Someone to Watch Over Me (10 page)

Thóra put down her pen and proudly looked over her drawing of the residence’s floor plan. It certainly wouldn’t win any architectural awards but she was enormously proud of the outcome all the same, since what mattered to her was to mark each apartment with the name of its resident. That had proved extremely difficult, because more often than not she’d been forced to use the testimonies of many different individuals to place each one. She would find out in due course whether her hard work would be of any use. Contemplatively, she ran her index finger along the plan of the house, through all the apartments, vaguely feeling the tiny indents that the pen had left in the paper. Rather like the tracks those young people had left behind, she thought – tracks in the memories of those who loved them, that would become less and less noticeable over time and would disappear completely as the residents’ relatives died. Thóra lifted her finger from the paper and cleared her mind. These melancholy thoughts would be of no help to her in solving the case and she had already spent more time on the drawing than she could afford. This wasn’t the only case that she was working on; of course it was highly unusual, but it was complicated enough without her losing herself in its emotional aspects.

One of the things that troubled her was that Jakob had occupied the apartment next to Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir, the young pregnant woman. Although even the furthest apart flats weren’t that far from each other, Thóra still felt this was a bad omen; Jakob would have been able to get to the woman’s apartment in a matter of seconds. To make matters worse, there were very few other residents who could possibly have been the child’s father; five out of six apartments had been occupied, with only three men: Jakob, Natan Úlfheiðarson and Tryggvi Einvarðsson. Natan had been the heavily medicated epileptic, and Tryggvi had been severely autistic and, according to the court records, generally never left his room. Neither seemed likely to have had intercourse with the girl, although Thóra knew this assessment might be completely wrong. Hopefully someone would be able to answer this question unequivocally. Perhaps the paternity had been determined but not mentioned in the records out of respect for the deceased and her family; perhaps she’d had a boyfriend; perhaps she’d been impregnated by someone who came to visit her. The possibilities were endless; what mattered was to find the right explanation and pray that it had nothing to do with Jakob.

Before Thóra had started her drawing she’d spoken to one of the centre’s neighbours, the one who had reported the fire, but hadn’t gleaned much from their conversation. The woman had answered her questions and Thóra had had to listen to her complaints about how awful it was to live in such a ghost town; construction of the proposed preschool had been postponed indefinitely, forcing her and her husband to find one in town for their two children. The snow was rarely cleared and when it was, it was done badly; the same went for the bin collections. The woman went on like this for some time before Thóra finally got the chance to bring up what she’d come to discuss. She was relieved when she eventually said goodbye to the woman, convinced by then that the couple’s testimony was credible; they’d simply been fast asleep and had probably been woken by the reverberations of the explosion, though neither of them had realized what it was. The only peculiar thing about the woman’s testimony was that she had specifically pointed out that the couple was used to sleeping through noises, such as loud traffic. Sometimes gangs of kids had been known to hang around the neighbourhood at night, especially at the weekends, but luckily that was now a thing of the past. They hadn’t seen anyone that night, and had noticed nothing unusual.

Now Thóra resolved to get down to business. She looked up the name of the centre’s director: Glódís Tumadóttir, which Thóra thought sounded a very bright and cheerful name. When she finally managed to get hold of the woman through the Ministry of Welfare, her voice sounded entirely at odds with the image that her name evoked. Glódís frequently sighed heavily, as if she bore all the sorrows of the world on her shoulders. After listening for half an hour to her complaints about the bustle of the Regional Office for the Disabled in Reykjavík, Thóra eventually managed to persuade her into a meeting, although the discussion was accompanied by a long and detailed report on how Glódís couldn’t give her more than about fifteen minutes, since naturally she’d have to get back to thanklessly slaving away at her understaffed workplace. Thóra wanted to scream when she finally hung up. She’d met far too many of these kinds of people, who felt that their wages didn’t match their great talent and who wallowed constantly in self-pity. She couldn’t be the only one who wanted to give them all a good smack in the hope of snapping them out of their self-appointed martyrdom. But that would have to wait for another time. In retrospect, she realized that underneath all the moaning, the woman had probably been worried or agitated about her call. Perhaps all the waffle about the unfairness of her job had been caused by nervous anxiety; after all, it couldn’t have been pleasant for Glódís to have to discuss the case again. She could have something to hide, but it might not be anything unnatural or suspicious; the young people who died had been her responsibility and although the home hadn’t been in operation for long, she must have had emotional ties to those who died. No doubt everything would become clearer when they met face to face.

