Someone to Watch Over Me

CHAPTER 3 Wednesday, 6 January 2010

It was no wonder the briefcase Jakob’s mother had left was falling to bits. One more Post-it note would probably have finished it off, it was so full. Thóra would probably need to transfer the contents to a new case when she returned them to Grímheiður; it would be easier than stuffing all the files back into this one. But for the moment it was empty, the papers that had previously stretched it to bursting point scattered across the desk. Thóra leaned back in the top-of-the-range office chair she’d bought when the company’s fortunes had finally appeared to be looking up, about a month before the economy imploded. There was simply reams of information here, and she obviously wouldn’t have the luxury of going through all the files before deciding whether or not to take on Jakob’s case. She would have to pick out the ones that seemed most likely to contain useful information. She started two piles on her desk, sorting the papers by apparent relevance. Admittedly, her criteria were governed mostly by her desire to keep the ‘yes’ pile under half the height of the ‘maybe’ one. By the time she’d sorted through most of the papers, her plan seemed to have worked.

Although Thóra had only skimmed the files, she was filled with dread. She didn’t need a long-winded report to tell her that the events of that night had been horrific. Five people had died tragically; four residents and a night watchman. The centre admitted disabled people aged eighteen to twenty-five, and residents were not moved to another facility when they hit the maximum age. It was a new build, meaning all the residents who perished were young, which made the whole thing even sadder. And to make matters even worse, the watchman unlucky enough to be working that night, one of twelve staff members, was just as young at twenty-three. Fire can be merciless, and in the residence it appeared to have burned out of control and rendered everything and everyone in its path unrecognizable. Thóra couldn’t believe somewhere like this hadn’t had a decent fire alarm fitted, which might have saved some, if not all, of the victims. She also found it odd that neither the residents nor the night watchman had been able to escape and raise the alarm. Maybe the fire had spread too fast, but that seemed unlikely.

Thóra gathered the remaining papers, put them on top of the larger ‘maybe’ pile and turned her attention to the smaller pile. As soon as she started reading the first file, she regretted not having put them in any particular order, either by date or likely relevance. She set aside the file – a report about technical aspects of the fire – and flipped down through the rest until she found the verdict in Jakob’s case. Soon most of her initial questions were answered, and she could see a clear sequence of events.

Shortly after 3 a.m., petrol that had been spilled that night along the corridors and into the living quarters was set alight. The fire doors had been propped open with chairs and other objects, but only the ones leading to occupied apartments; the rooms with no one inside had been left alone. It would be difficult to argue that this had been an accident; it was a clear example of malice aforethought. The report stated that the night watchman, Friðleifur, had been attacked and struck at the base of the skull. Although the autopsy and other evidence could not be conclusive, he was probably unconscious before the petrol was trailed through the building. His body was found melted onto a chair in the duty office, and there was nothing to suggest that he had moved or tried to escape. The cause of death was listed as suffocation from smoke inhalation. So Friðleifur had been unable to keep his charges safe, and the building’s electrics had failed them too; because the home was so new a few of its systems, including the fire alarm and sprinklers, were yet to be connected. This had been raised as a concern, but with the work so behind schedule the excitement of moving everyone in overcame common sense and the residents were installed before all the loose ends were tied up. The concerns raised were quickly forgotten and the sensors – which would have saved lives – sent their messages into space instead of alerting the sprinkler system.

In a further twist of fate, a second watchman who should have been covering the night shift had called in sick at short notice, and no one could be found to replace him. In his statement he said that Friðleifur had called him at home an hour before the time the fire was estimated to have started. At that point there had been nothing much to report; the other man was only calling to ask about a key he couldn’t find. The files also mentioned another phone call, but this one to the centre, not from it. This call, which was brief, had occurred just before Friðleifur called his sick colleague. The caller, a young man not named in the files, claimed to have been drunk at the time and to only vaguely remember making the call; it must have been a wrong number, as he did not know anyone at the residence. His explanation was not questioned, since the other staff testified that drunk people often seemed to accidentally call the centre on weekend nights. They had always assumed the home’s telephone number must be one digit off the number of a club or bar, although they hadn’t looked into it as it hadn’t seemed that important.

