Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel (25 page)

For someone so small and puny, his hands were strong, even though they were trembling. Olav felt the fingertips through the sleeve of his jacket and had to shake vigorously in order to make him let go. That took a few seconds, and in the meantime the police officers had crossed over to the table.

“Is he with you?” one of them asked.

Olav stared at the floor, pulling his cap even farther down over his ears.

“No, no. I don’t know him at all,” he said, starting to head for the exit.

He had nearly reached as far as the florist’s store beside the automatic doors when he heard one of the police officers shout. As people were going in and out almost continually, he could already feel the cold draft of freedom beckoning beyond the door.

“Hi, you there! Wait a minute!”

He stopped without turning around. The cap was making his forehead itchy, but he did not dare pull it up. He had something inside one of his shoes, something that had grown enormous and was digging into his sole so much it was almost paralyzing his
foot. Something had seized hold of his lungs, and he could not breathe. He saw all the people coming and going around him, men with wives and little brats in baby carriages, all of them with mouths smiling and moving about. Nevertheless, he could not hear anything except the fierce hammering of his own heart. He felt sick. Terribly sick.

Then he took to his heels. He judged it perfectly, as the doors were standing wide open, just about to close again. All the people on their way in and out of the center suddenly stopped, taken aback at the sight of the boy exploding through the doors like an enormous cannonball, heading for the parking lot. Consequently, they were standing blocking the exit when the two policemen came running in pursuit, and the doors closed before sliding all too slowly open again, with two cursing policemen standing on the inside. When they finally emerged, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Choosing to chase after him in two different directions, they took off. One of them dropped his cap and had to watch impotently as a car drove over it before he ran on.

The other one had more luck. As he reached the multistory car park, he saw a figure making its way up the external staircase. The cap and quilted jacket, barely visible above the edge of the railings, matched. He wanted to get hold of his partner before continuing the chase but concluded there were so many exits from the car park that he did not have time. He dashed off after the boy up the stairway.

His colleague, although making his way toward a Statoil gas station a couple of hundred meters along the road, recognized the situation and ran toward the car ramp at the end of the parking lot in order to cut the boy off from there. He arrived on the story above only a few seconds after his partner, but the boy was nowhere in sight. The elder of the two made a zigzag movement with his hand, mimicking a shark hunting. Then they searched
the entire floor. They checked all the vehicles. They checked between, in front of, and behind them, and even examined underneath every single car, though neither of them thought for a moment that a gross twelve-year-old could fit under an ordinary car. Eventually they had to admit what was staring them in the face, no matter how embarrassing it was for two well-trained police officers in the prime of life: Olav Håkonsen, the missing boy, had vanished without trace.

Disheartened, they continued their search for another half hour, both inside and outside the shopping center. Then they sat down, shamefaced, in their police vehicle to report that the boy had been spotted and pursued but had disappeared. Since the last trace of him had been found in a house in Grefsen, the police were able to conclude quite wrongly that he had been staying in the area the entire time. Thus they were able to discard the dawning suspicion that he had been at home with his mother, a suspicion bolstered by several neighbors, promised total anonymity, who declared their conviction that Olav Håkonsen was in hiding in his own home.

But at least the boy was alive. That offered some comfort.

 • • • 

Two days after the aide phoned, the child welfare service representatives were standing there. Olav had just turned eleven. I was not expecting them. I thought they would call me in for a meeting and had already looked in the Yellow Pages for an attorney. You’re entitled to that, free of charge, I knew that from before. But there was so little information listed about what they specialized in, and there are so many different kinds of attorney.

And so they were standing there. Two of them, a woman and a man. I hadn’t met either of them previously, but then it had been many years since I’d had any contact with child welfare. They were friendly enough, I suppose, though I don’t recall very much
about it. An investigation had been initiated, they told me, on the basis of something they called “reported concerns.”

Reported concerns! Here I was with continued concerns about the boy for more than eleven years, and then they turned up now! They asked if they could come in and looked around in the same way as the lady from social services had done that time long ago, when Olav was still a little baby. Stolen glances, in a way, but at the same time so barefaced.

It was a Thursday, and I had just cleaned the whole apartment. They certainly wouldn’t be able to get me for that. I put out coffee and cookies, but they didn’t touch a thing. Did they think I would poison them?

Then they told me everything I already knew from before. About Olav’s deviant behavior and aggressive conduct, and that the older children lured him into doing all sorts of strange things. About his erratic school attendance, and that he spoiled things for the others. About him being excessively overweight. They wondered what we were eating. I became furious, I remember that quite clearly. I dragged the woman with me out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. Milk, cheese, fish cakes from the previous day. Margarine and onions and a bag of apples.

She jotted notes on a writing pad, and I could see she had written “full-fat milk.” Then I gave up. The boy refused to drink semi-skimmed or skimmed milk. Did they think it was better that I didn’t get any milk into him at all?

They stayed for a long time, and as I say I don’t remember much about it. Fortunately Olav was out, though they began to glance at the clock when it turned evening and he still had not appeared. They wanted to obtain information from various sources, they said, and it might take several months. Then they wondered whether I had any objections to an expert assessment being conducted. A psychologist or a psychiatrist would talk to
both of us, so the child welfare service “would be in a better position to find out what we required.”

Objections? I had tried for more than five years to persuade someone to examine the boy’s head, without receiving help from anywhere. Of course I didn’t have any objections. I already
knew
there was something wrong. Something that should have been discovered ages ago. “Better late than never,” I said, and noticed that they exchanged a look. But why a psychologist would want to talk to me was completely incomprehensible. Going along with something like that would be admitting it was all my fault. So I turned it down flat.

