Why Did You Lie? Read online

  Örvar nodded, looking almost comically relieved not to have to beat about the bush. ‘There are a couple of reasons, actually. One is to check whether you’ve by any chance changed your mind about the complaint – in light of your circumstances.’

  ‘Circumstances?’ Nína felt her face tightening into a mask of anger.

  ‘You know what I mean. But if you want me to put it more bluntly, I simply mean that you’ve got enough on your plate at the moment without having to cope with any extra stress.’ Örvar heaved such a deep breath you’d have thought he wanted to suck all the oxygen out of the room. ‘Anyway, I don’t mean to pry into your personal affairs. We all need space to deal with our problems in peace. And the other reason was that I just wanted to check how you are and whether you’d like to take some time off. There’s no shame in it, you know.’

  Nína looked away from his dark eyes, which were so deep-set they almost disappeared into his head. Nothing would delight her colleagues, Örvar included, more than her absence from the station. She smiled through her rage, realising she must look half demented. ‘Thank you but I don’t need a holiday. Things are getting better – I gather I’m over the worst part. My complaint won’t put me under any extra strain, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she lied with a straight face. The thought of not being able to take refuge in work was unbearable. What was she supposed to do all day? Sit beside Thröstur twenty-four/seven until she became rooted to the chair?

  ‘Do you have someone to – er – talk to? A counsellor or …?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was easy to carry on lying once you had begun.

  ‘Here at work?’

  ‘No. At the hospital.’ Nína knew Örvar would be able to check up to see if she had used the counselling service at the police station. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it. But you can rest assured that I’m getting there. I’ll soon be up to putting all my energy into pursuing the complaint.’

  Örvar swallowed, his Adam’s apple rising and falling in his sinewy throat. ‘Right. Good.’ Doubtless there were few things less consistent with his definition of ‘good’ than the idea of Nína tearing like a hurricane through the police station hierarchy in pursuit of justice. ‘Leaving aside the complaint, naturally we’re all looking forward to having you back on top form.’ About as much as they looked forward to their flu jabs in October. ‘We could do with more officers right now.’ This was a feeble attempt to cheer her up and convince her that she was still part of the team. But Nína was aware that she had never been a particularly effective officer and doubted it would make any difference to the station whether she was back to her usual self or not.

  She had been full of enthusiasm when she joined the police but her zeal had soon faded when it came home to her how little she could really achieve. The drunks carried on drinking; the thugs carried on beating people up. It didn’t help that her colleagues had reservations about her because she was a woman and, to make matters worse, married to a journalist. Every time sensitive information was leaked to the press she sensed that suspicion fell on her, whether Thröstur worked for the media outlet in question or not.

  ‘You know you have all my sympathy, Nína, and I’m not the only person here at the station who feels for you – we just find it hard to put it into words. But our thoughts are with you. In spite of this business of the complaint.’

  She fought back a contemptuous smile. It would have been more natural for them to gloat over her misfortune, given that she had dared to shop one of the team. How very noble of them not to. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m touched.’ Nína adjusted her features to disguise the sarcasm. ‘If you get a chance, do please pass on my gratitude to them for their thoughtfulness. I can’t tell you how relieved I am not to have to spend my whole time fending off expressions of sympathy. That would be unbearable.’ Better to let them think she appreciated their indifference and misinterpreted it as kindness.

  Örvar’s eyes had been lowered to the desk during this speech and had fallen on the folder. Nína cursed herself for not having shoved it in a drawer or at least turned it to face her. Putting his head on one side, he read the spine.

  Silence.

  Nína tried to look unconcerned.

  ‘Is this from the basement?’

  ‘Yes. I brought it upstairs just now without thinking. I’ll take it back down tomorrow morning.’

  Örvar nodded slowly. Nína hoped this blunder wouldn’t keep him here any longer. When it had sunk in that she intended to stick to her guns and wasn’t shattered enough to agree to go on leave, he prepared to stand up. But the folder containing the old suicide reports was obviously a sign that she was still obsessing over what had happened to Thröstur. ‘Have you been through it?’ he asked.

  Nína wondered if she should carry on embroidering the truth but couldn’t be bothered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’ Örvar drew the file towards him and Nína pushed it over, as if she didn’t think it mattered. He leafed through it, pausing sometimes but saying nothing. Then his face darkened, he snapped the folder shut and slid it back across the desk. He’d got a paper cut and sucked and shook his finger. ‘You won’t find the explanation for what happened to your husband in other people’s lives.’

  Nína contemplated the folder. ‘As a matter of fact, I came across a case in which Thröstur was interviewed as a witness. When he was a child.’ She tried to swallow but her throat was suddenly dry. ‘For all I know it may be connected.’ She had no need to elaborate.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.’ Örvar frowned, his eyes seeming to sink even deeper into his head. ‘Was it a sexual abuse case? They can leave scars that never heal.’

  ‘I don’t know what sort of case it was. I only found one page. But it was in this folder, so I assume it related to a suicide.’ Nína met Örvar’s gaze, much as she’d have preferred not to. He dropped his eyes first, running a hand through his thin white hair.

