Punishment aka What Is Mine

by Anne Holt

  “He’s hiding in the woods.”

  “But Nordmarka at this time of year… it’s crawling with people!”

  “He might hide during the day and move around at night. He would certainly be able to hide better in the woods than in a residential area. And he’s suitably dressed. If he hasn’t changed since I last saw him…”

  He tipped some ash carefully into his hand.

  “… then he could carry out guerrilla warfare up there. How many sightings have we had now?”

  Sigmund chuckled.

  “Over three hundred. From Trondheim to Bergen, Sykkylven and Voss. Over fifty sightings in Oslo alone. This morning, four people with broken arms were being held at Grønland police station. Plus a man with his left leg in a cast. All of them had been taken in by conscientious citizens.”

  Adam looked quickly at his watch.

  “Thought so. I’ve got an appointment. Was there anything else?”

  Sigmund pulled a computer printout from his back pocket. It curved like a buttock; he smiled apologetically before smoothing it out.

  “This is just a copy with my notes on it. I’ve asked for a clean copy for you. We’ve found some links between the families at last. We’ve looked at everything, absolutely everything. This is the result.”

  “About time too,” said Adam. “There had to be some connection between these people. But…”

  He studied the printout again for several minutes.

  “We don’t need to worry about Sonia Værøy,” he said eventually. “Don’t think the plumber is of much interest either. Why does it say ‘address unknown’ for Karsten Åsli? Isn’t he in the census rolls?”

  “No, that must be the most common offence we Norwegians are guilty of-not notifying the authorities of our change of address. Legally, it should be done within eight days. But it’s not a major problem. We just haven’t gotten around to investigating it in more detail.”

  Adam folded the piece of paper and put it in his jacket pocket.

  “Please do. I’ll keep this printout until I get my own. Is that okay?”

  Sigmund shrugged.

  “I want Åsli’s address,” said Adam. “And I want to know more about the photographer. And the gynecologist. Oh, and I want…”

  He sucked on the cigar and got up from the chair. As he had closed and locked the door behind them, he patted his colleague lightly on the shoulder.

  “I want to know as much as possible about those three,” he said. “The youth worker, the photographer and the gynecologist. Age, family background, criminal records… everything. Oh and…”

  Sigmund Berli stopped with his hand on the door to his office.

  “Thanks,” said Adam. “Thank you. Good work.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  You’re good with her,” said Johanne quietly. “She likes you. She doesn’t normally care about other people. I mean, other than those she knows already.”

  “She really is a strange child,” said Adam, and spread the duvet over Kristiane, Sulamit, and the King of America.

  Johanne tensed. He added:

  “A strange and wonderful child. She’s incredibly bright!”

  “That’s not usually the first thing people say about her. But you’re right. In her own way, she is bright and quick. It’s just not always easy to see.”

  Adam had her shirt on. New England Patriots, blue, with a big 82 on the front and back and VIK in white letters at the top of the back. He had come straight from work. He hadn’t looked at her when he asked if he could use the shower. Instead of answering, she went and got him a towel. And the football shirt, which was far too big for her. He held it up and laughed.

  “Warren says I could have been a good player,” he said.

  “Warren says a lot,” said Johanne, putting plates on the table. “Food will be ready in fifteen minutes, so you’d better get a move on.”

  The document was grubby and full of scribbles she couldn’t understand. But it wasn’t difficult to read the contents of the table. Adam sat down on the sofa beside her and leaned over to look at the piece of paper that was on her knee, the knee closest to him that brushed his thigh every now and then. They were each holding a steaming mug.

  “Can you see anything of interest?” he asked.

  “Not much. And I agree with you that the nurse doesn’t seem important.”

  “Because she’s a woman?”

  “Maybe. Hmm. And the plumber too. Apart from…”

  A cold thought made her shudder. The plumber lived in Lillestrøm.

  Pull yourself together, she thought to herself. It’s a pure coincidence. Lots of people live in Lillestrøm. It’s just outside Oslo. The plumber has nothing to do with the Aksel Seier case. Get a grip!

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she mumbled. “I’m just researching something else, an old case from… Forget it. It’s really got nothing to do with this. I think you can forget the plumber.”

  “I think so too,” he nodded. “We agree. But why?”

  “Not quite sure.”

  She ran her finger over the page again. She stopped at the column headed “Contact.”

  “Maybe because it’s the fathers he’s been in contact with. He is the only one of these people who has only been in touch with the fathers. Tønnes Selbu, Emilie’s father. Lasse Oksøy, Kim’s father. For one reason or another, I think it’s got something to do with the mothers. Or… I don’t know… Look. He helped Tønnes Selbu with the translation of a novel, but they never actually met. Pretty loose connection.”

  “Strange to talk to a plumber about a novel,” Adam said into his mug.

  “Maybe it was about a central heating engineer,” she said drily. “Who knows? But look here! July 23, 1991!”

  “What about it? Where?”

