The Leopard (31 page)

‘Sounds reasonable, but I’m afraid we don’t have any names. Or addresses.’

‘Well then,’ Leike said, buttoning up his woollen coat. ‘I’m afraid I can’t be of much help, can I. Except that you can cross my name off.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Since you’re here, I’ve got a couple more questions. So long as you have time?’

‘I’m my own boss,’ Leike said. ‘For the time being, anyway.’

‘OK. You say you have a murky past. Could you give me a rough idea of what you mean?’

‘I tried to kill a guy,’ Leike said without embellishment.

‘I see,’ Harry said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Why was that?’

‘Because he attacked me. He maintained I’d stolen his girl. The truth was that she was neither his girl nor wanted to be, and I don’t steal girls. I don’t have to.’

‘Mm. He caught you two in the act and hit her, did he?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m trying to understand what sort of situation may have led to you trying to kill him. If you mean it literally, that is.’

‘He hit
me
. And that was why I did my best to kill him. With a knife. And I was well on the way to succeeding when a couple of my pals dragged me off him. I was convicted for aggravated assault. Which is pretty cheap for attempted murder.’

‘You realise that what you’re saying now could make you a prime suspect?’

‘In
this
case?’ Leike looked askance at Harry. ‘You kidding me? You lot have a bit more nous than that, don’t you?’

‘If you’ve wanted to kill once . . .’

‘I’ve wanted to kill several times. I assume I’ve done it, too.’

‘Assume?’

‘It’s not so easy to see black men in the jungle at night. For the most part you shoot indiscriminately.’

‘And you did that?’

‘In my depraved youth, yes. After paying for my crime, I went into the army and from there straight to South Africa and got a job as a mercenary.’

‘Mm. So you were a mercenary in South Africa?’

‘Three years. And South Africa is just the place where I enlisted; the fighting took place in the surrounding countries. There was always war, always a market for pros, especially for whites. The blacks still think we’re smarter, you know. They trust white officers more than their own.’

‘Perhaps you’ve been to the Congo, too?’

Tony Leike’s right eyebrow formed a black chevron. ‘How so?’

‘Went there a while back, so I wondered.’

‘It was called Zaire then. But most of the time we weren’t sure which bloody country we were in. It was just green, green, green and then black, black, black until the sun rose again. I worked for a so-called security firm at some diamond mines. That was where I learned to read a map and compass from a head torch. The compass is a waste of time there, too much metal in the mountains.’

Tony Leika leaned back in his chair. Relaxed and unafraid, Harry noted.

‘Talking of metal,’ Harry said, ‘think I read somewhere that you’ve got a mining business down there.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What sort of metal?’

‘Heard of coltan?’

Harry nodded slowly. ‘Used in mobile phones.’

‘Exactly. And in games consoles. When world mobile phone production took off in the nineties my troops and I were on a mission in the north-east of the Congo. Some Frenchmen and some natives ran a mine there, employing kids with pickaxes and spades to dig out the coltan. It looks like any old stone but you use it to produce tantalum, which is the element that’s really valuable. And I knew that if I could just get someone to finance me I could run a proper, modern mining business and make my partners and myself wealthy men.’

‘And that was what happened?’

Tony Leike laughed. ‘Not quite. I managed to borrow money, was screwed by slippery partners and lost everything. Borrowed more money, was screwed again, borrowed even more and earned a bit.’

‘A bit?’

‘A few million to pay off debts. But I had a network of contacts and some headlines, as of course I was counting chickens before they hatched, which was enough to be adopted into the circle where the big money was. To become a member, it’s the number of digits in your fortune that counts, not whether there’s a plus or minus in front.’ Leike laughed again, a hearty ringing laugh, and it was all Harry could do to restrain a smile.

‘And now?’

‘Now we’re waiting for the big coup because it’s time for coltan to be harvested. Yes indeed, I’ve said it for long enough, but this time it’s true. I’ve had to sell my shares in the project in exchange for call options so that I could pay my debts. Now things are set fair, and all I have to do is get hold of money to redeem my shares so that I can become a full partner again.’

‘Mm. And the money?’

‘Someone will see the sense in lending me the money against a small share. The return is enormous, the risk minimal. And all the big investments have been made, including local bribes. We have even cleared a runway into the jungle so that we can load directly on to freight planes and get the stuff out via Uganda. Are you wealthy, Harry? I can see if there’s any chance for you to have a slice of the action.’