Thóra’s mobile phone beeped, telling her that she’d received a text. The message was entirely unfathomable, and had again been sent from ja.is. She hoped it wasn’t some idiot who’d entered a friend’s number wrongly, and was now using her number by mistake. If that was the case, then someone somewhere was asking an extremely important question:
How did Helena get burned as a child?
She felt momentarily spooked, given that the message mentioned fire, but she dismissed it as coincidence and shut her phone.

Bella hadn’t arrived yet though it was nearly ten o’clock, so Thóra scribbled a note to her to remember to order more paper for the photocopier. The chances of the secretary actually doing it were slender, but Thóra refused to let the young woman have the upper hand so she added hurriedly underneath:
Can’t pay your salary if I can’t print out a payslip
. Then she put on her coat and left. It was still snowing outside but now it was coming down faster and thicker, not at all like the gentle flurries of the previous evening. She’d have to hurry if she was going to scrape the ice and snow off her car and make it to Síðumúli in time for the short interview window Glódís had so kindly granted her.

A thick, heavy layer of snow covered the car and the slush underfoot made it difficult for her to stand close enough to be able to clear it off properly. This made her hand motions clumsy and Thóra was more or less covered with snow when she finally got behind the wheel and drove off. Along the way, ill-equipped cars caused endless delays as they spun their wheels and slid back and forth across the road while irritated drivers honked their horns.

Thóra decided not to join in the horn concerto and instead took the opportunity to call home and speak briefly to Matthew. He turned out to be on his way out for a run, which he did every day of the week except Sunday, whatever the weather. Thóra found this totally incomprehensible – the only time she might consider running would be away from a crazed murderer, in the unlikely event that one was after her. She hadn’t said as much to Matthew, however, since it seemed so important to him. She simply smiled to herself every time he suggested that she come with him, although her smile had faded somewhat when he gave her a pair of top-quality running shoes as a Christmas present. For the moment she could still use the weather as justification, but when spring came, the fear of breaking her leg on the ice would no longer be a viable excuse; instead she would have to admit that she had no interest in unnecessary physical labour or else come up with some other reason. She hadn’t been able to think of anything better than an allergy to bees, but it was still a long time until spring and she might come up with more credible ideas as the days got slowly longer. Thankfully, she didn’t need to go to the gym to keep her figure trim; she was slim by nature as well as tall, which meant that the extra kilos that occasionally came – and went, without any special effort – distributed themselves quite easily over her frame without being too noticeable.

She was very close to being late. When she finally pulled up in the car park, which was half buried in snow, her mind drifted to what Matthew had said before hanging up: that she should proceed carefully with her questions about the home. He hadn’t wanted to elaborate other than to say that handicaps and illnesses were sensitive topics and it was easy to hurt people, even if no harm were meant. He said that he suspected that those who took care of disabled individuals were even more sensitive to the way things were phrased than the individuals themselves. This did nothing to improve Thóra’s feelings of uncertainty on precisely this subject; despite having read through the case’s countless documents, she realized how poorly informed she still was about which terms were considered inappropriate when referring to the former inhabitants of the community residence and their circumstances. Despite Matthew’s warnings, she was relieved to speak first to a woman who had no blood connection to the residents; it was less likely that Thóra would offend her than a family member. Perhaps she could learn from this conversation and take in concepts and terminology that were thought appropriate. But she wouldn’t be able to avoid speaking to the relatives of the dead residents – if, in fact, they were willing to meet her – because most other sources of information about the centre had burned to ashes. They were under no obligation to speak to her, of course, and the fact that her client was the man whom they believed to be responsible for the deaths of their children didn’t exactly go in her favour. She didn’t need to go offending people with inappropriate comments on top of all that.

