Someone to Watch Over Me (17 page)

She had just one name left when Matthew came up behind her and stroked her hair. She could smell his aftershave. She took hold of his hand and brought it to her lips, but as she turned to him she spied her mother, wearing a dressing gown that Thóra remembered from her childhood home. Even the belt, which was tied tightly around her waist, was showing signs of wear. In places the material had worn through to little more than threads, revealing a red, full-length velvet nightdress that looked as if it could melt icebergs. The effects of the aftershave instantly vanished.

‘How’s it going? Should I make us some coffee?’ Thóra’s mother smiled at them and walked purposefully into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. Shortly afterwards they heard her humming a tune that sounded familiar, but impossible to place. From the garage came the sound of Thóra’s father whistling the same melody.

This was going to be an interesting living arrangement; maybe now wasn’t a bad time for her to make an appointment for that bikini wax …

Margeir woke up miserable and thought at first that he was hungover. His mind struggled to orient itself. He felt as if he must have drunk an enormous quantity of something – a whole box of cheap white wine, maybe even two. But then his head cleared and he remembered that he hadn’t drunk a drop. His headache was caused by something else. He opened his eyes carefully and avoided lifting his head from the pillow. He lay like that for a few moments, staring at the bedroom window, which was shut tight. The air in the room was thick and heavy and even though he should have long been impervious to it, his nostrils burned with each inhalation, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. In order to do so, he had to push away the thought of the poisonous grey cloud slipping past his teeth and tongue before running along his soft palate and down into his lungs. He felt nauseous and tried to gather the strength to stand up and open the window. Why was it closed, anyway? Margeir always slept with it wide open, whatever the weather. If he could have, he’d have removed the outer wall during the night and allowed the clear, cold air to waft around him. He must have either forgotten to open the window or shut it sometime during the night.

He reached for his alarm clock and turned it towards him. It was the clock radio his brother had given him as a Christmas present, thinking it appropriate since Margeir worked at a radio station. It was now nearly
9
.
30
a.m., which was about what he’d expected. He felt so rotten that he couldn’t even tell if he was still tired. But the fog in his head was starting to clear and he could finally remember when he’d gone to sleep and what he’d been doing. There had been no drinking involved. He had rented a film from the corner shop, and when that had finished he had sat for two hours watching trashy TV. He hadn’t gone to sleep until nearly three, which was not that late for him. Most single men his age were probably awake longer than he was on weekends, and the thought bothered him. This winter had been different to all the previous ones, and his desire to go out and have fun had vanished slowly but surely. All the good feelings alcohol used to stir in him now seemed so hollow and false; smiling and laughing ran completely contrary to how he felt. His job undoubtedly contributed to his misery; he had the whole disappointed, disillusioned nation on the line. When he felt this crappy, he simply had no desire to try to enjoy himself. He felt nothing but relief the first time he declined to go out on the town with his friends, and from that point on there was no going back; it became easier and easier just to stay at home. They had long since stopped calling him.

The alarm on the bedside table suddenly went off and Margeir stared at the device as his own voice blared out of it. It was a repeat of his show from the day before. For a second he felt as if he’d turned on the radio with his mind, but then he realized what had actually happened. He knew it was pathetic, but until things got better and he found a day job he didn’t want to get into the habit of sleeping late. So he got up and attempted to occupy himself with something, every day of the week. Eight o’clock on weekdays and nine thirty on weekends.

His head felt lighter and the throbbing pain in his neck had dulled. He raised himself onto his elbows and sat up. The sooner he opened the window, the better. With the same technique that he used when jumping into a cold pool, he got to his feet without thinking or hesitating and took the two steps to the window. The latch was stiff but he finally managed to wrench the window open and suck in the pure, ice-cold air.

‘Who is this?’ His voice sounded lifeless in the worn-out mono radio behind him. ‘Don’t call if you’re just going to breathe into the receiver.’

Margeir felt a chill run through his body but he didn’t know whether it was because his lungs were now full of fresh, cold air or whether the repeat of the telephone call from the previous night’s show was making him uncomfortable.

