The Leopard (67 page)

The chauffeur opened the door for her, and Lene Galtung stepped out. The sun was not as strong as she had feared. The house that stood before her was magnificent. Solid, built at leisure. Brick by brick. Old money. The way they would do it themselves. When she and Tony had met he had been so intrigued by her family tree. Galtung was a Norwegian aristocratic family, one of the very few that had not been imported, a fact Tony repeated again and again. Perhaps that was why she had decided to postpone telling him that she was like him: of normal, modest origins, a grey rock in the scree, a social climber.

But now they would create their own nobility, they would shine in the scree. They would build.

The driver went ahead of her, up the brick steps to the door, where an armed man in camouflage opened it for them. A genuine crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling in the entrance hall. Lene’s hand squeezed the sweaty handle of the metal case containing the money. Her heart felt as if it would explode in her chest. Was her hair alright? Could you see the effects of the lack of sleep and the long journey? Someone was coming down the broad staircase from the first floor. No, it was a black woman, probably one of the servants. Lene gave her a friendly but not an exaggeratedly welcoming smile. Saw the glint of gold teeth when the woman acknowledged her with a cool, almost impudent smile and left through the door behind her.

There he was.

He stood by the banisters on the first floor and looked down at them.

He was tall, dark and draped in a dressing gown. She could see the attractive thick scar gleam white against his tanned chest. Then he smiled. She heard her breathing quicken. The smile. It illuminated his face, her heart, held more light than any crystal chandelier could.

He strolled down the stairs.

She put her case on the floor and flew towards him. He opened his arms and received her. And then she was with him. She recognised his smell, stronger than ever. Mixed with another strong, spicy aroma. It had to come from the dressing gown, for now she saw that the elegant silk garment was too short in the arms and not at all new. It wasn’t until she felt him freeing himself that she realised she had been clinging to him, and she let go abruptly.

‘Darling, you’re crying,’ he laughed, stroking her cheek with a finger.

‘Am I?’ She laughed too, drying under her eyes and hoping her makeup hadn’t run.

‘I have a surprise for you,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Come with me.’

‘But . . .’ she said, turning to see that the metal case had already been removed.

They went upstairs and in through a door to a large, bright bedroom. Long, gossamer curtains swayed gently in the breeze from the terrace door.

‘Were you asleep?’ she asked, gesturing to the unmade four-poster bed.

‘No,’ he smiled. ‘Sit here and close your eyes.’

‘But . . .’

‘Just do as I say, Lene’.

She thought she could hear a suggestion of annoyance in his voice and hastened to do what he said.

‘They’ll soon be arriving with champagne, and then I want to ask you something. But first I’m going to tell you a story. Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and knew. Knew this was the moment. The one she had been waiting for. The moment she would remember for the rest of her life.

‘The story I am going to tell you is about me. You see, there are a few things you ought to know about me before you answer my question.’

‘I understand.’ It was as if the champagne bubbles were already coursing through her veins, and she had to concentrate in order not to giggle.

‘I’ve told you I grew up with my grandfather, that my parents were dead. What I omitted to say was that I lived with them until I was fifteen.’

‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed.

Tony cocked an eyebrow. A delicately shaped, oh-so-beautiful eyebrow, she thought.

‘I’ve always known you had a secret, Tony,’ she laughed. ‘But I also have a secret. I want us to know everything about each other, everything!’

Tony assumed a lopsided smile. ‘So let me continue without any more interruptions, my sweet Lene. My mother was deeply religious and met my father in a chapel. He had just been released after serving time for murder in a fit of jealous rage, and while in prison had found Jesus. For my mother this was something straight out of the Bible, a repentant sinner, a man she could help to find redemption and eternal life while she did penance for her own sins. That was how she explained to me why she had married the bastard.’

‘What—?’

‘Shh! My father repented for the murder by labelling everything that was not in praise of God a sin. I was not allowed to do any of the things other children did. If I contradicted him I got a taste of the belt. He tried to provoke me, say that the sun went round the earth, as it said in the Bible. If I protested he beat me. When I was twelve I was in the outside toilet with my mother. We used to do that. When I came out he hit me with a spade because he thought it was a sin, that I was too old to go to the toilet with my mother. He marked me for life.’

