Punishment aka What Is Mine

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, she 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.”

“No way to hit a man harder, either.”

Johanne looked at him absentmindedly. Then it dawned on her.

“Oh… sorry. Sorry, Adam, I wasn’t thinking…”

“That’s okay. People have a tendency to forget. Probably because the accident was so… bizarre. I’ve got a colleague who lost a son in a car accident two years ago. Everyone talked to him about it. Somehow a car accident is something that everyone can relate to. Falling off a ladder and killing yourself and your mother in the fall is more…”

He smiled tightly and sipped his drink.

“John Irving style. So no one says anything. But it’s probably just as well. You were in the middle of a train of thought.”

She didn’t want to continue, but something in his eyes made her carry on:

“Let’s say it’s someone who seems very normal. Good-looking, maybe. Attractive. He might even be a bit of a charmer and finds it easy to make contact with women. As he’s very manipulative, he also keeps hold of them for a while. But not long. There’s something mean about him, something immature and very self-centered, combined with an easily triggered paranoia that makes women reject him again and again. He doesn’t think it’s his fault. He has done nothing wrong. It’s the women who betray him. They’re sly and calculating. They’re not to be trusted. Then one day something happens.”

“Like what?”

He was about to empty his glass. Johanne didn’t know if she should offer him a refill. Instead she continued:

“I don’t know. Yet another rejection? Maybe. But presumably something more serious. Something that makes him flip. The man that was seen in Tromsø, have you got any more on him?”

“No. No one has come forward, which might mean that was our man. It might also mean that it was someone completely different. Someone who has nothing to do with the case, but who had some business or other up there that he would rather not disclose to the police. It could also have been someone who is completely innocent who was visiting a lover. So we’re not much further forward.”

“Emilie messes it all up,” she said. “Would you like another?”

He picked up his glass and looked at it for a long time. The ice cubes had melted to water. Suddenly he drank it and said:

“No thank you. Yes, Emilie is a mystery. Where is she? As her mother’s been dead for nearly a year now, it can hardly be targeted at her. So your theory falls to pieces.”

“Yes…”

She paused.

“But she’s not been delivered back, like the other children. At least, not to the father. But have you…”

Their eyes met and locked.

“The graveyard,” he nearly whispered. “She might have been delivered to her mother.”

“Yes. No!”

Johanne pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was cold and nearly shouted:

“It’s been nearly four weeks since she disappeared! Someone would have found her. Lots of people go to the graveyard in Asker in spring.”

“I don’t even know where Grete Harborg is buried,” he said, breathless. “Shit. Why didn’t we think of that?”

He got up suddenly and gave a questioning nod toward Johanne’s study.

“Just use the phone,” she said. “But isn’t it a bit late to investigate that now?”

“Far too late,” he replied and closed the door behind him.

They had moved out onto the terrace. Adam was the one who wanted to. It was past midnight. The neighbors had called their children in and there was a faint smell of barbecue wafting over from the east. The wind direction was in their favor, the sound of the cars on the ring road was distant and subdued. He refused the offer of a sleeping bag when Johanne went to get a duvet for herself, but he had eventually accepted a blanket over his shoulders. She could see that he was cold. He was opening and closing his legs rhythmically and breathing into his hands to keep them warm.

“What a fascinating story,” he said as he checked for the fourth time whether his cell phone was switched on. “I asked them to call me on this. So don’t…”

He tipped his head back toward the apartment. Kristiane was sound asleep.

Johanne had told him about Aksel Seier. In fact, it surprised her that she hadn’t told him earlier. In just under one week, she and Adam had spent a whole day, a long evening and a whole night together. She had thought about sharing the story with him on several occasions. But something had stopped her, until now. Perhaps it was her eternal reluctance to mix up her cards when it came to work. She wasn’t quite sure what to call Adam anymore. He was still wearing her shirt. He had listened intently. His short, occasional questions had been relevant. Shown insight. She should have told him earlier. For some reason she had neglected to tell him about Asbjørn Revheim and Anders Mohaug. She hadn’t mentioned the trip to Lillestrøm at all. It was as if she wanted to get things clear in her head first.

“Do you think,” she said thoughtfully, “… that the prosecuting authorities in Norway might in some cases be…”

It was almost as if she didn’t dare to use the word.

