Someone to Watch Over Me Read online

  ‘I don’t really know what to think.’ Thóra slipped further down into the water to warm up her shoulders a bit. ‘The police were keeping their cards close to their chests but I’m convinced it’s Margeir they found dead at Nauthólsvík Beach yesterday. Why would they be concerning themselves with calls to and from his phone, unless it’s because they can’t ask him personally?’ Although she’d resolved to avoid watching the news, she’d scanned the Internet after her conversation with the policeman in the hope of finding out what the case was about. The reason the police were interested in speaking to her was that she’d called Margeir’s mobile phone the day before, and the day before that, too. At first Thóra didn’t understand what the problem was, but she soon worked it out and explained why she’d been trying to contact him. Once that was out of the way, she managed to get to the real reason she’d phoned them, which was to report that Ragna Sölvadóttir had also been abused at the residence. She’d also tried to find out – unsuccessfully – why the police were investigating Margeir’s phone. Because she’d made so little progress on that front, she’d taken a chance on the news, which reported that the body of a young man had been found at Nauthólsvík, apparently the victim of a crime. The name of the deceased could not yet be disclosed. But it seemed clear to Thóra from talking to the police – the mention of a death, then the questions about her calls to Margeir – that the mobile she had called must have been found on or near this body, in which case it was likely to be Margeir.

  ‘Maybe he’s avoiding the police for some other reason; maybe he’s suspected of something and doesn’t want to talk?’ Matthew wiped the melting snowflakes from his forehead before the water ran into his eyes. ‘This could just be coincidence.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Thóra watched Sóley splash water playfully at Orri, who shrieked with delight. ‘From the way the policeman sounded, it seemed serious.’

  ‘Well, there aren’t many things more serious than cold-blooded murder.’

  ‘Sure, sure, but the police mentioned a death and there was nothing in the news about any accidental deaths. So it must be related to the fire. Anything else would be too much of a coincidence. On the other hand, Margeir was ruled out as being the father of Lísa’s child, so it can’t be anything to do with that aspect of the case. Not unless the tests were never actually carried out and Glódís was lying to me when she said she’d seen the results of the tests on the night watchmen.’

  ‘Surely the tests were done? The night watchmen must have been the prime suspects.’

  ‘Yes, it would have been ridiculous to seriously suspect anyone else. I’m just a bit paranoid. However much the paternity tests cost, the night watchmen must have been included. Unless a decision was made not to investigate the rape; if they’d been planning to bury the matter anyway, it would have been pointless to waste time and money trying to find the guilty party.’ The steam in the children’s pool had thickened and Thóra sat up to get a better view. ‘I’ve also been thinking a lot about what Ægir said about Tryggvi’s therapy and the way it ended. And after what he said about the drawings, I’m extremely keen to find them – especially given what you sensed from Lena. The fact that Glódís won’t let me see the pictures makes me even more bothered about not having access to them.’ Thóra had got in touch with Glódís straight after her meeting with Ægir and been told that Thóra’s visit had reminded her that there were still files around that should have been handed over long ago. It wasn’t appropriate, as far as the relatives were concerned, for an unrelated party to have access to such files and thus it was out of the question to give them to Thóra when they were finally returned. The pictures would go straight to Tryggvi’s parents.

  ‘But are you sure they won’t let you look at the pictures once they’ve got them back?’

  ‘I don’t think so, and if that’s the case, how can I be sure they won’t just remove any pictures that depict precisely what I’m looking for – a connection to the fire or to Lísa? Maybe there are pictures of her naked, who knows?’ Thóra pulled herself up even higher in the water as she noticed Sóley and Orri looking like they wanted to get out of the pool. ‘Given his paternity test was negative, it’s highly unlikely, of course; but he could have drawn a picture of the man who impregnated her, seen the deed through the doorway.’ She stood up and waved to the children in order to ensure that they could make their way the short distance over to her. ‘But considering the primitive appearance of the figures he drew, I don’t know how useful they’d be in finding the person who forced himself on Lísa.’

