The Leopard hh-8 Read online

‘What for? It’s clouded over and without moonlight we can’t see a-’

  ‘If we can’t see, neither can he,’ Harry said. ‘So keep a lookout for a head torch.’

  The man had switched off the head torch. He didn’t need any light, he knew where the ski trail he was following led. To the Tourist Association cabin. And his eyes would get used to the dark, he would have large, light-sensitive pupils before he arrived. There it was, the log wall with black windows. As though no one were at home. The new snow creaked as the man kicked off and slid down the last few metres. He stopped and listened to the silence for a couple of seconds before soundlessly unclipping his skis. He took out the large, heavy Sami knife with the intimidating boat-shaped blade and the smooth, varnished yellow wooden hilt. It was as good at cutting down branches for a fire as carving up a reindeer. Or slitting throats.

  The man opened the door as quietly as he could and entered the hall. Stood listening at the sitting-room door. Silence. Too silent? He pressed the handle and threw open the door while standing back against the wall next to the doorway. Then – to make the target as elusive and small as possible – he crouched down and rushed into the darkness with the knife to the fore.

  He glimpsed the figure of the dead man sitting on the floor with his head hanging and arms still embracing the stove.

  He returned the knife to its sheath and switched on the light by the sofa. It hadn’t struck him until now that the sofa was identical to the one at the Havass cabin. The Tourist Association must have got a discount on a job lot. But the sofa cover was old, the cabin had been closed for several years, and it was in much too dangerous an area: there had been accidents with people plunging down cliff faces while trying to find the cabin.

  Next to the wood burner, the dead man’s head rose slowly.

  ‘Sorry to burst in on you like this.’ He checked that the chains holding the dead man’s hands shackled around the stove were as they should be.

  Then he began to unpack his rucksack. He had pulled his hat down and had been in and out of the shop in Ustaoset in a flash. Biscuits. Bread. Papers. Which had more about the press conference. And this witness at the Havass cabin.

  ‘Iska Peller,’ he said aloud. ‘Australian. She’s at the Havass cabin. What do you think? Could she have seen anything?’

  The other man’s vocal cords could hardly move enough air for them to make a sound. ‘Police. Police at cabin.’

  ‘I know. It’s in the papers. One detective.’

  ‘They’re there. The police have rented the cabin.’

  ‘Oh?’ He looked at the other man. Had the police set a trap? And was this bastard in front of him trying to help him, to save him from falling into it? The very idea angered him. But this woman must have seen something anyway, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought her all this way from Australia. He grabbed the poker.

  ‘Fuck, you stink. Have you shat your pants?’

  The dead man’s head slumped onto his chest. The dead man had obviously moved in here. There were a few personal possessions in the drawers. A letter. Some tools. Some old family photographs. Passport. As if the dead man were planning an escape, thinking he could recover somewhere else. Other than down there, down to the flames where he would be tortured for his sins. Even though he had begun to think that the dead man might not have been behind all the devilry after all. There are limits to how much pain a man can stand before he talks.

  He checked the phone again. No coverage, shit!

  And what a stench. The storehouse. He would have to hang him out to dry there. That was what you did with smoked meat.

  Kaja had gone to her bedroom, and he hoped she would catch some shut-eye before it was her watch.

  Kolkka poured the percolated coffee into his own and then Harry’s cup.

  ‘Thanks,’ Harry said, staring into the darkness.

  ‘Wooden skis,’ Kolkka said, standing by the fireplace and inspecting Harry’s skis.

  ‘My father’s,’ Harry said. He had found the ski equipment in the cellar at Oppsal. The poles were new and made of some metal alloy that seemed to weigh less than air. Harry had for a moment wondered whether the hollow pole might have been filled with helium. But the skis were the same old broad mountain ones.

  ‘When I was small we went to my grandfather’s cabin in Lesja every Easter. There was this peak my dad always wanted to climb. So he told my sister and me that there was a kiosk at the top where they sold Pepsi, which was my sister’s favourite drink. So if we could manage the last slope, then we…’

  Kolkka nodded and ran a hand over the back of the white skis. Harry took a swig of the fresh coffee.

