‘And I did. Because I thought he made such a good case. And I regret it to this day, my God, how I regret it. In all honesty, I don’t think Riktor is quite right in the head. But there are only a few of us who know about it. On the outside, when dealing with most people, I mean, he seems perfectly normal and he’s very articulate. But I know that he goes around torturing the patients, and he was especially bad with Nelly Friis. I’ve known about it for some time, and several of us on the ward got together to catch him red-handed.’
Anna paused. She gazed over at me and her look was full of accusation; it was unbearable. I tried to work out what she was driving at. I tried to think about the future, which I’d tentatively begun to plan for myself, something new and better, a new element in my life which could raise me out of the rut. And into the arms of Margareth, once and for all. Away from the shamefulness of my old life, away from the diesel engine that rumbled throughout the night, and the teeming, fly-like buzzing in my head that had plagued me for such a long time.
‘Nelly would sometimes start fretting when Riktor entered the room,’ Sister Anna said.
She stared in my direction once more. Recrimination in her eyes.
‘At first we couldn’t work out the reason. But gradually we began to have terrible doubts, one discovery in particular really filled us with fear. One day I found some tablets in the pan of Nelly’s toilet. And that was peculiar, because Nelly couldn’t move, she never left her bed. More and more of us began to share the suspicion that he was flushing medication down the toilet. And we decided to do something about it once and for all. And so we bought a video camera.’
I sat there open-mouthed with fear. There could be no doubt she’d said a video camera. I couldn’t take it in, I felt as if I was falling through the floor. The black screen loomed larger, and at last I understood its significance: they had visual evidence. At last I saw that the staff had laid a trap.
And now it snapped shut.
The scarlet of shame spread across my face. At the same moment I noticed that de Reuter was gasping for air.
‘We placed the camera on a shelf,’ Anna continued, ‘with the lens pointing towards the head of Nelly’s bed. We covered it with a couple of towels and left it there for a good while. Until we’d collected the evidence we needed.’
A court usher crossed the floor.
Slow, heavy steps. He put a disc in the DVD player, withdrew and seated himself again. It was as if everyone in the courtroom had ceased to breathe. An image appeared on the screen, fifty inches wide, and clearly visible to everyone present. The panel of judges could see it, and the prosecuting counsel, the press could see it and the court usher. The artist and de Reuter could see it, the prison officers and police could see it, Randers could see it, and the pathologist could see it. I was lost. It was like falling from a vast height, falling in slow motion. We saw a sickroom with a bed, with lots of apparatus next to it, a chair, a lamp, a bedside locker with a plastic beaker on it, indicating the patient had been given something to drink. I recognised the room at once. Because one of her great-grandchildren had done a drawing, a huge red heart, and had hung it over her bed.
Nelly Friis lay in the bed. Still, pale and helpless. For quite a few seconds the picture didn’t alter. Nelly’s emaciated face, the red heart on the wall. Then there were footsteps and the barely audible closing of a door. And then a newcomer in the frame. A man in a white coat who was bending over the bed. In his hand, a small container with white tablets in it.
My own voice was easily recognisable to everyone present.
I’m not giving you any sweeties. What d’you want sweets for, you’re almost a hundred.
Then I vanished from the screen for a few seconds. There was the sound of the toilet flushing. Then I was back by the bed again.
It was as silent as the grave in the courtroom. Silence, as they all watched how I pinched Nelly and tweaked her hair. She started whining, tried to get away, but she couldn’t get away. Nor had she the strength to cry out. De Reuter leant over to me and whispered in my ear.
‘You’re not making things easy for me. Have you got any other secrets I should know about?’
I had no answer. I hung my head like a whipped dog. While pictures continued to fill the spacious screen.
I instantly recognised the room in the basement, where we placed the dead. The camera had been positioned there too, and their trap set. Ingemar Larson was lying on the bier, with a white sheet drawn up to his chest. A candle burned on the small table next to it. And, of course, I recognised myself, dancing around in my white coat, pulling the most grotesque faces. I was chanting and gesticulating, as if death were a joyous occasion. I looked like a clown. It was so obvious to me, now that I could actually witness my own behaviour, that people found it thoroughly shocking. And that future, which I’d been so determined to build, was running through my fingers like sand. To put it bluntly, I mocked Ingemar Larson shamelessly. And everyone could see me doing it.
I tried to regard what was happening as my confession. That it was essential for staking out a new path, a wholesome path, the one I would travel with Margareth. That it would certainly do some good in the long run, even though it was ghastly now. I thought of this as the witnesses came forward with their tales and their opinions about me, the things I would stoop to. And it was obvious that they assumed that anyone who could pinch and scratch, and cheat people of medicine, could also kill. Now the scales fell from my eyes. They had an agenda.
‘I rarely find myself rendered speechless,’ the judge announced. ‘But I am now.’
Sali Singh entered the witness box.
He was clad in those silk pyjamas that Indians wear, but no turban. He’d never used a turban all the time I’d known him. His bluish-black hair was impressive. The light fell obliquely from the tall windows into the courtroom, and made it shine like gunmetal.
‘I have known Riktor for more than eight years. And I thought I knew him. What I am saying is that it is terrible to be so wrong about a person. Because he has always been pleasant to me. Friendly and concerned. And we have had so many decent times in the kitchen together. But when I am looking at these pictures of him, and understanding what he has been doing, then I just feel like going back to Delhi. For ever. They are so terrible, they make me shiver. Because the Riktor I know is dutiful and precise. He is almost never absent from his job, and he is always ready when someone needs him. He is always in good humour, and he often praises others. He praises my food and he praises Anna and Dr Fischer when he has the opportunity. But I do not know much about Riktor’s private life, I have to say. Things like family and so on, whether he has any. And I do not know what he does in his free time, or who he is with. I could never bring myself to ask him these private questions. He always keeps a little distance. Then, some rumours started about him, which I dismissed at first as malicious gossip. It was impossible to believe them. But both Anna and Dr Fischer stuck to them. They thought that he was torturing the patients. And now the court has seen what happened, that he fell right into their trap. With that camera hidden on the shelf. After that, we thought we had enough to report him and get him sacked from Løkka Nursing Home once and for all. We had removed the camera by the time Nelly was killed. It is strange to think that we could have got it on film. And his dreadful behaviour in the basement, with Ingemar Larson. Such a complete contempt for death. I have never seen anything so bad in my life.’