  Sóley led Orri to the hot tub; steam drifted up from the children’s bodies but by the time they reached the tub they were starting to shiver. ‘Is this tub horribly hot?’ Sóley stuck one foot just slightly into the water and pulled it straight back out.

  ‘It feels like it at first. Jump in before you get covered in icicles.’ They did as Thóra said but it wasn’t long before Orri’s eyelids started to droop. His blond head sunk to his chest and there was nothing for it but to go home.

  In the changing room Thóra and Sóley had to take turns keeping Orri awake while the other one got dressed. He sat on the bench wrapped in a towel, struggling to keep his eyes open. Thóra checked her phone to see if her mother had tried to call; she had said she’d let Thóra know if she needed anything from the shops. When she saw on the screen that she had indeed received a message, her heart sank a little; she would have preferred to go straight home. The message wasn’t from her mother, however, or from ja.is, and since her mother wasn’t particularly familiar with the Internet, Thóra suspected Gylfi had sent the message on his grandmother’s behalf. He was careful with his minutes and wouldn’t have wasted any krónur talking about something as boring as food shopping. She opened the message on the way out of the changing room: Facebook.com final goodbye friðleifur

  Although Thóra had registered on Facebook when her old law school class had created a page for their graduation anniversary party, she hardly ever logged on to it. She had terrible trouble with this form of social media, which seemed purely designed to fill her inbox with endless announcements. Matthew was worse than she was, having refused to even register on the site back before the novelty wore off for Thóra. As usual, after dinner she’d asked Gylfi to help her investigate this strange message, rather than spend hours in front of the computer in the hope that Facebook would finally let her in.

  ‘Why didn’t you just choose a password you knew you could remember?’ Gylfi pushed the keyboard towards his mother, frustrated and amazed.

  ‘Calm down, I’ve got it here.’ Thóra opened a file where she kept usernames and passwords. She was very happy with this system, which had often proved useful. ‘Here you go.’ She pushed the keyboard back to Gylfi and pointed at the password.

  ‘That’s the worst password you could choose,’ he muttered, typing in Thóra123. ‘And you’d have to be pretty stupid not to remember it.’ He shook his head in amazement. ‘Not to mention keeping this kind of file in the first place.’

  ‘Yes, okay. Let’s get on with it.’ Thóra moved her chair sideways slightly so that Matthew, who was standing behind them, could see better.

  ‘Oh, what fun! Are you playing a computer game?’ Thóra’s mother stood in the doorway to the study. All three of them turned and nodded. It was easier than explaining what they were actually doing. ‘Not some war game, I hope.’ She left before they had an opportunity to respond.

  ‘It’s a shame Grandpa and Grandma aren’t staying here permanently,’ said Gylfi, turning to Thóra’s Facebook page, which was now open. ‘It would be fun if they lived with us all the time.’ The cursor arrow swept across the screen. ‘You have six friend requests, one event invitation, and seven friend recommendations. And you’ve got a hundred and thirty-two other requests. You’re obviously on here a lot.’

  ‘Very funny.’ It had probably been more than a month since Thóra had logged on. ‘Check whether any of it’s related to Friðleifur. Maybe I have a
friend request from him.’

  ‘But he’s dead.’ Matthew was watching with interest, since he’d never seen this kind of webpage. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Yes, if someone keeps his page going and knows his username and password. I don’t know whether a member’s death would necessarily be reported to Facebook. You could of course send them an e-mail and ask that the page be closed if you notice anything unusual, but I don’t know how you go about that. Still, I’m sure his friends would have reported it if his page were kept going after his death.’ Gylfi checked Thóra’s friend requests, but none of them was from Friðleifur. ‘He isn’t here, or under friend recommendations. Maybe there’s something in events.’ He opened the notifications page and started scrolling down the extremely long list. ‘No, nothing here either.’

