Punishment aka What Is Mine

SIXTEEN

It was already late when Johanne got up on Saturday, May 20. At least for Kristiane. The child woke up at the crack of dawn, weekdays and weekends alike. Though the six-year-old obviously liked being on her own first thing in the morning, she had no concept of how to avoid waking her mother. Johanne’s alarm clock was a rhythmical dam-di-rum-ram from the living room. But Kristiane wanted nothing to do with her. From six o’clock until eight, she was incommunicado. When Johanne went back to work again, once Kristiane’s illness was no longer life-threatening, it had been a complete nightmare getting the girl ready for day care every morning. In the end, she gave up. Kristiane just had to be left to her own devices for those two hours. The university was a flexible employer. And what’s more, when she had applied to teach only every second semester, this favor had been granted until Kristiane was ten. Her friends envied her-enjoy it while you can, was their advice; you can read the papers in peace and wake up properly before starting your day. The problem was that Kristiane had to be watched. Who knew what she might get up to? Johanne knew that Isak was more laid-back. She had found him fast asleep on a couple of occasions, with Kristiane pottering about on her own.

And now she had done exactly the same.

She looked over at her watch, confused. Quarter to nine. She threw back the duvet.

“Mommy,” Kristiane said cheerfully. “Mommy’s getting up for her Kristiane.”

The girl was standing in the doorway to the living room, already dressed, albeit in a ghastly pink sweater she’d been given by her grandmother and a pair of green velvet pants, with a tartan skirt on top. Her hair was done up in five braids. But she did have clothes on, so Johanne tried to smile.

“Well done, you’ve gotten dressed all by yourself,” she said sleepily. “Mommy must have slept in.”

“Slept in kept in.”

Kristiane came closer and then crept up into her mother’s lap. She laid her cheek on her breast and started to suck her thumb. Johanne gently stroked her daughter’s back with her right hand, up and down, up and down. When they sat like this, these moments of intimacy that were impossible to force or predict, Johanne could hardly breathe. She felt her daughter’s warmth through the pink sweater, drank in the sweet smell of her hair, her breath, her skin. It was all she could do not to crush her.

“My little Kristiane,” she whispered into the braids.

The telephone rang. Kristiane pulled back, slipped down from her mother’s lap, and padded out of the room.

“Hello?”

“Did I wake you?”

“Of course you didn’t wake me, Mother. I’ve got Kristiane here this week.”

Johanne tried to grab her robe. The telephone cord wasn’t long enough. She wrapped the duvet around her shoulders instead. There was a draft from the windows.

“Your father is worried.”

Johanne wanted to snap: You are the one who’s worried. She checked herself with a resigned sigh and tried to sound cheerful.

“Oh? Worried about me? There’s no need for that.”

“What about your behavior the other day? On TV no less… In fact, he even lies awake at night and wonders… Is everything alright, dear?”

“Let me talk to Dad.”

“Your father? He… he’s busy at the moment. But listen to me, dear. We thought that maybe a short break would do you good. You’ve had a lot going on recently, what with Kristiane and work and… Do you want to come with us to the cottage today? I’m sure you can get time off on Monday and maybe even Tuesday too. You and your father could go fishing and we could go for some lovely walks… And I’ve already spoken to Isak and he’s happy to have Kristiane from today…”

“You’ve spoken to Isak?”

It was great that she and Isak had a good relationship when it came to Kristiane. And she realized that everyone, not least their daughter, benefited from the fact that Isak also got along well with his ex-in-laws. But there were limits. She had a suspicion that he dropped by to see them every week, with or without Kristiane.

“Yes, gosh! He’s thinking about buying a new yacht, did you know? Not just a racing boat this time; he said he was getting a bit bored of… well, of course, it’s got something to do with Kristiane, as well. She just loves being on the water, and those fast sailing boats are not particularly suitable for children. He was here yesterday and we talked about you, you know, about how worrie…”

“Mom!”

“What, dear?”

“There’s no need to be worried. I am absolutely fine. And anyway, I’m going…”

If she told her mother that she was going to the States, she would get no peace at all, just endless advice on travel routes and precautions. Her mother would end up packing her suitcase for her.

“Mom, I’m a bit busy right now. I’m afraid I haven’t got time to come to the cottage, but thanks anyway. Give my love to Dad.”

“But Johanne, could you not at least come over and see us tonight? I could make something nice to eat and then you and your father could play…”

“I thought you were going to the cottage.”

“Only if you wanted to come with us, dear.”

“Bye, Mom.”

She made sure that she put the receiver down calmly and carefully. Her mother often accused her of hanging up. She was right, but it was better if it wasn’t slammed down.

Taking a shower helped. Kristiane sat on the toilet seat and talked to Sulamit, a fire engine with a face and eyes that blinked. Sulamit was nearly as old as Kristiane and had lost a ladder and three wheels. No one apart from Kristiane knew how it got its name.

“Sulamit has saved a horse and an elephant today. Good Sulamit.”

