Someone to Watch Over Me

CHAPTER 11 Monday, 11 January 2010

Monday mornings were frequently chaotic at the office. It was as if they all had difficulty registering that the weekend was over and a new work week was starting. They wandered in and out of their offices as if they were trying to remember what they were supposed to be doing, or hoping that one more cup of coffee would get their brains in gear. Thóra was no exception, least of all this Monday; work was the last thing she wanted to do.

She had realized when she started awake at the sound of the alarm that she was alone in the bed. That hadn’t particularly surprised her; generally Matthew woke long before she did, went out for a run and was nearly halfway through it by the time she came to her senses. Today, however, he had not only already returned but had also taken a shower and was neatly dressed and ready for the day. He stood at the end of the bed, staring pleadingly at her. ‘You have to take me with you to work. I’ll do anything. I’ll even help Bella.’ Thóra rubbed the sleep from her eyes and muttered something garbled that could have been interpreted as neither yes nor no. ‘I simply cannot bear another minute of your father’s whistling. I’ll get used to it, I know, but right now it’s driving me nuts.’

She let him come with her to work. Thóra’s parents saw to getting the kids up, giving them breakfast and sending them to school, so she managed to get ready more quickly than usual. The expansion of the household did have its advantages, and Thóra bid her parents goodbye with a kiss, feeling exceptionally happy with life despite the whistling that drifted out after them as they left the house. It didn’t hurt that Matthew had already got the car ready. This was one of Thóra’s least favourite jobs, maybe because she usually ended up with her arms full of snow. Although the garage had been full of boxes and there had been no immediate plans to tackle the clearing-out project, she’d always held onto the notion of parking the car in it one day. This distant dream, which frequently popped into her head on cold winter mornings, was now a thing of the past – for the next two months at least.

Thóra’s restlessness couldn’t, therefore, be attributed to the morning having started badly. She simply hated the fact that the weekend had somehow unexpectedly turned into a new work week. Until she could properly get into gear, she would just have to occupy herself with something; the only question was what that might actually be. She couldn’t get started on any of the cases awaiting her so she scrolled through her e-mails in search of messages that she’d forgotten or had left to answer later. But even that was problematic and in the end she gave up and shut down her e-mail altogether. She still had to go over the firm’s unpaid bills, but that would have to wait until the afternoon, or even tomorrow morning. She needed to do something more creative, or more exciting, until midday, by which time she would have regained her vigour.

Thóra turned away from the computer and the stack of bills. Matthew lay on a little sofa at the other end of the office, his feet hanging over one of the arms and a laptop on his knees, doubtless reading the news from home. After the weekend, it had crossed Thóra’s mind that perhaps they should shut themselves in the office in order to have a little time to themselves, but looking at how Matthew’s frame filled the sofa, the idea seemed suddenly less feasible. Besides, the lock on the door would never keep Bella out if she were in the mood to disturb them.

Thóra crumpled an empty, torn envelope into a ball and threw it gently at Matthew to draw his attention away from his computer. ‘How would you like to pop up to the Ministry of Justice with me to check whether the father of the autistic boy can be persuaded to tell me something? We can stop off at a café and have a restorative drink.’

Matthew caught the ball and looked as though he was considering tossing it back, but eventually decided against it. ‘Coffee sounds wonderful. That swill you serve in the lobby is completely undrinkable.’ Matthew grimaced at the cup resting on the coffee table in front of him. It had stopped steaming soon after the first sip. ‘If I didn’t know any better I might have thought you’d used the grounds twice.’ He stood up. ‘Not that that would be completely unheard of in this office.’ He tossed the crumpled paper at Thóra, hitting her on top of her head. ‘One-all.’

