The Bat(39)

‘And were doing 110 kilometres an hour.’

‘In a 50 kph area. Well, the boy couldn’t be blamed of course. The point was how to present the case. Why should the family be told their son was a passenger? Would it be any better for the parents if their son was thought to be someone who passively allowed a drunken colleague to drive the car? The boss went through the arguments over and over again. My head ached so much I thought it was going to explode. In the end I leaned over the edge of the bed and was throwing up as the nurse charged in. The next day the Stiansen family came. The parents and a younger sister. They brought flowers and hoped I would soon be on the road to recovery. The father said he blamed himself because he hadn’t been strict enough with his son about speeding. I cried like a baby. Every second was like a slow execution. They sat with me for over an hour.’

‘God, what did you say to them?’

‘Nothing. They did all the talking. About Ronny. About all the plans he’d had, about what he was going to be and do. About his girlfriend, who was studying in America. He had mentioned me. Said I was a good police officer and a good friend. Someone you could trust.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I was in hospital for two months. The boss dropped by now and again. Once he repeated what he’d said before. “I know what you’re thinking. Stop it.” And this time he was right. I just wanted to die. Maybe there was a trace of altruism in keeping the truth hidden; lying in itself was not the worst part. The worst part was that I’d saved my own skin. This may sound odd, and I’ve mulled it over often enough, so let me explain.

‘In the fifties there was a young university lecturer called Charles Van Doren who was famous all over the USA for his appearances on a game show. Week after week he beat off all the challengers. The questions were at times unbelievably difficult and everyone was speechless with admiration that this guy could apparently answer all of them. He received marriage proposals in the post, he had his own fan club and his lectures at the university were packed, of course. In the end he announced publicly that the producers had given him all the questions beforehand.

‘When asked why he had exposed the scam he told them about an uncle who had admitted to his wife, Van Doren’s aunt, that he had been unfaithful. It had caused quite a stir in the family, and afterwards Van Doren had asked his uncle why he’d told her. The affair had taken place many years before, after all, and he hadn’t had any contact with the woman subsequently. The uncle had answered that being unfaithful hadn’t been the worst part. It was the getting away with it that he couldn’t hack. And so it was for Charles Van Doren as well.

‘I think people feel a kind of need for punishment when they can no longer accept their own actions. At any rate I yearned for it: to be punished, to be whipped, to be tortured, to be humiliated. Anything so long as I felt accounts were settled. But there was no one to punish me. They couldn’t even give me the boot; officially I’d been sober, hadn’t I. On the contrary, I received recognition from the Chief of Police in the press because I had been seriously injured on active service. So I punished myself instead. I gave myself the worst punishment I could think of: I decided to live and I decided to stop drinking.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘I got to my feet again and started working. Worked longer days than all the others. Trained. Went on long walks. Read books. Some on law. Stopped meeting bad friends. Good ones too, by the way. The ones I had left after all the boozing. I don’t know why in fact, it was like a big clean-up. Everything in my old life had to go, good as well as bad. One day I sat down and rang round all those I thought I had known in my former life and said: “Hi, we can’t meet any more. It was nice knowing you.” Most accepted it. A couple were even glad, I suppose. Some maintained I was walling myself in. Well, they may have been right. For the last three years I’ve spent more time with my sister than anyone else.’

‘And the women in your life?’

‘That’s another story and at least as long. And as old. After the accident there’s been no one worth the breath. I suppose I’ve become a lone wolf preoccupied with my own concerns. Who knows, I might simply have been more charming when I was drunk.’

‘Why did they send you here?’

‘Someone high up must think I’m useful. Probably it’s a kind of acid test to see how I function under pressure. If I manage this without making an arsehole of myself it may open certain possibilities for me back home, I’ve gleaned.’