I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 19

The first time he arrived was on 27 July, and my heart thudded wildly as I stood on the steps staring down at him. The police so soon, I’d hardly got back on an even keel. And what with Arnfinn buried behind the house, it was insupportable. But there he was, and I was finding it difficult to breathe. My pulse was racing, I was gasping for air, my hands were cold and shrivelled. I hadn’t expected things to move so fast. It was only ten days since the murder, the fatal event that was to propel my life in a new and miserable direction. I’d been naive, that was the problem, I’d imagined that the wheels would turn more slowly. Of course they’d eventually come to the door, they’d eventually trace Arnfinn all the way from the park to my small, red house at Jordahl. People had seen us, damn them, there are eyes and ears everywhere, I thought.

‘Randers,’ he said. ‘Police.’

I stammered out a few polite phrases. He gave me a quick nod. Just then a shudder ran through my body, all the way from my head to my feet. I stood gawping in the doorway, unable to utter a word, my thoughts in disarray. Randers nudged gravel into a little heap with his toe. He was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, his appearance was impeccably masculine. He was about my age, but much better-looking of course. All men are better-looking than me, it’s not difficult, I’m the dregs in every conceivable sense. And he’d already managed, by some means I didn’t comprehend, to find his way to my house.

But even though Arnfinn’s grave was only a few metres away, I managed to raise my head and look him in the eye. No one can lie like I can, no one can mislead with such consummate plausibility. These were the talents I fell back on as I stood on the doorstep gazing down on the law.

‘May I come in?’

I hesitated for a moment or two. If he wanted to enter the house, it must mean that his questions wouldn’t simply be trivial or routine. Something more, something that took time, some evidence, or chance witness statements, perhaps from people who frequented the park. Or from people who’d seen Arnfinn near my house. But if I refused, it would look suspicious, so I retreated obligingly into the hallway, and motioned him in. Randers mounted the steps. He was tall, perhaps one metre ninety, clean-shaven and neat, and a masculine scent of aftershave hung in the air after him.

I felt not a shadow of doubt. He was in a class of his own.

‘Randers,’ I remarked courteously. ‘Like the town in Denmark?’

He smiled, but only fleetingly. He moved on into the living room, glanced around it, walking in a way that was so confoundedly self-assured that it made me nervous. Just keep calm, I said to myself, everything has to be proved, with no room for doubt. Internally, I sent furious commands to my heart to slow down, but it wouldn’t be appeased. It was pounding so hard that I was certain it must be audible as a distant thunder, saying ‘guilty, guilty’, and that this admission, coursing through my head, was making me blush. Such were my thoughts, as Randers drank in the room. My old, grey corner sofa, where Arnfinn had sat, the computer on the desk, the Advent Star in the window.

‘You live alone?’ Randers asked.

His voice had power. The voice of a man with weight and authority, I mused, and nodded.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘alone. I’ve always lived here by myself.’

He sat down on the sofa, unbidden. He sat in exactly the same place as Arnfinn, right in the corner. He arranged his long legs and leant forward slightly.

‘Nice house,’ he declared. ‘Secluded. Pleasant view.’

I agreed and took a chair. And so we sat for several long seconds looking at each other. I disliked the silence, it was oppressive. I felt as if I were an open book, and Randers’ brow was furrowed.

‘I come into contact with lots of people,’ he went on. ‘And I see how they live. It’s interesting. I mean, the way we want to appear to others. Riktor,’ he added. ‘An authoritative name. Your father’s choice?’

‘My mother’s,’ I answered tersely.

‘I think that a house says a lot about its owner. The things we surround ourselves with. There isn’t much lying about in here. It’s very tidy.’

‘I always keep it that way,’ I replied. ‘Mess has a habit of migrating to the brain, and there’s enough litter up there as it is. I can’t stand untidiness. It shows a lack of discipline.’

He considered what I’d just said.

‘And you’re concerned about discipline?’ Again he flashed his quick smile.

‘Naturally,’ I replied.

He kept quiet again for some time. I sat waiting politely, it was evident that he had plenty of time, ensconced as he was in the corner of the sofa.

‘You’re a nurse?’ he asked at length.

I nodded. I crossed one leg over the other and kept calm, I relaxed my shoulders, raised my chin, because I know that body language is important. So he realised that I worked as a nurse. But the fact that he’d already made a number of enquiries wasn’t disquieting in itself, I’d been expecting that.

‘It must be demanding,’ he hazarded. ‘Having to attend to other people’s needs the whole time.’

I took my time replying. It was important to maintain composure, he mustn’t be allowed to push me over the edge.

‘Let me put it this way: you develop a special attitude to death.’

‘How so?’ he enquired.

‘Because it happens all the time. The patients I look after are frail and elderly. And, if you’ll forgive me using a crude, if accurate, expression, they drop like flies.’

‘Well, that’s one way of putting it,’ he said, a smile on his lips. ‘But presumably with old people there isn’t a lot of drama about it. Am I right?’