“Corrupt,” he helped her. “No, if you mean that someone from the authorities would accept money to manipulate the result of a case, I would say that is nearly impossible.”

“That’s reassuring,” she said drily.

A thermos of tea with honey was sitting on a small teak table between them. There was an annoying whining from the top and she tried to screw it on tighter.

“But there are many forms of human inadequacy,” he added, hugging his mug for warmth. “Corruption is more or less unthinkable in this country for many reasons. To start with, we have no tradition of it. That might sound strange, but corruption requires a kind of national tradition! In many African countries, for example…”

“Careful!”

They laughed.

“We’ve seen quite a few examples of corruption at a very high level in Europe in recent years,” said Johanne. “Belgium. France. So it’s not as alien as one might think. You don’t need to go all the way to Africa.”

“That’s true,” Adam admitted. “But we’re a very small country. And very transparent. It’s not corruption that’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem then?”

“Incompetence and prestige.”

“Wow!”

She gave up on the thermos. It continued to complain; a thin, wailing noise. Adam opened the top completely and poured the remains of the tea into his cup. Then he carefully put the top down beside the thermos.

“What are you getting at?”

“I… Is it at all possible that Aksel Seier, in his time, was sentenced even though someone in the system actually knew he was innocent?”

“He was judged by a jury,” said Adam. “A jury is comprised of ten people. I find it very hard to believe that ten people could do something so wrong without it ever being discovered. After all these years…”

“Yes. But the evidence was produced by the prosecution.”

“True enough. Do you mean that…”

“I don’t mean anything really. I’m just asking if you think it’s possible that the police and the public prosecutor in 1956 would have sentenced Aksel Seier for something that they knew he didn’t do.”

“Do you know who was acting for the prosecution?”

“Astor Kongsbakken.”

Adam took the cup from his mouth and laughed.

“According to the newspaper reports, he was, to put it mildly, very engaged in the case,” continued Johanne.

“I can imagine! I’m too young…”

He was smiling broadly now and looking straight at her. She studied a tea stain on her duvet and pulled it tighter.

“… to have experienced him in court,” he continued. “But he was a legend. The prosecution’s answer to Portia, you might say. Passionate and extremely competent. Unlike some of the big defence lawyers, Kongsbakken had the wisdom to stop in time. I can’t remember what happened to him.”

“He must have been dead for ages,” she said quietly.

“Yes, either dead or old as the hills. But I think I can reassure you of one thing: Public Prosecutor Kongsbakken would never knowingly have been instrumental in sentencing anyone who was innocent.”

“But in 1965… when Aksel Seier was released for no reason and nothing…”

His cell phone started to play a digitalized version of “Für Elise.” Adam answered. The conversation lasted less than a minute and he said little else other than yes and no and thank you.

“Nothing,” he said out loud and ended the call. “Grete Harborg is buried in Østre Gravlund here in Oslo, beside her grandparents. Three patrols from Oslo City Police have combed the area around the grave. Nothing. No suspicious packages, no messages. They’ll keep looking tomorrow when it gets light, but they’re fairly convinced there’s nothing there.”

“Thank God for that,” whispered Johanne; she felt physically relieved. “Thank goodness. But…”

He looked at her. In the night light his eyes looked dark, nearly black. He should have shaved. The blanket had slipped from his shoulders. When he turned to pick it up, she saw her name across his broad back. She swallowed and didn’t want to look at the time.

“… that means we still can’t be sure whether Emilie was taken by the same person as the others,” she said. “It might be someone completely different.”

“Yep,” he nodded. “But I don’t think it is. And you don’t think it is. And I hope to God that it isn’t.”

The intensity of his exclamation surprised her.

“Why… Why d’you…?”

“Emilie is alive. She may still be alive. If it’s our man who abducted her, then he has a reason for keeping her alive. So I hope it’s him. We just have to…”

“… find him.”

“I have to go,” said Adam.

“I guess you do,” said Johanne. “I’ll phone for a taxi.”

Adam was solidly built and it was three hours since he had had one gin and tonic. He could probably have driven home and they both knew that.

“I’ll come and get the car tomorrow,” he said. “And I’ll take your shirt with me. If it’s alright that I don’t wash it.”

By the front door, he gave Jack an extra pat.

Then he lifted his hand to his forehead, smiled, and went out to the waiting taxi.