Punishment

by Holt, Anne

  ‘Recipe,’ said Kristin, swallowing. ‘I must get the recipe.’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ said Johanne. ‘I just made it up.’

  The wine was good. It was half past nine on Wednesday night. Her head felt light. Her shoulders didn’t ache. The girls round the table were talking over each other. Only Tone had said she couldn’t come; she didn’t dare leave the children alone, given the situation. Especially after today.

  ‘She’s always so bloody worried,’ said Bente, and spilt some wine on the tablecloth. ‘Those children do have a father. Ooops! Salt! Mineral water! Tone is so . . . so hysterical about everything. I mean, we can’t just hole ourselves up simply because there’s a monster on the loose!’

  ‘They’ll catch him now,’ said Lina. ‘Now they know who he is. He won’t be able to hide for ever. He won’t get far. Did you see that the police have issued a wanted poster with a photo and everything? Don’t pour away all the mineral water!’

  Adam hadn’t called. Not since Johanne had ignored the ringing phone the night before last. She couldn’t decide whether she was upset or not. She didn’t know why she didn’t want to speak to him. Then. But not now. He could phone now. He could come round, in a few hours, when the girls had finished giggling and tottered out of the flat. Then Adam could come. They could sit at the kitchen table and eat leftovers and drink milk. He could borrow the shower and an old football shirt from the States. Johanne could look at his arms as he leaned over, supporting himself on the table; the shirt was short-sleeved and he had fair hair on his arms, as if it was already summer.

  ‘. . . isn’t that right?’

  Johanne smiled suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ll catch him, isn’t that right?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  But that guy,’ Lina insisted. ‘The one I met here on Saturday. Doesn’t he work for the police? Isn’t that what you said? Yes . . . something to do with the NCIS!’

  ‘Aren’t we actually here to talk about a book?’ said Johanne, and went out to the kitchen to get more wine; the ladies had brought far too much with them, as usual.

  ‘Which you, of course, haven’t read,’ said Lina.

  ‘I haven’t either,’ said Bente. ‘I just haven’t had the time. Sorry.’

  ‘Nor have I,’ admitted Kristin. ‘If that salt is going to have any effect you have to rub it in to the material. Like this!’

  She leaned over the table and stuck her index finger into the mix of salt and mineral water.

  ‘Why do we call this a book group . . .’

  Lina held the book up accusingly.

  ‘. . . when I’m the only one who reads? Tell me, is that what happens when you have children? You lose the ability to read?’

  ‘You lose time,’ Bente slurred. ‘Time, Lina. That’s what dishapearsh.’

  ‘You know what, that really annoys me,’ Lina started. ‘You always talk as if the only important thing in . . . As if the minute you have children, you’re allowed to . . .’

  ‘Can’t you tell us a bit about the book instead?’ Johanne suggested swiftly. ‘I am interested. Honestly. I read all of Asbjørn Revheim was I was younger. In fact, I’d thought about buying a copy of . . . what’s it called?’

  She grabbed the book. Lina snatched it back.

  ‘Revheim. An Account of a Suicide Forewarned,’ read Halldis. ‘And by the way, you didn’t ask me. I have in fact read it.’

  ‘Horrible,’ said Bente. ‘You haven’t got shildren, Halldis.’

  ‘Appropriate title,’ said Lina, still with an offended undertone. ‘You can feel the death wish in nearly everything he wrote. Yes, a yearning for death.’

  ‘Sounds like a thriller,’ said Kristin. ‘Should we just take the tablecloth off?’

  Bente had spilt again. Instead of pouring on more salt, she had attempted to cover the red spot with her serviette. The glass had not been picked up. A red stain was flourishing under the paper napkin.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Johanne, lifting up the glass. ‘Doesn’t matter. When did he die?’

  ‘In 1983. I can actually remember it.’

  ‘Mmm. Me too. It was quite a novel way to take your own life.’

  ‘To put it mildly.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Bente, subdued.

