‘I’m very brave but I still want to go home.’
‘I know. Hopefully you can, but not today.’
‘Tomorrow?’ He cheered up again, and Thóra realized that she would have to choose her words more carefully, so as not to raise his hopes too much.
‘No, not tomorrow, Jakob. Have you thought some more about the night we talked about when I came here the other day? Tried to remember it better?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘I don’t want to think about it. I just feel bad if I do.’
Thóra nodded. ‘Tell me one thing – have you heard of a short hose? Something to do with the apartment that Natan lived in? Number 2?’ Jakob stared at her blankly and shook his head. ‘Okay, never mind. But you can probably tell me something else; what was the name of the girl who lived in the apartment at the end of the corridor? Do you remember?’
Jakob adopted a look of exaggerated bewilderment, squinting and frowning at the same time. ‘No. I don’t remember.’
‘Try to think back a bit; she was always in bed and didn’t speak.’
‘I never talked to her. She always just stared at me. It made me feel uncomfortable.’ He leaned forward a bit, his expression conspiratorial. ‘I think she was called Ragga but I don’t really know. She never did anything with us.’
‘Ragga?’ This could be short for Ragnhild, Ragnheiður or various other names. ‘Do you know whose daughter she was?’
‘No. Her mother and father had moved away. They never came. Maybe she wasn’t anyone’s daughter and was just called Ragga.’
Thóra smiled. ‘Maybe. Now, since I know you’re so brave, I’m going to ask you something different, and that’s how Ari, your lawyer, treated you. I know that you found him boring, but did he treat you badly? Was he ever mean, or angry?’
‘He was strange. He was never happy and he always wanted to talk about boring things. He was boring.’
‘But mean? Did you find him mean?’
‘Yes, he’s very mean. He… he kicks animals.’ Jakob didn’t meet her eye as he spoke and Thóra was fairly certain he had said it to try to please her. No matter what one might say about Ari and the bizarre situation he’d put himself in, she doubted he went around kicking animals in front of his clients.
‘Let’s just talk about what we know or have seen, and not what we think. Okay?’ Jakob nodded sheepishly. ‘Now, I know that you bit his arm, didn’t you?’
‘He was mean.’
‘Maybe, but why did you bite him? Maybe he’s mean but he must have said something that made you especially angry, mustn’t he?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what was that, Jakob? It would be really great if you could tell me about it.’
Jakob’s tongue stuck out even further than usual and he licked his lips. ‘He was mean; he said that I was lying to him and also that I was lying to the police. He said that he would have me put in prison if I didn’t say that I started the fire and that I would never get to see Mummy. Never.’
Jakob’s cheeks had turned red, so distressed was he by the memory. Thóra decided not to upset him any further, since it was quite clear what had happened. That bastard Ari had put the thumbscrews on Jakob and tried to get him to confess to the crime, which he obviously thought his client had committed. This was clearly unacceptable behaviour, but it would be impossible to prove. No matter that Thóra didn’t doubt for a second that Jakob was telling the truth. She was filled with an even greater desire to secure his freedom. One of the things that had weighed most heavily against him was that he had confessed, withdrawn his confession, confessed again and then contradicted himself in his testimony. Perhaps this had been partly due to Ari’s interference. How could Jakob have got so unlucky with his lawyer? ‘We shouldn’t talk about Ari any more. Let’s talk about Friðleifur instead; do you remember him? He was an employee at the centre, and he worked a lot at night and early in the morning?’ Jakob nodded again, but now he seemed wary. ‘Was he nice, did he do his job well?’
‘He was fun. He was funny.’ Jakob smiled at some amusing memory that the night watchman’s name seemed to have evoked.
‘Did he sometimes have visitors at work? Did his friends come to see him?’
‘Sometimes.’ Jakob clamped his mouth shut again.
‘How did they behave? Did they sometimes argue with Friðleifur?’ Jakob shook his head, surprised. ‘So they were just calm – they didn’t speak loudly or angrily or anything like that?’
‘No.’ Jakob looked puzzled and his eyes flicked around the room. Then he came closer to her, first appearing to peer past her and check whether anyone could overhear them. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘I’m really good at it.’ Jakob bent to her and whispered.
‘Friðleifur’s friends came to visit to breathe. He told me that but he asked me not to tell anyone. Never. So you can’t tell anyone, okay?’
‘No, I won’t tell, Jakob. But sometimes secrets stop being secret when the person who told them to you is dead. Not always, but sometimes.’
Jakob seemed uneasy with these new rules about something he’d obviously thought he clearly understood. ‘You promised not to tell anyone. You promised.’ He became more agitated with every word and Thóra remembered the stories of this small but sturdy man’s violent tendencies.
‘And I won’t. I do promise.’ She smiled, hoping to calm him down. Then, calling forth all the acting skills she possessed to seem conspiratorial enough, she whispered, ‘Were they breathing smoke? From a pipe?’ The best she could think of was that Jakob had come across the night watchman and his friends smoking hash and Friðleifur had tried to convince him of some nonsense about secret breathing.
Jakob’s anger dissipated, and instead he looked shocked. ‘No. They just came to breathe. Not with smoke; they wanted good breathing.’
‘Okay.’ Thóra patted Jakob on the shoulder. An angel with a suitcase and good breathing. Clearly the boy was a mine of useful information.
CHAPTER 20
Friday, 15 January 2010
There was nothing to worry about in the middle of the day, even one as grey and gloomy as this. Margeir inhaled the cool, humid air, filling his chest. A sense of well-being he hadn’t felt in months washed over him and he shut his eyes. Maybe today would be a turning point in his life; a new start to a new life under new and more enjoyable circumstances. It was up to him to deal with much of what had tormented him lately and he had to stop beating himself up all the time. A bank of storm clouds filled the sky and a gusty wind blew snow from the handrail; winter wasn’t going to relent until it had given its all. He brushed the snow off himself irritably. His coat rustled and the noise made him realize how quiet it was outside. There was no murmur of traffic, no whisper from the bare branches of the aspen; Margeir stared, captivated, at them, feeling as if he were watching a silent movie on television.
A muffled ringing came from his coat pocket, startling him. It was as if his hearing was suddenly jump-started; the wind whistling in the trees came through loud and clear, backed by the distant rumble of traffic. He recognized the radio station’s number and despite his best-laid plans not to let the anonymous lunatic trouble him, he felt enormously relieved. The man had probably stopped calling, even though Margeir was still being bombarded with text messages that were bound to be from the same person. Margeir hadn’t heard this coward’s voice since looking up the address that had appeared in one of the messages. He suspected the weirdo lived there. Either the idiot regretted what he’d done after being found out, or he’d got bored of tormenting Margeir and had turned to someone else. Maybe it was the initial response that gave this guy his biggest kicks and it got boring to keep receiving ‘Who is this?’ ‘Leave me alone!’ and things like that in reply. Maybe the pervert had wanted to pester a girl, where he would doubtless get a more satisfying reaction. It was over. It must be over. It had to be over.