“No,” she said. “This is where we really start. Who kills children?”
“We’ve been through this before,” he said hesitantly. “We agreed that it was drivers and pedophiles. And when I think about it, it was a bit flippant really to say drivers, given the context.”
“They’re still responsible for killing most children in this country,” she retorted. “But never mind. This is about hate. A distorted sense of justice or something like that.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking, Adam!”
The whites of his eyes were no longer white. Adam Stubo looked as if he’d been on a bender for three days, an impression that was reinforced by the smell.
“The hate would have to be pretty intense to justify what this man has done,” said Johanne. “Don’t forget that he has to live with it. He has to sleep at night. He has to eat. Presumably, he has to function in a community where society’s condemnation screams at him from the front of every newspaper, from every news broadcast, in shops, at work, maybe…”
“But surely he can’t… he can’t hate the children!”
“Shhh.”
Johanne raised her hand.
“We’re talking about someone who wants revenge. Is taking revenge.”
“For what?”
“Don’t know. But were Kim and Emilie, Sarah and Glenn picked at random?”
“Of course not.”
“Now you’re drawing conclusions without any conclusive evidence. Of course, they may have been picked arbitrarily. But it’s not likely. It’s hardly likely that the man suddenly decided that it was Tromsø’s turn this time. The children must be linked in some way.”
“Or their parents.”
“Exactly,” said Johanne. “More coffee?”
“I’m going to throw up soon.”
“Tea?”
“Hot milk might do the trick.”
“It’ll only make you go to sleep.”
“That wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
It was half past five. The King of America was having a nightmare, its little legs flailing in the air, running away from a dream enemy. The air in the kitchen was heavy. Johanne opened the window.
“The problem is that we can’t find anything that links the damn… the parents.”
Adam lifted his hands in despair.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a link,” Johanne argued, and sat down on the countertop with her feet on a half-open drawer.
“If we just play with the idea for a moment,” she continued, “that he might be a psychopath. Just because the crimes are so horrible that it seems likely. What are we actually looking for then?”
“A psychopath,” muttered Adam.
She ignored him.
“Psychopaths are not as rare as we like to think. Some people claim that they account for one percent of the population. Most of us use the expression about someone we don’t like, and it may be more justified than we think. Although…”
“I thought it was called antisocial personality disorder these days,” said Adam.
“That’s actually something different. Though the diagnosis criteria do overlap, but… forget it. Keep up, Adam! I’m trying to brainstorm!”
“Fine. The problem is that I’m not in a state to brainstorm anymore.”
“So let me then. You can at least listen! Violence… violence can be divided into roughly two categories, instrumental and reactionary.”
“I know,” mumbled Adam.
“Our cases are clearly the result of instrumental violence, in other words, targeted, premeditated acts of violence.”
“As opposed to reactionary violence,” said Adam slowly. “Which is more the result of an external threat or frustration.”
“Instrumental violence is far more typical of psychopaths than for most of us. It requires a kind of… evil, for want of a better word. Or to be more scientific: an inability to empathize.”
“Yes, he doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by that sort of thing, our man…”
“The parents,” said Johanne slowly.
She jumped down and opened the damaged flight bag. She went through the papers until she came to the envelope marked “parents,” then she placed the contents side by side across the floor. Jack lifted his head, but went quietly back to sleep.
“There has to be something here,” she said to herself. “There’s some kind of link between these people. It’s just not possible to develop such an intense hate for four children aged nine, eight, five, and under a year.”
“So, it has nothing to do with the children at all?” Adam questioned, leaning over the notes.
“Maybe not. But then again, maybe it’s both. Children and parents. Fathers. Mothers. How do I know?”
“Emilie’s mother is dead.”
“And Emilie is the only one who has not been accounted for.”
There was a pause. The silence was amplified by the noise of the wall clock ticking mercilessly closer to six o’clock.
“All the parents are white,” said Johanne suddenly.
“All of them are Norwegian, by origin. None of them know each other. No mutual friends. No jobs at the same place. To put it bluntly…”
“Striking. Or perhaps they’ve been chosen precisely because they don’t have anything in common.”
“Common, common, common…”
She said the word over and over to herself, like a mantra.
“Age. Ages range from twenty-five, Glenn Hugo’s mother, to thirty-nine, Emilie’s father. The mothers range from…”
“Twenty-five to thirty-one,” said Adam. “Six years. Not a lot.”
“On the other hand, all the women have young children. The difference can’t be that great at all.”
“Do you think there’s some connection between the fact that Emilie’s mother is dead and that she still hasn’t been found?”
Adam let out a deep sigh and got up. He looked down at the papers and then started to clear away the cups and the coffee pot.
“I have no idea. Emilie doesn’t seem to fit into this at all. Johanne, I mean it. I can’t think anymore.”
“I think he’s suffering right now,” she said, changing tack. “I think he made a mistake in Tromsø. That child should have been killed in the same way as the others. Inexplicable. He has somehow managed to develop a method that…”
“Leaves no trace,” he finished her sentence bitterly. “That our army of so-called experts just shake their heads at. Sorry, they say, ‘no known cause of death.’”
Johanne sat completely still, on her knees, with her eyes closed.
“He wasn’t going to suffocate Glenn Hugo,” she whispered. “That was not supposed to happen. He loves the control he has over everyone and everything right now. He’s playing a game. In some way or another, he feels he’s… getting even. He got frightened in Tromsø. Lost control. That scared him. Maybe it will make him careless.”
“Animal,” snapped Adam. “A god damned animal.”
“That’s not the way he sees it,” said Johanne. She was still sitting on her knees, resting on her heels. “He’s a relatively well-adjusted guy, to all appearances at least. He’s obsessive about control. He’s always neat. Well mannered. Clean. He’s doing what he’s doing now because it’s justified. He’s lost something. Something has been taken from him that he believes is fundamentally his. We’re looking for a person who believes he’s acting in his full right. The world is against him. Everything that’s gone wrong in his life is someone else’s fault. He never got the jobs he deserved. When he didn’t do well on his exams, it was because the questions were poorly formulated. When he doesn’t earn enough money, it’s because the boss is an idiot who doesn’t know how to appreciate his work. But he deals with it. Lives with it, with women who reject him, with promotions that never arrive. Until one day…”
“Johanne…”
“Until one day something happens that…”