Punishment

by Holt, Anne

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  Half the meat was still on the plate. Aksel put his knife between the teeth of the fork and drank the rest of his beer. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

  I was expecting some enthusiasm, she thought. This is absurd. Here I am thinking I’m an angel, a messenger bringing good tidings. I want . . . what do I want? Ever since I read your story – from the moment I realised that Alvhild was right – I’ve seen myself in the role of the fairy godmother. Who would right all wrongs. I would come here and tell you what you already know: that you’re innocent. You are innocent. I want to confirm that for you. I’ve come all the way from Norway and you should be . . . grateful. Damn it, I want some gratitude.

  ‘I want absolutely nothing,’ she said quietly. ‘If you want, I can go.’

  Aksel smiled. His teeth were even and grey and didn’t suit his face. It was as if someone had cut out an old mouth and sewn it on somewhere it didn’t belong. But he smiled and put his hands down on the table in front of him.

  ‘I’ve dreamt about what it would be like to have . . .’

  He searched for the right word. Johanne was unsure whether to help him or not. There was a long pause.

  ‘Your name cleared,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly. To have my name cleared.’

  He looked down at his empty glass. Johanne signalled to the waitress to bring another. She had a thousand questions, but couldn’t think of a single one.

  ‘Why . . .’ she started, without knowing where she was going. ‘Are you aware of the fact that the media was highly critical of your sentence? Did you know that several journalists mocked the prosecution and the witnesses they brought against you?’

  ‘No.’

  The smile had vanished and the fringe was about to fall again. But he didn’t seem aggressive. Nor curious. His voice was completely flat. Maybe it was because he wasn’t used to the language any more. Maybe he really had to summon up his strength to even take in what she was telling him.

  ‘I didn’t get the papers.’

  ‘But what about afterwards? You must have heard about it afterwards, from other people, from your fellow inmates, from . . .’

  ‘I had no mates in prison. It wasn’t a very . . . friendly place.’

  ‘Didn’t any journalists try to talk to you? I’ve got the clippings with me, so you can have a look. Surely some of them must have tried to contact you after you were sentenced? I’ve tried to trace the two journalists who were most critical, but unfortunately they’re both dead now. Can you remember if they tried to get an interview with you?’

  The glass of beer was already half empty. He ran his finger round the rim.

  ‘Maybe. It’s so long ago now. I thought everyone . . . I thought every . . .’

  You thought that everyone was out to get you, thought Johanne. You didn’t want to talk to anyone. You walled yourself in, both physically and mentally, and didn’t trust anyone. You mustn’t trust me, either. Don’t think that I can do anything. Your case is too old. It won’t be taken up again. I’m just curious. I’ve got questions. I want to make notes. I’ve got a notebook and a tape recorder in my bag. If I get them out, there’s a risk you’ll leave. That you’ll say no. That you’ll finally realise that I’m only looking after my own interests.

  ‘Like I said . . .’

  She nodded at the beer glass. Did he want another? He shook his head.

  ‘I do research. And the project I’m working on at the moment is trying to compare . . .’

  ‘You’ve already told me.’

  ‘Right. I wondered if . . . is it OK if I take notes?’

  A large lady slapped the bill down on the table in front of Aksel. Johanne snatched it up a bit too fast. The waitress tossed her head and wiggled back out to the kitchen without turning round. Aksel’s face darkened.

  ‘I’ll pay,’ he said. ‘Give me the bill.’

  ‘No, no . . . let me. I’ll get it on expenses . . . I mean, it was me who asked you out.’

  ‘Give me that!’

  She let go of the bill. It fell to the floor. He picked it up. Then he took out a worn wallet and started to count the notes.

  ‘I might talk to you later,’ he said, without looking up from the money. ‘I need to think about all this. How long are you here for?’

  ‘A few days, at least.’

  ‘A few days.

  Thirty-one, thirty-two . . .’

