Punishment aka What Is Mine

TWENTY-EIGHT

A courier van approached the block of apartments. It was drizzling. The ring road was at a standstill by Ullevål due to an accident. The chaos had spread like an aggressive tumor; it had taken the courier more than an hour to drive a stretch that would normally take only twenty minutes. Finally, he neared his destination. The driver honked in irritation at a taxi that was parked across the flow of traffic. A young man with a plaster cast and crutches humped his way out of the passenger seat, stuck his finger up at the driver, and pointed angrily at a police car fifteen yards away.

“Damn it,” he shouted. “Can’t you see the road’s closed?”

That was all he needed. No way was he going to even bother carrying the package up to the apartments. He’d been on the go since seven o’clock this morning, and he had a cold. He wanted it to be the weekend. Friday afternoon was always hell. He just wanted to deliver this damned package and get home. Go to bed. Have a beer and watch a video. If only that damned police car could move. Even though it was blocking the whole road, nothing dramatic seemed to be happening. Two uniformed men stood beside the car chatting, one of them smoking and looking at his watch, as if he too was longing for home. The taxi finally managed to turn around, but not without breaking a few bushes by the pavement. The driver of the courier van revved the engine and the vehicle slid gently forward as he rolled down the window.

“Hi,” said the policeman officiously. “You can’t drive through here.”

“Just need to deliver a package.”

“No go.”

“Why not?”

“Strictly speaking, that’s none of your business.”

“For Christ’s sake…”

The driver slapped his forehead with his hand.

“It is my business! I’ve got a package here, a damned huge package, that has to be delivered up there, to…”

He waved toward the block of apartments while looking for something in the mess on the seat beside him. A half-full can of Fanta fell from a holder on the dashboard. The yellow liquid ran all over the floor. The driver started to lose it.

“Up there. Lena Baardsen, 10B, stair 2. So can you please tell me how…”

“What did you say?”

The second policeman bent down toward his face.

“I asked if you had any suggestions as to how the hell I can do my job when…”

“Who did you say the package was for?”

“Lena Baardsen, 10B. It’s…”

“Get out of the van.”

“Out of the van? I…”

“Get out of the van. Now.”

The driver was scared. The youngest policeman had thrown away his cigarette and withdrawn a couple of yards. Now he was standing, talking into a radio. Even though the driver couldn’t make out the words clearly, the tone of his voice made the situation sound serious. The other cop, a man of around forty with an enormous mustache, gripped him firmly by the arm the minute he dared to open the door. He held up his hands as if he was already under arrest.

“Whoah, easy. I’ve only got to deliver a package, for Christ’s sake. A package!”

“Where is it?”

“Where? In the van of course. In the back, if you…”

“Keys.”

“Shit, the doors are open, but I can’t just let anyone…”

The policeman pointed to a spot on the pavement, three yards from the car. The driver slouched over as he slowly lowered his hands.

“I want your badge number, name, everything,” he shouted. “You’ve got no right to…”

The policeman wasn’t listening. The driver shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t his fault if the package wasn’t delivered to where it should be. The office would have to deal with this. He fished out a cigarette, but couldn’t get it to light. The wind and rain had gotten stronger. He huddled over the flame and cupped his hands. Then he suddenly straightened his back and shivered.

“Shit,” he hissed to himself. The cigarette fell to the ground.

He’d be fired. He should have turned around the minute he saw the police car. If he’d been a bit more with it, less congested and tired, he would have turned around sharply, just to be on the safe side.

They couldn’t fire him. It was nothing. The first time, he could say. At least he had never been stopped before. Surely it would take more than that for him to lose his job! The policemen stood with their heads in the back of the van, but didn’t touch the package that lay there, the last delivery of the day. Quite a big package, about fifty-one inches long and fairly narrow.

“Is it heavy?”

The man with the mustache turned around to face him.

“Yes, very. Feel for yourself.”

He was trying to be friendly now. Maybe they just wanted to see the damned package. Listen to it with some sort of technical apparatus or whatever it was they did to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. If he answered politely and let them get on with it, surely they would let him go. Right now he couldn’t care less about the package; he could leave it on a street corner, for all he cared. As long as they let him go.

But they didn’t touch the package.

They had no measuring instruments.

Instead, the driver heard sirens getting closer and closer. When he finally counted four police cars and one police van, he realized that he was in the middle of something big. Something in him just wanted to get away, run, run, god damn it, it’s the package they’re interested in, not you, run! Then he gave a resigned sigh and blew his nose in his hand. Losing his job was the worst thing that could happen to him. And there could be a bit of hassle with the tax authorities. In the worst-case scenario. But they couldn’t prove anything.

“They can’t prove a damn thing,” he mumbled to himself, as he was guided over to the police van by a friendly policewoman. “Nothing more than this, at least.”

