Odd Utmo’s Passport

Odd Utmo’s Passport is both a practical instrument of disguise and a weakness in the pursuit of Tony Leike. Its use depends on routine identity checks and a delay in international records being updated: a name can remain usable after its bearer is dead, giving investigators reason to fear that the person using the passport may already be beyond their reach.

A Passport in the Wrong Hands

While aboard a helicopter, Harry Hole learns from the tower at Gardermoen that Odd Utmo flew to Copenhagen the previous day on a ticket booked shortly beforehand. The confirmation arrives too late to stop the journey. Looking at the passport of the man he tortured and murdered, Harry reconstructs how it could have been used: at passport control, an official might only have checked that the name on the document matched the ticket, without closely comparing the photograph with the traveler.

The photograph’s unusual clip offers a detail that makes the impersonation more unsettling. Harry imagines the official noticing the clip in the passport image, then seeing a similar one on the traveler’s teeth—the teeth Tony Leike had adjusted to make it fit. The document’s identifying details could pass a cursory check even as the body using it carried a conspicuous sign of alteration.

The Gap in the Records

Later, Gunnar Hagen is told that the traveler is expected in Görna, Congo, the following morning. The prospect of arrest there is uncertain: the International Civil Aviation Organization has said that a deceased person’s number can take as long as a year to be removed from its register. Since Odd Utmo has been dead for two months, someone could still have traveled using his passport and identity details.

The passport therefore exposes a gap between a death being known and that death being reflected in the systems used to verify travel. The concern is compounded by the absence of a police-cooperation agreement with Congo and the possibility that an arrest could be evaded through a bribe. The passport does not prove that its user has reached Congo, but it gives the investigators a credible reason to fear that ordinary border checks may not identify him.

Clue and Pursuit

The passport’s significance lies in the uncertainty it creates. A confirmed flight to Copenhagen establishes that Odd Utmo’s identity has entered the travel trail, but the later report about a possible journey to Congo is framed as a possibility, not a verified arrival. The document links a dead man’s identity to a moving suspect while leaving the investigators unsure which authorities can act on it.

Hagen orders the search to continue in Zürich, while the team keeps Lene Galtung under surveillance, expecting her to lead them to Tony Leike. In that pursuit, Odd Utmo’s Passport is more than a travel document: it is a borrowed identity that can carry the investigation across borders, but also delay recognition of the person behind it.