Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘Er… hello, my name is Lárus and I’m calling from Telecom. Is this Thóra Guðmundsdóttir?’

‘I’m sorry, I was expecting someone else. Yes, this is Thóra.’

‘I’m calling about a request to find the IP address for some text messages sent through our network.’

‘Of course, I’d forgotten about that. Did you find it?’ She looked at the screen and focused on the call. Was she really about to learn who had been sending all the messages? She didn’t expect the information to tell her much; the sender had probably used an Internet café, or the library, or somewhere like that .

‘Yes, we found it, and I was wondering whether I could send you the number by e-mail. It’s easier that way.’

‘Absolutely.’ Thóra gave him her address. ‘Then how do I find out where this IP address is located?’

‘I was going to put that in my message, but in fact the computer’s registered in the public sector.’

‘What?’ The first thing that crossed Thóra’s mind was the same thought she’d had initially – that someone in the police department or the prosecutor’s office was behind all this. ‘Can you be a little more specific?’

‘Yes, sorry – the computer is registered with the Ministry of Justice.’

Thóra jumped into the car and shut the door behind her. Matthew had had to stop in the middle of the street to pick her up and she definitely didn’t want to cause another traffic jam on Skólavörðustígur Street. ‘Where am I going?’ Matthew continued driving up the road.

‘The Ministry of Justice.’ She told him how to get there, then said, ‘I’m going to speak to Einvarður, Tryggvi’s father. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he must be responsible for those weird text messages. There can’t be any other employees of the ministry connected to the case, and it’s highly unlikely that a stranger’s behind them, even if they did possess the information.’

‘How do you think he’ll react?’

‘I don’t know but I’m sure it’ll be interesting. I’m beginning to wonder whether he just lost it when his son died. It’s pretty hard to figure out what he’s up to; if he was anxious to point me in a certain direction with regard to the investigation then it would have been much easier to just speak to me directly.’ She gestured at Matthew to turn. The traffic was getting denser and they were making slow progress. ‘But as I say, it’s unlikely that anyone else within the ministry is connected to the case, unless one of his colleagues is trying to land him in the shit for some entirely unrelated reason. And where that person would have got hold of this information is a whole other mystery – to add to all the others…’

They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey, with Matthew focusing on navigating the area’s one-way streets, which were becoming increasingly difficult to negotiate in the heavy snow. Pedestrians picked up speed and no one seemed to want to waste time looking in the shop windows, except for a woman of indeterminate age in a lambskin coat with her hair hanging loose, who had stopped to scrutinize some winter boots in a shoe shop while her dog sniffed eagerly at the corner of the building. On Skuggasund Street it was as if the nation had united in protest against the weather and gone inside out of the storm. It was absolutely deserted, and there were even plenty of parking spaces at the ministry. The empty streets filled Thóra with a sudden melancholy; it didn’t take much, these days. When you’ve always believed that society is built on trustworthy foundations, it’s very hard to accept the fact that this isn’t actually the case. To make matters worse, it seemed that the country hadn’t just stumbled on level ground, but had actually fallen off a cliff. The dark National Theatre building only magnified this impression. ‘Why don’t we ever go to the theatre?’

‘What?’ Matthew looked at her in surprise as he turned off the engine. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to. I’d be up for that.’

Thóra immediately regretted saying this. She didn’t want to go to the theatre at all, any more than she wanted the raisin doughnuts that often found their way into her shopping basket. They ended up there simply because she was upset about the bank crash, and everything Icelandic seemed so pitiable that she felt compelled to buy them. ‘I guess I should have a look at the programme, then.’ There were lots of things that were impossible to explain to Matthew; for instance, the other morning he had tried to pour out precisely ten drops of coffee for her mother, as she had asked. Ten drops simply meant a small cupful. He understood most Icelandic words, but combining them often modified the meaning. Daily life was yet another aspect of this endless transition; plenty of things that she thought were obvious escaped him completely. She scraped the snow off part of the windscreen at eye level, but Matthew dutifully removed it from the windows, the roof, the bonnet, the lights, the boot – even the tyres – before he so much as reversed out of the driveway. When he’d been employed at the bank and they’d gone to work at the same time, he had scoffed at her methods and asked whether she didn’t just want to make two little holes in the frost on the windscreen, one for each eye.

The lobby was empty but there was a great deal of activity in the ministry’s office wing. Sober-looking employees hurried down the long corridor, appeared in doorways and dis-appeared into others, their arms full of papers. The reception desk was empty. ‘Should we call Einvarður and let him know we’re waiting in reception?’ Matthew looked around for the receptionist but saw no one likely, or at least no one who paid them any attention.

‘No, no. Let’s just go in. I know where his office is.’ This was yet another example of their difference in attitudes – he said nothing, but his expression made clear that in his opinion you should respect protocol in a government ministry, even if it might prevent you from reaching your goal. She smiled at him. ‘Come on, otherwise we’ll stand here until we’re swept out with the rubbish at the end of the day.’ He opened his mouth to say something but stopped and followed her.

The door to Einvarður’s office was open and inside they could hear him and a woman discussing the formatting of a report, with which he seemed unhappy. Thóra peeked in but neither of them noticed her. He seemed irritated at how the woman was unable to do it like someone called Begga, and Thóra felt sorry for her for having to suffer this comparison. If this Begga was so good, why didn’t he just get her to do it? She wondered how he’d like to have Bella as his assistant and briefly fantasised that the woman he was chastising would quit and he would hire Bella inadvertently. But rather than clear her throat or draw their attention some other way, she decided simply to wait. Thóra and Matthew listened quietly to their conversation about margins, fonts and colour schemes on bar graphs until the woman hurried past without glancing at them, her cheeks flushed, and joined the flow of people hurrying along the corridor. Thóra knocked gently on the door. ‘Hello, Einvarður, I see that you’re very busy, but could you spare us a minute?’

He glanced up from the report and an involuntary look of panic flashed across his face before he regained his composure and assumed the expression of someone with all the time in the world. He stood up and motioned to them to sit. When Matthew shut the door behind them, Einvarður seemed surprised, but tried to maintain his nonchalance. ‘Please excuse the commotion – we’re finishing up a project that needs to be completed by tomorrow.’ He sat down and smiled at them politely, his neatly combed hair and impeccably knotted tie suggesting that despite his earlier agitation, he was a man who handled pressure as easily as taking a drink of water.