  ‘Isn’t it possible to search for him?’ Thóra tried unsuccessfully to spot something on the screen that fell under the category ‘search engine’.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Gylfi clicked on a box marked ‘Search’ and entered ‘Friðleifur’. In a second the results of the search appeared, twelve in all. None of them turned out to have his surname. On this page it was also possible to choose to view the results for groups that were connected to this name in one way or another. There turned out to be five, one of which was called Final Goodbye – Friðleifur. It had three hundred and thirty-eight members. ‘Bingo.’

  ‘Go into that page.’ Thóra wanted to grab the mouse from her son but stopped herself in case she messed up what they’d already found.

  ‘You’re lucky – it’s an open group, so you don’t need to get someone’s permission to become a member,’ Gylfi told her. ‘You do have to become a member to see it, though. Do you want to?’ The arrow rested above the tab for that choice.

  ‘Absolutely. Is it really not possible to see it otherwise?’

  ‘No. Not as far as I can tell, anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure this is wise?’ Matthew’s expression made it clear that he wasn’t exactly happy with the idea.

  ‘Yes, of course. What’s there to worry about? Click on it, Gylfi.’ Once again the screen changed and they found themselves viewing a page dedicated to preserving the memory of Friðleifur. Thóra asked Gylfi to enlarge the man’s photo. She didn’t recognize him, having only seen a picture of him dead, after the fire had completely ravaged his features. He’d been dark-haired, with rather pockmarked skin around his jaw, probably due to adolescent acne. It was a sad picture, somehow; his smile looked rather mournful, as if he knew what was in store for him. His straight teeth were visible behind his dark lips and he appeared likeable, even handsome in his own way. His hair was curly and unkempt, falling over his forehead and down into his eyes. The photo was grainy, as if it had been enlarged several times; this made it seem unlikely that it was his relatives who had set up the page.

  ‘Do you want to swap seats?’ Gylfi stood up. ‘You should be all right now – it’s hard to mess it up once you’re in.’ Matthew took his seat and Gylfi left them with a yawn. ‘Just call me if you get in any trouble.’

  According to its opening text, the page had been set up to allow the friends of Friðleifur, who had died far too young, to say their final goodbyes. It gave the date of his death and people were encouraged to convey their sympathies and to share photos of Friðleifur. Members were asked to make sure their photos were tasteful and it was made clear that any photos that were considered inappropriate would be removed. Nowhere did it state who was responsible for creating the page or who managed it.

  ‘You can find anything on the web,’ said Matthew. ‘I guess it’s not quite life after death, but Internet after death?’

  ‘Hey, I think this is a pretty good idea – and probably a useful part of the grieving process. I guess it’s just a modern version of the obituary. Maybe this is how we’ll be remembered one day.’ She scrolled through some comments from those who had visited the page. The most recent post was four months old, but there were numerous other entries.

  ‘Ugh.’ Matthew was far from impressed by Thóra’s vision of the future. ‘Am I crazy, or are these comments a bit weird?’

  Thóra nodded. ‘I’ve often thought of you as crazy, but you’re right, this isn’t really what you’d expect to see on this kind of page.’ Most of the posts were about drinking and hangovers. She read them aloud: ‘‘‘Thinking about you after a mad session – my head’s killing me. Wish you were here!”; “Got wasted on Friday, thought of you often”; “Friðleifur, mate, where were you at the weekend? I puked my guts out, it’s not the same without you”. Of course I don’t know how young people remember their dead friends, but this is pretty weird.’ She continued to browse through the posts, which went on for several pages. ‘There must be something here that my mys-terious texter wants me to see … “Miss you loads, am really hungover”; “Cheers, mate! I’m raising a glass to you”; “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, got ducking frunk, life without you sucks big time”; “Miss you, our hero – we’re lost without you”.’

