Punishment (29 page)

‘. . . 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 . . .'

His mobile phone started to play a digitalised version of ‘Für Elise'. Adam answered. The conversation lasted less than a minute and he said little else other than yes and no and thank you.

‘Nothing,' he said out loud and ended the call. ‘Grete Harborg is buried in Østre Gravlund here in Oslo, beside her grandparents. Three patrols from Oslo City Police have fine-combed the area around the grave. Nothing. No suspicious packages, no messages. They'll carry on looking tomorrow when it gets light, but they're fairly convinced there's nothing there.'

‘Thank God for that,' whispered Johanne; she felt physically relieved. ‘Thank goodness. But . . .'

He looked at her. In the night light his eyes looked dark, nearly black. He should have shaved. The blanket had slipped
from his shoulders. When he turned to pick it up, she saw her name across his broad back. She swallowed and didn't want to look at the time.

‘. . . that means we still can't be sure whether Emilie was taken by the same person as the others,' she said. ‘It might be someone completely different.'

‘Yep,' he nodded. ‘But I don't think it is. And you don't think it is. And I hope to God that it isn't.'

The intensity of his exclamation surprised her.

‘Why . . . Why d'you . . .?'

‘Emilie is alive. She may still be alive. If it's our man who abducted her, then he has a reason for keeping her alive. So I hope it's him. We just have to . . .'

‘. . . find him.'

‘I have to go,' said Adam.

‘I guess you do,' said Johanne. ‘I'll phone for a taxi.'

Adam was solidly built and it was three hours since he had had one gin and tonic. He could probably have driven home and they both knew that.

‘I'll come and get the car tomorrow,' he said. ‘And I'll take your shirt with me. If it's all right that I don't wash it.'

By the front door, he gave Jack an extra pat.

Then he lifted his hand to his forehead, smiled and went out to the waiting taxi.

A
man crouched by a cabin wall. He was well dressed for the time of year. But he was still cold. His teeth were chattering and he tried to pull his jacket tighter around him. He had no idea where he was. The trees stood thick around the opening in front of the small, decrepit building. He could easily break in. The cabin might not even be locked. A thin strip of pink light was expanding on the horizon to the east. He had to find somewhere to hide. Cabins were not a particularly good idea. People could turn up at any time. But this one looked derelict. It smelt of old tar and outside toilets.

The man tried to get up. It was as if his legs wouldn't carry him. He staggered and realised that he had to have something to eat soon.

‘Eat,' he mumbled. ‘Eat.'

The door was a joke. Only some loosely nailed boards that were swinging on the hinges. He stumbled in.

It was dark, even darker than outside. Someone had nailed shutters to the windows. The man groped his way along the wall. His hand came to a cupboard. Luckily he had a lighter. He had finished his cigarettes ages ago. He felt a painful gnawing under his breastbone. Cigarettes and food. He needed cigarettes and food, but had no idea how he was going to get them. He managed to open the cupboard by the light of his lighter flame. It was empty. The next one was empty too. Only cobwebs and an old portable radio.

The cabin had one large room. There was a kind of pot on
the table. A big ashtray. There were four stubs in the ashtray. With shaking fingers he picked one of them up. The tobacco was so dry that it fell out of the paper. He carefully stuffed the strands of tobacco back in. It took a while. He had to make sure the top was open. Then he lit the cigarette and tilted back his head. After smoking four stubs he was no longer hungry. Instead he felt slightly sick. It was better. He crawled under the table and fell asleep.

I
t seemed that the girl wanted to die. He couldn't see why. She got enough food. Enough water. Enough air. He gave her everything she needed to stay alive. But she just lay there. She'd stopped answering when he spoke to her. That irritated him. It was rude. As he couldn't bear the smell of her, he had found a pair of his old underpants and sewn up the fly. He couldn't really buy a pair of girl's knickers without attracting attention. They knew him in the local shops. He could of course go into town, but it was better to be on the safe side. He had been on the safe side all along. They would never find him and he didn't want to ruin everything because someone found it odd that a childless man was buying girl's knickers. People were hysterical. They talked about nothing else. At the Co-op, with Bobben at the petrol station. At work he could put on ear protectors and shut the others out, but in the lunch break he was forced to listen to their whining. A couple of times he'd just eaten his packed lunch in by the saw. Then the boss came and asked him what was wrong. Lunch was sacred to them all. And should be eaten together in the hut. Simple as that, and he had smiled and followed him in.

When he ordered Emilie out of bed to wash herself the other day, she was stiff as a robot. But she did it. Staggered over to the sink. Took off her clothes until she stood there naked. Washed herself with the cloth he'd brought in with him. Put on the clean pants, faded green ones with a cheeky elephant on the front. He had laughed. The pants wouldn't stay on and
she looked completely ridiculous when she turned to him: thin and pale with her right hand closed round a handful of material by the trunk.

Then he had washed her clothes. Put them in the washing machine with a softener in the rinse. He hadn't bothered to iron them all, but she could still have been more grateful. She just carried on lying there in the underpants. Her clothes lay folded beside the bed.

‘Hey,' he said brusquely, from the doorway. ‘Are you alive?'

It was quiet.

The little bitch didn't want to answer him.

She reminded him of a girl he'd gone to primary school with. They were going to put on a play. His mother was going to come. She had made the costume. He was going to be the grey goose and only had a couple of lines. His costume wasn't too great. The wings were made of cardboard and one of them had a bend in it. The others laughed. The beautiful girl was a swan. The feathers frothed around her, white tissue-paper feathers. She tripped on something and fell off the edge of the stage.