  “Lena Baardsen said that she had a relationship with Karsten Åsli in 1991. That relationship must have made a strong impression on her. She remembers the date she last saw him, even though it was nearly ten years ago. July 23, 1991! Do you remember things like that?”

  He was sitting too close to her. She could feel his breath on her face, coffee breath with warm milk. She straightened her back.

  “I’ve actually never been together with anyone other than my wife,” he said. “We started dating in secondary school. So…”

  He smiled and she couldn’t bear to sit there any longer.

  “… I have no idea about that sort of thing,” he continued as he followed her with his eyes when she disappeared into the kitchen. “But surely it’s more typical of women to remember details like that, I would think.”

  When she came back without actually having gotten anything, she sat down in the chair on the other side of the glass table. His expression was unreadable.

  She couldn’t understand him. On the one hand he seemed to be showing a nearly intrusive interest. Surely it couldn’t be purely professional. Not the way he had carried on, first having her nearly hauled into his office, then seeking her out in the U.S., and then picking her up at ICA, of all places. He was interested. But because he never did anything to follow up, never did anything other than come looking for her, to talk, he made her feel…

  … stupid, she thought. I don’t even understand myself. I invite you to dinner. You walk around in my apartment in my shirt with my name on it, you put the duvet over my child. You spend time with my child, Adam. Why is nothing happening?

  “I think it’s odd,” she said lightly. “Remembering a date like that.”

  The piece of paper lay between them.

  “I have always been deeply skeptical of photographers,” smiled Adam. “They distort reality and call it real.”

  “And I of gynecologists,” she said, not looking at him. “They often lack the most elementary form of human empathy. The men are worst.”

  “That sounds rather judgemental to be coming from you. What’s your view on youth workers?”

  They both laughed a little. It was good that
she’d moved. He didn’t make a fuss about it. Just settled down, as if it was in fact more comfortable to have the whole sofa to himself.

  “Have you got any further with the cause of death for Kim and Sarah?”

  “No.”

  He drank the rest of what was in his mug.

  “If we assume that there actually is a cause of death,” said Johanne, “then…”

  “Of course there’s a cause of death! We’re talking about two healthy, strong children!”

  He looked older when he wrinkled his brow. Much older than her.

  “Could they have been… frightened to death or something like that?”

  “No, not as far as I know. Do you really think that’s possible? To frighten someone with a healthy heart to death?”

  “No idea. But if our man has found a way to kill people without leaving a trace…”

  She felt a shiver down her neck again. She lifted her hair and ran her fingers through her bangs.

  “… that means that he has ultimate control. And I guess that fits in with his profile.”

  “What profile?”

  “Wait.”

  She stared at the piece of paper. It was lying so the text was facing Adam; the writing was so small that she couldn’t read it upside down. She held a finger in the air, as if she needed complete silence to finish her train of thought.

  “This man wants revenge,” she said tensely. “He has a serious, antisocial personality disorder or he’s a psychopath. He can do what he’s doing now because he feels that it is right or justified. He believes he has a claim to something or other. Something he never got or that was taken away from him. Something that is his. He’s taking back… what is his!”

  Her finger was like an exclamation mark between them. Adam’s face was immobile.

  “Could he be… Is the murderer actually the father of these children?”

  Her voice was trembling; she heard it herself and coughed. Adam paled.

  “No,” he said eventually. “He’s not.”

  Johanne’s finger gradually sank.

  “You’ve checked,” she said in a disappointed voice. “If the children are their fathers’ children?”

  “Yes.”

  “It would have been nice to know,” she said. “Especially as you think I can help you.”

  “I just hadn’t gotten that far yet. We know that Emilie’s biological father is not Tønnes Selbu. But we don’t think he knows that himself. The other children…”

  He sank slowly back into the sofa and opened his hands.

  “Everything indicates that they are their fathers’ children.”

  Johanne’s eyes didn’t leave the piece of paper. The King of America was whimpering on the other side of Kristiane’s closed door. Johanne didn’t get up. The dog’s whining rose in volume.

  “Should I-?” Adam started.

  “I had a bit of a girls’ night here yesterday,” she interrupted. “We got a bit tipsy, all of us.”

  Jack started to howl.

  “I’ll let him out,” said Adam. “He probably wants to pee.”

  “He’s not housebroken yet,” she said listlessly. “He probably just wants company. Kristiane will wake up now and then that’s that.”

  But she still didn’t get up. Adam let the dog out of the girl’s room. It peed on the floor. Adam went and got a bucket and cloth. The whole living room smelled of Ajax when he went back to the bathroom and returned with the dog under his arm.

  “Party,” he said, with forced humor. “On a Wednesday?”

  “It’s a kind of book group, really. Apart from the fact that we rarely have time to read the same book, at least. We’ve been doing it since secondary school. Once a month. And, like I said, we got a bit…”

  She blushed. Not because she’d had too much to drink the night before. That was none of Adam’s business. But because he made himself so at home in her apartment and was sitting with her dog on his lap, on her sofa. His hands were still wet with her water and her cleaning products.