  It was a big pile of worn notes.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Augustus Snow.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  He pushed back his chair and got up with heavy movements. Gone was the man who had climbed up a rickety ladder to change a weathercock for a pig earlier in the day.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ said Johanne quickly. ‘Just one question before you go?’

  He didn’t answer, but made no effort to go.

  ‘Did they say anything when you were released? I mean, did they give you any explanation as to what had happened? Did they tell you that you’d been pardoned or . . .’

  ‘Nothing. They said nothing. I was given a suitcase to put my things in. An envelope with one hundred kroner. The address of a hostel. But they said nothing. Except, there was a man, a . . . He wasn’t wearing a uniform or anything like that. He just said I should keep my mouth shut and be happy. “Keep your mouth shut and be happy.” I remember that sentence well. But explanation? Nope.’

  Again he bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. It was horrible and made her look down. Aksel Seier walked towards the entrance and then disappeared, without waiting for her, without making any further arrangements. She twisted her water glass in her hand. She tried to catch a thought. But couldn’t.

  There was something in Aksel Seier’s house that didn’t belong there. She had seen something. She had reacted to something, afterwards, when it was too late, something that was part of the bizarre interior, but that stood out all the same. She closed her eyes and tried to recreate Aksel Seier’s living room. The galleon figure. The battlefield. The sad Samí in a faded jacket. The knight on the wall. The wall clock with horseshoe weights. The bookcase with four books in it, but she couldn’t remember any of the titles. An old coffee jar with small change in it by the door. The TV with an indoor aerial. A standard lamp in the shape of a shark, with its teeth in the floor and a light in its tail. A lifelike Labrador in black painted wood. Absurd, intriguing objects that belonged together in some indescribable way.

  Plus something else. Something she had reacted to, without paying attention before it was too late.

  *

  Aksel Seier walked fast. His thoughts turned back to that spring day in 1966, when he saw Oslo for the last time. The fjord was covered in a blanket of fog. He stood by the railings on MS Sandefjord, sailing to the USA with a cargo of artificial fertiliser. The captain had nodded briefly when Aksel explained his situation, honestly and without any embellishment. That he had served a long prison sentence and it looked like nothing would work out for him here in Norway. The captain didn’t need to worry, Aksel Seier was an American citizen. The passport that was thumped down on the table was genuine enough. All he wanted was to make himself useful during the voyage over the Atlantic. If he could, that was.

  He could help out in the galley. Before they reached the Dyna lighthouse, he had peeled four kilos of potatoes. Then he went out on deck for a while. He knew that he was leaving for good. He cried and didn’t know why.

  Since then, he had never shed a tear, until now.

  He ran home. The bolt in the gate was difficult and gave him problems. The postman stuck his head out of the car window, pointed at the pig and laughed. Aksel Seier jumped over the low fence and rushed indoors. Then he locked the door carefully behind him and climbed into bed. The cat meowed loudly outside the window but he paid no attention.

  XXIV

  ‘And you’re wasting time on this?’

>   Adam Stubo rubbed his face. The palm of his hand rasped against the dry stubble. It was past two in the morning on Wednesday 24 May. A cluster of around twenty-five journalists and nearly as many photographers huddled outside Asker and Bærum police station in Sandvika. They were being kept out of the red-brick building by a couple of police cadets, who had resorted to their truncheons in the last fifteen minutes. They paced back and forth in front of the entrance, angrily smacking their truncheons into their hands, like caricature policemen from a Chaplin film. The photographers pulled back a step or two. Some of the journalists started to look at their watches. One guy from Dagbladet, who Adam Stubo recognised, yawned loudly and obviously. He barked at one of the photographers before shambling over to a Saab that was parked illegally. He got in, but the car didn’t move.

  Adam Stubo let the curtain fall and turned back to the room.

  ‘Jesus, Hermansen, the poor guy has never hurt a fly!’

  ‘And who said that our abductor necessarily had a criminal record?’

