Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Is he in there a lot?’ Thóra had to pretend to take an interest in the man’s daily labours, and in fact she was happy to make conversation with the woman, since it meant delaying the meeting. She wasn’t exactly afraid of Jósteinn, but she wasn’t looking forward to seeing him.

‘Yes, he seems to feel at home around those broken computers; he achieves incredible results, in fact. We’ve lost count of the number of machines he’s managed to cobble together from other broken-down ones. They’ve been given new lives in developing countries.’

‘Do you think he gets something out of it, doing good deeds?’ Perhaps Thóra needed to revise her opinion of Jósteinn. He seemed genuinely concerned about Jakob, and now this. Maybe there was a good soul somewhere deep inside that broken and damaged man.

The woman smiled pityingly. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. He couldn’t care less about those poor people in the Third World. He just likes the computers themselves; he says they’re perfect, that it’s impossible for them to make mistakes on their own. He enjoys giving them new life. He once told me that the great thing about computers was that they didn’t have eyes or brains, which meant they couldn’t tell how ugly he was, both outside and in. He’s a very sick man, and the computers seem to bring him some kind of satisfaction, which he needs. As do we all.’

Thóra didn’t know what more she could say, so she just nodded. She found her own way to the waiting room and when she opened the door to it she had the same feeling that she’d had when she walked into the building; the embroidered pillows appeared not to have moved a millimetre, and the puzzle on the dining room table looked equally untouched. Even the two puzzle pieces lying next to one of the table legs were still there, waiting to either end up in the vacuum cleaner or be spotted and picked up by someone eagle-eyed. Thóra considered gathering them up from the carpet herself, but decided not to. She wasn’t going to be anything other than a spectator in this place; she wouldn’t change anything. She didn’t understand why she felt like this, but she didn’t want to leave any trace on this sad little outpost of humanity, no matter how small.

Thóra turned her gaze to the window and looked at the empty, lonely greenhouse in the garden. The glass sparkled, but inside stood the empty spring pots, along with a bent watering can that may or may not have been full of water. Jakob was nowhere to be seen.

When Jósteinn appeared, accompanied by the woman from reception, Thóra felt her fists clench and she had an overwhelming desire to move all the way to the other end of the sofa. There was something about this small, skinny man that disgusted her. It didn’t just come from what she knew he’d done to others; his thin hair was greasy and his scalp showed through the comb tracks; even his glasses were so dirty that it was hard to believe he could actually see through the grime. He made a failed attempt to smile and Thóra nodded in return. She couldn’t bring herself to extend her hand, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

‘Can I just leave you two alone? I’ll be nearby if you need something.’ The woman from reception looked Thóra in the eye as she said this, and as before the subtext of her statement was clear.

‘Yes, that’s fine.’ Thóra affected a breezy tone, as if this was no problem at all. ‘We shouldn’t be long. Isn’t that right, Jósteinn?’

‘Yes.’ Jósteinn sat down in the chair opposite Thóra. He gazed in silence at his lap until the woman had disappeared. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Do you mean Jakob’s case?’ Thóra caught herself staring at the closed door.

‘Yes. Have you solved it?’ Jósteinn’s voice was hushed, as if he preferred not to be heard.

‘No, I can’t say I have, but it is progressing.’ Thóra shifted on the sofa, which was too soft and too low. ‘Why did you want to meet me? Just to find out how I was getting on?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit unnecessary for me to come all this way to Sogn to tell you the little that I have to report? You could just as easily have called.’

Without looking up, Jósteinn smiled. His bottom lip split, leaving a bloody streak in the middle. He seemed neither to notice nor to be bothered by the pain that this must have caused him. Thóra couldn’t take her eyes off his thin-lipped mouth and his stained teeth, which, despite their colour, were straight and beautifully even. His smile disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and a little drop of blood ran slowly down his chin. ‘I can’t call. I don’t have access to a telephone here, as you know.’

‘Surely you can speak on the phone if you ask the staff to call for you, and if the call is supervised.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve never tried it. Haven’t ever needed to call anyone before.’

‘Look into it next time if you need to get in touch. This is a long drive out of town for me, and my time is better spent working on the case itself. Unless you wanted to ask me something specific, or tell me something? I totally understand if you want to keep track of the hours that are going into this or if you want to rethink your position regarding the investigation. That’s not unusual when people realize how quickly it can start getting expensive.’

‘No, that’s not it at all. I was just worried that you haven’t come back to speak to Jakob and I wanted to know whether it was because you were stuck.’

‘Things are coming along, as I say.’ The room suddenly felt unbearably hot. ‘I’ll speak to Jakob when I have a particular reason to, since there’s no point confusing him with multiple visits. He has difficulty discussing what happened, naturally, and I’d prefer not to wear him out or mix up his ideas about what happened with endless questions.’

‘So, this is a long way for you. It would be better if we were located in Reykjavík.’ Jósteinn fell silent, looked up abruptly and then immediately back down into his lap. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Yes, probably. But there’s not much we can do about that.’ Thóra decided to try to make good use of this trip by getting Jósteinn to say something about his acquaintance with Ari, who was one of the few people who could have sent the photo to her phone, though he was just as unlikely to have done so as the others who had access to it. ‘Your legal supervisor was Ari Gunnarsson, the same man who defended Jakob. Is this a coincidence, or did it affect your decision to fund a potential reopening of the case? Do you have something against him, perhaps, and are you looking for revenge?’

Jósteinn shook his head, but Thóra thought she saw him redden a bit, even though his head was bowed. ‘No.’

‘So this is simply a coincidence?’

‘Yes.’

Thóra didn’t need a lie detector to work out that Jósteinn was hiding something, but she couldn’t fathom how best to get the truth out of this strange man. She suspected coming down hard on him wouldn’t achieve much. ‘Did he do a good job with your case?’

‘How would I know? I don’t know how others would have done. I probably would have ended up here even if I’d hired every lawyer in the country. If you’re sick, you’re sick. You can’t treat a damaged mind like broken bones. It might be possible if the brain were brittle, not soft. Repairs are always much more complex when you can’t screw or hammer things together.’

‘Yes, that’s… a shame.’ Thóra was keen not to stray any further into this topic. ‘But you must have had a sense of whether he was working on your case wholeheartedly. Did he come to see you? Or did you never meet him?’

‘We met several times during the preparations for the trial. I suppose he could have shown a little more interest, but he wouldn’t be the first or the last person to find it difficult to stay focused in my presence. People don’t understand me, but I understand them . Do you know what I mean?’