Someone to Watch Over Me tg-5 Read online

  After going carefully over the points that she had gathered in her latest perusal of the files, there was nothing that particularly struck Thóra or made her inclined to change her opinion. So she decided her next step would be to find out about the text messages from Jósteinn. She’d been so furious with him when she’d worked out it was him who was sending them that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it straight away. It irritated her immensely to be manipulated by him and his strange impulses like this. She also found the way he’d chosen to do it particularly unpleasant. Admittedly, most of the bastard’s messages had helped to propel the investigation forward. The one text that she couldn’t work out was the one that said 02 short hose. She suspected that 02 was supposed to be O2, the symbol for oxygen, but she hadn’t come across anything that helped to explain the reference to a short hose. The only message left to deal with was the one about Vesturlandsvegur Road. It was nearly 10 p.m. and it was tempting to put it off until the morning, but then Thóra remembered the flickering monitor at work that she’d forgotten to swap with Bella’s, and decided to try to figure out the message in the peace and quiet of home. She was also forced to admit that she was itching to know how it was connected to Jakob’s case: the place and time didn’t fit at all with the fire – the date was nearly a year before and the location was miles away.

  It took Thóra a little while to find on Google what Jósteinn seemed to be referring to. The first entry was an old news story about how a section of Vesturlandsvegur Road had been closed due to a traffic accident, and the police were unsure when it would be reopened. Further details about the accident weren’t available when the story was written, but a short time later a much more detailed article appeared. The article stated that a young girl had been hit by a car and had died. The driver had fled the scene and was being sought, and witnesses were asked to come forward. Thóra vaguely remembered this story as she continued perusing the articles. A huge investigation and a search for witnesses had yielded no result; the only thing that was known was that the girl had been hit by the car as she was crossing the road and had died of her injuries a short time afterwards. The driver had sped off but it seemed inconceivable that he hadn’t been aware of the accident. The investigation appeared to have been extensive; among other things, all garages and car repair workshops had come under scrutiny. Police had hoped it would be possible to determine the make of the vehicle based on evidence at the scene and analysis of the girl’s injuries, but this did not turn out to be the case. They discovered that the vehicle in question had been a medium-sized family car, but they found no further details. The driver failed to respond to repeated requests to turn himself in and no one had witnessed the accident. Gradually the story faded from the media. The girl’s identity had been published: her name was Margrét Svandís Pétursdóttir, but that meant nothing to Thóra. She was sure she’d never seen this name mentioned in connection with Jakob’s case.

  Thóra was mainly interested in the next entry concerning the accident. Someone had blogged about a news item that appeared at first to be completely unrelated to this tragedy and had not shown up in the results of Thóra’s Google search. In a short autobiographical description, the blogger said that he was a self-appointed specialist on all things spiritual and supernatural. The story that had inspired him to communicate with the outside world was brief, and described how the Icelandic Church had for the first time in more than a century undertaken to exorcise a ghost. Thóra had missed this tiny story completely at the time; it had probably slipped under the radar among the swarm of breaking stories about the bank collapse, much like the story about the fire. In fact the story had only appeared in one media outlet, and the blog entry was more detailed than the news article itself; it mentioned Vesturlandsvegur Road and the date given in the text message, which is why the search engine had listed it. In the text the blogger said that he knew the exorcism was related to the accident in question, and that when he had been called upon he had clearly sensed that the house was haunted. The girl had been on her way to this house to babysit a young boy when she was run over; since her death was unresolved, her soul had ended up in limbo between this world and eternity. As long as her death remained unresolved, the girl was unable to leave the here and now and she had anchored herself to the child she was due to babysit. Thóra couldn’t make head or tail of most of the entry, which went on to describe the nature of limbo and to discuss other issues related to mediums.