After clambering out of her tilted car, which was partly perched on a snowdrift, Thóra hurried inside. There a young woman received her very warmly; she was the complete opposite of Bella, and told her that the wait would be brief. Shortly afterwards, the same smiling girl announced to her that Glódís was available. She directed Thóra in and in a moment Thóra was seated in a chair in the woman’s extremely unassuming office.

‘My schedule has opened up a bit so we’re not quite so pressed for time.’ As she spoke, Glódís removed some completed application forms from her desk and stuck them in a folder. ‘The people that I was expecting cancelled their appointment. It happens often when the roads are like this. Which means, of course, that I’ll be absolutely swamped when the weather improves again, but there’s nothing we can do about that.’ The woman was about the same age as Thóra, but was even more tired-looking than Thóra considered herself to be. Her two-toned, off-blonde hair with black roots did little for her puffy, excessively made-up face. Overall, she looked like one of those women who’d been the prettiest girl in her class as a teenager, before the unkind ravages of time had set in. ‘So, how can I help you? You said that you were working for Jakob. I don’t quite know what I can do, exactly; my acquaintance with him was rather limited, as you know.’

Thóra nodded. ‘I was asked to investigate the case thoroughly, since there seems to be some doubt that Jakob was involved. I’m gathering evidence and information with a view to the case possibly being reopened by the Supreme Court.’

The woman’s expression hardened and she struggled to keep her tone pleasant. ‘What do you mean? What sort of doubt?’

Thóra decided not to tell Glódís who had instigated the new investigation. She knew that if she mentioned the paedophile, their conversation would be finished. So she worded it as vaguely as she could. ‘After reviewing the testimonies and other matters related to the verdict in the case, it appears to me that it was poorly prosecuted. It’s also possible that Jakob’s disability wasn’t fully taken into account. He appears to have been rather erratic throughout his testimony, probably not comprehending the seriousness of the case.’

‘All of the protocols were followed to the letter.’ Glódís’s lips had thinned disapprovingly. ‘The police sought our advice and we sent them a developmental therapist who assisted in the interrogations and everything relating to Jakob’s special circumstances. I don’t believe that it could have been handled any better.’

‘Maybe not; but nonetheless, the doubts that I mentioned do exist. It may well be that later on it will become clear that everything was concluded precisely as it should have been, but until then I must acquaint myself to the best of my ability with everything that might suggest the existence of reasonable doubt concerning Jakob’s guilt.’

‘I don’t see why.’ The woman was obviously offended and made no attempt to conceal it. ‘Jakob started the fire and killed those people. He has the intellectual maturity of a child, which means it isn’t possible to blame him for malicious intent, but he still should have known better and not done it. People with disabilities are not exempt from the obligations that human society lays on our shoulders, nor do they wish to be exempt. They want to live their lives on an equal footing with the rest of us, and they should be bound by the laws of our country.’

‘Then have you formed an opinion as to why he did this? Had he displayed violent tendencies before, or other behaviour to suggest that he was dangerous?’ Thóra was very keen to avoid allowing the conversation to get too general. If she allowed it to stray off the main subject, it would deteriorate into a monologue on the woman’s pet topics, which were of little interest to Thóra.

‘He wasn’t outwardly violent, perhaps, but he was angry and scared and completely opposed to any changes in his circumstances. Almost all the other residents were delighted with the care they received, but he was the odd one out.’

‘It’s my understanding that his mother was completely opposed to him moving there. Maybe that was the reason for his unhappiness?’ Perhaps there was more to it; something that Jakob’s mother didn’t know or wished to hide. ‘Yes, true. He was unhappy about having to move but he wasn’t given the chance to express his opinion. In the end he would have been just as satisfied as the others, once he realized how much better it was to be out from under the protective wing of his mother.’