Punishment (21 page)

‘Johanne . . .'

‘Until one day something happens that . . .'

‘Johanne, stop!'

‘Triggers him. Until he can no longer bear to live with this
injustice. Until it is his time to get even.'

‘I mean it! Stop! This is pure speculation!'

Her legs had gone to sleep and she made a face as she pulled herself up with the help of the table.

‘Possibly. But you're the one who came to me for help.'

‘It smells in here.'

Kristiane was holding her nose. She had Sulamit under her arm. The King of America licked her face in delight.

‘Hello, sweetie. Good morning. We'll let some more air in.'

‘The man smells.'

‘I know.'

Adam forced a smile.

‘The man is going home to have a shower. Thank you, Johanne.'

Kristiane wandered back into her room, with the dog hot on her heels. Adam Stubo bashfully tried to hide the sweat marks under his arms as he put on his jacket. When he got to the front door, he made to give her a hug. Then he held out his hand instead. It was surprisingly dry and warm. The palm of her hand burned where she'd touched him, long after he had disappeared round the bend by the red house at the bottom of the road. Johanne noticed that the windows needed cleaning, there were tape marks all over the glass. And she had to put a plaster on her little toe. She had barely noticed it since she'd stubbed it on the door frame as she went to open the door five hours earlier, but now she saw that it was swollen and that the nail might fall off. And in fact, it was very sore.

‘Jack's done a poo,' Kristine shouted triumphantly from the living room.

E
ven though Aksel Seier had never really felt happy, there were times when he felt satisfied with life. On days like these he felt he belonged; that he was grounded in the history that existed between himself and Harwichport, between him and his grey, cedar-clad house by the beach. Rain darkened the broken asphalt on Ocean Avenue. His pick-up truck humped along slowly towards the house, as if he was still not sure if he wanted to go home. The grey of the sea met the grey of the sky, and the intense green of the oak crowns that leaned heavily towards each other to create a botanical tunnel for part of the road was subdued. Aksel liked this sort of weather. It was warm and the air felt fresh as it brushed his cheeks through the open car window. The pick-up bumped into the driveway. He sat there for a while, leaning back in the front seat. Then he grabbed the key and got out.

The flag on his post box was raised. Mrs Davis didn't like Aksel's post box. Her own had been rose-painted by Bjorn, who claimed to be Swedish and sold mock Dala wooden horses to stupid tourists on Main Street. Bjorn couldn't speak Swedish and had black hair and brown eyes. But when he painted anything, he stuck to blue and yellow. You had to give him that. Mrs Davis's post box was covered in coltsfoot flowers dancing on blue stalks. Aksel's post box was completely black. The flag had once been red, but that was a long time ago now.

‘You're back!'

Sometimes Aksel wondered if Mrs Davis had a radar in her
kitchen. She had of course been a widow for many years and didn't work – she lived off the meagre life insurance she'd got when her husband disappeared at sea in 1975 – and therefore was able to dedicate her time to making sure she knew how everyone was and what was happening in the small town. Her efficiency was impressive all the same. Aksel couldn't remember a time when he had not been welcomed home by the lady in pink.

He held out a bottle in a brown paper bag.

‘Oh dear! Liquor? For me, honey?'

‘Maple syrup,' he said gruffly. ‘From Maine. Thanks for taking care of the cat. How much do I owe you?'

Mrs Davis didn't want any money, not at all. He had barely been away. Wasn't it just four days since he left? Five? It was no problem. It was a pleasure to look after such a beautiful and well-trained cat. Syrup from Maine. Thank you so much! Such a beautiful state, Maine. Fresh and unspoilt. She should take a trip there soon, herself, it must be twenty years since she last visited her sister-in-law, who lived in Bangor, she was the headmistress of a school there, very clever lady, even though she could be a bit liberal with the strong stuff. But that was her business and nothing to do with Mrs Davis, and wasn't he originally going to go to New Jersey?

Aksel shrugged his shoulders in a way that could mean anything. He grabbed the suitcase from the back of the pickup and walked towards the door.

