Karin Fossum - I Can See in the Dark

‘I promise,’ I would say, my right hand raised, ‘to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

The night before the case was due to be heard, I couldn’t sleep. Arnfinn was pressing in so close again, I could smell him. I rose from my bed several times and went to the window and peered out at the sanatorium, and saw that there were lights in several of the windows. I thought of the grave behind my house, and if, by now, wind and weather had levelled it. I imagined it had. I lay down again. I listened to the muffled sounds from outside, I thought of the Russian also lying on his bed, his great body and high forehead with its black cockroach. Perhaps the cockroach came alive at night. Perhaps it crawled around his head until dawn, and then returned to its usual place on his brow. Then my mind turned to Arnfinn’s daughter in Bangkok, the one who’d discovered he was missing. Then to my house at Jordahl, which stood empty. I tossed restlessly in bed. For a long time I lay against the wall with my knees drawn up, then turned on my back, before rolling on to my side once again. I drew the covers over me and huddled down, all the time mumbling to myself: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

For one mad moment I wondered if Margareth mightn’t be in court. Her red hair shining lustrously from the rows of blue chairs, a freckled hand raised in a wave. But the idea was idiotic. Margareth was in the kitchen busy with her work. She wasn’t concerned about me, or hoping for acquittal; she was indifferent to me and my fate. This thought depressed me, hope seeped away, and the judge and lay assessors loomed like a hydra-headed troll.

In the courtroom there was a large flat screen, about fifty inches wide. For some reason this screen disturbed me, and my eyes constantly turned towards it. I tried to think what it might be for but finally came to the conclusion that it must be part of the courtroom furniture. For cases where there was visual evidence. Now the preliminaries began. In a loud, clear voice I pleaded not guilty to the charge of aggravated murder. My eyes were fixed on the elderly judge.

‘The indictment is presumptuous, unfounded and extremely serious,’ de Reuter said. ‘My client knows nothing whatsoever about these allegations.’

I sat there staring at the black screen. No matter where I let my gaze wander, I was always aware of that dark rectangle on the periphery of my vision. It reminded me of something unpleasant. If I looked at it for too long, it seemed to be drawing me in, and I would get sucked into its matt blackness, as if into quicksand.

I remained cool and collected all the time, just as de Reuter had instructed. I sat silently listening to the counsel for the prosecution, looking the judges in the eyes and concentrating on making a good impression. Clandestinely, I watched a couple of journalists taking frequent notes, and an artist sketching. I watched his pencil work over the paper in rapid strokes.

‘I’ve known Riktor for a little over eleven years,’ Anna said when, after several hours of evidence from the pathologist and other experts, she entered the witness box.

‘He was trained at the National Hospital, and he applied for a job at Løkka in 1999. I conducted the interview. I noticed even then, during the long conversation we had, that there was something a bit odd about him. Well, in a variety of ways. But there aren’t that many nurses who want to work in an environment like ours, and particularly not male nurses. So I couldn’t afford to be too critical. “Why are you keen to work with old people?” I asked, prompting him to justify his choice, to show he really wanted to work at Løkka. When he could have worked in an accident and emergency department or as a paramedic. With a lot more drama and excitement, the way men often prefer it. And I remember his answer. He said: “Because that’s the biggest challenge. That’s the greatest drama. People who have nothing but death left. And the things I’m able to give them could be the last things they’ll ever get. I like this challenge, this idea, because it makes me very significant. If you give me the job, that is.”

‘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.