When the expert eventually set to work, I nevertheless went along with her being present in the apartment with Olav and me on a couple of occasions. “Observations of interaction” was what she called it in her subsequent report. I did not recognize myself at all. Everything was twisted and distorted. I tried to get my lawyer to understand it wasn’t my fault that Olav went to bed so late. I could certainly try to force him, but that only led to a shouting match, and it was obviously better that things were pleasant and quiet than that the boy should toss and turn without being able to fall asleep. “Serious boundary-setting issues” was what the psychologist wrote.

Precisely as I had expected, they discovered he had minimal brain dysfunction, MBD. To be sure, only that “symptoms were found consistent with a minor degree of MBD,” but my attorney assured me this was simply the way they normally expressed it.

I had known that the entire time. No one had listened to me. Now, when it had been scientifically proved there was something wrong with the boy, the child welfare people were insisting that
in any case
I could not take care of him. He was so difficult. Besides, they thought it was not certain he was ill, all the same, since the symptoms of MBD could also indicate a failure of parental care.

They were insistent that they wanted to saddle me with a home
consultant. I said I was open to anything at all to help Olav, but that I didn’t need any help myself. I wasn’t the one who was sick. I’m not the one there’s something wrong with.

Finally the case ended up at the council committee and they wanted to take the boy from me.

I hadn’t slept for several nights. When I arrived there, I noticed I smelled, even though I had showered that morning. I felt as though my clothes were too small and regretted wearing the blue polyester blouse rather than something made of cotton. But the attorney had said it was important that I was smartly dressed. For the first hour, I was totally preoccupied by my awareness of the odor gradually worsening and the rings of perspiration under my arms becoming increasingly noticeable. I felt dizzy. A large, plump woman with a ponytail and glasses and a confused mixture of dialects droned on about everything that had gone wrong down through the years. She was the lawyer for the child welfare service. There were five people serving on the committee, four women and one man. Three of them took notes, while the man farthest to the left nodded off through the entire procedure. One of the women, who had to be more than sixty years old, sat the whole time gazing at me with a look that made me feel even more dizzy. I had to ask for a break.

My lawyer took far less time than the one representing the council. That was probably a bad sign, but I didn’t have the temerity to ask why that was so. Besides, the council had loads of witnesses. I had none. My attorney said it wasn’t necessary. I couldn’t think of anybody, either, when he asked me in advance.

After two days it was all over. The chairman of the committee, who had been friendly the entire time, asked me if I felt that everything of significance had been discussed, or whether I had anything I wanted to add. Inside me there was a massive lump of words that had not been spoken. I wanted so much to make them understand. I wanted to take them back in time, show them all
the good things, get them to see how much Olav and I love each other. I wanted them to understand that I had done everything for my boy, that I had never drunk alcohol, never taken any kind of drugs either, that I had never slapped him, that I had always, always been afraid of losing him.

Instead I shook my head and stared at the floor.

Twelve days later I was informed that they had taken my son away from me.

 • • • 

Olav Håkonsen was sprawled in a garbage container behind the multistory car park at the Storo Center, wondering how long he had been lying there. He had a thumping headache and was aware of a terrible stench. He tried to raise himself but collapsed back onto all the trash bags. It had become totally dark. When he attempted to see what time it was, he realized his Swatch had disappeared. It was impossible to remember whether he had it with him earlier. He was overwhelmed by nausea when once again he endeavored to balance himself in an upright position, and he puked out the cake and cola. That alleviated matters slightly.

The container was half full, but the garbage was unevenly distributed, and he was lying so high up he almost reached the ice-cold metal edge. His mittens were gone as well. Eventually he succeeded in hauling himself up but quickly lost his balance on the squashy layer beneath him. He tried to recall what had happened.

He had jumped. Six or seven meters above him he glimpsed the edge of the top story. It had been the only solution, he remembered. Then he remembered nothing more.

Instead he dug himself deeper down among the black stinking bags of garbage and dozed off into a blessed, dreamless void.

 • • • 

Erik Henriksen’s working day had been long, and it was going to be even longer. They still had five interviews left, and it was something of an illusion to believe that they would have them finished by tomorrow, as Hanne Wilhelmsen had requested. At least not if Tone-Marit and he were to manage them on their own.

God only knew how Hanne and Billy T. actually passed their time. Not that he in any way suspected them of shirking their duties, but it would have been uplifting to know what they were up to. They weren’t in the office very often, and even Billy T., who should really have been just as actively involved in dispatching the interviews, was constantly impossible to locate. Sometimes Erik Henriksen felt that he was not properly
included.
That they didn’t entirely trust him. Not particularly inspiring. Now and again he felt a stab of irritation, almost anger, directed toward Hanne Wilhelmsen. That was something quite novel, and he did not know how to deal with it.

Tilting his head from one side to the other, he felt his neck muscles contract. He was exhausted, out of sorts, and fed up. Now he longed to go home.

Tone-Marit was standing in the doorway, saying nothing and simply smiling.

She was very ordinary. Quite sweet, really. Her face was round, even though she was slim. Her eyes were narrow and lopsided, and when she smiled, they disappeared altogether. Her hair changed color from time to time; during this year he had known her, it had changed from blonde to copper red to dark brunette, as it was currently. He did not know whether the curls were her own, or whether they had been purchased too.

She did not usually say very much. He did not know very much about her. But now she was standing here, and it was late in the afternoon. Billy T. was out and about. Hanne Wilhelmsen was a lost cause. Tone-Marit stood in the doorway smiling.