Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

Ari suddenly stretched out one hand, nearly knocking over the stack of papers. ‘Just so you know what to expect…’ He unfastened the buttons on his shirtsleeve and rolled it up, revealing a fat pink arm that clearly hadn’t done a scrap of physical labour in years. In the middle of it a large, shiny, horseshoe-shaped scar was clearly visible. ‘Jakob, your current client, did this. That’s how sweet and innocent he is.’

Thóra couldn’t take her eyes off the unsightly, uneven skin. ‘What happened?’

Ari pulled his sleeve back down. ‘He bit me. Just took a piece right out of me.’

‘Unprovoked?’

‘Of course – what, you think I deliberately made him angry?’ He refastened the button. ‘He simply bent me over the table where we were sitting and took a bite.’

‘What were you discussing?’

‘Just some stuff about the case. I don’t remember precisely, but it wasn’t anything upsetting or significant.’

Ari pushed the files carefully an inch closer to Thóra. ‘I didn’t even report it, so no one can say I didn’t protect my client’s interests. I should have bowed out of the case, of course, but we were about to go to court and like a fool, I felt uncomfortable about the idea. You, on the other hand, can still quit – and that’s what I’d recommend you do. A scar like this would doubtless do you more harm than me. And I wasn’t the only one he hurt; he often attacked the people who lived with him, staff as well as residents. This isn’t the only scar that he has on his conscience. He’s prone to violence, as well as being guilty. That’s all there is to it.’

‘You don’t remember how you came to be chosen to defend Jakob? I can tell from what you’ve said that he’s not exactly the kind of client you like to work for.’

‘No, hardly. He’s the worst client I’ve ever had.’ He seemed contemplative, but it wasn’t convincing. ‘But how I ended up defending him… I just can’t remember. Probably the police suggested me.’ He smiled and patted the stack of files. ‘It was a huge mistake for you to take this case, but as I said, you can still back out. My bloody arm still hurts now.’

Thóra took the files. She didn’t think she would withdraw from the case, but she was certain that she would be very careful around Jakob. ‘Thanks for the warning.’ She had arranged a meeting with her client the next day at Sogn, and she was definitely taking Matthew with her. She wouldn’t be alone with Jakob, that much was clear.

The meeting with the lawyer had gone worse than Glódís could have imagined. In truth, before their encounter she had given little thought to what they might discuss; had thought that it would be smooth and easy work to convince this Thóra of Jakob’s guilt, and subsequently to persuade her not to dig any further into the case. To her mind there was no doubt about his part in the horrific deed, so this should have been a piece of cake for Glódís, but she hadn’t reckoned on the woman being so well prepared and their conversation taking such an unexpected turn. How could she have known that the lawyer had access to all of the court documents on the case? Glódís had assumed they would have been locked up after the sentence was pronounced. In retrospect, she had no idea why she had thought this to be the case, but she’d been dead wrong. This was a bloody mess. She couldn’t afford for this case to be reopened. She’d suffered enough because of it in her career, and only now was the fall-out from it finally starting to dissipate. Glódís had lost count of all the meetings she’d been called to because of everything that had come up during the investigation and the trial. That whole time she’d felt like an outsider in her workplace; no one spoke to her voluntarily for fear that her unpopularity with the higher-ups was infectious. She didn’t know how she’d get through it if it happened all over again.

A familiar feeling of depression washed over her. How could it all have gone so wrong? It had always seemed like a good idea to her, no matter what anybody said afterwards. Overnight she’d become a kind of rising star within the organization. Before she’d suggested a unified community residence, disabled housing issues were like matching socks after doing the washing. The blind over here, the paralysed there, and autistic people somewhere else. Oops, one with severe dementia – oh well, he’s the only one, can’t do anything for him. In the end her proposal had been welcomed eagerly and was implemented with great speed: Iceland was experiencing a boom, people were enthusiastic, and there was plenty of money. If the experiment worked, more of these kinds of centres would be built when budgetary resources allowed. When she was then informed that she was being considered to run this innovative unit, it seemed fate was smiling on her, especially after she’d been an assistant director for ten years and obliged to take on all the most tiresome and difficult cases by a boss who took only the agreeable ones for himself. Now it was Glódís’s chance to allow herself that luxury. But her bliss had been short-lived.

Jakob, that damn Jakob. If only she hadn’t pushed so hard to have him admitted, right now she would be in her little office in the nice new residence, casually tallying up receipts with supermarket bills or taking a bit of time out to browse sunny places to visit for her summer holiday. But no. Now she was sitting at the Regional Office for the Disabled, answering phone calls from family members whose only role in life appeared to be to irritate her. When will a space become available? The wheelchair’s got too small. Isn’t it possible to extend my daughter’s day-care hours? Endless demands that she could hardly ever meet, with very little thanks for her trouble. Now, since they’d been preaching bloody cutbacks and savings, it looked as though the few positive conversations that she’d had with the agency’s clients or their relatives had become a thing of the past. It had given her monotonous days some colour to be able to fulfil people’s wishes from time to time. Yes, her life had undergone a complete transformation. All because of Jakob.

She felt a painful throb in the small of her back, which ran up her spine and stopped at her neck. Glódís moaned softly and reached behind her head to rub the sore area. It did little good, as she’d known it wouldn’t. She still hadn’t managed to rub away her headache. The doctor had informed her that it was a consequence of injuries she’d received when she’d been struck heavily with a broom on her lower back. Two vertebrae had been pressed together and there was little that could be done about it apart from a major operation that had no guaranteed outcome of success. Again, all Jakob’s fault. He had attacked her from behind, completely unprovoked, and the blow had sent her crashing into a wheelchair in the corridor. The blow had been so hard that she hadn’t felt the initial impact at all; the fear of being paralysed had overwhelmed everything else and she’d wept with relief when she realized that her legs hurt. Luckily other workers had happened to come along and had removed Jakob, because otherwise he would probably have continued to hammer her with the broom. In any case, he was standing over her when she opened her eyes, staring at her with his familiar sheepish expression. And then this idiot lawyer thinks the man is innocent. She’d change her opinion pretty sharpish if she got hit like that herself. Glódís found herself hoping that that would happen.

‘There’s a quick meeting in ten minutes. We’re going to continue discussing the cuts.’ The fact that the woman in the doorway had come to notify her of this meeting was one more sign that the business about the fire was slipping into the coma of oblivion. If it were just allowed to be left to rest, like Sleeping Beauty, everything would be good again.