‘But you've got mail, Aksel! Don't forget to check your mailbox! And the young lady who visited you last week, she came back. Her card is in the box, I think. What a sweet girl! Cute as a button.'

Then she looked up at the sky and tripped back to her house. The rain hung like pearls on her angora sweater and was about to make her hair flat.

Aksel put his suitcase down on the steps. He didn't like getting post. It was always bills. There was only one person
who wrote to Aksel Seier and her letters came every half-year, one at Christmas and one in July, loyal and regular as always. He looked over at Mrs Davis's house. She had stopped under the eaves and was waving enthusiastically at the post box. He gave in. He strode over to the black box and opened the front. The envelope was white. It wasn't a bill. He tucked the letter under his sweater as if its contents were illegal. A business card fell to the ground. He picked it up and glanced at the front then put it in his back pocket.

The air in the house was stuffy and a sweet smell mingled with the dust that made him sneeze. The fridge was suspiciously quiet. When he slowly opened the door, the light didn't go on and illuminate the six-pack that stood alone on the top shelf. On the shelf underneath was a plate of stew, covered by a repulsive, green film. It was no more than two months since Frank Malloy had repaired the fridge in return for an embroidered sofa cushion that he took home to his wife. There soon wouldn't be much left to repair, Frank had said. Aksel should treat himself to a new fridge. Aksel took out a can of beer. It was tepid.

The letter was from Eva. But it was the wrong time of year for letters from Eva. Not before July. The middle of July and a few days before Christmas Eve. That's the way it should be. That's how it had always been. Aksel sat down on the chair under the shark lamp. He opened the envelope with a pewter letter opener decorated with a Viking pattern. He pulled out the sheets of paper with the familiar handwriting, unclear and difficult to read. The lines sloped slightly down to the right. He opened out the letter, smoothed it over his thigh, then held it up close to his eyes.

By the time the can of beer was empty, he had managed to get through it all. To be absolutely sure, he read the letter again.

Then he sat there staring out into space.

O
n the one hand, Johanne Vik was quite pleased that everyone assumed that she had sorted out a cake. She was the cake buyer, in both her own and others' eyes. She was the one who made sure that there was always coffee in the staff room. If Johanne had been away from the office for more than three days, the fridge was empty of fizzy drinks and water and there were only a couple of dry apples and a brown banana left in the fruit bowl. It was unthinkable that any of the office staff might look after that sort of thing. Remnants of a seventies work ethic still lingered in the university, and in fact it suited her quite well. Normally.

But now she was extremely irritated.

They had all known about Fredrik's fiftieth birthday for ages. He had certainly reminded them of the big day often enough. It was over three weeks since Johanne had collected the money, two hundred kroner each, and gone to Ferner Jacobsen on her own to buy an expensive cashmere sweater for the institute's most snobby professor. But she'd forgotten the cake. No one had reminded her to remember, yet everyone still stared at her in astonishment when she came back from the university library. At lunch there'd been no marzipan-covered walnut cream cake on the table. No songs, no speeches. Fredrik was really pissed off. And the others seemed to think they'd been wronged, that she had betrayed her colleagues at a crucial moment.

‘Someone else could make the effort sometimes,' she said, and closed the door to her office.

It was unlike her to forget something like that. The others did have reason to rely on her. They always had and she had never said anything. If she'd remembered the blasted birthday, she could have just asked Tine or Trond to buy a cake. After all it was his fiftieth. And she couldn't blame Adam either. Even though he had robbed her of a whole night's sleep, she was used to that sort of thing. Something she'd learnt in the first years with Kristiane.

She pulled a photocopied page from her bag. The university library had every edition of all the local papers on microfilm. It had taken her less than an hour to find the announcement. It had to be the right one. As if by fateful irony, or perhaps as a result of a local print setter's sensitivity, the death announcement was tucked away in the corner, right at the bottom of the page, unobtrusive and alone.

My dear son
ANDERS MOHAUG
born 27 March 1938,
passed away on 12 June 1965.
The funeral service took
place in private.
Agnes Dorothea Mohaug

So the man was twenty-seven when he died. In 1956, when little Hedvig was abducted, raped and killed, he was eighteen.

