by Karin Fossum
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ I said. ‘Nelly Friis’ murder will never be solved.’
‘Why not?’
‘The judges have already made up their minds. They’ve seen the videos.’
‘It has to be proved,’ he commented.
‘No, I’ll be convicted on circumstantial evidence. Randers said so himself. People have been found guilty on circumstantial evidence before.’
‘So you don’t believe in justice?’
‘Not after this. But occasionally I glimpse a pattern. And I’ve often got the feeling that people are following me with their eyes and laying traps.’
‘You feel you fell into a trap?’
‘Of course I fell into a trap. I fell into it headlong, and I’m bitter about it. You think what you like, but a hidden camera, that’s pretty low.’
‘You chose to work with people,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘Why did you do that? What was it about the job that attracted you, when you say you’ve got serious problems dealing with other people’s helplessness?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s death,’ I admitted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll be perfectly frank, but please don’t jump to any conclusions regarding Nelly. The patients we care for only have death to look forward to. And I like being in the proximity of death.’
‘Explain that to me,’ the psychiatrist said.
‘It has its own drama. I enjoy it, it excites me. And you must make a note that I’m confiding something important to you.’
He noted down what I’d asked, a hint of a smile on his lips. Then he pointed to his papers and tapped the thick bundle with a finger.
‘We’ll do an interview. It’s called an SCID interview, and it’ll take about ninety minutes to go through all the questions. The interview will reveal any personality disorder you may be suffering from, and if so, what sort of disorder it is. It’s an attempt to chart your most important characteristics. Characteristics that are typical of you, that have existed most of your adult life and aren’t confined to periods of particular depression, anxiety or lack of engagement. Suspicion and confidence, for example, are things we can have more or less of. What we’re looking for, is how much you differ from a hypothetical average individual. If you answer yes to a question, that you acknowledge the characteristic, it means that you believe you are more like that than most other people. And you score three points. Let me give you an example. If you answer yes to the question “Have you had difficulty making decisions by yourself?” that indicates that you think it’s been more difficult for you than for most people. D’you follow me?’
I nodded.
‘You can score from one to three points on each question,’ he added. ‘By the finish we’ll have a clas-sification.’
I said I understood, and he began immediately. He asked me about my talents. He asked about my schooling and working life and handicaps. Whether I had close relationships with people, and I had to answer no to that, of course. Apart from Arnfinn, and that hadn’t lasted long.
‘Do you often worry about being criticised or rejected in social situations?’ he asked. ‘Do you think you’re less good, clever or likeable than most other people? Do you often detect hidden meanings in what people say or do? Do you get angry when you’re offended? Do you like being the centre of other people’s attention? Do the majority of people not appreciate your unique talents and achievements? Do you often think about the power, fame or recognition that will one day be yours? Do you believe that very few people deserve your time and attention? Do you feel that your own situation is so unique that you are entitled to special treatment? Would you say it’s true that only very few things make you happy? Do you have the feeling that there is a person or a force around you, even though you can’t see anyone? Last but not least: have you ever had fits of anger so violent that you’ve lost control?’
Yes. I’ve lost control all right. Of course I answered yes to every one of these questions, these insinuations. I’ve had fits of anger, and I’ve lost control. I was exhausted when the interview was over, but I gave him what he wanted, and I scored the maximum possible, feeling a kind of strange contentment as I did so, because now I belonged somewhere, amongst the disturbed, and my condition had a name. But I didn’t mention that I’d once stuck a cannula in Nelly’s eye. And punctured a small blood vessel that made her eye bloody and red. This only happened once, and I was simultaneously excited, and horrified with myself and my own ingenuity. I didn’t mention Margareth either, or what I felt when I saw the beetroot juice on her lips. The madness that inflamed me then, how it began simmering in my trousers. How my pulse beat hard, muffled in my distracted mind.
I said nothing about these.
All evening I sat staring out at the sanatorium. There was no sun, and the windows didn’t blaze, the overcast weather made the building seem heavy and gloomy. Janson came in to hear how I’d got on with the psychiatrist.
‘He was friendly enough. He asked masses of questions and I answered them all truthfully.’
I looked Janson in the eye.
‘Tell me something,’ I asked him. ‘Have you ever completely lost your temper and done something really terrible?’
Janson, who was his usual light-hearted self, now grew solemn as well, and I could see he was searching his memory. Examining certain episodes.
‘Riktor,’ he said finally, emphasising each word. ‘Everyone loses their head sometimes. Everyone does something terrible. But most things can be put right in one way or another. Almost everything can be put right, if you take the time to do it. But not murder. Murder is irrevocable. Thou shalt not kill,’ he went on. ‘You know your Bible, don’t you?’
He laid a hand on my shoulder, it was heavy and warm.
‘That’s the way our wonderful system works,’ he said. ‘Everyone gets a second chance.’