  Hermansen blew his nose on his fingers and swore.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Well, what the hell do you mean then? Just four hours after yet another child was abducted, there’s a guy at the first crime scene, dressed in camouflage like he’s planning a career in the CIA, jerking himself off and moaning the girl’s name to himself! And now he’s sitting downstairs and can’t tell us what he was doing on Thursday the 4th of May, when Emilie Selbu disappeared, or the 10th of May when Kim was abducted. He can’t even bloody remember what he was doing at 5 o’clock today.’

  ‘That’s quite simply because the man’s got nothing to tell,’ said Adam Stubo drily. ‘The man’s an idiot. Literally. At least, he’s not all there. He’s terrified, Hermansen.’

  Hermansen lifted a dirty coffee cup to his mouth. The sour smell of stress and sweat pervaded the room. Adam wasn’t sure whom it was coming from.

  ‘He’s a driver by trade,’ growled Hermansen. ‘Can’t be a complete idiot. Drives for a courier company. And he does have a record. No less than . . .’

  He grabbed a file and pulled out a document.

  ‘Five fines and two sentences for sexual offences.’

  Adam Stubo wasn’t listening. Once again, he looked stealthily out at the journalists. Their numbers had dwindled. He rubbed his nose and tried to work out what time it would be on the east coast of the USA.

  ‘Indecent exposure,’ he sighed heavily, without looking at Hermansen. ‘The man was done for flashing. Nothing else. He’s not the man we’re looking for. Unfortunately.’

  *

  ‘Indecent exposure.’

  Adam tried to stay neutral. It was impossible. Something about the words themselves echoed contempt for the action they described and could only be spat out, scornfully. The camouflage man had shrunk to a pile of cloth. The sweat was dripping. The man’s shoulders were so narrow that the arms of his jacket covered his hands. He had a sling round his neck but wasn’t using it. The crotch of his trousers sagged down as far as his knees.

  ‘Fifty-six years old,’ said Adam Stubo slowly. ‘Is that correct?’

  The man didn’t answer. Adam pulled a chair over to him and sat down. He rested his elbows on his knees and tried not to wrinkle his nose at the smell of urine and old sweat. This time he was certain of where the smell was coming from.

  ‘Listen,’ he said quietly. ‘Can I call you Laffen? Laffen, that’s what they call you, isn’t it?’

  A slight nod indicated that the man was at least able to hear.

  ‘Laffen,’ smiled Stubo. ‘My name is Adam. It’s been a tiring evening for you, hasn’t it?’

  Again, a slight nod.

  ‘We’ll soon get everything sorted. I just need you to answer a few questions. OK?’

  Another nod, almost imperceptible this time.

  ‘Do you remember where you were caught? Where those two men . . . where they found you?’

  The man didn’t react. His eyes, which were clearer at such close range, were like two black marbles in his narrow face. Adam carefully put his hand on the man’s knee and still got no reaction.

  ‘You drive a car, don’t you?’

  ‘Ford Escort 1991 model. Metallic blue. One point six litre engine, but it’s been souped up. The stereo cost eleventhousandfourhundredandninetykroner. Bucket seats and a spoiler. Did it all myself.’

  His voice grated. Adam felt like he had put money into an old jukebox, especially when the man continued:

  ‘Did it myself. Did it myself. Bucket seats and spoiler.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Why were you there then?’

  ‘For no reason. Just . . . just standing there. Looking. It’s not against the law to look.’

  The man pulled up his left sleeve. A blinding-white plaster cast came into view.

  ‘They broke my arm. I didn’t do nothing.’

  It was half past three in the morning. Adam Stubo had been awake for twenty-one hours. God knows how long it was since the detainee had last slept. Adam slapped him lightly on the knee and got up.

  ‘Try to get some sleep on the bunk over there,’ he said in a friendly tone. ‘As soon as it’s daylight we’ll get everything sorted. And then you can go home.’

