Punishment (41 page)

‘I don't know if they're hers,' said Johanne, and sobbed as she lifted Emilie up from the bed.

The child weighed nothing. Johanne hugged her close to her own, bare skin.

‘They might be his things. His clothes. They might be that fucking . . .'

‘Daddy,' said Emilie. ‘I want my daddy.'

‘We're going to drive to your daddy right now,' said Johanne, and kissed the girl on the forehead. ‘Everything's going to be just fine now, my love.'

As if anything will ever be fine again after this, she thought, and walked towards the steel door where Adam carefully put his own coarse jacket over her shoulders.

As if you will ever get over what you've experienced in this tomb.

As she left the room, slowly and gently so as not to frighten the child, she noticed a pair of man's underpants on the floor by the door. They were worn out and green, with a cheeky elephant waving its thick trunk by the fly.

‘Oh, my God,' groaned Johanne into Emilie's matted hair.

I
t was two o'clock in the morning of Friday 9 June 2000. A light rain drizzled from low clouds over Oslo. The meteorologists had promised no rain and mild nights, but it couldn't be more than five degrees outside. Johanne closed the door to the terrace. It felt like she hadn't slept for a week. When she tried to follow the drops that slid in stages down the living-room window, she got a headache. Her lower back ached when she tried to stretch her body. But it was impossible to go to sleep all the same. At about hip height, she could clearly see a print of Kristiane's hand on the glass against the undefined pattern of the rain outside. Chubby fingers spread out like the petal in an uneven circle. Johanne stroked the handprint.

‘Do you think Emilie will ever get over it?' she asked quietly.

‘No. But she's at home now. They wanted to keep her in hospital, but her aunt refused. She's a doctor herself and felt that the child would be better off at home. Emilie will be well looked after, Johanne.'

‘But will she ever get over it?'

When she touched it lightly, carefully, she could swear she felt the warmth from Kristiane's hand on the smooth glass.

‘No. Why don't you sit down?'

Johanne tried to smile.

‘I've got a sore back.'

Adam rubbed his face and yawned loudly.

‘Apparently, there was a terrible dispute about access rights,'
he started to say halfway through the yawn. ‘Karsten Åsli has been trying to see his son since he was born, and the mother left hospital the day before she was due to leave. They went through three different instances and five court hearings and she consistently claimed that Karsten Åsli was not suited to have care of the child. She was adamant that he was a dangerous man. Sigmund managed to get hold of copies of all the documentation this afternoon. Karsten Åsli won his case straight down the line, but the mother challenged the judgment and brought interlocutory appeals, delayed the outcome . . . and finally, just ran away. Abroad, presumably. It would seem that Karsten Åsli doesn't know where. He contacted a private detective agency . . .'

Adam smiled without joy.

‘. . . when the police just shrugged their shoulders and said there wasn't much they could do. The detective agency invoiced him for sixty-five thousand kroner for a trip to Australia. Which resulted in nothing more than a three-page report that said that Ellen Kverneland and her little boy were presumably not there either. The agency wanted to investigate some leads in Latin America, but Karsten Åsli didn't have any more money. That's about all we know at the moment. Maybe we'll have a fuller picture in a day or two. Not a nice case.'

‘No custody cases are nice,' said Johanne in a terse voice. ‘Why do you think I agreed to share the care of Kristiane?'

‘I thought perhaps . . .'

She interrupted:

‘This Ellen Kverneland was right, in other words. Not surprising she ran away. Karsten Åsli can't exactly have promised to be the perfect father. It's so difficult to get people to understand things like that in court. He had a clean record and obviously knew how to behave to make the right impression.'

‘But the case itself, this dispute about access, might have . . .'

‘Made him psychopathic? No. Of course not.'

‘That's perhaps the worst thing,' said Adam. ‘That we'll never know why he . . . who Karsten Åsli actually was. What he was. Why he did what he . . .'

Johanne slowly shook her head. The windowpane was cold against her fingertips now and she put her hands in her pockets.

