Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020)

by Sigurdardottir, Yrsa

  ‘No. It appears to be a new woman every time, though they’re all the same type.’

  Geir began to sidle towards the door but Erla stopped him in his tracks. He turned back with a martyred look. Huldar doubted the staff in IT had exactly been competing for the job of discussing porn with Erla. They’d probably drawn straws and this poor sod had lost.

  His ordeal showed no sign of ending as Erla grilled him for his opinion on why Helgi had kept these videos on his computer. Geir tried to get out of it by claiming ignorance but Erla wasn’t about to let him off the hook. She asked if the men who made this sort of video usually kept them for their own private consumption or whether it was common for them to sell that sort of material, and, if so, where. Geir disclaimed all knowledge of the subject, but Erla persisted, asking if he thought the films had been made with the knowledge and permission of the women involved. The answer was a shrug. It was the same when she asked if he thought Helgi himself had been aware he was being filmed. Then she interrogated Geir about whether the sex in the videos was in any way kinky or within the normal range. But by now he had had enough and referred her to the Sexual Offences Unit. IT’s expertise lay in analysing data – in files and online transactions. He reeled off the details of the file path on the server where he had transferred the videos for further analysis.

  This done, he made for the door again, but not before Erla got in a final question, asking if he’d made sure the area on the server was locked. His eyes flickering evasively, he admitted that it hadn’t occurred to him, but he’d remedy that immediately and email Erla the password.

  Once he had gone, Huldar went over to the glass wall that separated Erla from her underlings. Most of the detectives still at work were glued to their screens with unnatural attention. It seemed the IT department’s discovery had already leaked out, but Huldar wasn’t about to tell Erla that. She was stressed enough as it was.

  Hearing her speak, he turned.

  ‘I’m assuming you have a little experience when it comes to porn.’ Erla corrected herself: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean a little – that was a slip of the tongue.’

  ‘Is that a question or an observation?’ Huldar wasn’t about to share his porn-viewing habits with her.

  ‘An observation.’ Erla leant back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. ‘By the way, how are you getting on with collecting background on the boy’s mother?’

  ‘Pretty well. Though she seems to have dropped out of contact with most of her friends and relatives over the last couple of years, so the people I’ve got hold of so far haven’t been able to tell me much. Her mother and brother are convinced that her husband was abusive and the friends I’ve talked to suspected the same thing. But no one’s heard it from Sigurlaug herself, which isn’t really surprising. She’s not the first victim to cover up what’s happening. I still need to pull it all together and send you a summary. Then you can choose who you want to call in for a more in-depth interview.’

  Erla didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic at the prospect. ‘So you’re available for other jobs, then?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to nip out for a bite to eat, though. Maybe even call it a day.’

  ‘Just hang on a minute. I’m going to forward you the location of the videos – and the password as soon as it arrives. Before I hand the recordings over to Sexual Offences, I’d like your opinion of them. I want someone here in the department to be familiar with the contents but I’m not the right person to judge the material. Pay special attention to whether the women seem aware of the camera – Helgi too.’

  Rather than draw Erla’s attention to the fact that a good proportion of her male subordinates had already got an eyeful of the material, he nodded. It wasn’t a prospect he relished but he agreed because it was wiser than objecting. In light of their shared past, he had no wish to prolong any conversation with her that involved sex. It remained an incredibly sore point between them. Their ill-advised one-night stand had led to a sexual-harassment inquiry by Internal Affairs and the ensuing process had been no fun for either of them. Their working relationship had never fully recovered from the event and its aftermath.

  It was better to obey and get the hell out of her office. That burger would just have to wait.

  After watching six videos of varying lengths, Huldar was getting cramp and had to stand up and stretch. His colleagues had lost interest in their screens now that the files had been locked and the atmosphere had reverted to normal. Some were rattling away on their keyboards, others talking on the phone, others frowning over documents or conferring with each other. Though none of them could be described as eye-candy, Huldar found the sight of them infinitely preferable to the distasteful task of watching Helgi humping a succession of women.