  ‘Maybe you should have some more mineral water.’

  Kristin got some more mineral water from the kitchen. Bente scratched at the stain she’d made. Lina poured some more wine. Halldis was looking through Asbjørn Revheim’s biography.

  Johanne felt content.

  She had barely had the energy to do more than whizz through the flat with a vacuum cleaner, stuff Kristiane’s things into the large box in her room and clean the bathroom. It had taken half an hour to make the food. She really hadn’t felt like it. But she’d kept to the agreement. The girls were having a good time. Even Bente was smiling happily under her drooping eyelids. Johanne could go into work late tomorrow morning. She could potter about with Kristiane for a couple of hours and take it easy. She was glad to see the girls and didn’t protest when Kristin filled her glass again.

  ‘I’ve heard that everyone who commits suicide is actually in a state of acute psychosis,’ said Lina.

  ‘What rubbish!’ said Halldis.

  ‘No, it’s true!’

  ‘That you’ve heard it, perhaps. But it’s not true.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘Could well be true in Asbjørn Revheim’s case,’ said Johanne. ‘On the other hand, the man had tried several times. Do you think he was psychotic every time?’

  ‘He’sh mad,’ mumbled Bente. ‘Absholutely barking mad.’

  ‘That’s not the same as psychotic,’ Kristin argued. ‘I know a couple of people I would describe as barking mad. But I’ve never met anyone who’s psychotic.’

  ‘My bosh is a psychopath,’ said Bente, too loud. ‘He’s bloody evil. Evil.’

  ‘Here’s a bit more mineral water for you,’ said Lina, passing her a big bottle.

  ‘Psychopath and psychotic are not the same thing, Bente. Have any of you read Sunken City, Rising Ocean?’

  They all nodded. Except Bente.

  ‘It came out just after the trial,’ said Johanne. ‘Isn’t that right? And also . . .’

  ‘Isn’t that the one where he describes the suicide?’ Kristin interrupted. ‘Even though it was written many, many years before he actually took his own life . . . Doesn’t bear thinking about, really.’

  Her shudder was exaggerated.

  ‘But wha’ then?’ said Bente. ‘Can you not jusht tell me wha’ happened?’

  No one said anything. Johanne started to tidy the table. Everyone had had enough.

  ‘I think maybe we should talk about something a bit more pleasant,’ said Halldis tactfully. ‘What are your plans for the summer?’

  *

  It was past one in the morning when her friends finally stumbled out of the door. Bente had been asleep for two hours and seemed confused by the notion of going home. Halldis had promised to get the taxi to drive via Blindern, and she would make sure that Bente got safely to bed. Johanne aired the flat thoroughly. The smoking ban had been lifted for the past hour, but she couldn’t quite remember who had made the decision. She put out four saucers with vinegar. Then she went out on to the terrace.

  It was the second hour of the first day of June. A deep-blue early summer light was visible in the west, it wouldn’t get properly dark again now for a couple of months. The air was sharp, but it was still possible to stand outside without a coat. Johanne leaned against the flower boxes. A pansy drooped its head.

  In the course of three days she had talked about Asbjørn Revheim twice. To be fair, Asbjørn Revheim was one of the most important people in Norwegian literature, in modern Norwegian history, for that matter. In 1971 or 1972, she couldn’t remember for sure, he’d been sentenced for writing a blasphemous, obscene novel, several years after the parody of a case against Jens
Bjørneboe that should have warned the authorities against interfering with literature. Revheim didn’t just lie down and take it, he hit back with Sunken City, Rising Ocean a couple of years later. A more obscene and blasphemous book had never been printed in Norway, before or since. Some said it was worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature. But most people felt that the man deserved another round in the courts. However, the prosecuting authorities had learnt their lesson; the Director General of Public Prosecutions admitted many years later that he had in fact never read the book.

