Karin Fossum - I Can See in the Dark

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.’

She gave a hearty laugh. Her teeth were white and perfect, despite her age.

‘You’re hard on yourself, too,’ she said. ‘Don’t be. We’re only here for a short while. Tomorrow we’ll probably all be gone. I don’t mean literally, but we’re only a heartbeat away from eternity, and then we won’t be here any more, think of that. Yes, just think of it!’

She lowered her crocheting again.

‘We need to feel valued, that’s important. Think of that huge man from the Refugee Reception Centre who sits here sometimes, you must have seen him. He’s lost his sense of self-esteem because no one wants him. It’s all over then; I think about it often. Sometimes I’ve felt like saying a few friendly words to him, but he’s so big. If you know what I mean. It’s almost as if I don’t want him to notice me, I don’t dare arouse all that power. Did you know that he talks to himself?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘It might mean that he’s psychotic,’ Ebba said. ‘And you mustn’t take any chances with them. Or what do you think?’

I went to work.

I was on the late shift and was on duty until eight. It was a quiet day on the ward, only the occasional moan from behind closed doors, like a distant lament. All this lamentation. I paced the corridors and thought of that policeman, Randers, and my imagination ran riot. It was as if Arnfinn’s murder had a peculiar, unholy energy, and now it clung to my whole being, like a special smell. That was probably why I saw nothing of the others. They can smell it, I thought, and they flee. Eventually I found Sali Singh in the kitchen. To my amazement he was sitting at the table eating. Not the stuff he’d made himself, but some kind of ready meal he must have heated in the microwave.

‘I didn’t know you went in for this sort of thing,’ I said, sitting down next to him.

He went on slurping. It looked like soup with bits of fish in it.

‘I am celebrating,’ he said. ‘This is a fine day.’

I put my elbows on the table.

‘What are you celebrating? Is it your birthday?’

He shook his ponderous head.

‘I won at the Øvrevoll races,’ he said. ‘140,000 kroner. Just this Sunday.’

I was dumbfounded.

‘At Øvrevoll? You bet on the horses?’

He pushed the bowl of fish soup away, and nodded.

‘Suddenly they all came in. And I have been betting for years, so it was about time. My heart has never pounded so hard,’ he said, laying a golden-brown hand on his chest. ‘Not even when I proposed to my wife.’

‘What are you going to do with the money?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘For now, I will keep it. In an account. And it can stay there just for show. But I shall greet it every day, I will ring the bank and ask after it. I will watch over it as if it was a holy cow, you do not know of what we Indians are capable.’