The Leopard (49 page)

‘I had the same idea.’

‘And what now?’ Harry took a tentative sip.

‘Look for snowmobile tracks.’

‘The local officer . . .’

‘No one knows where he is. But I’ve got us a snowmobile, map, climbing rope, ice axe, provisions. So don’t get too comfortable with that coffee, there’s snow forecast for this afternoon.’

To reach the top of the avalanche zone, the Danish hotel manager had explained that they would have to drive in a wide arc west of the Håvass cabin, but not too far north-west, where they would come into the area known as Kjeften. It had been given this name, ‘jaws’, on account of the fang-shaped rocks scattered about. Sudden crevices and precipices were carved into the plateau, making it an extremely dangerous place to roam in poor weather if you weren’t familiar with the surroundings.

It was around twelve o’clock when Harry and Bellman looked down the mountainside, where they could make out the excavation of the chimney at the bottom of the valley.

Clouds had already moved in from the west. Harry squinted to the north-west. Shadows and contours were erased without the sun.

‘It must have come from there,’ Harry said. ‘Otherwise we would have heard it whatever.’

‘Kjeften,’ Bellman said.

Two hours later, after crossing the snowscape from south to north in crab-like manner without finding any snowmobile tracks, they had a break. Sat next to each other on the seat, drinking from the Thermos Bellman had brought with them. A light covering of snow fell.

‘I once found an unused stick of dynamite on the estate in Manglerud,’ Bellman said. ‘I was fifteen years old. In Manglerud there were three things kids could do. Sport, Bible or dope. I wasn’t interested in any of them. And certainly not in sitting on the post office window ledge waiting for life to take me from hash and heroin, via glue-sniffing, to the grave. As happened to four boys in my class.’

Harry noticed how the old Manglerud patois had crept back into his Norwegian.

‘I hated all that,’ Bellman said. ‘So my first step towards policing was to take the stick of dynamite behind Manglerud church where the dopeheads had their earth bong.’

‘Earth bong?’

‘They had dug a pit in which they placed, upside down, a decapitated beer bottle with a grille inside, where the hash smoked and stank. They had laid plastic tubes under the ground, running from the pit to various points half a metre away. Then they lay on the grass around the bong each sucking on their tube. I don’t know why . . .’

‘To cool the smoke,’ Harry chortled. ‘You get more of a buzz from less dope. Not bad coming from dopeheads, that one. I’ve obviously underestimated Manglerud.’

‘Nevertheless, I pulled out one of the tubes and replaced it with dynamite.’

‘You blew up the earth bong?’

Bellman nodded, and Harry laughed.

‘Soil hailed down for thirty seconds,’ Bellman smiled.

Silence. The wind rushed, low and rasping.

‘Actually, I wanted to say thank you,’ Bellman said, looking down at his cup. ‘For getting Kaja out in the nick of time.’

Harry shrugged. Kaja. Bellman knew that Harry knew about the two of them. How? And did that mean Bellman knew about Kaja and himself, as well?

‘I had nothing else to do down there,’ Harry said.

‘Yes, you did. I looked at Jussi’s body before the helicopter took him away.’

Harry didn’t answer, just squinted through the thickening snowflakes that had begun to fall.

‘The body had a wound at the side of the neck. And there were more on both palms. From the pointed end of a ski pole perhaps. You found him first, didn’t you.’

‘Maybe,’ Harry said.

‘The neck wound had fresh blood. His heart must have been beating when he received that wound, Harry. Beating pretty strongly, too. It should have been possible to dig out a living man in time. But you prioritised Kaja, didn’t you.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘I think Kolkka was right.’ He emptied the rest of his coffee in the snow. ‘You have to choose sides,’ he quoted in Swedish.

They found the snowmobile tracks at three o’clock, a kilometre from the avalanche, between two large fang-shaped rocks, a refuge from the wind.

‘Looks like he paused here,’ Harry said, pointing along the edge of the track left by the tread of the rubber belt. ‘The vehicle has had time to sink in the snow.’ He ran his finger along the middle of the left ski runner while Bellman swept away the light, dry, drifting snow.

‘Yep,’ he said, pointing. ‘He turned here and then drove on northwest.’

‘We’re approaching the cliffs and the snow’s getting thicker,’ Harry said, looking up at the sky and taking out his phone. ‘We’ll have to ring the hotel and ask them to send a guide on a snowmobile. Shit!’

‘What?’