Harry shook his head. ‘Been to Stavanger recently, Leike?’

‘Hm. In the summer.’

‘Not since then?’

Leike gave the question some thought, then shook his head.

‘You’re not absolutely sure?’ Harry asked.

‘I’m presenting my project to potential investors, and that means a lot of travelling. Must have been to Stavanger three or four times this year, but not since the summer, I don’t think.’

‘What about Leipzig?’

‘Is this the point where I have to ask whether I need a solicitor, Harry?’

‘I just want you eliminated from the case as soon as possible, so that we can concentrate on more relevant issues.’ Harry ran his forefinger across the bridge of his nose. ‘If you don’t want the media to catch wind of this, I assume you won’t want to involve a solicitor, or to be summoned to formal interviews, etc?’

Leike nodded slowly. ‘You’re right, of course. Thank you for your advice, Harry.’

‘Leipzig?’

‘Sorry,’ Leike said, with genuine regret in his voice and face. ‘Never been there. Should I have been?’

‘Mm. I also have to ask you where you were on certain days and what you were doing.’

‘Carry on.’

Harry dictated the four dates in question while Leike wrote them into a Moleskine notebook.

‘I’ll check as soon as I’m in my office,’ he said. ‘Here’s my number by the way.’ He passed Harry a business card with the inscription
Tony C. Leike, Entrepreneur
.

‘What does the C stand for?’

‘You tell me,’ Leike said, getting to his feet. ‘Tony’s only short for Anthony of course, so I thought I needed an initial. Gives a bit more gravitas, don’t you think? Think foreigners like it.’

Instead of taking the culvert, Harry accompanied Leike up the stairs to the prison, knocked on the glass window and a guard came and let them in.

‘Feels like I’m taking part in an episode with the Olsen Gang,’ Leike said when they were standing on the gravel path outside old Botsen Prison’s fairly imposing walls.

‘It’s a little more discreet like this,’ Harry said. ‘You’re beginning to become a recognisable face, and staff are arriving for work now at Police HQ.’

‘Talking of faces, I see someone has broken your jaw.’

‘Must have fallen and hit myself.’

Leike shook his head and smiled. ‘I know something about broken jaws. That one’s from a fight. You’ve just let it grow together again, I can see. You should go and have it seen to, it’s not a big job.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘Did you owe them a lot of money?’

‘Do you know something about that, too?’

‘Yes!’ Leike exclaimed, his eyes widening. ‘Unfortunately.’

‘Mm. One last thing, Leike—’

‘Tony. Or Tony C.’ Leike flashed his shiny masticatory apparatus. Like someone without a care in the world, Harry thought.

‘Tony. Have you ever been to Lake Lyseren? The one in Øst—?’

‘Yes, of course. Are you crazy!’ Tony laughed. ‘The Leike farm is in Rustad. I went to my grandfather’s there every summer. Lived there for a couple of years, too. Fantastic place, isn’t it? Why d’you want to know?’ His smile vanished at once. ‘Oh, shit, that’s where you found the woman! Bit of a coincidence, eh?’

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘it’s not so unlikely. Lyseren is a big lake.’

‘True enough. Thanks again, Harry.’ Leike proffered his hand. ‘And if any names crop up to do with the Håvass cabin, or someone comes forward, just ring me and I’ll see if I can remember them. Full cooperation, Harry.’

Harry watched himself shake hands with the man he had just decided had killed six people in the last three months.

* * *

Fifteen minutes had passed since Leike left when Katrine Bratt rang.

‘Yes?’

‘Negative on four of them,’ she said.

‘And the fifth?’

‘One hit. Deep in digital information’s innermost intestinal tract.’

‘Poetic.’

‘You’ll like it. On the 16th of February Elias Skog was called by a number that is not registered in anyone’s name. A secret number, in other words. And that could be the reason that Oslo—’

‘Stavanger.’

‘—Police haven’t seen the link before. But inside the innermost intestines—’

‘By which you mean on Telenor’s internal, highly protected register?’

‘Something like that. The name of one Tony Leike, Holmenveien 172, turned up as the invoiced subscriber for this secret number.’

