Anne Holt: Punishment aka What Is Mine

He was so damn irresponsible.

The problem was that he never had accepted that he was the father of a mentally handicapped child.

Isak glanced back in the mirror. Johanne looked older now. Tired. She took everything so seriously. He desperately wanted to suggest that Kristiane could live with him all the time, not just every other week like now. He could see it every time: when he handed Kristiane back after a week, Johanne was in a good mood and rested. When he picked up his daughter the following Sunday, Johanne was gray, drawn, and impatient. And it wasn’t good for Kristiane. Nor was the perpetual round of specialists and self-appointed experts. Surely it wasn’t that important to find out what was wrong with the child. The main thing was that her heart functioned properly, she ate well, and was happy. His daughter was happy. Isak was sure of that.

Johanne had been grown up too long. Before, before Kristiane, it had been attractive. Sexy. Johanne’s ambition. The way she always took everything so seriously. Her plans. Her efficiency. He had fallen head over heels for her mature determination, her admirable progress in her studies, her work at the university.

Then along came Kristiane.

He loved that child. She was his child. There was nothing wrong with Kristiane. She wasn’t like other children, but she was herself. That was all she needed to be. All the specialists’ opinions on what was actually wrong with the child were irrelevant. But not for Johanne. She always had to get to the bottom of everything.

She was so damn responsible.

The problem was that she had never accepted that she was the mother of a mentally handicapped child.

Detective Inspector Adam Stubo looked like a football player. He was stocky, obviously overweight, and not much more than average height. The extra pounds were evenly distributed over his shoulders, neck, and thighs. His rib cage was bursting out of his white shirt. There were two metal tubes in the pocket above his heart. Before she realized they were cigar cases, Johanne Vik thought that the man actually went around with ammunition in his pocket.

He had sent a car for her. It was the first time that anyone had sent a car for Johanne Vik. She was very uncomfortable about it and had asked him not to. She could take the metro. She could take a taxi. Certainly not, insisted Stubo. He sent a Volvo, anonymous and dark blue, with a young man behind the wheel.

“You’d think this was the Secret Service.” She smiled tightly as she shook Stubo’s hand. “Dark blue Volvos and silent drivers with sunglasses.”

His laughter was as powerful as the throat it came from. His teeth were white, even, with a glimpse of gold from a molar on the right-hand side.

“Don’t worry about Oscar. He has a lot to learn.”

A faint smell of cigars hung in the air, but there were no ashtrays. The desk was unusually big, with orderly folders on one side and a computer that was turned off on the other. A map of Norway hung on the wall behind Stubo’s chair, along with an FBI poster and a picture of a brown horse. It had been taken in the summer in a field of wildflowers. The horse tossed its head as the shutter clicked, its mane standing like a halo around its head, eyes looking straight into the camera.

“Beautiful horse,” she said, pointing at the photograph. “Yours?”

“Sabra,” he said and smiled again; this man smiled all the time. “Beautiful animal. Thank you for agreeing to come. I saw you on TV.”

Johanne wondered how many people had said that to her in the last few days. Typically, Isak was the only one who hadn’t said a word about the incredibly embarrassing episode. But then he never watched television. Johanne’s mother, on the other hand, had called five times in the first half-hour after the show; the answering machine hurled her screeching voice at Johanne as soon as she was inside the door. Johanne didn’t call her back. Which resulted in four more messages, each one more agitated than the last. At work the day after, they had patted her on the shoulder. Some had laughed, others had been extremely put out on her behalf. The woman at the checkout counter in her local supermarket had leaned over to her conspiratorially and whispered so that the whole shop could hear, “I saw you on TV!”

Viewer figures for News 21 must have been pretty good.

“You were great,” said Stubo.

“Great? I barely said anything.”

“What you said was important. The fact that you left said far more than any of the other… people of limited talent managed to utter. Did you read my mail?”

She gave a brief nod.

“But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t see how I can help you. I’m not exactly…”

“I’ve read your thesis,” he interrupted. “Very interesting. In my profession…”

He looked straight at her and fell silent. His eyes had an apologetic look, as if he was embarrassed about what he actually did.

“We’re not that good at keeping ourselves up to date. Not unless things are directly relevant to an investigation. Things like this…”

He opened a drawer and pulled out a book. Johanne recognized the cover immediately, with her name in small letters against a bleached winter landscape.

“I should imagine I’m the only one here who has read it. Shame. It’s very relevant.”

“To what?”

Again, a despondent, partly apologetic expression passed over his face.

“The police profession. To anyone who wants to understand the essence of a crime.”

“Essence of a crime ? Are you sure you don’t mean the criminal ?”

“Well noted, professor. Well noted.”

“I’m not a professor. I’m a university teacher.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why…”

“Yes. Does it really matter what I call you? If I call you a professor, it means nothing more than that I know you do research and teach at the university. Which is true, isn’t it? That’s exactly what you do, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s not right to call yourself…”

“To make more of yourself than you are? To be a bit sloppy with formalities? Is that what you mean?”

Johanne blinked and took off her glasses. She slowly polished the left lens with the corner of her shirt. She was buying time. The man on the other side of the desk had been reduced to a gray fuzz, an indistinct figure without any distinguishing features.

“Precision is my subject,” she heard the shapeless face continue. “In every detail. Good police work means placing one stone on top of another with the utmost precision. If I’m sloppy… if any of my men overlook a single hair, miss by a minute, take the smallest shortcut because we believe we know something that strictly speaking we can’t be sure of yet, then…”

Bang.

He clapped his hands together and Johanne put her glasses on again.

“So we’re not doing too well,” he added quietly. “And to be honest, I’m getting a bit sick of it.”

This had nothing to do with her. It was none of her business if a middle-age detective from the NCIS was sick of his job. The man was obviously having an existential crisis and it had absolutely nothing to do with her.

“Not of the job, per se,” he suddenly added, and offered her a candy. “Not at all. Here, have one. Does it smell of cigar smoke in here? Should I open a window?”

She shook her head and smiled faintly.

“No, it smells nice.”

He smiled back. He was good-looking. Good-looking in a nearly extreme way; his nose was too straight, too big. His eyes were too deep, too blue. His mouth was too sharp, too well formed. Adam Stubo was too old to have such a white smile.