Punishment aka What Is Mine

She didn’t want to continue, but something in his eyes made her carry on:

“Let’s say it’s someone who seems very normal. Good-looking, maybe. Attractive. He might even be a bit of a charmer and finds it easy to make contact with women. As he’s very manipulative, he also keeps hold of them for a while. But not long. There’s something mean about him, something immature and very self-centered, combined with an easily triggered paranoia that makes women reject him again and again. He doesn’t think it’s his fault. He has done nothing wrong. It’s the women who betray him. They’re sly and calculating. They’re not to be trusted. Then one day something happens.”

“Like what?”

He was about to empty his glass. Johanne didn’t know if she should offer him a refill. Instead she continued:

“I don’t know. Yet another rejection? Maybe. But presumably something more serious. Something that makes him flip. The man that was seen in Tromso, have you got any more on him?”

“No. No one has come forward, which might mean that was our man. It might also mean that it was someone completely different. Someone who has nothing to do with the case, but who had some business or other up there that he would rather not disclose to the police. It could also have been someone who is completely innocent who was visiting a lover. So we’re not much further forward.”

“Emilie messes it all up,” she said. “Would you like another?”

He picked up his glass and looked at it for a long time. The ice cubes had melted to water. Suddenly he drank it and said:

“No thank you. Yes, Emilie is a mystery. Where is she? As her mother’s been dead for nearly a year now, it can hardly be targeted at her. So your theory falls to pieces.”

“Yes…”

She paused.

“But she’s not been delivered back, like the other children. At least, not to the father. But have you…”

Their eyes met and locked.

“The graveyard,” he nearly whispered. “She might have been delivered to her mother.”

“Yes. No!”

Johanne pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was cold and nearly shouted:

“It’s been nearly four weeks since she disappeared! Someone would have found her. Lots of people go to the graveyard in Asker in spring.”

“I don’t even know where Grete Harborg is buried,” he said, breathless. “Shit. Why didn’t we think of that?”

He got up suddenly and gave a questioning nod toward Johanne’s study.

“Just use the phone,” she said. “But isn’t it a bit late to investigate that now?”

“Far too late,” he replied and closed the door behind him.

They had moved out onto the terrace. Adam was the one who wanted to. It was past midnight. The neighbors had called their children in and there was a faint smell of barbecue wafting over from the east. The wind direction was in their favor, the sound of the cars on the ring road was distant and subdued. He refused the offer of a sleeping bag when Johanne went to get a duvet for herself, but he had eventually accepted a blanket over his shoulders. She could see that he was cold. He was opening and closing his legs rhythmically and breathing into his hands to keep them warm.

“What a fascinating story,” he said as he checked for the fourth time whether his cell phone was switched on. “I asked them to call me on this. So don’t…”

He tipped his head back toward the apartment. Kristiane was sound asleep.

Johanne had told him about Aksel Seier. In fact, it surprised her that she hadn’t told him earlier. In just under one week, she and Adam had spent a whole day, a long evening and a whole night together. She had thought about sharing the story with him on several occasions. But something had stopped her, until now. Perhaps it was her eternal reluctance to mix up her cards when it came to work. She wasn’t quite sure what to call Adam anymore. He was still wearing her shirt. He had listened intently. His short, occasional questions had been relevant. Shown insight. She should have told him earlier. For some reason she had neglected to tell him about Asbjorn Revheim and Anders Mohaug. She hadn’t mentioned the trip to Lillestrom at all. It was as if she wanted to get things clear in her head first.

“Do you think,” she said thoughtfully, “… that the prosecuting authorities in Norway might in some cases be…”

It was almost as if she didn’t dare to use the word.

“Corrupt,” he helped her. “No, if you mean that someone from the authorities would accept money to manipulate the result of a case, I would say that is nearly impossible.”

“That’s reassuring,” she said drily.

A thermos of tea with honey was sitting on a small teak table between them. There was an annoying whining from the top and she tried to screw it on tighter.

“But there are many forms of human inadequacy,” he added, hugging his mug for warmth. “Corruption is more or less unthinkable in this country for many reasons. To start with, we have no tradition of it. That might sound strange, but corruption requires a kind of national tradition! In many African countries, for example…”

“Careful!”

They laughed.

“We’ve seen quite a few examples of corruption at a very high level in Europe in recent years,” said Johanne. “Belgium. France. So it’s not as alien as one might think. You don’t need to go all the way to Africa.”

“That’s true,” Adam admitted. “But we’re a very small country. And very transparent. It’s not corruption that’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem then?”

“Incompetence and prestige.”

“Wow!”

She gave up on the thermos. It continued to complain; a thin, wailing noise. Adam opened the top completely and poured the remains of the tea into his cup. Then he carefully put the top down beside the thermos.

“What are you getting at?”

“I… Is it at all possible that Aksel Seier, in his time, was sentenced even though someone in the system actually knew he was innocent?”

“He was judged by a jury,” said Adam. “A jury is comprised of ten people. I find it very hard to believe that ten people could do something so wrong without it ever being discovered. After all these years…”

“Yes. But the evidence was produced by the prosecution.”

“True enough. Do you mean that…”

“I don’t mean anything really. I’m just asking if you think it’s possible that the police and the public prosecutor in 1956 would have sentenced Aksel Seier for something that they knew he didn’t do.”

“Do you know who was acting for the prosecution?”

“Astor Kongsbakken.”

Adam took the cup from his mouth and laughed.

“According to the newspaper reports, he was, to put it mildly, very engaged in the case,” continued Johanne.

“I can imagine! I’m too young…”

He was smiling broadly now and looking straight at her. She studied a tea stain on her duvet and pulled it tighter.

“… to have experienced him in court,” he continued. “But he was a legend. The prosecution’s answer to Portia, you might say. Passionate and extremely competent. Unlike some of the big defence lawyers, Kongsbakken had the wisdom to stop in time. I can’t remember what happened to him.”

“He must have been dead for ages,” she said quietly.

“Yes, either dead or old as the hills. But I think I can reassure you of one thing: Public Prosecutor Kongsbakken would never knowingly have been instrumental in sentencing anyone who was innocent.”

“But in 1965… when Aksel Seier was released for no reason and nothing…”