  Thóra saw that the names of those who lived in the house were given in the blog entry: Berglind and Haraldur; and although she only had their first names, it would be easy enough to find them in the town of Mosfellsbær. Thóra had to stop and think for a moment. It was undeniably important to find out how this tragedy was connected to Jakob’s case, and she was sure it would help if she could do that before she next met up with that nutter Jósteinn, which she planned to do very soon. The danger was that although Thóra had decoded most of his text messages, and thus might have something of an upper hand in their relationship, the advantage might shift to him if she didn’t stay on the alert. Given the chance, he would avoid her questions and instead continue to drip-feed her snippets of information. Of course she could contact the parents of the girl who’d died, but the thought of calling people who were very likely to still be consumed by grief, even though three years had passed since the accident, was less than appealing. No matter how she imagined starting such a conversation, she always came out sounding mad. Yes, hello, my name is Thóra and I received a text message from a sociopath incarcerated at Sogn, suggesting that a multiple homicide by arson is related to the accidental death of your daughter. Would you be willing to meet up? People who thought they were being haunted, however, were much less likely to hang up on her in mid-sentence. Without further ado, she looked up the number and called.

  The conversation turned out to be much easier than Thóra had dared to hope. Berglind didn’t seem remotely shocked when she explained why she was calling, with as much sensitivity as she could muster. It was easy to hear from her gloomy voice and monotone replies that the woman had been having a tough time. When Thóra asked cautiously whether Berglind might be able to meet her, her reply was succinct. Yes, just come now – my husband is at work and I’m not doing anything special.

  ‘This doesn’t look much like a haunted house.’ Thóra leaned forward to get a better view of the outside. The rectangular house was made of concrete and had two storeys, but it was unimposing. Even a quick lick of paint on the roof and window frames would have improved its appearance enormously. The front door was cheap plywood and looked almost temporary, and unlike the other gardens on the street the front garden was overgrown. But although the house appeared to have been built more cheaply and maintained less well than its neighbours, it was only superficially different to the others on the street. In fact it looked as if improvements were imminent, and it would only be a short time before the cracks in the concrete were repaired, the outside painted, and a new front door put on. A string of unlit Christmas lights lay along the edge of the roof, a reminder of the recent holiday.

  ‘How do you imagine a haunted house looks?’ asked Matthew, as he tried to decide where to park the car. Both spaces on the driveway were free but he didn’t want to use either of them, since the husband was probably due home any moment and the chances were they would choose his place. Matthew was very concerned about these things. ‘Were you expecting an American wooden house with high gables and broken windows? Maybe a bat hanging upside down from the guttering?’ Matthew parked the car next to the kerb in front of the house.

  ‘Maybe not that exactly, but this is still different from what I expected.’ Thóra stepped out onto the pavement and the new-fallen snow crunched beneath her feet. ‘Damn, it’s cold.’ She waited while Matthew locked the car. She took a deep breath of the still winter air and noticed a faint but revolting odour that she couldn’t place. ‘Oh, yuck.’ The metallic tang lingered in her mouth and nostrils and g
rew stronger with every breath. Immediately she felt a chill; she looked again at the house and suddenly it didn’t seem as harmless as it had at first. The dark garden running alongside it seemed sinister somehow, and the building appeared to cast longer and darker shadows than the other houses on the block. She shook off the unpleasant feeling and headed towards the shabby-looking door. Lights were on in most of the windows; upstairs there was a flicker as if a bulb were about to go out, or was it just a television? It wasn’t easy to tell, since all the curtains were drawn. Behind the ones drawn in the kitchen she caught a hazy glimpse of the outline of a person. Thóra couldn’t see whether the person’s face was turned towards them, but she was fairly certain that they were watching her and Matthew walk up the path. The silhouette disappeared just as they reached the house. If it was Berglind, then she’d gone straight to the door, because it opened as soon as Matthew rang the doorbell. The noise of the bell didn’t carry outside, making it seem as if the house had swallowed the sound.