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Reports are always ending up in the wrong folders.’

  ‘But …’ Nína wanted to object but couldn’t find the words. Of course he was right; many of the things that disrupted people’s lives turned out to be nothing but coincidence.

  ‘You shouldn’t be going through old suicide reports. It’s not healthy for you to obsess over them when you’re going through this tragedy with your husband.’

  ‘I just happened to spot his name when I was leafing through. I wasn’t intending to spend any more time looking at this file than any of the others down there.’

  ‘No, maybe not.’ Örvar looked unconvinced. ‘But I recommend you don’t give it any more thought now. You can look into it later when you’re feeling better. Besides, we don’t pay you to spend your time rooting around among cold cases. As an employee of the police you’re supposed to be devoting your time to the tasks assigned to you. And if you can’t do your job, you should take sick leave. It would be better for everybody.’ So sick leave was back on the agenda. Nína wondered if others like him were waiting outside in the corridor, eager for news that she was going to take a holiday.

  ‘I’m doing the job I’m supposed to be doing.’ This wasn’t entirely true but she had lost her temper.

  ‘And you should remember another thing, Nína.’ Örvar rose to his feet, his knuckles whitening on the arms of his chair and the corners of his mouth turning down, though he tried to hide the fact. He didn’t finish the sentence until he was standing up, then looked not at her but at the folder. ‘People who choose to die that way don’t give much thought to those they leave behind. Don’t let your husband’s decision ruin your life. That can easily happen if you’re not careful.’

  Could her sister Berglind have been talking to Örvar? The advice was almost identical to what she had said yesterday evening. Mind you, it was a conventional sentiment in the circumstances: chin up.

  Nína watched Örvar walk out into the corridor. He didn’t say goodbye or add
any further comments on the subject. By the time it occurred to her that his eyes had been resting on the file when he referred to people whose lives had been destroyed, it was too late to ask if he had anyone specific in mind. Had he come across a case he remembered, while he was leafing through? An instance where the surviving spouse had been crushed by grief? If so, it could hardly have been the case Thröstur was concerned with as there was next to no information in the scrap that remained of the report. The brief paragraph would hardly have been sufficient to pierce the fog of thirty years of amnesia. Then there was his comment about selfishness, which showed that he had no understanding of depression. But he was unlikely to have been referring specifically to Thröstur as he barely knew him and so had no basis on which to judge Thröstur’s motives or lack of consideration. Nína had deliberately avoided work parties where partners were invited along, so Örvar had never seen them together at police dinner dances or other gatherings. She had been afraid her colleagues might start having a go at Thröstur once they’d downed a few drinks. An investigative journalist, known for sparing no one, would have been as welcome at a police annual bash as a Muslim cleric at a feminist convention. All Örvar knew about Thröstur was that he was a journalist. And however much her boss might dislike reporters, she doubted he regarded them as totally devoid of feeling. No, he couldn’t possibly have been referring to Thröstur.

  Nína turned the pages until she found Thröstur’s statement and noticed a tiny smear of blood at the top of the page that hadn’t been there before.

  Örvar’s paper cut. He had been looking at the report.

  Instinct told Nína that his comment about selfishness and destroyed lives had been in reference to this case. Örvar’s police career stretched back decades and he would have already joined the force by 1985. Perhaps he was on the ball enough to remember the case, despite the scanty details. So why couldn’t he have admitted the fact? What the hell was wrong with the man?

  She stood up to go and track down a video player. She would call the hospital back later. There was no way she was ready to face a difficult conversation just now.

  Chapter 9

  21 January 2014

  The shelves sagged beneath the weight of obsolete equipment that looked clumsy and antiquated where once it must have seemed state of the art. So museum-like was the atmosphere that Nína wouldn’t have been surprised to spot a traditional carved wooden bowl among the clutter or a butter churn in the corner. She had been given a place to sit just inside the little room opening off the technical manager’s office, where he had hooked up a video player and small boxy TV set for her. He had handled both with such loving care you’d have thought they were priceless artefacts. Fortunately, however, he seemed less keen on people than gadgets and made no attempt at small talk. The only words they had exchanged from the moment she turned up with a box full of VHS tapes until he left her to get on with it, were her request to use a video player and his parting warning that she wasn’t to muck around with the controls. If anything went wrong, she was to give him a shout immediately.

  Apart from the grating squeak emitted by the machine as she fast-forwarded, there was silence in the room. On the screen in front of her, a young man was squirming on an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair. His long dark hair fell over his eyes, helping him avoid the policeman’s gaze. If you ignored the haircut and clothes, the recordings could have been made yesterday. Evidently human nature didn’t change. The guilty manipulated the truth and the police, undeterred, continued mechanically firing questions at them. It proved wearing in the long run to listen to strung-out suspects entangling themselves in ever more intricate webs of lies, so Nína had removed the headphones after the first tape. The lips of the man on screen moved noiselessly as he answered questions about an old misdemeanour that no longer mattered. Nína had soon realised that this was a complete waste of time, yet she carried on watching anyway. She lacked the initiative to press the ‘Off’ button, say goodbye to the crooks of the eighties and get the hell out of there. It was always possible the tapes might contain something worth keeping, though what that might be was impossible to say. Perhaps one of the officers would suddenly lose his rag and attack the suspect. It wasn’t unheard of. She really would be popular if she uncovered evidence of excessive force employed in the line of duty, however far in the past.

