Wilhelm stared at Harry. That is, he was staring in Harry’s direction, but his eyes were fixed on a point a lot further away.

‘That’s what we call forensic evidence,’ Harry said.

‘I understand.’ Wilhelm nodded slowly. ‘Forensic evidence.’

‘Yes.’

‘A specific, irrefutable fact?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Judges and juries love that sort of thing, don’t they. It’s better than a confession, isn’t it, Harry.’

The policeman nodded.

‘A farce, Harry. I thought it was all a farce. People rushing on stage and then off again. I made sure we stayed on the terrace so that the neighbours over the way would see us before I asked Lisbeth to come into the bedroom with me where I took a gun out of the toolbox and she stared – yes, just like in a farce – with widening eyes at the long barrel with the silencer.’

Wilhelm took his hand out from underneath the duvet. Harry stared at the gun with the black lump round the barrel, which was now pointed at him.

‘Sit down, Harry.’

Harry felt the chisel sticking into his side as he dropped down onto the chair again.

‘She misunderstood me in the most amusing way. It would have been such poetic justice. To have her riding on my hand as I ejaculated hot lead into where she’d let him come.’

Wilhelm got up from the bed, which rippled and gurgled behind him.

‘But the essence of farce is speed, speed, so I was forced to arrange a hasty departure.’

He stood up naked in front of Harry and raised the gun.

‘I placed the mouth of the gun against her forehead. She frowned in surprise as she always did when she thought the world was unjust or simply confusing. Like the evening I told her about Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion on which My Fair Lady is based. In it, Eliza Doolittle does not marry Professor Higgins, the man who trained her and transformed her from a market girl into a well-mannered young woman. Instead she runs off with young Freddy. Lisbeth was furious and said that Eliza owed that much to the professor, and that Freddy was a dull person of no consequence. Do you know what, Harry? I started crying.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Harry whispered.

‘Apparently,’ Wilhelm said gravely. ‘What I’ve done is monstrous. There’s none of the control you find in people motivated by hatred. I’m just a simple man who has followed the dictates of his heart. And it dictates love, the love that is given to us by God and makes us God’s instrument. Weren’t the prophets and Jesus thought to be crazy, too, perhaps? Of course we’re crazy, Harry. Crazy, and yet the sanest on this earth. When people say that what I’ve done is insane, that my heart must be crippled inside, then I say: Whose heart is more crippled, the heart that cannot stop loving or the one that is loved but cannot return that love?’

A long silence ensued. Harry cleared his throat.

‘And so you shot her?’

Wilhelm nodded slowly.

‘There was a little lump in her forehead,’ he said with surprise in his voice. ‘And a little black hole. Just as when you hammer a nail into sheet metal.’

‘And then you concealed her. In the only place even a police dog would not find her.’

‘It was hot in the flat.’ Wilhelm had fixed his gaze somewhere above Harry’s head. ‘A fly was buzzing by the window, and I took all my clothes off so that I wouldn’t get any blood on them. Everything was carefully laid out in the toolbox. I used the pincers to cut off the middle finger of her left hand. Then I undressed her, took out the silicon foam spray and quickly sealed the bullet hole, the wound on her finger and all the other orifices of her body. I had let some water out of the bed earlier in the day so that it was only half full. I hardly spilled a drop as I stuffed her in through the hole I’d cut in the mattress. Then I sealed it again with glue, rubber and a heat gun. It went a lot better than the first time.’

‘And she’s been there ever since? Buried in her own waterbed?’

‘No, no,’ Wilhelm said, staring thoughtfully at the point above Harry’s head. ‘I didn’t bury her. On the contrary, I put her back in a womb. That was the start of her rebirth.’

Harry knew that he ought to be frightened. That it would be dangerous not to be frightened now, that his mouth should be dry and he should feel his heart thumping. He ought not to be feeling this exhaustion creeping up on him.

‘And you shoved the severed finger up your anus,’ Harry said.

‘Hm,’ Wilhelm said. ‘The perfect hiding place. As I said, I thought you would use dogs.’

‘There are other places that don’t give off a smell, but perhaps that gave you a perverse thrill? What did you do with Camilla Loen’s finger, by the way? The one you cut off before you killed her.’

‘Camilla, yes…’ Wilhelm nodded with a smile as if it were a happy memory Harry had revived. ‘That will have to remain a secret between her and me, Harry.’

Wilhelm released the safety catch. Harry swallowed.

‘Give me the gun, Wilhelm. It’s all over. There’s no point.’

‘Of course there’s a point.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘The same as always, Harry. The performance has to have a decent ending. You don’t think that the audience will be fobbed off with me going quietly, do you? We need a grand finale, Harry. A happy ending. If there isn’t a happy ending, I make one. That’s my…’

‘Motto in life,’ Harry whispered.

Wilhelm smiled and put the gun to Harry’s temple. ‘I was going to say, my motto in death.’

Harry closed his eyes. All he wanted was to sleep. To be carried down to a gently flowing river. And over to the other side.

Rakel twitched and thrust open her eyes.

She had been dreaming about Harry. They had been aboard a boat.

The bedroom was in the dark. Had she heard something? Had something happened?

She listened to the rain drumming reassuringly onto the roof. For safety’s sake she checked that her mobile phone, which lay on the bedside table, was switched on. In case he phoned.

She closed her eyes. Flowed gently onwards.

Harry had lost track of time. When he opened his eyes he had the impression the light was different in the empty room, and he had no idea whether a second or a minute had passed.

The bed was empty. Wilhelm was gone.

The sounds of water returned. The rain. The shower.

Harry struggled to his feet and stared at the blue mattress. He felt as if something was crawling inside his clothes. In the light from the bedside table he could see the contours of a human body inside the waterbed. The face had floated up and formed a mould like a plaster cast.

He left the bedroom. The door to the terrace was wide open. He glanced over the railing and down into the yard. He trod wet footprints on the white staircase as he walked down to the lower floor. He opened the bathroom door. The silhouette of a woman’s body was outlined against the window behind the grey shower curtain. Harry drew it to the side. Toya Harang’s neck was bent towards the stream of water, her chin almost touching her chest. A black stocking was tied round her neck and the top of the shower tap. Her eyes were closed and drops of water hung from the long, black lashes. Her mouth was half open and filled with a yellow mass, like hardened foam. The same material filled her nostrils, ears and the small hole in her temple.

He turned off the shower before he left.

There was no-one around on the stairs.

Harry put one foot carefully in front of the other. He felt numb, as if his body were turning to stone.

Bjarne Moller.

He had to ring Bjarne Moller.

Harry went through the entrance hall and into the yard. The rain settled on his head, but he didn’t feel it. Soon he would be totally paralysed. The rotary dryer was not screeching any longer. He avoided looking at it. He caught sight of a yellow packet on the tarmac and went over to it. He opened it, pulled out a cigarette and shoved it into his mouth. He tried to light it with his lighter but discovered that the end of the cigarette was wet. Water must have got into the packet.