  ‘Come in. The doorbell’s broken. I was afraid of missing you so I was keeping an eye out.’ The woman was young, probably early thirties, perhaps slightly younger. Her straight, blonde shoulder-length hair looked dirty, and it fell across her face. Her worn jeans were obviously supposed to be skinny-fit, but they were baggy on her and her fleece hung loosely on her thin frame. Her eyes were large and expressive, and would have been beautiful but for the dull rings underneath. All of this fitted with Thóra’s mental image of a woman who was being haunted.

  ‘Hi, I’m Thóra and this is Matthew, who I mentioned earlier.’ The woman’s grip was slack and her palm cold and clammy. ‘Thank you very much for agreeing to meet with us; we won’t bother you for long. I realize it’s getting late and tomorrow’s a work day.’

  ‘I’m on sick leave, so I don’t have to get up. My husband is still at work; they’re doing an inventory and he’ll be there well into the night, so you aren’t disturbing us.’ She seemed to feel the need to go into this in detail, as if to excuse her husband’s heavy workload in the midst of the recession: ‘The company just changed owners, which means lots of changes and extra work – which is unpaid, but he’s been promised additional leave in return.’ Berglind showed them into the house. The hall was very tidy but devoid of all luxury. It could have done with a coat cupboard, but instead there was a coat rack on wheels. Shoes were arranged neatly against the wall in order of size, except for some fiery red boots in the middle that were decorated like mini fire engines. Thóra could see that Matthew was having trouble deciding where he should put his shoes; by the front door, in their correct place among the household’s own pairs? Berglind also appeared to notice and announced, ‘Don’t worry about your shoes; there’s not much to do here during the day so I try to keep the house ship-shape. There are only three of us so I’ve had to come up with various things to help fill the day.’ She looked at the shoes, side by side as if in a shop. ‘It’s ridiculous, I know, but I hardly ever leave the house, so there’s nothing to do but occupy myself somehow – no matter how strange it might seem.’

  Thóra smiled. ‘Well, I have to say I envy you your tidy hallway; you should see mine.’ The hall in her house was always filled with shoes, left there by Sóley, Gylfi, Sigga, and now Orri as well, generally in a pile in the middle of the floor. Thóra was sure that they must fling them off on their way in, but without breaking their stride: they loosened the laces as they approached the door and then stepped out of them on the way in. The little space that was left on the floor was then heaped with the kids’ coats; for some reason they never hung them on the hooks. When she and Matthew emerged from the hallway it always felt as if they’d just hopped from stone to stone over a river.

  Berglind didn’t smile back. ‘Have a seat in the living room. I’m just going to check on Pési.’ She pointed up at the Artex ceiling. ‘He’s upstairs watching a film. He doesn’t have to get up tomorrow morning either because he’s on a break from preschool. Actually a kind of mini-version of my circumstances.’ The rings under her eyes seemed to darken and spread, probably because they’d left the brightly lit hall.

  Matthew and Thóra sat down on a brown sectional sofa of the kind that had taken over the furniture market a few years earlier. It was as if the sofa wanted to show solidarity with the house and had decided to show signs of wear; the attached chaise longue had sunk in the middle and its colour had faded, making it look as though it belonged to an entirely different set. Like the hallway, the living room was excessively tidy, and Thóra thought she caught a whiff of cleaning fluid. She desperately wanted to stand up and have a look at the framed photographs on the wall to her right, but she was uncomfortable with the idea that Berglind might find her doing it. So she sat completely still and tried to examine them from a distance.

  ‘Sorry – I had to find him some paper and crayons; he didn’t want to stop watching the film.’ Berglind sat down opposite Thóra. She smiled at them awkwardly and seemed to hope that they would do all the talking. ‘Would you like some coffee or something?’

  Thóra and Matthew both politely declined. ‘We absolutely don’t want to trouble you. You’ve got enough on your plate.’ Thóra looked towards the stairs leading to the upper floor. ‘Has your son been aware of this… spirit at all?’ She didn’t know how much she could trust the blogger’s story; she would rather get her answers straight from the woman.