  The long-haired man returned his hands to the edge of the table after gesturing for emphasis. Soon he was twisting his fingers together, as if he meant to tie them in knots. It was the sign of a liar. Nína had been in the police long enough to see through people without the need to turn up the volume. The suspects’ mannerisms and eyes often inadvertently gave them away. If she were listening she would no doubt have heard the man going into far too much detail when describing events, which was always a dead giveaway, or repeating the police officer’s questions – a well-known method of buying time.

  As she fast-forwarded in search of the next interview, the movements of the suspect and the policemen facing him appeared absurdly jerky. Then she pressed play and read the name, date and case number written on a piece of paper and held up to the camera. The date of the interviews seemed to be the only system to the recordings, which meant that cases were not dealt with consecutively; instead people trickled in to be questioned about a whole variety of different incidents. The technology had been new at the time and perhaps the received wisdom had been that it was better not to keep changing the tape. She remembered the fuss there had been the time her father managed to snarl up a rented video in their family VHS player, back when they first became popular. She and her sister hadn’t dared go near the machine for months for fear of destroying another tape.

  When she read the handwritten sign, Nína did a double take. She paused the frame with clumsy fingers and stared, stunned, at the white sheet of paper almost filling the screen.

  Thröstur Magnason, witness

  18 April 1985

  Case no. 1363-85

  She leant back as far from the television as she could. She hadn’t for a minute expected to find the interview of Thröstur as a child among the recordings, let alone on the second tape she watched. She read the text again to assure herself that she wasn’t imagining it.

  There was no mistake: it was him.

  She was dying to watch the recording but simultaneously felt a panicky urge to leap up and run out of the room. To calm her nerves, she plugged in the clunky headphones and put them on. It was like plunging her head under water; she could hear nothing. If she pressed play, her body would remain in the present while her mind was transported back to 1985. With Thröstur.

  Her hand moved towards the ‘Play’ button. Her fingers trembled slightly as they hovered in front of the machine, as if they couldn’t make up their mind whether to go all the way. Then suddenly her index finger went for it and pressed the button.

  The white paper was removed and a tall policeman opened the door of the interview room. He moved into the gap, talking to someone outside in the corridor, then showed the person in. He was careful not to turn his back on the interviewee, as per the regulations, but the procedure seemed laughable when a small boy appeared. He was accompanied by a woman in a buttoned-up coat, holding her handbag in front of her like Moominmamma. She looked about as likely to cause trouble as the boy, and he barely came up to the man’s waist. Not that Nína took much notice of the woman. Her attention was riveted on the boy as he walked warily over to the interview table and took up position behind a chair, glancing nervously round the room. His face could only be seen in full when his gaze passed over the camera. Nína’s heart lurched.

  It was her Thröstur. She recognised the child’s face from the framed photos on the dusty piano that nobody played any more in her father-in-law’s house. But even if she had never seen them, she would still have recognised him. His features were the same, though the overall impression was much softer. There was no hint of shadow in the round face and the strong jawline, still unformed, was bare
ly detectable. He was still blond, though later his hair would darken so much that no one would have guessed he had once resembled a Swede. His complexion, too, was very fair, and it looked as if all the colour in his face was concentrated in his bright red lips. Nína felt again that sharp stab in her heart that people often talk of but she had up to now regarded as a mere figure of speech. It felt as if she’d picked up a pencil and jabbed herself in the chest.

  Only when the boy Thröstur finally turned to the woman in the coat did Nína tear her gaze from him and look at her. She recognised her face immediately, now that the woman had moved closer and was facing the camera. It was her late mother-in-law, Milla Gautadóttir. Although she had inev-itably changed less than her son in the intervening years between this recording and the time Nína had first met her, it was strange to see her looking so young. Nína had only got to know her in middle age and had never stopped to wonder what she had looked like as a girl. To her mind her mother-in-law had simply sprung into being as a middle-aged woman – who was never permitted to grow old. The breast cancer that had got the better of her in the space of just two months had at least spared her from having to witness Thröstur’s fate. Not that this in any way lessened the tragedy of her early death.

  ‘Take a seat. It doesn’t matter who sits where.’ The police officer waited until mother and son were sitting down. Both looked as if they expected the chairs to collapse under their weight. Thröstur’s mother put her bulky handbag on her lap and smiled apprehensively at the policeman. Thröstur stuck his hands under his thighs and swung his legs. He looked around again, still wide-eyed.

  ‘I’d like to begin by thanking you for coming in.’

  Milla nodded, still smiling awkwardly. She didn’t speak.