Chapter 34
THE COURT CASE continued its slow progress, and I went on behaving in an exemplary fashion, despite my serious setback. I still had some of my life before me, it was a question of saving the remnants. But whenever I was back in the prison, and entered Margareth’s kitchen, I was filled with a huge sense of peace. I’d never felt it so clearly before. To think that one human being could affect another so forcefully, she was as life-giving as the sun, she was as soothing as spring water. I tried to hold myself in check, frightened of making a mistake, because I was terrified she’d find an excuse to exclude me from the kitchen if I didn’t behave. And give the job, which I prized so highly, to another prisoner.
‘I suppose you’ve heard the rumours,’ I said. ‘You must have heard people talk about the case, and what’s come out.’
She didn’t look at me as she answered. She was browning onions, and now she asked me to take over.
‘I’ve no desire to know anything about that sort of thing,’ she said in a subdued voice, hurriedly drying her hands on her faded apron. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, I mind my own business. But somehow, rumours usually reach me in the end. Everyone in here has transgressed in some way or other, I’m used to it. There. Now you just finish browning those onions. Eight altogether. Sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar on them,’ she directed, ‘it gives them such a lovely colour. Talking of rumours. Did you know we’ve got a new one in today? Has Janson told you? From the Refugee Reception Centre,’ she said. ‘He’s from Somalia. They say he attacked one of the staff. He’s supposed to be a big bloke. Larger than the Russian, they say, so you can imagine. He arrived in full combat gear, with leather boots and everything, apparently he was quite a sight.’
My thoughts returned to the park near Lake Mester, and the big black man who had so often come and sat in front of the fountain. Again I perceived the hidden pattern. The sense of being a piece of a larger whole, and that there was a purpose, a grand plan. The huge black man. It had to be him, what a strange coincidence. I sliced an onion until my eyes were streaming with tears, sprinkled sugar over it and enjoyed the smell that filled the ki
tchen.
‘Open the tap and let it run,’ Margareth said, ‘that’ll help.’
I did as she said.
‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I asked. I wanted to chat, and hoped this would be a safe question to open with. Not something she’d regard as forward or tactless.
She dropped some butter in two large frying pans. And I noticed she was hesitating. I couldn’t really see why. Either you’ve got brothers and sisters, or you haven’t.
‘I had a brother,’ she said at last.
‘Is he dead?’ I wanted to know. ‘Sorry. It’s none of my business, I was just being inquisitive. I’m sorry.’
I kept quiet. The butter in the frying pans melted and began to sizzle. It looked as if she were considering, weighing the matter up to herself.
‘Yes, I had a brother. He was sixteen,’ she related. ‘And he was very good at diving. He taught himself, he never had any lessons. His repertoire included a beautiful, perfect swallow dive which he did from the ten-metre board. All his mates would sit along the edge of the pool and watch, and he used to demand five kroner per dive. And like that he managed to earn a bit over the summer.’
She tightened the apron round her waist.
‘But he had another side as well,’ she continued. ‘A dark side. Not many people knew about it, but for long periods he’d get very depressed. But then, when we’d begun to feel seriously worried, his spirits would start rising again, and his mind would lighten. And he went on like this, up and down, for several years. My room was next to his. In the evenings I could hear him playing a lot of gloomy music, and sometimes I’d hear him crying. But I said nothing to the grown-ups. So his life went on like that, a rollercoaster ride. He never had any treatment, and up there in the north there wasn’t much they could offer people like him, anyway.’
She glanced at me and pointed.
‘Take that onion out now, it’s been done for some time.’
I did as she said. I put the onion rings on a plate and started cutting up another. Nice, thin rings, as she’d taught me.
‘But those swallow dives of his were famous,’ she went on. ‘Have you ever seen a perfect swallow dive?’
I lowered my knife and wiped away a tear.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘but only on television. They are wonderful, you’re right. It’s the best dive.’
‘One day he went to the outdoor bathing complex with a crowd of mates. He’d just turned sixteen. They went in a large group and, as he’d so often done before, my brother asked if they wanted to pay to see a swallow dive. As they usually did. And they said they’d willingly pay for a swallow dive. He’d soon amassed twenty-five kroner. When they got to the pool, he took off his clothes and began to climb the ladder to the ten-metre board. His friends sat on the edge of the pool and waited. They said afterwards that there was a lot of laughing and joking, nudging and chaffing about what was happening. They cheered and fooled about and called up to my brother at the top of the diving boards: “You can’t chicken out now, we’ve paid to see it.”’
Margareth poked at the golden-brown beefburgers in the two frying pans.
‘He walked to the edge of the board,’ she said. ‘And raised his arms. Suddenly everything went quiet, deathly quiet, as one of the boys said afterwards when they spoke of what had happened. It was as though a fear had surfaced in them all, a fear that something awful was about to happen. Something they couldn’t stop. Because they had pushed him to the edge, in a way.’
Margareth straightened her back and put her hands on her hips.
‘He waved to them,’ she continued. ‘Then he fell forward in a beautiful, wide arc. It was September,’ she added. ‘There was no water in the pool.’
She turned the beefburgers one by one. Her movements had become quick and clumsy with the thought of what had happened.
‘So, perhaps he took leave of life in the spectacular way he’d always dreamt of. In front of a paying audience. He struck head first.’
‘He really did have a sense of drama,’ I said cautiously.
