Punishment aka What Is Mine

“Can’t be a complete idiot then,” said Hermansen without looking at Adam.

“I’ve already admitted it,” said Adam gruffly.

The living room was basically a kind of office. An operations center for a one-man army. Adam walked slowly around the room. There was a sort of system to the madness. Even the porn magazines were ordered in a perverse chronology. He noted that the magazines nearest the window contained pictures of children aged around thirteen to fourteen. The further into the room you went, the younger the victims were. He picked up a magazine at random from the sideboard by the kitchen door. He looked at the picture and felt his throat tightening before forcing himself to put it back without ripping it to shreds. One of the officers from Asker and B?rum was talking quietly on a cell phone. When he finished the conversation, he shook his head.

“They haven’t even found the car, let alone the man. And when you look at what we’ve got in here…”

He opened his arms.

“… I don’t particularly feel like going into the bedroom.”

The six policemen stood in silence and looked around. No one said a word. There was a commotion outside the apartment block. They heard cars stopping. Shouts. Heels running on asphalt. Still no one said a word. The policeman who didn’t want to check the bedroom pressed his thumb and index finger to his eyes. He made a face that made the colleague who was standing nearest him pat him uncomfortably on the shoulder. It stank of old semen. It stank of masturbation and dirty clothes. It oozed obscenity and shame and secrecy. Adam looked at Emilie on the wall. She was still just as serious; the coltsfoot falling onto her forehead. She looked like she knew everything.

“It’s not him,” said Adam.

“What?”

The others turned to look at him. The youngest was open-mouthed and his eyes were wet.

“I made a mistake about the man’s mental capacity,” Adam admitted, and tried to clear his throat. “He can obviously use a computer. He manages to contact the people who distribute this filth…”

He stopped and tried to find a more appropriate word, a harsher word that conveyed more about the printed material that lay in piles and stacks all over the place. “… this filth,” he repeated in vain. “He knows what’s going on. And we are nearly one hundred percent certain that he is the one who attempted the abduction on Kjelsasveien today. His car. The broken arm. The description fits on all points. But it’s not… this is not the man who abducted and killed the other children.”

“And you’ve reached that conclusion all by yourself?”

The expression on Sigmund Berli’s face showed that he no longer regarded Adam Stubo as his partner. He was defecting to the other side. To B?rum Police, who knew that they had solved the case. If only they could find the man who lived in this apartment, amongst all the paper clippings and pornography and dirty clothes. They knew who he was and he would be caught.

“The man has already let himself get caught once. By two amateurs! He nearly got caught again today. Our man, the man we’re looking for, the man who killed Kim and Glenn Hugo and Sarah…”

Adam’s eyes did not leave Emilie’s photograph.

“… and who perhaps is holding Emilie captive somewhere… he wouldn’t let himself get caught. Not like that. He doesn’t try to abduct children on an outing with lots of adults to watch them, in broad daylight in his own car and with a giant cast on his arm. No way. You know that, you know you do. We’re just so bent on catching the bastard that we…”

“Well, perhaps you can explain to me what this is then?” interrupted Hermansen.

The policeman was not triumphant. His voice was flat, nearly resigned. He had pulled a folder out of a drawer. The folder contained a small stack of paper. Adam Stubo didn’t want to look. He suspected that the contents of the folder would turn the whole investigation. Over a hundred detectives who until now had worked on the theory that nothing was a given and that all options should be kept open-good policemen and women who had tried to look at all the angles and who knew that good detective work was the result of being patient and systematic-they would now all charge in one direction.

Emilie, he thought, this is about Emilie. She is somewhere. She is alive.

“Oh shit,” said the youngest policeman.

Sigmund Berli let out a long, low whistle.

More cars could be heard outside. Shouts and conversation. Adam went over to the window and carefully pulled the curtain to one side. The journalists had arrived, naturally. They were flocking around the main entrance. Two of them looked up and Adam let the gray curtain go. He turned back to face the room. The other four were standing around Hermansen, who was still holding a red folder in one hand. In the other he had a small pile of paper. When he lifted one of the sheets for Adam to see, the writing was easy to read, even from the window.

NOW YOU’VE GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED.

“It’s typed,” Adam pointed out.

“Give it up,” said Sigmund. “Just give it up, will you, Adam. How could this guy know…”

“The messages on the children were written by hand. They were written by hand, people!”

“Should you or I talk to them out there?” asked Hermansen, putting the paper carefully back into the folder. “There’s not a lot we can say, but it’s probably most natural if I… as we’re in Asker and B?rum and all that.”

Adam Stubo shrugged his shoulders. He was silent as he pushed through the group of people that had gathered outside the low-rise building in Rykkin. He eventually reached his car and got in. He was just about to give up waiting for Sigmund Berli when his colleague got into the car, out of breath. They barely exchanged a word all the way back to Oslo.

FORTY-TWO

I don’t know how you manage it all,” exclaimed Bente, enthusiastically. “That was so good!”

Kristiane was asleep. She was normally restless when Johanne was expecting guests. In the early afternoon, she would already have long periods during which it was impossible to talk to her. She would roam from room to room, wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t sleep. But tonight she had fallen into bed, exhausted, with Sulamit under one arm and Jack, dribbling with delight, under the other. The King of America had changed Kristiane, Johanne had to admit. This morning her daughter had slept until half past seven.

“Recipe,” said Kristin, swallowing. “I must get the recipe.”

“There isn’t one,” said Johanne. “I just made it up.”

The wine was good. It was half past nine on Wednesday night. Her head felt light. Her shoulders didn’t ache. The girls around the table were talking over each other. Only Tone had said she couldn’t come; she didn’t dare leave the children alone, given the situation. Especially after today.

“She’s always so damned worried,” said Bente, and spilled some wine on the tablecloth. “Those children do have a father. Ooops! Salt! Mineral water! Tone is so… so hysterical about everything. I mean, we can’t just hole ourselves up simply because there’s a monster on the loose!”

“They’ll catch him now,” said Lina. “Now they know who he is. He won’t be able to hide forever. He won’t get far. Did you see that the police have issued a wanted poster with a photo and everything? Don’t waste all the mineral water!”

Adam hadn’t called. Not since Johanne had ignored the ringing phone the night before last. She couldn’t decide whether she was upset or not. She didn’t know why she didn’t want to speak to him. Then. But not now. He could call now. He could come around, in a few hours, when the girls had finished giggling and tottered out of the apartment. Then Adam could come. They could sit at the kitchen table and eat leftovers and drink milk. He could borrow the shower and an old football shirt from the States. Johanne could look at his arms as he leaned over, supporting himself on the table; the shirt was short-sleeved and he had fair hair on his arms, as if it was already