Karin Fossum - I Can See in the Dark

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.’

‘The worst thing about it,’ Dr Fischer said, ‘is when I think back over those eleven years. Of the many patients who’ve been with us at Løkka during that time. That perhaps he tortured all of them, in some way or other. Perhaps he’s killed several people, without us discovering it. Perhaps he’s been carrying on without our knowledge for all that time, while we’ve been totally blind to it. I suspect this is the case. And the notion is unbearable. I’ve puzzled so often over prescriptions that didn’t have the intended effect, but now I know why. There’s been a lot of uneasiness amongst the patients, often when Riktor was in the room and close to the bed. But we never managed to put two and two together. We ought to be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves, the whole lot of us, but we were never thinking along those lines, we thought of him as able and unflagging. It’s terribly unpleasant to be so wrong about a person. It threatens my self-esteem. Because I’m the one in overall charge of the ward.’

‘I’ve always thought there was something quite different about him,’ said Anna. ‘He’s the sort who used to slink about. Suddenly, he’d pop up from nowhere, with that peculiar smile of his, as if he’d been standing there waiting. And there he was, with a touch and a friendly word. But now I see everything in a different light, and it’s so horrifying. And when I think of poor old Nelly, lying there gasping for breath, I just feel total despair. For that long, rich, eventful life to be terminated in such a base manner. Sometimes I don’t know if I can carry on in the job. It’s so hard to go into the room where all this happened. I thought we ought to clear that room, remove the bed and lock the door, and leave it empty for ever.

‘But life isn’t like that.

‘I had no choice.

‘I was forced to wheel in another patient.’

‘I didn’t know they were going to place me in a position like that,’ I said apologetically to de Reuter, when at last we were alone together. He claimed I’d broken my side of the bargain, and asked if I had any more secrets, which I denied.

‘We’ll have to alter our strategy now,’ he said, ‘and tighten up our defence. You’re going to need every bit of help you can get. Is there anything else I should know?’

‘No. From now on, I’ll lay all my cards on the table,’ I promised. ‘I know I’ve said this again and again, but I’m not guilty. I mean, as regards the murder. The other thing is a regrettable problem I’ve struggled with for many years. But that’s over now, everything’s behind me, and I promise to control myself.’

He barked a farewell as he headed for his car and drove off.

The prosecution ordered psychiatric tests, to find out if I was responsible for my actions. The forensic psychiatrist was an elderly man, a little over sixty perhaps, with hair that resembled a silver lid on the top of his head. He wore glasses with emphatic frames and thick lenses, a polka-dot bow tie, a suit that was a couple of sizes too large, and stout brown shoes scuffed at the toes. A couple of shiny hairs stuck up from the top of his head and formed a small antenna. I sat there staring at it, fascinated by the two unruly hairs that wouldn’t lie down. He had that knowing melancholy typical of psychiatrists, visible as a tint of sadness in his grey eyes.

‘Presumably you think I’m suffering from a personality disorder,’ I began.

We were in one of the prison’s meeting rooms. He smiled and smoothed his hair, the tiny antenna prostrated itself neatly. But only for a couple of seconds, then it sprang up again.