  He shook himself, then noticed Gudlaugur watching him over his monitor. ‘God, I’m in no hurry to request a transfer to Sexual Offences.’

  ‘Bit grim, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is. Perverted. Sleazy maybe.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, sleazy if it was done without the women’s consent. Maybe sordid is the word I’m looking for.’

  Gudlaugur must have been bored to tears with watching the CCTV because he kept up a flow of questions: ‘Does it look to you like that’s what’s going on? Are they unconscious? Knocked out by booze or Rohypnol?’

  ‘No, far from it. Drunk, maybe, but perfectly aware of what they’re doing. They just don’t seem to know about the video. None of the ones I’ve seen have looked into the lens, except by accident. They make no attempt to present a flattering angle to the camera. The only one who seems conscious of trying to look good is Helgi.’ Huldar reached for his coat. ‘Not that I know how a woman would behave if she’d volunteered to be filmed, as it’s not something I’ve done myself or have any desire to. But I’ve lost count of the women I’ve seen posing for selfies, and I’m guessing they’d behave the same way if they knew they were being recorded. None of them appear to be pouting for the camera.’

  Gudlaugur shrugged noncommittally. ‘Who are they? Any familiar faces?’

  ‘No, but I haven’t seen all of them yet. Given how many videos there are, it’s not unlikely I’ll come across someone I recognise sooner or later – assuming they’re all Icelanders.’ Huldar pulled on his coat. ‘If not, their names might help. The files are all labelled with the women’s first names and the date. Of course, he could have called the files stina060517 or greta261116 at random, but I doubt it.’

  ‘What did he do with the files? Could other people see them?’

  ‘The IT department are going through his emails. Apparently he had several social media accounts under aliases. With any luck they’ll be able to find out if he shared the videos. But maybe he just wanted them for himself: a private collection to wank over in his old age.’

  ‘He could have posted them on foreign porn sites.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Huldar took the cigarette packet out of his pocket and peered inside to see if he was in luck. Aha, one left.

  ‘To show off, maybe. Or humiliate the women. Isn’t revenge porn the big thing these days?’

  Now that Huldar had the packet in his hands, he was overwhelmed by a craving for nicotine. ‘I don’t believe it was revenge porn. If we’re reading his relationship history right, he was mostly into one-night stands. Revenge porn tends to be associated with break-ups but, as far as we know, he never had a long-term relationship.’

  Gudlaugur didn’t say anything in response to this, so Huldar went out for a smoke. But the sense of wellbeing that had spread through his veins quickly evaporated when he sat down to watch the videos again. Yet another arse, breasts, long blonde hair. The women could all be sisters. Evidently Helgi had a type.

  There was no clue in the videos themselves about where the encounters had taken place. No view from a window, and the room was very ordinary; no different from tens of thousands of other white-walled Icelandic bedrooms. The only fact he could be su
re of was that it wasn’t either of the bedrooms in Helgi’s luxury pad.

  The video came to an end and Huldar clicked on the next: disa071017. It was no surprise to discover that Dísa resembled Stína from the last film. And Sigrún from the one before. A new girl in the bed but otherwise no change. Same positions and tempo, same facial contortions, but then the ‘director’ was the same too: Helgi. He usually kept his back to the camera, as Geir had said, but occasionally the couple would roll over, revealing a fleeting view of Helgi’s face. Nothing too clear, though. But the pale oval patch of skin on his back was unmistakeable every time, so there was no reason to doubt that it was him.

  The monotony wasn’t limited to the visuals; it applied to the soundtrack as well. Intermittent moaning and groaning that intensified as things came to a climax. Huldar tore off his earphones and pressed ‘Pause’. He’d had enough for now.

  ‘Where are you off to? I thought you’d just had a smoke?’ As if to avoid sounding too interested in Huldar’s movements, Gudlaugur added quickly: ‘In case Erla asks.’

