Punishment (20 page)

‘The message,' he said in a tired voice, and sipped the hot liquid. ‘He left the same message. Now you've got what you deserved.'

‘But . . .'

‘We haven't released any details about the message yet. There hasn't been a word about it in the papers. We've actually managed to keep it secret until now. It has to be him.'

Johanne looked at the clock.

‘Right. Twenty-five past one,' she said. ‘We've got four hours and thirty-five minutes exactly until the alarm clock in there goes off. So let's get started. I'm guessing that you've got something in your flight case. Go get it. We've only got four and a half hours.'

*

‘So the only common feature is the message?'

She leaned back in the chair, frustrated, and folded her hands round her neck. There were yellow Post-its everywhere. A big sheet of paper was stuck to the fridge; as it had been rolled up, they'd had to use masking tape to stop it falling down. The children's names were written at the top of each column and information about everything from their favourite food to their medical history underneath. The column for Glenn Hugo was almost empty. The only information they had about the little boy who was not yet more than twenty-four hours dead, was a preliminary cause of death: suffocation. Age and weight. A normal, healthy, eleven-month-old boy.

A piece of A4 paper over the cooker showed that his parents were called May Berit and Frode Benonisen and they were twenty-five and twenty-eight years old respectively and lived in her wealthy mother's house. Both were employed by the local council. He worked as a rubbish collector and she was a secretary in the mayor's office. Frode had nine years' elementary education and a relatively successful career as a footballer for TIL behind him. May Berit had studied history of religion and Spanish at the University of Oslo. They'd been married for two years, almost to the day.

‘The message. And the fact that they're all children. And they're all dead.'

‘No. Not necessarily Emilie. We don't know anything about what's happened to her.'

‘Correct.'

He massaged his scalp with his knuckles.

‘The paper that the messages are written on comes from two different sources. Or piles to be more precise. Ordinary copy paper of the type used by everyone with a PC. No fingerprints. Well . . .'

He rubbed his head again and a very thin puff of dandruff caught the light from the powerful standard lamp she had taken in from the living room.

‘It's too early to say anything definite about the last message, of course. It's still being tested. But I don't think we should get our hopes up. The man is careful. Extremely careful. The handwriting in each message looks different, at least at first glance. That might be on purpose. An expert is going to compare them.'

‘But this witness . . . this . . .'

Johanne got up and ran her finger over a series of yellow Post-its on the cupboard door nearest the window.

‘Here. The man in Soltunveien 1. What did he actually see?'

‘A retired professor. Very reliable witness, by the way. The problem is that he . . .'

Adam poured himself coffee cup number six. He tried to suppress an acid burp and held his fist to his mouth.

‘His eyesight isn't that good. He uses pretty strong glasses. But in any case . . . He was repairing his terrace. He had a good view from there down to the road, here.'

Adam used a wooden ladle as a pointer and marked out the rough map that was taped to the window.

‘He said that he noticed three people in the critical period. A middle-aged woman in a red coat, who he thinks he
recognised. A young boy on a bike, who we can basically rule out straight away. Both of them were walking down the road, in other words towards the house in question. But then he saw a man, who he reckoned was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, walking in the opposite direction . . .'

The ladle handle moved across the paper again.

‘. . . out towards Langnesbakken. It was just gone three. The witness is sure about that because his wife came out shortly afterwards to ask when they should eat. He looked at his watch and reckoned that he would be finished with the new railings by five.'

‘And there was something about the way he was walking . . .'

Johanne squinted at the map.

‘Yes. The professor described it as . . .'

Adam rummaged around in the papers.

‘. . . someone who's in a rush but doesn't want to show it.'

Johanne looked at the memo with a degree of scepticism.

‘And how do you see that?'

‘He felt that the man was walking more slowly than he wanted to, almost as if he wanted to run, but didn't dare. Sharp observation, in fact. If it's right. I tried to do something similar on the way here and there could be something in it. Your movements become quite staccato and there's something tense and involuntary about it.'

‘Can he give any more details?'

‘Unfortunately not.'

The last wing had been broken from the dragon mug in the course of the night and it stood there, more pathetic than ever, like a tame, clipped cockerel. Adam put a bit of milk in his coffee.

‘Nothing more than his age, approximately. And that he was dressed in grey or blue clothes. Or both. Very neutral.'

‘Sensible of him. If it really was our man . . .'

‘Oh, and that he had hair. Thick, well-cut hair. The professor couldn't be sure of anything else. Of course, we'll make an announcement, asking anyone who was in the area at the time to contact us. So we'll see.'

Johanne rubbed her lower back and closed her eyes. She seemed to be lost in thought. The early morning light had just started to creep into the sky. Suddenly she started to collect all the notes, take down the posters and fold away the map and columns. She put everything together in a meticulously thought-out system. The Post-its in envelopes. The large sheets of paper folded and piled on top of each other. And finally she put it all back in the old flight case and then took a can of Coke from the fridge. She looked questioningly at Adam, who shook his head.

‘I'll go,' he assured her. ‘Of course.'

‘No,' she said. ‘This is where we really start. Who kills children?'

‘We've been through this before,' he said hesitantly. ‘We agreed that it was motorists and paedophiles. And when I think about it, it was a bit flippant really to say motorists, given the context.'

‘They're still responsible for killing most children in this country,' she retorted. ‘But never mind. This is about hate. A distorted sense of justice or something like that.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘I don't know. I'm thinking, Adam!'

The white of his eyes was no longer white. Adam Stubo looked as if he'd been on a bender for three days, an impression that was reinforced by the smell.

‘The hate would have to be pretty intense to justify what this man has done,' said Johanne. ‘Don't forget that he has to live with it. He has to sleep at night. He has to eat. Presumably, he has to function in a community where society's condemnation screams at him from the front of every newspaper, from every news broadcast, in shops, at work, maybe . . .'

