I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 31

Someone, I don’t know who, had slipped into Nelly Friis’ room. Had stood there staring at her for a few moments. Maybe sat on the chair by the bed, murderous hands in lap, thinking evil thoughts. Then this person had risen, pushed back the chair, pulled the pillow from under her head, grasped it firmly, bent over her and forced it against the thin face with all their strength. Presumably Nelly’s body had gone through some spasms, but she’d probably lost consciousness fairly quickly, debilitated as she was by age and ill health. Then there was silence in Nelly’s room. Only one person was left breathing hard after the crime. They’d replaced the pillow beneath her head and crept out. Perhaps this person was on the staff at Løkka. Or a relation, possibly; relatives came and went as they pleased, and we couldn’t always keep tabs on them. Of all the people who worked at that large institution, the police had singled me out. And I didn’t know why. I always made my moves with the greatest caution, and checked left and right before I entered a room. I pulled hair and pinched and scratched, but no one ever saw me do it. Even so, I’d noticed the atmosphere, the long, resentful looks, as if they knew something anyway. I couldn’t understand it.

My case was scheduled at last.

It was fixed for 10 November. And Margareth’s assistant had been diagnosed with bone cancer. Slowly but surely the cells of the disease were eating away at his bones, and in the end he would collapse like a house of cards. What happy news! I revelled in it like a small child. It secured my place in Margareth’s kitchen. I employed the four remaining weeks in preparing myself thoroughly, and I admitted to Margareth that I’d find it hard to leave her. That soon I’d be alone again in my own little kitchen, with no one to talk to.

‘Well, only if they find you not guilty,’ she said tersely.

I smiled self-confidently. I didn’t believe I would be sentenced for a crime I hadn’t committed, after all, we live in a country under the rule of law.

De Reuter organised some decent clothes for me. Nice grey trousers and a navy-blue blazer, a shirt and tie. I was respectability itself in this costume, although it was actually a size too large. Now I experienced the ticking passage of time in a new way, all those hours and minutes, for at last I had an objective. I was on the way to release. I practised many long speeches I intended to make to the court, delivering them in a firm and steady voice. But de Reuter told me in no uncertain terms that I must obey all the judge’s instructions. I promised to do as he said.

‘I promise,’ I would say, my right hand raised, ‘to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

The night before the case was due to be heard, I couldn’t sleep. Arnfinn was pressing in so close again, I could smell him. I rose from my bed several times and went to the window and peered out at the sanatorium, and saw that there were lights in several of the windows. I thought of the grave behind my house, and if, by now, wind and weather had levelled it. I imagined it had. I lay down again. I listened to the muffled sounds from outside, I thought of the Russian also lying on his bed, his great body and high forehead with its black cockroach. Perhaps the cockroach came alive at night. Perhaps it crawled around his head until dawn, and then returned to its usual place on his brow. Then my mind turned to Arnfinn’s daughter in Bangkok, the one who’d discovered he was missing. Then to my house at Jordahl, which stood empty. I tossed restlessly in bed. For a long time I lay against the wall with my knees drawn up, then turned on my back, before rolling on to my side once again. I drew the covers over me and huddled down, all the time mumbling to myself: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.