  ‘Sis always managed to forget from Easter to Easter that it was the same old bluff. And I always wished I could have done the same. But I was lumbered with remembering everything that Dad instilled in me. The mountain code, how to use nature as a compass and how to survive avalanches. Norwegian kings and queens, the Chinese dynasties and American presidents.’

  ‘They’re good skis,’ Kolkka said.

  ‘Bit too short.’

  Kolkka sat by the window at the other end of the room. ‘Yes, you think it will never happen. Your father’s skis being too short for you.’

  Harry waited. Waited. Then it came.

  ‘I thought she was so wonderful,’ Kolkka said. ‘And I thought she liked me. Strange. I only touched her breasts. She didn’t put up any resistance. I suppose she must have been scared.’

  Harry succeeded in curbing his urge to leave the room.

  ‘You’re right,’ Kolkka said. ‘You’re loyal to those who raise you from the rubbish heap. Even though you can see they’re using you. What else can you do? You have to choose sides.’

  When Harry realised the conversational tap had been turned off, he got up and went to the kitchen. He went through all the cupboards in a vain attempt to find what he knew was not here, a kind of desperate diversion from the shouting inside his head. ‘A drink, just one.’

  He had been given a chance. One. The ghost had undone his chains, lifted him up, sworn because of the stench of shit and helped him into the bathroom, where he had dropped him on the shower floor and turned on the water. The ghost had stood there for a moment watching him while trying to make a mobile phone call, cursed the lack of coverage and then gone back into the sitting room where he heard him trying again.

  He wanted to cry. He had moved up here, hidden himself away so that no one would be able to find him. Installed himself in the mothballed Tourist Association cabin, taken with him what he needed. Thought he was safe among the precipices. Safe from the ghost. He didn’t cry. For as the water seeped through his clothes, soaking the remains of the red flannel shirt stuck to his back, it dawned on him that this was his chance. His mobile phone was in the pocket of his trousers, folded on the chair beside the sink.

  He tried to get to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t respond. Didn’t matter, it was only a few metres to the chair. He put his scorched black arms on the floor, defied the pain and dragged himself forward, heard the blisters pop, noticed the smell, but in two lunges he was there, searching his pockets, grabbing his phone. He had saved that policeman’s number, mostly so that he would recognise it on the display if he called.

  He pressed the call button. The phone seemed to be drawing breath in the tiny eternity between each ring. One chance. The shower was making too much noise for the man to hear him speak. There! He heard the policeman’s voice. He interrupted him with his hoarse whisper, but the voice continued regardless. And he realised he was talking to voicemail. He waited for the voice to finish, squeezed the phone, felt the skin on his hand tear, but didn’t let go. Couldn’t let go. Had to leave a message about… finish for Christ’s sake, come on, beeps!

  He hadn’t heard him come in, the shower had drowned his light steps. The phone was seized from his hand, and he had time to see the ski boot coming.

  When he regained consciousness, the man was standing over him and studying his phone with inter
est.

  ‘So you’ve got coverage?’

  The man left the bathroom dialling a number, then the noise of the shower drowned everything. But not long after he was back.

  ‘We’re going on a journey. You and I.’ The man seemed to be in a good mood all of a sudden. The man was holding a passport in one hand. His passport. In the other hand he was holding the pliers from the toolbox.

  ‘Open wide.’

  He swallowed. Lord Jesus, have mercy.

  ‘Open wide, I said!’

  ‘Mercy. I swear I’ve told you everything I-’ He didn’t say any more because a hand had grabbed him around the throat and stopped the supply of air. He fought for a while. Then at last came the tears. And then he opened wide.

  57

  Thunder

  Under the glare of the lamp, Bjorn Holm and Beate Lonn were standing by the steel table in the laboratory staring at the navy blue ski pants before them.

  ‘That is definitely a semen stain,’ Beate said.

  ‘Or a line of semen,’ Bjorn Holm said. ‘Look at the shape.’

