Punishment

by Holt, Anne

  ‘No, not really,’ said Karsten Åsli. ‘I’m just a bit tired. I was out for an hour and a half.’

  ‘Impressive. I ride, myself. Got my own horse. If I lived here . . .’

  Stubo waved at the window.

  ‘. . . I’d have more. Do you know May Berit?’

  He turned as he spoke. The policeman’s profile was dark against the light from the living room. The left eye, the lie detector eye, was hidden. Karsten swallowed.

  ‘May Berit who?’ he asked and dried his mouth.

  ‘Benonisen. She was called Sæther before.’

  ‘Can’t remember, I’m afraid.’

  The thirst would not go away. His mouth felt like it was full of fungus; his saliva was sticky and swollen and got in the way of the words he wanted to say.

  ‘You’ve got a very short memory,’ said the man, without turning to face him. ‘You must have had a lot of girlfriends.’

  ‘A few.’

  One word at a time. A. Few. He could manage that.

  ‘Have you got any children, Åsli?’

  His tongue loosened. His pulse slowed. He could feel it, hear it, he heard his own heart beating at a steadily slower rate against his breastbone. His breathing was easier, thanks to his larynx opening, and he smiled broadly as he heard himself say:

  ‘Yes.’

  This man was no worse than the others. He was just as bad. He was one of them. Policeman Stubo stood there making himself look important while the child he was looking for was only fifteen metres away, maybe ten. The guy had no idea. He probably just went from place to place, from house to house, asking the same stupid questions, making himself look important, without knowing anything. What they called routine. In reality, it was just a way to make time pass. There must be lots of people on the list that he no doubt had in his inner pocket; the man was constantly feeling his chest under the jacket, as if he was considering whether to show him something.

  He was just like all the others.

  Karsten could see men and women, young and old, in his features. His nose, straight and quite big, reminded him of an old teacher who had amused himself by locking Åsli in a cupboard with medical bowls and bags of peas until all the dust made him lose his breath and cry to get out. Stubo’s hair was brushed back, diagonally over his head, just like his old scout leader, the man who took away all Karsten’s badges because he thought the boy had cheated. He could see women, lots of women in Stubo’s mouth. Full lips, pink and plump. Girls. Women. Cunts. His eyes were blue like his grandmother’s.

  ‘I’ve got a son,’ said Karsten, and poured himself some coffee.

  His hands were steady now; solid fists with hard skin. Karsten felt strong. He ran his finger down the carving knife handle; the blade itself was in a wooden block to protect the edge.

  ‘He’s abroad at the moment, with his mother. On holiday.’

  ‘Aha. Are you married?’

  Karsten Åsli shrugged and lifted the cup to his mouth. The bitter taste did him good. The fungus disappeared. His tongue felt thin again. Sharp.

  ‘No, no. We’re not even partners any more. You know . . .’

  He gave a short laugh.

  Stubo’s mobile phone rang.

  The conversation didn’t last long. The policeman shut his phone with a snap. ‘I have to go,’ he said curtly.

  Karsten followed him out. Evidence of a light shower clung to the grass; it would be cold again tonight. Might even fall below freezing, the breeze had an edge to it that meant it could freeze, at least up here on the hillside. Early summer scents teased his nose. Karsten breathed in deeply.

  ‘I can’t really say it was nice to meet you,’ he smiled, ‘but I hope you have a good trip back to town.’

  Stubo opened the car door and then turned towards him.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you again in town,’ he said.

  ‘In town? You mean Oslo?’

  ‘Yes. As soon as possible.’

  Karsten thought about it. He was still carrying his coffee cup. He looked into it, as if he was astonished there was nothing left. Then he raised his eyes and looked straight at Stubo and said:

  ‘Can’t make it this week. Maybe at the start of next week. Can’t promise you anything. Have you got a card or something? Then I can call you.’

  Stubo’s eyes did not leave his face. Karsten didn’t blink. A confused fly buzzed between them. A plane could be heard far above the clouds. The fly ascended to the skies.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ Stubo said finally. ‘You can be sure of that.’