‘Just wait. Just wait.’ If he sounded a bit lacklustre on the radio, the voice of the person he was speaking to was completely lifeless. Hearing it now, he was certain it had been tampered with, probably via some sort of program that could be downloaded from the Internet. There was a particular mechanical tone to the voice that was even more apparent on the little radio than it had been through the station’s telephone the previous evening. His own voice sounded again and his agitation was obvious to him, although others would hardly have noticed it … hopefully. He sounded arrogant and offhand: ‘For what? For you to get to the point? What’s on your mind, friend?’

‘The reckoning.’

‘What reckoning?’ Now the fake toughness was gone from Margeir’s voice. It had become clear to him that this was the weirdo who had started calling in on almost every show. If this continued, it could be called harassment, but Margeir wasn’t certain the police would agree, nor could he see how a telephone restraining order would be implemented. Especially since Margeir would never involve the police in this. Not if the nutter on the telephone was insinuating what Margeir suspected he was.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Justice finds everyone in the end.’ Loud inhalation, long exhalation. ‘And there’s no escape.’ The caller hung up and a loud dialling tone followed, until the engineer realized Margeir wasn’t going to add anything clever and put on a song.

His headache was growing steadily more intense. Margeir sat carefully back down on his bed. Sinking slowly into his pillow, he turned off the radio, though he actually longed to push it off the table. As he did so, he spotted his mobile phone lying next to the radio and reached for it thinking perhaps he remembered the phone having woken him in the night. As he fiddled with the buttons in search of calls that he might have missed he suddenly remembered what had happened: he had received a text, a message from ja.is that had disturbed his pleasant sleep and troubled him enough to make him get up, go to the window and shut and lock it. Although he was in no mood to read the message again, his fingers ran over the keys and opened the text, completely against his will.

The reckoning is coming. Is there someone outside?

Monday mornings were frequently chaotic at the office. It was as if they all had difficulty registering that the weekend was over and a new work week was starting. They wandered in and out of their offices as if they were trying to remember what they were supposed to be doing, or hoping that one more cup of coffee would get their brains in gear. Thóra was no exception, least of all this Monday; work was the last thing she wanted to do.

She had realized when she started awake at the sound of the alarm that she was alone in the bed. That hadn’t particularly surprised her; generally Matthew woke long before she did, went out for a run and was nearly halfway through it by the time she came to her senses. Today, however, he had not only already returned but had also taken a shower and was neatly dressed and ready for the day. He stood at the end of the bed, staring pleadingly at her. ‘You have to take me with you to work. I’ll do anything. I’ll even help Bella.’ Thóra rubbed the sleep from her eyes and muttered something garbled that could have been interpreted as neither yes nor no. ‘I simply cannot bear another minute of your father’s whistling. I’ll get used to it, I know, but right now it’s driving me nuts.’

She let him come with her to work. Thóra’s parents saw to getting the kids up, giving them breakfast and sending them to school, so she managed to get ready more quickly than usual. The expansion of the household did have its advantages, and Thóra bid her parents goodbye with a kiss, feeling exceptionally happy with life despite the whistling that drifted out after them as they left the house. It didn’t hurt that Matthew had already got the car ready. This was one of Thóra’s least favourite jobs, maybe because she usually ended up with her arms full of snow. Although the garage had been full of boxes and there had been no immediate plans to tackle the clearing-out project, she’d always held onto the notion of parking the car in it one day. This distant dream, which frequently popped into her head on cold winter mornings, was now a thing of the past – for the next two months at least.

Thóra’s restlessness couldn’t, therefore, be attributed to the morning having started badly. She simply hated the fact that the weekend had somehow unexpectedly turned into a new work week. Until she could properly get into gear, she would just have to occupy herself with something; the only question was what that might actually be. She couldn’t get started on any of the cases awaiting her so she scrolled through her e-mails in search of messages that she’d forgotten or had left to answer later. But even that was problematic and in the end she gave up and shut down her e-mail altogether. She still had to go over the firm’s unpaid bills, but that would have to wait until the afternoon, or even tomorrow morning. She needed to do something more creative, or more exciting, until midday, by which time she would have regained her vigour.