‘He did,’ Margareth said. ‘And my life was never the same again. No sounds from the room next door, no music, no crying. I wanted to die, too, because I had the feeling that he was all alone where he’d gone.’
‘How old were you?’
‘I was twelve. And I remember the funeral as if it were yesterday. We weren’t allowed to see him. There was nothing left of his head, it had been smashed to pulp.’
She glanced up quickly.
‘Well, enough of all this depressing talk. The beefburgers are ready, you can put them on the plates. And then empty those frozen peas into that pan of water. What about you? Have you got any brothers and sisters?’
‘No, nothing,’ I said. ‘No parents, no wife, no siblings.’ I held my breath and steadied myself. Margareth’s confidence about her brother had given me courage.
‘But I’ve got you, Margareth,’ I said.
I thought her cheeks turned a little red just at that moment. And that perhaps her eyes looked shiny. But it was probably just wishful thinking. And anyway, it was very hot in the kitchen.
Chapter 35
I HARDLY SLEPT a wink that momentous night before judgement was due. The judges would rise and give their verdict, either I was the one who’d pressed the pillow over Nelly’s wan face, or there was room for reasonable doubt. Of which I was to have the benefit, naturally, those were the rules. It was a long and exhausting night. The smell of putrefaction in my cell was intense, time after time I rose and stood there not knowing what to do, looking around for Arnfinn, and imagining I could hear his hoarse breathing in the nocturnal stillness. Close to panic, I searched my bedclothes for maggots, shook my pillow and duvet and brushed my hand feverishly over my sheets. I checked the ventilator up on the wall, convinced that the smell was coming from there. And I thought I could see a cloudy gas seeping into the room, it settled like a veil around the bed, thick as porridge, filling my nose and head. I couldn’t sleep. I lay as if in state, stiff as a board, with my arms at my sides, steadfast and immobile.
Around midnight a storm blew up. At first there was just the occasional gust, then it rapidly increased in force. The wind howled round the corners of the big prison building, and after an hour the rain set in with an ominous rush. Its drumming rose and fell, as it beat against the walls and windowpanes. I lay on my bed and listened in dismay; the wildness of the elements was so great that night that I imagined it must have some special meaning. A portend of things to come, the verdict, and the disapproval, people turning away in disgust, with cold, reproachful looks. Cut off from society once and for all. A reject yet again, a rotten individual. But morning came and the furious wind had abated at last. Immediately I began to think of Margareth and my new life. I told Janson about the foul smell, but he couldn’t understand it. He said that no one else had complained, and that I was probably just worn out. In that state we can imagine the weirdest things.
I dressed according to de Reuter’s instructions, looking very decent and respectable, and Janson accompanied me through the corridors to the back of the court. De Reuter was sitting there with his briefcase on his knees. He seemed bright and alert, not in the least dejected, as if anticipating victory, and that made me nervous.
‘Feeling nervous?’ he asked affably.
‘Yes.’
‘If they bring you in guilty, we’ll appeal. We’ve got a good case.’
*
It was 17 November. The two lay assessors had dressed for the occasion as well, in formal, neutral attire. The indictment had been extended. In addition to Nelly’s murder, I was accused of maltreating and persecuting patients at Løkka, and obstructing Dr Fischer’s treatment plans. That I had knowingly and wilfully sabotaged all medical intervention. I flinched slightly as I sat beside de Reuter. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me. Some of it was due to the gravity of the occasion, and the fate that might await me. Some was due to Margareth, for
she was never out of my thoughts for an instant. It would have been a joy if she’d been present in court. But in a way, it was a relief she wasn’t there and couldn’t hear the things that were said, the many humiliating conclusions, and there seemed to be plenty of them, about my character and propensities.
For now the court-appointed psychiatrist had risen and walked to the witness box. He proceeded to explain my disturbed personality: insensitivity to existing social norms and conventions. A lack of empathy and understanding, a lack of social talent, apathy towards the suffering and misfortunes of others, emotional frigidity, arrogance and sadistic tendencies. Illusions of self-importance and grandeur.
I bowed my head as he listed all my failings, attempting to summon up the requisite degree of humility de Reuter had demanded. The judges spent a long time in reaching agreement, and de Reuter said that was a positive sign. It meant that there was room for doubt. I had to stand to receive their final decision. I clutched de Reuter’s arm involuntarily, clutching at hope, silently pleading and praying for justice.
‘In the matter of wilful murder: we find the defendant not guilty.’
I hadn’t misheard. The words replayed themselves in my mind, we find the defendant not guilty. I collapsed with relief, and for one brief second there was room for a merciful God in the emotional chaos within me, and that was a new element in my faithless life. And even as I was experiencing this rush, this inexpressibly large release, I received my sentence for maltreatment with head held high. One year’s imprisonment; taking into account the time already spent on remand, 270 days left to serve. For harassing and torturing Nelly Friis. For misappropriating Dr Fischer’s prescriptions, for subjecting dying patients to gross threats. In addition, I was barred from ever working in the caring professions again. But that didn’t matter. Margareth, I thought. Justice, I thought; now all I need is to play my cards right.
The press gloried in the details. Verdens Gang had its own eye-catching headline the following day.
