I Can See in the Dark

Chapter 38

They unearth the body quickly enough with the aid of dogs.

The rhododendron bush is torn up by the roots, and they work down to the rotting corpse, a thin, hollow Arnfinn, grey and brown, with black hands and feet. He’s not a pretty sight. I explain about Arnfinn’s gross deceit. Randers isn’t interested.

‘Talk to your lawyer,’ he says. ‘You’ll have your day in court.’

They put me on remand. I have to have my photograph and fingerprints taken, my effects are removed, my wallet and keys. I’m led to an unfamiliar cell and rush to the window to look out. But all I see is a squalid backyard. A dirty, untidy square of junk and garbage. The sanatorium is nowhere in sight, that beautiful building I so often used to rest my eyes on. I sit waiting for de Reuter. In the meantime a prison officer appears at the door, he’s young, unsavoury and rather brash and has pimples round his mouth. I ask him when Janson is due on duty.

‘There’s no Janson working here,’ he says, and chews on the gum in his mouth. It’s pink and shows itself each time he opens his mouth. His words fill me with alarm.

‘What did you say? Doesn’t Janson work here any more?’

He leans lazily against the door frame. Brushes a dewdrop from his nose with his hand and grins.

‘We sometimes change blocks,’ he gives me to understand. ‘You know, a change is as good as a rest and all that. Your Janson is probably over on B Block, these things happen. Your lawyer will be here in an hour,’ he adds and leaves. The door slams shut and the lock turns.

I seat myself by the window and stare down into the backyard. At long rows of bins, a rusty woman’s bike without a seat, an old shed with a corrugated-iron roof. And there, suddenly I see it, a plump rat scurrying about looking for food. I have eyes only for the disgusting creature. The naked tail, the shiny coat. And I think of what Ebba once said. A rat in a maze. And you simply can’t see over the walls. No trees, no hillsides or uplands, no sun, no blue sky. I try to cling to one comforting thought. Despite all the awful things that have happened, I’m here with Margareth again.

Eventually my counsel arrives at the door.

He’s a podgy, bald man. I’ve never seen anything so sad. Pale, pink and sweaty, a doughy middle-aged man. Unconcerned and apathetic, little more than a joke as he stands looking in.

‘Isn’t de Reuter coming?’ I ask in exasperation.

The man now scrutinising me seems both dull and perplexed, not lively and alert like de Reuter.

‘I’ll be managing your case,’ he says. ‘My name is Blix.’

He offers me a fat hand to shake. It’s cold and limp. He sits down and opens his briefcase, it’s grubby and made of artificial leather.

‘The police will presumably go for wilful murder,’ he remarks. ‘The danger is that the prosecution will apply for preventative custody. I see you’ve got previous form,’ he adds, looking up at me with an indolent expression. He really is slow, possibly in his mid-fifties, and his breathing is laboured, perhaps he suffers from emphysema or asthma. I try to pull myself together, but feel that I’m starting to disintegrate, those bloody flies are starting to buzz in my head.

‘A friend abused your trust,’ he says. ‘We must use that for all it’s worth.’

I nod mechanically. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this sluggish, flabby man will save my skin, it’s not possible. Blix stays for an hour. When he’s about to leave, I ask for the officer with the pimples.

‘Well, I’ll ask him to come. But you’ll have to be patient. In prison you’ve got to wait for everything, you’d do well to realise that straight away.’

The pimply officer turns up after an unconscionable time. He glowers at me from the door, apathy personified. I explain that I want to send a message. He shakes his head slowly and leans heavily against the stout metal door.

‘To Margareth,’ I explain. ‘She works in the kitchen. Will you tell her I’m back? Will you say it’s from Riktor?’

‘There’s no Margareth in the kitchen,’ he replies. ‘Otto works down there. Otto and his assistant, Sharif.’

This crushes me.

‘You’re saying that Margareth’s gone? But where is she?’ I stammer.

‘You mean the one with the red hair? She went up north. Seems to have landed a job somewhere up there, in a nursing home. Northerners, you know what they’re like. Always longing for home. They must have a thing about the wind and the sea. Takes all sorts.’

Everything I’ve painstakingly put together, simply disintegrates. The castle I’ve built for Margareth collapses into the dust. I look at the young prison officer, and then I lose all control of myself.

I fly at him with every bit of strength I’ve got, force him against the wall, spit and shout and slobber. I know it will end in solitary, but I can’t stop myself.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ I scream. ‘I’m going to smash your skull and watch your brains run out!’

The door thuds shut. Nothing more. I sit alone in my cell and wait, I stare down at the ugly backyard, I search desperately for the pattern I thought I’d discovered, the overarching purpose. That there was some meaning to me and my life. But everything is slowly evaporating, and I congeal in that attitude by the window. An elbow on the table, a hand beneath my chin. A lifeless eye absorbing the ugliness.

I sit waiting for the rat, perhaps it will return; after all, it’s something to look at, something alive. Everything has been taken from me. Janson, de Reuter and Margareth. Instead, I’ve got a rat. At night, after darkness has fallen, I’m still sitting by the window. And the rat does return. A quivering orange rodent in amongst the bins. I search my mind for something comforting; it’s not easy. The time will pass. The hours, the days, the years. I’m on remand, and I’ll appear in court. I’ll be convicted and have to serve time for old Arnfinn’s murder. But sooner or later I’ll be out again, because that’s the way our wonderful system works. Everyone gets another chance, and I’ll be out in society once more.

With my disturbed mind, my dark thoughts and my heart of stone.