Someone to Watch Over Me Read online

  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 indicated 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?’

  Berglind tightened her grip around the boy. ‘Do you mean Einvarður’s son? I never met him, and Pési certainly didn’t. Why? Is it something to do with these characters?’ She looked at the picture. ‘I kind of recognize them, but definitely not in connection with Tryggvi.’

  Thóra let the drawing fall into her lap. ‘I know this is going to sound really impertinent, but … did you and Einvarður have a relationship outside work?’ She half whispered the final part of the question even though the child in Berglind’s arms wasn’t mature enough to understand what she was implying.

  ‘I’m sorry? Wherever did you get that idea?’ Berglind didn’t seem insulted, just extremely surprised. She adjusted Pési in her lap.

  ‘I must have misunderstood something. Please, forgive me for being so rude.’ Thóra wasn’t certain she completely trusted the woman, but she didn’t want to carry on making accus-ations that would only be denied. She knew nothing about this relationship that Lena had mentioned, but it was clear that if this woman had been having a secret affair then she was unlikely to admit it to a stranger. Thóra leaned down towards the little boy. ‘Why did you choose these letters and numbers, Pési?’ Thóra held up the picture. He had turned away from his mother and held his hands over his face. Then he peeked through his fingers.

  ‘The window.’ His answer was so low, it was barely audible. ‘It was written on the window. Magga wrote it. She’s outside.’

  Matthew stood on the steps and stamped snow off his feet. ‘It was definitely a man, and a young one, considering how fast he ran.’ He tried to catch his breath. ‘I would have caught him if I’d had better shoes and if he hadn’t gone through the gardens and jumped over all these fences.’ Thin clouds of vapour drifted up from his body, merged with the calm, frosty air and vanished. With Berglind’s permission he had taken a look at the window to which Pési was referring, and while they were examining the characters in the frost on the balcony door that opened onto the kitchen, he had spied a man in the garden and set off after him in Berglind’s husband’s slippers, which had been standing by the door.

  ‘It’s a pity you don’t ever run through people’s gardens on your normal route.’ Thóra stretched out to look over his shoulder, though she had no idea why she was bothering, since the man couldn’t possibly be anywhere nearby considering how long Matthew had been gone. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘Who could it have been? Did you see his face?’ Berglind stood behind Thóra with her son in her arms, his small body wrapped so tightly around his mother that she must have found it hard to breathe. The boy had taken the episode badly, and it was difficult to know how much more the poor little soul could endure. For him it might just as well have been the ogress Grýla coming into the garden to put him in her bag, drag him up to the mountains and eat him.

  ‘No, he never turned around. He had dark hair, though.’

  Thóra turned to Berglind. ‘I think the best thing would be for you to contact the police. Of course it was probably just some loony, but in light of the case that I’m investigating it can’t hurt to be careful, since you seem to be connected to it in some way. If this unexpected visit has something to do with the case, it would be much better and safer to place the matter in their hands. Maybe they’ll want to keep an eye on the house.’

  While Matthew had been practising long-distance running halfway across Mosfellsbær, Thóra had continued speaking to Berglind, who at first shook like a leaf. No matter what she asked the woman, Thóra couldn’t work out how she was connected to Jakob’s case. No, she hadn’t worked directly under Einvarður; no, she hadn’t got involved in his affairs; no, she had nothing to do with the fire. She did say that Einvarður had been the only one at the ministry to show her any understanding when rumours of the haunting had spread, and he had worked hard to get her signed off from work when she could no longer sleep at night. Thóra didn’t want to read too much into this at first; maybe the man was just being kind and understanding after experiencing great personal difficulties himself, what with his son’s autism and tragic death. On the other hand, it bugged Thóra that until now, Jósteinn had always shared information that was relevant to the case, whereas here there was no apparent connection. She had even asked carefully whether Einvarður had had a close relationship with any other women at the ministry, but this had elicited merely a shocked look and an angry ‘No.’ In Berglind’s eyes the man was an angel in human form and Thóra had immediately dropped all talk of possible adultery, since she wasn’t keen to be thrown out and forced to wait for Matthew in the car in this cold. Maybe Jósteinn hadn’t meant her to come here at all; maybe he’d been trying to direct her to the parents of the girl who’d died in the accident.

  ‘My husband must be on his way home by now. I can wait until tomorrow to call them.’