‘Yess!’ Harry shouted. ‘You’re an angel.’

‘Poorly chosen metaphor, I believe. Since you sound as if I’ve just sentenced a man to life imprisonment.’

‘Talk to you later.’

‘Wait! Don’t you want to hear about Jussi Kolkka?’

‘I’d almost forgotten about that. Shoot.’

She shot.

40

The Offer

H
ARRY FOUND
K
AJA IN
C
RIME
S
QUAD, IN THE RED ZONE ON
the sixth floor. She perked up when she noticed Harry standing in the doorway.

‘Always got an open door?’ he asked.

‘Always. And you?’

‘Closed. Always. But I can see you’ve thrown out the guest’s chair. Smart move. People like to chew the fat.’

She laughed. ‘Doing anything exciting?’

‘In a way,’ he said, entering and leaning against the wall.

She placed both hands against the edge of her desk, pushed, and she and the chair sailed across the floor to the filing cabinet. There, she opened a drawer, pulled out a letter and presented it to Harry. ‘Thought you’d like to see this.’

‘What is it?’

‘The Snowman. His solicitor has applied for him to be transferred from Ullersmo to a normal hospital for health reasons.’

He perched on the edge of the desk and read. ‘Mm. Scleroderma. It’s progressing fast. Not too fast, I hope. He doesn’t deserve that.’

He looked up and saw that she was shocked.

‘My great-aunt died of scleroderma,’ she said. ‘A terrible disease.’

‘And a terrible man,’ Harry said. ‘Incidentally, I quite agree with those who say that the capacity to forgive says something about the essential quality of a person. I’m the lowest grade.’

‘I didn’t mean to criticise you.’

‘I promise to be better in my next life,’ Harry said, looking down and rubbing his neck. ‘Which, if the Hindus are right, will probably be as a bark beetle. But I’ll be a
nice
bark beetle.’

He looked up and saw that what Rakel called his ‘damned boyish charm’ was having an effect. ‘Listen, Kaja, I’ve come here to make you an offer.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ Harry heard the solemnity in his voice. The voice of a man with no capacity to forgive, no consideration, no thoughts for anything except his own objectives. And plied the inverted persuasion technique that had worked for him far too often. ‘Which I would recommend you decline. I have, you see, a tendency to destroy the lives of those I become involved with.’

To his astonishment, he saw that her face had flushed scarlet.

‘But I don’t think it would be right to do this without you,’ he continued. ‘Not now that we’re so close.’

‘Close … to what?’ The blushes had gone.

‘Close to apprehending the guilty party. I’m on my way to the police solicitor now to request a warrant for his arrest.’

‘Oh … of course.’

‘Of course?’

‘I mean, arrest whom?’ She heaved herself back to the desk. ‘For what?’

‘Our killer, Kaja.’

‘Really?’ He watched her pupils grow, slowly, pulsating. And knew what was going on inside her. The blood rush before bringing down, felling the wild animal. The arrest. Which would be on her CV. How could she resist?

Harry nodded. ‘His name is Tony Leike.’

The colour returned to her cheeks. ‘Sounds familiar.’

‘He’s about to marry the daughter of—’

‘Oh yes, he’s engaged to the Galtung girl.’ She frowned. ‘Do you mean to say you have evidence?’

‘Circumstantial. And coincidences.’

He saw her pupils contract again.

‘I’m sure this is our man, Kaja.’

‘Convince me,’ she said, and he could hear the hunger. The desire to swallow everything raw, to have a pretext for taking the craziest decision of her life so far. And he had no intention of protecting her against herself. For he needed her. She was media-perfect: young, intelligent, a woman, ambitious. With an appealing face and record. In short, she had everything he did not have. She was a Jeanne d’Arc the Justice Ministry would not want to burn at the stake.

Harry breathed in. Then he repeated the conversation he had had with Tony Leike. In detail. Without wondering at how he was able to reproduce what had been said word for word. His colleagues had always considered this ability remarkable.

‘Håvass cabin, Congo and Lake Lyseren,’ Kaja said after he had finished. ‘He’s been to all the places.’

‘Yes, and he’s been convicted for violence. And he admits his intention was to kill.’

‘Great. But—’

‘The really great bit comes now. He rang Elias Skog. Two days before he was found murdered.’

Her pupils were black suns.