‘I don’t know whether I can be of any assistance, but if you want to drop by I’m happy to talk to you for a bit.’ Then she added: ‘I liked Jakob and I was never completely convinced that he was guilty, not looking back on it, anyway.’
Thóra accepted the woman’s offer with thanks and scribbled down her address, a home for disabled children in the western part of town. She hurried off so as not to miss Linda before she went home, but nevertheless took the time to correct Bella’s message, adding the word brain before dokter’s. Hopefully the note would still be there in the morning.
The home Linda worked in was nothing like the one Jakob had supposedly burned to the ground. That building had been stylish and modern, but this one appeared to have been there since the very start of this well-established neighbourhood. It didn’t look like a public building, except for the fact that the main door was unusually wide and there was a clearly marked parking space for the disabled in front of it. Thóra walked up to the ordinary-looking door and knocked, surprised that there was no doorbell. She immediately recognized Linda’s voice again when the woman greeted her. She had guessed her age correctly; Linda appeared to be approaching sixty, in good shape and with a warm smile. Her salt and pepper hair was clipped into a short bob, but despite her sombre clothes and hair the woman gave off an air of warmth and equanimity. ‘I’m not used to rushing to the door here but since I was expecting you, I was listening out. You don’t need to take your shoes off; the cleaners will be here after supper and the floor is in a bit of a state after all the comings and goings today, anyway.’
As soon as Thóra had crossed the threshold, any similarity this place might have had to a traditional home ended. The hall was much wider than usual for such an old house, and it looked as though a sledgehammer might have been used on some of the panelling. The floor was carpeted and the woman wasn’t exaggerating about how dirty it was. There were black streaks everywhere, probably from wheelchairs, and dirty shoe-prints trailed down the corridor before dis-appearing behind closed doors. ‘I have an office here where we can sit down. There’s often quite a lot of noise though it’s calm at the moment, so it’s better to be somewhere quiet if it all starts up again. Of course the building’s not designed for the type of work we do here, so nothing’s really what we might have hoped for. You get used to it.’
They walked past the open door of a large, bright room. In it were three children: a boy in a wheelchair who appeared abnormally bloated, as if from steroid use, a girl standing up in a kind of steel frame and another who sat upright at a table, staring fiercely at her plate, although it was difficult to tell what was bothering her. The other two looked in their direction as they walked by and smiled widely at Thóra. She waved and gave them her biggest smile in return, then had to hurry to catch up with Linda, who hadn’t slowed down. ‘Is this home like the one Jakob lived in?’ She felt more comfortable coming at it from this angle than starting with the care home that had burned down, even though it sounded a bit artificial.
‘No. This is a day-care centre, and it’s only for younger children. They can’t attend regular preschools or schools, but they still need education and stimulation that their parents can’t provide.’ Linda opened the door to a small but very tidy office. ‘This building is one of several that have been given to the state or the city for a specific purpose. In this case, it was stipulated that it was to be used in the service of disabled children. The couple that lived here had a disabled daughter, so they recognized the need. They died many years ago but the situation isn’t much better now than it was then. Not by a long shot.’
‘Things haven’t improved?’
‘Not really, no, but they are bearable. The need is greater than the resources can cover. Every year more multi-disabled or seriously developmentally impaired children are born. It’s impossible to provide them with all the assistance and intensive supervision they need, but of course we try our best. Unfortunately, some are neglected, but that’s the government’s problem, it’s not up to us carers. In the old days everyone was piled into just a few places, and most of them into a kind of healthcare institution, the old Kópavogur Sanatorium. No matter how bizarre it might sound today, its official name up until 1980 was the State Central Sanatorium for Idiots; so some progress has been made there, at least. Now everyone’s supposed to go to a community residence, but none of them are big enough in my opinion. When funds are scarce, many people are excluded. One person’s needs are met exhaustively, while someone else gets nothing.’
‘So it must have been a real blow when the centre burned down. I mean besides the fact that innocent people lost their lives there.’
‘Yes, you can say that again. The government and the local councils don’t insure their property, so no damages would have been paid. Given the current situation, there’ll be no rush to build a replacement centre anytime soon, certainly not in the next few years. And in the meantime, the number of people needing help only increases.’
‘It must be depressing to work under such conditions.’ Thóra let her eyes roam over some photographs of disabled children on the wall behind the woman. They all appeared happy, like the ones Thóra had greeted as she’d walked down the corridor.
‘Yes, if you can’t look past the niggles and focus on what’s in your power to change. I’ve been doing this for so long that I’ve developed a thick skin, and very few things get to me. And it’s not all just sadness and misery here, like many people think. Most of the children here are fine; they’re happy, despite having to battle with problems other children couldn’t imagine. I’m confident they could even be described as happier than “normal” children the same age. To a large extent it’s about attitude, and computers have also narrowed the gap between disabled and non-disabled children a great deal. I know able-bodied kids who spend all day in front of a computer screen, making little use of the freedom their unimpaired mobility gives them. When it comes to disabled children, the main issue is how long it takes to change people’s attitudes. Society in general has limited patience for those who aren’t considered to be “contributing”. Yet most of these people can work independently if they find a job that suits them, and you’d be hard pushed to find more diligent employees.’
Thóra nodded. She was sure an intellectually disabled person could perform secretarial work better than Bella. It had been naïve of her to think that the lives of these children revolved only around their difficulties. ‘As I mentioned, I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether anyone other than Jakob, individually or collectively, could have been involved in starting the fire. I’ve uncovered certain details that are causing me some concern, although I haven’t managed to prove any of them. Were your doubts about Jakob’s guilt based on gut instinct, or something more substantial?’
‘Unfortunately, they were purely based on instinct. Jakob had a difficult time at the residence, you know, but I just couldn’t see him resorting to such desperate measures. He thought it would all end at some point, that he’d get to go home – it hadn’t sunk in that he would be living there permanently. So that hardly ties in with the theory that he thought he needed to burn the place to the ground in order to get out of there.’ Linda crossed her arms, her expression grave now; the smile that had seemed an intrinsic part of her appearance disappeared. ‘While it was all going on, I was so grief-stricken that the sadness overshadowed everything; I felt so terribly sorry for the people who’d died, but also for Jakob. It was such an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn’t focus on anything else. It never crossed my mind to doubt the investigation. I didn’t explore my misgivings until later, but by then it was too late. Now I wonder whether the result would have been different if I, and others, had been more on the ball when Jakob needed us. It’s not a nice feeling, I can tell you, and if I’m honest, I think I pushed it all aside. Probably to avoid having to deal with the thought that if it hadn’t been Jakob, then someone else had been involved – and if so, who?’