by Anne Holt
“I was born in 1965,” Johanne said suddenly, putting down the folder. “On November 22, exactly two years after Kennedy was assassinated.”
“My children were already quite old. I had just taken my law exams.”
The old lady smiled, a real smile; her gray teeth shone in the taut opening between her nose and throat. Her consonants were harsh and her vowels muted. She reached out for a glass and took a drink of water.
Alvhild Sofienberg’s first job was as an executive officer for the Norwegian Correctional Services. She was responsible for preparing applications for royal pardons. Johanne already knew that. She had read it in the papers, in the old lady’s story that was stapled to the judgement and some yellowing newspaper clippings about a man named Aksel Seier who was sentenced for the murder of a child.
“A boring job, actually. Particularly when I look back on it now. I don’t recall being unhappy. Quite the opposite. I had training, a qualification, a… I had a university degree, which was very impressive at the time. In my family, at least.”
She revealed her teeth again, and tried to moisten her tight mouth with the tip of her tongue.
“How did you get hold of all the documents?” asked Johanne, and refilled the glass with water from the carafe.
The ice cubes had melted and the water was tinged with the smell of onions.
“I mean, it’s never really been the case that applications for pardons are accompanied by all the case documentation. Police interrogations and the like. I don’t quite see how you can…”
Alvhild tried to straighten her back. When Johanne leaned over to help her, she again registered the smell of old onions. It intensified-the smell became a stench that filled her nostrils and made her gag. She disguised the cramps in her diaphragm by coughing.
“I smell of onions,” the old lady said sharply. “No one knows why.”
“Maybe it’s…”
Johanne waved her finger in the direction of the water carafe.
“Other way around,” coughed the old lady. “The water gets its smell from me. You’ll just have to put up with it. I asked for them.”
She pointed at the folder that had fallen on the floor.
“As I wrote there, I can’t quite explain what it was that roused my interest. Maybe it was the simplicity of the application. The man had been in prison for eight years and had never pleaded guilty. He had applied for a pardon three times before and had been rejected every time. But he still didn’t complain. He didn’t claim to be ill, as most people did. He hadn’t written page upon page about his deteriorating health, his family and children who were missing him at home and the like. His application was only one line. Two sentences. ‘I am innocent. Therefore I request a pardon.’ It fascinated me. So I asked for all the papers. The pile of documents…”
Alvhild tried to lift her hands.
“Was nearly a yard high. I read and read and was more and more convinced.”
Her fingers trembled with the strain and she lowered her arms.
Johanne bent down to pick up the folder from the floor. She had goose bumps on her arms. The window was slightly open and there was a draft coming through. The curtains moved unexpectedly and she jumped. Blue headlines flickered on the TV screen, and it suddenly annoyed her that the television was on for no reason.
“Do you agree? He was innocent? He was not proven guilty. And someone has tried to cover it up.”
Alvhild Sofienberg’s voice had taken on a sharp undertone, an aggressive edge. Johanne leafed through the brittle papers without saying anything.
“Well, it’s pretty obvious,” she said, barely audibly.
“What did you say?”
“Yes, I agree with you.”
It was as if the patient was suddenly drained of all her energy. She sank back into the pillow and closed her eyes. Her face became more peaceful, as if the pain was no longer there. Only her nostrils quivered slightly.
“Perhaps the most frightening thing is not that he wasn’t proven guilty,” said Johanne slowly. “The worst thing is that he never… what happened afterwards, after he was released, that he even… I’d be surprised if he was still alive.”
“Another one,” said Alvhild wearily, looking at the television; she turned up the volume on the remote control that was attached to the bed frame. “Another child has been kidnapped.”
A little boy smiled bashfully from an amateur photograph. He had brown curly hair and was clutching a red plastic fire engine to his chest. Behind him, out of focus, you could make out an adult laughing.
“The mother, perhaps. Poor thing. Wonder if it’s connected. To the girl, I mean. The one who…”
Kim Sande Oksøy had disappeared from his home in Bærum last night, said the metallic voice. The TV set was old, the picture too blue and the sound tinny. The abductor had broken into the row house while the family was asleep; a camera panned over a residential area and then focused on a window on the ground floor. The curtains were billowing gently and the camera zoomed in on a broken sill and a green teddy bear on the shelf just inside. The policeman, a young man with hesitant eyes and an uncomfortable uniform, appealed to anyone who might have information to call the 800 number or to contact their nearest police station.
The boy was only five years old. It was now six days since nine-year-old Emilie Selbu had disappeared on her way home from school.
Alvhild Sofienberg had fallen asleep. There was a small scar near her narrow mouth, a cleft from the corner of her mouth up toward her ear. It made her look as if she was smiling. Johanne crept out of the room, and as she went down to the ground floor a nurse came toward her. She said nothing, just stopped on the stairs and stepped to one side. The nurse also smelled of onions, a vague scent of onion and detergent. Johanne felt sick. She pushed past the other woman, not knowing whether she would return to this house where an old dying lady upstairs made the smell of decay cling to everything and everyone.