  ‘In the unlikely event that Erla shows any interest in my whereabouts you can tell her I’m going to have a quick word with the Sexual Offences team.’

  This answer seemed to satisfy Gudlaugur, who turned back to his CCTV.

  The coffee was better in Sexual Offences. Huldar sipped appreciatively from the plain white cup, which he was told was standard there. Personal mugs with silly slogans and jokes were discouraged, in case they featured the kind of tasteless sexual innuendoes that would be totally inappropriate in this department.

  ‘So you think this bloke Helgi’s murder might be connected to his homemade porn videos?’ The officer sitting across the round table in the Sexual Offences Unit coffee room was one of the two men still there after hours. He was an old colleague, who had requested a transfer for a change of scene. According to him, he had found that here all right. ‘If so, it’ll be a first for us here in Iceland.’

  ‘I’ve no idea if there’s any link. But it’s the only thing we can find on the guy that’s … well … not exactly squeaky clean.’ Huldar took another sip of coffee from the carefully neutral cup. ‘The idea of “revenge porn” has come up, but in my opinion it doesn’t really square with what we know about the murder victim. He’d never been in a relationship, so he had no reason to take revenge on an ex-girlfriend. I don’t think it’s worth wasting much time on that angle myself.’

  ‘You do realise revenge isn’t the only motivation for disseminating this kind of material? That’s why they’ve started referring to it as “non-consensual porn” rather than revenge porn.’ The weary look in the man’s eyes suggested that the change of scene he’d claimed was so great had its downsides after all.

  ‘Sure.’ Huldar put down his cup. ‘But it doesn’t look to me like the guy made these videos to flog them to official porn sites, or amateur ones for that matter. He didn’t need the money, believe me.’

  ‘We’re not only dealing with revenge or profit here.’ The officer opened the laptop he’d brought along. ‘There are countless websites set up for sharing this kind of material. Some are especially dedicated to Icelandic women – or girls, rather. We’re usually talking about girls or very young women. How old are the women in your videos?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly but I’m guessing under thirty.’ Mentally he reviewed the images of Helgi’s identikit sexual partners. They had all looked closer to twenty than thirty, but mercifully none had appeared to be underage.

  ‘Any woman over thirty is considered past it on the majority of these sites.’ The man tapped on the keyboard, then turned the screen to Huldar. ‘See for yourself.’

  Huldar leant forwards. At the top was a banner featuring the Icelandic flag and below it a rather primitive interface where users could exchange messages. All the posts appeared to be about Icelandic girls. Most of the threads started with a user posting an ordinary photo of a named girl and asking if anyone out there had naked pictures of her. This resulted in a slew of comments about the girl in question – whether she was fit, a slut, hot and so on. Sometimes photos would turn up in which the girl was topless or even naked and these were shared to general rejoicing. If none could be found, a popular question was whether anyone could use photoshop to render the clothing in the innocent image transparent. This invariably resulted in a series of attempts by the users to digitally alter the pictures to remove the girl’s clothes.

  ‘What the hell is this shit?’ Huldar bent closer to read the URL. He came away none the wiser. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘No, that’s hardly surprising. You’re too old. The users are mainly very young men or teenagers. Of course there are some older users, but not many. Or so we believe. It’s proving a bloody nightmare trying to track them down. The site doesn’t cooperate with the police.’

  ‘Is it on the Dark Web?’

  ‘No. This particular site is on the Deep Web.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The Deep Web’s what they call content or sites that don’t show up on ordinary search engines. The bulk of the content is illegal or immoral in some way. The Dark Web that you mentioned is part of the Deep Web, but its content is even better encrypted. This site is only on the Deep Web. That means a search for it wouldn’t yield any results: you have to know the exact address to find the site. If it was on the Dark Web you’d need special access as well as a Tor browser to hide your IP number. Apart from that, the same applies to both web areas. Conventional search engines don’t have access to the material stored there. That said, the Dark Web’s full of this kind of shit too, including Icelandic stuff.’

