Punishment aka What Is Mine

“Yes.”

He didn’t apologize. Her voice helped him to breathe more freely. It took ten minutes to tell her about the day’s events. He repeated himself here and there, but pulled himself together and tried to stay calm. To tell the story chronologically. To stick to the facts. Precision. At last he was quiet. Johanne said nothing.

“Hello?”

“Yes, I’m here,” he heard her far away.

He held the phone tighter to his ear.

“Why?” he asked. “Why is she lying?”

“Well, that’s obvious,” said Johanne. “She must have had an affair with Karsten Asli when she was married to Lasse. There can’t be any other reason, unless she’s telling the truth, of course. That she’s actually never met the man.”

“She’s lying! She lied! I know that she’s lying!”

Again he thumped his fist against the coarse bark. Blood ran down the back of his hand.

“What should I do? What the fuck should I do now?”

“Nothing. Not tonight. Go home, Adam. You need to sleep now. You know that. Tomorrow you can try and get Turid on her own. You can set the wheels in motion to find out all there is to know about Karsten Asli. Maybe you’ll find something. Something that with a little creativity you can use to get a search warrant. Tomorrow. Go home.”

“You’re right,” he said abruptly. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Do that,” she said. “Speak to you tomorrow.”

Then she put down the phone. He stared at his cell phone for a couple of seconds. His right hand was aching. Johanne hadn’t asked him to come over. Adam sloped back to the car and obediently drove home to Nordstrand.

FIFTY-SIX

Finally he found some food. Laffen had broken into three places already without any luck. But in this cabin there were cans in several cabinets. It couldn’t have been long since someone was here, as there was a forgotten loaf in the bread box. First he tried to scrape off the bluish-white coating, but that didn’t leave much bread, so he thoroughly inspected the small, hard clump before popping it in his mouth. It tasted of the dark.

There was a carefully laid pile of wood by the fireplace. It was easy to light. He had a good view of the road from the living-room window and could escape through the back window if anyone came. The heat that emanated from the fire made him drowsy. He needed something to eat first-a little soup perhaps; that was easiest. Then he would sleep. It was past four in the morning and soon it would be light. He just needed to eat a little food. And have a smoke. There was a half-full pack of Marlboros on the mantelpiece. He broke the filter off a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled deeply. He couldn’t go to sleep before the fire had burned down.

Tomato soup and macaroni. Good.

There was water in the tap. Nice cabin. He’d always wanted a cabin. A place where you could be left in peace. Not like the apartments at Rykkin, where the neighbors got angry if he forgot to wash the stairs one Saturday. Even though he had never let anyone into his apartment, he always felt he was being watched. Would be different in a place like this. If he went on further, deeper into the woods, he might find a place where he could be alone all summer. People tended to go to the coast in the summer. Then he could flee to Sweden in the autumn. His father had fled to Sweden during the war. His father got medals for all that he did.

He was certainly not going to let the police catch him again.

The cigarette tasted damn good. Best cigarette he’d ever tasted. Fresh and good. He lit up another when he’d eaten enough. Then he took the rest out of the pack and counted them. Eleven. He would have to ration them.

The police thought he was an idiot. When he was in custody, they talked to each other like he was deaf or something. People usually did. They thought he couldn’t hear.

The guy who had taken the children was smart. The messages were smart. Now you’ve got what you deserved. The two policemen had stood just beside him talking about it, as if he was an idiot without ears. Laffen had learned the text by heart immediately. Now you’ve got what you deserved. Great. Really good. Someone else was to blame. He wasn’t sure who had gotten what they deserved. But it was someone else, someone who wasn’t him. The guy who had taken the children must be a genius.

Laffen had been taken in for questioning before.

They always treated him like shit.

What did they expect when children ran around naked on the beach? And they showed off, particularly the girls. They wiggled and turned, showing off what there was to show off. But he was the one who got the blame, always. The Internet was much better that way. Social services had paid for the computer and for him to take courses and things like that.

Helicopters were dangerous.

He was still too close to Oslo and he heard helicopters all day long. As it was light until late and from early in the morning, there were only a few hours in the middle of the night when he could move around. He was moving too slowly. He realized he had to get farther away. He would steal a car. He could hotwire a car; it was one of the first things he taught himself. The police thought he was stupid, but it only took him three minutes to start a car. Not the new ones, true enough; he would leave the ones with car alarms. But he could find an older model. He would drive quite a distance. North. It was easiest to find the north. You just had to look at the sun during the day. At night he knew how to find the North Star.

He was sleepy after the food. The heat from the fire was like a wall. He mustn’t fall asleep before it had burned down. He wasn’t worried about the danger of fire, but he had to stay awake in case anyone turned up because they’d seen the smoke. Alert.

“Be prepared,” Laffen mumbled, and fell asleep.

FIFTY-SEVEN

Karsten Asli did his best to convince himself that he had nothing to fear.

“Routine,” he said with determination, and just about tripped. “Routine. Rou-ti-ne. Rou-ti-ne.”

His sneakers were wet and the sweat was running down into his eyes. He tried to dry his forehead on his sleeve, but it was already damp from the dew on the trees that he brushed past.

Adam Stubo had seen nothing. He had heard nothing. He couldn’t have seen anything that would arouse suspicion. For God’s sake, the guy said it himself: it was a routine call because they had to check up on everyone who had ever had anything to do with the families. Of course it was routine. The police thought they already knew who they were after. The papers wrote about little else: The Great Manhunt.

Karsten Asli picked up speed. He had nearly lost control. Adam Stubo was smart. Even though he wasn’t as good at lying as Karsten had imagined the police to be, he was sly. Turid had been terrified at the time. Terrified that Lasse would find out. Frightened of her mother. Frightened of her mother-in-law. Frightened of everything. When Adam claimed that Turid had said they knew each other, he was lying. But Karsten had still nearly lost control.

Adam Stubo should never have asked him if he had children.

Up to that point, Karsten had felt like he was drowning. But when Stubo asked about children, it was like having a life raft thrown to him. The seas calmed down. Land was in sight.

The child. The boy. He would be three on June 19. The day on which his plan would be completed. Nothing is