‘The worst thing is that three children are dead,' she said. ‘And that Emilie will probably never . . .'

She couldn't bear to cry any more. But her eyes filled up all the same, and she felt a cramp in her diaphragm that made her bend forward; she leaned her forehead against the window and tried to breathe slowly.

‘You don't know how Emilie will cope,' said Adam, and got up. ‘Time heals most wounds. At least, it can help us to live with them.'

‘You saw her,' Johanne flared, and pulled away from the hand on her left shoulder. ‘Didn't you see the state she was in? She will never be herself again. Never!'

She threw her arms round herself and rocked from side to side, with her head down, as if she was holding a baby in her arms.

Damaged goods, Warren had once said about a boy they had found after he'd been held hostage for five days. Those kids are damaged goods, you know.

The boy couldn't speak, but the doctors said there was a good chance that he would regain the ability. It would just take time. They should also be able to do something about the damage to his rectum. It would just take time. Warren shook his head without emotion, shrugged his shoulders and again exclaimed:

Damaged goods.

She was too young then, too young and in love and full of ambitions for a career in the FBI. So she said nothing.

‘Can I stay the night?' said Adam.

She lifted her head.

‘It's late,' said Adam.

She tried to breathe. Something was caught in her throat and she froze.

‘Can I?' asked Adam.

‘On the sofa,' said Johanne, and swallowed. ‘You can sleep on the sofa, if you want.'

*

She was woken by a strip of sunlight squeezing its way in through the gap between the blind and the window frame. She lay still for a long time, listening. The neighbourhood was quiet, one or two birds had already started their day. The alarm clock said it was six o'clock. She had only slept for about three hours, but she got up all the same. It was only when she went to the bathroom that she remembered that Adam had stayed the night. She tiptoed out into the living room.

He was sleeping on his back with his mouth open, but there was no noise. The blanket had slipped half off to reveal a solid thigh. He had on blue boxer shorts and her football shirt. His arm was resting on the back of the sofa and his fingers were clutching the coarse material, as if he was holding on in order not to fall on the floor.

He was so like Warren on the outside. And yet so different in every other way.

One day I'll tell you about Warren, she thought to herself. One day I'll tell you what happened. But not yet. I think we've got plenty of time.

He grunted a bit and a small snort made his Adam's apple jump. He turned over in his sleep to find a new position. The blanket fell to the floor. She carefully laid it over him again; she held her breath and tucked the red checked blanket around him. Then she went into the study.

Sunlight streamed in through the window to the east and made it difficult to see. She pulled down the blinds and turned on her computer. The secretary at work had sent an email, with five messages. Only one of them was important.

Aksel Seier was in Norway. He wanted to meet her and had left two numbers. One was for the Continental Hotel.

Johanne hadn't thought about Aksel Seier since she'd found Emilie. Unni Kongsbakken's story had been forgotten in that tomb on Snaubu farm. When Johanne had been wandering aimlessly through the streets of Oslo, before Adam picked her up and took her to the home-made bunker on top of a hill some miles north-east of Oslo, she had been uncertain what to do with the old lady's story. If there was anything she could do.

All her doubts vanished now.

The story of Hedvig Gåsøy's murder was Aksel Seier's story. He owned it. Johanne would meet him, give him what was his and then take him to meet Alvhild. Only then would she be finished with Aksel Seier.

Johanne turned round. Adam was standing barefoot in the doorway. He was scratching his belly and gave a lopsided smile.

‘Early, this. Bloody early. Should I make coffee?'

Without waiting for an answer he padded over to her and cupped her face in his hands. He didn't kiss her, but he was still smiling, more broadly now, and Johanne felt a fresh morning breeze coming in through the half-open window, stroking her legs through her pyjamas. The summer the meteorologists had promised for so long was finally here.

‘I think it's going to be a lovely day,' said Adam, and didn't let go of her. ‘I think summer is finally here, Johanne.'