  The dark-blue Volvo bumped out of the open gate and rolled slowly down the hill. Karsten Åsli watched until it reached the small woods where he knew the road forked. He couldn’t remember the last time the valley had looked so beautiful, so clean.

  It was his. This was his place. Through a break in the clouds he could see the vapour trail from the plane heading north.

  He went inside.

  *

  Adam Stubo stopped the car as soon as he thought he was out of sight. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. The feeling that the child was nearby had been so strong, so overwhelming, that it was only his twenty-five years’ experience that stopped him from ripping the place apart. There were no provisions that would allow that. He had nothing.

  Nothing more than a feeling. There wasn’t a judge in Norway who would give him a search warrant on the basis of a hunch.

  ‘Think,’ he hissed to himself. ‘Think, for Christ’s sake.’

  It took him less than eighty minutes to get back to Oslo. He stopped outside the block of flats where Lena Baardsen lived. It was the evening of Monday 5 June and it was already half past eight. He was scared that time was running out.

  LIV

  Aksel Seier stood in front of the old, flecked mirror in the living room. He ran his hand through his hair. It smelt of oranges. His fringe was gone and the hair at the base of his neck was soft and bristly when he rubbed it the wrong way. Mrs Davis thought that for once he should look like he came from a civilised part of the world. After all, he was embarking on a long journey to a country where people might think Americans were barbarians, for all she knew. They often did, the Europeans. She had read that in the National Enquirer. He had to show them he was a well-to-do man. His shaggy grey locks were fine here in Harwichport, but now he was going to another world. She had cut him badly on the ear, but otherwise his hair looked even enough. Short all over. The orange pomade had been left behind by one of her six sons-in-law. It was supposed to be good for your scalp. Aksel didn’t like the smell of citrus. He wasn’t leaving for another day and decided to wash it out before he took the bus to Logan International Airport in Boston. Matt Delaware had offered to drive him to the bus stop in Barnstable. And so he should, the boy had got both his pick-up and his boat for a good price.

  The property in Ocean Avenue had, on the other hand, been sold for 1.2 million dollars.

  As it stood.

  It had only taken him an hour to sort out what he wanted to take with him. The glass soldiers that he’d taken four winters to make would go to Mrs Davis. The risk that they would break during the trip over the ocean was considerable. She was moved to tears and promised that none of her grandchildren would be allowed to play with them. She would love the cat like her own, she exclaimed in a loud voice. Matt bowed and scraped the ground with his foot when Aksel offered him the chess table and the large tapestry over the sofa. On the condition that he sent the galleon figurehead over to Aksel as soon as he had an address in Norway.

  The figurehead looked like Eva. There wasn’t really much more that was worth bothering about.

  Aksel didn’t like his new hairstyle. It made him look older. His face was more visible. The wrinkles, the pores and the bad teeth that he should have done something about long ago, they somehow seemed clearer when his fringe had gone and his face was naked and unprotected. He tried to hide behind a pair of old glasses with brown frames. But the lenses were not the righ
t strength any more and made him feel dizzy.

  He had been to the bank. The money for the house came to about ten million kroner. Cheryl, who had grown up in Harwichport and started work at the bank a couple of months ago, had given him a big smile and whispered, You lucky son of a gun, before explaining to him that the buyer would pay the outstanding amount in instalments over the next six weeks. Aksel would have to contact a bank in Norway, open an account, and then everything should be fine and the authorities couldn’t make a fuss. It’ll be just fine, she assured him, and laughed again.

  Ten million kroner.

  To Aksel, the figure was astronomical. He tried to ground himself by remembering that it was ages since he knew what a krone was actually worth, and Norway was an expensive country, after all. At least that was what he had understood from the odd article he came across about his homeland. But over a million dollars was over a million dollars wherever you were in the world. He could even get a place in Beacon Hill in Boston for that amount. And Oslo couldn’t be more expensive than Beacon Hill.

