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.