Someone to Watch Over Me

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘And did you let them use them?’ Thóra didn’t remember seeing any video clips in the news reports of the fire.

  ‘No, I didn’t get permission. It’s all owned by the ministry and they prohibited its release. Of course the police were given a copy – without my being paid for it, naturally. It’s fucking bullshit, because I could have used the money. It’s not a very profitable business, let me tell you.’

  Thóra muttered vague agreement. ‘You said you saw a lot of strange things while filming the documentary – was any of this at the home that burned down?’

  Sveinn turned to her. ‘Well, I don’t remember exactly. I got my material from a variety of places, since the documentary was supposed to give an overview of the situation, and just one centre would never have been enough. It definitely wasn’t the weirdest place I saw, even though the residents’ circumstances were affecting. There are so many levels of disability, and the people at this place were among the most severely afflicted. Most of the people I met were just like you and me; completely capable of getting by in normal society, given the right tools.’ He had moved the cursor into place to start the video, but the mouse appeared to be sticky, since he was holding the button down for a long time. ‘Mental disability is so different from physical that I feel the two groups have little in common. It’s one of the things I think will change over time; the boundaries between them will become clearer.’

  Thóra was beginning to think he’d never start the film, but she didn’t want to press him. ‘So you didn’t notice anything unusual there, compared to what you saw elsewhere?’

  ‘Well, it was new, of course, and meant to be a kind of flagship, despite the way things turned out. Nothing was spared in the design of the centre, but as I understood it the finances ran out and construction standards slipped. I felt as if the residents hadn’t quite come to terms with being moved there and the staff hadn’t settled in either. There was an almost amateurish feeling about the place, compared to the older units I visited.’

  ‘Could you elaborate?’

  ‘Oh, I just felt the staff were too young and sometimes kind of clumsy in the way they dealt with the residents.’ Sveinn saw from Thóra’s expression that she’d read more into his words than he’d intended and hurriedly added: ‘Not that they bullied them or anything. They simply hadn’t had time to learn how to deal with them. For example, I saw staff members standing right next to residents and discussing them as if they weren’t there, which is extremely unprofessional.’ He started the film, slightly embarrassed about it, or so it seemed. ‘That might be in one of the clips, actually.’

  The quality of the image that appeared on the three screens could have been better, though the cables on the floor in the opening shot suggested that it had been properly lit and sound-recorded. ‘I’ll fast-forward over the parts that aren’t so important. Let me know if I should slow down or rewind.’ They watched closely and Thóra pointed out Glódís to Matthew when she appeared. The director stood with crossed arms and watched from a distance as one of her staff attended to a young woman who sat in a chair, seemingly ignoring the transparent ball in her lap. The care assistant pressed one of the young woman’s hands to her lips and placed the other one on the ball. ‘Ball.’ The woman squeezed the girl’s hand, forcing her to tighten her grip on the ball. She then loosened her grip and folded her own fingers, then got the girl to feel them before moving the girl’s fingers into the same position. ‘Sign language?’ asked Matthew.

  Sveinn nodded. ‘The girl was blind and deaf and had some sort of developmental disability to boot. The woman sitting with her is an occupational therapist or developmental therapist or something, but I can’t remember her or the girl’s names.’

  ‘Sigríður Herdís Logadóttir.’ Thóra had pretty much memorised the names of everyone at the centre and Sigríður Herdís had been the only deaf-blind one. She watched the girl handle the ball and various other things as the therapist handed them to her. Every time the woman handed her something new they repeated the exercise: one hand on the object, the other on the woman’s lips while she told her what the object was called; then they practised making the sign with their hands. From time to time the girl realized what she was holding and was the first to make the sign, at which she received cheerful praise from her therapist. Glódís stood there motionless the whole time, watching. ‘Is this the first video that you shot?’

  ‘Yes, they run in sequence. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was wondering about the centre’s director. She was obviously there to ensure that everything proceeded properly at the start, but surely she couldn’t have followed everyone’s treatment, all the time?’

  ‘No, I agree, she couldn’t. She was quite suspicious of me at first, but then she got used to my presence and I started seeing less of her. I would’ve expected the residents to find it difficult having me around, but not her.’

  Over the course of the videos the stony-faced Glódís stopped appearing in every shot. At first they watched every clip to the end, but when there was little to see beyond the daily lives of the residents, they started asking Sveinn to go through them more quickly. There wasn’t much to be gained from endless mealtimes and therapy sessions, and they found it uncomfortable to spy like peeping toms on the lives of these unfortunate people, now dead. In one of the scenes they spotted the young night watchman who had been on duty on the fateful night, and Sveinn paused the tape. ‘This one died in the fire. It was sheer luck that his co-worker didn’t die as well. He was off sick, or at least that’s what I was told.’

  ‘Is that significant?’ Matthew looked at Thóra.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She turned to Sveinn. ‘Were there watchmen on duty at the residence during the daytime? Or was it just evenings and weekends?’