The ministry was located on Skuggasund Street – from skuggi, ‘shadow’ – and it was impossible not to wonder how the street had got its name. The area didn’t look particularly dark or shadowy, and besides, the street had been given the name before the buildings were put up. Maybe the namer had had the foresight to realize that the buildings on both sides of the street would shed prominent shadows across the site where the ministry stood. Or perhaps the name had been given because the street had been condemned to stand in the eternal shadow of the National Theatre. In any case, as soon as they entered the ministry’s interior, things brightened up, but as they moved further into the building, a peculiar sensation descended on Thóra again; now it felt as if they’d gone back many decades in time, since the building’s architecture bore such strong witness to the middle of the previous century. However, this feeling vanished when they were shown into the office corridor after the boy’s father had told the receptionist that he would see them. In the corridor, they could have been standing in absolutely any contemporary building; they walked past one office after another, all kitted out in the same style: a desk with a computer and a clunky telephone, the walls lined with stuffed IKEA bookshelves. When they reached the right office they expected it to be like all the others, but they were wrong; this one was much larger and more luxurious.

‘Please come in.’ Einvarður Tryggvason rose from his massive office chair and walked over to them. His voice was gentle and deep, his handshake firm and his hands soft. His whole appearance was spotless, in fact: his dark, elegant suit appeared to shine and it was as if he’d just got up from the barber’s chair after a haircut and a close shave. His smile revealed white teeth that weren’t completely straight, but which gave him a character that defined the difference between a good-looking ‘real’ person and a model. Strange as it might have seemed, it was precisely this imperfection that made him appear perfect. It struck Thóra how well this man would fit into politics and she wondered why he’d chosen the bureaucratic system rather than parliament or a ministerial position.

‘I was extremely glad when they told me you wanted to see me,’ Tryggvason continued, ‘because I’d heard that Jakob’s case was being reinvestigated, and your name was mentioned in connection with that.’ He smiled politely at Matthew. ‘But I’ve heard nothing about you.’

Thóra introduced Matthew by saying that he assisted her with various assignments and was bound to the same confidence as she was. She then added that in both their cases, however, that confidence came with the caveat that if anything came to light demonstrating or supporting Jakob’s innocence, it would be used in the report she’d submit with her petition to reopen the case. The man’s expression didn’t change and he said he had no objections to that; everyone surely wanted the case to be resolved and for the right man to bear the responsibility. Thóra did notice a shadow cross his smooth face when he spoke of the criminal and realized that behind the formal, polished courtesy lay an individual who, naturally, felt anger, happiness, sorrow and all the other emotions that shape a personality. ‘Have a seat and I shall answer whatever I can, as long as the questions are within the bounds of propriety.’ He followed this with yet another Colgate smile, but his eyes were no longer twinkling. ‘I’ve requested coffee for us, but if you would rather have tea I can fix that.’

It was Monday morning, so it had to be coffee. Einvarður sat carefully, making sure not to sit on his jacket, and gave the knot of his tie a slight tug, as if to assure himself that it was still centred and tightly secured. ‘Before we begin I’d like to ask you one thing that is understandably of great import-ance to me: do you think there’s a real chance that Jakob has been wrongfully detained?’ Einvarður stared into Thóra’s eyes as if he had a lie detector in his own, dark blue ones.

‘Yes, I do.’ Thóra didn’t need to pretend. The more she considered it, the less likely it seemed that poor, simple Jakob had been responsible. ‘I have significant doubts about the statements he made during his interrogations and in court, and I also feel that he’s very unlikely to have been able to conceive of and carry out such a complicated deed.’

‘It really wasn’t that complicated, surely?’ Einvarður’s expression was suddenly fierce. ‘You just pour out some petrol and light it.’

‘It required a bit more than that, if you think about it: you’d have to get hold of the petrol and leave all the fire doors open, and I would seriously question whether Jakob even knows what a fire door is. If his version of events is viewed with his disability in mind, my hunch is that he saw the perpetrator, but without being able to identify who it was. And there’s another detail that raises questions, which is too complicated to go into here. But in a nutshell, I feel that he doesn’t have the mental ability to have pulled this off without succumbing to the fire himself.’