  ‘Yes, very aware. He and I seem to be the most sensitive to it; my husband finds it easy to shut it out and act as though nothing’s wrong.’ She frowned. ‘I can see that you don’t believe a word of it. I’ve become an expert at recognizing that expression.’

  Embarrassed, Thóra tried to hide her doubts. ‘I certainly didn’t intend to suggest that. I know less than nothing about ghosts and I don’t really have an opinion on them either way. We’re here for an entirely different reason, as I mentioned – a case that’s connected to the accident here on Vesturlandsvegur Road somehow. I was hoping that the connection could be explained by speaking to you.’

  At that the woman relaxed slightly. ‘I understand. I’ve just become so sensitive about the subject; everyone around me has grown tired of it and their sympathy has worn a little thin.’ She sat up straight. ‘But that’s life, I guess. Although one or two people have actually been extremely understanding; the couple next door have been very kind to us, as well as my boss at work. Other people just don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘May I ask how the haunting manifests itself?’ Matthew was clearly extremely curious. ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s been in this kind of situation.’

  ‘Sure.’ Berglind smiled unexpectedly, but then her face darkened as she began telling them the entire story. As the story went on, Thóra was glad that the curtains were all drawn – there was no denying it was powerful stuff.

  When Berglind appeared to have reached the end of her account, Thóra was no closer to knowing how these events were related to the fire, and although every other message from Jósteinn had turned out to contain important information, it was conceivable that this time he had missed the mark. Thóra had the feeling that Berglind was telling the truth, and telling the story exactly as she saw it, but that didn’t mean all her explanations reflected reality. ‘Well now…’ Thóra’s throat was dry and she coughed gently. ‘It all sounds rather frightening, but unfortunately I can’t see how it has any connection to the case I’m working on. None of the names match; the dates don’t ring any bells. The accident occurred almost a year before the fire. You don’t remember anything special that happened here on 11 October 2008?’

  ‘No, although it was actually around that time that the haunting grew significantly worse.’ Berglind thought for a moment in silence and her expression turned to one of bewilderment. ‘Did you say a fire? That occurred in October of that year?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you referring to the fire at the community residence?’ asked Berglind, sounding surprised. Light footsteps from upstairs indicate
d that Berglind’s son was moving around and she started and looked up at the ceiling. She seemed to realize that her reaction might have appeared unnatural to her visitors and immediately turned her attention back to them.

  ‘Yes,’ said Thóra. ‘ Do you know anything about it?’ Perhaps Jósteinn’s message wasn’t directly related to the accident on Vesturlandsvegur Road, but he had simply chosen it as a roundabout way of putting Thóra in touch with Berglind. ‘Do you by any chance work at the Regional Office for the Disabled?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, at the Ministry of Justice. A colleague there lost his son in the fire.’

  ‘I see.’ Thóra was at a loss to come up with a sensible follow-up question to this unexpected information. There was in fact only one question burning on her lips, but she thought she’d better keep it to herself until she’d exhausted everything else that came to mind. ‘Do people shorten your name to Begga?’

  ‘Yes, they do.’

  ‘Mummy.’ In the doorway stood a little boy in Mickey Mouse pyjamas, clutching a picture with a serious expression. Berglind stood up, took him in her arms and sat back down. She stroked his blond hair and the child leaned his head against her chest. The picture lay in his lap, and its contents drew Thóra’s attention.

  ‘What a lovely picture you’ve drawn! Do you know the alphabet?’ She leaned forward and reached for the picture. ‘May I see?’ The boy was shy and turned away from her, but he handed her the picture all the same. Large, clumsy characters were drawn in blue crayon. NNI80. This was as disturbing as the string of characters with which Tryggvi had marked all of his drawings, and the chill that she’d felt outside the house now returned. ‘Berglind, did you meet Tryggvi, or ever see any of his pictures?’