  ‘It was staffed full-time on weekdays, so there was no need for a watchman except for the night shifts; but at weekends there were two of them working alone until noon, and then more people turned up to take care of lunch and receive visitors. I filmed there on several Sunday mornings because it was so quiet. That’s how I know the arrangement. The one who died was a nice guy, very good with the residents and really laid-back, like all the night watchmen. Once his sister and friend came to visit and helped out, although the smell coming off them rather suggested they were just finishing off a long night on the tiles.’

  Matthew couldn’t hide his shock. ‘Was that allowed?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. They were fine really, and they weren’t there that long. There was no ban on visitors to the centre, except of course at night, although I was never there then. I expect the same went for the staff as for the residents – that friends and relatives could pop in as long as they didn’t get in the way. It wasn’t that common, I don’t think, but I probably have some footage of someone dropping in, somewhere amongst all this.’

  In the event they didn’t find a relevant clip, despite going through what felt like hundreds of them. It would complicate the case endlessly if they had to factor in unscheduled visits by friends and family of employees, and it made Thóra wonder whether the only way to find the person who impregnated Lísa would be to take a DNA sample from every man in Iceland. She tried to push aside this idea and focus on the screen. One resident after another appeared and she was able to identify them all, since they were so few and their disabilities so different. Jakob appeared several times and in one shot he looked very upset, muttering constantly that he wanted to go home and being told again and again that this was his new home and that he should stop complaining and find something interesting to do. The video stopped suddenly when he pushed the lamp off his bedside table as he stomped furiously around the room. In other segments he just looked bored, and when he did join in any group activity it was with his head hanging sullenly. Tryggvi featured the least often, which Thóra imagined was due to the antisocial aspects of his autism. He only appeared twice, sitting in his room, in one instance drawing something that appeared to be a face without eyes, but with a
mask over its nose and mouth, and in the other staring into space and rocking slowly back and forth. The wall of his room was more or less covered with his pictures, which all had a similar subject: an eyeless figure, prostrate and with a gaping mouth, and another person in the distance holding up a ring divided into three. The same peculiar sequence, O8INN, appeared in all of them. However, the pictures weren’t identical; when the camera panned slowly across the wall, prominent flames were visible in some of them. ‘Do you know what the pictures are meant to show?’ asked Thóra. ‘For example, this figure lying down.’ She had started to suspect that it might be Lísa. She must have always been in bed, and her eyes must have always been closed. Why the figure’s mouth was gaping like that was another story; maybe it was one of those artist’s secrets that would never be revealed.

  ‘I have no idea, but he was extremely meticulous in his drawing. You should have seen how he went about it – I forgot to slow the film down to point it out to you before. He drew it all in one movement without ever lifting the pencil.’ They waited as Sveinn rewound to the shot of Tryggvi drawing, and stared silently at the screen as it demonstrated his peculiar method. The young man showed no sign of hesitation; he drew the pencil at even speed back and forth across the paper. ‘I’d be willing to bet that if someone studied this, they’d find that he’d discovered a way to do it using the shortest line possible and with the fewest intersecting points. And he never stopped to think about it. Amazing.’

  On the screen Tryggvi held out the picture behind him, in the direction of the camera, without looking up. ‘Thank you,’ a voice said, and a hand appeared to receive the picture, the video image wobbling slightly. ‘He gave me the drawing, the poor thing. I expect he’d run out of Blu-Tack to stick up the pictures and didn’t know what to do with them.’

  ‘Incredible.’ Thóra stared at the wall, which now filled the frame. ‘I’m not sure I’d have wanted these pictures hanging in my room. They’re just too sad – although he can’t have been bothered by them, if he wanted to display them so prominently.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. The next time I came they were all gone, and they’d taken all the boy’s drawing implements. I never understood why, but maybe, as you say, the pictures did have a negative influence on him or something. He looked pretty sad after that, although he was hardly a bundle of joy before.’ He fast-forwarded through some shaky recordings of the corridor before letting the video play again.

  Thóra’s eyes were starting to hurt, but suddenly something caught her attention. The man had walked down the corridor taking brief shots of the interior of each apartment. ‘Would you mind stopping?’ The screen showed apartment number six. Inside, someone was lying in bed; the short, dark hair could have belonged to a woman or a man. ‘Who’s this?’ Subconsciously, Thóra had been keeping count of the residents during the camera’s trip into the apartments, and all five had already appeared.

  ‘Oh, her. I don’t remember her name. She was living there but got sick or something, so she was at home or in hospital, I think, when the fire occurred. And because of that, she’s still alive.’

  ‘What?’ Thóra couldn’t disguise her amazement. Suddenly, she remembered having made a note to find out why there were six rooms but only five residents, given the supposed demand for places, and she kicked herself for not asking Glódís during their meeting. ‘Where is she now? Do you think it’s possible to speak to her?’

  ‘I have no idea where she ended up. At least, I didn’t see her the few times that I went to other centres to do some filming after the fire.’ He pointed at the equipment around her bed. ‘She’s seriously disabled and there’s no way of communicating with her unless you know how – she only signals with her eyes. I’m not sure whether she’s all there, mentally, but she seemed quite alert to me. Her eyes followed me every time I went into her room, though that might not mean anything.’

