Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

‘I thought psychologists studied these things. Don’t you need to know the motivation behind what people write when they’re in an agitated mental state?’

‘Yes, but usually we have more to go on than a single word. Maybe I missed the class on people who break into schools, go berserk and write mysterious messages on the wall.’ As soon as he said this, Freyr regretted it. Why was he letting her sarcasm get on his nerves? It wasn’t as if he was trying to be a comedian, or making light of the situation. ‘I recommend you try to find the culprit the traditional way, then if you do, I’ll speak to him and give you my opinion as to what might have made him do this. For the moment I can’t add much to your investigation.’ In fact, he didn’t know why she’d called him out; his job description at the Regional Hospital in Ísafjörður didn’t include giving advice to the police, and she hadn’t behaved as though she expected his opinion to mark a turning point in the investigation. ‘Unless you want me to look up similar incidents elsewhere and see what conclusions I can draw from them? I don’t know if that would be useful.’

‘No, no.’ Dagný’s tone was brusque, but softened when she hurriedly added: ‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.’

The sound of children’s voices carried in through the window. Under normal circumstances they would probably have been in this room, playing or drawing more pictures to adorn its walls, but this morning was far from ordinary. The teacher who had turned up first had been stunned, and had immediately called the police to report the break-in. Dagný and an older officer had been sent to the scene; Freyr supposed she’d been sent because she reported for work early. The normal day shift for police officers didn’t start until eight, but Dagný habitually woke around six, regardless of whether she was working. The only difference was that she was generally out of the door at seven o’clock on work days, apparently too restless to hang around at home any longer. This he knew only because she lived across the road from him, and his morning routine was much the same. In this respect they had something in common: neither of them liked wasting time doing nothing. This appealed to him; in the few relationships he’d had in his life, the women had always wanted to cuddle in bed for as long as possible and hadn’t understood his urge to jump out of bed as soon as he opened his eyes, preferably before the paper came through the letterbox. He could happily imagine a relationship in which he would have company in the kitchen while it was dark and quiet outside and others slept. He had no other ideas as to what he was looking for in a life companion; too little time had passed since his divorce. He couldn’t work out whether his memories of his previous relationship before everything went wrong were a realistic reflection of what he was looking for, or whether he was viewing them in a rosy light. In fact he knew the answer; he just didn’t want to face it.

Freyr went over to the window and at first saw only his own reflection in the glass. He looked younger than his age but that was doubtless because he kept himself in shape, thus avoiding the extra pounds that had started to weigh down his former classmates from medical school. Still, this was only fair, since he hadn’t enjoyed as much female attention as they had during his university years. These days, luckily, women seemed to appreciate his strong facial features; and, given that he remembered what it was like to have to clear his throat to get a woman’s attention, he was planning on holding onto his looks for a while. Naturally they would start declining at some point, but he still had several years to go until he hit forty, so it wasn’t like he had one foot in the grave just yet.

The children were scattered around the playground, their snowsuits making them look stiff and almost spherical. Although the winter had been unusually mild, it was still cold outside and their fiery red cheeks glowed beneath multicoloured bobble hats. Freyr could well imagine that this incident would result in a spate of visits to the health clinic; the flu was going round and ear infections were on the increase. If the children weren’t going to be allowed back in until things were cleaned up here, they might have to stay outdoors for the rest of the day. ‘When can the poor things come back inside?’ Freyr watched a girl topple onto her head after walking straight into a sandpit.

‘When we’re finished.’ Dagný took more photos. The flash in the window indicated that she’d moved over to the basic-looking bookshelves lying on top of their former contents. ‘It shouldn’t take too much longer; we’ve already taken fingerprints from most of what the vandal might conceivably have touched, but I don’t expect anything to come of it. It’s my understanding that every square centimetre in here is covered with fingerprints. It’s going to be nearly impossible to determine whether any of them belong to him.’

Freyr said nothing as he continued to watch the children. If he squinted, he could imagine that he’d gone back in time several years and that this was his son’s playground. One of the children could then be his son; there were several boys who moved like he had as a toddler, and when they were this bundled up it was easy for Freyr to deceive himself. However, he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in the fantasy. It would be too painful to abandon the dream world and return to the cold reality in which there was no longer any place for his son.

The door opened to admit Veigar, the older police officer who had responded to the call with Dagný. ‘How’s it going here?’ He looked around and shook his head. ‘What a fucking abomination.’ He was accustomed to working with Dagný, so it didn’t bother him when she didn’t reply. Instead of repeating the question or taking offence, he turned to Freyr. ‘Have you solved the case for us, mate?’

Freyr pulled himself away from the window and smiled in reply. ‘No, I haven’t pieced it together yet; but, from the evidence, I’d say a pretty sick person was at work here.’

‘Yes, it doesn’t take an expert from the south to see that.’ Veigar bent down to pick up a broken chair leg. ‘How could anyone do this? I have no interest in understanding what drove this idiot to it, I just want to know how he actually did it.’

‘Was nothing spared?’ Freyr had only managed to glance over the place but of course he’d noticed various things on his way in: the children’s coat rack in the lobby had been destroyed, the hooks and the shelves above them all torn down from the walls.

‘Very little. The kitchen, for example, was in a right bloody state.’

‘But was this the only message?’

Veigar scratched his head. ‘Yes. Maybe he meant to write more but didn’t have time for it. He was probably exhausted after making all this mess.’

‘We don’t know whether it was a man or a woman.’ Dagný didn’t look up, busying herself instead with putting the camera into a black bag. ‘It could even have been a couple or a group of people. It barely seems possible for one man to do all this alone, even if he did have the entire weekend.’

‘He certainly didn’t hold back.’ Freyr nudged a pile of track sections from a wrecked wooden train set with his foot. ‘Didn’t anyone notice anything? Neighbours, or passers-by? All this must have made quite a racket.’

‘Not that we know of. We haven’t contacted all the residents of the adjacent buildings but the ones we spoke to didn’t notice anything, or at least nothing clicked if they did hear something. There’s quite a distance between the buildings,’ replied Veigar.

A red plastic bucket bounced off the window where Freyr had just been standing and they all looked round in surprise. ‘The poor kids must be getting bored out there,’ said Veigar. ‘Something’s got to be done if they can’t come in. It’s only an hour until lunch and the only toilet they’ve got access to has a permanent queue outside.’