  Mrs Davis had gone to Hyannis with him to buy clothes. There was no way round it. Aksel Seier didn’t quite trust her taste – the checked trousers from K-mart were particularly awful. Mrs Davis said that checked trousers and pastels made him look rich, and he was, so that was that. When he mumbled something about Cape Cod Mall, she rolled her eyes and claimed that the shops there fleeced you before you’d even set foot in the door. What you couldn’t buy in K-mart wasn’t worth buying. So now he had a suitcase full of new clothes he didn’t like. Mrs Davis had confiscated his old flannel shirts and jeans; she was going to wash them before giving them to the Salvation Army.

  He must remember to phone Patrick.

  Aksel took a step back from the mirror. The way the light fell, slanting from the window, he found it difficult to recognise himself in the flecked mirror. It wasn’t just his hair that was different. He tried to straighten his back. Something in his neck and shoulders stopped him. He had looked at the ground for too many years. Aksel’s back was bent from thousands of days toiling over heavy work, turning away from other people, and long evenings crouched over fine handiwork and his own thoughts.

  He lifted his head again. There was a pain between his shoulder blades. He looked thinner now. He forced himself to stand like that. Then he stroked his hand over the brown jacket and wondered whether he should put a tie on before he left. Ties were respectable. Mrs Davis was certainly right there.

  If he had enough money when he’d done everything he needed to do, he would pay for Patrick to come over. Even though his friend earned well in the summer season, he used most of his earnings on maintaining the carousel and living through the long winter months when he had no real income. Patrick had never been back to Ireland. He could come to Oslo for a week or two and then stop over in Dublin on the way back, if he wanted to.

  Aksel suddenly realised that he was frightened. There was still a lot to do before he left. He had to get a move on.

  He’d never been on a plane, but it wasn’t that that frightened him.

  Maybe Eva didn’t want him to come. She hadn’t actually asked him to. Aksel Seier pulled off his new jacket and started to pack the glass soldiers in the tissue paper that Mrs Davis had got.

  He cut his finger on a small blue splinter. It was the remains of the general that Johanne Vik had broken. Aksel sucked his finger. Maybe the young lady had lost interest in him when he just disappeared.

  He hadn’t been so frightened since 1993, when the nightmares about the wet-eyed policeman with the keys had finally stopped plaguing him.

  LV

  ‘He was completely mad,’ she said. ‘Quite simply mad.’ Lena Baardsen seemed anxious when Adam rang the bell, even though it was not particularly late. Her eyes were red and the bags underneath looked almost purple in her pale face. The flat was stuffy and claustrophobic, though she obviously tried to keep it tidy. She offered him nothing, but sat herself with a kitchen glass of what Adam thought was red wine. She raised her glass, as if she knew what he was thinking, and said:

  ‘Doctor recommended it. Two glasses before bedtime. Better than sleeping pills he said. To be honest, neither helps. But at least this tastes nicer.’

  She drank the remainder in one go.

  ‘Karsten is charming. Was, at least. Good at looking after you. I was very young then. Not used to so much attention. I just . . .’

  Her eyelids sank.

  ‘. . . fell in love,’ she said slowly.

  The smile was presumably meant to be ironic. But in fact it was just sad, especially when she opened her eyes again.

  ‘When we became lovers, he changed. Obsessively jealous. Possessive. He never hit me, but towards the end I was terrified all the same. He . . .’

  She pulled her legs up and shivered, as if she was cold. It must have been close to thirty degrees in the flat.

  ‘I realised pretty soon that he wasn’t quite normal. He would wake up at night if I went to the loo. He’d come out to the bathroom and watch me pee. As if he sort of expected me to . . . run away. We didn’t live together. Not really. I had a studio flat that was too small for both of us. He lived in a flat-share, but I don’t think the people he lived with could stand him. So he kind of moved in with me. Without asking. He didn’t bring his things with him or anything like that, there wasn’t enough room. But he just took over, somehow. Tidied and washed and fussed around. He’s obsessive about cleaning. Was. I don’t know him any more. He was incredibly self-centred. It was me, me, me. The whole time. I would never put up with it now. But he was good-looking. And very attentive, to begin with at least. And I was very young.’

