Through a narrow window, just below the ceiling, he can see a patch of sky. It is grey. A heavy grey, heavy with snow. Soon it will snow, he sees it, smells it, for the final time this year it will snow.
He told them everything, those police officers, but they are stupid, they don’t understand. They ask the wrong questions, interrupt him, probe at the wrong times, and ignore him at critical points. They don’t listen to a word he says. He can’t talk to them.
They haven’t let him keep anything, not even his syringes. A doctor comes to his cell to give him insulin in the exact dosage. They take his blood regularly, they don’t want to get anything wrong.
He stretches out on the plank bed, the snowy sky outside soothes him.
It is over. He must accept that his life is at an end.
For half of his life he perceived his own body as his worst enemy. Since then he is aware just how rarely man realises his potential so long as he is trapped inside his body. To achieve his true essence, man must free himself from that body, must leave it behind. And he can do so only in art. Or in death.
He knows because he has fused the two together.
And he regrets nothing.
Only that they didn’t let him finish his final work; it would have been better than ever.
Perfect.
Why have they locked him up, he who can make people immortal – while Betty Winter’s killer, who desecrated her and deprived her of her immortality, is allowed to roam free?
He doesn’t understand. And they don’t understand him. Nothing he has told them, nothing he has done. You can’t talk to them.
And if you have nothing to say you should remain silent.
He hears steps and the metallic jangle of a key ring. The lock squeaks, turning in fits and starts, and the door opens. They have come to take him again. They don’t realise he is already dead.