Punishment aka What Is Mine

FIFTY

My son-in-law is in Copenhagen,” said Adam, and put a young boy down on the floor.

The child was somewhere between two and three. He had brown eyes and black hair and smiled shyly at Johanne while keeping a firm hold on his grandfather’s calf.

“He’s coming back tomorrow morning. I normally have Amund on Tuesdays and every other weekend, but the way things have been recently… I haven’t had a chance to do that. And this was an emergency so I couldn’t say no.”

He squatted down. The boy didn’t want to take off his jacket. Adam pulled down the zipper and let him keep it on. Then he tapped the boy gently on the bottom and said:

“Johanne has some great toys, I’m sure.”

Why didn’t you ask me to come to you? she thought. I’ve never been to your house and it’s past eight. You knew that Kristiane was with Isak and this child should be in bed. I could have come to you.

“Come,” she said, and took the boy by the hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Amund beamed when she led him to the box of cars. He grabbed a tractor and held it up in the air.

“Red tractor,” he said. “Red truck. Red bus.”

“He’s a bit obsessed with colors at the moment,” said Adam.

“He’ll have a boring time here then,” said Johanne, and helped Amund with a bulldozer that had lost its front wheels.

“It’s exactly a month since Emilie disappeared. Have you thought about that?”

“No,” he said, “but you’re right. Fourth of May. Where’s Jack?”

“I think…” Johanne started. The boy dropped the bulldozer and studied an ambulance that Isak had painted with bright red enamel.

“Red ambulance,” said the boy with some skepticism.

Johanne sat down at the table.

“I think the deal is that the dog goes with Kristiane. And to be honest, thank God for that. I’ve spent an hour getting rid of the smell of dog and puppy piss. Without entirely succeeding, I’m afraid.”

She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose slightly before adding:

“Looks like something’s bothering you.”

Adam Stubo seemed bigger. It couldn’t just be her imagination; he looked like he’d put on weight over the past few weeks. His cheeks were rounder and his shirt was tighter at the neck. He was constantly running his finger under his collar. His tie was coming loose. Johanne had noticed that he always ate too much and too fast.

“I hope it’s not too rude to ask if you’ve got any food?” he said in a tired voice. “I’m so hungry.”

Amund was asleep in Johanne’s bed. It had taken an hour to put him down. Finally Adam came out of the bedroom. He had stuffed his tie into his pocket now and the top buttons of his shirt were open. He folded up the sleeves and sank into the sofa. It creaked underneath him. He grabbed a Danish pastry from the glass plate and wolfed it down in three fast mouthfuls.

“This potassium theory is truly terrifying,” he said, and wiped the crumbs away from his mouth. “I mean, it’s frightening enough in this case, but if people get wind of it…”

“The problem is the injection mark,” said Johanne pensively. “But if the victim is… if the person is sick or a drug addict or for any other reason might have injection tracks without raising an alarm, well then it’s…”

“Terrifying.”

“But you said that the fluid that’s injected consisted of potassium and something else?”

“Potassium chloride. Which separates into potassium and chloride in the blood.”

Johanne frowned.

“Wouldn’t there be traces of chloride then?”

Adam looked like he was about to take another Danish. Then he brushed his hands and folded them behind his head.

“I’m not sure if I understand it entirely, but the point is that the level of chlorides in the body is higher than the level of potassium.”

Adam closed his eyes to think. Then he opened them again, leant forward, and started to draw with his finger on the glass table.

“I might not get all the figures exactly right, but at least they illustrate what I’m getting at. Let’s say that your level of potassium is three of some measure or another.”

“Okay. Three measures potassium.”

“Then your chloride level is actually a hundred. This can rise to one hundred and five without it being dangerous or remarkable. A similar increase from three to eight measures of potassium would, on the other hand, kill a person. This really is the recipe for the perfect murder.”

“Which explains why he had to abduct the children,” said Johanne. “He had to take them somewhere where he could drug them with Valium and then inject them in the temple.”