‘Some of them simply die in their sleep,’ I said, ‘we hardly notice their passing, and so yes, to a certain extent of course you’re right. But there are always exceptions. Some of them cough up a bit of blood. And some fight, struggling against the inevitable.’

‘A death agony, you mean?’

‘Yes. It’s more common than people think. And it’s something you never forget, once you’ve witnessed it.’

‘D’you like it?’ he asked bluntly.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Let’s not beat about the bush here,’ Randers said. ‘You deal with death on a daily basis, just as I do. So between ourselves: there are certain reasons for our choice of job. You’re attracted to the drama of the situation, isn’t that right?’

‘It makes an impression,’ I replied. ‘It certainly does make an impression. That’ll have to do for an answer.’

I was trying to work out where the conversation was leading. But talking about my job felt safe, so I answered his questions willingly.

‘You must have a special relationship with death and decay as well,’ I said. ‘I mean, because of what you do.’

The fleeting smile came and went.

‘Yes, I’ve seen most things. Some of it’s horrifying, and I never get used to it. There are certain details I could well do without. But I won’t rehearse them for you. You’ve probably got enough horror stories of your own.’

He sat studying my face. As if the crime might be visible there, as a particular gleam in the eyes perhaps, and he looked at my hands as if they might be stained black, those guilty hands. But the killing was done and justified, it was more like dregs at the bottom of a bottle. There was silence, as we sat weighing one another up. He was wearing an insufferable grin, as if there were lots of things he knew, while I went delving into hundreds of ideas searching for an explanation.

‘So now you’re going from door to door?’ I enquired lightly.

Randers stretched an arm along the back of the sofa. ‘No, not from door to door,’ he said. ‘I’m only calling on you today.’

His smile widened.

‘Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?’

I sat up in my chair. His comment caught me slightly unawares.

‘Naturally. Obviously you’re here for some reason.’

‘If the police arrived at my door, I would have asked straight away,’ he said. ‘Asked them why they were there.’

‘Well, yes, I’m on tenterhooks,’ I said, inwardly cursing my slowness, for not thinking of that, for not thinking to ask what he wanted.

‘We believe there’s the possibility of a suspicious death,’ he said gravely.

I looked at him for a good, long while. Weighing every word.

‘A suspicious death. Believe? You’re not certain? Have you come just to check, to make sure a crime hasn’t been committed? In which case it’s rather a relief, I can relax a bit. Carry on, I’m all ears.’

Once again he waited a long time. The silence was filled with noise from inside my own head, where my thoughts were in tumult.

‘We call it reasonable grounds for suspicion,’ he said. ‘Just now we’re seeing how the land lies. You’re an obvious candidate for questioning.’

‘Why?’

Randers leant forward again.

‘There appears to be a clear connection between you and the victim. What people have seen, events and other details. We’ve got plenty of time. We’ve begun an investigation, and it will keep ticking over until everything’s cleared up.’

‘I live on my own,’ I put in. ‘Well, I only want to mention it, because it’s relevant. My connections to other people are extremely limited. So I find what you’re saying pretty incomprehensible.’

Randers stretched his legs. He was wearing expensive shoes with leather laces.

‘Everyone has connections to someone,’ he declared. ‘And you’re no exception.’

‘Yes,’ I retorted, ‘I am an exception. But you don’t realise it, because it’s part of your job to believe that all people have things in common. I don’t wish to sound arrogant, but I’m really not much like other people.’

‘What do you do in your spare time? If you don’t have anything to do with people.’

‘I often go to the park near Lake Mester. I sit by the fountain and ponder life.’

‘And death,’ Randers interjected. ‘You ponder death as well, no doubt. Isn’t it a part of your work?’

‘Yes, that’s true, I often ponder death. But I know nothing about what you call a suspicious death.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘So I’m sorry. You’ll just have to find another door.’

Randers held my gaze. And even though I can take quite a lot, I was extremely nervous.

‘Often the motives for murder are trivial,’ Randers explained. ‘And that’s our theory about this crime.’

‘You don’t know that,’ I said. ‘It’s merely an as-sumption.’

‘Correct, an assumption. Because that’s what my ex-perience tells me. We’ve got some clues as well, important leads. We can return to that, we’ve time enough. What are you like, Riktor? Get on well with people?’

‘No,’ I admitted, ‘not especially. That’s why I keep away from them. But I like superficial contact of the sort I can strike up with patients on the ward. They haven’t long to go, after all.’

Randers rose from the sofa, crossed to the window, and stood gazing through it.

‘Do you often stand here looking out?’

‘I do. And people pass by. They cycle, or they run. Some push prams, some have dogs. I like making up stories about them,’ I said, ‘where they’re going to, why they’re running, what they’re running from, why they wanted that child, if they regret things perhaps, regret all those choices that can’t be undone. It gives me a feeling of control. And it’s important for me to have control. There. Now you’ve got some data for your perpetrator profile.’

He gave a short laugh. He turned and went back to the sofa, seated himself in the corner.

‘Who’s the victim?’ I asked innocently.

‘Ah.’ He prevaricated. ‘I thought you’d never ask. Not one of the pillars of society, perhaps,’ he confessed. ‘But still, a life is a life.’

