Someone to Watch Over Me

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  Úlfheiður had nothing much to say about the centre; she had rarely visited because she had no car and there were no buses – the area was a ghost town. She had met few people on the rare times that she’d gone, and actually only remembered one woman, who she described as stuck-up. The woman had given her a dirty look when in the course of conversation it came up that Úlfheiður was visiting the place for the first time, two months after it had opened. Úlfheiður snorted as she said this and for the first time Thóra detected a hint of emotion in her voice – she had been hurt by the other mother’s reaction. Of course she was always hanging around, even though her son didn’t even know she was there, she told Thóra. At least Natan was aware of me and wanted me to be there. Thóra had no interest in hearing more about the friction between her and Fanndís, and steered the conversation to Jakob, though she didn’t find out much; Úlfheiður barely remembered him. She wasn’t necessarily convinced that he’d started the fire; that could certainly have been someone else. But she couldn’t be persuaded to name any names and Thóra got the feeling that she’d only really said it to please her.

  At the end of the conversation Thóra asked cautiously about Natan’s sex drive, but the woman said she knew nothing about that; she’d simply never thought about it. Before they said their goodbyes, Úlfheiður told her that she tried to think as little as possible about the fire; she’d long since come to terms with her son’s death, as she’d known since he was born that he wouldn’t live long. As Úlfheiður said this, Thóra stared at the image of Natan on the screen, smiling from ear to ear at the family reunion, happy with his life, unaware that some people would see it as simply a long, drawn-out fight to the death.

  Although the conversation with Úlfheiður had been difficult, it was a walk in the park compared to the talk she had with Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir’s parents. Her mother had answered the phone but could barely be persuaded to say anything, except that they’d chosen to let the crime against their daughter be forgotten so that her name wouldn’t be dragged posthumously through the justice system and her case sensationalised in the papers. She agreed when asked whether Einvarður had assisted them in putting a stop to further investigation of the case, but flatly denied that he or anyone else had influenced their decision. She’d then put her husband on the phone and made him finish the conversation, which mainly consisted of him trying to persuade Thóra not to name Lísa directly in the petition to reopen Jakob’s case. There was no way Thóra could agree to this and a long time was spent bickering over the man’s further attempts to persuade her to change her mind, which she deftly deflected. At the same time, she tried to coax out of him the names of those who could have raped his daughter. If he was telling the truth – and he appeared to be sincere in all of his answers – then he had thought about this a great deal, but Thóra could get nothing out of him. The call concluded with him begging Thóra one last time to allow his daughter to rest in peace. He sounded as if he were on his knees.

  Other than this she didn’t get much out of the phone calls, though the investigation continued to make slow progress. For example, after speaking to the girl’s parents, Thóra was fairly certain that Sigríður Herdís Logadóttir had had nothing to do with the fire; she had been both blind and deaf, as well as seriously mentally disabled. Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir was also ruled out, which left only two other residents, Natan and Tryggvi, neither of whom seemed likely either. Nothing in the interviews with the parents suggested they had any information that might prove useful; the only new thing that came to light was that Tryggvi’s unconventional therapy had been disruptive, since it seemed to have caused him unnecessary suffering. However, none of them wanted to go into this in any detail, as it hardly mattered given what happened later. Sigríður Herdís’s mother said that she’d actually complained to the director that Tryggvi’s wailing was causing her distress during her visits to her daughter. She believed her complaint had forced them to switch his therapy to a more conventional kind, because she hadn’t noticed any noises on subsequent visits. Thóra asked her when she’d lodged this complaint, and she replied that it had been about three weeks before the fire. Neither she nor the other parents knew the name of Tryggvi’s therapist, although Thóra assumed that he was on Glódís’s list. She concluded her conversation with the woman and looked up Glódís’s e-mail address, then emailed her to ask. The man must have known Tryggvi quite well and could hopefully tell her what he’d been capable of. It was getting late, so she didn’t expect to receive a response from the director that day.

