“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 learned 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 mircofilm. 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 March 27, 1938,
passed away on June 12, 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 Assistance 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.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Emilie 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 aren’t you 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 anymore. 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 underpants 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 learned 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 wasn’t careful. If he, for example, fell, or he lost his balance for a moment and fell toward 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 equipment; he’d made it himself. A screw eye secured deep into the wall, with an anchor to keep it firmly 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.
It would have been better if Emilie was a boy.
“I’ve got a son,” he said.
“Mmm.”
“He’s younger than you.”
The child looked terrified. He took yet another step closer to the bed. Emilie clung to the wall. Her face was all eyes.
“You smell disgusting,” he said slowly. “Haven’t you learned how to wash yourself? You can’t come up and watch TV if you stink like that.”
She just continued to stare at him. Her face was white now, not skin-colored, not pink. White.
“You’re quite a little madam, you are.”
Emilie’s breathing was hyper fast. He smiled, relaxed.
“Eat,” he said. “It’s best you eat.”
Then he walked backward to the door. The hook felt cold against his skin. He lifted it carefully out of the screw eye. Then he let the door close slowly between him and the child. He put his hand on the light switch and was happy that he’d been smart enough to put it on the outside. He flicked the switch down. There was something peculiarly satisfying about the actual click, a pleasing resistance that made him do it several times. Off on. Off on off.
Finally he left the light on and went upstairs to watch TV.
THIRTY-EIGHT
We’ve got lists of all the people who flew in and out of Tromsø in the time before and after Glenn Hugo’s death. Tromsø Police have done a fantastic job of collecting videos from all the gas stations within a two-hundred-mile radius. The bus companies are trying to draw up passenger lists, but it’s a lot more difficult. The coastal express boat is doing the same and so are the local ferries.”