“Hello,” said Kristiane, sticking her head out from behind her mom’s thighs, with a big smile.
“You’re looking very nice today!”
Adam Stubo held his hand out to the little girl. Amazingly, she took it.
“My name is Adam,” he said solemnly. “And what is your name?”
“Kristiane Vik Aanonsen. Good morning. Good night. I have a kite.”
“Oh… can I see it?”
Kristiane showed him Sulamit. When he wanted to hold the fire engine, she pulled back.
“I think that’s the best kite I have ever seen,” he said.
The child vanished.
“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought…”
He shrugged. The obvious lie made his eyes narrow into an almost flirty smile. Johanne was caught off guard by a strange jabbing feeling, a breathlessness that made her look down and mumble that he’d better come in.
“It’s not exactly clean in here,” she said automatically as she registered his eyes swooping over the living room.
He sat down on the sofa. It was too deep and soft for a man as heavy as Adam Stubo. His knees were pushed up too high and it almost looked as if he was sitting on the floor.
“Maybe you’d be more comfortable in a chair,” she suggested, removing a picture book from the seat.
“I’m comfortable here, thanks,” he said. It was only now that she realized he had a large envelope with him, which he placed in front of him on the coffee table.
“I just…”
She made a vague gesture toward Kristiane’s room. It was the same problem every time. As Kristiane looked like-and sometimes behaved like-a normal, healthy four-year-old, Johanne was always uncertain whether she should say anything. Whether she should explain that the girl was small for her age and was in fact six and brain- damaged, but no one seemed to know how or why. Or explain that all the strange babblings that came out of her daughter’s mouth were neither due to stupidity nor impudence, but rather a short circuit that no doctor could repair. Normally she waited too long. It was as if she hoped for a miracle every time. That her daughter would be rational. Logical. Coherent. Or that she would suddenly develop an obvious deformity-a lolling tongue or squinting eyes in a flat face that made everyone smile with warm understanding. Instead it was just awkward.
Kristiane settled down to watch
“I don’t usually…”
Again she made that vague, apologetic gesture toward the room where her daughter was sitting.
“No problem,” said the policeman on the sofa. “I have to admit that I sometimes do the same. With my grandson, I mean. He can be pretty demanding. A video is a good babysitter, sometimes.”
Johanne felt the red flushing over her face and went into the kitchen. Adam Stubo was a grandfather.
“Why did you come here?” she asked when she returned with a cup of coffee that she put down in front of him, with a napkin underneath. “That ‘in the neighborhood’ explanation isn’t really true, is it?”
“It’s this case of ours.”
“Cases.”
He smiled.
“Correct. Cases. You’re right. At least… I feel that you can help me. It’s as simple as that. Don’t ask me why. Sigmund Berli, a good friend and colleague, can’t understand why I am pursuing you in this way.”
His eyes narrowed again in a way that
“Do you take milk?”
She started to get up before he indicated otherwise with his right hand.
“Listen,” he started again, pulling out a pile of photographs from the envelope on the coffee table. “This is Emilie Selbu.”
The photo was of a pretty little girl with a garland of coltsfoot in her hair. She was very serious and her deep blue eyes looked almost mournful. There was a small hollow at the base of her thin neck. Her mouth was small, with full lips.
“The picture is very recent. Taken about three weeks ago. Lovely kid, isn’t she?”
“Is she the one they haven’t found?”
She coughed as her voice gave way.
“Yes. And this is Kim.”
Johanne held the photograph right up to her eyes. It was the same one that they had shown on TV. A boy clutching a red fire engine. Red fire engine. Sulamit. She dropped the picture quickly and had to pick it up from the floor before pushing it back to Adam Stubo.
“As Emilie is still missing and Kim is… What on earth makes you think that the crimes were carried out by the same person?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
There were several photographs in the pile. For a moment it seemed that he intended to show them all to her. Then he clearly changed his mind and put the rest back in the envelope. The photos of Emilie and Kim remained on the table, side by side, both facing Johanne.
“Emilie was abducted on a Thursday,” he said slowly, “in the middle of the day. Kim disappeared on Tuesday night. Emilie is nine years old and a girl. Kim was a five-year-old boy. Emilie lives in Asker. Kim lived in B?rum. Kim’s father is a plumber and his mother is a nurse. Emilie’s mother is dead and her father is a linguist who earns a living translating literature. None of them know each other. We’ve hunted high and low to see if there are any connections between the two families. Apart from discovering that Emilie’s father and Kim’s mother both lived in Bergen for a while at the start of the nineties, there’s nothing. They didn’t even know each other there. All in all…”
“Strange,” said Johanne.
“Yes, or tragic, depending on how you choose to look at it.”
She tried to avoid looking at the photographs of the two children. It was as if they were reproaching her for not wanting to get involved.
“In Norway there’s always some kind of connection between people,” she said. “Especially when you live as close together as Asker and B?rum. You must have experienced that yourself. I mean, when you sit down and start talking to someone. You nearly always have a mutual acquaintance, an old friend, somewhere you’ve both worked, an experience in common. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Um, yes…”
He paused. He seemed uninterested. Then he suddenly took a deep breath as if he were about to protest, but stopped himself.
“I need someone to construct a profile,” he said instead. “A
His English pronunciation was broad, like an American TV series.
“Hardly,” Johanne interjected. The conversation was heading in a direction she did not like. “If you are to going to benefit at all from a profiler, you need more cases than this. Assuming that we are actually dealing with one and the same person.”
“God forbid,” said Adam Stubo. “That there should be more cases, I mean.”
“Obviously I agree with you on that. But it’s more or less impossible to draw any conclusions based on two cases.”
“How do you know that?”
“Elementary logic,” she replied sharply. “It’s obvious… The profile of an unknown criminal is based on the known common features of his crimes. It’s like one of those connect-the-dots drawings. Your pencil follows the numbered points until there is a clear picture. It doesn’t work with only two points. You need more. And on that point, you are absolutely right: let’s hope and pray that it doesn’t happen. That more points appear, I mean.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Why do you
“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that you chose to study psychology and law. An unusual combination. You must have had a plan. A goal.”