Half an hour later he got into a green Volvo and turned out on to the road, I could hear him changing gear. He’d quizzed me about my professional career, my childhood and youth, and I’d told him the truth, that I lived alone, and always had done. I didn’t say anything about women. That a woman was what I wanted more than anything in the world; he probably had several, a wife, almost certainly, and a mistress or two as well, he was certainly macho enough for it. And they were sure to be beautiful, too, if not as beautiful as Anna Otterlei.

I brushed him away like so much dust. I put on some warm clothes and went to the park by Lake Mester, and sat there mulling over the conversation we’d had. I’d done reasonably well, I thought, all things considered. Ebba was there before me, she was sitting with her crocheting. She plied her needle rapidly, she had a long length in her lap, big, six-pointed stars within a border.

‘It soothes my mind,’ she explained.

We didn’t usually converse. But she wanted to say a few words, and so I listened politely, because that’s the sort of person I am. I humour people and fit in with them, then they remain at a safe distance.

‘You know,’ she went on, ‘thoughts follow a pattern, just like my needle. They run in the same grooves every day. And they get deeper the more you think. In the end you can’t see over the edge. Then you end up like one of those rats in a maze. A fat rat,’ she said and laughed.

The needle glinted between her fingers.

‘But if you do something with your hands, your thoughts are eased and they find new paths.’

I nodded.

‘We certainly weren’t meant to sit doing nothing, that’s for sure,’ she declared. ‘It’s not good for the mind. But maybe you haven’t got problems like that?’ she asked, looking up. ‘From what I can see, you’re a serene man.’

She worked on in silence for a while. When I made no reply, she continued: ‘I’ve crocheted bedspreads for years, and I never tire of it. I raffle them at Women’s Voluntary Association bazaars. They make excellent prizes. A handmade bedspread like this costs several thousand kroner in the shops, and I could have made a bit of money out of all this work. But then, I’m frightened some of the pleasure would disappear. If I did it for profit, I mean. What do you think?’ she enquired, raising her eyes again. ‘Would some of the pleasure disappear?’

‘Making money is an excellent motivator,’ I said. ‘And we human beings aren’t a noble race to begin with. Greed is everywhere, and permeates everything, that’s my opinion.’

Ebba lowered her crocheting and became pensive.

‘Oh, but there are so many exceptions,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at that young mother who comes here, the one with the little girl in the wheelchair. She’ll have to push that wheelchair about all her life. Because it’s her duty. But she never complains. Isn’t there something noble in that?’

‘We really don’t know how much she complains,’ I put in. ‘She won’t do it when strangers are present. Anyway, I know a lot about this business of complaining. I work with the sick and elderly up at Løkka. They’ve all got something wrong with them and, I can assure you, they complain all right.’

She took hold of her crocheting again. I looked at the long, white length. There must have been millions of stitches in a bedspread like that when it was complete, millions.

‘Well, well. You’re a good Samaritan, it warms my old heart to hear it. People suffer a lot, you know. The elderly gentleman who comes here, the one who drinks, he probably doesn’t have an easy time of it. Actually, I haven’t seen him for a while, but he’s sure to turn up again.’

‘Of course he has an easy time,’ I objected. ‘His life just revolves around that bottle. When he isn’t drinking, he’s probably asleep. That’s a simple enough life.’

‘Hm, well,’ Ebba returned. ‘But take those two doves. I mean, the two youngsters who often sit on each other’s laps on the bench.’ She nodded to the place where Eddie and Janne usually sat groping. ‘They’re both so unsullied. They’re growing up in the finest country in the world, and they can do whatever they want in life, and they certainly don’t want each other for money’s sake. It can’t get much better than that, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Oh, just you wait,’ I answered. ‘They’ll both become bitter and fickle in a few years’ time. Once Janne meets a man with more money.’

‘You’re so hard on people,’ she said, crocheting away for all she was worth. ‘And you oughtn’t to be, you’re a real gentleman.’

‘I’ve got a protruding jaw,’ I said, ‘and my eyes are the colour of cod liver oil. My life’s not easy, I can tell you.’

She gave a hearty laugh. Her teeth were white and perfect, despite her age.

‘You’re hard on yourself, too,’ she said. ‘Don’t be. We’re only here for a short while. Tomorrow we’ll probably all be gone. I don’t mean literally, but we’re only a heartbeat away from eternity, and then we won’t be here any more, think of that. Yes, just think of it!’

She lowered her crocheting again.

‘We need to feel valued, that’s important. Think of that huge man from the Refugee Reception Centre who sits here sometimes, you must have seen him. He’s lost his sense of self-esteem because no one wants him. It’s all over then; I think about it often. Sometimes I’ve felt like saying a few friendly words to him, but he’s so big. If you know what I mean. It’s almost as if I don’t want him to notice me, I don’t dare arouse all that power. Did you know that he talks to himself?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘It might mean that he’s psychotic,’ Ebba said. ‘And you mustn’t take any chances with them. Or what do you think?’