Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Someone to Watch Over Me

‘All right.’ Jósteinn ran his hand through his thin, greasy black hair. A comb had left light stripes where the scalp shone through. Thóra wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘all right’; all right, they could go to the police or all right, he would stop his sickening digressions? She decided to assume the latter.

‘Go over this again for me, just so that I’m clear on everything.’ Jósteinn had refused to allow them to record the conversation, and fearing that he wouldn’t open up, Thóra was limiting herself to only scribbling down the occasional word or two. ‘Just start at the beginning and repeat what it is you think Ari has done to you.’

Jósteinn looked up now and stared out of the window, and Thóra and Matthew automatically followed his gaze. There was nothing to see but snow, the abandoned greenhouse and the bare branches swaying in the wind. ‘He betrayed me. Maybe it’s not that surprising, but nevertheless, he did. It couldn’t have been anyone but him. He was the only one who knew about the pictures besides me.’

He let out a short, joyless laugh. ‘I thought lawyers were supposed to protect their clients’ interests, not run to the police with information.’ Without turning from the window, he asked: ‘What would you do if you had to defend a man and found there was more evidence against him?’

Thóra had no interest in making herself the topic of this man’s conversation. ‘Generally, lawyers aren’t in the habit of handing over to the police evidence that is detrimental to their client’s case.’ She neglected to mention that the nature of Jósteinn’s crimes was such that few would take pains to assure that he remained a part of society. ‘But it isn’t the lawyer’s role to conceal evidence on behalf of his client. Are you certain you didn’t ask him to get rid of them? You were in solitary confinement and I’m sure you were concerned that the photos would be found.’

‘No. It wasn’t like that. I merely warned him that the photos existed, and told him that I’d hidden them in a flowerpot on my grandfather’s grave. No one else visited the grave, so they would be left alone there. It didn’t take him long to fetch them and send them to the police, anonymously. No one else could have done it and though I’ve always known it was him, I haven’t been able to verify it until recently.’ Again Jósteinn laughed coldly. ‘This computer came to me so that justice would be done, pure and simple.’

Thóra and Matthew were speechless. If justice always won out, this man wouldn’t be sitting here, he’d be six feet under with his grandfather. Thóra was the first to regain her composure. ‘How did you know the computer contained data concerning you? You’ve got a pile of machines here at the moment – surely you don’t go through all of them that closely. Aren’t most of them useless, anyway?’

‘You can always retrieve data. It takes time and patience, but I’ve got enough of both. I do this with all the computers that come to my workshop. People think it’s impossible to do anything with them but that’s usually not the case. No one has any idea what I’m doing here; the staff know so little about computers that I can tell them anything. And in any case, they’re all happy as long as I’m shut away in my little cubbyhole. When Einvarður’s laptop landed on my table I hit the jackpot. Not just because it was his computer, but because he’d forgotten to take his 3G key out of the case. With that I was able to go online without anyone knowing, and even make phone calls all over town. The idiot had taped the password to the key.’ He continued to stare at the snow outside. ‘It was all most enjoyable, and what I found on the hard drive made it even better.’

Matthew cleared his throat. ‘So you found e-mails sent between Ari and his cousin Einvarður, in which Ari offered the ministry evidence pertaining to your case, in exchange for his not being disbarred due to impending bankruptcy?’

‘Oh, it was more than that.’ Jósteinn stopped staring out of the window, directing his attention back at the embroidered cushion he’d put in his lap when he sat down. ‘There were e-mail exchanges between Einvarður and other people in the ministry, including the person investigating the case. He’s no idiot, that Einvarður, despite appearances to the contrary. He saved the e-mails because he was merely an intermediary. He worded them in such a way that even if they were made public he would have looked pretty much blameless. And he would probably even have become a hero.’

‘And the police and prosecutor went along with it?’

‘Oh, yes. Of course. How can temporarily disbarring one lawyer compare to putting me behind bars for the rest of my life? Less hassle for a much better outcome.’ Jósteinn sounded triumphant. ‘But the people involved in this had no idea that it would mean Ari would then owe Einvarður a favour – a favour that he then cashed in when the residence burned down and he needed an inside man in the investigation and the trial. There were e-mails about this too, and again I think that Einvarður wanted to shield his own position if these exchanges came to light. He words the messages so as to protect himself, puts some words into Ari’s mouth and in doing so is able to hide behind bad legal advice, although it ought to be clear to anyone who reads them how he set things up.’

‘If anyone actually does get to read them, at this point.’ Following a visit from a Ministry of Justice representative, all the computers had been removed from Jósteinn’s workshop, and Einvarður had almost certainly got his laptop back and subsequently destroyed it. He himself had been partly responsible for this, having put in a request to get it back after his meeting with Thóra and Matthew – although the ministry representative hadn’t appeared immediately. Perhaps Einvarður hadn’t wanted to come across as being too eager to get his computer back; or perhaps the matter simply had to go through the right channels before it was possible to take action. One thing was clear, in any case – the computer was gone.

Jósteinn tugged at a loose thread in the middle of the cushion’s embroidered cover. ‘It’s up to you to prove who did it. And you should be able to, now that you know what you’re looking for.’

‘None of what you claim to have read proves anything about the fire. It’s all very interesting, but if Einvarður doesn’t admit straight out in an e-mail that he started the fire, there’s no evidence pointing to him. There’s another man under suspicion now, and he appears to be an extremely plausible candidate. Plus, Einvarður was at a ball in Selfoss that evening, along with his wife. It would be difficult to demonstrate that he’d driven to town in order to start the fire before driving back out there. His wife would surely have known about it and she would never have agreed to it.’

‘You’ll work it out.’ Jósteinn tugged on the end of the thread, which he’d finally got a good grip on, and pulled it slowly from the cushion. The thread belonged to the largest of the roses and it was bright red. ‘Have you ever pulled the guts out of a mouse?’ He’d started again with his shock tactics.

‘No, and we never will,’ growled Matthew.

Jósteinn put the cushion down next to him but continued to stare at it. ‘That’s a shame.’

‘Would you mind getting back to the computer and the files?’ Thóra felt nauseous and couldn’t bear any more of these deviations. ‘Was there nothing there that could be considered concrete proof that he arranged the fire?’

Jósteinn shrugged. ‘That’s what I was telling you. You’re not listening. His son, Tryggvi, had suddenly started to open up a bit and seemed to want to communicate a few things. Although they were ecstatic about his progress, they were very disturbed by what he wanted to communicate. Understandably.’ He placed his hand back on the cushion and Thóra felt her gorge rise at the thought of him pulling another thread from it.