  Thóra would have to dig around for information about her, from Glódís or someone else at the Regional Office for the Disabled. If that didn’t work, she would go to Einvarður and remind him of his promise to assist them. But what would someone so severely disabled be able to add to what they already knew? She seemed unlikely to have any information Thóra wasn’t already aware of, and she couldn’t possibly have been present when Lísa’s child was conceived. Yet it was incredible that this was the first they’d heard of her; up until now no one had said a single word about her, nor had Thóra seen her mentioned even once in the case files.

  When Sveinn started the video again, Thóra was distracted and had difficulty focusing on what she was seeing and hearing. It was different for Matthew, who watched with great attentiveness; probably precisely because her own concentration had lapsed. ‘Rewind just a bit.’ Matthew had cocked his head sideways. ‘Could you turn it up? I thought I heard something.’ Sveinn did so, and they watched as an employee bent over a huge towel in a bathroom. ‘Did you hear that?’ Matthew looked at Thóra, who shook her head – she wasn’t sure. ‘One more time,’ he said.

  The man unfolded the towel with jerky movements as Sveinn rewound the tape. Then he began moving normally again, but Thóra’s attention wasn’t directed at what he was doing, but at what she could vaguely hear being repeated angrily in the background.

  ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

  Chapter 18

  Wednesday, 13 January 2010

  The traffic on Skólavörðurstígur Street had started to build up again. The rumbling of the cars carried in through the half-open window and the exhaust fumes worked their way into Thóra’s office. After one ill-advisedly deep in-breath she exhaled and grimaced, held her nose until she’d shut the window and then used the sheet of paper in her hand – which happened to be a list of the residence’s employees and specialists – as a fan. That seemed to disperse most of the stink, but perhaps she had just grown impervious to it. Nonetheless, she felt a bit better when she sat down again. It was hard enough to form an opinion on who from the list she should speak to next, without suffering respiratory failure into the bargain. Glódís had included far too many people, fourteen full-time and ten part-time, and there was no way of knowing in advance which of them might provide any useful information. Thóra was still waiting for the director to answer her e-mail requesting the name of the man who had looked after Tryggvi. Thóra had also put a cross by one name: Glódís herself. And actually, she could also cross out Friðleifur Guðjónsson, the night watchman who had died in the fire. It wasn’t as though she’d get anything from speaking to his gravestone, but Thóra still hesitated to cross out his name. Her pen hovered over the black lettering without touching the paper as she stared contemplatively at the letters. The young man had been hit at the base of the skull before the fire was lit. Was it to prevent him from helping the residents get out, or was there some other reason?

  Thóra reached for the file containing the autopsy report in order to reassure herself that she’d remembered the sequence of events correctly. Indeed she had. The man had been hit from behind and died of smoke inhalation in the blaze, probably as he’d lain unconscious. She tapped her pen lightly against the edge of the table. Might the fire have been designed to kill the night watchman? The filmmaker had mentioned that Friðleifur had received visitors at the home, so it was possible that he’d fallen out with a guest that night. Nocturnal visits weren’t permitted, but who was supposed to enforce that rule when the watchmen were alone on duty? It was also entirely possible that the criminal had thought he’d killed the night watchman and had set the place on fire in a desperate attempt to conceal the evidence. People in extremis can do the most unbelievable things, and what better way to conceal a murder than to make it look as though the violence had been directed at someone else? It could be that the same man had impregnated Lísa, which might have led to a fatal argument with Friðleifur. Thóra couldn’t quite imagine it, since the watchmen could hardly have allowed their visitors to roam freely around the apartments at night, but it was just about conceiva
ble. She knew nothing about Friðleifur Guðjónsson other than the little information contained in the testimony in the case files, and the good opinion of the filmmaker, although that was of little use. People rarely spoke ill of the dead, even though they might have cultivated less than flattering thoughts about them while they were still above ground.

  On the other hand, it would be easy to speak to the man who shared shifts with Friðleifur, since his name was readily available in the files. Thóra looked up his mobile number and rang it, but he didn’t answer and it didn’t go to voicemail. Until she could reach him, the only way to determine whether she was on the right track was to speak to Friðleifur’s relatives. She looked at the clock – almost five – and hurried to dig out the names of the man’s parents from the files. No one answered the landline, and the mother’s mobile was either turned off or out of range. However, Friðleifur’s father Guðjón answered his at the second ring. It sounded like he was driving.

  She introduced herself and offered to call later if it was inconvenient.

  ‘Inconvenient? What do you mean?’ The line was crackly, but she could hear his surprise.

  ‘It’s just that I can tell you’re driving.’

  ‘That’s no problem. I’m about to park.’ A moment later she heard the engine shut off. ‘Did you say you were a lawyer? Are you from the bank?’ Thóra explained carefully who she was and who she worked for. There was a long silence. For a moment she thought the man was going to hang up, but then he suddenly started speaking again, his voice now a great deal sharper. ‘What the hell do you want from me?’