So Cecilie had to spend the night there after all. I was driven to A amp; E by Hans who had only just managed to squeeze himself in behind the wheel of the Mini. There, they confirmed a bad strain and a pulled muscle in my right arm, but as the on-duty doctor laconically added: ‘If you hadn’t grabbed hold of the railing, things could have been a lot worse for you.’
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Hans had asked me on the way there.
‘Don’t ask me! But it’s given me something to mull over…’
Again and again I went back over the absurd moment when I lost my footing and lurched down the stairs. I struck out blindly with my right arm, grabbed hold of the railing, lost my grip, got hold of another support, gripped and held on so tightly that I broke my fall but pulled a muscle in my arm, which felt as if it had come out of the socket and would never settle back.
For a second or two I seemed to have passed out. Then I heard Cecilie from above: ‘Varg! Are you alright?’ — and Hans come charging out of the vestibule office: ‘What the hell’s going on?’
I turned over and crawled up into a kneeling position before slowly getting to my feet. I looked up the stairs. There were Cecilie and Jan standing together. She was holding his arms tight while both stared down at me as if they had seen a ghost.
I met Jan’s gaze. It was black with fury.
‘But, Johnny, I thought we were friends.’
‘I hate you! I hate you!’ he screamed, his face bright red.
‘Now, now… Don’t say that,’ Cecilie said in a consoling tone of voice, but who she was consoling I was not at all sure. ‘Come on…’
She led Jan back into the bedroom while Hans supported me out of the building and to my car. When A amp; E were finished with me, he said: ‘I can drive you home, Varg. I don’t live that far away.’
‘Well, I’m not going to say no. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to change gear at this moment.’
That night I slept even worse. I lay brooding until the early hours, and when I did finally fall asleep I was drawn into a nightmarish dream where once again I mixed up Jan with Thomas, and on waking I was confused as to which of them kept pushing me down the steep stairs again and again. And the matter was not made any better by Beate replacing Cecilie at the top of the staircase, with a gloating expression on her face: What did I say? Even this is too much for you!
In the end, when I got up, my whole body hurt and a headache was pounding away behind my forehead. I rang the office and explained the situation to them. They wished me all the best and said I shouldn’t concern myself about Jan. They had already conferred with Cecilie and relief was on its way. ‘Besides Hans Haavik already has competent staff out there, so everything is in hand, Varg,’ they comforted.
A little later Cecilie rang and said the same.
‘And what about you, what are you doing?’ I asked.
‘After two nights at my post I will be taking a day off, at home,’ she said. ‘And you relax,’ she added with an undertone I thought I recognised from the other woman with whom I had shared the last years of my life, intonation that bespoke mistrust and scepticism.
‘And Jan, did he say anything — afterwards?’
‘No. He fell into a kind of coma. Hans is getting Marianne out there this morning, and then it’s up to her. I’m afraid it will be hospitalisation. But you…’
‘Yes?’ There was another sound in my head, as if I were in a concrete cellar.
‘Neither Hans nor I have mentioned a word of this to the — police. But perhaps you ought to contact them yourself. I mean… with reference to what he said to you on Tuesday.’
‘Yes… I’ll see.’
For an instant I could see them all together. Vibecke Skarnes and Jens Langeland. Mette Olsen and Terje Hammersten. Hans Haavik and Cecilie. Jan coming towards me like a torpedo: I hate you! I hate you! And what he had said to me on Tuesday: Mummy did it.
In my mind I balanced them against one another: Mette Olsen with or without Terje Hammersten in one pan of the scales and Vibecke Skarnes in the other.
I had only a vague image of Svein Skarnes from a black and white family photo. After forcing down a skimpy breakfast, I decided to do something about just that.