  ‘Too little for an ejaculation. Looks like an erect, wet penis has been shoved up the bottom of the person wearing the ski pants. You said Bruun was homosexual, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but he says he hasn’t worn them since he lent them to Adele.’

  ‘Then I would say we have semen stains typical of a rape. We’ll just have to send them for DNA testing, Bjorn.’

  ‘Agreed. What do you think about that?’ Holm pointed to the light blue hospital trousers, to two friction marks under both back pockets.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something that won’t go away in the wash at any rate. It’s a nonylphenol-based material called PSG. It’s used in car cleaning products, among other things.’

  ‘She’s obviously been sitting somewhere.’

  ‘Not just sitting, it’s deep in the fibre. She’s been rubbing. Hard. Like this.’ He thrust his hips backwards and forwards.

  ‘I see. Any theories as to why?’

  She put on her glasses and looked at Holm as his mouth distorted into a variety of shapes to articulate expressions his brain generated and immediately rejected.

  ‘Dry humping?’ Beate asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Holm said, with relief.

  ‘I see. And where and when does a woman who doesn’t work at a hospital wear hospital gear and dry hump on PSG?’

  ‘Simple,’ said Bjorn Holm. ‘At a nocturnal rendezvous in a disused PSG factory.’

  The clouds parted, and again they were bathed in the magic blue light in which everything, even the shadows, became phosphorised, frozen as if for a still life.

  Kolkka had gone to bed, but Harry presumed the Finn was lying in the bedroom with his eyes open and his other senses on maximum alert.

  Kaja sat by the window with her chin resting on her hand looking out. She was wearing her white jumper as they only had electric radiators. They had agreed it might look suspicious if smoke was coming from the chimney all the time when apparently there were just two people there.

  ‘If you ever miss the starry sky over Hong Kong, look outside now,’ Kaja said.

  ‘I can’t remember any starry sky,’ Harry said, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Isn’t there anything about Hong Kong you miss?’

  ‘Li Yuan’s glass noodles,’ Harry said. ‘Every day.’

  ‘Are you in love with me?’ She had lowered her voice only a fraction and was looking at him attentively while tying an elastic band around her hair.

  Harry examined his feelings. ‘Not right now.’

  She laughed, her face expressing surprise. ‘Not right now? What does that mean?’

  ‘That that part of me is tuned out as long as we’re here.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re damaged goods, Hole.’

  ‘About that,’ Harry said with a crooked smile, ‘there is little doubt.’

  ‘And what about when this job is over in -’ she looked at her watch – ‘ten hours?’

  ‘Then I may be in love with you again,’ Harry said, placing his hand next to hers on the table. ‘If not before.’

  She looked at their hands. Saw how much bigger his were. How much more delicately shaped hers were. How much paler and how gnarled his were, with thick blood vessels twisting and turning all over the back of his hand.

  ‘So you could be in love before the job is over after all, eh?’ She placed her hand on his.

  ‘I meant the job could be over before-’

  She withdrew her hand.

  Harry looked at her in surprise. ‘I just meant-’

  ‘Listen!’

  Harry held his breath and listened. But heard nothing.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Sounded like a car,’ Kaja said, peering out. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Unlikely, in my opinion,’ Harry said. ‘It’s more than ten kilometres to the nearest road open in winter. What about a helicopter? Or a snowmobile?’

  ‘Or what about my overactive imagination?’ Kaja sighed. ‘The sound’s gone. And, on reflection, perhaps it was never there. Sorry, but you can easily become a bit oversensitive when you’re afraid and-’

  ‘No,’ Harry said, getting up. ‘Suitably afraid. Suitably sensitive. Describe what you heard.’ Harry took his revolver from his shoulder holster and went to the second window.

  ‘Nothing, I keep telling you!’

  Harry opened the window a fraction. ‘Your hearing’s better than mine. Listen for both of us.’

  They sat listening to the silence. Minutes passed.

  ‘Harry…’

  ‘Shhh.’

  ‘Come and sit down again, Harry.’

  ‘He’s here,’ Harry said, half aloud as though talking to himself. ‘He’s here now.’