‘Eighteen . . .'

There was no obituary. Johanne had looked for something, but gave up after she'd trawled through every paper in the four weeks after the funeral. No one had anything to say about Anders Mohaug. His mother didn't even need to say ‘no flowers'.

How old would she be now? Johanne worked it out on her fingers. If she was twenty-five when her son was born, she
would be nearly ninety today. Eighty-eight. If she was alive. She might be older. She could have had her son later.

‘She's dead,' Johanne said to herself, and put the photocopy in a plastic sleeve.

But she decided to try all the same. It was easy enough to find the address in a telephone directory from 1965. Directory enquiries informed her that a completely different woman now lived at Agnes Mohaug's old address. Agnes Mohaug was no longer registered as having a phone, said the metallic voice.

Someone might remember her. Or her son. It would be best if someone could remember Anders.

It was worth a try, and the old address in Lillestrøm was as good a starting point as any. Alvhild would be happy. And for some reason that was now important to Johanne. To make Alvhild happy.

E
milie seemed smaller. She had somehow shrunk, and that irritated him. His jaw was tense, he heard his teeth grinding and tried to relax. Emilie couldn't complain about the service. She got food.

‘Why are you not eating?' he asked harshly.

The child didn't answer, but at least she tried to smile. That was something.

‘You have to eat.'

The tray was slippery. The bowl of soup skidded from side to side as he bent to put it down on the floor.

‘Promise me you'll eat this?'

Emilie nodded. She pulled the duvet up, right up to her chin; he couldn't see how thin she was any more. Good. She stank. Even over by the door he could smell the urine. Unhealthy. For a moment he considered going over to the sink to see if she'd run out of soap. But then he decided against it. To be fair, she'd been wearing the same clothes for several weeks now, but she was hardly a baby. She could wash her knickers when she wanted to. If there was soap left.

‘Do you wash yourself?'

She nodded carefully. Smiled. Strange smile she had, that kid. Subservient, somehow. Womanly. The girl was only nine and had already learnt to smile submissively. Not that that meant anything. Only betrayal. A woman's smile. Again he felt a pain at the back of his jaw, he had to pull himself together. Relax. He had to regain control. He had lost it in Tromsø.
Nearly. Things hadn't quite gone according to plan. It wasn't his fault. That it was so cold. May! May and the child had been packed in as if it were midwinter. Surely it couldn't be good for the child. But that didn't matter now. The child was dead. He had managed to get back home. That was the most important thing. He was still in control. He took a deep breath and forced his thoughts into place. Where they belonged. Why did he have this girl here?

‘You watch yourself,' he said quietly.

He hated the smell of the child. He himself showered several times a day. He was never unshaven. His clothes were always freshly ironed. His mother could smell like Emilie sometimes, when the nurses were too late. He couldn't stand it. Human decay. Degrading bodily smells that stemmed from a lack of control. He swallowed hard, his mouth filled with saliva and his throat felt constricted and sore.

‘Should I turn off the light?' he asked, and took a step back.

‘No!'

She was still alive.

‘No! Don't!'

‘Then you have to eat.'

In a way it was exhilarating to stand here like this. He had attached the iron door to the wall with a hook. But it could still close. If he was not careful. If he, for example, fell, or he lost his balance for a moment and fell towards the door, the hook would slip out of the eye and the door would slam behind him. They would both be done for. Him and the girl. He was breathing fast. He could go into the room and trust the hook. It was a solid bit of kit, he'd made it himself. A screw eye screwed deep into the wall, with a plug to keep it well in place. A hook. Big. It was solid and would never jump out by itself. He walked further into the room.

Control.

The weather had let him down. He had to suffocate the
child. That wasn't supposed to happen. He hadn't planned to abduct the boy, as he had with the other two. It was smart to do things differently each time. Confusing. Not for him, of course, but for the others. He knew that the boy slept outside for at least a couple of hours every afternoon. After an hour, it was too late. Not for him, but for the others.