‘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 kitchen.