The Leopard

14
Recruitment

Bjorn Holm entered the conference room at Krimteknisk in the Bryn district of Oslo. Outside the windows, the sun was relinquishing its grip on the house fronts and casting the town into afternoon gloom. The car park was packed, and in front of the entrance to Kripos, across the road, there was a white bus with a soup dish on the roof and the Norwegian Broadcasting Company logo on its side.

The only person in the room was his boss, Beate Lonn, an unusually pale, petite and quiet-mannered woman. Had one not known any better, one might have thought a person like this would have problems leading a group of experienced, professional, self-aware, always quirky and seldom conflict-shy forensics officers. Had one known better, one would have realised she was the only person who could deal with them. Not primarily because they respected the fact that she stood erect and proud despite losing two policemen to the eternity shift, first her father and later the father of her child. But because, in their group, she was the best, and radiated such unimpeachability, integrity and gravity that when Beate Lonn whispered an order with downcast gaze and flushed cheeks, it was carried out on the spot. So Bjorn Holm had come as soon as he was informed.

She was sitting in a chair drawn up close to the TV monitor.

‘They’re recording live from the press conference,’ she said without turning. ‘Take a seat.’

Holm immediately recognised the people on the screen. How strange it was, it struck him, to be watching signals that had travelled thousands of kilometres out into space and back, just to show him what was happening right now on the opposite side of the street.

Beate Lonn turned up the volume.

‘You have understood correctly,’ said Mikael Bellman, leaning towards the microphone on the table in front of him. ‘For the present we have neither leads nor suspects. And to repeat myself once again: we have not ruled out the possibility of suicide.’

‘But you said-’ began a voice from the body of journalists present.

Bellman cut her off. ‘I said we regard the death as suspicious. I am sure you’re familiar with the terminology. If not, you should.. .’ He left the end of the sentence hanging in the air and pointed to a person behind the camera.

‘Stavanger Aftenblad,’ came the slow bleat of the Rogaland dialect. ‘Do the police see a connection between this death and the two in-?’

‘No! If you’d been following, you would have heard me say that we do not rule out a connection.’

‘I caught that,’ continued the slow, imperturbable dialect. ‘But those of us here are more interested in what you think rather than what you don’t rule out.’

Bjorn Holm could see Bellman giving the man the evil eye as impatience strained at the corners of his mouth. A uniformed woman officer at Bellman’s side placed her hand over the microphone, leaned in to him and whispered something. The POB’s face darkened.

‘Mikael Bellman is getting a crash course in how to deal with the media,’ said Bjorn Holm. ‘Lesson one, stroke the ones with hair, especially the provincial newspapers.’

‘He’s new to the job,’ Beate Lonn said. ‘He’ll learn.’

‘Think so?’

‘Yes. Bellman’s the type to learn.’

‘Humility’s hard to learn, I’ve heard.’

‘Genuine humility, that’s true. But to grovel when it suits you is basic to modern communication. That’s what Ninni’s telling him. And Bellman’s smart enough to appreciate that.’

On-screen, Bellman coughed, forced an almost boyish smile and leaned into the microphone. ‘I apologise if I sounded a bit brusque, but it’s been a long day for all of us, and I hope you understand that we are simply impatient to get back to the investigation into this tragic case. We have to finish here, but if any of you have any further questions, please direct them to Ninni, and I promise I will try to return to you later this evening. Before the deadline. Is that OK?’

‘What did I say?’ Beate laughed triumphantly.

‘A star is born,’ Bjorn said.

The picture imploded and Beate Lonn turned. ‘Harry called. He wants me to hand you over.’

‘Me?’ said Bjorn Holm. ‘To do what?’

‘You know very well what. I heard you were with Gunnar Hagen at the airport when Harry arrived.’

‘Whoops.’ Holm smiled, revealing both top and bottom sets of teeth.

‘I assume Hagen wanted to use you in Operation Persuasion since he knows you are one of the few people Harry likes working with.’

‘We never got that far, and Harry turned down the job.’

‘But now it seems he has changed his mind.’

‘Uh-huh? What made him do that?’

‘He didn’t say. He just said he thought it was right to go through me.’

‘Sure. You’re the boss here.’

‘You can take nothing for granted where Harry is concerned. I know him pretty well, as you’re aware.’

Holm nodded. He was aware. Knew Jack Halvorsen, Beate’s partner and soon-to-be father of their child, had been killed while working for Harry. One freezing cold winter’s day, in broad daylight, in Grunerlokka, stabbed in the chest. Holm had arrived straight afterwards. Hot blood soaking down into the blue ice. A policeman’s death. No one had blamed Harry. Apart from Harry, that is.

He scratched his sideburns. ‘So what did you say?’

Beate took a deep breath and watched the journalists and photo graphers hurrying out of the Kripos building. ‘The same as I’m going to tell you now. The Ministry of Justice has let it be known that Kripos has priority, and accordingly there is no chance that I can pass on forensics officers to anyone other than Bellman for this case.’

‘But?’

Beate Lonn drummed a Bic pen on the table, hard. ‘But there are other cases besides this double murder.’

‘Triple murder,’ Holm said, and after a sharp look from Beate, he added, ‘Believe me.’

‘I don’t know exactly what Inspector Hole is investigating, but it is definitely not any of these murder cases. He and I are totally agreed on that,’ Beate said. ‘And you are thereby transferred to that case or those cases – of which I know nothing. For two weeks. Copy of first report on whatever you do to be on my desk five working days from now. Understood?’

Inwardly, Kaja Solness was beaming like a sun and felt an almost irresistible desire to do a couple of spins in her swivel chair.

‘If Hagen says OK, of course I’ll join you,’ she said, trying to contain herself, but she could hear the exultation in her voice.

‘Hagen says OK,’ said the man leaning against the door frame with his arm over his head, forming a diagonal in her doorway. ‘So it’s just Holm, you and me. And the case we’re working on is confidential. We start tomorrow. Meet at seven in my office.’

‘Er… seven?’

‘Sieben. Seven. O seven hundred hours.’

‘I see. Which office?’

The man grinned and explained.

She looked at him in disbelief. ‘We’ve got an office in the prison?’

The diagonal in the doorway relaxed. ‘Meet up, all systems go. Questions?’

Kaja had several, but Harry had already left.

The dream has begun to appear in the daytime, too, now. A long way off I can still hear the band playing ‘Love Hurts’. I notice a few boys standing around us, but they don’t move in. Good. As for me, I’m looking at her. See what you’ve done, I try to say. Look at him now. Do you still want him? My God, how I hate her, how I want to tear the knife out of my mouth and stick it in her, stab holes in her, see it gush out: blood, guts, the lie, the stupidity, her idiotic self-righteousness. Someone should show her how ugly she is on the inside.

I saw the press conference on TV. Incompetent oafs! No clues. No suspects! The golden first forty-eight hours, the sands are running out, hurry, hurry. What do you want me to do? Write it on the wall in blood?

It’s you who are allowing this killing to go on.

The letter is finished.

Hurry.