  Revheim was an important author. But he was dead and had been for a long time. Johanne couldn’t remember the last time she had thought about the man, let alone talked about him. When the biography was published the autumn before, it had caused quite a stir, but she hadn’t even bought it. Revheim wrote books that meant something to her when she was younger. He meant nothing to her today. To her life as it was now.

  Twice in three days.

  Anders Mohaug’s mother believed that Anders was somehow involved in the murder of little Hedvig in 1956. Anders Mohaug was retarded. He was easily led and hung around with Asbjørn Revheim.

  That would be too simple, thought Johanne. That is just too simple.

  She was cold, but didn’t want to go in. The wind tugged at her shirt sleeves. She should buy some new clothes. The other girls looked much younger than she did. Even Bente, who smoked thirty cigarettes a day and would soon need treatment for her alcohol consumption that was no longer a joke, looked better than Johanne. More trendy, at least. Lina had given up taking her shopping ages ago.

  It would be too simple.

  And in any case, who would want to protect Asbjørn Revheim from persecution and punishment?

  He was only sixteen in 1956, she thought, and filled her lungs with night air; she wanted to clear her head before she went to bed.

  But in 1965? When Anders Mohaug died and his mother went to the police? When Aksel Seier was released without any comment other than that he should be happy?

  Asbjørn Revheim would have been twenty-five by then and was already an established author. Two books, as far as she could remember. Already established, after only two books. Both had caused passionate debate. Revheim was seen as a threat at the time. He wasn’t someone people would want to protect.

  Johanne was still holding the biography. She looked down at it, stroked the cover. Lina had insisted she should keep it. It was a good picture. Revheim’s face was narrow, but masculine. He had an open smile. Almost arrogant. His eyes were small, with astonishingly long lashes.

  She went in but left the door to the terrace ajar. A whiff of vinegar teased her nose. She found herself feeling disappointed that Adam hadn’t phoned. When she got into bed, she decided to start reading the book. But before her head even hit the pillow, she was fast asleep.

  XLIII

  Aksel Seier had never been one for quick decisions. As a rule, he liked to sleep on them. Preferably for a week or two. Even small, trivial things such as whether he should buy a new or a used fridge now that the old one had broken. He took his time. There were pros and cons with everything. He had to feel what was right. Be certain. The decision to leave Norway in 1966 should have been made the year before. He should have known there was no future in a country that had sent him to prison and kept him there for nine years without reason, a country so small that neither he nor anyone else would be allowed to forget what had happened. It just wasn’t in his nature to rush. Maybe it was a result of all those years in prison, when time passed so slowly it was difficult to fill it.

  He was sitting on the stone wall outside his house, between the small garden and the beach. The granite was red and still warm from the sun, he could feel it through the back of his trousers. The tide was out. Half-dead horseshoe crabs lay stranded along the water’s edge, some with their shells facing up, like tanks with tails. Others had been thrown on their back by the breakers and were dying slowly in the sun with their claws in the air. The crabs reminded him of prehistoric monsters in miniature, a forgotten link in an evolution that should have made them extinct long ago.

  He felt a bit like that himself.

  All his life he had waited to have his name cleared.

  Patrick, the only one in the USA who knew anything about his past, had urged him to contact a lawyer. Or perhaps even a detective, he said as he polished a gold-plated bridle. Patrick’s carousel was the best in New England. There were plenty of detectives in America. A lot of them were extremely good, said Patrick. Surely if that woman had come all the way from Europe to tell him that she believed he was innocent, after so many years, the long trip all the way from Norway, well, then it must be worth finding out more. Patrick knew that lawyers were expensive, but it would be easy enough to find someone who would take payment only if they won the case.

  The problem was that Aksel had no case.

  At least, not here in the USA.

  He had no case, but still he had always been waiting. In quiet resignation, he had never given up the hope that someone would discover the injustice that had been done. This never came to more than a silent prayer at bedtime that tomorrow would bring good news. That someone would believe him. Someone other than Eva and Patrick.

  Johanne Vik’s visit was important.

