Karin Fossum: I Can See in the Dark

The man now scrutinising me seems both dull and perplexed, not lively and alert like de Reuter.

‘I’ll be managing your case,’ he says. ‘My name is Blix.’

He offers me a fat hand to shake. It’s cold and limp. He sits down and opens his briefcase, it’s grubby and made of artificial leather.

‘The police will presumably go for wilful murder,’ he remarks. ‘The danger is that the prosecution will apply for preventative custody. I see you’ve got previous form,’ he adds, looking up at me with an indolent expression. He really is slow, possibly in his mid-fifties, and his breathing is laboured, perhaps he suffers from emphysema or asthma. I try to pull myself together, but feel that I’m starting to disintegrate, those bloody flies are starting to buzz in my head.

‘A friend abused your trust,’ he says. ‘We must use that for all it’s worth.’

I nod mechanically. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this sluggish, flabby man will save my skin, it’s not possible. Blix stays for an hour. When he’s about to leave, I ask for the officer with the pimples.

‘Well, I’ll ask him to come. But you’ll have to be patient. In prison you’ve got to wait for everything, you’d do well to realise that straight away.’

The pimply officer turns up after an unconscionable time. He glowers at me from the door, apathy personified. I explain that I want to send a message. He shakes his head slowly and leans heavily against the stout metal door.

‘To Margareth,’ I explain. ‘She works in the kitchen. Will you tell her I’m back? Will you say it’s from Riktor?’

‘There’s no Margareth in the kitchen,’ he replies. ‘Otto works down there. Otto and his assistant, Sharif.’

This crushes me.

‘You’re saying that Margareth’s gone? But where is she?’ I stammer.

‘You mean the one with the red hair? She went up north. Seems to have landed a job somewhere up there, in a nursing home. Northerners, you know what they’re like. Always longing for home. They must have a thing about the wind and the sea. Takes all sorts.’

Everything I’ve painstakingly put together, simply disintegrates. The castle I’ve built for Margareth collapses into the dust. I look at the young prison officer, and then I lose all control of myself.

I fly at him with every bit of strength I’ve got, force him against the wall, spit and shout and slobber. I know it will end in solitary, but I can’t stop myself.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ I scream. ‘I’m going to smash your skull and watch your brains run out!’

The door thuds shut. Nothing more. I sit alone in my cell and wait, I stare down at the ugly backyard, I search desperately for the pattern I thought I’d discovered, the overarching purpose. That there was some meaning to me and my life. But everything is slowly evaporating, and I congeal in that attitude by the window. An elbow on the table, a hand beneath my chin. A lifeless eye absorbing the ugliness.

I sit waiting for the rat, perhaps it will return; after all, it’s something to look at, something alive. Everything has been taken from me. Janson, de Reuter and Margareth. Instead, I’ve got a rat. At night, after darkness has fallen, I’m still sitting by the window. And the rat does return. A quivering orange rodent in amongst the bins. I search my mind for something comforting; it’s not easy. The time will pass. The hours, the days, the years. I’m on remand, and I’ll appear in court. I’ll be convicted and have to serve time for old Arnfinn’s murder. But sooner or later I’ll be out again, because that’s the way our wonderful system works. Everyone gets another chance, and I’ll be out in society once more.

With my disturbed mind, my dark thoughts and my heart of stone.