Someone to Watch Over Me (31 page)

Thóra reached for Glódís’s list and looked up the name as she explained who she was and gave a brief summary of why she had been calling. It really didn’t matter which of the employees it was, her sales pitch would always be the same. Just as she finished her final sentence she found the woman’s name and her scrawled-down job title, which Thóra had found in the phone book. To her satisfaction she read that Linda was a developmental therapist. Judging from her voice she was older than Thóra, and she sounded calm and measured.

‘I don’t know whether I can be of any assistance, but if you want to drop by I’m happy to talk to you for a bit.’ Then she added: ‘I liked Jakob and I was never completely convinced that he was guilty, not looking back on it, anyway.’

Thóra accepted the woman’s offer with thanks and scribbled down her address, a home for disabled children in the western part of town. She hurried off so as not to miss Linda before she went home, but nevertheless took the time to correct Bella’s message, adding the word
brain
before
dokter’s
. Hopefully the note would still be there in the morning.

The home Linda worked in was nothing like the one Jakob had supposedly burned to the ground. That building had been stylish and modern, but this one appeared to have been there since the very start of this well-established neighbourhood. It didn’t look like a public building, except for the fact that the main door was unusually wide and there was a clearly marked parking space for the disabled in front of it. Thóra walked up to the ordinary-looking door and knocked, surprised that there was no doorbell. She immediately recognized Linda’s voice again when the woman greeted her. She had guessed her age correctly; Linda appeared to be approaching sixty, in good shape and with a warm smile. Her salt and pepper hair was clipped into a short bob, but despite her sombre clothes and hair the woman gave off an air of warmth and equanimity. ‘I’m not used to rushing to the door here but since I was expecting you, I was listening out. You don’t need to take your shoes off; the cleaners will be here after supper and the floor is in a bit of a state after all the comings and goings today, anyway.’

As soon as Thóra had crossed the threshold, any similarity this place might have had to a traditional home ended. The hall was much wider than usual for such an old house, and it looked as though a sledgehammer might have been used on some of the panelling. The floor was carpeted and the woman wasn’t exaggerating about how dirty it was. There were black streaks everywhere, probably from wheelchairs, and dirty shoe-prints trailed down the corridor before dis-appearing behind closed doors. ‘I have an office here where we can sit down. There’s often quite a lot of noise though it’s calm at the moment, so it’s better to be somewhere quiet if it all starts up again. Of course the building’s not designed for the type of work we do here, so nothing’s really what we might have hoped for. You get used to it.’

They walked past the open door of a large, bright room. In it were three children: a boy in a wheelchair who appeared abnormally bloated, as if from steroid use, a girl standing up in a kind of steel frame and another who sat upright at a table, staring fiercely at her plate, although it was difficult to tell what was bothering her. The other two looked in their direction as they walked by and smiled widely at Thóra. She waved and gave them her biggest smile in return, then had to hurry to catch up with Linda, who hadn’t slowed down. ‘Is this home like the one Jakob lived in?’ She felt more comfortable coming at it from this angle than starting with the care home that had burned down, even though it sounded a bit artificial.

‘No. This is a day-care centre, and it’s only for younger children. They can’t attend regular preschools or schools, but they still need education and stimulation that their parents can’t provide.’ Linda opened the door to a small but very tidy office. ‘This building is one of several that have been given to the state or the city for a specific purpose. In this case, it was stipulated that it was to be used in the service of disabled children. The couple that lived here had a disabled daughter, so they recognized the need. They died many years ago but the situation isn’t much better now than it was then. Not by a long shot.’

‘Things haven’t improved?’

