Someone to Watch Over Me

CHAPTER 25 Monday, 18 January 2010

Ragna Sölvadóttir’s condition turned out to be much worse than Thóra had imagined. She lay on her back, but the nurse had turned her head so that the young woman could look straight at the person speaking to her. A therapist sat close beside Thóra. A thin blanket was spread over Ragna’s wasted body and her shoulders stuck out from beneath it like coat hangers, her collarbone jutting through her skin. Thóra was sure it must require the utmost care simply to handle the girl so that she didn’t break. It wasn’t her scrawny body that made Thóra most uncomfortable, though, but how still the girl was. The lack of movement was so absolute that Thóra felt as if she herself had to be completely still, as if the slightest twitch would be rubbing the girl’s face in the difference between their lives. Considering how the therapist was moving around in her seat, however, Thóra was probably being unnecessarily sensitive. The therapist was an employee of the Regional Office who had been drafted in to assist her, although the speed at which everything had occurred after Glódís had called and given the green light for her to meet Ragna had made Thóra’s head spin somewhat, and she would have liked to have been better prepared. She had expected it to take several days to organize this meeting, not a few hours. She had the sneaking suspicion that perhaps this had been precisely the aim – to surprise her in order to ensure that her conversation with Ragna would be as muddled as possible. Unless Glódís had finally realized that it was pointless being stubborn; Thóra’s investigation would follow its course with or without her help.

The therapist placed her hands on the cards that she’d laid in her lap. She had a gentle voice and her enunciation was very precise. There was no risk of her words being misunderstood. ‘So to be clear, you understand who this is, and are prepared to answer her questions?’ The woman’s whole demeanour was relaxed, and her brief introduction of Thóra and the purpose of her visit had been clear and reasonable, as if Thóra were meeting with a fully capable woman. There was no pity in her voice nor any trace of the childish tone that Thóra felt trying to emerge in her own questions. She would have to get a grip on herself and be careful about talking down to the young woman; although her body had almost entirely given up, her mind was clear.

The girl blinked once. Yes.

‘That’s good. We’re not in a hurry, Ragna, so just take your time. I have the cards and you know them quite well by now, don’t you?’

Again the girl blinked once. Yes. Her eyes were an unusual colour, so dark blue that Thóra thought at first they were brown. She felt as if they were expressing some terrible sorrow, even though she couldn’t put her finger on what was making her feel this way. There were no tears in the girl’s eyes, nor did she seem upset in any way; she just stared ahead, wide-eyed. Before they’d gone into the room the therapist had told Thóra that the few people who’d been injured in this way always started by spelling out the same thing from the cards: Kill me. After sitting at the girl’s bedside for a few minutes, Thóra wasn’t surprised. The woman had added that this death wish generally passed; humans had an extraordinary capacity to adapt and these people usually took comfort from the knowledge that their situation could be even worse. When Thóra had exclaimed in surprise and asked how that could possibly be, the therapist had replied that there was a slightly more severe version of this condition, where the brain couldn’t make contact with any voluntary muscles at all, including the ones that controlled eye movements. In order to distinguish such a condition from a coma, they had to measure brainwaves; the only difference between the two was consciousness. Thóra’s mouth went dry, all the way down into her throat, as her mind automatically started trying to fathom what such an existence could possibly be like.

‘Then perhaps it’s best if Thóra takes over now, and I’ll just deal with the cards.’ The therapist smiled at the girl and then looked at Thóra. ‘Go ahead.’

Thóra was actually speechless. She’d become lost in her own thoughts and was quite unprepared to take over, but she recovered quickly. ‘I don’t know how well you knew Jakob, who lived at the residence, but I’m working for him. I honestly think, as do several others, that he’s not guilty of starting the fire.’ The girl’s eyes remained still. ‘It would help me considerably to be able to ask you some questions about your time there, because you’re the only surviving resident apart from Jakob; and he has a limited ability to describe or understand what happened.’ Thóra was deliberately not beating about the bush; it was part of her policy of treating Ragna in the same way as she would a fully functioning individual. ‘Some of what I want to ask is unpleasant and personal, and I understand and respect it if you don’t want to answer some of the questions. It’s your choice.’ Ragna still gave no indication of whether they should proceed or not; naturally, she had blinked, but had been careful to do so in the middle of Thóra’s statements so that her blinking would not be misunderstood as replies. Thóra inhaled sharply as she ran her eyes over the smattering of notes that she’d jotted down in the quarter of an hour she’d had to prepare. ‘Actually, I need to know one thing before I start, and that’s whether you knew all the residents by name?’ If she hadn’t, it would be difficult for Thóra to phrase her questions in such a way that Ragna would understand who she was referring to in each instance.

