The Leopard

54
Tulip

Bellman looked at Harry in silence. that is, the brown deer-like eyes were directed towards Harry, but his gaze was inverted. Harry knew that a committee meeting was in progress there, a meeting with a lot of dissenting opinions, it seemed. Bellman slowly loosened the strings of the chalk bag hanging around his waist, as if to gain time. Time to think. Then he angrily stuffed the chalk bag in his rucksack.

‘If – and only if – I asked you for help without having anything to pressurise you with,’ he said, ‘why on earth would you do it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Bellman stopped packing and looked up. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Well, it definitely wouldn’t be out of love for you, Bellman.’ Harry breathed in. Fidgeted with a pack of cigarettes. ‘Let’s say that even those who believe themselves to be homeless occasionally discover that they have a home. A place where you could imagine being buried one day. And do you know where I want to be buried, Bellman? In the park in front of Police HQ. Not because I love the police or have been a fan of what is known as esprit de corps. Quite the opposite – I spit on the police officer’s craven loyalty to the force, that incestuous camaraderie that exists only because people think they may need a favour one rainy day. A colleague who can exact vengeance, make a testimony or, if necessary, turn a blind eye for you, I hate all that.’

Harry faced Bellman.

‘But the police is all I have. It’s my tribe. And my job is to clear up murders. Whether it is for Kripos or Crime Squad. Can you grasp something like that, Bellman?’

Mikael Bellman squeezed his lower lip between thumb and first finger.

Harry motioned to the wall. ‘What grade was the climb, Bellman? Seven plus?’

‘Eight minimum. On sight.’

‘That’s tough. And I guess you think this is even tougher. But that’s how it has to be.’

Bellman cleared his throat. ‘Fine. Fine, Harry.’ He pulled the strings of his rucksack tight again. ‘Will you help us?’

Harry put his cigarettes back in his pocket and lowered his head. ‘Of course.’

‘I’ll have to check with your boss to see if it’s alright first.’

‘Save yourself the effort,’ Harry said, getting up. ‘I’ve already informed him I’m working with you lot from now on. See you at two.’

Iska Peller peered out of the window of the two-storey brick building, at the row of identical houses on the other side of the street. It could have been any street in any town in England, but it was the tiny district of Bristol in Sydney, Australia. A cool southerly had picked up. The afternoon heat would release its grip as soon as the sun went down.

She heard a dog bark and the heavy traffic on the motorway two blocks away.

The man and woman in the car opposite had just been relieved; now there were two men. They drank slowly from their paper cups with lids. In their own good time, because there is no reason in the world to hurry when you have an eight-hour shift ahead of you and nothing at all is going to happen. Ratchet down a gear, slow the metabolism, do what the Aborigines do: go into that torpid, dormant state which is their diapause and where they can be for hours on end, days on end if need be. She tried to visualise how these slow coffee drinkers could be of any help if anything really happened.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to repress the tremble in her voice caused by suppressed fury. ‘I would have liked to help you find who killed Charlotte, but what you’re suggesting is utterly out of the question.’ Then her anger gained the upper hand after all. ‘I can’t believe you’re even asking! I’m enough of a decoy here. Ten wild horses couldn’t drag me back to Norway. You’re the police, you get paid to catch that monster, why can’t you be the bait?’

She hung up and threw down the phone. It hit the cushion on the armchair and one of her cats jumped up and darted into the kitchen. She hid her face in her hands and let the tears flow again. Dear Charlotte. Her dear, dear, beloved Charlotte.

She had never been afraid of the dark before, now she thought of nothing else; soon the sun would go down, night would come, it was relentless, returning again and again.

The phone played the opening bars of an Antony and the Johnsons song, and the display lit up on the cushion. She walked over and eyed it. Felt the hairs on her neck rising. The caller’s number started with 47. From Norway again.

She put the phone to her ear.

‘Yeah?’

‘Me again.’

She sighed with relief. Just the policeman.

‘I was wondering, if you don’t want to come here in person, whether we might at least have the use of your name?’

Kaja studied the man held in the red-haired woman’s embrace, her head bowed over his bared neck.

‘What can you see?’ Mikael asked. His voice echoed around the walls of the museum.

‘She’s kissing him,’ Kaja said, stepping back from the painting. ‘Or comforting him.’

‘She’s biting him and sucking his blood,’ Mikael said.

‘Why do you think that?’

‘It’s one of the reasons Munch called this The Vampire. Everything ready?’

‘Yes, I’m taking the train to Ustaoset soon.’

‘Why did you want to meet here now?’

Kaja took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to tell you that we can’t go on meeting.’

Mikael Bellman rocked on his heels. ‘Love and Pain.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what Munch originally called this painting. Did Harry go over the details of our plan with you?’

‘Yes. Did you hear what I said?’

‘Thank you, Solness, my hearing is excellent. Unless my memory is at fault, you’ve said that a couple of times before. I suggest you give it some thought.’

