“I’m a policeman. It took me an hour to find out. You’ve got a child. You can’t travel anywhere without leaving a trail of clues behind you.”
He put the bananas into her cart.
“You were going to get some?”
“Mmm.”
“I need to speak to you.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“You would have to go shopping. You’ve been away. And this is your local supermarket, as far as I know.”
You know where I shop, she thought. You’ve found out where I shop and you must have been here a while. Unless you were very lucky. There are thousands of people here. We could have missed one another. You know where I shop and you’ve been looking for me.
She took four oranges from a mountain of fruit and put them in a bag. It was difficult to tie the knot.
“Here. Let me help you.”
Adam Stubo took the bag. His fingers were stubby but deft. Fast.
“There. I really need to talk to you.”
“Here?”
She threw out her arms and tried to look sarcastic, which was difficult as long as her face was the same color as the tomatoes in the box beside her.
“No, can we… can you come to my office? It’s on the other side of town, so if you think it’s easier…”
He shrugged his shoulders.
You want to come home with me. Jesus, the man wants to come home with me. Kristiane is… We’ll be alone. No. Not that.
“We can go back to my place,” she said casually. “I live just around the corner. But you already know that.”
“Give me your shopping list, then we can get this done in a jiffy.”
“I don’t have a shopping list,” she said sharply. “What makes you think that?”
“You just seem the type,” he said and let his hand fall. “You’re the shopping list type. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” she said and turned away.
“You’ve got a really nice place here.”
He was standing in the middle of the living-room floor. Luckily she had straightened up. She pointed vaguely in the direction of the sofa, and sat down in an armchair herself. Some minutes passed before she realized that she was sitting poker-backed on the edge of the seat. Gradually, so that her movements weren’t too obvious, she leaned back.
“No identifiable cause of death,” she said slowly. “Sarah just died.”
“Yes. A small cut above the eye. But no internal injuries. A completely insignificant wound, at least in terms of cause of death. A healthy, strong eight-year-old. And this time again, he… the murderer that is-we don’t know if it’s a man or a…”
“I think you can safely say he.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“Well, first of all because it’s easier than having to say ‘he or she’ the whole time. And second, because I am fairly convinced that it’s a he. Don’t ask me why. I can’t give you any reasons. Perhaps it’s just prejudice. I just can’t imagine a woman treating children like that.”
“And who do you think treats children like that?”
“What were you going to say?”
“I asked…”
“No, I interrupted you. You were about to say something about this time again…”
“Oh yes. The girl also had diazepam in her urine. Just a tiny amount.”
“What is the point of giving a child tranquilizers?”
“To calm them down, I would think. Maybe he keeps… maybe he’s keeping them somewhere where they have to be quiet. He has to get them to sleep.”
“But if the reason was to get them to sleep, he could give them sleeping pills.”
“Yes. It’s possible he doesn’t have access to them. He may only have… Valium.”
“Who has access to Valium?”
“Oh, God…”
He stifled a yawn and shook his head sharply.
“Lots of people,” he replied with a sigh. “Everyone who actually gets it prescribed by the doctor. We’re talking about thousands, if not tens of thousands. Then there’s pharmacists, doctors, nurses… Even though there is supposed to be rules and regulations in hospitals and pharmacies, we’re talking about such a small dose that there’s no way… It could be anyone. Did you know that over sixty percent of us open the bathroom cabinet when we’re in someone else’s house? Stealing two or three tablets would be the easiest thing in the world. If we ever manage to catch this guy, it won’t be because he’s in possession of Valium or diazepam.”
“If we ever,” repeated Johanne. “That’s a bit pessimistic.”
Adam Stubo was playing with a toy car. He let it roll down the back of his hand. The front lights glowed weakly when the wheels were set in motion.
“She only likes red cars,” said Johanne. “Kristiane, I mean. Not dolls, nor trains. Nothing but cars. Red cars. Fire engines, London buses. We don’t know why.”
“What is it that’s wrong with her?”
He carefully put the car down on the coffee table. The rubber on one of the wheels had been torn off and the tiny axle scraped against the glass surface.
“We don’t know.”
“She’s sweet. Really sweet.”
He looked like he meant it. But he’d only seen her once, and then only briefly.
“And you’re no further forward with the actual delivery of… I mean, he must have been in the entrance in Urtegate, or got someone else to… What do you know about it?”
“Courier. A courier!”
Adam Stubo thumped his index finger down on the roof of the car and pushed it slowly across the table. A thin scratch in the glass followed in its trail, where the tire was missing. Johanne opened her mouth, but said nothing all the same.
“It’s just so… so impudent,” Adam said savagely. He wasn’t aware of what he was actually doing. “Of course the guy knew that we wouldn’t tolerate another home delivery of a dead child to the mother. We had checks everywhere. Mistake, of course. With Sarah’s murder, Oslo City Police are suddenly involved and the relationship between the NCIS and… forget it. We should have been more discreet. Lured him into a trap. At least tried. He read the signs and used-a courier! A courier! And no one in Urtegate saw anything unusual, no one heard anything, no one guessed. The box with Sarah in it must have been left there in broad daylight. Old trick, by the way…”
“It’s best to hide where there’s lots of people,” Johanne concluded. “Smart. All the same, the package must have been…”
She hesitated before adding quietly:
“Quite big.”
“Yes, it was big enough to hold an eight-year-old child.”
Johanne knew herself well. She was a predictable person. Isak, for example, found her boring after a while. Once Kristiane was well again and life returned to a set routine, he started to complain. Johanne was not impulsive enough. Relax, he said more and more often. It’s not that bad, he sighed in resignation every time she looked skeptically at the frozen pizza he fed their daughter when he couldn’t be bothered to make food. Isak thought she was boring. Lina and her other friends agreed to a certain extent. But they didn’t say so to her face. On the contrary, they praised her. She was so reliable, they enthused. So smart and so responsible. You could always rely on Johanne, always. Boring, in other words.
She had to be predictable. She was responsible for a child who would never really grow up.
Johanne knew herself.
The situation was absurd.
She had invited a man home with her, someone she barely knew. She let him tell her the details of a police investigation that had nothing to do with her. He was in breach of the confidentiality clause. She should warn him. Politely say good-bye. She’d already made up her mind in the hotel room in Harwich Port, when she tore up the message into thirty-two pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
“Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t be telling me this.”