  ‘So my guy could have posted videos of himself on a site like that and shared them with other users in exchange for their homemade porn, or just out of some weird exhibitionist urge to get it out there?’

  ‘Yes, for example.’ The officer took back his laptop and snapped it shut. ‘If the recordings found their way onto any of the Icelandic file-sharing platforms, he’d almost certainly have included the women’s names. That’s part of the whole kick – to identify the victims by name.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Originally it was probably done in an attempt to prevent users from posting pictures of foreign girls they’d pulled off the net and claiming they were Icelandic. Part of the thrill is being able to track the girls down on social media. The whole thing’s twisted.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘Did he have the women’s names?’

  ‘Yes. Their first names, anyway. Probably their patronymics too. How do I find out if that’s what he was up to? Sharing the videos, I mean. Please don’t tell me I’ll have to trawl through all these sites.’

  ‘Want my advice? Take the file names down to IT. They’ll be much quicker than you. Not only that but they have access to search engines that can comb the Deep and Dark Webs. Leave it to the experts.’

  This made good sense to Huldar. He had little patience with surfing the net as it was, and absolutely no desire to extend his browsing to these subterranean worlds. ‘They’ve already got the files and they’re looking into them. I’ll ask them to check out the Deep Web while they’re at it.’

  ‘Good. But bear in mind that just because they don’t find anything, that doesn’t mean it’s not out there. The Deep Web’s not called that for nothing – it’s practically bottomless. If the file names have been changed and the content descriptions don’t include any of the usual keywords, the search won’t achieve much. In fact, you’ll probably only find the videos if they were posted on one of the Icelandic file-sharing platforms we already know about. But send us the file names too, just in case they crop up on our radar or it turns out we’re already aware of them. Women sometimes approach us wanting to press charges when they discover that sexual images of them have been posted on sites like that. But teenage girls mainly just stick their heads in the sand or issue vain threats under their pictures on the websites. All that does is encourage the bastards.
The sad thing is, we’re not much more effective ourselves because it’s so difficult to identify the user sharing the material.’ The man wore a defeated look. ‘It’s almost impossible if they’ve made any sort of effort to cover their tracks.’

  Huldar went back upstairs in a sombre frame of mind. Before picking up where he’d left off, he wondered if there was any point in trying to find out if the videos had been shared. Even if they had, it was hard to see how this could be linked to Helgi’s murder. None of these leggy blondes looked like the violent type.

  Chapter 19

  Didrik hadn’t taken the bait and invited Freyja out for dinner when she rang him to report back on her conversation with Siggi’s grandmother. Nor had he suggested meeting at a bar or given any other hint that he reciprocated her interest. This was a blow, but hardly the end of the world. In fact, it was probably just as well, since she couldn’t have accepted an invitation for a date that evening – or any other in the near future – because of Saga. Baldur had talked Fanney into letting him have his daughter for a bit longer, which meant that she was Freyja’s responsibility once he reported back to the halfway house. He had to go in for supper between six and seven, and remain on the premises overnight, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. And Saga didn’t really fit into Freyja’s idea of a romantic evening with a hot date.

  The little girl seemed to read Freyja’s mind as she sat beside her in yet another high chair at yet another restaurant. Scowling, she went on poking her finger into the small bowl of tomato ketchup. Saga was a fussy eater. Freyja had cooked a healthy meal for her earlier but she might as well not have gone to the trouble. Saga had merely pushed her food off the tray of her high chair into Molly’s waiting jaws. Then, inevitably, when it got to bedtime, the little girl had been too hungry to sleep, so Freyja had resorted to dressing her again and taking her out for supper. She had opted for a burger joint, against the express wishes of Saga’s mother Fanney, who wanted her daughter to eat nothing but organic food, preferably sugar-free too. Sometimes, Freyja reasoned, you had to bend the rules. Besides, until the little girl started talking properly, there was no way her mother could find out, since Fanney was about as likely to wander into a burger bar as she was to become a defender on Iceland’s national team.