‘Not really, no, but they are bearable. The need is greater than the resources can cover. Every year more multi-disabled or seriously developmentally impaired children are born. It’s impossible to provide them with all the assistance and intensive supervision they need, but of course we try our best. Unfortunately, some are neglected, but that’s the government’s problem, it’s not up to us carers. In the old days everyone was piled into just a few places, and most of them into a kind of healthcare institution, the old Kópavogur Sanatorium. No matter how bizarre it might sound today, its official name up until
1980
was the State Central Sanatorium for Idiots; so some progress has been made there, at least. Now everyone’s supposed to go to a community residence, but none of them are big enough in my opinion. When funds are scarce, many people are excluded. One person’s needs are met exhaustively, while someone else gets nothing.’

‘So it must have been a real blow when the centre burned down. I mean besides the fact that innocent people lost their lives there.’

‘Yes, you can say that again. The government and the local councils don’t insure their property, so no damages would have been paid. Given the current situation, there’ll be no rush to build a replacement centre anytime soon, certainly not in the next few years. And in the meantime, the number of people needing help only increases.’

‘It must be depressing to work under such conditions.’ Thóra let her eyes roam over some photographs of disabled children on the wall behind the woman. They all appeared happy, like the ones Thóra had greeted as she’d walked down the corridor.

‘Yes, if you can’t look past the niggles and focus on what’s in your power to change. I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve developed a thick skin, and very few things get to me. And it’s not all just sadness and misery here, like many people think. Most of the children here are fine; they’re happy, despite having to battle with problems other children couldn’t imagine. I’m confident they could even be described as happier than “normal” children the same age. To a large extent it’s about attitude, and computers have also narrowed the gap between disabled and non-disabled children a great deal. I know able-bodied kids who spend all day in front of a computer screen, making little use of the freedom their unimpaired mobility gives them. When it comes to disabled children, the main issue is how long it takes to change people’s attitudes. Society in general has limited patience for those who aren’t considered to be “contributing”. Yet most of these people can work independently if they find a job that suits them, and you’d be hard pushed to find more diligent employees.’

Thóra nodded. She was sure an intellectually disabled person could perform secretarial work better than Bella. It had been naïve of her to think that the lives of these children revolved only around their difficulties. ‘As I mentioned, I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether anyone other than Jakob, individually or collectively, could have been involved in starting the fire. I’ve uncovered certain details that are causing me some concern, although I haven’t managed to prove any of them. Were your doubts about Jakob’s guilt based on gut instinct, or something more substantial?’

‘Unfortunately, they were purely based on instinct. Jakob had a difficult time at the residence, you know, but I just couldn’t see him resorting to such desperate measures. He thought it would all end at some point, that he’d get to go home – it hadn’t sunk in that he would be living there permanently. So that hardly ties in with the theory that he thought he needed to burn the place to the ground in order to get out of there.’ Linda crossed her arms, her expression grave now; the smile that had seemed an intrinsic part of her appearance disappeared. ‘While it was all going on, I was so grief-stricken that the sadness overshadowed everything; I felt so terribly sorry for the people who’d died, but also for Jakob. It was such an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn’t focus on anything else. It never crossed my mind to doubt the investigation. I didn’t explore my misgivings until later, but by then it was too late. Now I wonder whether the result would have been different if I, and others, had been more on the ball when Jakob needed us. It’s not a nice feeling, I can tell you, and if I’m honest, I think I pushed it all aside. Probably to avoid having to deal with the thought that if it hadn’t been Jakob, then someone else had been involved – and if so, who?’

‘People aren’t robots. Those are perfectly natural reactions to a crisis like this.’ Thóra was happy to finally find someone apart from his mother who actually believed in Jakob’s innocence. Others had generally been willing to consider the possibility, but Thóra could see in their eyes that they didn’t think her investigation would lead anywhere. Linda appeared to feel otherwise. ‘One of the things I’ve discovered is that a girl who lived there was expecting a baby. Lísa. Were you aware of that?’

The woman blushed suddenly. ‘Yes. But not until afterwards. It was revealed by the autopsy, and because of my position I was summoned to a meeting at the Regional Office, where we went over it. It took me completely by surprise.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘It didn’t occur to me that the disaster might be connected to it, at that point. Everything was focused on trying to discover who the arsonist was and stopping them from doing it again. A lot of emphasis was also placed on keeping it from the media.’