Einvarður had listened to Thóra attentively without giving any visible indication of what he thought of her explanations. ‘The police, the prosecution and two different courts disagree with you.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Thóra replied without any irony or irritation. She hadn’t expected the man to have anything but doubts about her investigation and was actually extremely surprised that he’d even agreed to meet her and Matthew. ‘That doesn’t change the fact that this is my conclusion after studying the case, and that’s why I have decided to look into more than just the files that form the basis of those parties’ opinion. This visit is part of that.’

‘Who do you believe did start the fire, if it wasn’t Jakob?’ The man’s voice was devoid of any feeling as he said these words, which somehow gave them more weight than if they’d been spoken in anger.

‘I haven’t formed an opinion on that yet, but obviously I hope to do so. In a petition to reopen a case, there’s no stronger position than being able to categorically identify the guilty party.’

‘And am I to understand from this visit that you believe me to have been involved?’ Einvarður smiled jovially.

‘As I said, I haven’t formed an opinion as to who might have been responsible. I don’t yet have enough evidence to do that.’ Thóra smiled back at him, but Einvarður paled slightly. He had clearly expected Thóra to laugh off this ridiculous notion. ‘But no, I haven’t come here because I think you’re responsible. I was hoping that you could give me a better insight into life at the home, and whether there was anything about it that seemed off-kilter, not as it should have been.’

Einvarður seemed to have regained his composure and was now as slick as before. ‘Well, that’s a difficult question, I must admit. We just visited our son and didn’t really follow the goings-on at the residence very closely; after all, the idea was for the residents to have their own place of refuge, one they could look on as their own apartment.’

‘When you say we, do you mean you and your wife?’ Thóra assumed that the man was married; he was wearing a rather broad gold band. There wasn’t a scratch to be seen on its highly polished surface.

‘Yes.’ He reached for a large framed photograph on the shelf behind him. ‘And our daughter.’ He handed Thóra the photo. ‘This is Fanndís, my wife, and our daughter Lena. And this is Tryggvi.’ He pointed at the photo, leaving a fingerprint over the face of his deceased son on the otherwise spotless glass. ‘No one should have to experience such a thing.’

Thóra took the photo and didn’t know whether he meant having such a sick child or losing him under such tragic circumstances. She assumed he meant the latter. The family photo had been taken indoors, and in fact the background suggested that they were in their son’s apartment at the centre. Father and son sat on a little sofa, while Einvarður’s wife leaned on the sofa arm next to her son and the daughter stood straight as an arrow at the other end. They were all strikingly beautiful. Einvarður appeared relaxed even though he was dressed in an even smarter suit than the one he had on now. His arms were around the shoulders of his wife and son. Fanndís, also dressed stylishly in a salmon-pink shift dress, smiled radiantly at the camera. Their daughter was wearing a white full-length dress with a yellow headband, which made her look rather like a Roman priestess. The children each resembled one of their parents; the daughter looked like her blonde, exceptionally beautiful mother and the son like his dark-haired father. They all looked as if they could work as models, except perhaps the son who, although very good-looking, was lacking a little in concentration. The other three were looking straight at the camera and smiling, but he looked a bit off to the side, staring at something outside the frame that was attracting his attention more than the photographer. His hands were also in an unnatural position, the fingers of both tangled together as if in a peculiar prayer. In addition, his fingers seemed to be slightly less in focus than everything else in the photo, as if they’d been moving quickly. Unlike the rest of his family, he was dressed in casual clothing.

‘Excuse my rudeness,’ said Thóra. ‘I should have started by expressing my sympathy. I’m not going to pretend to understand how you feel; I just can’t imagine it. It must have been horrible.’ She handed Matthew the photograph. ‘Your son was really very handsome.’

‘Yes, he was.’ Einvarður took the photo from Matthew, who had had a good look at it. ‘But that was the only good card fate dealt him. Mentally, he was in his own little world, and none of us who cared about him could access it.’ He put the picture back on the shelf, making sure to position it so that it faced straight ahead.

‘Did he never express himself – never speak or use any kind of sign language?’ Thóra wanted to know whether there was any point in asking whether the boy had told his parents anything useful about life at the care home.