Johanne brushed her wet hair and tried to wipe the steam off the mirror.

“What happened to the horse and the elephant?” she asked.

“Sulamit and dynamit. Elephant and pelephant.”

Johanne went back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of jeans and a red fleece. Thankfully she had done all the shopping for the weekend yesterday, before collecting Kristiane from day care. They could go for a long walk. Kristiane needed to be out for a few hours if she was going to be quiet in the evening. The weather looked good; she pulled back the bedroom curtains and squinted at the day outside.

The doorbell rang.

“Damn it, Mom!”

“Damn it,” repeated Kristiane seriously.

Johanne stamped out into the hall and pulled open the front door.

“Morning,” said Adam Stubo.

“Hi…”

“Hello,” said Kristiane, sticking her head out from behind her mom’s thighs, with a big smile.

“You’re looking very nice today!”

Adam Stubo held his hand out to the little girl. Amazingly, she took it.

“My name is Adam,” he said solemnly. “And what is your name?”

“Kristiane Vik Aanonsen. Good morning. Good night. I have a kite.”

“Oh… can I see it?”

Kristiane showed him Sulamit. When he wanted to hold the fire engine, she pulled back.

“I think that’s the best kite I have ever seen,” he said.

The child vanished.

“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought…”

He shrugged. The obvious lie made his eyes narrow into an almost flirty smile. Johanne was caught off guard by a strange jabbing feeling, a breathlessness that made her look down and mumble that he’d better come in.

“It’s not exactly clean in here,” she said automatically as she registered his eyes swooping over the living room.

He sat down on the sofa. It was too deep and soft for a man as heavy as Adam Stubo. His knees were pushed up too high and it almost looked as if he was sitting on the floor.

“Maybe you’d be more comfortable in a chair,” she suggested, removing a picture book from the seat.

“I’m comfortable here, thanks,” he said. It was only now that she realized he had a large envelope with him, which he placed in front of him on the coffee table.

“I just…”

She made a vague gesture toward Kristiane’s room. It was the same problem every time. As Kristiane looked like-and sometimes behaved like-a normal, healthy four-year-old, Johanne was always uncertain whether she should say anything. Whether she should explain that the girl was small for her age and was in fact six and brain-damaged, but no one seemed to know how or why. Or explain that all the strange babblings that came out of her daughter’s mouth were neither due to stupidity nor impudence, but rather a short circuit that no doctor could repair. Normally she waited too long. It was as if she hoped for a miracle every time. That her daughter would be rational. Logical. Coherent. Or that she would suddenly develop an obvious deformity-a lolling tongue or squinting eyes in a flat face that made everyone smile with warm understanding. Instead it was just awkward.

Kristiane settled down to watch 101 Dalmatians in her mother’s study.

“I don’t usually…”

Again she made that vague, apologetic gesture toward the room where her daughter was sitting.

“No problem,” said the policeman on the sofa. “I have to admit that I sometimes do the same. With my grandson, I mean. He can be pretty demanding. A video is a good babysitter, sometimes.”

Johanne felt the red flushing over her face and went into the kitchen. Adam Stubo was a grandfather.

“Why did you come here?” she asked when she returned with a cup of coffee that she put down in front of him, with a napkin underneath. “That ‘in the neighborhood’ explanation isn’t really true, is it?”

“It’s this case of ours.”

“Cases.”

He smiled.

“Correct. Cases. You’re right. At least… I feel that you can help me. It’s as simple as that. Don’t ask me why. Sigmund Berli, a good friend and colleague, can’t understand why I am pursuing you in this way.”

His eyes narrowed again in a way that had to be flirting. Johanne concentrated hard on not blushing again. Cake. She didn’t have any cake. Cookies. Kristiane had eaten them all yesterday.

“Do you take milk?”

She started to get up before he indicated otherwise with his right hand.

“Listen,” he started again, pulling out a pile of photographs from the envelope on the coffee table. “This is Emilie Selbu.”

The photo was of a pretty little girl with a garland of coltsfoot in her hair. She was very serious and her deep blue eyes looked almost mournful. There was a small hollow at the base of her thin neck. Her mouth was small, with full lips.

“The picture is very recent. Taken about three weeks ago. Lovely kid, isn’t she?”

“Is she the one they haven’t found?”

She coughed as her voice gave way.

“Yes. And this is Kim.”

Johanne held the photograph right up to her eyes. It was the same one that they had shown on TV. A boy clutching a red fire engine. Red fire engine. Sulamit. She dropped the picture quickly and had to pick it up from the floor before pushing it back to Adam Stubo.

“As Emilie is still missing and Kim is… What on earth makes you think that the crimes were carried out by the same person?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

There were several photographs in the pile. For a moment it seemed that he intended to show them all to her. Then he clearly changed his mind and put the rest back in the envelope. The photos of Emilie and Kim remained on the table, side by side, both facing Johanne.

