‘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.’