The Leopard(24)

‘Thanks for the offer. I didn’t want to hassle you, but the house does need to be looked after.’

Harry dropped his plan to tell him that the power was going to be cut off in his flat.

Olav rang a bell and a young, smiling nurse came in and used his father’s first name in an innocent, flirty way. And Harry noted how his father deepened his voice as he explained that Harry needed the suitcase containing the keys. He saw the way the sick man in the bed tried to fluff his plumage for her. And for some reason it didn’t seem pathetic; it was the way it should be.

In parting, his father repeated: ‘Everything she asked me.’ And whispered: ‘Bar one thing.’

Leading him to the storage room, the nurse told Harry the doctor wanted to have a couple of words with him. After locating the keys in the suitcase, Harry knocked on the door the nurse had indicated.

The doctor nodded to a seat, leaned back on his swivel chair and pressed his fingertips together. ‘Good thing you came home. We had been trying to get hold of you.’

‘I know.’

‘The cancer has spread.’

Harry nodded. Someone had once told him that was a cancer cell’s function: to spread.

The doctor studied him, as though considering his next move.

‘OK,’ Harry said.

‘OK?’

‘OK, I’m ready to hear the rest.’

‘We don’t usually say how much time a person has left. The errors of judgement and the psychological strain that ensue are too great for that. However, in this case, I think it is appropriate to tell you he is already living on borrowed time.’

Harry nodded. Gazed out the window. Fog was still as thick down below.

‘Have you got a mobile number we can contact you on should anything happen?’

Harry shook his head. Was that a siren he heard down in the fog?

‘Anyone you know who can pass on a message?’

Harry shook his head again. ‘Not a problem. I’ll ring in and visit him every day. OK?’

The doctor nodded and watched Harry get up and stride out.

It was nine by the time Harry got to Frogner Lido. The whole of Frogner Park measures about fifty hectares, but since the public lido constitutes a small fraction of this and, furthermore, is fenced in, the police had an easy job cordoning off the crime scene; they had simply run a cordon round the entire fence and put a guard in the ticket office. The kettle of crime-correspondent vultures was in flight and they swooped in, stood cackling outside the gate wondering when they would gain access to the cadaver. For Christ’s sake, this was a bona fide MP, didn’t the public have a right to photos of such a prominent corpse?

Harry bought an americano at Kaffepikene. They had chairs and tables on the pavement throughout February, and Harry took a seat, lit a cigarette and watched the flock in front of the ticket booth.

A man sat down on the chair next to him.

‘Harry Hole himself. Where have you been?’

Harry looked up. Roger Gjendem, the Aftenposten crime correspondent, lit a cigarette and gestured towards Frogner Park. ‘At last Marit Olsen gets what she wants. By eight this evening she’ll be a celeb. Hanging herself from the diving tower? Good career move.’ He turned to Harry and grimaced. ‘What happened to your jaw? You look dreadful.’

Harry didn’t answer. Just sipped his coffee and said nothing to alleviate the embarrassing silence in the futile hope that the journalist would twig that he was not desirable company. From the bank of fog above them came the noise of whirring rotors. Roger Gjendem peered up.

‘Gotta be Verdens Gang. Typical of that tabloid to hire a helicopter. Hope the fog doesn’t lift.’

‘Mm. Better that no one gets photos than VG does?’

‘Right. What do you know?’

‘I’m sure less than you,’ said Harry. ‘The body was found by one of the nightwatchmen at dawn, and he rang the police straight away. And you?’

‘Head torn off. Woman jumped from the top of the tower with a rope around her neck, it seems. And she was pretty hefty, as you know. Over a hundred kilos.

‘They’ve found threads that may match her tracksuit on the fence where they reckon she entered. They didn’t find any other clues, so they think she was alone.’

Harry inhaled the cigarette smoke. Head torn off. They spoke how they wrote, these journalists, the inverted pyramid, as they called it: the most important information first.

‘Must have happened in the early hours, I suppose?’ Harry fished.

‘Or in the evening. According to Marit Olsen’s husband, she left home at a quarter to ten to go jogging.’

‘Late for a jog.’

‘Must have been when she usually jogged. Liked having the park to herself.’