Thóra turned away from the computer and the stack of bills. Matthew lay on a little sofa at the other end of the office, his feet hanging over one of the arms and a laptop on his knees, doubtless reading the news from home. After the weekend, it had crossed Thóra’s mind that perhaps they should shut themselves in the office in order to have a little time to themselves, but looking at how Matthew’s frame filled the sofa, the idea seemed suddenly less feasible. Besides, the lock on the door would never keep Bella out if she were in the mood to disturb them.

Thóra crumpled an empty, torn envelope into a ball and threw it gently at Matthew to draw his attention away from his computer. ‘How would you like to pop up to the Ministry of Justice with me to check whether the father of the autistic boy can be persuaded to tell me something? We can stop off at a café and have a restorative drink.’

Matthew caught the ball and looked as though he was considering tossing it back, but eventually decided against it. ‘Coffee sounds wonderful. That swill you serve in the lobby is completely undrinkable.’ Matthew grimaced at the cup resting on the coffee table in front of him. It had stopped steaming soon after the first sip. ‘If I didn’t know any better I might have thought you’d used the grounds twice.’ He stood up. ‘Not that that would be completely unheard of in this office.’ He tossed the crumpled paper at Thóra, hitting her on top of her head. ‘One-all.’

The ministry was located on Skuggasund Street – from
skuggi
, ‘shadow’ – and it was impossible not to wonder how the street had got its name. The area didn’t look particularly dark or shadowy, and besides, the street had been given the name before the buildings were put up. Maybe the namer had had the foresight to realize that the buildings on both sides of the street would shed prominent shadows across the site where the ministry stood. Or perhaps the name had been given because the street had been condemned to stand in the eternal shadow of the National Theatre. In any case, as soon as they entered the ministry’s interior, things brightened up, but as they moved further into the building, a peculiar sensation descended on Thóra again; now it felt as if they’d gone back many decades in time, since the building’s architecture bore such strong witness to the middle of the previous century. However, this feeling vanished when they were shown into the office corridor after the boy’s father had told the receptionist that he would see them. In the corridor, they could have been standing in absolutely any contemporary building; they walked past one office after another, all kitted out in the same style: a desk with a computer and a clunky telephone, the walls lined with stuffed IKEA bookshelves. When they reached the right office they expected it to be like all the others, but they were wrong; this one was much larger and more luxurious.

‘Please come in.’ Einvarður Tryggvason rose from his massive office chair and walked over to them. His voice was gentle and deep, his handshake firm and his hands soft. His whole appearance was spotless, in fact: his dark, elegant suit appeared to shine and it was as if he’d just got up from the barber’s chair after a haircut and a close shave. His smile revealed white teeth that weren’t completely straight, but which gave him a character that defined the difference between a good-looking ‘real’ person and a model. Strange as it might have seemed, it was precisely this imperfection that made him appear perfect. It struck Thóra how well this man would fit into politics and she wondered why he’d chosen the bureaucratic system rather than parliament or a ministerial position.

‘I was extremely glad when they told me you wanted to see me,’ Tryggvason continued, ‘because I’d heard that Jakob’s case was being reinvestigated, and your name was mentioned in connection with that.’ He smiled politely at Matthew. ‘But I’ve heard nothing about you.’

Thóra introduced Matthew by saying that he assisted her with various assignments and was bound to the same confidence as she was. She then added that in both their cases, however, that confidence came with the caveat that if anything came to light demonstrating or supporting Jakob’s innocence, it would be used in the report she’d submit with her petition to reopen the case. The man’s expression didn’t change and he said he had no objections to that; everyone surely wanted the case to be resolved and for the right man to bear the responsibility. Thóra did notice a shadow cross his smooth face when he spoke of the criminal and realized that behind the formal, polished courtesy lay an individual who, naturally, felt anger, happiness, sorrow and all the other emotions that shape a personality. ‘Have a seat and I shall answer whatever I can, as long as the questions are within the bounds of propriety.’ He followed this with yet another Colgate smile, but his eyes were no longer twinkling. ‘I’ve requested coffee for us, but if you would rather have tea I can fix that.’