‘I’ve finished giving it some thought, Mikael.’

He stroked the knot of his tie. ‘Have you slept with him?’

She gave a start. ‘Who?’

Bellman chuckled.

Kaja didn’t turn round; she kept her eyes firmly fixed on the woman’s face as his steps receded into the distance.

The light seeped through the grey steel blinds, and Harry warmed his hands around a white coffee cup with ‘Kripos’ inscribed in blue letters. The conference room was identical to the one in which he had spent so many hours of his life at Crime Squad. Light, expensive and yet spartan in that cool modern way that is not intentionally minimalist, just somewhat soulless. A room that demands efficiency so that you can get the hell out of it.

The eight people there constituted what Bellman declared the inner core of the investigative unit. Harry knew only two of them: Bjorn Holm and a robust, down-to-earth but not very imaginative female detective known as the Pelican who had once worked at Crime Squad. Bellman had introduced Harry to everyone, including?rdal, a man in horn-rimmed glasses and a brown suit of the ready-made variety that led one’s thoughts to the German Democratic Republic. He sat at the far end of the table cleaning his nails with a Swiss army knife. Harry conjectured a background in the military police. They had given their reports. Which all supported Harry’s contention: that the case was in a rut. He noted the defensive attitude, particularly in the report on the search for Tony Leike. The officer responsible went through which passenger lists had been checked with which companies, to no avail, and which authorities in which telephone company had told them that none of their base stations had picked up signals from Leike’s phone. He informed them that no hotels in town had anyone on their books under the name of Leike, but naturally the Captain (even Harry knew the selfappointed and overenthusiastic police informant-cum-receptionist at Hotel Bristol) rang to say he had seen a person answering Tony Leike’s description. The officer gave a report that went into an impressive level of detail, but failed to notice that what emerged was a defence of the result. Zilch. Nada.

Bellman sat at the head of the table with crossed legs and trouser creases that were still as sharp as a knife. He thanked the officers for their reports and made a more formal introduction of Harry by reading quickly from a kind of CV: graduation from Police College, FBI course on serial killers in Chicago, the clown murder case in Sydney, promotion to Inspector and of course the Snowman investigation.

‘So Harry is a part of this team with effect from today,’ Bellman said. ‘He reports to me.’

‘And is subject to only your orders as well?’ the Pelican boomed. Harry recalled that what she was doing now was precisely what had given her the nickname, the way she pushed her chin forward, the long, beak-like nose and the protracted, thin neck as she peered over her glasses. Sceptical and voracious at the same time, considering whether she wanted you on the menu or not.

‘He is not subject to anyone’s orders,’ Bellman said. ‘He has a free role in the team. We may consider Inspector Hole a consultant. Isn’t that right, Harry?’

‘Why not?’ Harry said. ‘An overpaid, overrated guy who thinks he knows something you don’t.’

Cautious titters around the table. Harry exchanged glances with Bjorn Holm, who sent him a nod of encouragement.

‘Except that in this instance he does,’ Mikael Bellman said. ‘You’ve been talking to Iska Peller, Harry.’

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘But first I’d like to hear more about your plan to use her as a decoy.’

The Pelican cleared her throat. ‘It hasn’t been formulated in detail. For the time being, our plan is to bring her to Norway, make it public that she’s staying at a place where it’s obvious to the killer that she would be easy prey. And then sit back and hope he swallows the bait.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Simple.’

‘Experience tells us simplicity works,’ said the Swiss army knife man in the GDR suit concentrating on the nail of his index finger.

‘Agreed,’ Harry said. ‘But in this instance the decoy won’t play ball.’

Groans and sighs of despair.

‘So I suggest we make it even simpler,’ Harry said. ‘Iska Peller asked why, if we were paid to catch the monster, we couldn’t be the bait ourselves.’

He looked around the table. At least he had their attention. Convincing them would be harder.

‘You see, we have an advantage over the killer. We assume he has the page torn from the Havass guest book, so he has Iska Peller’s name. But he doesn’t know what she looks like. We’re working on the assumption he was at the cabin that night but Iska and Charlotte Lolles got there first. And Iska was ill and spent the evening alone in a bedroom she shared solely with Charlotte. She stayed there until all the others had left. In other words, we can set up a little role play with one of our own number acting the part of Iska, without the killer being any the wiser.’

Another sweeping scan of the table. The scepticism on their faces was layers thick.

‘And how had you envisaged getting someone to come to this performance?’?rdal asked, snapping the knife shut.

‘By Kripos doing what they do best,’ Harry said.

Silence.

‘Which is?’ asked the Pelican at length.

‘Press conferences,’ Harry said.

The silence in the room was tangible. Until the laughter shattered it. Mikael Bellman’s. They looked at their boss in astonishment. And realised that Harry Hole’s plan had already been given the go-ahead.

‘So…’ Harry began.

After the meeting Harry took Bjorn Holm aside.

‘Nose still sore?’ Harry asked.