  “Later on in the evening, one of us just had to know how many the others had…”

  Adam had never been with anyone other than his wife. Johanne didn’t think she’d ever met a man who could say that.

  Are you telling the truth? she thought. Or is this just another way to make an impression? To make you different?

  “… slept with,” she completed the sentence.

  “Now I’m not quite…”

  “… with me?”

  She immediately regretted saying it.

  “There is a point,” she quickly added. “There was lots of joking around and laughing, of course. Late evenings with good girlfriends often end up like that. A bit like when boys have to list their five favorite rock albums of all times. The ten best quarterbacks. Things like that.”

  Adam had a big lap. His thighs were broad and there was room for the whole of the King of America between them. The dog lay with its mouth open and eyes half-closed and looked content.

  “I’m sure we all lied a bit. The point is…”

  “Yes, I’m intrigued, I must say.”

  The words were sarcastic. The voice was friendly. She didn’t know which to believe.

  “We leave a few out,” she said. “Everyone has someone they would rather not remember or include.”

  He lifted his gaze from the dog and looked straight at her.

  “Yes, well, not everyone,” she said, and pointed at the table as if she wanted to explain who she meant to include.

  “But we did. Those of us who were here yesterday. We left out some names. Over the years we’ve all been involved with people who we either discovered very quickly were not our type or who it’s just embarrassing to think that you’ve actually… slept with. So as time passes, we forget them. Consciously or unconsciously. Even though their names generally still linger in our minds, we choose not to mention them. Not even to close friends.”

  He carefully put the puppy down on the floor. It whined and wanted to be let up again immediately. Adam pushed it firmly away and pulled the document closer. The dog padded over to a corner and lay down with a thump.

  “There’s only one ‘boyfriend’ here,” he said. “Karsten Åsli. And he’s also down as friend, or former friend really, of another. Do you think this Åsli may have gone out with more of the mothers?”

  “Not necessarily. It might be someone completely different. Someone that none of them has mentioned. Either because they’ve repressed the whole episode, or because they don’t want to admit…”

  “But these mothers know how serious it is,” he interrupted. “They know how important it is that they tell the truth, that the lists we’ve asked them for are correct.”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “They’re not lying. They’re repressing. Would you like a drink? A whisky? A gin and tonic?”

  When he looked at his watch, it seemed to be automatic, as if he couldn’t reply to the offer of a drink without checking the time first. Maybe Johanne was right; it was possible that Adam didn’t drink at all.

  “I’m driving,” he said and hesitated. “So, no thanks. Even though it does sound good.”

  “You can leave the car here if you like,” she said nonchalantly, adding, “No pressure. I can’t know if these ladies have all had the same boyfriend. It’s just an idea. There’s something so vengeful about this man’s crimes. So bitter. So evil! I find it easier to imagine that it’s driven by rejection from a woman, several women or perhaps even all women, rather than simply being pissed off with… the tax authorities, for example.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Adam. “In the U.S…”

  “In the U.S. there are examples of people who have killed simply because their Big Mac wasn’t hot enough,” said Johanne. “I think we’d be wise to stick to our own territory.”

  “What actually happened between you and Warren?”

  Johanne was surprised that she didn’t react more violently. Ever since Adam had said that he knew Warren, s
he had been waiting for that question. And as he hadn’t asked, she just assumed that he wasn’t interested. She was both pleased and disappointed. She didn’t want to talk about Warren. But the fact that Adam had not asked earlier might indicate an indifference that she was not entirely happy about.

  “I don’t want to talk about Warren,” she said calmly.

  “Okay. If I’ve crossed the line in any way, I apologize. That wasn’t my intention.”

  “You haven’t upset me,” she said, and forced a smile.

  “I think I will have a drink, after all.”

  “How will you get home?”

  “Taxi. Gin and tonic please, if you’ve got one.”

  “I said I did.”

  The ice cubes clinked loudly as she carried through two gin and tonics from the kitchen.

  “Sorry, don’t have any lemon,” she said. “Warren let me down badly, professionally and emotionally. As I was so young, I put most emphasis on the latter. But now, I’m more angry about the former.”

  There was too much gin in the drink. She made a face and added:

  “Not that I think about it much anymore. It was a long, long time ago. And as I said, I would rather not talk about it.”

  “Cheers! Another time, perhaps.”

  He raised his glass and then took a sip.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now, not ever. I’m finished with Warren.”

  The silence that followed was not awkward for some reason. Some half-grown children were making a noise in the garden, trying to retrieve a badly aimed soccer ball. It was a summer sound that made them smile, but not to each other. It was around half past nine. Johanne felt the gin and tonic go straight to her head. A light, comfortable fuzziness after only one sip. She put the drink down in front of her. Then she said:

  “If we play with the idea that we are looking for an old boyfriend, or someone who perhaps wanted to be the boyfriend of one of these mothers, the message fits in rather well. Now you’ve got what you deserved. There’s no way to hit a woman harder than taking her child.”