‘No coverage. We’ll have to make our own way back to the hotel.’

Harry studied the display. There was still the missed call from the vaguely familiar number of someone who had left those sounds on his voicemail. The last three digits, where the hell had he seen them? And then it kicked in. The detective memory. The number was in the ‘Former Suspects’ file, and was embossed on a business card.

Along with ‘Tony C. Leike, Entrepreneur’. Harry slowly raised his gaze and looked at Bellman.

‘Leike’s alive.’

‘What?’

‘At least his phone is. He tried to ring me while we were in Håvass.’

Bellman returned Harry’s gaze without blinking. Snowflakes settled on his long eyelashes and the white stains seemed to be glowing. His voice was low, almost a whisper. ‘Visibility’s good, don’t you think, Harry? And there’s no snow in the air.’

‘Exceptional visibility,’ Harry said. ‘Not a bloody flake to be seen.’

He quickly jumped back on.

They stuttered through the snowscape, a hundred metres at a time. Located the snowmobile’s probable route, swept the tracks with a broom, took bearings, surged forward. The gouge in the left runner, probably caused by an accident, meant they could be sure they were following the right scooter tracks. In a few places, in tiny hollows or on wind-blown hillcrests, the trail was clear and they could make fast progress. But not too fast. Harry had already shouted warnings about precipices twice and they had had some very close shaves. It was getting on for four now. Bellman flicked the headlights on and off, depending on how much snow was drifting in their faces. Harry studied the map. He had no clear idea of where they were, just that they were straying further and further from Ustaoset. And that daylight was dwindling. A third of Harry was slowly beginning to worry about the trip back. Which just meant that the two-third majority couldn’t care less.

At half past four they lost the trail.

The drifting snow was so thick now they could hardly see.

‘This is madness,’ Harry shouted above the roar of the motor. ‘Why don’t we wait until tomorrow?’

Bellman turned to him and answered with a smile.

At five they picked up the trail again.

They stopped and dismounted.

‘Leads that way,’ Bellman said, trudging back to the snowmobile. ‘Come on!’

‘Wait,’ Harry said.

‘Why? Come on, it’ll soon be dark.’

‘When you shouted just now, didn’t you hear the echo?’

‘Now you mention it.’ Bellman stopped. ‘Rock face?’

‘There are no rock faces on the map,’ Harry said, turning in the direction the tracks indicated.

‘Ravine!’ he yelled. And received an answer. A very swift answer. He turned back to Bellman.

‘I think the snowmobile making these tracks is in serious trouble.’

‘What do I know about Bellman?’ Roger Gjendem repeated to gain some time. ‘He’s reputed to be very competent and extremely professional.’ What was Nordbø, the legendary editor, really after? ‘He does all the right things,’ Gjendem went on. ‘Learns quickly, can handle us press types now. Sort of a
whizz-kid
. Er, that is if you know . . .’

‘I am somewhat conversant with the term, yes,’ said Bent Nordbø with an acidic smile, his right thumb and forefinger furiously rubbing the handkerchief on his glasses. ‘However, basically, I am more interested in if there any rumours doing the rounds.’

‘Rumours?’ Gjendem said, failing to notice a relapse into his old habit of leaving his mouth open after speaking.

‘I am truly hopeful you understand the concept, Gjendem. Since that is what you and your employer live off. Well?’

Gjendem hesitated. ‘There are all sorts of rumours.’

Nordbø rolled his eyes. ‘Speculation. Fabrication. Direct lies. I’m not bothered with the niceties here, Gjendem. Turn the sack of gossip inside out, reveal the malevolence.’

‘N-negative things then?’

Nordbø released a pondorous sigh. ‘Gjendem, my dear man, do you often hear rumours about people’s sobriety, financial generosity, fidelity to partners and non-psychopathic leadership styles? Could that be because the function of rumours is to please the rest of us by putting us in a better light?’ Nordbø was finished with one lens and engaged on the cleansing operation of the second.

‘It’s a very, very idle rumour,’ Gjendem said and added with alacrity: ‘And I know for certain of others with the selfsame reputation who categorically are not.’

‘As an ex-editor I would recommend you delete either
for certain
or
categorically
, it’s a tautology,’ Nordbø said. ‘Categorically are not
what
?’

‘Erm. Jealous.’

‘Aren’t we all jealous?’

‘Violently jealous.’

‘Has he beaten up his wife?’