Lene gulped as Tony lifted a distorted, arthritic finger and ran it along the top part of the scar on his chest. And then she noticed his missing finger.

‘Tony! What happ—?’

‘Shh! The last time my father beat me I was fifteen, and he used the belt for twenty-three minutes without a break. One thousand three hundred and ninety-two seconds. I counted them. He hit me every four seconds like a machine. Kept hitting me, his rage steadily increasing because I refused to cry. In the end his arm was so tired that he had to give up. Three hundred and forty-eight lashes. That night I waited until I heard his snoring, sneaked into their bedroom and poured a drop of acid into his eye. He screamed and screamed while I held him and whispered in his ear that if he touched me again I would kill him. And I felt him stiffen in my arms, I knew he knew I was stronger than him. And he knew I had it in me.’

‘Had what in you, Tony?’

‘Him. The killer.’

Lene’s heart stopped pumping. It was not true. Couldn’t be true. He had told her it wasn’t him, they were mistaken.

‘After that day we watched each other like hawks. And Mum knew it was either him or me. One day she came to me and said he had been to Geilo to buy ammunition for the rifle. I had to get away, she had decided with my grandfather what had to be done. He was a widower and lived by Lake Lyseren. He knew he would have to keep me hidden, otherwise the old man would come after me. So I left. Mum made it look as if I had been killed in an avalanche. My father shunned society so it was always Mum who did anything that required contact with people. He thought she had reported me missing, but in reality she had informed only one person what she had done and why. She and Officer Roy Stille, they … well, they knew each other very well. Stille was wise enough to know that the police could do little to protect me against Dad and vice versa, so he helped to cover our traces. I was fine at Grandad’s. Until the message came that Mum had gone missing in the mountains.’

Lene put out her hand. ‘Poor, poor Tony.’

‘I said: close your eyes!’

She winced at the snarl in his voice, retracted her hand and squeezed her eyes shut.

‘I couldn’t go to the service, my grandfather said. Nobody should find out I was alive. When he returned he told me word for word what the priest had said about her in his speech. Three sentences. Three sentences about the world’s strongest, most beautiful woman. The last was “Karen trod lightly on this earth”. The rest was about Jesus and forgiveness of sins. Three sentences and forgiveness of sins she had never committed.’ Lene could hear Tony breathing heavily now.

‘Trod lightly. The bastard priest stood there in the pulpit and said she had left no prints. Vanished as she had lived, without leaving a trace. On to the next verse in the Bible. Grandad told me this straight, no beating about the bush, and do you know what, Lene? It was the most important day in my life. Do you understand?’

‘Er … no, Tony.’

‘I knew he was sitting there, the bastard who had killed her. And I swore I would take my revenge. I would show him. I would show them all. That was the day I decided that whatever happened I would not end up like him. Or her. Three lines. And neither I nor the bastard sitting there needed forgiveness for their sins. We would both burn. Rather that than share paradise with a God like this.’ He lowered his voice. ‘No one, no one was going to stand in my way. Do you understand me now?’

‘Yes,’ Lene smiled. ‘And you’ve deserved it, Tony. Everything. You’ve worked so hard!’

‘I’m glad you’re so understanding, my sweet. Here comes the rest. Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ Lene said, clapping her hands. She would see, her too, sitting at home, envious, lonely and bitter, begrudging her own daughter the chance to experience love.

‘I had it all in the palm of my hand,’ Tony said, and Lene felt his hand on her knee. ‘You, your father’s money, the project here in Africa. I thought nothing could go wrong. Until I fucked that randy bitch at the cabin in Håvass. I couldn’t even remember her name when I received a letter from her saying she was pregnant and wanted money. She was in the way, Lene. I was meticulous in my planning. Covered the car in plastic. Took a blank postcard of the Congo I had lying around, forced her to write a few lines explaining her disappearance. Then I plunged the knife into her neck. The sound of blood on plastic, Lene … it’s something quite unique.’

85

Edvard Munch

I
T WAS LIKE SOMEONE HAD BANGED AN ICICLE INTO
L
ENE
’
S
skull. Nevertheless she forced her eyes open again. ‘You … you … killed her? A woman you … slept with in the mountains?’

‘My libido is stronger than yours, Lene. If you don’t do what I ask I get others to do it.’

‘But you … you wanted me to . . .’ Tears strangled her vocal cords. ‘… That’s not natural!’