The care home had been located in a new estate right next to Reynisvatn Lake, where the fully paved and tarmaced streets wound around plots that still stood empty. No one could afford to build houses any more. The building was some way away from its nearest neighbour so the fire burned unnoticed for quite a while. Eventually some of the neighbours were woken by the stench of smoke, called emergency services and had four fire engines despatched. It was immediately obvious to the fire-fighters that there was no point entering the blazing building, so all their efforts were directed at controlling the spread of the fire.

Once they had the fire more or less under control, they began searching in what was left of the building and found the bodies of four residents, as well as that of Friðleifur. Contact was made with the facility’s director, Glódís Tumadóttir, who was roused from a peaceful sleep into a living nightmare. She managed to stammer out that there ought to have been six people in the building, five residents and the watchman, and a hunt for the missing resident was initiated immediately. It was impossible at that stage to identify any of the bodies, which hindered the search. Still, the police managed to find Jakob within an hour; he was wandering the streets of the Grafarholt neighbourhood, reeking of petrol and scared out of his wits. He fled when the two policemen who had spotted him got out of their car, but the physical restrictions of his extra chromosome stopped him outrunning them. His attempt to flee the scene was what swung the court’s ruling against him, along with his fingerprints on a twenty-litre petrol can found at the scene and his inability to explain what had happened. There was nothing in the ruling or court records to suggest that his disability hadn’t been taken into consideration. His unwillingness to move to the centre was described at length as a possible explanation for his actions. It was concluded that he had set fire to the home, thereby killing those inside. However, the ruling went on to say that it accepted the expert witnesses’ assessment of Jakob as not being criminally liable due to his functional disability. Therefore he was acquitted of criminal charges. The doctors who had assessed him also advised the court that he should be considered a risk to others, so measures should be taken to prevent him from doing further damage by housing him in an appropriate institution. Hence his current confinement in the Secure Psychiatric Unit at Sogn.

There should have been six residents at the community residence. Only four had died in the fire; Jakob was the fifth. Thóra was unable to find anything in the long document regarding the fate of the missing resident. There must be an explanation elsewhere in the stack, and she made a note to look out for it. She also scribbled down that she needed the names of everyone who’d testified and given statements; in the court documents almost everyone was identified only by a letter. ‘X testified that…; B felt…’ and so on. If she came across anything that might indicate a mistrial, she would have to speak to some of them. Although some time had elapsed since the fire, there was a slim chance one of them might remember something – some small detail that hadn’t seemed important at the time but that could now help prove Jakob’s innocence.

Thóra found it hard to make sense of Jakob’s testimony, both in court and in the countless interrogations he’d endured. She had never read a testimony that was so garbled and confused. It read more like the words of a child, which in a way was not far from the truth. Jakob’s intellectual maturity was completely at odds with his physical age. She found a reference to his IQ, which turned out to be just under 50, though all that meant to Thóra was that he would have been classed as an ‘imbecile’ in 1967. It was an ugly word, but useful in helping her recall what she had read about IQs; 100 was the average, which meant technically Jakob had half an intellect, whatever that meant. She made another note, this time to remind herself to find out what that score of 48 signified. Did he have a mental age of five? Or two, or twelve? Was it even possible to make such a comparison? If she could put Jakob into a familiar context, it might help her understand his behaviour.

Jakob had given several conflicting accounts of his movements that night. His explanation for not having been found at the scene seemed to change with each interrogation: he had been on his way to see his mother; he was hungry and wanted to buy ice cream; he didn’t remember anything; he’d been scared, but he hadn’t been fleeing the scene. He had no explanation for why his fingerprints had been found on the petrol can, but since doubts were quickly raised as to whether he understood the question, the can was produced and shown to Jakob. His response was immediate and violent; he screwed his eyes shut and refused to open them until the can was taken away. This had only served to add weight to the case against him, as it seemed the can reminded him of what he’d done. But Thóra wasn’t sure this held water. If he’d had nothing to do with the fire, the can could still have frightened him because it was connected with the fire. Perhaps he had even seen someone else starting it. That could also explain why he had reeked of petrol; he may have fled the scene after it was poured on the floor. It was a long shot, especially given that Jakob himself had at no point claimed this to be the case. He’d have no reason to keep quiet about it… unless he was afraid of the guilty party? Thóra smiled to herself. She was speculating too much; it was far more likely that Jakob was unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy when he was stressed.

