Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Things haven’t improved?’

‘Not really, no, but they are bearable. The need is greater than the resources can cover. Every year more multi-disabled or seriously developmentally impaired children are born. It’s impossible to provide them with all the assistance and intensive supervision they need, but of course we try our best. Unfortunately, some are neglected, but that’s the government’s problem, it’s not up to us carers. In the old days everyone was piled into just a few places, and most of them into a kind of healthcare institution, the old Kópavogur Sanatorium. No matter how bizarre it might sound today, its official name up until 1980 was the State Central Sanatorium for Idiots; so some progress has been made there, at least. Now everyone’s supposed to go to a community residence, but none of them are big enough in my opinion. When funds are scarce, many people are excluded. One person’s needs are met exhaustively, while someone else gets nothing.’

‘So it must have been a real blow when the centre burned down. I mean besides the fact that innocent people lost their lives there.’

‘Yes, you can say that again. The government and the local councils don’t insure their property, so no damages would have been paid. Given the current situation, there’ll be no rush to build a replacement centre anytime soon, certainly not in the next few years. And in the meantime, the number of people needing help only increases.’

‘It must be depressing to work under such conditions.’ Thóra let her eyes roam over some photographs of disabled children on the wall behind the woman. They all appeared happy, like the ones Thóra had greeted as she’d walked down the corridor.

‘Yes, if you can’t look past the niggles and focus on what’s in your power to change. I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve developed a thick skin, and very few things get to me. And it’s not all just sadness and misery here, like many people think. Most of the children here are fine; they’re happy, despite having to battle with problems other children couldn’t imagine. I’m confident they could even be described as happier than “normal” children the same age. To a large extent it’s about attitude, and computers have also narrowed the gap between disabled and non-disabled children a great deal. I know able-bodied kids who spend all day in front of a computer screen, making little use of the freedom their unimpaired mobility gives them. When it comes to disabled children, the main issue is how long it takes to change people’s attitudes. Society in general has limited patience for those who aren’t considered to be “contributing”. Yet most of these people can work independently if they find a job that suits them, and you’d be hard pushed to find more diligent employees.’

Thóra nodded. She was sure an intellectually disabled person could perform secretarial work better than Bella. It had been naïve of her to think that the lives of these children revolved only around their difficulties. ‘As I mentioned, I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether anyone other than Jakob, individually or collectively, could have been involved in starting the fire. I’ve uncovered certain details that are causing me some concern, although I haven’t managed to prove any of them. Were your doubts about Jakob’s guilt based on gut instinct, or something more substantial?’

‘Unfortunately, they were purely based on instinct. Jakob had a difficult time at the residence, you know, but I just couldn’t see him resorting to such desperate measures. He thought it would all end at some point, that he’d get to go home – it hadn’t sunk in that he would be living there permanently. So that hardly ties in with the theory that he thought he needed to burn the place to the ground in order to get out of there.’ Linda crossed her arms, her expression grave now; the smile that had seemed an intrinsic part of her appearance disappeared. ‘While it was all going on, I was so grief-stricken that the sadness overshadowed everything; I felt so terribly sorry for the people who’d died, but also for Jakob. It was such an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn’t focus on anything else. It never crossed my mind to doubt the investigation. I didn’t explore my misgivings until later, but by then it was too late. Now I wonder whether the result would have been different if I, and others, had been more on the ball when Jakob needed us. It’s not a nice feeling, I can tell you, and if I’m honest, I think I pushed it all aside. Probably to avoid having to deal with the thought that if it hadn’t been Jakob, then someone else had been involved – and if so, who?’

‘People aren’t robots. Those are perfectly natural reactions to a crisis like this.’ Thóra was happy to finally find someone apart from his mother who actually believed in Jakob’s innocence. Others had generally been willing to consider the possibility, but Thóra could see in their eyes that they didn’t think her investigation would lead anywhere. Linda appeared to feel otherwise. ‘One of the things I’ve discovered is that a girl who lived there was expecting a baby. Lísa. Were you aware of that?’

The woman blushed suddenly. ‘Yes. But not until afterwards. It was revealed by the autopsy, and because of my position I was summoned to a meeting at the Regional Office, where we went over it. It took me completely by surprise.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘It didn’t occur to me that the disaster might be connected to it, at that point. Everything was focused on trying to discover who the arsonist was and stopping them from doing it again. A lot of emphasis was also placed on keeping it from the media.’

‘Did you suspect anyone in particular?’

‘God, no. It’s such a terrible thing to do that you don’t want to point the finger at anyone. I’m still convinced that there’s no way an employee could have done it.’ Linda’s blush deepened. ‘The only possible person I could think of turned out to be innocent when they compared his DNA to the foetus.’

‘Who was that?’

‘A young man who worked mainly on the night shift. The one who died in the fire. Friðleifur.’

‘Oh, really? It’s my understanding that he was an all-round good guy. Is that not right?’

The woman placed her palms flat on the table. ‘He was all right, but he was far from a model employee. I never particu-larly liked him, or the other guy who worked the shift with him; I had my doubts that they were doing their job properly. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but that’s just how it was.’

‘Did you catch them doing something wrong?’

‘No, I can’t say I did; if I had caught them, they would have been fired. I worked at the weekend on occasion, and more than once I found the place in a suspicious condition – beer cans lying about, that kind of thing, which suggested that one or both of them had been drinking at work. They turned out to be completely sober, both times, and had excuses that the director accepted, though I disagreed with her. Who’d be gullible enough to believe that they kept finding the cans littered around the garden and decided to clear them up? Not me, that’s for sure. Then there were huge supplies of intralipid, an IV medicine that’s given when oral nutrition is insufficient, which went missing, along with the butterfly needles and tubes used to administer it. On two occasions I found empty bags in the wastepaper basket in the duty room, which they couldn’t explain; they said they must have already been there when they came to work, but I simply didn’t believe it. No more empty bags or needles were ever found, but the supplies continued to dwindle mysteriously. I felt Glódís didn’t deal with the problem effectively; she wanted to give herself more time to get to the bottom of it, which of course never happened. And people were hardly queuing up to replace them if they had to let them go, which was no doubt a factor in her deciding to turn a blind eye.’