Punishment aka What Is Mine

THIRTY-ONE

It was comfortable to drive. Even though a six-year-old Opel Vectra was not the best car, he was comfortable. It hadn’t been long since he’d changed the shock absorbers. The car was good. The stereo was good. The music was good.

“Good. Good. Good.”

He yawned and rubbed his forehead. Mustn’t sleep. He hadn’t stopped at all and was getting close to Lavangsdalen now. It was twenty-five hours since he’d rolled out of the garage at home. Well, if you could call it a garage. The old barn doubled as a shelter for the car and storage space for all sorts of junk that he didn’t have the heart to throw out. You never know when you might find a use for something. For example, he was now very glad that he didn’t get rid of the old jerry cans that the previous owner had left behind. They looked rusty and worn on first inspection, but once he’d given them a good going over with a steel-wire brush, they were as good as new. He’d been collecting gasoline for weeks. Got Bobben down at the co-op to fill the tank as usual. Not too often and not too much, no more than he’d usually bought since he moved to the small farm. Then, when he got home, he siphoned a few quarts off into the jerry cans. Eventually he had fifty-three extra gallons of gas. He wouldn’t need to buy any on the way north. No stops where he could be seen or leave behind any fingerprints on money. No video cameras. He was driving a suitably dirty, dark blue Opel Vectra and could be anyone. Joe Bloggs out for a spin. The license plates were dirty and difficult to read. Not the slightest bit unusual; after all, he was in the north of Norway and it was spring.

In Lavangsdalen the snow still lay like a dirty gray frill around the tree trunks. It was seven o’clock on Sunday morning. He hadn’t passed any cars for several minutes. On a gentle curve, he took his foot off the pedal. The track he turned into was wet and ravaged by potholes, but it was fine. He stopped behind a stony ridge and switched the engine off. Waited. Listened.

No one could see him. He took off his watch. A big black diving watch. Alarm clock function. He would sleep for two hours.

Two hours was all he needed.