He hesitated a moment, tilted his head a touch before continuing.
“The point is that I could always explain her results. Based on who she is. As… as a horse. If she pulled down a fence, I didn’t need to do an in-depth analysis, like other people and more serious jockeys did. I knew…”
He looked up at the picture.
“I could see it in her eyes. Her soul, if you like. In her character. Based on how I know she is.”
Johanne wanted to say something. She should make some comment or another.
“That’s not the way we work here,” he said before she could think of anything. “We go the other way.”
“I’ve still got no idea what this has to do with me.”
Adam Stubo folded his hands again, this time as if in prayer, and then lowered them slowly onto the blotter.
“Two abducted children and two devastated families. My people have already sent over forty different tests to the laboratories. We have several hundred photographs of crime scenes. We’ve gathered so many witness statements that you’d get a headache just hearing the number. Nearly sixty men are working on the case, or to be more precise, the cases. And I’m afraid it’s gotten me nowhere. I want to know more about the perpetrator. That’s why I need you.”
“You need a profiler,” she said slowly.
“Exactly. I need you.”
“No,” she said a bit too loudly. “It’s not me that you need.”
In a row house in Bærum, a woman looked at her watch. Time was out of synch. Seconds no longer followed seconds. One minute did not lead to another. The hours were stacking up. They were eternal and then suddenly very short. They came back when they were finally over; she recognized them, like old enemies that would not leave her in peace.
The fear that first morning was at least something real, for both of them. Something they could channel into a round of telephone calls, to the police, to their parents. To work. To the fire department, who came on a wild-goose chase and were of no help at all in finding the little five-year-old boy with brown curly hair who had disappeared during the night. Lasse rang everyone he could think of: the hospital, which sent an ambulance but found no one they could take away. She rang all the neighbors, who were skeptical and stopped at the gate when they saw uniformed police in the front garden.
The fear could be used. Since then, things had just got worse.
She stumbled on the cellar stairs.
The training wheels had fallen down from the wall. Lasse had just taken them off Kim’s bike. He had been so proud. Rode off with his blue helmet. Fallen, got up again. Rode on. Without training wheels. They hung them by the cellar steps, just inside the door, like a trophy.
“So that I can see how clever I am,” Kim said to his father, jiggling his loose front tooth. “It’s going to fall out soon. How much will I get from the tooth fairy?”
They needed jam.
The twins needed jam. And the jam was in the cellar. She made it last year. Kim had helped to pick the berries. Kim. Kim. Kim.
The twins were only two years old and needed jam.
There was something lying in front of the storeroom. She couldn’t think what it might be. An oblong package, a roll of something?
It wasn’t big. Just over a yard, maybe. Something wrapped up in gray plastic, with a piece of paper on the top. It was taped on. Red felt-tip pen on a big white sheet of paper. Brown tape. Gray plastic. A head was sticking out of the bundle, the top of a head, a child’s head with brown curly hair.
“A note,” she said lamely. “There’s a note there.”
Kim was smiling. He was dead and he was smiling. There was a slight red hole in his upper gum where he had lost a tooth. She sat down on the floor. Time ran in circles and she knew that this was the start of something that would never end. When Lasse came down to look for her, she had no idea where she was. She did not let go of her boy until someone gave her an injection and she was taken to the hospital. A policeman opened the boy’s closed right hand.
Inside was a tooth, a white tooth with a small, bloody root.
Even though the office was relatively big, the air was already stuffy. Her thesis was still lying on the edge of the desk. Adam Stubo ran his index finger over the pale winter landscape before pointing at her.
“You are a psychologist and a lawyer,” he insisted.
“That’s not true. Not entirely. I’ve got a college degree in psychology. From the U.S. Not a graduate degree. Lawyer, on the other hand-that’s correct.”
She was sweating and asked for a glass of water. It struck her that she had been forced to come here, more or less commandeered against her will, by a policeman who she wanted nothing to do with. He was talking about a case that had nothing to do with her. It was well beyond the scope of her expertise.
“I would like to go now,” she said politely. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you. You obviously know people in the FBI. Ask them. They use profilers. As far as I know.”
She nodded at the shield on the wall; it was blue, tasteless, and eye-catching.
“I’m an academic, Stubo. And I’m the mother of a young child. This case repulses me. It frightens me. Unlike you, I’m allowed to think like that. I want to go.”
He poured some water from a bottle without a top and put a paper cup down in front of her.
“You were thirsty,” he reminded her. “Drink. Do you really mean that?”
“Mean what?”
She spilled some water and noticed that she was shaking. The cold water trickled from the corner of her mouth down over her chin and into the hollow of her neck. She tugged at the neck of her sweater.
“That it doesn’t concern you.”
The telephone rang. The sound was shrill and insistent. Adam Stubo grabbed the receiver. His Adam’s apple made three obvious jumps, as if the man was about to throw up. He said nothing. A minute passed. A quiet yes, not much more than an incomprehensible grunt, came from his lips. Another minute passed. Then he put the phone down. He slowly angled for the cigar holder in his breast pocket. His fingers tickled the brushed metal. Still he said nothing. Suddenly he pushed the cigar back into place and tightened his tie.
“The boy has been found,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Kim Sande Oksøy. His mother found him in their own cellar, wrapped up in a plastic bag. The murderer had left a note. Now you’ve got what you deserved.”
Johanne pulled off her glasses. She didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to hear, either. Instead she stood up blindly and put out her hand in the direction of the door.
“That’s what the note said,” said Adam Stubo. “‘You’ve got what you deserved.’ Do you still think this is none of your business?”
“Let me go. Let me out of here.”
She shuffled toward the door and fumbled for the handle, with her glasses still in her left hand.
“Of course,” she heard in the distance. “I’ll get Oscar to drive you home. Thank you for coming.”
ELEVEN
Emilie couldn’t understand why Kim had been allowed to go. It was unfair. She had come first, so she should be the first one to go. And Kim had gotten a Coke, whereas she had to drink tepid milk and water that tasted of metal. Everything tasted of metal. The food. Her mouth. She chewed and sucked her own tongue. It tasted like money, coins that had been in someone’s pocket for a long time. A long, long time. Long before she had come here. Too long. Daddy wasn’t looking for her anymore. Daddy must have given up. And Mommy wasn’t in Heaven, she was ashes and dust in an urn and didn’t exist anymore. It was so bright. Emilie rubbed her eyes and tried to shut out the sharp glare from the strip light. She could sleep. She slept nearly all the time. It was best that way. Then she could dream. And in any case, she had nearly stopped eating. Her stomach had shrunk and there wasn’t even room for tomato soup anymore. The man got angry when he collected the still-full bowls. Not really angry, just irritated.