Chapter 112
The account was near the back.
He told me to write to remember. I don’t know if I want to, but at the same time it’s all I ever do. Remember. I have nothing else left and soon I won’t even have that, if things go on like this.
So it began.
Filip described the party, the last time he saw his brother, how and when he left. He was concise:
I leave at one with Elina, I know that much.
The clock in the front hall shows one on the dot as we go.
Elina is drunk and laughing, imitating the clock hands with her arms. Like a dance, she said, arms over her head.
It’s a position from ballet. I don’t know if that’s true or if she’s just goofing around.
But anyway, that’s why I remember what time it is.
My brother is still at the party somewhere.
I don’t say goodbye, because I’ll see him at home.
“What are you thinking?”
Siri blinked. She couldn’t think, so she just said what she felt:
“It’s too specific.” She looked at Vidar. In the dark, his face was all angles and shadows, two glittering eyes. “His memory. Elina’s arms. It’s too specific to be misremembered. But also, it has to be wrong.”
“It probably isn’t.” Vidar tapped thoughtfully on Filip’s words.
“Filip heads out with Elina. We know that. And it happens at one o’clock.
He writes as much himself, and he even explains how he knows.
Or more accurately, it’s one at the earliest, because the clock fell off the wall and stopped, we know that too.
Pierre hasn’t fixed it yet, he doesn’t do that until he’s alone.
Which means they can’t possibly have left any earlier than one.
And Sander and Killian leave much later, all the witnesses agree.
How long would it have taken to walk from the party to the place where you found the car? ”
“At least half an hour,” Siri said.
“And Mikael was killed at one-thirty.”
Clocks spun before Siri’s eyes.
“But,” she said, “if Filip left with Elina at one o’clock at the earliest, and if we assume the clock has just fallen down, and Sander and Killian don’t leave the party until sometime later on, then Killian can’t be the one who…”
The timeline didn’t match up. Sander and Killian wouldn’t have made it to the scene of the murder.
“Killian didn’t kill Mikael,” Vidar said. He looked up at the house again, toward the front hall and the dead body lying there, the physical remains of a human. “And that only leaves one option.”
Vidar’s gaze lingered on the house as Adrian went back inside, his stride purposeful. After a moment he came out again, with a tight grip on Felicia’s arm. No handcuffs. He probably wanted to spare her.
Vidar studied her closely, as though her guilt should be visible in the shape of her.
“The witness,” Vidar said.