’

They let go. Looked at each other. A sudden formality seemed to come between them, and for a moment it appeared to him that she had regrets. That he also had regrets. It was too much, too quickly. There were too many other things, there was too much clinker, too much baggage, too many good reasons. Nonetheless she took his hand, timid almost, whispered ‘Come on’ and led him up the stairs.

The bedroom was cold and smelt of parents. He switched on the light.

The spacious double bed was made with two duvets and pillows.

Harry helped her to change the bedlinen.

‘Which side is his?’ she asked.

‘This one,’ Harry pointed.

‘And he continued to sleep there after she was gone,’ she said, as if to herself. ‘Just in case.’

They undressed without peeking. Crept under the duvets and met there.

At first they lay close to each other, kissing, exploring, careful not to ruin anything before they knew how it would be. Listened to each other’s breathing and the odd isolated car rushing by. Then their kisses became greedier, their touching bolder, and he heard the excited hiss of her breath against his ear.

‘Are you frightened?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she groaned, grabbing hold of his erection, adjusting her hips and guiding him in, but he moved her hand and did it himself.

There was barely a sound, only a gasp as he penetrated her. He closed his eyes, lay still, enjoying the sensations. Then he began to move slowly, carefully. Opened his eyes, met hers. She seemed on the verge of tears.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispered.

Her tongue coiled around his, smooth underneath, rough on top. Faster and deeper, slower and deeper. She rolled him over without letting go of his tongue and sat astride him. She pressed against his stomach every time she came down on him. Then her tongue released his, and she leaned back and let out a moan. Twice, a deep animal noise that rose, and became high-pitched as she gasped for air and went quiet again. Her throat was thick with the scream that didn’t come. He raised his hand, placed his fingers against the quivering blue artery under the skin on her neck.

And then she screamed, as if in pain, in anger, in liberation. Harry felt his scrotum tighten and came. It was perfect, so unbearably perfect that he threw his hand in the air and banged the wall behind him with his fist. And, as though she had been given a lethal injection, she collapsed on top of him.

They lay like this, limbs strewn randomly, like the dead. Harry felt the blood rush in his ears and well-being surge through his body. That and something he could have sworn was happiness.

He slept and was woken by her getting back into bed and snuggling up close to him. She was wearing one of Olav’s vests. She kissed him, mumbled something and was gone, her breathing light and serene. Harry stared at the ceiling. Letting his thoughts churn, knowing there was no point resisting.

It had been so good. It hadn’t been so good since… since…

The blind wasn’t pulled down and at half past five cones of light from passing cars began to travel across the ceiling as Oslo woke and dragged itself off to work. He looked at her again. And then he was gone, too.