  After speaking to the parents of all of the residents, she had nothing to indicate that the fire was connected to their offspring at all. Ultimately, it seemed more likely to have involved a member of staff, or someone else otherwise linked to the unit. There was no logical reason for any of the young people living there to have wanted to kill the others, and the more Thóra thought about it, the harder she found it to come up with any motive for such an evil act. If the aim was to hide Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir’s pregnancy, nobody could argue that this was the best way to do it; there had been no obvious attempt to make the fire look like an accident, and it would have been easier to suffocate Lísa, since she was confined to her bed. In fact, it was the very manner of her death that had precipitated an autopsy, so if somebody had killed her in order to hide her condition their strategy had been extraordinarily stupid. Perhaps the plan hadn’t been to hide the deed, but rather to detract attention from Lísa by making all the residents and the night watchmen suffer the same fate as her. Still, what Thóra found most troubling was the fact that no one seemed to have known that the girl was pregnant, which in turn made it difficult to state in the petition that the fire might have been intended to hide this fact. Of course somebody may have known about the pregnancy, but Thóra had no way of proving it. According to Glódís the girl’s periods had been irregular, to say the least, and her pregnancy was so recent when she died that she had no noticeable bump. So perhaps the question was how the perpetrator could have known about the pregnancy at all.

  No matter what the reason for the fire, it was clear from the number of lives lost that it had been reckless and illogical. Potentially, then, the act of someone of limited intelligence, someone who didn’t comprehend the consequences of their actions – unless the perpetrator had deliberately made it look that way. But why, and who could it be? There weren’t many possibilities, but still Thóra’s mind spun in endless circles.

  Who had sent her the text messages, and why? Who had known that the fire alarm system was offline? Was it a coincidence that the same lawyer had defended both Jakob and his creepy friend Jósteinn? Did the words look at me, which Jakob had repeated to her, have any significance? Had the residents been unhappy with their living conditions, unbeknownst to their parents, and was that significant? Why had only one staff member been on duty, not two – and who had been aware of this?

  But the complexity of the case was not Thóra’s only problem. There were very few precedents for a petition to reopen a case, so other than the laws themselves, she didn’t have much to go on; and although these were clear, they weren’t particularly detailed. The case had to satisfy at least one of four criteria for the Supreme Court to approve the petition: new evidence that had come to light; an accusation that the police, the prosecution, the judge or other parties had prejudiced the case, especially through falsified evidence or false testimony; reasonable suspicion that the evidence presented in the case had been wrongly evaluated; or the discovery of substantial flaws in the prosecution of the case in court. Since any retrial required the prior authorization of the Supreme Court, Thóra didn’t need to present a perfect defence immediately, but merely demonstrate unequivocally that one or more of these prerequisites was met. If the petition were approved, the case would move to the next level.

  She still hadn’t come across anything to suggest any element of wrongdoing on the part of the police, prosecutor or judge, though there was the question of whether Lísa�
��s pregnancy should have been made clearer. As the autopsy report was part of the case files she couldn’t present the pregnancy as new evidence, even though this detail hadn’t come up in court. The third criterion, however – insufficient evaluation of the evidence – could be enough to reopen the case; she was thinking not only of Lísa’s condition, but also of Jakob’s description of the angel with a suitcase, which in her opinion had not been dealt with appropriately in court. If it was true that he had tried to inform the police of this detail, then his testimony had not been recorded; at least, Thóra couldn’t find it in the reports or other files. She was also interested in the fourth requirement, the one concerning flaws in the prosecution of the case, and Ari’s performance in this regard. Although it would be tough to prove that he hadn’t acted in his client’s best interests, Thóra was convinced of it. The best thing would be if she were to unearth new evidence. Then they could run the case back through the system, with a fairer outcome.