“Emilie was abducted on a Thursday,” he said slowly, “in the middle of the day. Kim disappeared on Tuesday night. Emilie is nine years old and a girl. Kim was a five-year-old boy. Emilie lives in Asker. Kim lived in Bærum. Kim’s father is a plumber and his mother is a nurse. Emilie’s mother is dead and her father is a linguist who earns a living translating literature. None of them know each other. We’ve hunted high and low to see if there are any connections between the two families. Apart from discovering that Emilie’s father and Kim’s mother both lived in Bergen for a while at the start of the nineties, there’s nothing. They didn’t even know each other there. All in all…”

“Strange,” said Johanne.

“Yes, or tragic, depending on how you choose to look at it.”

She tried to avoid looking at the photographs of the two children. It was as if they were reproaching her for not wanting to get involved.

“In Norway there’s always some kind of connection between people,” she said. “Especially when you live as close together as Asker and Bærum. You must have experienced that yourself. I mean, when you sit down and start talking to someone. You nearly always have a mutual acquaintance, an old friend, somewhere you’ve both worked, an experience in common. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Um, yes…”

He paused. He seemed uninterested. Then he suddenly took a deep breath as if he were about to protest, but stopped himself.

“I need someone to construct a profile,” he said instead. “A profiler.”

His English pronunciation was broad, like an American TV series.

“Hardly,” Johanne interjected. The conversation was heading in a direction she did not like. “If you are to going to benefit at all from a profiler, you need more cases than this. Assuming that we are actually dealing with one and the same person.”

“God forbid,” said Adam Stubo. “That there should be more cases, I mean.”

“Obviously I agree with you on that. But it’s more or less impossible to draw any conclusions based on two cases.”

“How do you know that?”

“Elementary logic,” she replied sharply. “It’s obvious… The profile of an unknown criminal is based on the known common features of his crimes. It’s like one of those connect-the-dots drawings. Your pencil follows the numbered points until there is a clear picture. It doesn’t work with only two points. You need more. And on that point, you are absolutely right: let’s hope and pray that it doesn’t happen. That more points appear, I mean.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Why do you insist that this is one and not two cases?”

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that you chose to study psychology and law. An unusual combination. You must have had a plan. A goal.”

“Complete coincidence, in fact. A result of youthful fickleness. And I also wanted to go to the States. And you know…”

She discovered that she was biting her hair. As discreetly as possible, she pushed the wet lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her glasses. “I think you’re wrong. Emilie Selbu and little Kim were not abducted by the same man.”

“Or woman.”

“Or woman,” she repeated, exasperated. “But now, however rude it may be, I’m going to have to ask you to… I have quite a lot I need to do today, because I’m… Sorry.”

Again she felt that pressure on her lungs; it was impossible to look at the man on the sofa. He got up from his uncomfortable position with remarkable ease.

“If it happens again,” he said, gathering up the photographs. “If another child is taken, will you help me then?”

Cruella De Vil screeched from the study. Kristiane shrieked with delight.

“I don’t know,” said Johanne Vik. “We’ll see.”

As it was Saturday and the project was going according to plan, he treated himself to a glass of wine. When he thought about it, he realized that it was the first time in months that he’d had alcohol. Normally, he was worried about the effects. A glass or two made him docile. Then halfway through the third he would get angry. Fury waited at the bottom of the fourth glass.

Just one glass. It was still light outside and he held the wine up to the light.

Emilie was difficult. Ungrateful. Even though he wanted to keep the girl alive, for the moment at least, there were limits.

He took a sip. It tasted musty; the wine tasted of cellars.

He had to smile at his own sentimentality. He was just too emotional. He was too kind. Why should Emilie live? What was the point? What had the girl actually done to deserve that? She got food, good food, often. She had clean water in the tap. She even had a Barbie doll that he had bought for her and yet she didn’t seem to be any happier.

Fortunately she’d stopped snivelling. To begin with, and particularly after Kim disappeared, she cried the minute he opened the door down there. She seemed to be having difficulties breathing, which was nonsense. He had installed a good ventilation system ages ago. There was no point in suffocating the child. But she was calmer now. At least she didn’t cry.

The decision to let Emilie live had come naturally. He hadn’t intended it to be that way from the start, at least. But there was something about her, even though she didn’t know it herself. He’d see how long it lasted. She’d have to watch herself. He was sentimental, but he had his limits.

She’d be getting company soon enough.

He put down the glass and pictured eight-year-old Sarah Baardsen. He had memorized her face, stored each feature in his mind, practiced putting her face together so he could call her up at will, whenever and wherever. He didn’t have any pictures. They could fall into the wrong hands. Instead he had studied her in the playground, on the way to her grandmother’s, on the bus. He’d once even sat next to her through an entire film. He knew what her hair smelled like. Sweet and warm.

He put the cork back in the bottle and left it on one of the half-empty shelves in the kitchen. When he glanced out the window, he stiffened. Right outside, only a few yards away, stood a fully grown roe deer. The beautiful animal lifted its head and looked right at him for a moment before sauntering off toward the woods to the west. Tears came to his eyes.

Sarah and Emilie were sure to get along during the time they were together.