Thóra put down the court ruling and pulled the ‘yes’ pile closer. Flipping through it, she chose another document at random. Time passed as she went through the whole stack, but she felt no closer to determining Jakob’s guilt or innocence. She replaced the final document on the pile and reached for the notes she’d scribbled down. Irritated that her efforts had borne no fruit, she sighed heavily as she skimmed back through her notes. Who would do something like this? If Jakob was innocent someone else was guilty, and that person might be impossible to track down. The act bore all the hallmarks of psychosis; what else could make someone murder five people who had done no one any harm? It was possible the arsonist had specifically targeted the night watchman, but surely there would have been a simpler way to kill just one man?

Thóra stared at the names of the four young residents who had died. Next to each she had jotted down what she’d learned about their disabilities. She had hoped to determine whether one of them could possibly have started the fire but been trapped inside by accident, or even have wanted to die. They had all been found in or near their beds, so it seemed unlikely but not inconceivable. This was not a viable explanation for either of the young women on the list, though. One of them, Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir, had been comatose; she’d been unable to walk, speak or do anything else, and thus had had neither the strength to set a fire herself nor the ability to coerce someone else to do so. The other woman, Sigríður Herdís Logadóttir, had been both blind and deaf, and also severely mentally impaired, so she seemed equally unlikely to have been the culprit. The same went for one of the two male residents, Natan Úlfheiðarson. He’d been severely epileptic and heavily medicated at night, so he couldn’t possibly have been up and about. Unless, of course, he had skipped his medication for once, but that seemed unlikely; she would check the autopsy. The other man, Tryggvi Einvarðsson, had been physically capable of committing the crime, but not mentally. He had been severely autistic and never left his apartment on his own.

She looked up from her notes. It was ludicrous to work on the assumption that these people were in any way responsible for their own deaths, and if she was hoping to prove that someone other than Jakob had done it, she’d have to look elsewhere. Actually, if she didn’t find anything else in the files she might not even take the case. Everything seemed to have been done by the book, as you would expect in such a serious case, even one in which the trial had been brought forward and held as quickly as possible. Thóra pulled over the other pile of papers, which she’d been hoping she wouldn’t have to go through. The crime scene photographs gave her goose bumps. Although they were low resolution, poor quality black and white images, she could almost smell the smoke and ash, which must have been overpowering when the photos were taken. The police had captioned each photo, which given the extent of the fire damage was very useful in identifying what each image showed. She thanked God the photos had been taken after the bodies had been removed; she wasn’t sure she’d have had the stomach for those pictures. Even looking through these ones made her feel a bit nauseous, and her throat was dry. She wanted to gulp down so much water that her entire body would be waterlogged, so fire couldn’t harm her.

She gathered together the autopsy reports. First Natan, the medicated epileptic. Posthumous blood tests showed that Natan had indeed taken his medicine, which meant he had died in his sleep of smoke inhalation. It was clear from the position he was found in that he’d made no attempt to escape or even defend himself against the fire. Thóra felt relieved, but her hopes that the others had also slept through it were short-lived. The deaf-blind woman, Sigríður Herdís, had been found next to her bed; she had probably been trying to crawl underneath it. Her cause of death was not smoke inhalation, but burns. Thóra wished she hadn’t read this; the thought of a girl who couldn’t see or hear dying this way horrified her. To make matters worse Sigríður Herdís had been the youngest in the home at only eighteen.

Thóra turned to the next autopsy reluctantly, afraid of what she might find. The report was on Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir, the paralysed coma patient. Her cause of death could only be smoke inhalation; Thóra could imagine nothing worse than the poor girl lying there unable to move while fire swept over her body, regardless of whether or not she was conscious.

Thóra didn’t get as far as the cause of death; when she was nearly halfway through the report she realised something didn’t fit. She flipped back to the first page to make sure that she was reading about the right person, then put down the papers and rubbed her eyes. This changed everything, and left her with no doubt that Jakob’s case ought to be re-examined. The ruling hadn’t contained a single word about the realization she had just come to, but it seemed inconceivable that everyone had overlooked it. She opened her eyes again and began scrutinizing the documents in the large pile, this time with more attention.

A sheltered community should be a safe haven for the unfortunate, like a fortress to protect the most needy and vulnerable members of society. But that was clearly not the case. What had actually happened there?