  ‘Harry, now it’s you who’s being oversensi-’

  There was a muffled boom. The sound was low, deep, sort of slow, no forward thrust, like distant thunder. But Harry knew that thunder seldom occurred with a clear sky at seven degrees below zero.

  He held his breath.

  And then he heard it. Another roar, different from the boom, but this too was a low frequency, like the sound waves from a bass speaker, sound waves that move air, that are felt in the stomach. Harry had heard this sound only once before, but he knew he would remember it for the rest of his life.

  ‘Avalanche!’ Harry yelled and ran towards Kolkka’s bedroom, which faced the mountainside. ‘Avalanche!’

  The bedroom door opened and there was Kolkka, wide awake. They could feel the ground shaking. It was a big avalanche. Whether the cabin had a cellar or not, Harry knew they would never have been able to make it there. For behind Kolkka fragments of glass from what had once been a window flew past, forced in by the air that avalanches push ahead of them.

  ‘Take my hand!’ Harry shouted above the roar and stretched out his hands, one to Kaja and one to Kolkka. He saw them race towards him as the air was sucked out of the cabin, as if the avalanche had breathed out first and then in. He felt Kolkka’s hand squeeze his hard and waited for Kaja’s. Then the wall of snow hit the cabin.

  58

  Snow

  It was deafeningly quiet and pitch black. Harry tried to move. Impossible. His body seemed to be cast in plaster, he couldn’t move one single limb. Indeed, he had actually done what his father had told him: held a hand in front of his face to make room for an air pocket. But he didn’t know if there was any air in it. Because Harry couldn’t breathe. And he knew the reason why. Constrictive pericarditis. What Olav Hole had explained happened when the chest and diaphragm were packed together so tight by snow that the lungs were unable to function. Which meant you had only the oxygen that was already in your blood, about a litre, and with normal consumption, at around 0.25 litres a minute, you would die within four minutes. Panic struck: he had to have air, had to breathe! Harry tensed his body, but the snow was like a boa constrictor that responded by tightening its grip. He knew he had t
o fight the panic, had to be able to think. And think now. The world outside had ceased to exist; time, gravity, temperature didn’t exist. Harry had no idea what was up or down or how long he had been in the snow. Another of his father’s wisdoms whirled through his brain. To find your bearings and determine which way you are lying, dribble saliva from your mouth and feel which way it runs down your face. He ran his tongue around his palate. Knew it was fear, the adrenalin that had dried out his mouth. He opened wide and used the fingers in front of his face to scrabble some snow into his mouth. Chewed, opened again and let the melted ice dribble out. He panicked instantly and jerked as his nostrils filled with water. Closed his mouth and snorted the water out again. Snorted out what was left of the air in his lungs. He was going to die soon.

  The water had told him he was upside down, the jerk had told him it was possible to move after all. He tried another jerk, tautened his whole body in a spasm, felt the snow give a little. A little. Enough to escape from the stranglehold of constrictive pericarditis? He breathed in. Got some air. Not enough. The brain must already have been suffering from a lack of oxygen, nevertheless he clearly recalled his father’s words from the Easters up in Lesja. In an avalanche where you can hardly breathe you don’t die from a lack of air but from too much CO2 in your blood. His other hand had met something, something hard, something that felt like wire mesh. Olav Hole: ‘In snow you’re like a shark, you’ll die if you don’t move. Even though the snow is loose enough for some air to come in, the heat of your breath and body soon forms a layer of ice around you, which means air won’t come in and the poisonous carbon dioxide in your breath can’t get out. You are simply making your own ice coffin. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, but take it easy, will you? This is Lesja, not the Himalayas.’

  Mum’s laughter from the kitchen.

  Harry knew the cabin was filled with snow. And that above him was a roof. And above that probably more snow again. There was no way out. Time was ticking. It would end here.

  He had prayed that he wouldn’t wake up again. That next time he slipped into unconsciousness would be the last. He was hanging upside down. His head was throbbing as if it would explode. It must have been all the blood filling it.