‘But surely he can't . . . He can't hate the children!'

‘Shhh.'

Johanne raised her hand.

‘We're talking about someone who wants revenge. Is taking revenge.'

‘For what?'

‘Don't know. But were Kim and Emilie, Sarah and Glenn picked at random?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Now you're drawing conclusions without any conclusive evidence. Of course, they may have been picked arbitrarily. But it's not likely. It's hardly likely that the man suddenly decided that it was Tromsø's turn this time. The children must be linked in some way.'

‘Or their parents.'

‘Exactly,' said Johanne. ‘More coffee?'

‘I'm going to throw up soon.'

‘Tea?'

‘Hot milk might do the trick.'

‘It'll only make you go to sleep.'

‘That wouldn't be such a bad thing.'

It was half past five. The King of America was having a nightmare, his little legs flailing in the air, running away from a dream enemy. The air in the kitchen was heavy. Johanne opened the window.

‘The problem is that we can't find anything that links the blood . . . the parents.'

Adam lifted his hands in despair.

‘Of course, that doesn't mean that there isn't a link,' Johanne argued, and sat down on the work surface with her feet on a half-open drawer.

‘If we just play with the idea for a moment,' she continued. ‘That he might be a psychopath. Just because the crimes are so horrible that it seems likely. What are we actually looking
for then?'

‘A psychopath,' muttered Adam.

She ignored him.

‘Psychopaths are not as rare as we like to think. Some people claim that they account for one per cent of the population. Most of us use the expression about someone we don't like, and it may be more justified than we think. Although . . .'

‘I thought it was called antisocial personality disorder these days,' said Adam.

‘That's actually something different. Though the diagnosis criteria do overlap, but . . . forget it. Keep up, Adam! I'm trying to brainstorm!'

‘Fine. The problem is that I'm not in a state to brainstorm any more.'

‘So let me then. You can at least listen! Violence . . . violence can be roughly divided into two categories, instrumental and reactionary.'

‘I know,' mumbled Adam.

‘Our cases are clearly the result of instrumental violence, in other words, targeted, premeditated acts of violence.'

‘As opposed to reactionary violence,' said Adam slowly. ‘Which is more the result of an external threat or frustration.'

‘Instrumental violence is far more typical of psychopaths than for most of us. It requires a kind of . . . evil, for want of a better word. Or to be more scientific: an inability to empathise.'

‘Yes, he doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by that sort of thing, our man . . .'

‘The parents,' said Johanne slowly.

She jumped down and opened the damaged flight case. She went through the papers until she came to the envelope marked ‘parents', then she placed the contents side by side across the floor. Jack lifted his head, but went quietly back to sleep.

‘There has to be something here,' she said to herself. ‘There's some kind of link between these people. It's just not possible to develop such an intense hate for four children aged nine, eight, five and under a year.'

‘So, it has nothing to do with the children at all?' Adam questioned, leaning over the notes.

‘Maybe not. But then again, maybe it's both. Children and parents. Fathers. Mothers. How do I know?'

‘Emilie's mother is dead.'

‘And Emilie is the only one who has not been accounted for.'

There was a pause. The silence was amplified by the noise of the wall clock ticking mercilessly closer to six o'clock.

‘All the parents are white,' said Johanne suddenly.

‘All of them are Norwegian, by origin. None of them know each other. No mutual friends. No jobs at the same place. To put it bluntly . . .'

‘Striking. Or perhaps they've been chosen precisely because they don't have anything in common.'

‘Common, common, common . . .'

She said the word over and over to herself, like a mantra.

‘Age. Ages range from twenty-five, Glenn Hugo's mother, to thirty-nine, Emilie's father. The mothers range from . . .'

‘Twenty-five to thirty-one,' said Adam. ‘Six years. Not a lot.'

‘On the other hand, all the women have small children. The difference can't be that great at all.'

‘Do you think there's some connection between the fact that Emilie's mother is dead and that she has still not been found?'

Adam let out a deep sigh and got up. He looked down at the papers and then started to tidy away the cups and the coffee pot.

‘I have no idea. Emilie doesn't seem to fit in to this at all. Johanne, I mean it. I can't think any more.'

‘I think he's suffering right now,' she said, changing tack. ‘I
think he made a mistake in Tromsø. That child should have been killed in the same way as the others. Inexplicable. He has somehow managed to develop a method that—'

‘Leaves no trace,' he finished her sentence bitterly. ‘That our army of so-called experts just shake their heads at. Sorry, they say, no known cause of death.'

Johanne sat completely still, on her knees, with her eyes closed.

‘He wasn't going to suffocate Glenn Hugo,' she whispered. ‘That was not supposed to happen. He loves the control he has over everyone and everything right now. He's playing a game. In some way or another, he feels he's . . . getting even. He got frightened in Tromsø. Lost control. That scared him. Maybe it will make him careless.'

‘Animal,' snapped Adam. ‘Bloody animal.'

‘That's not the way he sees it,' said Johanne. She was still sitting on her knees, resting on her heels. ‘He's a relatively well-adjusted guy, to all appearances at least. He's obsessive about control. He's always tidy. Proper. Clean. He's doing what he's doing now because it's justified. He's lost something. Something has been taken from him that he believes is fundamentally his. We're looking for a person who believes he's acting in his full right. The world is against him. Everything that's gone wrong in his life is someone else's fault. He never got the jobs he deserved. When he didn't do well in his exams, it was because the questions were poorly formulated. When he doesn't earn enough money, it's because the boss is an idiot who doesn't know how to appreciate his work. But he deals with it. Lives with it, with women who reject him, with promotions that never arrive. Until one day . . .'