Tony chuckled. ‘She didn’t mind, Lene. Juliana didn’t, either. She was well paid for it, though.’

‘Juliana? What are you talking about, Tony? Tony?’ Lene was groping in the dark like a blind person.

‘A German whore from Leipzig I met regularly. She does anything for money. Did.’

Lene felt the tears running down her cheeks. His voice was so calm; that was what made it all seem so unreal.

‘Say … say it isn’t true, Tony. Please stop now.’

‘Shh. I was sent another letter. With a photo. You can perhaps imagine my shock when I saw it contained a photo of Adele in my car with a knife in her neck. The letter was signed by someone called Borgny Stem-Myhre. She wrote that she wanted money, otherwise she would report me for the murder of Adele Vetlesen. Of course, I knew I would have to get rid of her. But I needed an alibi for the time of death in case the police started to link me with Borgny and the blackmail attempt. In fact, I had been thinking of sending Adele’s little postcard from Africa the next time I was here, but then I happened on an even better idea. I contacted Juliana and sent her here to Goma. She travelled around using Adele’s name, sent the card from Kigali, went to Van Boorst and bought an apple I had been thinking of serving up to Borgny. Juliana came back and we met in Leipzig. Where I let her have the first taste of the apple.’ Tony chuckled. ‘She thought it was a new sex toy, poor thing.’

‘You … you killed her too?’

‘Yes. And then Borgny. I followed her. She was unlocking the door to the block of flats where she lived when I went up to her with the knife. I took her down to the cellar in Nydalen where I had everything prepared. Padlock. Apple. I gave her a shot of ketanome in the neck. Then I went to Skien, to an investors’ meeting where all my witnesses were waiting. The alibi. I knew that while we were raising a toast, Borgny would be doing the job herself. They all do in the end. Then I went back, went through the cellar, picked up my padlock, took the apple out of her mouth and went home. To you. We made love. You pretended to come. Do you remember?’

Lene shook her head, unable to speak.

‘Close your eyes, I said.’

She felt his fingers glide over her forehead and close her eyelids, like an undertaker. Heard his voice drone on as if to himself.

‘He liked to hit me. I can understand that now. The feeling of power that lies in inflicting pain, seeing another person succumb to you, having thy will being done on earth as it is in heaven.’

She could smell the scent on him, the scent of sex. Of a woman’s sex. Then his voice was there again, close to her ear now. ‘As I killed them something began to happen. It was like their blood was watering a seed that had been there the whole time. I began to grasp what I had seen in my father’s eyes that time. The recognition. For just as he saw himself in me, I began to see him when I looked at myself in the mirror. I liked the power.
And
the impotence. I liked the game, the risk, the simultaneous highs and lows. When you stand on top of the mountain with your head in a cloud and hear the choir of angels in paradise you also have to hear the hissing fires of hell beneath you for it to mean anything. That was what my father knew. And now I know it, too.’

Lene saw red stains dancing on the insides of her eyelids.

‘I didn’t realise the extent of my hatred until a few years later when I was standing with a girl on the edge of the wood outside a dance hall. A boy attacked me. I saw jealousy burning in his eyes. I saw my father coming at me and my mother with the spade. I cut the boy’s tongue out. They arrested me, and I was given a prison sentence. And there I discovered what it does to you. And why Dad never mentioned his spell in the clink. Not a word. I received a short sentence. Nevertheless I almost went mad inside. And while I was doing time I realised what I had to do. I had to have him put in prison for murdering my mother. Not kill him, but have him incarcerated, buried alive. First, though, I had to find the proof, the remains of my mother. So I built a cabin up in the mountains, far from habitation, to ensure there was no chance of anyone recognising the boy who went missing when he was fifteen. Every year I searched the plateau, square kilometre by square kilometre, began as soon as most of the snow had gone, preferably at night when no one else was out and about, trawling precipices and avalanche areas. If I had to, I would stay the night in a Tourist Association cabin where people were only passing through. But some of the locals must have seen me anyway; at any rate, rumours began to circulate about the ghost of the Utmo boy.’ Tony chuckled. Lene opened her eyes, but Tony didn’t notice, he was studying a cigarette holder he had just taken out of the pocket of the dressing gown. Lene hurriedly closed her eyes again.