  For the first time in all the years he’d been away, he considered going home.

  He still thought of Norway as home. His whole life was in Harwichport. His house, his neighbours, the few people he could call friends. Everything he owned was here, in a small town on Cape Cod. But Norway had always been home.

  If Eva had asked him to stay way back then when he left, he would perhaps never have boarded the MS Sandefjord. If she’d asked him to come back later, during the first years in the States, he would have jumped on the first boat. He would have got temporary jobs in Norway and lived frugally. Moved to a new town, where it would be possible to keep a job for a year or two before the story caught up with him and he had to move on. If Eva was with him, he could have gone anywhere. But he only had himself to offer and Eva was not strong enough. Aksel’s shame was too great. Not for him, but for her. She knew he was innocent. She never seemed to doubt that. But she couldn’t cope with other people’s judgement. Friends and neighbours nudged and whispered and her mother made everything worse. Eva bent her head and let herself be cowed. Aksel would have managed to stand strong with Eva, but Eva was too weak to cope with a life with him.

  Later, when she was free, it was too late for them both.

  Now, perhaps, the time was right. His life had taken a turn in an unexpected direction and there was someone who needed him at home. Eva hadn’t exactly asked him to come in the letter she sent, out of character and out of the blue. She was desperate.

  Aksel had Johanne Vik’s business card. If he went, he could contact her. Patrick was right, the woman had come all the way from Norway to talk to him, so she must really be convinced of his case. His dream of being cleared might finally come true. The thought frightened him and he got up stiffly and rubbed his back.

  The estate agent had said a million dollars. That was some time ago. Cape Cod was at its prettiest now. As any potential buyer was hardly likely to be interested in the house, cleaning and maintenance were not that important.

  Aksel Seier turned over a horseshoe crab with the tip of his boot. It lay there, like a deserted German helmet from the First World War. He picked the crab up by the tail and threw it into the water. Even though he never decided to do something without thinking it through in detail first, he realised that he was well on the way to making an important decision. He wondered if it would be possible to take the cat with him.

  XLIV

  ‘Well, you were wrong as far as the half-sibling theory goes,’ said Sigmund Berli.

  ‘Good,’ said Adam Stubo. ‘Did you manage to get the blood tests without too much trouble?’

  ‘Don’t ask. I’ve told more lies in the last few days than I have in my whole life. Don’t ask. At
the moment we only have the results of old-fashioned paternity tests. The DNA results will take longer. But everything indicates that all the other children involved are really their fathers’ children.’

  ‘Good,’ repeated Adam. ‘I’m happy to hear that.’

  Sigmund Berli was taken aback.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said and put down the papers in front of his boss. ‘You don’t seem particularly surprised. Why were you so keen to get it checked if you didn’t really believe it was the case?’

  ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been surprised by anything. And you know just as well as I do that we have to investigate every possible avenue. Whether we believe or not. Right now it seems that everyone has been caught in a collective short-circuit, where everything is focused on . . .’

  ‘Adam! Stop!’

  The hunt for Olaf ‘Laffen’ Sørnes from Rykkin had become a national concern. It was everywhere, in the media, conversations around dinner tables, at work. Adam could understand that most lay people had decided that Laffen was the child killer. But the fact that Adam’s colleagues seemed to have got caught up in the same frenzy, or at least in part, alarmed him. Laffen was clearly a pathetic copycat. His criminal record told a sad story of perverted sexuality that only now had resulted in an actual attempt to abduct a child. There were countless sad stories about similar cases in real life and in literature. When a crime receives enough attention, there will be others who taste blood.

  ‘Surely you can see that,’ said Adam, and shook his head. ‘Nothing makes sense. For example, take the courier delivery of Sarah. Would Laffen have managed to pull off anything like that? Would a man who has an IQ of eighty-one manage to think out something like that? Not to mention pull it off?’

  He thumped his fist on Laffen Sørnes’s file from the social services and Bærum hospital, where he had undergone tests for possible epilepsy.