Einvarður shook his head. ‘No, he never said a word. He understood what people said, or so we believe, but he never communicated. He was extremely interested in illustrated educational books but we never knew for sure whether he read them or just looked at the pictures. Sometimes he stared at the same page for a long time.’

‘But do you think he was aware of his environment?’

‘No, I doubt it. At least, I don’t think he understood or noticed what happened around him in the way that we would. My wife disagreed with me, of course. In the twenty-two years that we had Tryggvi, we never could decide about that, which is maybe the best indication of how incomprehensible his life was, at least to those of us who are supposedly normal.’

‘So your wife thought it was possible to reach him?’ Maybe she was better informed than Tryggvi’s father.

Einvarður placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘She thought so, and she never gave up on the idea that it might be possible to find a way of treating Tryggvi as, or training him to become, a fully functional member of society – or close to it, at least. It seemed impossible to me, but obviously I didn’t want to dash her hopes. Of course, secretly I shared her dream – I even had modest hopes of my own. Stranger things have certainly happened.’ He leaned back in his seat. ‘We’ll never find out whether or not it would have worked.’

‘But you must have visited him and been inside the home, even though he didn’t live there long. How did you find the facilities and the staff’s treatment of your son? According to Jakob, the residents were miserable, but I don’t know whether that view is coloured by his own unhappiness at having to move there.’

Einvarður raised his dark eyebrows, which, were it not for one or two stray hairs, would look almost as if they’d been shaped. ‘I certainly wasn’t aware of that and I visited my son every other day, usually. Even though the place was off the beaten track, I tried to go after work at least twice a week, and we also went both days on the weekends. Fanndís and Lena visited him even more than I did. His mother went virtually every day.’

‘But you didn’t notice anything? Nothing that struck you as odd, or that might have suggested that the residents were unhappy?’

‘Well, many of them clearly didn’t feel great, but that had nothing to do with the residence itself. Several of them were either in pain or had difficulty expressing themselves, and Jakob probably took this as evidence of distress. He’d only lived with his mother before he moved to the home, if I remember correctly.’

Thóra nodded; she’d come to a similar conclusion herself. She considered telling him about Ari’s insinuation that Tryggvi had jumped the queue when it came to the admissions procedure, but decided to leave it alone. There was probably something in it, but she couldn’t see what it might have to do with the case. ‘But your son – did he seem content?’

‘As far as I could tell. At first he was fairly agitated and unhappy at being in a new environment, but he’d started to recover and become his old self again. You said you’d read through the case files, which means you probably know that Tryggvi’s high-level autism made him extremely sensitive to change. He can’t…’ The man corrected himself, embarrassed. ‘Excuse me – he couldn’t, I meant to say. But anyway, he couldn’t bear unexpected noise, movement in the corner of his eye, strangers, changes in diet; he hated being in the car and was even worse about boarding planes, so our dreams of taking him on a nice beach holiday were unrealistic, to say the least. He wanted everything set in stone, and he reacted to change very badly, whatever guise it came in.’

‘Did Tryggvi ever go to the others’ apartments – did he visit the other residents, or decide to have a look around? Maybe not at first, but after a bit of time had passed?’

‘Absolutely not. He never took the initiative as far as human interaction was concerned, and in fact he avoided it as much as possible; he always stayed in his own apartment unless he was forced to leave it. The staff definitely weren’t doing their jobs properly if they were allowing him to go visiting – and I very much doubt that was happening. Who says that Tryggvi visited other apartments? Jakob?’ His expression hardened. ‘Are you trying to pin this on my son?’

Thóra shook her head. ‘That wasn’t why I asked. Although their circumstances were different, your son was in the same boat as Jakob, in the sense that starting that fire required organizational abilities that neither of them possessed. We’re not trying to blame Tryggvi. On the other hand, he was male, and I’m currently trying to draw up a list of men who can be exonerated from having fathered the child that was conceived at the care home. I don’t know whether you were told, but Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir, the young comatose girl, was pregnant.’