SIX
Emilie felt bigger when the new boy arrived. He was even more frightened than she was. When the man pushed him into the room a while ago, he had pooped his pants, even though he was nearly old enough to be at school. At one end of the room there was a sink and a toilet. The man had thrown a towel and a bar of soap in with the boy and Emilie managed to wash him up. But there were no clean clothes anywhere. She pushed the dirty underpants under the sink, between the wall and the pipe. The boy just had to go without underpants and would not stop crying.
Until now. He had finally fallen asleep. There was only one bed in the room. It was very narrow and probably very old. The woodwork was brown and worn and someone had drawn on it with a felt-tip pen, making marks that were barely visible anymore. When Emilie lifted the sheet, she saw that the mattress was full of long hair; a woman’s hair was stuck to the foam mattress and she quickly tucked the sheet back in place. The boy lay under the duvet with his head in her lap. He had brown curly hair and Emilie started to wonder if he could talk at all. He had snivelled his name when she asked. Kim or Tim. It was hard to make out. He had called for his mother, so he wasn’t entirely mute.
“Is he sleeping?”
Emilie jumped. The door was ajar. The shadows made it hard to see his face, but his voice was clear. She nodded weakly.
“Is he sleeping?”
The man didn’t seem to be angry or annoyed. He didn’t bark like Daddy sometimes did when he had to ask the same question several times.
“Yes.”
“Good. Are you hungry?”
The door was made of iron, and there was no handle on the inside. Emilie did not know how long she had been in the room with the toilet and the sink in one corner and the bed in the other and nothing else apart from plaster walls and the shiny door. It was a long time, that was all she knew. She had tried the door a hundred times at least. It was smooth and ice cold. The man was scared that it would shut behind him. The few times that he had come into the room, he had fixed the door to a hook on the wall. Normally when he
brought her food and something to drink, he left it on a tray just inside the door.
“No.”
“Okay. You should go to sleep as well. It’s night.”
Night.
The sound of the heavy iron door closing made her cry. Even though the man said it was night, it didn’t feel like it. There was no window in the room and the light was left on the whole time, so there was no way of knowing whether it was day or night. At first she had thought that slices of bread and milk meant that it was breakfast and the stews and pancakes that the man left on the tray were supper. She finally understood, but then the man started to play tricks. Sometimes she got bread three times in a row. Today, after Kim or Tim had stumbled into her world, the man had given them tomato soup twice. It was lukewarm and there was no macaroni in it.
Emilie tried to stop crying. She didn’t want to wake the boy. She held her breath so that she wouldn’t shake, but it didn’t work.
“Mommy,” she sobbed, without wanting to. “I want my mommy.”
Daddy would be looking for her. He must have been looking for a long time. Daddy and Auntie Beate were no doubt still running around in the woods, even though it was night. Maybe Granddad was there too. Grandma had sore feet, so she would be at home reading books or making waffles for the others to eat when they’d been to the Road to Paradise and the Heaven Tree and not found her anywhere.
“Mommy,” whimpered Kim or Tim and then howled.
“Hush.”
“Mommy! Daddy!”
The boy got up suddenly and shrieked. His mouth was a great gaping hole. His face twisted into one enormous scream and she pressed herself against the wall and closed her eyes.
“You mustn’t scream,” she said in a flat voice. “The man will get angry with us.”
“Mommy! I want my Daddy!”
The boy caught his breath. He was gasping for air, and when Emilie opened her eyes she saw that his face was dark red. Snot was running from one nostril. She grabbed one corner of the duvet and wiped him clean. He tried to hit her.
“Don’t want,” he said and sobbed again. “Don’t want.”
“Shall I tell you a story?” asked Emilie.
“Don’t want.”
He pulled his sleeve across his nose.
“My Mommy is dead,” said Emilie and smiled a bit. “She’s sitting in Heaven watching over me. Always. I’m sure she can watch over you too.”
“Don’t want.”
At least the boy wasn’t crying so hard anymore.
“My Mommy is named Grete. And she’s got a BMW.”
“Audi,” said the boy.
“Mommy’s got a BMW in Heaven.”
“Audi,” the boy repeated, with a cautious smile that made him much nicer.
“And a unicorn. A white horse with a horn on its forehead that can fly. Mommy can fly anywhere on her unicorn when she can’t be bothered to use the BMW. Maybe she’ll come here. Soon, I think.”
“With a bang,” said the boy.
Emilie knew very well that her mother didn’t have a BMW. She wasn’t in Heaven at all and unicorns don’t exist. There was no Heaven either, even though Daddy said there was. He liked so much to talk about what Mommy was doing up there, everything that she had always wanted but they could never afford. In Paradise, nothing cost anything. They didn’t even have money there, Daddy said, and smiled. Mommy could have whatever she wanted and Daddy thought it was good for Emilie to talk about it. She had believed him for a long time, and it was good to think that Mommy had diamonds as big as plums in her ears as she flew around in a red dress on a unicorn.
Auntie Beate had told Daddy off. Emilie disappeared to write a letter to Mommy and when Daddy eventually found her, Auntie Beate shouted so loudly that the walls shook. The grown-ups thought Emilie was asleep. It was late at night.