One blink. Yes. Saliva trickled from the girl’s mouth and a little wet spot appeared on her pillow.

‘I’m happy to hear it.’ Thóra smiled at her. She looked at her paper and then again at the girl. ‘Considering your acquaintance with Jakob, do you think that he could have had reason or the ability to set the residence on fire?’

The young girl’s eyes sought out the therapist, who gripped Thóra’s shoulder. ‘Make sure you ask only one question at a time. That was two: whether he might have, and whether he could have, started the fire. It makes it much easier keeping it simple.’

Thóra nodded, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, directing her statement at Ragna. ‘I’ll be more careful. What I want to know is whether you consider it possible for Jakob to have started the fire.’

Ragna looked again at the therapist, who raised one of the cards and started pointing at the symbols on it. Finally she looked at Thóra. ‘She doesn’t know, or has no opinion on it.’ As the woman spoke she looked at Ragna, who blinked once in approval at what the woman had said.

‘Very good.’ Thóra saw no reason to ask Ragna the first part of the original question, about whether Jakob might have had a reason for starting the fire. She probably wasn’t in any position to know. ‘I expect you never went into Natan’s apartment, but do you know of anything that might have been connected to a short hose there?’ The girl’s eyes flitted back and forth and she appeared to have been upset by the question, though perhaps Thóra wasn’t sufficiently qualified to judge. The therapist used her cards and finally asked Thóra to ask a different question, since the girl’s answers weren’t sufficiently clear; she was spelling out hose short in my room. These words told Thóra nothing, but she had no idea what she could ask that would help to clarify. In order not to waste time going down a dead end, she asked another question she felt more confident about. The therapist had warned her before they went in that they couldn’t spend much time with Ragna as patients tired easily during this kind of communication. ‘Was there much interaction between the residents?’

Again the two women communicated through the cards. ‘Her answer to this is both yes and no, which I interpret to mean that it varied, presumably depending on who was involved.’ Ragna blinked once, so the therapist’s understanding was apparently correct.

‘Did the other residents regularly come to visit you in your apartment?’ One blink, which allowed Thóra to continue along the same lines. She read the names of the residents one by one and received either one blink or two in return. The result was that two of them visited her with any frequency: the deaf-blind girl, Sigríður Herdís, and the epileptic Natan. Ragna’s reply concerning Tryggvi was difficult to understand and the therapist told Thóra she was indicating that she couldn’t answer the question with a simple yes or no. There was a short exchange between them, and finally the therapist put the cards down carefully in her lap and informed Thóra that Tryggvi had come to see Ragna only once. It was a similar situation with Jakob: he had only visited twice, which fitted in with his saying he’d felt uncomfortable in her presence. However, it was Tryggvi’s visit that interested Thóra, because here she had a witness who could confirm that he’d moved voluntarily around the centre, even if such a thing was rare. His involvement in the fire was starting to look more likely than she had thought, and this possibility was enhanced by the way his parents and Glódís had remained silent about so much that concerned him. Why did they seem to want to keep his progress secret, even though it had been relatively minimal? Perhaps the therapy sessions had not only improved Tryggvi’s social skills but also further opened up the horrified fascination with fire that his parents had also kept quiet about. Thóra had made contact with an employee of the summer camp, who had been only too happy to tell her about the incident when the sleeping bag had been set on fire. According to her, Tryggvi had got hold of some matches and lighter fluid that had been used to light a small bonfire the previous night, which had fascinated him. He had used them to set fire to a sleeping bag in one of the bunks, no doubt to relive the enjoyment he’d experienced during the bonfire the night before. Luckily he hadn’t been all that stealthy and they’d managed to extinguish the fire before it did much damage. The woman went on to tell Thóra that Tryggvi’s parents had been extremely upset and informed the camp organizers that the boy was obsessed with fire and that they should always be sure to lock away any firelighting materials so that he couldn’t get his hands on them. His parents had omitted to mention this when enrolling him in the camp; it had been so long since anything like that had happened that they had simply forgotten to mention it. It somehow hadn’t occurred to them that any fires would be lit at the camp. Tryggvi’s father had then decided to visit him immediately, and everyone had considered the matter closed, especially as it had been just one of many trying incidents during that difficult week.