  She gave a feeble, apologetic smile.

  ‘Do you . . .’ said Adam and then started again. ‘Did you know anything about his family background?’

  ‘Family?’ repeated Lena Baardsen in a flat voice. ‘A mother, at least. I met her twice. Sweet, in her own way. Unbelievably meek. Karsten could be really nasty to her. Even though he seemed . . . he actually seemed to care about her a lot. Well, sometimes at least. The only person he was really scared of was his grandmother. I never met her, but Jesus, some of the things he told me . . .’

  She suddenly looked surprised.

  ‘D’you know what, I can’t actually remember anything he told me. No examples. Strange. But I do remember clearly that he hated her. It seemed that way to me anyway. Real hate.’

  ‘His father?’

  ‘Father? No . . . he never mentioned his father, I don’t think. He didn’t actually like talking about his past. Childhood and all that. I got the impression that he grew up with his mother and grandmother. So it must have been his maternal grandmother. But I’m not sure about that either. It’s so long ago. Karsten was mad. I’ve done everything I can to forget the guy.’

  Again she formed her lips into a shape that could resemble a smile. Adam stared at a big photograph in the middle of the coffee table, a photograph of Sarah in a silver frame. Beside it were a big pink candle and a small rose in a thin vase.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ whispered Lena. ‘I’m so frightened the candle will go out. I want it to burn always. For ever. It’s almost as if none of it is really true until the candle goes out.’

  Adam nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘I know,’ he said calmly. ‘I know what it’s like.’

  ‘No,’ she said with emotion. ‘You don’t know what it’s like!’

  He saw something behind her ravaged face, something in her suddenly angry features, and he knew that Lena Baardsen would get through this. She just didn’t know it herself yet. Her daughter’s death was incomprehensible and would be for a long time. Lena Baardsen was clinging to a grief that was pervasive, constant. She existed outside all reality, as reality was unbearable right now.

  It would get worse. Then eventually, when the time was right, it would be possible to live again. And then the real grief would come. The one that never ends and that can’t be shared with any
one. The one that would allow her to live and laugh and maybe even have more children. But would never disappear.

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘I do know how you feel.’

  It was too hot. He got up and opened the door out to the small balcony.

  ‘Did he do it?’

  Adam half turned round. Her voice was thin and tired, as if there would soon be nothing left. He should go. Lena Baardsen would pull through. He had all the answers he needed.

  ‘You remembered the date you last saw him,’ he said.

  ‘I ran away,’ said Lena. ‘I went to Denmark. Gave notice on my flat while he was at work, took all my things home to my mother and left indefinitely. He made my mother’s life hell for weeks. Then he gave up. I assume. Was it him . . . did he kill Sarah?’

  Adam balled his fists so hard that his nails were pressing into the skin on his palms.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said sharply.

  He left the balcony door open and walked towards the hall. Halfway across the living-room floor he stopped and studied the picture of Sarah again. The rose was dying, its head was hanging and it needed more water.

  When he got back to the car, he turned and counted seven storeys up. Lena Baardsen was standing on the balcony with a blanket round her shoulders. She didn’t wave. He bent his head and got into the car. The radio turned on automatically when he put the key in the ignition. He was well past Høvik before he registered that the programme was about the Black Death.

  *

  More than anything, he wanted to slap her. Turid Sande Oksøy was not a good liar. Which was presumably why she took such pains to hide her face from her husband when she repeated:

  ‘I have never heard of Karsten Åsli. Never.’

  The terraced house in Bærum was imbued with another kind of grief from that in the small flat in Torshov. There were living children here. Toys were strewn over the floor and it smelt of cooking. Both Turid and Lasse Oksøy looked like they’d slept too little and cried too much, but in this home time had moved on in a way. Turid Oksøy had put on some make-up. Adam had called on his mobile to ask if it was OK for him to drop by, even though it was getting late. Her mascara had already caked in the corner of her eyes. The lipstick made her mouth look too big for the white face. She was picking absently at a small cut at the base of her nose. It started to bleed and she started to cry.