His mother didn't turn up. He never knew why. When he got home, she was sitting in the kitchen reading. She didn't even look up when he said goodnight. His grandmother gave him a slice of bread and a glass of water. The next day she forced him to visit the swan in hospital and apologise.

‘Hello,' he said again. ‘Will you answer!'

There was a slight movement under the duvet, but not a sound was made.

‘Careful,' he said through gritted teeth, and slammed the door again.

*

It was pitch black.

Emilie knew that she wasn't blind. The man had turned off
the light. Daddy would have given up looking by now. Maybe they'd had a funeral.

Most likely she was dead and buried.

‘Mummy,' she said mutely.

K
ristiane woke up on Friday morning with a temperature. Or rather, she didn't wake up. When Johanne was woken by Jack at ten past eight, the child was still sleeping, with an open mouth and sour breath. Her cheeks were red and her forehead warm.

‘Sore,' she mumbled when Johanne woke her. ‘Thirsty tummy.'

It actually suited Johanne very well to be at home. She threw on an old tracksuit and phoned work to let them know. Then she phoned her mother.

‘Kristiane's not well, Mum. We can't come over this evening.'

‘What a shame! That really is a shame. I managed to get hold of some super gravlax, your father knows . . . Would you like me to come and look after her?'

‘No, that's not necessary. Actually . . .'

Johanne needed a day at home. She could clean the flat before the weekend. She could repair the chair in the kitchen, the one that had given way under the weight of Adam. Kristiane was a remarkable child. She slept herself back to health. Literally. The last time she had flu, she'd slept more or less continuously for four days, until she suddenly got up at two one night and declared:

‘Better. Daisy fresh.'

Johanne could finally try that hair treatment that Lina had given her. She could lie in the bath in peace. But there were a couple of things she had to do before the weekend.

‘Could you come a bit later? Around . . . two?'

‘Of course I can, dear. Kristiane is so easy when she's ill. I'll bring my embroidery and a video I got from your sister the other day, an old film she thought I would like. Steel Magnolias with Shirley McLaine . . .'

‘Mum, there's loads of videos here.'

‘Yes, but you've got such . . . strange taste!'

Johanne shut her eyes.

‘I do not have strange taste at all! There are films by . . .'

‘Yes, yes, dear. You do have slightly unusual taste. Just admit it. Have you cut your hair yet? You sister looks so lovely, she's just been to that new, hot hairdresser in Prinsensgate, what's he called . . .'

Her mother giggled.

‘He's a bit . . . They so often are, these hairdressers. But my goodness Maria looked wonderful.'

‘I'm sure. So see you around two then?'

‘Two o'clock on the dot. Shall I buy supper for the three of us?'

‘No, thank you. I've got vegetable soup in the freezer. It's the only thing I can get Kristiane to eat when she's ill. There's enough for all of us.'

‘Good. See you later.'

‘See you.'

*

The bath water was just a couple of degrees too hot. Johanne leaned her head against the plastic pillow and inhaled the steam in deep breaths. Lemon and camomile from an expensive glass bottle that Isak had brought back from France. He still always bought her presents when he was abroad. Johanne wasn't quite sure why, but it was nice. He had good taste. And lots of money.

‘I've got good taste too,' she grumbled.

There were three worn-out towels hanging on the hooks.
One had a big picture of Tiger Boy and the other two had been washed to a light pink.

‘New towels,' she said to herself. ‘Today.'

Her friends envied her her mother. Lina loved her. She's so kind, said the other girls. She would do anything for you. And she's always so with it. Reads and goes to the theatre, and the way she dresses!

Her mother was kind. Too kind. Her mother was a general of good causes, friend to prisoners, honorary member of the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association, nimble-fingered and unable to communicate directly. Maybe that was the result of never having worked away from home. Her life had been her husband and children and voluntary work; an endless number of unpaid positions and commissions that required a consistently friendly attitude to everyone and everything. Her mother was a born diplomat. She was as good as unable to formulate a sentence where the content was what she actually wanted to say. Your father is worried about you meant I'm worried sick. Marie looks fabulous at the moment was her mother's way of telling Johanne that she looked like something the cat dragged in. When her mother arrived with a pile of women's magazines, Johanne knew that they would be about new fashion and twenty ways to find a man.

‘You work so hard,' said her mother, and patted her arm.

And then Johanne knew that her mother didn't find jeans, sweatshirts and four-year-old glasses particularly flattering.

Lina's hair treatment was actually very pleasant. Her scalp prickled and Johanne could actually feel her tired hair sucking in the nourishment under the plastic hat. The water had made her skin red. Jack was asleep and she heard nothing from Kristiane's room. She had left the doors open, just in case.

The book about Asbjørn Revheim was about to fall in the water. She saved it just in time, and moved the coffee cup from the edge of the bath to the floor.

The first chapter was about Revheim's death. Johanne thought that it was a strange way to start a biography. She wasn't sure that she wanted to read about his passing, so she flicked through the pages. Chapter two was about his childhood. In Lillestrøm. The book fell in the water. Quick as a flash she pulled it out again. Some of the pages had stuck together. It took some time before she found the place where she'd dropped the book again.

There.

Asbjørn Revheim had changed his name in defiance when he was a teenager. The biographer spent one and a half pages discussing how incredible it was that in 1953, his parents had allowed the teenager to reject his family name. But then his parents weren't any old parents.

Asbjørn Revheim was born Kongsbakken. His mother and father were Unni and Astor Kongsbakken; she was a well-known tapestry weaver and he was a famous, not to say notorious, public prosecutor.

The water was tepid now. She nearly forgot to rinse her hair. When her mother arrived at two, Johanne barely had time to tell her that Kristiane needed to have half a Disprin dissolved in warm Coke in an hour and that the child could drink what she wanted.