'Zipp. Why are you lying?' he said. There it was at last! He knew it would come sooner or later. He was fully prepared for it! The question hit him like a rubber ball and bounced back. There wasn't a mark on him.
'I don't know anything,' he intoned.
'Those guys at the square. Can we drop them?'
'I don't know where they were going,' Zipp said.
'Were they really there at all?'
'I only saw them from a distance.'
'How many were there?'
What had he said before? Two? Or three?
'Two or three. I don't remember.'
'Are you worried about your best friend?'
'Of course!' Zipp gave him a hurt look. At the same time he tried to work out what the man wanted.
'Then why won't you help me?'
'I am helping. But I don't remember!' He lost control. He was totally out of it. 'I've told you everything I know. Can I go now?'
'No.'
'I'm not under arrest, am I?'
'You can't go yet.'
'Why not?'
'I haven't finished with you.'
Zipp felt as if he were slowly falling. The truth began to look like an easier solution. He understood everything. Why people confessed to things they hadn't done, anything to escape interrogation. He swayed on his chair. Danger was threatening from every direction. It was blowing in through the window, crawling up his legs. A ghastly future that he didn't want. Prosecution and sentencing. The baby's mother in the front row, staring at him as he stood in the witness box. A judge, clad in black robes and with a huge gavel crashing against Zipp's chest. Knocking his heart off of its rhythm, making it falter, he couldn't breathe. Years alone in a space two metres by three metres, Zipp thought. He felt faint. A rushing and a sinking feeling in his head at the same time. He wanted to hide. He reached for the coffee cup, he saw his own hand come into view to pick up the cup, but he missed and it fell. Coffee splashed over the desk. Dripped down his thighs and burned through his clothes.
*
I told Andreas that Zipp had called. I thought he would shout at me, but he didn't have the strength. He didn't look as if he cared. I didn't understand it. Perhaps he was using the time to reconcile himself with the worst possibility, that he might die down there in the cellar. Alone, among the potatoes and spiders and mice. We human beings are amazing. We can handle most situations, given time. He didn't want to talk. He shut me out. I didn't let it upset me, just stood there for a while and tormented him with my presence. Fiddled with the buttons on my jacket. Then I went back upstairs. Started rummaging in the drawers and cupboards. I was particular about what would be left behind. I'd collected a lot of papers and the majority of my clothes in sacks. I didn't have much time. Andreas was worn out. I liked him better when he whimpered and pleaded, but now he didn't want anything. He closed his eyes when I stood on the stairs. I slammed doors and stomped on the floor. I was the only one he had! He said he wasn't in any pain, but I didn't believe him. He didn't want to give me the satisfaction of knowing that he suffered. Maybe he didn't want to go on, in any case. Get out of this cellar and go to a hospital. Roll along in a wheelchair. With all those memories. Some lives are too difficult to endure. Maybe that's what he was thinking. I couldn't comfort him. He didn't deserve any comfort. He shouldn't have come here.
Despair would seize hold of me now and then. Unpredictable attacks of panic. I didn't recognise myself. None of us deserved this, none of us wanted this. Andreas was a bolt from the blue. I was the one he had struck. Then I started laughing. These past few days, and everything that had happened, it was all incomprehensible. Unreal. A young boy on the cellar floor in the house of an old woman? What a story! I pulled myself away and went to the window. Sometime I would have to eat something. I hadn't eaten in ages. I saw an end to my despair, a sudden clarity. I let go of everything I was holding. It couldn't get any worse than this. It was important to put an end to this ridiculous performance once and for all. He had suffered enough. He had learned his lesson. I stood up and opened the trap door. Yelled down the stairs to him: 'I'm going to the police station. They're going to come and get you soon!' He probably didn't believe me. I was very tired. The police could do what they liked with me, I didn't care. Andreas could explain. He was the one who had started it all.
*
'Do you feel sick, Zipp? You look pale.' Sejer wiped up the coffee on the desk, using some paper towels from the holder by the sink. Zipp was busy holding on to the edge of the desk, so he didn't answer. His body had betrayed him. But it didn't matter. The policeman was now a genuine enemy, no longer pretending to be friendly. Now he would use other methods, strike harder, maybe even threaten him. It was a relief, in a way. He knew where he stood, could no longer be seduced or duped. He ground his teeth. Sejer recognised all the signs from hundreds of other conversations. It was a relief for him too. They had reached a new phase. He knew the pattern, the gestures, the body language. The tension in the room was still rising, with a hint of anger, but underneath there was fear. What could those two have done on that fateful night? He looked at Zipp, genuinely curious.
'I hope, both for God's and Andreas' sake, that you have good reasons for keeping quiet,' he said sharply.
Zipp didn't let himself be provoked. He was a solid wall with no openings, not so much as a crack. The truth felt heavy, but secure inside him. He was impregnable.
'Is Andreas alive?'
Zipp took his time. He was not in a hurry.
'I don't know.'
That was true. It was too easy. He almost had to hold back a smile.
'What did you fight about?'
'We didn't fight.'
Sejer folded his arms. 'This isn't just about you. He has a mother who's scared and a father who's worried. You know something that might help us. If he ends up as something that we have to carry home in a bag, you're going to blame yourself for the rest of your life.'
That was harsh, but Zipp had to admit that it was true.
'None of this is my fault,' he said.
'What do you mean by 'this'?'
'I don't know.'
He put on the brakes again. It surprised him how difficult it actually was not to say anything at all. The grey eyes were so intense, demanding something from him, drawing him out.
'Have you ever seen a dead man?'
He hadn't. He hadn't wanted to see his father, back then, a long time ago. He didn't answer.
'The first time is always overwhelming. It takes your breath away. The reminder that we're all going to die.'
Zipp was listening. The seriousness scared him. It was because of all he didn't know. He felt a fool. He pushed the feeling aside. He wasn't a fool, just very unlucky.
'If the dead person is someone you knew well, the feeling is doubly strong. He's lying there, but he's not lying there. A wall falls away.' Sejer paused. His mother's dead face appeared in his mind's eye. 'The two of you shared so much, the way best friends do. How are you getting along without him?'
Zipp pursed his lips. His throat felt tight, his eyes stung, but he didn't blink. He just hoped that the water filling his eyes wouldn't spill over the edge and become tears. Although that might look good. He was in despair, God damn it. But the inspector had more up his sleeve, he could hear it in his voice. This was only the beginning.
'How would you feel if you were indirectly the cause of someone's death?'
The question almost made him choke with
laughter, but he controlled himself. They might never find out who had been responsible for the business with that baby. Maybe it would be best if Andreas were dead. The thought crossed his mind, sudden and unasked, yet pragmatical. That scared him. Did he wish Andreas dead? No, that's not what he wished, but if he did turn up,
