The Leopard(192)
‘No one knew about it?’
She took the kitchen paper and wiped her nose. ‘It’s strange how easy it is to deceive people when they want to be deceived. And if they are not deceived, they don’t let it show. That didn’t matter much to me. I had only been a womb to produce an heir for the Galtungs, so what?’
‘Was that it?’
She shrugged. ‘No. After all, I had Lene. Nursed her, fed her, changed her nappies, slept by her. Taught her to speak, brought her up. But we all knew it was short-term. One day I would have to let go.’
‘Did you?’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Can a mother ever let go? A daughter can let go. Lene despises me for what I’ve done. For what I am. But look at her. Now she’s doing the same.’
‘Following the wrong man to the end of the world?’
She shrugged again.
‘Do you know where she is?’
‘No. Only that she’s left to be with him.’
Harry took another swig of coffee. ‘I know where the end of the world is,’ he said.
She didn’t answer.
‘I can go and try to bring her back for you.’
‘She doesn’t want to be brought back.’
‘I can try. With your help.’ Harry pulled out a piece of paper and placed it in front of her. ‘What do you say?’
She read. Then she looked up. The make-up had run from her turquoise eyes down her hollow cheeks.
‘Swear to me that you’ll bring my girl back safe and sound, Hole. Swear. Do that and I’ll agree.’
Harry studied her.
‘I swear,’ he said.
Outside again, with a cigarette lit, he thought about what she had said. Can a mother ever let go? About Odd Utmo who had taken a photograph of his son with him. But a daughter can let go. Can she? He blew out the cigarette smoke. Could he let go?
Gunnar Hagen was standing beside the vegetable counter of his favourite Pakistani grocer’s shop. He ogled his inspector with utter disbelief. ‘You want to go back to the Congo? To find Lene Galtung? And that has nothing to do with the murder investigation?’
‘Same as last time,’ Harry said, lifting a vegetable he didn’t recognise. ‘We’re after a missing person.’
‘Lene Galtung has not been reported missing by anyone except the gutter press, as far as I know.’
‘She has now.’ Harry took a sheet from his coat pocket and showed Hagen the signature. ‘By her biological mother.’
‘I see. And how am I going to explain to the Ministry of Justice that we should launch this search in the Congo?’
‘We have a lead.’
‘Which is?’
‘I read in Se og Hør that Lene Galtung asked to have her hair dyed brick red. I don’t even know if that’s a colour we use in Norway, that’s probably why I remembered it.’
‘Remembered what?’
‘That it was the hair colour given in the passport belonging to Juliana Verni from Leipzig. At the time I asked Günther to check if there was a stamp from Kigali in her passport. But the police didn’t find it, the passport was gone, and I’m convinced Tony Leike took it.’
‘The passport? And?’
‘Now Lene Galtung has got it.’
Hagen put some pak choi in his shopping basket while slowly shaking his head. ‘You’re basing a trip to the Congo on something you read in a gossip rag?’
‘I’m basing it on what I – or I should say Katrine Bratt – found out about what Juliana Verni has been doing recently.’
Hagen started to make a move towards the man at the cash desk on a podium by the right-hand wall. ‘Verni’s dead, Harry.’
‘Do dead people catch flights? Turns out Juliana Verni – or let’s say a woman with curly brick-red hair – has bought a plane ticket from Zurich to the end of the world.’
‘The end of the world?’
‘Goma, the Congo. Early tomorrow.’
‘Then they will arrest her when they discover she has a passport belonging to a person who has been dead for more than two months.’
‘I checked with ICAO. They say it can take up to a year before the passport number of a deceased person is crossed off the books. Which means someone may have travelled to the Congo on Odd Utmo’s passport, too. However, we have no cooperation agreement with the Congo. And it’s hardly an insurmountable problem buying your way out of prison.’
Hagen let the cashier tot up his goods while he massaged his temples in an attempt to pre-empt the inevitable headache. ‘So go and find her in Zurich. Send the Swiss police to the airport.’
‘We’ve got her under surveillance. Lene Galtung will lead us to Tony Leike, boss.’