Margeir answered the phone cheerfully, certain that he was about to get some positive news; it wasn’t often that work contacted him. But the weary voice of the station manager crushed his hopes. Advertising revenue was slow and the number of sponsors was decreasing steadily, so he wanted Margeir to find some legal party to sponsor his show in return for advertisements and good publicity from the station. He added that Margeir should think about it carefully, since his job depended on it; he shouldn’t rule out any potential sponsors. Everyone was in need of publicity these days; times were hard and every customer and every penny was fought for. Nowhere could you find cheaper advertising that gave as much return, and the station’s listenership was constantly growing. His sales pitch was so convincing that Margeir was almost starting to consider advertising himself when the man said abruptly, ‘You can do it, right? Otherwise I’ll have to hire someone who can find his own sponsors. Times are tough, you know,’ he continued, when Margeir didn’t answer straight away.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ was all he could think of to say. ‘Bye.’ He hung up and exhaled slowly. The wind had changed; Margeir gasped when it proved to be colder than his lungs had anticipated. He cursed his complacency. How did unemployment payments work? He had no idea. He vaguely remembered his mother nagging him to sign on when he’d lost his job just over a year before, but he’d completely forgotten where to go and what to do. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to bringing it up again, because he’d kind of implied that he’d already done it ages ago. He wouldn’t be able to convincingly explain to her why he’d been so unmotivated, and he suspected he’d get only limited sympathy from her about it, even though she always took his side.
He fully expected his right to full benefits to have expired after all this time, but surely he was entitled to something. The government could hardly expect him to go begging on the streets, could they? Wasn’t that against the law, too? He couldn’t afford to lose any more income, and the money he’d saved up by doing two jobs at the same time was long gone. Plus he could hardly cut back any further on household expenses. The apartment was owned by his grandfather, so he’d never find lower rent anywhere else. He’d stopped making calls from his mobile phone and had cancelled his accounts for his landline and Internet, along with everything else that cost money and wasn’t considered a necessity. His car was the only thing he was holding onto; no one would buy that piece of junk anyway, and it was good to have it for emergencies, even though the petrol tank leaked and he had to keep a can in the boot just to be on the safe side. He denied himself every other luxury and it was hard to think of further ways to reduce his expenses. He spent his money on little other than housing and food, and when you only ate noodles it was impossible to make cutbacks in that area. Pizza was a luxury he sometimes thought about but never allowed himself. The only proper meals he had were at his mother’s, usually on Sundays. She earned a huge number of brownie points from her son for not mentioning his ravenous appetite and the quantity of food he devoured. Once she had asked him if he was still growing even in adulthood, but otherwise she acted as if she didn’t notice anything unusual and simply started preparing bigger meals so that he could take the leftovers home with him. No, it wasn’t like the good old days when he’d had enough in his wallet. Of course there hadn’t been much left at the end of every month but he didn’t recall ever having lacked anything. He hadn’t had a clue about the hard times that awaited him.
He set off down the empty street, into the wind, and resolved to do the right thing. Nothing mattered any more but taking responsibility for himself and hoping people would see the truth. Even though it would be hard to pin all the blame on him, you never knew; fate was unpredictable. As far as he could see it lulled people into a false sense of security, getting them to believe that everything would be all right and then knocking their feet out from under them when they least expected it. He remembered all the news stories about poor people winning lottery jackpots, only to fritter them away and be left with the knowledge of what they’d be missing for the rest of their lives. He had considered himself to be on the upswing; his life had felt as though it had direction, even though he didn’t know exactly where he was heading or how he would get there. Now that feeling had disappeared and it was clear that his path lay along the baseline, not on an upwards trajectory. For the time being, at least.
Margeir pulled his hood up to protect himself against the cold. What was he whingeing for? There were loads of people much more unfortunate than he was and there was no reason to make things even worse than they actually were. If the worst came to the worst he could move in with his mother; unless, that was, he could actually find some sponsors. While he was pondering possible opportunities in that area his phone rang again and he pulled it hopefully from his pocket. Maybe the station manager had changed his mind, or maybe a sponsor had materialised and Margeir wouldn’t have to come up with one any more. But this wasn’t the case, and sponsorship was no longer Margeir’s biggest concern.
Thóra was in a foul mood. She had returned to her office after her visit to Sogn and had made calls all over town to speak to those who were now most important to the case. But it seemed as though they’d all conspired to ignore her. Ari didn’t answer – neither his office phone nor his mobile – and Glódís hadn’t even replied to Thóra’s first e-mail enquiring about who had been in charge of Tryggvi’s therapy, let alone her second message asking for the name of the surviving sixth resident. Nor had she managed to contact the former director by telephone; the Regional Office said that Glódís was busy and refused to refer Thóra to someone else who could answer her question about the girl in Room 6. The woman on the phone defended herself by claiming client confidentiality, and there was little that Thóra could say in protest. The Ministry of Justice also informed her that Einvarður was busy in a meeting and would not be in his office for the rest of the day. Thóra had intended to go through the list Glódís had given her but when she attempted to do so, she either reached the voicemails of former employees or no one at all. Two of the numbers were out of service.
To make matters worse, Bella had seized her chance to wangle some time off after Thóra had left that morning, so reception was empty. The secretary had left a large note on the table, saying: Gone to the dokter’s. Thóra and her partner Bragi had bought a spellcheck program as soon as they’d seen the first letters their secretary had typed up, and without a doubt it had been one of their best investments. Still, it was quite an achievement for Bella to have managed to squeeze two errors into the same word.
When her phone finally rang Thóra couldn’t work out which of the numbers she’d been trying to reach was flashing up on her screen.
‘My name is Linda, and I have a missed call from this number.’
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.’
Someone to Watch Over Me Page 24