by Karin Fossum
Chapter 32
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.
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 gh
astly 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.’
Chapter 33
‘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.
‘Is that the category you want to belong to?’ he asked. His voice was mild and friendly. ‘Would it make everything that’s happened easier to bear? If that was the conclusion I reached?’
I thought for a moment. ‘It makes no difference. Because I know who I am. But what I don’t know is how I got to be the way I am. Don’t ask about my childhood,’ I added. ‘There’s nothing to say about it. Nothing at all.’
‘So you weren’t mistreated in any way, or neglected?’
‘No, I was simply overlooked. Perhaps that’s almost as bad.’
‘But was it a difficult time?’
‘No, but not very much happened. My childhood was long and uneventful. My father went to work before I got up in the morning, and he returned home long after I’d gone to bed. I hardly ever saw him. He was home at the weekends, of course, but then he was ensconced behind a newspaper. Or sleeping on the sofa. My mother kept house, she was forever washing, or cleaning or polishing. She didn’t say much. She’d answer me if I asked about something, but only quite perfunctorily. They were both very reticent. I did well at school, at least in terms of schoolwork. There’s nothing the matter with my head, just in case you’re wondering. My schoolmates called me The Pike. And I found that quite difficult. The school dentist announced that he’d never seen teeth like mine before, but we didn’t have the money to do anything about them. The first time I sat in the dentist’s chair, the dentist shouted to his assistant who was working in the next room: “Vera! Come and take a look at this! I’ve never seen teeth like these in all my life.” There,’ I added, ‘that was my childhood. I don’t remember much more than that.’
‘Well then, let’s leave it. We can return to it later. Now I’d like to hear you say something about helplessness. What do you feel when you’re faced with a dependent person?’
‘Irritation. Resignation. I get angry, and I despise them for clinging to others, for begging and whining and complaining. I’m being totally honest now, and that’s no easy matter as I work in one of the caring professions. But now I really want to be understood.’
‘What about despair? Do you feel that too?’
‘After only a second or two, I feel completely inadequate. I’ve got to do something, and do it straight away. I’ve got to find an outlet for my own
frustration. There’s a name for that, isn’t there?’
‘You really do want a diagnosis, don’t you,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘And perhaps we’ll arrive at one before we’ve finished. But what about you? What if you became ill or incapacitated, or needed help in some way. How would you manage?’
‘Pretty badly,’ I admitted. ‘I’d despise myself as much as I despise others. I’d go to the dogs. I’d go into a decline, and never get up in the morning again, never look at myself in the mirror. Never!’
The psychiatrist had a folder. He opened it now and took out a sheaf of papers.
‘What about the videos? What was going through your mind when they were shown to the court? What do you imagine people think of you after that?’
‘They’re probably disgusted. People can’t take very much. But sometimes those of us who work with dementia lose patience. It’s not just me, there’s a number of us.’
‘So you’re saying that others on the ward might also have tortured the patients?’
‘That’s obvious. Somebody killed Nelly Friis. Someone who lost patience. Or someone who wanted to take pity on her, I don’t know, but it wasn’t me. Almost anything could have happened in that room. And in the other rooms. We’re only human after all.’
The psychiatrist made notes. His antenna waved every time he nodded, two thin streaks of silver.