  ‘What do they mean?’ Matthew watched as Thóra continued to skim through the posts. They were all along the same lines. ‘Was he a drug dealer?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Thóra ran her eyes down the screen without seeing anything that might help her; there were just endless messages about partying. ‘I’m wondering whether Friðleifur and the other night watchman were selling access to the bodies of the two girls, Lísa and Ragna. To the other residents, even.’

  ‘Now hang on a minute, there are far too many people posting messages here for them all to have come to the residence for something like that, surely? It can’t be something many people are into and besides, there are lots of posts from women, too. I don’t think you can read anything into this other than that he prevented his friends from drinking themselves to death, since everybody on here seems to have got really drunk after he died and wished he was there to stop them.’

  ‘My interpretation is that his friends simply got really drunk in his memory. Maybe he was a huge party animal and mostly hung around with people who spent their whole lives getting wasted.’

  ‘That doesn’t make much sense – why would a party animal get a job working night shifts at the weekend?’

  ‘Unless he drank at work, as he was suspected of doing. Maybe he did hold parties there after all. And he only worked every other weekend.’ She read the final posts, which were also the oldest, dated about a month after Friðleifur’s death. ‘“Have an awesome time with God, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you – party in heaven!”; “Bye Friðleifur, trouble-shooter deluxe, I miss you, man”; “Friðleifur, my friend, have a good trip to heaven, when we meet there one day it’s gonna be mega”.’ Every comment was in the same vein.

  ‘Did you notice whether any of the people who’ve posted are connected with the case?’

  Thóra shook her head. ‘If they are, I’ve missed it. I can’t actually remember all the names, but from the little pictures they all look on the young side, so I doubt any of them worked at the centre. Apart from Friðleifur and Margeir, who were both around twenty, all the employees were much older than the writers of these comments. Also, it looks to me as if these are just his friends. There are no comments from any relatives as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Do you think Gylfi or Sigga might know anyone from this group? It might be worth showing them the pictures and comments – maybe they could work out why the messages are so weird.’

  ‘Maybe, although these people don’t really look like secondary schoolers to me. They also seem a lot more involved in the party scene than Gylfi and Sigga. But you never know.’ Thóra was beginning to feel more confident about navigating the site and managed quite easily to arrange the group’s members into alphabetical order, with their profile picture and country of origin also showing. As it turned out, this didn’t help much, because all the members seemed to have chosen not to share their personal information or pr
ofile pages with strangers. Nevertheless, she went through the list in its entirety and noticed two familiar names: Margeir and Lena. Neither of them had posted a comment. It wasn’t that odd that they’d joined the group; Margeir was Friðleifur’s main colleague and Lena had told Matthew that she’d met Friðleifur during her visits to the residence.

  ‘Maybe you could call her and ask her about it?’ Thóra looked at Matthew. ‘Maybe she knows what it all means, even if she didn’t know him that well and has no idea what happened there at night.’ She peered at the image next to Margeir’s name but didn’t recognize the face. Unlike Friðleifur, Margeir was fair and freckled, and he had a serious expression that didn’t fit at all with his appearance.

  Matthew frowned. ‘I can’t say I’m wild about the idea. Can’t you call her?’

  ‘I could, but she seems to trust you. Why don’t you want to talk to her? I thought you thought she was okay?’

  ‘She is okay, sure, but she’s just so young, and I find it uncomfortable dealing with her. I’m not formally involved in the case and it might be misinterpreted. What do you think her father would say, for example, about a middle-aged man constantly bothering his twenty-year-old daughter?’

  ‘It’s hardly harassment to meet her once at a café and call her once. But I take your point. I’ll call her.’ Thóra said this last sentence slightly distractedly, since her attention was now directed at a photo album on the page. ‘Look.’ She pointed at a photo of three young people. Thóra enlarged it and saw that it was Friðleifur and Margeir, and between them an unfamiliar girl who hadn’t been tagged. She had her arms around their shoulders, almost hanging on them. The girl was in a short dress and high heels, making her look as tall as the two men.