The Leopard(13)

Holm swung the Amazon into the short-term car park where it stopped with a gasp, and the two men got out. Hagen turned up his coat collar, which of course did nothing to prevent the rain from bombarding his shiny pate. It was, by the way, wreathed by black hair so thick and so fertile that some suspected Gunnar Hagen of having perfectly normal hairgrowth but an eccentric hairdresser.

‘Tell me, is that jacket really waterproof ?’ Hagen asked as they strode towards the entrance.

‘Nope,’ said Holm.

Kaja Solness had called them while they were in the car and informed them that the Scandinavian Airlines plane had landed ten minutes early. And that she had lost Harry Hole.

After entering through the swing doors, Gunnar Hagen looked around, saw Kaja sitting on her suitcase by the taxi counter, signalled with a brief nod and headed for the door to the customs hall. He and Holm slipped in as it opened for passengers leaving. A guard made to stop them, but nodded, indeed almost bowed, when Hagen held up his ID card and barked a curt ‘Police’.

Hagen turned right and walked straight past the customs officials and their dogs, past the metal counters that reminded him of the trolleys at the Pathology Institute, and into the cubicle behind.

There he came to such a sudden halt that Holm walked into him from behind. A familiar voice wheezed between clenched teeth. ‘Hi, boss. Regretfully, I’m unable to stand to attention right now.’

Bjørn Holm peered over the unit leader’s shoulder.

It was a sight that would haunt him for years.

Bent over the back of a chair was the man who was a living legend not just at Oslo Police HQ but in every police station across Norway, for good or ill. A man with whom Holm himself had worked closely. But not as closely as the male customs official standing behind the legend with a latex-clad hand partially obscured by the legend’s pale white buttocks.

‘He’s mine,’ Hagen said to the official, waving his ID card. ‘Let him go.’

The official stared at Hagen and seemed reluctant to release him, but when an older officer with gold stripes on his epaulettes came in and nodded briefly with closed eyes, the customs official twisted his hand round one last time and removed it. The victim gave a loud groan.

‘Get your pants on, Harry,’ Hagen said and turned away.

Harry pulled up his trousers and said to the official peeling off the latex glove, ‘Was it good for you, too?’

Kaja Solness rose from the suitcase when her three colleagues came back through the door. Bjørn Holm went to drive the car round while Gunnar Hagen went to get something to drink from the kiosk.

‘Are you often checked?’ Kaja asked.

‘Every time,’ Harry said.

‘Don’t think I’ve ever been stopped at customs.’

‘I know.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because there are a thousand small telltale signs they look for, and you have none of them. Whereas I have at least half.’

‘Do you think customs officers are so prejudiced?’

‘Well, have you ever smuggled anything?’

‘No.’ She laughed. ‘OK then, I have. But if they’re so good, they should have seen that you’re also a policeman. And let you through.’

‘They did see.’

‘Come on. That only happens in films.’

‘They saw alright. They saw a fallen policeman.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Kaja.

Harry rummaged for his pack of cigarettes. ‘Let your eyes drift over to the taxi counter. There’s a man with narrow eyes, a bit slanted. See him?’

She nodded.

‘He’s tugged at his belt twice since we came out. As if there was something heavy hanging from it. A pair of handcuffs or a truncheon. An automatic reaction if you’ve been in patrol cars or in the custody block for a few years.’

‘I’ve worked in patrol cars, and I’ve never –’

‘He’s working for Narc now and keeps an eye open for people who look a bit too relieved after passing through customs. Or go straight to the toilet because they can’t stand having the goods up their rectum any longer. Or suitcases that change hands between a naive, helpful passenger and the smuggler who got the idiot to carry the luggage containing all the dope through customs.’

She tilted her head and squinted at Harry with a little smile playing on her lips. ‘Or he might be a normal guy whose pants keep slipping down, and he’s waiting for his mother. And you’re mistaken.’

‘Certainly,’ said Harry, looking at his watch and the clock on the wall. ‘I’m always making mistakes. Is that really the time?’

The Volvo Amazon glided onto the motorway as the street lights came on.