‘No, I don’t think he’s laid a hand on her. Or had reason to. However, those who have given her a second look . . .’

61

The Drop

H
ARRY AND
B
ELLMAN LAY ON THEIR STOMACHS AT THE EDGE
where the snowmobile tracks stopped. They stared down. Steep, black rock faces sliced inwards to the ground and disappeared in the thickening swirl of snow.

‘Can you see anything?’ Bellman asked.

‘Snow,’ Harry answered, passing him the binoculars.

‘The snowmobile’s there.’ Bellman got up and walked back to their vehicle. ‘We’re climbing down.’

‘We?’

‘You.’

‘Me? Thought you were the mountaineer here, Bellman.’

‘Correct,’ said Bellman who had already started strapping on the harness. ‘That’s why it’s logical for me to operate the ropes and rope brake. The rope’s seventy metres long. I’ll lower it as far as it can go. Alright?’

Six minutes later Harry stood on the edge with his back to the chasm, binoculars around his neck and a cigarette smoking from his mouth.

‘Nervous?’ Bellman smiled.

‘Nope,’ Harry said. ‘Scared shitless.’

Bellman checked the rope ran through the brake without a hitch, round the narrow tree trunk behind them and to Harry’s harness.

Harry closed his eyes, breathed in and concentrated on leaning backwards, overriding the body’s evolution-conditioned protest, formed from millions of years of experience that the species cannot survive if it steps off cliffs.

The brain won over the body by the smallest possible margin.

For the first few metres he could support his legs against the rock face, but as it jutted in he was left hanging in the air. The rope was released in fits and starts, but its elasticity softened the tightening of the harness against his back and thighs. Then the rope came more evenly, and after a while he had lost sight of the top and was alone, hovering between the white snowflakes and the black cliff faces.

He leaned to the side and peered down. And there, twenty metres below, he glimpsed sharp black rocks protruding from the snow. Steep scree. And in the midst of all the black and white, something yellow.

‘I can see the snowmobile!’ Harry shouted and the echo ricocheted between the rock walls. It was upside down with the skis in the air. Since he and the rope were unaffected by the wind, he could judge that the vehicle lay about three metres further along. More than seventy metres down. The snowmobile must therefore have been travelling at an unusually slow speed before it took off.

The rope went taut.

‘More!’ Harry shouted.

The resonant answer from above sounded as if it had come from a pulpit. ‘There is no more rope.’

Harry stared down at the snowmobile. Something was sticking out from under it to the left. A bare arm. Black, bloated, like a sausage that had been on the grill for too long. A white hand against a black rock. He tried to focus, to force his eyes to see better. Open palm, the right hand. Fingers. Distorted, crooked. Harry’s brain rewound. What had Tony Leike said about his illness? Not contagious, just hereditary. Arthritis.

Harry glanced at his watch. Detective’s reflex. The dead man was found at 17.54. Darkness covered the walls down in the scree.

‘Up!’ Harry shouted.

Nothing happened.

‘Bellman?’

No answer.

A gust of wind twirled Harry round on the rope. Black rocks. Twenty metres. And all of a sudden, without warning, he felt his heart pound and he automatically grabbed the rope with both hands to make sure it was still there. Kaja. Bellman knew.

Harry breathed in deep, three times, before shouting again.

‘It’s getting dark, the wind’s picking up and I’m freezing my balls off, Bellman. Time to find shelter.’

Still no answer. Harry closed his eyes. Was he frightened? Frightened that an apparently rational colleague would kill him on a whim because circumstances happened to be propitious? Course he was bloody frightened. For this was no whim. It wasn’t chance that he stayed behind to go into the frozen wastes with Harry. Or was it? He took a deep breath. Bellman could easily arrange for this to look like an accident. Climb down afterwards and remove the harness and rope, say that Harry had missed his footing in the snow. His throat had gone dry. This was not happening. He hadn’t dug his way out of a sodding avalanche just to be dropped down a ravine twelve hours later. By a policeman. This didn’t bloody happen, this . . .

The pressure from the harness was gone. He was falling. Free fall. Fast.

‘The rumour is that Bellman is supposed to have manhandled a colleague,’ Gjendem said. ‘Just because the guy had danced a couple of times too many with her at the police Christmas party. The guy wanted to report a broken jaw and a cracked skull, but had no evidence – the attacker had been wearing a balaclava. But everyone knew it was Bellman. Trouble was brewing so he applied for a move to Europol to get away.’