When the package was opened three hours later, it was lying on a table. Around the table stood a pathologist with a goatee, Detective Inspector Adam Stubo, Sergeant Sigmund Berli of NCIS Norway, and a couple of officers from forensics. The package did not contain a bomb. That was obvious. It measured 53 x 12 x 18 inches and weighed 68 pounds. Thus far it seemed that there were only fingerprints from one person on the package, and they presumably belonged to the courier driver. He had handled it without gloves. It would take a few days before they could be certain, but for the moment there was reason to believe that the package had been as good as surgically cleaned before the driver picked it up. One of the forensic officers cut the paper, a long, clean cut from top to bottom down one of the sides, like for an autopsy. The pathologist’s face was wiped of any expression. The officer carefully lifted a corner of the lid. Two Styrofoam balls fell onto the floor. He opened the package completely.

A child’s hand stuck out from the Styrofoam.

It was loosely clasped, as if it had just dropped something. There were remnents of nail polish on the thumbnail, which was bitten to the quick. A small fake gold ring twinkled on the middle finger. The stone was blue, light blue.

No one said anything.

The only thing that Adam Stubo could think about was that it was him who would have to talk to Lena Baardsen. His eyes were hurting. He held his breath. Slowly he removed more of the white balls; it was like digging in dry snow. An arm came into view. Sarah Baardsen was lying on her stomach with her legs slightly apart. When two of the men gently turned her over, they saw the message. It was taped to the child’s stomach, a big piece of paper with red letters.

Now you’ve got what you deserved.

“Under the table, okay? I was just getting some cash on the side!”

The driver sniffed and the tears were running.

“And could I get a tissue soon? I’ve got a damned cold, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I would advise you to calm down.”

“Calm down! I’ve been sitting here for five hours, god damn it! Five hours! With no tissues and no lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer. You haven’t been arrested. You are here of your own free will to help us.”

Adam Stubo pulled out his own handkerchief and handed it to the driver.

“Help you with what?”

The man was very distressed. His eyes were red. He obviously had a temperature and had difficulty breathing.

“Listen,” he said pleadingly. “I would love to help you, but I’ve told you everything I know! I got a telephone call. On my own private cell phone.”

He blew his nose loudly and shook his head in despair.

“I was told to pick up a package. It would be in the entrance of a tenement building in Urtegate. The building was due for demolition and the entrance would be open. There’d be a note on top of the package with the delivery address, along with an envelope containing two thousand kroner. Piece of cake!”

“Ahah. And you thought that was fine.”

“Well, fine… Our jobs are supposed to go through the office and I know that…”

“I wasn’t actually thinking about that. I was thinking more that you were willing to deliver a package for someone who didn’t even say who they were, simply because they tempted you with a couple thousand kroner. That’s what I meant. I find that… quite alarming, to be honest.”

Adam Stubo smiled. The driver smiled back, confused. There was something about the policeman that didn’t quite seem to fit.

“What if there’d been a bomb in the package, for example? Or drugs?”

Adam Stubo was still smiling, even more broadly now.

“It’s never anything like that.”

“Right. Never. So this is something you do quite often?”

“No, no, no… that’s not what I meant!”

“What did you mean then?”

“Listen,” said the driver.

“I’m listening, I’m all ears.”

“Okay, so I take a couple of jobs on the side. That’s not so unusual. Everyone…”

“No, not everyone. In most courier companies, the drivers are self-employed. But not BigBil. You’re employed by them. When you take jobs on the side, you’re cheating BigBil. And me, I guess. Society at large, in a way.”

Adam Stubo let out a short laugh.

“But let’s forget that for the moment. You couldn’t see the number on your phone?”

“Can’t remember. It’s true. I just answered the phone.”

“You didn’t react to the fact that the man… it was a man, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Young or old?”

“Don’t know.”

“High voice? Deep voice? Dialect?”

“But I’ve already answered all of this! I can’t remember what his voice was like. I didn’t react to the fact that he didn’t say who he was. I needed the money! It’s as simple as that. A quick two thousand kroner. Simple.”

“Couldn’t you just take the money and leave the package?”

Adam Stubo raised his eyebrows and rubbed his chin.

“I…”

The driver sneezed. The handkerchief was already soaking. Adam Stubo looked away.

“You what?”

“If I did that, those people wouldn’t call back. With new jobs, I mean.”

He was less defensive now; his voice was more subdued.

“Precisely. So you realize that this sort of delivery is by nature a bit suspicious? You understand that no one would pay two thousand kroner to have a package delivered two miles away if they could do it for a couple of hundred through legal channels? So there’s nothing wrong with your perception?”

The policeman was no longer smiling. The driver hid his face in the hanky.

“What was in the damned package?” he snivelled. “What the hell was in that package?”

“I think you’d rather not know,” said Adam Stubo. “You can go. We’ll be in touch again later. Hope you feel better soon. Keep the handkerchief. Good-bye.”