  As Thóra considered these points, she couldn’t avoid the most difficult question, the one really plaguing her: when all was said and done, was she sure Jakob wasn’t guilty? Perhaps he was more cunning than she gave him credit for, and had had the sense to keep all the apartment doors open so the fire could spread freely. Unlikely though it seemed, it wasn’t out of the question that Jakob had more organizational ability than they credited him with. His innocent appearance might be colouring her view of him, and it was conceivable that there was something in what Glódís and Ari had said about Jakob’s violent tendencies. Perhaps it would help if she could see footage of a typical day at the home – if the filmmaker had such a thing and were willing to share it with her. She really had no firm grasp on what it had really been like there. She wasn’t expecting to see someone scurrying around trying out the door mechanisms, or climbing a stepladder to inspect the sprinkler system, but maybe she would get a better feeling for the conditions that might have set the fateful sequence of events in motion. She didn’t have any further evidence to suggest Jakob’s innocence; for the moment, it looked as though she was relying on lots of small things combining to become greater than the sum of their parts.

  She recalled Jakob’s description of the angel with the suitcase and sighed heavily. She had no idea what he’d meant, but right now the ‘angel’ was just as likely to have started the fire as anyone else.

  Chapter 17

  Tuesday, 12 January 2010

  Thóra logged off the Internet in order to avoid the temptation to sit there reading the day’s news. She needed to get to work, and besides, the news was always rather depressing. Foreign news had always been more exciting than domestic news, but after the bank crash, all that had been reversed. Icelandic drama – yes please! The more she read and heard in passing from better-informed colleagues, the more appalled she was by how events had panned out before the crash. In some ways, Thóra envied her parents, who must surely be the only ones who felt that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. Still, they were victims of the criminal masses and had lost more than most people Thóra knew, although everyone had been affected in some way. She missed the time when everything had been fine; when the nation had celebrated its handball team’s medal in the Olympic Games and the Icelanders’ successes in foreign markets had seemed unstoppable. Now that was all so unreal. She resolved to stop reading about the crash in the mornings; it was unhealthy for anyone to start the day on such a depressing note. It was bad enough having to look at Bella.

  ‘The coffeemaker’s broken.’ The secretary leaned against the doorframe. It looked as if she had an entire pack of gum in her mouth. ‘It just stopped working.’

  ‘Broken? Did it stop working and then break, or did it break first then stop working?’ Thóra didn’t know why she was even asking; she had heard something breaking out in the corridor but hadn’t dared to go and see what was happening, since it was followed by Bella’s colourful curses, which still echoed in her ears.

  ‘It stopped working because it’s broken.’ Bella’s face displayed no flicker of amusement. ‘You’ve got to buy a new one, right now in fact. There’s no way I can spend a day here without coffee.’

  ‘Isn’t there any instant? We have a kettle somewhere, and I haven’t got time to go and buy a new coffeemaker.’

  ‘Are you joking? Only wimps drink that stuff. Do I look like a wimp?’

  Thóra couldn’t help but answer in the negative. A wimp was the last thing her scowling secretary resembled. She had recently been experimenting with her hair colour and it was currently fluorescent green. This had left her hair extremely dry, which, coupled with its tendency to stick up vertically, made the effect even more alarming. ‘You should have thought of that before you broke the machine. How exactly did you manage it?’ The coffeemaker had stood securely on the table in reception. Maybe Bella had been practising gymnastics and run into it; such a thing wouldn’t be unheard of.

  ‘I threw my phone at it.’ Bella said this without blinking. ‘The noise it was making was driving me mad.’