  As he closed the door carefully behind him, he realised that the camouflage man could pose a problem. He couldn’t plan a piss-up in a brewery, let alone carry out three sophisticated abductions and one elaborate return of a child’s body. Sure, the man had a driving licence and therefore must be able to read and write. But ‘driver by trade’ as Hermansen had called him was a huge exaggeration all the same. Laffen Sørnes was on disability benefit and delivered hot meals to the elderly in Stabekk twice a week. Unpaid.

  The problem was not the flasher himself. The problem was that the police had not arrested anyone else yet. Three children had disappeared. One boy was already dead. All the police had after three weeks of investigation was a middle-aged flasher in a Ford Escort.

  The flasher could turn out to be a major headache.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Adam Stubo.

  Hermansen shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘OK, but then we’ve got nothing. Zip all. You tell them that, those vultures out there.’

  He nodded at the window.

  ‘Let the flasher go home as soon as it’s daylight,’ Stubo yawned. ‘And for God’s sake, get the man another lawyer, one who makes sure that his client isn’t kept awake all night. That’s my advice. He’s not our man. And you . . .’

  He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and pointed a finger.

  ‘I can’t decide what you do out here in Asker and Bærum. But if I were you . . . I’d fine the bastards who broke his arm. If not, you’ll be living in the Wild West before you know it. Mark my words. Bloody Texas.’

  XXV

  Out in the country, in a valley to the north-east of Oslo, in a house high on the hillside, sat a man with a remote control in his hand. He was checking the news on teletext. He liked teletext. He could get the news whenever he liked in a format he liked: short and to the point. It was early morning. The white light of another unused day flooded in through the kitchen window and made him feel reborn, every day. He laughed out loud, even though he was alone.

  Man (56) arrested in Emilie case.

  He played with the buttons on the remote control. The letters got bigger, smaller, bolder, narrower. Man arrested. Did they think he was an amateur? And that he’d get angry now? That he’d lose his head just because they had arrested the wrong person? Because they made his actions another man’s property? Did the police think that it would make him hurry, make mistakes, not be as careful?

  He laughed out loud again, nearly ecstatic. The bare walls echoed. He knew exactly what the police thought. They thought he was a psychopath. They assumed he would be conceited about his crimes. The police meant to wound his pride. They wanted to lure him into making mistakes. To
boast about what he was doing. The man with the remote control knew that, he had done his homework, studied; he knew what the police would do when they discovered that he was out there, someone who stole children and killed them without them knowing why. They wanted to provoke him.

  He could picture them. All the information about the children on a big board. Photographs, data. Computers. Age, sex, history. Parents’ background. Dates; they were looking for links. A pattern. He was certain they would make a point of the fact that Emilie was taken on a Thursday, Kim on a Wednesday and Sarah on a Tuesday. They thought they had it sussed and now expected something to happen on a Monday. When the time came and the next child disappeared on a Sunday, they would panic. No pattern, they would say to each other. No system! Their despair would paralyse them and would become utterly unbearable when yet another child disappeared.

  The man went over to the window. He would have to go to work soon. But first he should take some food down to the children. And water. Cornflakes and water, as he’d run out of milk.

  Emilie had pulled herself together. She was sweet. Happy and friendly. Just like he’d expected. Even though he had initially been uncertain as to whether he should take her or not, he was glad he had done it now. Of course, there was something special about Emilie. When he heard that her mother had died, he had decided to leave her be. But thankfully he’d changed his mind. She was a grateful little girl. Said thank you for her food and was pleased to get the horse, even though she said practically nothing when he gave her the Barbie doll. He was still unsure what he was going to do with Emilie in the long run, when it was all over. But that didn’t really matter. He had plenty of time.

  Sarah was a little witch.

  But he could have told you that beforehand. The bite mark on his arm was red and swollen; he carefully stroked the skin and was annoyed that he hadn’t been more cautious.

  As he looked out of the window at the brow of the hill, squinting against the morning sun, he wondered why he hadn’t started earlier. He had put up with too much, for too long. Given in too often. Tolerated too much. Got too little. Given in too much. It started when he was four years old. Probably even earlier, but that was the first time that he could remember.