‘Did you suspect anyone in particular?’

‘God, no. It’s such a terrible thing to do that you don’t want to point the finger at anyone. I’m still convinced that there’s no way an employee could have done it.’ Linda’s blush deepened. ‘The only possible person I could think of turned out to be innocent when they compared his DNA to the foetus.’

‘Who was that?’

‘A young man who worked mainly on the night shift. The one who died in the fire. Friðleifur.’

‘Oh, really? It’s my understanding that he was an all-round good guy. Is that not right?’

The woman placed her palms flat on the table. ‘He was all right, but he was far from a model employee. I never particu-larly liked him, or the other guy who worked the shift with him; I had my doubts that they were doing their job properly. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but that’s just how it was.’

‘Did you catch them doing something wrong?’

‘No, I can’t say I did; if I had caught them, they would have been fired. I worked at the weekend on occasion, and more than once I found the place in a suspicious condition – beer cans lying about, that kind of thing, which suggested that one or both of them had been drinking at work. They turned out to be completely sober, both times, and had excuses that the director accepted, though I disagreed with her. Who’d be gullible enough to believe that they kept finding the cans littered around the garden and decided to clear them up? Not me, that’s for sure. Then there were huge supplies of intralipid, an IV medicine that’s given when oral nutrition is insufficient, which went missing, along with the butterfly needles and tubes used to administer it. On two occasions I found empty bags in the wastepaper basket in the duty room, which they couldn’t explain; they said they must have already been there when they came to work, but I simply didn’t believe it. No more empty bags or needles were ever found, but the supplies continued to dwindle mysteriously. I felt Glódís didn’t deal with the problem effectively; she wanted to give herself more time to get to the bottom of it, which of course never happened. And people were hardly queuing up to replace them if they had to let them go, which was no doubt a factor in her deciding to turn a blind eye.’

‘Do you think they were into drugs, or were selling them there at night?’

‘Well, I’m no expert in recreational drug use, but I can’t see how IV drips would be involved. But they clearly shouldn’t have been anywhere near the stuff, much less setting up needles, preparing mixtures or anything like that.’

‘Wasn’t it stored in a locked cabinet?’

‘No; that was one of the things that needed sorting out. We were still waiting for a refrigerator that was specially designed for storing that type of drug. The drug could be stored at room temperature, but it was better to keep it in cold storage. While we were waiting for lockable storage it was kept in a little fridge in a room next to Glódís’s office. We kept a stock of needles and other medical supplies there, stuff we had to have quick access to. The room was locked, of course, but the night watchmen had master keys to all the doors.’

‘I understand Friðleifur’s sister and a friend paid him a visit very early one morning. Was this a frequent occurrence?’

Linda scowled. ‘No, I don’t think so. That sounds typical of him, though.’

It was clear that Thóra would have to contact Friðleifur’s sister and the other night watchman, who hadn’t answered any of her calls. ‘There’s something else I’m extremely keen to find out: the name of the girl who lived in Apartment
06
. She’d been admitted to hospital shortly before the fire. I’d like to be able to speak to her, in case she has any information.’

‘Oh, God.’ The woman sighed. ‘I might have to disappoint you there. You may not know enough about her condition; she’s got what’s called “locked-in syndrome” and her communication is extremely limited.’

‘It’s my understanding that she can convey messages with her eyes. Isn’t that right?’

‘Not everyone is capable of communicating that way. I hope I’m not insulting you.’

Thóra shook her head. ‘Could you explain this “locked-in syndrome”?’

‘It’s one of the worst afflictions imaginable, to my mind. It’s a brain-stem injury that severs contact with all the muscles controlling voluntary movements, except those that move the eyes. There’s actually an even worse version, in which you lose control of your eyes as well. It’s sometimes likened to being buried alive and it’s very different from a coma, because the person affected is still conscious. In other words, the lower part of the brain is damaged, while the upper part is fine.’