“If that’s what he did.”

“Mmm. If that’s what he did. When will we find out more?”

“The pathologist will look at Sarah first, tomorrow morning. We’re going to do what we can to avoid opening Kim’s grave.”

They both looked at the bedroom. The door was ajar.

“If that’s the case, we certainly know more about the murderer,” said Johanne.

“How exactly?”

“We know that he has access to potassium.”

“But we all do.”

“But you said only a few pharmacies actually stock it.”

“Of course we’ll question all the pharmacists in the country. The pathologist reckoned that an order of potassium is unusual enough to be remembered. But the murderer may have bought it abroad. God knows he’s careful enough. And then there’s the problem with the hospitals. Intensive care units have potassium on hand. And there are a good number of intensive care units in Norway.”

“But we also know more,” said Johanne slowly. “We know that not only is the murderer an intelligent man, he also knows about a method that only a handful of doctors would…”

Adam interrupted, “The pathologist was really shaken. He must be around sixty-five and he said he had never thought about killing people in this way before. Never. And he’s a pathologist!”

He raised himself slightly from the sofa and hunted in his back pocket for the printout that Sigmund Berli had scribbled on. It was torn and would not lie flat on the table.

“Which makes our gynecologist more interesting again,” he said thoughtfully, and pointed at the doctor’s name. “And the nurse for that matter. Except that she’s a woman. But it knocks out…”

“We’re not looking for a woman,” said Johanne. “And it’s not likely to be a doctor.”

Adam glanced up and asked, “What makes you so sure?”

“This new information mustn’t make us forget what we’ve worked out already,” she said firmly. “We’re still talking about a damaged person. A psychopath or someone with clearly psychopathic tendencies. I think we’re looking for a man with a string of broken relationships behind him. Also in terms of his education, he has possibly studied at a university, but is unable to complete a course given the obligations and efforts required to do that. He may well be intelligent, possibly very intelligent, and can therefore benefit from any knowledge he does pick up. A world of information has opened up on the Internet in recent years. You can find everything from recipes for bombs to suicide clubs; it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if there’s a Web site somewhere about unusual murder methods. For that matter, our man might be smart enough to have worked it out himself, based on information from the countless medical Web sites. He’s definitely intelligent. But he has never managed to get an official qualification. How long does it take to train to be a nurse now? Four years? I reckon it would be more or less impossible for this man to complete something like that.”

“But why the precision?”

“With the potassium, you mean?”

“Yes. Why such an… advanced murder method? He could have strangled them, shot them, drowned them for that matter!”

“Control,” said Johanne. “Arrogance. He wants to prove he’s better than anyone else. Remember, this is a man who feels he’s been wronged. Deeply wronged. Not just by one person or one event. He’s built up an arsenal of defeats to be avenged. To manage to kill children without us even discovering how it’s…”

“Grandpa,” said a thin little voice.

It frightened Johanne that she hadn’t heard the boy. He was already out in the room, with a teddy bear under his arm. His T-shirt had a big spot of ketchup on it, but Adam had refused the offer of borrowing some of Kristiane’s old pajamas. The top of the boy’s diaper was sagging well below his belly button and an unmistakable smell made Johanne get up and guide him over to the bathroom. For some reason she hoped that Adam would not follow. Amund was unusually trusting. When she sat down on the toilet seat and took off his diaper, he gave a big smile.

“Jojonne” he said, and stroked her cheek with his chubby hand.

Adam had left a bag with nonperfumed soap, three diapers, and a pacifier in the bathroom.

You assumed that the boy would sleep here, she thought. Taking pajamas might have been a bit obvious. But three diapers?

“Grandpa is an old fox,” she said, and lifted the boy up into the sink.

“Not wash bottom now,” said Amund with determination, and kicked his legs. “Not wash.”

“Yes,” said Johanne. “You’ve got poop there. Away with the poop.”

She wiped his bottom with a cloth. Amund laughed.

“Not wash,” he said, and hiccuped when she turned on the tap and let the warm water run over his skin.