W
hen Johanne met Aksel Seier at the reception of the Continental Hotel in the morning on 9 June, she barely recognised him. In Harwichport he had looked like a fisherman and odd-job man from a small New England town, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Now he looked more like a cruise tourist from Florida. His hair had been shaved off and he had nothing to hide behind any more. His face was sombre. He didn't even smile when he saw her, and didn't ask her to sit down. It was as if he had no time to lose. He spoke in English when he told her that his son was in hospital following a serious car accident. It was a matter of hours, he said bluntly. He had to go.

‘Do you . . .' Johanne started, then hesitated, completely thrown by the fact that Aksel Seier had a son, a son who lived in Norway, a son who was now lying in hospital and was about to die. ‘Do you want company? Do you want me to come? Keep you company?'

He nodded.

‘Yeah. I think so. Thanks.'

It was only when they were in the cab that she twigged.

Later, in the days and weeks that followed, when she tried to understand what had happened in the taxi on the way to the hospital where Karsten Åsli lay dying, she was reminded of her old maths teacher from secondary school.

For some reason she had chosen sciences. Maybe because she was good at school and science was for the clever ones. Johanne
had never understood maths. Big numbers and mathematical signs were as meaningless to her as hieroglyphics; symbols that remained closed and silent in the face of her persistent efforts to understand. During an exam in second year, Johanne had what she later thought of as an epiphany. Suddenly the numbers meant something. The equations worked. It was a glimpse into an unknown world, an existence where strict logic ruled. The answers were at the end of a beautiful pattern of symbols and figures. The teacher leaned over her shoulder; he smelt of old people and camphor sweets. He whispered:

‘There you go, Johanne. See! The young lady has seen the light!'

And that's exactly what it felt like.

Aksel had talked about Karsten. She didn't react. He told her about Eva. She listened. Then he mentioned their surname, almost in passing, in a subordinate clause as the taxi pulled up in front of the hospital.

There was nothing that could surprise her any more.

She felt the hairs rise on her arms. That was all.

Everything fell into place. Karsten Åsli was Aksel's son.

‘There you go, Johanne,' whispered her maths teacher and sucked on the sweet in his mouth.

‘The young lady has seen the light.'

*

There were two plain-clothes policemen in the corridor, but Aksel Seier barely noticed anything or anyone. Johanne realised that he hadn't yet been told what his son had done. She made a silent prayer that it could wait, until it was all over.

She put her hand on Aksel's shoulder. He stopped and looked her in the eye.

‘I've got a story for you,' she said in a low voice. ‘Yesterday . . . I found out the truth about Hedvig's murder. You are innocent.'

‘I know that,' he said without emotion, and didn't even blink.

‘I'll tell you everything,' Johanne continued. ‘When this . . .'

She quickly looked over at Karsten Åsli's room.

‘When all this is over. Then I'll tell you what actually happened.'

Aksel put his hand on the door handle.

‘And one more thing,' she said, holding him back. ‘There's an old lady. She's very ill. It's thanks to her that the truth has eventually come out. Her name is Alvhild Sofienberg. I want you to come with me to meet her. Later, when all this is over. Do you promise me that?'

He gave a slight nod and then went in.

Johanne followed.

Karsten Åsli's face was bruised and swollen and was barely visible among the bright-white sheets, bandages and gurgling machines that would keep him alive for a few more hours. Aksel sat down on the only chair in the room. Johanne went over to the window. She was not interested in the patient. It was Aksel Seier she looked at when she turned round again and it was only him she thought of.

You served the sentence for your son, Aksel. You have atoned for your son's sins. I hope that you'll be able to see it like that.

Aksel Seier was sitting with his head bent and his hands folded round Karsten's right hand.

*

The ceiling was blue. The man in the shop claimed that the dark colour would make the room seem smaller. He was wrong. Instead the ceiling was lifted, it nearly disappeared. That's what I wanted myself, when I was little: a dark night sky with stars and a small crescent moon over the window. But
Granny chose for me then. Granny and Mum, a boy's room in yellow and white.