Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

She looked at the clock. It was still two hours before her scheduled meeting with the sheriff regarding the divorce of a couple who had finally agreed to share their debt burden equally. As so often in these cases, they had managed to re-establish a civil relationship and might even end up as friends. She had plenty of time to drop in on Jakob. There was a fair chance of him being sent to Akureyri, almost 400 kilometres from Reykjavík, and with the weather the way it was she was very keen to avoid having to drive cross-country to speak to him. She really ought to visit him while they were still only a few minutes away from each other.

The sterile smell from Jakob’s bandages was not immediately noticeable, but after nearly an hour it had managed to work its way so thoroughly into Thóra’s senses that she felt she was suffocating. ‘Don’t you find the air a bit close in here, Jakob? Should I open the window a bit?’ She looked hopefully at him and pointed at the curtains, which had been drawn so that they could see the laptop screen better. Thóra had taken it with her in the hope that Jakob might know someone on the memorial page for Friðleifur.

‘No, no. I’m cold.’ Jakob pushed his thick glasses back into place. They seemed incapable of sitting properly on his nose and kept slipping down. Every time she looked at them she wondered who had chosen the frames and when the glasses had actually been bought. If she’d had to guess, she’d have said they were originally bought by Tootsie in the early 80s. ‘OK, never mind. Shall we look at the next photos?’ Thóra smiled at Jakob, who seemed relieved that she wasn’t going to press the issue with the window. It was fair enough; her wool sweater was light but warm, and he was in a short-sleeved T-shirt marked National Hospital Laundry Room. His bedcover was thin, as well – it looked like a blanket enclosed in a duvet cover.

‘Good. I don’t want to get a cold. Mummy says that’s bad when you’re injured like I am.’

‘She’s quite right.’ Thóra couldn’t help but smile again. The impassioned way in which he communicated was infectious and it made a refreshing change to speak to someone who was genuinely interested in whatever she said to him. ‘Well, do you recognize anyone in these pictures?’

‘Umm, yes.’ Jakob moved nearer the screen. ‘No. That one looks just like that actor.’

‘Yes, he does a bit.’ Until now Jakob had recognized no one except the two night watchmen, Margeir and Friðleifur. That didn’t prevent him from scrutinizing every photo with the same concentration as he had the first. ‘How about in this one?’ Thóra chose the next photo, which had been taken at the residence.

‘Yes!’ Jakob poked the screen repeatedly, so hard that the fabric of it rippled slightly. Thóra didn’t dare do anything but inch the computer away from him. ‘Friðleifur! Again!’

‘Yes, that’s him. We don’t actually need to think about him, remember? Or about Margeir. If you recognize someone besides those two, let me know.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He looked at Thóra and seemed pleased with her expression, perhaps fearing that she would be frustrated with him. ‘Can I still ask you one thing?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do I get to go home now? I’ve been hurt and I don’t want to go back to Sogn. I should get to go home, I think.’

‘I think so too, Jakob.’ It didn’t surprise Thóra that he should mention this. ‘I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to, but I don’t think it’s going to happen very soon, unfortunately.’

Jakob looked sadly into her eyes. ‘What does hopeful mean? Good hope?’ Suddenly his face broke into a smile.

‘Yes. It means exactly that. I have a good hope that you’ll get to go home, which means that I think it will happen one day. Then someone will call you and say: “Hey, Jakob! You know what? You can go home today!”’ Thóra placed her palm on the rough back of his hand. ‘But it won’t be today and not tomorrow. Later. Hopefully.’

Jakob nodded and his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose again. He pushed them into place, looking tired. His wounds were still healing and in order to see the screen he needed to raise himself up onto his elbow in bed. ‘Can I see more photos, maybe?’

‘Certainly.’ Thóra selected the next photo. In it were Friðleifur, Margeir and an unfamiliar man, making faces at the camera, sticking out their tongues through their upright index fingers and little fingers. She had seen numerous photos of her own children doing this. She still had no idea what was so clever about it, but supposed she ought to be grateful that such a ridiculous pose hadn’t been popular in her youth.

Jakob laughed briefly when he saw what was in the picture. ‘Silly!’ He tried to imitate the pose, not very successfully.

‘I agree.’

Jakob dried his wet fingers and turned back to the screen. ‘Hey, I know this girl.’

Thóra leaned in for a closer look. She had thought that the photo was of three men, but it could be that she’d misinterpreted it and that the night watchmen’s guest was a young woman. However, this wasn’t the case – the goatee on the unknown man standing between Friðleifur and Margeir made that much clear. ‘Do you mean this man? Friðleifur?’

‘No. We’d stopped counting him, remember? I’m talking about this one.’ He wasn’t pointing at one of the trio, but rather at a person in the background who Thóra hadn’t noticed.

She bent even closer to the screen and saw from the profile that it was a young woman. ‘Who is this, Jakob?’

‘It’s Friðleifur’s friend.’ He smiled broadly, extremely pleased with himself.

‘Do you know her name?’

The smile disappeared. ‘Don’t remember.’ He became agitated and squirmed in the bed.

‘But you met her at the residence? When she visited Friðleifur, maybe?’

‘No, no.’ Jakob pushed his glasses so close to his face that the top part of his nose whitened.

‘So you didn’t see her at the residence?’ Thóra thought he must be mistaking her for someone else.

‘Yes, she was there. But not visiting Friðleifur. She was just his friend. She was visiting her brother. Tryggvi.’

Suddenly the disinfectant smell seemed to vanish and Thóra instinctively sat up straight. ‘Lena?’

Jakob slammed his hand down hard on the bedframe. ‘That’s right!’

Thóra buried her face in her hands over the same scrawled-on piece of paper that she’d left behind on the table when she’d gone to visit Jakob. Matthew was lying on the sofa that he’d claimed for himself in her office. ‘What’s wrong?’ He shifted the embroidered cushion that he’d placed under his head. ‘Isn’t this a good thing? Now you’ve got a witness who can testify to what went on there – though there’s no way I’m speaking to her again.’

Thóra sighed. ‘I’m glad someone’s happy.’ She looked up. ‘I’ll talk to her, that’s not a problem. I’m just trying to understand what this means. Was she just there on a normal visit as a friend of Friðleifur, or was she there to get – or do – whatever made the care home as desirable an after-hours nightspot as the photos suggest?’

‘She’ll be able to give you an answer to that, surely.’

‘Probably. But there’s something else bothering me.’

‘Oh?’ Matthew had closed his eyes. He had stopped at Thóra’s office on his way back from the gym because he knew that Thóra’s meeting with the sheriff would be over. It had actually taken less time than anticipated; the former couple had been too depressed to bother committing themselves much, since their debt was huge, even though they were planning to share the burden.

‘I don’t know, maybe I should have contacted the police.’