'But it'll happen one day. Don't you ever think of the future?'
'The future? No. Why would I?'
'I want you to think of the future now. What do you see when you look ahead?'
Goran shrugged. 'It looks like now. I mean, before all of this.' He flung out his hands.
'You think so?'
'Yes.'
'But certain things are very different. Your arrest. These conversations. Won't they make a change?'
'It'll be tough when I get out of here. Meeting people again.'
'How would you like it to be once you get out?'
'I want it to be like it was.'
'Can it be?'
Goran wrung his hands in his lap.
'Can life ever be the same again?' Sejer asked again.
'Well, nearly the same.'
'What will be different?'
'Well, as you say… everything that has happened. I'll never forget it.'
'So you haven't forgotten? Tell me what you remember.'
Sejer's voice was very deep and actually quite agreeable, Goran thought as he pushed his chair back. Opened his mouth and yawned. The silence quivered like a spear in the room; now it turned slowly and pointed at him. His eyes began flickering.
'There's nothing to remember!' he yelled. He forgot to breathe, forgot to count, grabbed a Coke bottle and threw it against the wall. The liquid cascaded down.
Sejer didn't even flinch. 'We'll stop here, Goran,' he said quietly. 'You're tired.'
He was taken to his cell and brought back two hours later. He felt heavy again. Lethargic and slow. Unconcerned in a pleasant sort of way.
'You visit the gym often,' Sejer said. 'Do you keep your dumbbells in the car? So that you can use them whenever there's the slightest opportunity? In a traffic jam? Or waiting by a red light?'
'We don't have traffic lights or jams in Elvestad,' Goran said.
'The lab has found traces of a white powder on her handbag,' he continued. 'What do you think it might be?'
Silence.
'You know that odd-looking bag of hers. Green. Shaped like a melon.'
'A melon?'
'Heroin, perhaps. What do you think?'
'I don't do drugs,' Goran said harshly.
'No?'
'I've tried a bit of everything. Way back. But it's not my thing.'
'What is your thing?'
A shrug.
'Going to the gym, isn't it? Muscles like steel, sweat dripping, the agony in your arms and legs when they are deprived of oxygen, the stifled groans from your own throat with each lift, the feeling of raw power, of everything you can overcome, the bars which grow warm beneath your hands. Does that feel good?'
'I like working out,' Goran said impassively.
'After a while the bar gets greasy and slippery. You thrust your hands into a box of magnesium. A fine white powder. Some of it wafts up into the air around you and sticks to your skin, gets in your hair. You took a shower, but some of it found its way on to Poona's bag. Probably because it was made from fabric. A synthetic material to which everything sticks.'
Once more Goran looked blankly at Sejer. It felt as though his thoughts were flying off in all directions. He couldn't get them under control. He could no longer remember what he had said. Could no longer make sense of what the policeman was saying.
'I hardly got any sleep,' he said weakly.
'I know,' Sejer said. 'But we've plenty of time. It's important to get this right. You're saying you were with Lillian. Lillian says no. Perhaps you were out Hvitemoen way, but wished you were with Lillian.'
'I was with Lillian. I remember it. We had to hurry.'
'I suppose you always had to? Someone might come.'
'I don't understand why she's lying.'
'You called and asked to come over. Did she say no, Goran? Were you rejected for the second time the same evening?'
'No!'
Sejer took a few steps. Goran was overcome by a terrible restlessness, an irrepressible urge to move. He looked at the clock. Eleven minutes had passed.
'When you read about the murder in the paper,' Sejer said, 'then you must have had a reaction. Formed images in your mind. Would you like to share them with me?'
'Images?' Goran's red eyes blinked.
'The ones you create in your mind. As we all do when someone explains something to us. We try to visualise it. It's an unconscious reaction. I would like to know what were your images of Poona's murder.'
'I have none.'
'Let me help you find them.'
'But why do you need them?' Goran said uncertainly. 'They're just fantasy.'
'To see if they resemble what we've found.'
'But that's impossible! I didn't do it!'
'If we find them, you'll sleep better at night. Perhaps they frighten you?'
Goran buried his face in his hands. For a while they sat in silence.
And then Sejer said: 'Have you ever been to see Linda Carling at her house?'
'What? No. Why would I want to do that?'
'I imagine you were quite upset at the thought of her identifying your car.'
'Quite upset? I was bloody furious.'
'Is that why you went over to scare her?'
Goran looked at him in amazement. 'I don't even know where she lives.'
They both jumped as the door opened and Skarre came in.
'Telephone,' Skarre said.
'It had better be important,' Sejer said. He looked at Goran and left the room.
'Is it Sara? Has Kollberg got up?'
'Ole Gunwald,' Skarre said. 'Will speak only to you.'
Sejer turned into his office. He answered the telephone standing up.
'This is Gunwald from Elvestad. I live at Hvitemoen.'
'I remember you,' Sejer said.
'I've left it a bit late, but it's about the murder.'
'Yes?' Sejer said impatiently. Skarre held his breath.
'You've arrested Goran Seter,' Gunwald said, obviously uneasy. 'I've got something to tell you in connection with that. You've got the wrong man.'
'What do you know about it?'
'It was me who called you about the suitcase,' Gunwald said. 'And I left something out. It wasn't Goran I saw out at Norevann.'
Sejer's eyes widened.
'You saw who it was?'
