The Leopard(120)

‘Perhaps that made it easier for you to betray me. Knowing I had used you.’

She slowly shook her head. ‘No, Harry. It didn’t make it easier. Perhaps it should have done, but . . .’

‘But?’

She shrugged. ‘Passing on this message is the last favour I do for Mikael.’

‘Oh?’

‘Then I’m going to tell him I won’t see him any more.’

The kettle’s rumbling noises stopped.

‘I should have done this a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I have no intention of asking you to forgive me for what I’ve done, Harry, that’s too much to ask. But I thought I would tell you face to face so that you can understand. That’s actually why I’ve come to see you now. To tell you that I did it out of stupid, stupid love. Love corrupted me. And I didn’t think I was corruptible.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I deceived you, Harry. I don’t know what to say. Except that deceiving myself feels even worse.’

‘We’re all corruptible,’ Harry said. ‘We just demand different prices. And different currencies. Yours is love. Mine is anaesthetisation. And do you know what … ?’

The kettle sang again, this time an octave higher.

‘… I think it makes you a better person than me. Coffee?’

He spun right round and stared at the figure. It was standing straight in front of him, unmoving, as if it had been there a long time, as if it were his shadow. It was so quiet; all he could hear was his own breathing. Then he sensed a movement, something being lifted in the dark, heard a low whistle through the air, and at that moment a strange thought struck him. The figure was just that, his very own shadow. He . . .

The thought appeared to falter, time was dislocated, the visual connection was broken for a second.

He stared before him in amazement and felt a hot bead of sweat run down his forehead. He spoke, but the words were meaningless, there was a fault in the connection between brain and mouth. Again he heard a low whistle. Then the sound was gone. All sound – he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. And he discovered that he was kneeling and that the telephone was on the floor beside him. Ahead, a white stripe of moonlight ran across the coarse floorboards, but it vanished when the sweat reached the bridge of his nose, ran into his eyes and blinded him. And he understood it was not sweat.

The third blow felt like an icicle being driven through his head, throat and into his body. Everything froze.

I don’t want to die, he thought, and tried to raise a protective arm over his head, but he was unable to move a single limb, and realised he was paralysed.

He didn’t register the fourth blow, but from the wood smell he concluded he was lying face down on the floor. He blinked several times and sight returned to one eye. Directly in front of him he saw a pair of ski boots. And slowly sounds returned; his heaving gasps, the other’s calm breathing, the blood dripping from his nose onto the floorboards. The other’s voice was a mere whisper, but the words seemed to be screamed into his ear. ‘Now there’s only one of us.’

As the clock struck two they were still sitting in the kitchen talking.

‘The eighth guest,’ Harry said, pouring more coffee. ‘Close your eyes. How does he appear to you? Quick, don’t think.’

‘He’s full of hatred,’ Kaja said. ‘Angry. Out of balance, nasty. The kind of guy women like Adele run into, check out and reject. He’s got piles of pornographic magazines and films at home.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know. His asking Adele to go to an empty factory dressed in a nurse’s uniform.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s effeminate.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, high-pitched voice. Adele said he reminded her of her gay flatmate when he spoke.’ She drew her cup to her mouth and smiled. ‘Or perhaps he’s a film actor. With a squeaky voice and a pout. I still can’t remember the name of the macho actor with the feminine voice.’

Harry held up his cup in a toast. ‘And the things I told you about Elias Skog and the late-night incident outside the cabin. Who were they? Had he witnessed a rape?’

‘It wasn’t Marit Olsen, anyway,’ Kaja said.

‘Mm. Why not?’

‘Because she was the only fat woman there, so Elias Skog would have recognised her and used her name when describing the scene.’

‘Same conclusion I came to. But was it rape, do you think?’

‘Sounds like it. He put his hand over her mouth, stifled her cries, pulled her inside the toilet, what else could it have been?’

‘But why didn’t Elias Skog think it was rape straight off ?’