The Leopard

71
Bliss

Gunnar Hagen was rolling a pencil between his forefingers and observing Harry, who for once was sitting – and not lying – in the chair in front of his desk.

‘Technically, for the time being, you are employed by Kripos and thereby part of Bellman’s team,’ the Crime Squad boss said. ‘Ergo, an arrest by you would be a home win for Bellman.’

‘And if I – all this is still perfectly hypothetical – informed you and left the arrest to someone at Crime Squad, say, Kaja Solness or Magnus Skarre?’

‘I would be forced to refuse such a generous offer even from you, Harry. As I said, I am bound by agreements.’

‘Mm. Bellman’s still got a hold on you?’

Hagen sighed. ‘If I were to work a dodge like taking an arrest off Bellman in Norway’s biggest murder case, the Ministry of Justice would want to know everything straight away. If I were to defy them and bring you back here to investigate this case, that would be regarded as disobeying orders. And it would hit the whole unit. Sorry, Harry, but I can’t.’

Harry mused, staring into middle distance. ‘OK, boss.’ He jumped up from the chair and strode to the door.

‘Wait!’

Harry waited.

‘Why are you asking me about this now, Harry? Has something happened that I ought to know about?’

Harry shook his head. ‘Just testing a few hypotheses, boss. That’s our job, isn’t it?’

Harry spent the hours until three o’clock making phone calls. The last one was to Bjorn Holm, who agreed to drive without a second thought.

‘I haven’t told you where or why,’ Harry said.

‘No need,’ said Bjorn and continued, stressing every word. ‘I-trust-you.’

A pause arose.

‘Guess I deserved that,’ Harry said.

‘Yes,’ said Bjorn.

‘I have a feeling I apologised, but did I?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t? OK. Mm… Mm… Mm. Christ, this is hard. Mm… Mm…’

‘Sounds like you’ve got a slow starter there, buddy boy,’ Bjorn said, but Harry could hear he was smiling.

‘Sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I hope I have some fingerprints for you to check before we leave. If they don’t match, you won’t have to drive, if you get my drift.’

‘Why so secretive?’

‘Because you trust me.’

It was half past three when Harry knocked on the door to the small duty room at Rikshospital.

Sigurd Altman opened.

‘Hi, could you take a look at these?’

He passed the nurse a small pile of photographs.

‘They’re sticky,’ Altman said.

‘They’ve come straight from the darkroom.’

‘Hm. A severed finger. What’s that about?’

‘I suspect the owner has been given a hefty dose of ketanome. I was wondering if you as an anaesthetics expert can say whether we will be able to find any traces of the drug in the finger.’

‘Yes, no doubt, it circulates through the whole body with the blood.’

Altman flicked through the photographs. ‘The finger looks pretty drained of blood, but in theory one drop is enough.’

‘Then the next question is whether you can assist us with an arrest tonight?’

‘Me? Haven’t you got pathologists who-?’

‘You know more than they do about this. And I need someone I can trust.’

Altman shrugged, looked at his watch and passed the photographs back. ‘I’m off duty in two hours, so…’

‘Great. We’ll pick you up. You’re going to be part of Norwegian crime history, Altman.’

The nurse gave a wan smile.

Mikael Bellman rang as Harry was on his way to Krimteknisk.

‘Where’ve you been, Harry? Missed you at the morning meeting.’

‘Round and about.’

‘Round what?’

‘Our wonderful city,’ Harry said, dropping an A4 envelope on the bench in front of Kim Erik Lokker and pointing to his own fingertips to show him he wanted the contents checked for prints.

‘I get nervous when you’re not even on the radar for a whole day, Harry.’

‘Don’t you trust me, Mi-ka-el? Afraid I’ll end up on the booze?’

The other end went quiet.

‘You report to me, and I would like to be kept informed, that’s all.’

‘Reporting in to say there’s nothing to report, boss.’

Harry rang off and went in to see Bjorn. Beate was already sitting in his office waiting.

‘What did you want to tell us?’ she asked.

‘A real cops and robbers story,’ Harry said, taking a seat.

He was halfway through his narrative when Lokker stuck his head round the door.

‘I’ve found these,’ he said, holding up a fingerprint transparency.

‘Thanks,’ said Bjorn, sitting by the computer and taking the transparency. He put it on his scanner, brought up the file of the prints they had found in Holmenveien and started the matching program.

Harry was aware it would take only a couple of seconds, but he closed his eyes, felt his heart throbbing even though he knew – he knew. The Snowman knew. And had told Harry the little he had needed, formulated the words, made the sound wave that would trigger the avalanche.

This was how it had to be.

It should only take a couple of seconds.

His heart was thumping.

Bjorn Holm cleared his throat. But said nothing.

‘Bjorn,’ Harry said, still with his eyes pinched shut.

‘Yes, Harry.’

‘Is this one of those dramatic pauses you want me to savour?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it over now, you bloody sod?’

‘Yes. And we have a match.’

Harry opened his eyes. Sunlight. Flooding into the room, filling it so that they could veritably swim out on it. Bliss. Fucking bliss.

The three of them stood up at the same time. Staring at each other with open mouths forming mute roars of delight. Then they embraced each other in a clumsy group hug with Bjorn on the outside and little Beate squashed flat. They continued with muffled shouts, cautious high fives, and Bjorn Holm concluded with what Harry considered above and beyond any normal demands of a Hank Williams fan, a flawless moonwalk.