The Leopard(169)

‘How do you know?’

‘Hah! The guy told me a few years later when we were doing time together in Ullersmo. He’d given the names and addresses of all fucking four of us, including Ulla. All that was missing was our national identity numbers. We were so bloody lucky that the case was shelved.’

Roger made feverish notes.

‘And guess who had the case at the Stovner cop shop? Guess who questioned the guy? Who in all probability recommended the case should be dropped, thrown out, shelved? Who saved Ulla’s skin?’

‘I’d like you to say, Julle.’

‘Very happy to. It was the cunt thief himself. Mikael Bellman.’

‘One last question,’ Roger said, knowing he had arrived at a critical point. Could the story be proved? Could the source be checked? ‘Have you got the name of the dealer? I mean, he’s not risking anything and his name won’t be mentioned anyway.’

‘Would I grass him up, you mean?’ Julle laughed out loud. ‘You bet your ass I will.’

He spelt the name, and Roger turned a page and wrote it in capital letters while noticing that his jaw was broadening. Into a smile. He controlled himself and put on a straight face. But he knew the taste was going to be there for a long time: the sweet taste of a scoop.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Roger said.

‘Thank you,’ said Julle. ‘Just make sure you crush that Bellman, then we’re even.’

‘Er, by the way, out of curiosity, why do you think the dealer told you he had informed on you?’

‘Because he was frightened.’

‘Frightened? Why?’

‘Because he knew too much. He wanted others to know the story in case the cop carried out his threat.’

‘Bellman threatened the informer?’

‘Not Bellman. His shadow. He said if the guy so much as mentioned Ulla’s name again he would put something in him that would shut him up. For ever.’





73


Arrest


BJØRN HOLM’S VOLVO AMAZON TURNED INTO RIKSHOSPITAL, opposite the tram stop. Sigurd Altman stood waiting with his hands in his duffel coat pockets. Harry beckoned him from the back seat. Sigurd and Bjørn said hello, and they drove onto Ringveien where they continued eastwards towards the Sinsen intersection.

Harry leaned forward between the seats.

‘It was like one of the chemistry experiments we did at school. In fact, you have all the ingredients you need to get a reaction, but you don’t have the catalyst, the external component, the spark that’s necessary to trigger it. I had the information, all I needed was something to help me assemble it in the correct fashion. My catalyst was a sick man, a murderer known as the Snowman. And a bottle on a bar shelf. Alright if I have a smoke?’

Silence.

‘I see. Well . . .’

They drove through the tunnel at Bryn, up towards the Ryen intersection and Manglerud.

Truls Berntsen stood on the old undeveloped site, looking up the slope, up to Bellman’s house.

How peculiar it was that he who had so often eaten dinner, played and slept there when they were growing up had not been there a single time since Mikael and Ulla took over the house.

The reason was obvious: he had not been invited.

He sometimes stood where he was now, in the afternoon dusk, looking up at the house to catch a glimpse of her. Her, the unattainable one no one could have. No one except him, the prince, Mikael. Now and then he wondered whether Mikael knew. Knew and that was why they didn’t invite him. Or was she the one who knew? And made it clear to Mikael, without saying as much, that this Beavis he had grown up with was not someone they needed to associate with privately. At least not now his career had finally taken off, and it was more important to move in the right circles, meet the right people, send out the right signals. It wasn’t tactically astute to surround yourself with ghosts from a past that contained things best forgotten.

Oh, he knew that. He just didn’t know why she couldn’t understand it: that he would never hurt her. The opposite. Had he not protected her and Mikael all these years? Yes, he had. He kept watch, was there for them, cleared up. Ministered to their happiness. Such was his love.

The windows up there this evening were lit. Were they having a party? Were they eating and laughing, drinking wines the Manglerud Vinmonopol had never stocked and speaking in the new way? Was she smiling and were her eyes sparkling, eyes that were so beautiful it hurt when they looked at you? Would she see more in him if he acquired money, became rich? Was that a possibility? So simple?

He stood for a while at the bottom of the explosion-riddled building site. Then he lumbered home.

Bjørn Holm’s Amazon tilted majestically around the Ryen roundabout.