Tobias frowned at me. I explained what had happened. He didn’t seem particularly interested.

‘You owe me a Playstation controller, too.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Like shit,’ he said.

I nodded.

He seemed angry. With himself? Or with the doctors who’d treated him? Or me, just because I was there? Or maybe he was simply angry at the world. It wasn’t easy to tell.

‘Is there anything you need?’ I asked. ‘A glass of water or something?’

He shook his head.

There was a chair beside the bed, so I sat down. His hair was greasy, but the spots on his face seemed to have dried up a bit. I didn’t know how to ask the questions I needed answers to, but I had to do it, some way or another.

‘We’ve been in touch with the police,’ I said. ‘They won’t come by today.’

Tobias looked down at the bedclothes again. I didn’t know what he was looking at – his eyes were vacant.

‘But I think you can expect some company tomorrow. One thing they want to know is why you wanted to talk to Mari on the night she was killed.’

I heard a man shouting somewhere in the hospital. Once, and then again.

‘I know about the texts you sent her.’

Tobias put his hands together, started to pick at his nails.

‘You know you have to answer, don’t you?’

‘So we’re there again, eh?’ Tobias said. His voice was calm, quiet. ‘You playing detective?’ He said it with contempt in his voice and without looking at me.

‘Why is it so strange that I want to know?’ I asked.

Tobias still didn’t want to meet my eye. He just let out a big sigh. T hen finally he said: ‘I’d helped her find some pictures of you. For the story about you and Dad.’

He explained the context, and I nodded. I already knew Mari’s motives for going behind my back like that.

‘I met her a week ago, something like that. You were at football practice.’

‘To give her the photos.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That’s all you did? You gave her the photos, and then you left?’

‘We talked for a little while, too.’

‘What about.’

‘You know, stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

‘I don’t know. School stuff. At some point there she starting talking about blood types.’

‘Blood types?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me? You were talking to Mari about blood types?’

‘She’d been studying them in school.’

‘I know that. But why did she talk to you about it?’

‘She wanted to know if I knew our dad’s.’

I looked at him. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really.’

‘Why did she want to know that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘I just thought she needed it for her story.’

‘Huh.’