Cockroaches(84)

“We’re the same then,” Løken said. “I’ve never laid a hand on a child in my life. I’ve dreamed about it, fantasized about it and cried about it, but I’ve never done it. Can you comprehend that?”

Harry swallowed.

“I don’t know how old I was the first time my stepfather raped me, but I would guess no more than five. I sank an ax in his thigh when I was thirteen. Hit an artery, he went into shock and almost died. He survived, but ended up in a wheelchair. He said it had been an accident. The ax had slipped out of his hand while he was chopping wood. He probably thought we were quits.”

Løken lifted his glass and glared at the brown liquid.

“Perhaps you think this is an enormous paradox,” he said. “That children who have been sexually abused are the ones with the greatest statistical chance of becoming abusers themselves?”

Harry pulled a face.

“It’s true,” Løken said. “Pedophiles often know exactly what suffering they are inflicting on the children. Many of the abusers have experienced the fear themselves, the confusion and the guilt. Did you know that several psychologists claim there is a close relationship between sexual arousal and a longing for death?”

Harry shook his head. Løken emptied the glass in one draft and grimaced.

“It’s the same with vampire bites. You think you’re dead and then you wake up and find you’ve become a vampire yourself. Immortal, with an unquenchable thirst for blood.”

“And with an eternal longing for death?”

“Exactly.”

“And what makes you so different?”

“Everyone’s different, Hole.” Løken finished tamping his pipe and set it down on the table. He had taken off his black roll-neck sweater and the sweat on his naked body glistened. He was sinewy and well built, but loose folds of skin and withered muscles betrayed that he had aged and perhaps one day would die after all.

“When they found a child-porn magazine in my locker in the officers’ mess at Vardø I was summoned by the station commander. I was lucky, I assume; they didn’t report me. I didn’t get a black mark on my record, just a request to resign from the air force. Via my intelligence position I had come into contact with what was once called Special Services, the forerunner of the CIA. They sent me on a course in the States, then I was sent to Korea under the pretext of working for the Norwegian field hospital.”

“And who exactly are you working for now?”

Løken shrugged to indicate it didn’t really matter.

“Aren’t you ashamed?” Harry asked.

“Of course,” Løken said with a tired smile. “Every day. It’s a weakness I have.”

“So why are you telling me all this?” Harry asked.

“Well, first, I’m too old to run around hiding. Second, because I have others to consider apart from myself. And third, because the shame lies more on an emotional plane than an intellectual one.”

One corner of his mouth rose in a sarcastic grin.

“I used to subscribe to the Archives of Sexual Behavior to see if any researchers could specify what sort of monster I was. More out of curiosity than shame. I read an article about a pedophile monk in Switzerland who I’m sure had never done anything at all either, but halfway through the article he’d locked himself in a room and drunk cod liver oil containing fragments of glass, so I never finished reading it. I prefer to see myself as a product of my upbringing and environment, but despite everything a moral person. I manage to live with myself, Hole.”

“But, being a pedophile yourself, how can you work with child prostitution? Does it excite you?”

Løken stared down at the table, rapt in thought. “Have you ever fantasized about raping a woman, Hole? You don’t need to answer, I know you have. It doesn’t mean you want to rape someone, does it. Nor does it mean you’re unfit to work on rape cases. Even if you can understand how a man can lose his self-control it’s actually very simple. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. The bastard will have to pay.”

The third glass was knocked back. He was down to the label on the bottle.

Harry shook his head. “Sorry, Løken, I’m struggling to accept that. If you buy child pornography, you’re a part of it. Without people like you there wouldn’t be a market for this filth.”

“True.” Løken’s eyes had glazed over. “I’m no saint. Yes, I’ve helped to make the world the vale of woes it is. What can I say? As the song says: If it rains, I’m like everyone else, I get wet.”