“You have to be all clean and beautiful; then you’ll sleep well.”

“Bulances are white,” said Amund. “Not red.”

“You’re right, Amund. Ambulances are white.”

“Bulances,” he said.

“Smart boy.”

The boy snuggled into the towel.

“No more sleep,” he said and laughed.

“I don’t think so,” said Adam from the doorway. “Come here; Grandpa’ll put you back to bed. Thank you, Johanne.”

It didn’t work. Half an hour later, Adam emerged from the bedroom with the child in his arms.

“He’ll fall asleep here,” he said half-apologetically, and then gave the boy a dark look. Amund just smiled and pushed his pacifier in.

“He’ll just have to lie in my lap.”

The little boy almost disappeared in his grandfather’s arms. The tip of his nose was just visible over a green blanket. His eyes closed after only a few minutes and his regular sucking quieted. Adam pulled the blanket away from his face. His dark hair looked nearly black against Adam’s white shirt. The child’s eyelashes were wet and so long that they meshed together.

“Children,” said Johanne quietly, unable to take her eyes off Amund. “I can’t help thinking that the children are the key to understanding this case. At first I thought it was something to do with the murderer’s own childhood. Full of loss. A sense of loss linked to his childhood. And perhaps…”

She breathed in and out deeply.

“Maybe I’m right. But there’s something more. There’s something to do with these children. Even though they are not his. It’s as if…”

She got lost in her train of thought.

Adam said nothing. Amund was fast asleep. Johanne suddenly shook her head, as if returning from far-flung thoughts, and said, “Do you think he’s got a child that he can’t see?”

“I think you’re taking it a bit far now,” said Adam quietly, while straightening the boy’s head. “What makes you say that?”

“It just fits with everything. Let’s imagine that this is a man who attracts women, but who never manages to keep them. One of the women gets pregnant. She chooses to have the child. But the idea of letting him be with the child must be rather frightening. She might have…”

“But why these children in particular? If you’re right in thinking that Glenn Hugo, Kim, Sarah, and Emilie were not randomly chosen, what is it about them? If the guy had been going around getting women pregnant for years and all the victims were his children, then… But they’re not. At least, they don’t appear to be. What is it that made him choose them then?”

“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly tired. “I don’t know anything other than that there must be a reason. This man has a plan. There’s an absurd logic to what he’s doing, even though he differs from a typical serial killer in a number of ways. For example, the fact that there’s no obvious cycle in the abductions. No pattern, no obvious system. We don’t even know if he’s finished.”

Silence fell again. Adam tucked the blanket in around Amund and put his lips to the dark head. The child’s breathing was light and rhythmic.

“That’s what I’m most afraid of,” whispered Adam. “That he’s not finished yet.”

In the white house at the edge of the woods an hour and a half’s drive from Oslo, the murderer had just come back from jogging. His knee was bleeding. It was dark outside and he’d tripped on the root of a tree. The cut wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding heavily anyway. He usually kept the bandages in the third drawer beside the sink. The box was empty. Annoyed, he found a sterile compress in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. He had to wind a bandage around the compress, as he’d run out of surgical tape as well. Of course he shouldn’t have gone jogging so late, but he was restless. He limped into the living room and switched on the TV.

He hadn’t been down to the cellar today. Emilie repulsed him more than ever. He wanted to get rid of her. The problem was that he had no one to deliver the damned child to.

“Nineteenth of June,” he half mumbled to himself, and flipped between the channels.

Everything would be over by then. Six weeks and four days after Emilie disappeared. He would drive in, take the fifth child, and deliver it back the same day. The date was not randomly chosen. Nothing was random in this world. There was a plan behind everything.

His boss had called him into the office on Friday. Given him a written warning. The only thing he’d done was taken some tools home. He didn’t even intend to steal them. They were only old tools and he was going to bring them back. The boss didn’t believe him. Someone must have blabbed.

He knew who was out to get him.

It was all part of a plan.

He could make plans, too.