  ‘I think that’s very unwise.’ Matthew seemed to have got his breath back at last. ‘You should call immediately; if you wait until tomorrow morning I bet you’ll put it off again.’ They could both tell from Berglind’s expression that she wasn’t going to take his advice. ‘If you call tonight, yo
u’ll be glad you did. There’s no way of knowing whether he’s done this before or whether he plans to do it again. There are plenty of strange people involved in the case about the fire.’

  ‘Do you think this guy has been here before?’ Berglind adjusted Pési on her hip; his grip had slackened and his eyelids were drooping. ‘I’ve sometimes felt as if someone were here in the garden.’

  She reddened a tiny bit, so slightly that it was barely noticeable. ‘I thought it was just related to this … you know.’ She fell silent, but the possibility lingered of there suddenly being a logical explanation for some of the things that she had previously thought were supernatural.

  Chapter 35

  Friday, 22 January 2010

  Sveinn held out the drawing; he didn’t seem at all bothered about parting with it. ‘Just take it. As you can see I’m not doing anything with it, and it’s purely by chance that it didn’t end up in the rubbish bin ages ago.’

  Thóra took the drawing, thinking to herself that she ser-iously doubted the filmmaker ever threw anything away. The box from which he’d pulled the drawing looked as if it contained everything relating to his documentary for the Ministry of Welfare. Maybe he was still pissed off that the project had been shelved. ‘That’s great – thanks so much for making the effort to dig this out for me.’

  ‘You’re welcome. You could have had it sooner if I’d known you wanted it. As you said the other day, it’s not exactly something you want hanging on the wall.’

  ‘No, and that’s not what I plan to do with it.’ Thóra thanked him again and hurried out to her car. She couldn’t disguise her joy as she hurried down the staircase of the block of flats. On her way back from Berglind’s she’d been cursing the fact that she didn’t have any of Tryggvi’s drawings to compare with Pési’s clumsy one, which Berglind had let them take. Matthew had then suggested that perhaps they could borrow the clip they’d watched at Sveinn’s and take a close look at the wall in Tryggvi’s room that was covered with his drawings, in the hope that they could enlarge a frame from the video recording. It was then that Thóra remembered that during the clip Tryggvi had handed the filmmaker one of his drawings, and wondered if he might still have it. She was fairly certain that the drawing would contain all the usual elements: the young woman lying down, who was probably Lísa; the person standing up, symbolizing his mother; the flames, the string of characters, and other little details that they hadn’t been able to make out due to the resolution in which they’d viewed the video clip. In a brief phone call the next morning Sveinn had confirmed that he still had the drawing and that Thóra was welcome to drop by and get it.

  She jumped into the car and slammed the door hard behind her. ‘Bingo!’

  Matthew drove off happily enough, although she knew he wasn’t quite as pleased as her. The bank had given him a final deadline that morning regarding the new job; the offer would only stand until Monday. They couldn’t wait any longer for an answer; he would have to make up his mind. Thóra tried to hide how much she hoped that he would take the job, confining herself to saying that her gut feeling was that he should. What she didn’t say, and what bothered her, was that the likelihood of him finding another suitable job in Iceland in the next few years was extremely limited. And if he didn’t have a job here, he would eventually drift away, whether or not her parents lived with them. For her it was Iceland or nothing; she had to stay here for her children, and her parents, and even for herself. If he moved away, their relationship would be over, whether it happened at a specific moment by mutual decision or whether it faded away slowly but surely. Any plans for keeping the relationship going long-distance would never work in reality. But it would be unfair of her to lay this at his door; it was his job and he would have to make the decision himself.

  ‘Do you have time to look at this with me before you go and see them?’ she asked. He had a meeting just before noon with the recruitment director; there was enough time, but he might want to have another shower, change his suit or put on a tie with stripes that sloped to the left rather than the right. He had the tendency to do such things after years of working in German banks. ‘I mean, you don’t need to do anything beforehand, do you?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ Matthew didn’t elaborate and Thóra didn’t know whether he thought it was useless to do any more preparation for the meeting, since he was going to say no, or whether he’d already decided to accept the job even though he’d told Thóra that he still had grave doubts about it. She decided not to question him any further; she would find out soon enough.

  ‘Then let’s go up to the office and have a look at the drawing. I’ve got instant coffee for you.’

  ‘The characters are the same, just in reverse order – though obviously it’s impossible to be completely certain about it, since the little boy isn’t a particularly brilliant artist.’ Thóra put down the magnifying glass between the two drawings. ‘It’s hard to determine whether this is the letter O or the number zero, and the same goes for this one – is it an “i” or the number one?’ She looked again at Pési’s drawing. ‘And then I can’t see whether this is a B or an eight. And maybe it doesn’t make any difference in the end, because no matter how you arrange these letters and numbers, they don’t make any sense.’