‘Did Tryggvi visit you around the time that you left the residence for the hospital?’

One blink. Yes.

‘Did he say anything?’ Tryggvi had reportedly never spoken, but Thóra decided to ask nonetheless. It could be that he’d made more progress than people wanted to admit; similar things had been kept quiet.

Two blinks. No.

‘Did he get into bed with you?’ Thóra was looking straight at Ragna, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the therapist turn her head sharply in her direction.

Two blinks. No.

‘Did anyone else ever get into bed with you?’ The therapist gripped Thóra’s arm firmly, but Thóra shook her hand off and focused on the young woman’s reaction. For a long time nothing happened; they just stared into each other’s eyes. Then the girl blinked.

One slow, heavy blink. Yes.

Thóra sat outside in her car in the National Hospital’s crowded car park. The heater was trying to battle the hoarfrost on the window and Thóra put her hands under her thighs to protect them from the cold seat. But it wasn’t the frosty windscreen or her cold thighs that bothered her; her mind was in overdrive and it would be dangerous to launch herself out into the traffic before she’d tried to put her thoughts in order. This was serious stuff, and the conversation with Ragna had ended long before Thóra had received answers to all her questions. There had proved to be a limit to how long Ragna could keep up a conversation. Although it could have continued for some time after it emerged that someone had climbed into bed with the young woman, it came to a natural conclusion when she simply couldn’t go any further. Thóra didn’t know whether it was from agitation or fatigue, but it was difficult to understand how a person might feel who was only capable of expressing themselves one letter at a time. Ragna had made her feelings known very simply: she had shut her eyes and not opened them again until she was asked whether she wanted to conclude the conversation. Then she blinked once. Yes.

Thóra was startled by a brisk tapping on the window. Outside stood the therapist, insufficiently dressed for outdoors and shaking like a leaf. It took Thóra a moment to catch her breath and free her hands from beneath her thighs. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ said the woman after Thóra rolled down the window and wrapped her arms around herself to better preserve her body heat. ‘I simply must ask you about what happened in there.’ This came as no surprise to Thóra. Although the therapist had initially been totally opposed to discussing these sensitive matters, she had changed her mind almost immediately and quickly became just as eager as Thóra to know what had taken place. After leaving the girl in the care of the nurse, it was clear that the woman wanted Thóra to tell her everything about the investigation, but Thóra merely thanked her for her help and hurried away. ‘I must point out that the topics of these conversations are usually of no concern to me; I sort of put myself in the role of stenographer, but in this case I find it very difficult.’

‘Hopefully there isn’t generally a need to ask the sorts of questions that I just did.’

‘No. At least I’ve never been at that kind of interview before.’ The woman smiled, but her smile disappeared quickly as her teeth began to chatter. ‘Of course I’d heard of something similar happening at the National Hospital some decades ago, and then again recently at a community residence, but it was completely hushed up. A girl there became pregnant, but she died before further news of it got out. At least that’s how I heard it.’

‘I think the second story you’re referring to relates to the same case we were discussing with Ragna.’ Thóra was in a dilemma: she didn’t really want to speak to this woman, but she might need her services in the near future. It seemed clear that news of Lísa’s pregnancy had spread throughout the Regional Office, but had stopped there, since the woman had only heard secondhand rumours.

‘I’m bound to confidentiality about what I hear in these kinds of interviews. You needn’t worry that it will go any further.’ This sounded credible. The same applied to interpreting in court. Had Thóra been given time to prepare more thoroughly, this was one of the things she would have swotted up on, but now she had to decide whether the woman was telling the truth. ‘I’m trying to find the man who forced himself on one of the inhabitants of the care home that burned down. The woman was pregnant when she died in the fire and I suspect attempts have been made to cover this up.’

‘But what did she mean when she kept repeating the word oxygen?’

‘I have no idea, more’s the pity.’ This was one detail that had perplexed Thóra. When the girl had first spelled out the word, they had both thought she was in respiratory distress, which turned out not to be the case. How oxygen was related to the horrible thing that had happened to her was difficult to understand, but in the girl’s mind clearly the two were inextricably – if inexplicably – linked. ‘Did the description of the man mean anything to you?’ The likelihood that anyone would recognize the perpetrator from the description the girl had given was negligible: dark hair, blue-grey eyes, slim, straight teeth. Why couldn’t the bastard have had a wart or a tattoo in the middle of his forehead?