‘That you trying to apologise?’

‘No.’

‘I… well, you were lucky my nose didn’t break, Harry.’

‘Could have been an improvement, you know.’

‘Are you apologising or not?’

‘Sorry, Bjorn.’

‘Great. And I suppose that means you want a favour?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that is?’

‘I was wondering if you’ve been to Drammen to check Adele’s clothes for DNA. She did meet this guy she was at the cabin with a few times.’

‘We’ve been through her wardrobe, but the problem is that the clothes have been washed, worn and probably been in contact with lots of other people afterwards.’

‘Mm. She wasn’t a skier as far as I know. Checked her skiing gear, have you?’

‘She didn’t have any.’

‘What about the nurse’s uniform? Perhaps it was only used once and may still have sperm stains on.’

‘She didn’t have that, either.’

‘No cheeky miniskirt and bonnet with a red cross?’

‘Nope. There was a pair of light blue hospital trousers and top there, but nothing to get you going exactly.’

‘Mm. Perhaps she couldn’t get hold of the miniskirt variety. Or couldn’t be bothered. Could you examine the hospital stuff for me?’

Holm sighed. ‘As I said, we went through all the clothes there, and whatever could be washed had been washed. Not so much as a stain or a hair.’

‘Could you take it to the lab? Give it a thorough going-over?’

‘Harry…’

‘Thanks, Bjorn. And I was only kidding, you’ve got a terrific conk. Really.’

It was four o’clock when Harry fetched Sis in the Kripos car Bellman had placed at his disposal until further notice. They drove to Rikshospital and talked to Dr Abel. Harry translated the bits Sis didn’t understand, and she shed some tears. Then they went to see their father who had been moved to another room. Sis squeezed Olav’s hand and whispered his name again and again as if to rouse him gently from sleep.

Sigurd Altman popped by, put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, not too long, and said a few words, not too many.

After dropping off Sis at her little flat by Lake Sognsvann, Harry drove to the city centre where he kept going, twisting this way and that through one-way streets, roadworks and dead ends. He drove through the red-light district, the shopping area, the drugs zone and it wasn’t until he had emerged and the town lay beneath him that he was aware he had been on his way to the German bunkers. He rang Oystein, who appeared ten minutes later, parked his taxi beside Harry’s car, opened the door, turned up the music, came over and sat on the brick wall next to Harry.

‘Coma,’ Harry said. ‘Not the worst thing that could happen, I suppose. Got a smoke?’

They sat listening to Joy Division. ‘Transmission’. Ian Curtis. Oystein had always liked singers who died young.

‘Shame I never got to talk to him after he fell ill,’ Oystein said, taking a deep drag.

‘You wouldn’t have done, however long it had taken,’ Harry said.

‘No, that’ll have to be my consolation.’

Harry laughed. Oystein sent him a sideways glance, smiled, unsure whether you were allowed to laugh when fathers lay on their deathbeds.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Oystein asked. ‘Go on a bit of a binge? I can ring Tresko and-’

‘No,’ Harry said, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘I have to work.’

‘You’d prefer death and depravity to a glass or two?’

‘You can drop by and say goodbye while he’s still breathing, you know.’

Oystein shivered. ‘Hospitals give me the creeps. Anyway, he can’t hear jackshit, can he?’

‘It wasn’t him I was thinking about, Oystein.’

Oystein screwed up his eyes against the smoke. ‘The little upbringing I had, Harry, I got from your father. D’you know that? My own dad wasn’t worth a bloody fly’s droppings. Go there tomorrow, I will.’

‘Good for you.’

He stared up at the man above him. Saw his mouth move, heard the words issuing forth, but something must have been damaged, he couldn’t assemble them into anything sensible. All he understood was that the time had come. The revenge. That he would have to pay. And in a way it was a relief.

He was sitting on the floor with his back to the large, round wood burner. His arms were forced backwards around the stove, his hands tied with two ski belts. He threw up from time to time, probably due to concussion. The bleeding had stopped and sensation had returned to his body, but there was a mist over his vision that came and went. Nonetheless, he was not beset by doubt. The voice. It was a ghost’s voice.

‘You’re going to die quite soon,’ it whispered. ‘As she did. But there is still something to gain. You see, you still have to choose how. Unfortunately, there are only two options. Leopold’s apple…’

The man held up a metal ball perforated with holes and a small loop of wire hanging from one of them.

‘Three of the girls have tasted it. None of them liked it much. But it’s pain-free and swift. And you only need to answer this: How? And who else knows? Who have you been working with? Believe me, the apple is preferable to the alternative. Which you, as an intelligent man, have probably worked out is…’

The man stood up, flailed his arms in an exaggerated manner, to keep warm, and put on a broad smile. The whisper was all there was to break the silence.

‘It’s a bit cold in here, don’t you think?’

Then he heard a scraping sound followed by a low hiss. He stared at the match. At the unwavering, yellow, tulip-shaped flame.