Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘It’s the murderer, and he’s trying to frighten you.’ Thóra’s mother’s face was creased with worry. ‘You need to stop the investigation before he comes and sets us on fire.’

Thóra rolled her eyes. ‘How about if we drop this subject while we’re eating?’ She smiled at Sóley and little Orri, who were gazing wide-eyed at her. Unfortunately, her mother had walked in on Matthew and Gylfi as Gylfi was working on uploading the photograph to her laptop – at the exact moment that the photo had appeared in all its glory on the screen. She wouldn’t stop going on about it until Thóra had explained the situation, and was still fretting now.

‘Is the murderer coming to kill us?’ Sóley put her fork down. ‘Wow, that’s so cool.’ Then she realized what she’d said and added: ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Murrr-err.’ Orri was still too young to understand what the word meant but was sensible enough to realize that it was something terrible, and therefore belonged in the same cat-egory as exciting things like dinosaurs and crocodiles.

‘Of course not. Grandma’s just joking.’ She saw that Sóley didn’t believe her one bit and added: ‘Don’t worry, there’s no murderer on the way. Just finish your food, darling.’ Thóra glared at her mother.

By the time the meal was over Sóley was her usual happy self again, since the adults had all started talking with false cheer about something entirely different. Thóra waited until her daughter had gone to bed and her parents were sitting in front of the television before returning to the computer to take a better look at the photo. Matthew sat down next to her at the kitchen table and shook his head after peering silently at the screen for a few moments. ‘It’s very strange, I have to say. Could it be that the person who sent you this didn’t realize that you have all the case files?’

‘Good question. I can’t think of anyone who could possibly be behind it. I mean, why would anyone send me this?’

‘As I said, maybe the person who sent it doesn’t know you already have the photos.’ Matthew leaned back from the screen. ‘But still, I don’t understand their motivation. Maybe the aim is to frighten you, as your mother so helpfully suggested at the table earlier. Perhaps the first step is to try and figure out who has access to the photo. The quality suggests it may not have come straight from the camera, so it might have been scanned.’

‘There are quite a few other possibilities. Apart from the policemen who worked on the investigation, the different parties involved in the case all received copies of the files: the judges, the public prosecutor’s office and Jakob’s lawyer, Ari. He let Jakob’s mother have a copy of some of the material, but that didn’t include the photo. I can’t quite see why Ari would want to send it to me again like this. He could have drawn my attention to it by sticking a Post-it on it, or just pointed it out to me when I visited him.’

‘Could someone in the justice system, the police or the prosecutor’s office, have done it?’

‘That’s possible, but why should anyone there want to bother me with something like this? They’d be in serious trouble if it came out, and I can’t see why anyone would take the risk. And whether the intention was to scare me or to help me, it seems like a weird way to send me a message. The police and the public prosecutor could easily summon me to a meeting if anyone there were interested in my investigation.’

‘What about the victims’ relatives? Were they given the files?’

Thóra shook her head slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Usually, every attempt is made to protect the relatives from the unnecessary distress of seeing an image like this. In order to be given a copy, you’d need to have an extremely good reason. I can’t imagine what grounds there might have been to turn over this photo to the parents or other relatives.’

‘What about the people who ran the centre? Do you think they’d have been able to follow the investigation?’

‘No doubt they would have, but not in any detail – and certainly not this kind of detail. This is just totally incomprehensible. The only thing I can think of is that someone within the system – someone who knows about my involvement and has access to this image – is losing their marbles.’

‘Or had already lost them.’ Matthew looked Thóra in the eye. ‘If Jakob is innocent, the criminal is probably on the loose. Maybe your mother was right. This photo is certainly enough to frighten someone off, but the message could have been clearer. I’d hazard a guess at ‘mind your own business’ or something along those lines, though.’

‘But if that’s the case, the real murderer would have to be a policeman, a lawyer or a judge. Or Jakob’s mother. None of whom seem very likely.’ Thóra lifted her phone. ‘Speaking of the message, what could 02 short hose mean?’

‘An apartment number? Weren’t the residents’ apartments numbered 01, 02 and so on?’

‘Yes, actually they were.’ Thóra exhaled. ‘If I remember correctly, 02 was the number of Natan’s apartment, but there was no hose there to my knowledge, long or short. Maybe the girl who’s still alive might know what it means.’

‘Isn’t that a good enough reason for you to find her? Maybe this text isn’t a threat at all, but a suggestion. She’s the only one still alive who knows what it was like to live there. Maybe she was even involved in the case.’

‘She’s paralysed and she can’t speak. I don’t know how she could possibly have been involved.’ Thóra shut her laptop. ‘But I obviously do need to meet her. First I’ve got to find out who she is, and where she is.’

‘That shouldn’t be hard.’ Matthew smiled. ‘As far as I can see, your real problem will be how to question her.’

Thóra closed her eyes. ‘Fantastic – this case just gets better and better.’

The Secure Psychiatric Unit at Sogn had obviously not changed since Thóra had been there last; abandoned wheelbarrows still stood in the driveway and the same wooden boxes were stacked against the wall, a few work gloves on top. It looked as though the place had lain dormant since the doors had shut behind her several days ago and had come back to life just a few minutes before she rang the bell again; everyone appeared to be dressed in the same clothes and as far as she could tell the same outdoor shoes were still lined up in the foyer. ‘It’s really cold out,’ Thóra remarked, handing her coat to the woman in reception. She couldn’t think of anything else to say and she could hardly ask the woman whether she’d been waiting for her there since last time, even if that was how it appeared.

‘Is it?’ The woman draped the garment over her arm. ‘Are you here to see Jósteinn? He was expecting a lawyer.’

‘Yes, that’s me.’ Thóra glanced down at her shoes, which were wet from the slush in the car park, and looked around for a mat to wipe them on. ‘I received a phone call from here this morning, saying he wanted to see me. That’s all I know about it.’ Although Thóra would have preferred to excuse herself from this meeting, pleading an enormous workload, that wasn’t really on; the man was footing the bill for the investigation into Jakob’s case, which meant that he had to be shown the minimum of courtesy.

‘Please have a seat in the waiting room and I’ll go and fetch him; do you remember the way?’ Thóra nodded and stopped trying to clean off the bottoms of her shoes, since it was a hopeless task. Instead she made a show of taking them off, while the woman said, ‘Hopefully we can get him to tear himself away from his workshop, since you’ve come specially.’