A crack appeared in Einvarður’s polished appearance, revealing a glimpse of the man beneath. ‘You’re joking.’

‘No. My jokes are generally in slightly better taste. Actually, I’m surprised that you’re surprised, because according to my information, you were fully informed of it.’

The man grew agitated, raking his fingers through his hair, his eyes wide. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was so surprised that it came out wrong.’ He dropped his hand. ‘I heard about it after the fire occurred and the investigation started. I just haven’t been able to absorb it still. My apologies for how ridiculous that sounded.’

‘You do know that there’s DNA from the foetus, or at least there was, but they need genetic material from the father to compare it with.’

‘You’re welcome to take a sample from me to rule me out. I personally suggested that the same be done with my son – I even paid for it out of my own pocket.’ He flushed slightly at his hairline. ‘The girl’s parents asked me to help them put a stop to any further investigation of this case and I pulled a few strings. In order to prevent any possible suspicion later on that I’d done something out of line, I wanted it to be quite clear that what I was doing had nothing to do with trying to cover Tryggvi’s tracks. The results of my son’s test also effectively ruled me out as the child’s father; there was too little correspondence between Tryggvi’s DNA and that of the foetus. But as I say, if you want to run another test I’m happy to cooperate.’

This ruling-out made sense as long as Tryggvi was definitely Einvarður’s son; Thóra decided not to raise the possibility that he wasn’t. ‘But why did you take it upon yourself to do such a thing for the girl’s parents? It’s an odd thing to propose in a matter that serious.’

‘I just wasn’t completely myself at the time. That’s really all I can tell you. Well, that and maybe the fact that the girl’s parents were grief-stricken and pursued it so insistently. I feel I must mention that I didn’t act in isolation; the police knew all about it, as well as the prosecutor. We all agreed unanimously that I should grant their request. Her father had already been cleared of any suspicion.’ Einvarður appeared very keen to convince them that he had been guided purely by the parents’ wishes, and it was indeed difficult to imagine what other reason he might have had. Unless he’d been trying to ensure that Jakob’s investigation and trial should proceed as quickly as possible. ‘Believe me, I’ll do anything I can for you if it helps uncover who abused this young woman; and indeed if it reveals that someone other than Jakob started the fire. I didn’t connect these two appalling incidents at the time, but I can completely see where you’re going with this inves-tigation and why.’

‘All and any help is much appreciated, of course. If you happen to think of anything, now that you’ve had a bit of time to distance yourself from these events…’

‘Is it all right if I tell my wife about Lísa? She spent more time there than I did and she might have noticed something or be able to think of something. She took the death of our son very badly and it didn’t do anything to help her condition; my wife is terribly sensitive.’

‘I don’t see why not, as long as she keeps the information to herself. If your wife is willing to speak to me herself, that would also be very much appreciated.’

‘That’s easy. She’s generally at home. She stopped working when Tryggvi was born and our daughter still lives with us, so that arrangement still suits her even though things are easier and calmer for her than when Tryggvi was alive. I’ll ask her to call you.’ He took the business card Thóra handed him. ‘Have you spoken to the filmmaker?’

‘Which filmmaker?’ Thóra had seen no mention of a filmmaker either in the court documents or in anything else she’d read.

‘There was a young man gathering material for a documentary about the centre’s work. It was all approved by the Regional Office and was going well, I think. The man was there all the time and I’m sure he has a lot of material you might be able to access. Who knows – maybe there’ll be something of use to you buried in there somewhere. And what’s more, I bet he got a good sense of what it was like there in relation to other similar homes. I’m sure he could reassure you that everything was just fine.’ With this, Einvarður skilfully avoided any further discussion of what might have happened to Lísa. No doubt he realized how callous this seemed because he quickly added, in a graver tone: ‘I hope you find the person who did this to Lísa, and if Jakob is innocent of starting the fire, I would be the first to celebrate if you find the bastard responsible. On the other hand, if Jakob is guilty, I sincerely hope that he’s locked up in Sogn until the day he dies.’