‘No, but I didn’t know anyone there. I never set foot in the residence, I’m afraid.’ The woman hopped from foot to foot. ‘What about the police? Shouldn’t you let them know?’

‘Yes, absolutely – I’ll contact them as soon as I get back to my office. It’s too cold to do it now.’ Even though the police had honoured Lísa’s parents’ request to keep her case quiet, the rape had taken on a different aspect now that it was clear there had been two victims – especially since one of them was still alive.

‘Sure, of course.’ The woman stood up straight and prepared to leave, even though she was obviously itching to ask Thóra more. It was probably as difficult for her to formulate her questions as it was for Thóra to digest what had happened.

‘One question before I go.’ Thóra sat on her hands again, this time to heat up her fingers a little before driving off. The wind blew into the car and the heater couldn’t compete. ‘Do you think you might have misread any of the cards? Might she have been trying to say something else? Those symbols are pretty close to each other, and it must be difficult to read them with absolute precision.’

‘No, that’s highly unlikely. I asked her about all of the symbols, as you saw, and she specifically agreed to those I pointed at. Obviously it’s harder to communicate through the cards than through standard spoken language; it’s impossible to have icons for everything in the world and communication becomes stilted when we have to spell out each word. But what I told you was what she indicated. I’ve been doing this long enough to assure you of that.’

‘I’m sorry. I was just hoping there would be some simple explanation for her bizarre responses. This thing about the oxygen is completely incomprehensible, and I have no idea what she was getting at when she mentioned the radio.’ Just before the girl had given up she had spelled out radio. ‘Of course she was probably trying to say something more about it, but I was hoping it might have been something else. Something clearer.’

‘No, sadly.’ The woman had turned blue from cold in the exposed car park. ‘But if I think of something, I’ll be in touch, of course.’ She gathered herself to leave again, but before she sprinted in the direction of her car she added: ‘You shouldn’t delay in contacting the police. People with locked-in syndrome usually die young, and she may not have long left. Death can strike quickly if the patient gets ill, and I know investigations and hearings take time. The person who did this mustn’t get away with it. She deserves to live to see him sentenced.’ And with that she ran off into the wind.

With the woman’s words ringing in her ears Thóra drove back up Skólavörðustígur Street, immensely relieved to have taken her car instead of walking the short distance, as she’d thought about doing. It wasn’t the north wind that made her jog in from her parking space, however, but the overwhelming desire to report what she’d learned to the authorities. With the same haste she called the police, before even removing her coat. She introduced herself and asked to speak to the person who had led the inquest into the fire. It would be best to speak to him so that she wouldn’t have to waste time explaining the facts of the case; he must have been aware of Lísa’s condition and the results of the investigation. After something of a wait, which at least gave her time to take off her jacket, a man came on the line, introducing himself in a deep voice as Úlfar. Thóra gave him her full name and was just about to tell him why she was calling when he interrupted her.

‘Did you say Thóra Guðmundsdóttir? Lawyer?’

Thóra was surprised. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Has someone been in touch with you?’

This didn’t make things any clearer. ‘Er… no.’

The man was silent, apparently thinking things over. ‘Your name is on a list I have here in my office, in connection with a case that came up yesterday.’

‘I’m extremely busy, I’m afraid – I don’t have time to take on new cases at the moment. Could you take me off the list for the time being?’ A while ago Thóra had asked for her name to be added to a list of lawyers whom police suspects could contact when they needed a defence solicitor. This had been part of a plan that her partner Bragi had cooked up in response to the recession, although it hadn’t led to anything – until now, apparently.

‘It’s easier said than done to take you off the list that I’m talking about. No one here has requested legal assistance from you – this is to do with a very serious case that you seem to be linked to.’

Thóra was too taken aback to fully absorb the implications of what he was saying. ‘I don’t really understand. I actually called to report a serious crime. Perhaps we’re talking about the same thing?’ Had the therapist beaten her to it in reporting the rape?

‘If the crime you were going to report involves a death, then it’s possible. If not, then we’re talking about two unrelated cases.’

‘A death?’ Thóra’s heart skipped a beat; maybe Jakob had died of his wounds. He hadn’t seemed to be anywhere near death’s door the day before, but what did she know about medicine? ‘What’s the name of the person who died, may I ask?’

Rather than answering her, he changed the subject, or so it seemed. ‘Do you know a young radio host named Margeir?’