“Nineteenth of June,” he repeated, and switched to teletext.

He would have to get rid of Emilie before then. Maybe she was dead already. He certainly didn’t intend to give her any more food.

His knee was really hurting.

“The letters,” she said out loud, interrupting herself midsentence.

Adam still had Amund on his lap, as if the conversation made it impossible for him to move him.

“The letters,” she repeated and slapped her forehead. “On Aksel’s chess table!”

Johanne had finally told Adam about the trip to Lillestrøm. About the connection between the mentally retarded Anders Mohaug and the author Asbjørn Revheim, who was the youngest son of Astor Kongsbakken, the prosecutor in the case against Aksel Seier. Adam’s reaction was difficult to interpret, but Johanne thought she saw a frown on his forehead that indicated that he felt the connection was too remarkable to put it down to coincidence.

“The letters?” he said in a questioning voice.

“Yes! After I’d been at Aksel Seier’s, I kept thinking there was something I’d seen there that didn’t belong. And I’ve just remembered what it was. A pile of letters on the chess table.”

“But letters… we all get letters every now and then.”

“The stamps,” said Johanne, “were Norwegian. The pile was tied together with a piece of string.”

“In other words, you only saw the one on top,” said Adam.

“Yes, that’s right.”

She nodded and continued, “But I’m sure that it was a pile of letters from the same person. They were from Norway, Adam. Aksel Seier gets letters from Norway. He’s in touch with someone here.”

“So?”

“He said nothing about it to me. It seemed as if he’d had nothing to do with his homeland since he left.”

“To be honest…”

Adam moved the child over to his other arm. Amund grunted but continued to sleep.

“You only had a fairly short conversation with the man! There’s nothing unusual about the fact that he’s kept in touch with someone here, a friend or someone from the family…”

“He doesn’t have any family in Norway. Not that I know of.”

“Now you’re making a mountain out of a molehill over something that probably has a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“Could he… could he be getting money from someone? Is he being paid not to make a fuss? Is that why he never tried to clear himself? Is that the explanation for why he just disappeared when I wanted to help him?”

Adam smiled. Johanne didn’t like the expression in his eyes.

“Forget it,” he said. “That’s very conspiracy theory. I’ve got something far more interesting to tell you. Astor Kongsbakken is still alive.”

“What?”

“Yep. He’s ninety-two and lives with his wife on Corsica. They’ve got a farm there, some sort of vineyard, as far as I can make out. I was fairly sure he wasn’t dead, as I would have remembered if he’d died. So I poked around a bit. He retired from public life over twenty years ago and has lived down there ever since.”

“I have to talk to him!”

“You could try calling him.”

“Have you got his number as well?”

Adam chuckled.

“There are limits. No phone directory inquiries. According to my information, he’s still got a clear head on him but is physically frail.”

Adam got up slowly, without waking the boy. He pulled the blanket tight around him and looked questioningly at Johanne. She nodded back indifferently and went to collect Amund’s things from the bedroom.

“I’ll bring the blanket back tomorrow,” he said, and struggled to get everything with him in one go.

“Do that,” she said lamely.

He stood up straight and looked at her. Amund lay over his shoulder and was mumbling in his sleep. His pacifier had fallen to the floor, so she bent down to pick it up. When she held it up to Adam, he grabbed her hand and wouldn’t let go.

“There’s nothing special about Astor Kongsbakken being friends with Alvhild’s director general,” he insisted. “Lots of lawyers know each other. You know what it’s like these days! Norway is a small country. And it was even smaller in the fifties and sixties. All the lawyers must have known each other!”

“But not all lawyers were involved in an alarming miscarriage of justice,” she said.

“No,” said Adam, giving up. “But we don’t know that they were, either.”

She followed him out to the car to help him with the doors. They didn’t say another word until Amund was belted into the car seat and the bags had been put in beside him.

“Speak to you soon,” said Adam lightly.

“Mmm,” said Johanne and went back into the empty apartment.

She wished at least the King of America were there.