‘Bravo,’ Harry said and ran his finger across wet eyebrows.

He felt as if there was damp and condensation everywhere, as if the water was driving in through the walls, through the roof from the terrace, and then there was the shower.

‘But everything you’ve told me up to now I’d worked out for myself, Wilhelm. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me about your wife. What did you do with her? The neighbours saw you on the terrace at regular intervals, so how did you manage to get her out of the flat and hide her before we came?’

Wilhelm smiled.

‘You’re not saying anything,’ Harry said.

‘For a play to retain some of its mystique the author should refrain from explaining too much.’

Harry sighed.

‘OK, but be so kind as to explain this much to me. Why did you make it so complicated? Why couldn’t you have simply killed Sven Sivertsen? You had the chance in Prague. It would’ve been less bother and much safer than killing three innocent people in addition to your wife.’

‘First of all, I needed a scapegoat. If Lisbeth had disappeared and the case was never cleared up, everyone would have thought it was me. Because it’s always the husband, isn’t it, Harry? But primarily I did it this way because love is a thirst, Harry. It needs to drink. Water. A thirst for revenge. It’s a good expression, isn’t it? You know what I’m talking about, Harry. Death is no revenge. Death is a delivery, a happy ending. What I wanted to make for Sven Sivertsen was a true tragedy, suffering without end. And I’ve achieved that. Sven Sivertsen has become one of the restless spirits wandering along the banks of the River Styx and I’m the ferryman, Charon, who refuses to ferry him across to the kingdom of the dead. Is that all Greek to you? I sentenced him to life, Harry. He’ll be consumed by hatred as it consumed me. Hating without knowing whom you hate makes you turn your hatred onto yourself, onto your own miserable fate. That’s what happens when you’re betrayed by the one you love. Sitting behind lock and key, sentenced for something you don’t know you did. Can you imagine a better revenge, Harry?’

Harry rummaged in his pocket to see if the chisel was still there.

Wilhelm chuckled. The next thing he said gave Harry a sense of deja vu.

‘You don’t need to answer, Harry. I can see it in your face.’

Harry closed his eyes and listened to Wilhelm’s voice rumbling on.

‘You’re no different from me. It’s passion that drives you, too. And passion, like lust, always finds…’

‘… the lowest level.’

‘The lowest level. But now I think it’s your turn, Harry. What’s this proof you were talking about? Is it anything I should be concerned about?’

Harry opened his eyes again.

‘First you’ll have to tell me where she is, Wilhelm.’

Wilhelm gave a low laugh and placed a hand against his heart.

‘She’s here.’

‘You’re blathering,’ Harry said.

‘If Pygmalion was capable of loving Galatea, the statue of a woman he had never met, why could I not love a statue of my wife?’

‘I don’t follow you, Wilhelm.’

‘You don’t have to, Harry. I know it isn’t easy for others to understand.’

In the silence which followed, Harry could hear the water beating down in the shower downstairs with undiminished force. How would he get this woman out of the flat without losing control of the situation?

Wilhelm’s deep voice blended into a blur of sounds.

‘The mistake was that I thought it was possible to bring the statue back to life again. But the person who was to do that refused to understand. That illusion is stronger than what we call reality.’

‘Who are you talking about now?’

‘The other one. The living Galatea, the new Lisbeth. She panicked and threatened to ruin everything. Now I can see that I’ll have to be content with living with the statue. But that’s fine.’

Harry could feel something was on its way up. It was cold and came from his stomach.

‘Have you ever felt a statue, Harry? It’s quite remarkable how the skin of a dead person feels. It’s not really warm, and it’s not really cold.’

Wilhelm stroked the blue mattress.

Harry could feel the cold freezing his insides, as if someone had given him an injection of ice water. He felt his throat constrict when he said: ‘You know you’re finished, don’t you?’

Wilhelm stretched out across the bed.

‘Why should I be, Harry? I’m just a storyteller who’s told you a story. You can’t prove a thing.’

He stretched over for something on the bedside table. There was a flash of metal and Harry’s muscles went taut. Wilhelm raised it in the air. A wristwatch.

‘It’s late, Harry. Shall we say visiting time is over? It doesn’t matter if you go before she’s out of the shower.’

Harry didn’t move. ‘Finding the killer was only half the promise you made me make, Wilhelm. The other half was that I should punish him. Severely. And I think you meant it. Part of you is longing to be punished, isn’t that right?’

‘Freud has passed its sell-by date, Harry. Just like this visit.’

‘Don’t you want to hear the proof first?’

Wilhelm sighed with irritation.

‘If it’ll make you leave, go on.’

‘I really should have known everything when we received Lisbeth’s finger with the diamond ring in the post. Third finger on the left hand. Vena amoris. She was the one the murderer wanted to love him. Paradoxically enough, it was also this finger that gave him away.’

‘Gave away…’

‘To be precise, the excrement under the nail…’

‘With my blood. Yes, but that’s old news, Harry. And I’ve already explained that we liked to…’

‘Yes, and when we found that out, the excrement was investigated more carefully. Usually this does not reveal a great deal. The food we eat takes twelve to twenty-four hours to travel from mouth to rectum and in the course of this time the stomach and the network of intestines has turned the food into an unrecognisable waste product. So unrecognisable that even under the microscope it is difficult to determine what a person has eaten. Nevertheless, there are still some things that manage to pass through the digestive tract unscathed. Grape pips and -’

‘Can you skip the lecture, Harry?’

‘Seeds. We found two seeds. Nothing special about that. So it was only today, when I realised who the killer might be, that I asked the laboratory to examine the seeds closer. And do you know what they found?’

‘No idea.’

‘There was a complete fennel seed.’

‘So what?’

‘I had a chat with the chef at the Theatre Cafe. You were right when you told me that it was the only place in Norway where they make fennel bread with complete seeds. It goes so well with -’

‘Herring,’ Wilhelm said. ‘You know I eat there. What are you getting at?’

‘Earlier you said that the Wednesday Lisbeth disappeared you had herring for breakfast at the Theatre Cafe as usual. Somewhere between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. What I’m wondering is how the seed got from your stomach to under Lisbeth’s nail.’

Harry waited to be sure that Wilhelm was taking everything in.

‘You said that Lisbeth had left the flat at about five o’clock. So, around eight hours after you ate herring for breakfast. Suppose that the last thing you did before she went out was to make love and she penetrated you with her finger. However efficiently your intestines worked they would not have been able to shift the fennel seed to your rectum within eight hours. It’s a medical impossibility.’

Harry noticed a slight twitch in Wilhelm’s open-mouthed face as he enunciated the word ‘impossibility’.

‘The earliest the fennel seed could have reached the rectum is at nine o’clock. So you must have had Lisbeth’s finger inside you at some point in the evening, the night or the following day. All after you had reported her missing. Do you understand what I’m saying, Wilhelm?’