  Matthew leaned back and rubbed his eyes. ‘There are some really intricate details in this picture – I don’t know how he even managed to draw them. It hurts my eyes to look at it.’ He reached for the magnifying glass. ‘Do you think this is Lísa?’ He examined the figure lying prone at the front of the drawing. ‘Did she have any other disabilities besides being in a coma?’

  ‘No.’ Thóra understood why he was asking. Considering how well Tryggvi drew, there were details in the picture that seemed awkward, particularly where Lísa’s body was concerned – if it was indeed meant to be her. One arm seemed to be turned backwards at the shoulder and her legs had two joints instead of a knee, one in the middle of the thigh and the other mid-calf. ‘Maybe this is his interpretation of rape or something. Perhaps the rapist had to put her body in a strange position in order to be able to carry out the act. Tryggvi’s sensory world was completely different to ours, of course, but that’s what it could have looked like to him.’

  ‘But she’s screaming; or at least her mouth is wide open.’ Matthew frowned at Thóra. ‘Could he also have forced her into oral sex? There’s something leaking from her mouth in the picture.’

  ‘Is that even possible, if the person is unconscious?’ Thóra took the magnifying glass from him and examined the gaping mouth. ‘But you’re quite right, it’s as if something is leaking out of one of the corners of her mouth.’

  ‘It’s a real shame that he couldn’t have drawn it just a tiny bit more clearly. Do you think that therapist, Ægir, could explain this any better?

  ‘Possibly. Mind you, I think he took a lot of poetic licence when he analysed the drawings before. I don’t think you can force one specific interpretation on them.’ Thóra pointed at the person standing upright. ‘Why, for instance, should this be a peace symbol that the figure’s holding, as he claimed? It certainly looks like one, but why would Tryggvi have been sticking a peace symbol in his drawings? People have to have some insight into human history in order to understand its meaning properly. At least that’s what I would have thought.’ She looked at the large ring that the figure was holding between its hands. ‘Jesus. And here I was thinking we’d be so much closer with this.’

  ‘But what if it isn’t Lísa?’ Matthew looked at Thóra. ‘Aren’t we focusing too hard on trying to see what we want to see? We don’t actually know that he witnessed anything at all, and maybe it wasn’t even possible to see her bed through the doorway of her apartment. We should maybe check all the facts before we go any further with this interpretation.’ He looked at the clock and stood up. ‘Well, I’d better get going.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Don’t you want to ask me what I’m going to say to them?’

  She shook her head. ‘Take
me to dinner after the meeting and tell me about it then. Today is going to be a short one for me anyway because I can’t meet Jósteinn until tomorrow, and I’m not going to write any more in this report until after I’ve seen him.’ She blew him a kiss and wished him luck. Then she watched him walk out of the office and wondered whether this would be one of the last times that she did so.

  To distract herself until he returned, Thóra decided to have a look at the Facebook page again. She’d had enough of the two drawings for the moment. Something was bothering her about Lena’s story of her night-time visit to the care home, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was just by thinking about their conversation. Hopefully looking at the photos would inspire her. She particularly wanted to have a look at the photo of Bjarki Emil, in case that was what was bothering her. To her great surprise, several of the photos made her realize what it was that wasn’t right.

  ‘So, they did know each other after all?’ Matthew dutifully stayed in the right-hand lane, though they were unlikely to meet another car as they drove slowly through the convoluted grid of streets.

  ‘I don’t know whether they knew each other, necessarily, but they were certainly at the residence on the same night, and probably at the same time.’ She pointed out a snowdrift in the middle of the roundabout that they were approaching, then continued: ‘You remember she said she’d gone there with her drunk friend, along with another friend of theirs who drove? He was in the photo with Friðleifur and Margeir where Lena is visible in the background, which makes me want to know who actually took the photo. Hardly the dead-drunk girl if what Lena said is true – that the photo was taken while she was on oxygen. Which means there was someone else there, and I think it was this Bjarki Emil.’

  ‘Just because Friðleifur and Margeir are in the same clothes in the photo with Lena as they were in the one with Bjarki Emil?’ Matthew drove carefully past the snowdrift. ‘Maybe neither of them had that many clothes, and it’s just a coincidence that they were wearing the same both times.’