Punishment by Anne Holt

Author:Anne Holt [Holt, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Crime, Fiction, Serial murder investigation, General, Children
ISBN: 9780751537147
Publisher: Sphere
Published: 2007-07-23T23:00:00+00:00

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 learnt 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 Tromso. Nearly. Things hadn’t quite gone according

to plan. It wasn’t his fault. That it was so cold. May!

finally 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 was not careful. If he, for example, fell, or he lost his balance for a moment and fell towards 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 kit, he’d made it himself. A screw eye screwed deep into the wall, with a

plug to keep it well 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

learnt 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-coloured, not pink.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.