Free The Leopard by Jo Nesbø Page B

was found on both victims. Coltan. Wasn’t Schwarzenegger’s Terminator made of that?
    Harry realised he was wide awake now and found himself perching on the edge of the chair. He felt the stirrings, the excitement. And the nausea. Like when he took his first drink, the one that made his stomach turn, the one his body desperately rejected. And soon he would be begging for more. More and more. Until it destroyed him and everyone around him. As this was doing. Harry jumped up so quickly he went dizzy, grabbed the file, knew it was too thick, but still managed to tear it in two.
    He picked up the bits of paper and took them back to the refuse container. Let them fall down the side and lifted the plastic bags so that the documents slipped right down, to the very bottom. The dustcart would be round tomorrow or the day after, he hoped.
    Harry went back and sat down in the green chair.
    As night softened into a greyish hue, he heard the first sounds of a waking town. But over the regular drone of the first rush-hour traffic in Pilestredet, he could also hear a distant, reedy police siren gyrating through the frequencies. Could be anything. He heard another siren winding up. Anything. And then another. No, not anything.
    The landline telephone rang.
    Harry lifted the receiver.
    ‘Hagen speaking. We’ve just received a mess—’
    Harry put down the phone.
    It rang again. Harry looked out of the window. He hadn’t rung Sis. Why not? Because he didn’t want to show himself to his little sister – his most enthusiastic, most unconditional admirer. The woman who had what she called ‘a touch of Down’s syndrome’ and still coped with her life immeasurably better than he did his own. She was the only person he could not allow himself to disappoint.
    The telephone stopped ringing. And started again.
    Harry snatched at the phone. ‘No, boss. The answer is no, I don’t want the job.’
    The other end of the line was quiet for a second. Then an unfamiliar voice said, ‘Oslo Energy here. Herr Hole?’
    Harry cursed to himself. ‘Yes?’
    ‘You haven’t paid the bills we sent you, and you haven’t responded to our final demands. I’m ringing to say we are cutting off the electricity supply to Sofies gate 5 from midnight tonight.’
    Harry didn’t answer.
    ‘We will only reconnect when we’ve received the outstanding amount.’
    ‘And that is?’
    ‘With fees for reminders and disconnection, plus interest, it’s fourteen thousand, four hundred and sixty-three kroner.’
    Silence.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘I’m here. I’m a bit out of pocket right now.’
    ‘The outstanding amount will be recovered by our debt collection agency. In the meantime we’ll have to hope the temperature doesn’t fall below zero. Won’t we?’
    ‘We will,’ Harry confirmed, and rang off.
    The sirens outside rose and fell.
    Harry went for a lie-down. He lay there for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed before giving up, getting dressed again and leaving the flat to catch a tram to Rikshospital.

11
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    When I woke up this morning, I knew I had been there again. In the dream it is always like that: we are lying on the ground, blood is flowing, and when I glance to the side, she’s there looking at us. She looks at me with sorrow in her eyes, as if it is only now that she has discovered who I am, only now that she has unmasked me, seen that I am not the man she wants .
    Breakfast was excellent. It’s on teletext. ‘Woman MP found dead in diving pool at Frogner Lido.’ The news sites are full of it. Print out, snip, snip .
    Before very long the first websites will publish the name. Thus far the so-called police investigation has been such a ridiculous farce that it has been irritating rather than exciting. But this time they will invest all their resources, they won’t play at investigation the way they did with Borgny and Charlotte. After all, Marit Olsen was an MP. It’s time this was stopped. Because I have appointed the next victim