  Thóra was on the verge of making a maddening noise herself, but she bit her tongue. ‘Then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the whistling of the kettle when you make some instant coffee. I’d put it in the same place – I think it will withstand your attacks better than the coffeemaker.’ Thóra turned to her computer. ‘Now leave me alone, please. I’m busy. Some of us actually do some work here, however alien the concept may seem to you.’ She made a point of not ducking when she turned away; Bella didn’t have anything in her hands that she could throw. Still, it was sensible to stay on your guard, so she watched her secretary out of the corner of her eye as she hovered in the doorway like a thundercloud before turning on her heel and vanishing. Thóra would have to remember to be careful when she left the office later. The filmmaker, Sveinn, had agreed to meet her and although she wouldn’t be able to take any material away, she could watch the video he’d made at the residence. If she noticed anything particularly interesting, he was willing to negotiate with her about making her copies of the material. He had also explained at length that what he had filmed was pretty raw; he hadn’t had a chance to edit it yet and it was unlikely that he ever would, since the project’s financial backing had dried up. That actually suited Thóra fine; if the material was unedited, she was more likely to figure out what she was looking for. She planned to take Matthew with her, since two pairs of eyes were better than one, and he would also be glad to get away from her parents for a bit. Hopefully he would get himself some coffee on the way to the office.

  ‘Come in, I’ve got everything ready.’ The man who welcomed them was unshaven and hollow-eyed, and was wearing an old tracksuit. Thóra had expected a studio or workshop but should have realized that was unlikely; the address was in a large apartment block in the Breiðholt suburb. At one end of the room all the furniture had been pushed together to make space for a dining table that held three computer screens arranged in a row. There was also a small keyboard and some huge headphones. Next to the table was an office chair on wheels, listing slightly to one side, as if it were as tired as its owner. ‘I work from home, as you can see, so you’ll have to excuse the mess. I would have tidied up if I’d had a bit more warning.’

  Thóra briskly reassured him that they weren’t put off by a bit of chaos, before the man could notice Matthew’s look of horror. He couldn’t bear dirt and untidiness, though his cleaning mania had had to relax slightly on moving into a household that included two teenagers and a toddler. Mind you, the mess in Thóra’s house was mainly clothes, shoes, schoolbooks, toys and that kind of thing, strewn haphazardly as if the occupants had had to abandon the house in a great hurry. Sveinn was a different sort of slob altogether. Dirty dishes sat on a low coffee table with knives and forks placed carefully on top, side by side, as if he expected a cleaner to appear, clear everything off the table and ask whether anyone might like a coffee. Beneath the table were KFC buckets. A bath towel lay in a crumpled heap on the back of the sofa, and it al
so appeared that Sveinn liked to take off his socks in front of the television at the end of the day. A selection of single socks lay in front of the sofa, as if his feet had taken turns pushing a sock off while his hands were otherwise occupied, perhaps working their way through the fried chicken.

  Thóra only gave the briefest glance in the direction of the shelving unit holding the television, but couldn’t help noticing the Coke cans standing there as if on display. The rest of the junk on the shelves wasn’t familiar enough for Thóra to distinguish what it was without looking for longer. ‘Pull up some chairs; you’re better off watching it on the computer when the material is this raw, as I said on the phone. The resolution is quite good, so it should be pretty clear.’ Sveinn sat down on the office chair and started setting up the video. ‘What sucks is that I’ll probably never get to use this material.’

  ‘Was the project killed off by the budget cuts?’ Thóra had settled in next to the table but Matthew was still looking around for a passably clean chair.

  ‘I’m pretty pissed off about it, though I know money is in short supply these days, and other things are probably taking priority.’ The first frame appeared on screen and Sveinn adjusted the settings to sharpen the image. ‘The project was green-lit in 2003, and I started working on it a year later. So I was shooting this material for several years – not continuously, of course. But still.’

  ‘And what was the purpose of the film?’ Thóra watched the man’s tweaking and twiddling without any idea what he was doing.

  ‘2003 was the Year of the Disabled Person and this project was the initiative of the Ministry of Welfare; it was supposed to have been a documentary about the situation of the dis-abled today, for those who knew nothing about them as well as those who already had an interest. Obviously I was pretty ignorant about the subject when I started, but I’ve become an expert now. In a hundred years’ time they will be treated completely differently. There’s some incredible stuff in here, but it’s not like I came up with any magic solutions myself.’ When Sveinn was finally happy with the settings he opened the media player. ‘When it burned down, both television stations sought me out and I was offered a lot of money for clips of the place in action.’