“It’s about time you told the child the truth, Tønnes. Grete is dead. Period. She is ashes in an urn and Emilie is old enough to understand. You have to stop. You’ll ruin her with all your stories. You’re keeping Grete alive artificially and I’m not even sure who you’re actually trying to fool, yourself or Emilie. Grete is dead. Dead, do you understand?”
Auntie Beate was crying and angry at the same time. She was the smartest person in all the world. Everyone said that. She was a chief doctor and knew everything about sick hearts. She saved people from certain death, just because she knew so much. If Auntie Beate said that Daddy’s stories were garbage, then she must be right. A few days later, Daddy had taken Emilie out into the garden to look at the stars. There were four new holes in the sky, because Mommy wanted to see her better, he told her, pointing. Emilie didn’t answer. He was sad. She could see it in his eyes when he picked up a book and started to read to her on the bed. She refused to listen to the rest of the story about Mommy’s trip to Japan Heaven, a story that had stretched over three evenings and was actually quite funny. Daddy made money by translating books and was a bit too fond of stories.
“My name is Kim,” said the boy, and put his thumb in his mouth.
“My name is Emilie,” said Emilie.
They didn’t know that it was starting to get light out when they fell asleep.
One and a half stories above them, at ground level, in a house on the edge of a small wood, a man sat and stared out the window. He was feeling remarkably good, nearly intoxicated, as if he was facing a challenge that he knew he could master. It was impossible to sleep properly. During the night he had sometimes felt himself slipping away, only to be roused again by a very clear thought.
The window looked west. He saw the darkness huddle in behind the horizon. The hills on the other side of the valley were bathed in strips of morning light. He got up and put the book on the table.
No one else knew. In less than two days one of the two children in the cellar would be dead. He felt no joy in this knowledge, but a feeling of elated determination made him indulge in a bit of sugar and a drop of milk in the bitter coffee from the night before.
SEVEN
Welcome to the program, Johanne Vik. Now, you are a lawyer and a psychologist, and you wrote your thesis on why people commit sexually motivated crimes. Given recent events…”
Johanne closed her eyes for a moment. The lights were strong, but it was still cold in the enormous room and she felt the skin on her forearms contract.
She should have refused the invitation. She should have said no. Instead she said:
“Let me first clarify that I did not write a thesis on why some people commit sex crimes. As far as I know, no one knows that for certain. I did, however, compare a random selection of convicted sex offenders with an equally random selection of other offenders to look at the similarities and differences in background, childhood, and early adult years. My thesis is called Sexually Motivated Crime, a Comp…”
“Oh, that’s a bit complicated, Ms. Vik. So to put it simply, you wrote a thesis about sex offenders. Two children have been brutally snatched from their parents in less than a week. Do you think there can be any doubt that these are sexually motivated crimes?”
“Doubt?”
She didn’t dare to pick up the plastic cup of water. She clasped her fingers together to stop her hands from shaking uncontrollably. She wanted to answer, but her voice let her down. She swallowed.
“Doubt has got nothing to do with it. I don’t see how there can be any basis for making such a claim.”
The host lifted his hand and frowned in irritation, as if she had broken some kind of deal.
“Of course it is possible,” she corrected herself. “Everything is possible. Children can be molested, but in this case it might equally be something different. I am not a detective and only know about the case from the media. All the same, I would assume that the investigation has not yet even concluded that the two… abductions, I guess that is what we should call them… are in any way connected. I agreed to come on the show on the understanding that…”
She had to swallow again. Her throat was tigh
t. Her right hand was shaking so much that she had to surreptitiously push it under her thigh. She should have said no.
“And you,” the host said cockily to a lady in a black jacket, with long silver hair. “Solveig Grimsrud, director of the newly established Protect Our Children, you are clearly of the opinion that this is a case of pedophilia?”
“Given what we know about similar cases abroad, it would be incredibly naive to think anything else. It is difficult to imagine any alternative motives for abducting children-children who have absolutely nothing to do with each other, if we are to believe the papers. We know of cases in the U.S., Switzerland, not to mention those gruesome cases in Belgium only a few years ago… We all know these cases and we all know what the outcome was.”
Grimsrud patted her heart. There was a loud scraping noise in the microphone that was attached to her lapel. Johanne noticed a technician holding his ears, just off camera.
“What do you mean by… outcome?”
“I mean what I say. Children are always abducted for one of three reasons.”
Her long hair was falling into her eyes and Solveig Grimsrud pushed it behind her ears before counting on her fingers.
“Either it is simply a case of extortion, which we can ignore in these cases. Both families have average incomes and are not wealthy. Then there are a small number of children who are abducted by either their mother or their father, generally the latter, when a relationship breaks down. And again, that is not the case here. The girl’s mother is dead and the boy’s parents are still married. Which leaves the last alternative. The children have been abducted by one or more pedophiles.”
The host hesitated.
Johanne thought about waking up to feel a naked child’s stomach against her back, the tickle of sleepy fingers against her neck.
A man in his late fifties with aviator glasses and downcast eyes took a deep breath and started to talk.