The trip to the Regional Office went smoothly, except when Thóra nearly drove onto the pavement in her irritated attempts to turn off the radio. A newsflash had been announced and this had annoyed her for some reason; she couldn’t take any more agitation. She was only one piece of bad news away from having some kind of minor breakdown, and she didn’t want to behave like a madwoman in front of Glódís. Admittedly, it looked as though Glódís was the one heading for a breakdown; she looked a lot worse than when Thóra had last seen her. The black roots of her two-tone hair had inched out even further, and the bags under her eyes didn’t help.
‘Let’s have a seat in my office.’ Glódís didn’t wait for a reply, but turned on her heel mid-sentence and walked away from reception. The secretary who had announced Thóra’s arrival raised an eyebrow and shot Thóra a look that spoke volumes about Glódís’s reputation at the office.
‘I have a lot to do, so let’s get straight to the point.’ Glódís sat behind her desk, adopting an expression not dissimilar to Christ’s on the cross. Her workload seemed not to have diminished at all, even though Thóra would have imagined her position at the Regional Office might have been downscaled. ‘You probably want answers to the questions you sent in your e-mails, which I haven’t had time to respond to, but—’
Thóra interrupted her. ‘I already have them. However, I need to find out where Ragna Sölvadóttir is now. I understand that she’s the girl with “locked-in syndrome” who lived at the residence but escaped the fire.’
Glódís lifted a pencil from the table and tapped it against her palm rhythmically. ‘You can’t know much about the syndrome if you think you’ll get anything out of her in person.’
‘I completely understand her situation and I’m not planning to speak with her in private – I’ll have the assistance of a therapist or someone who’s capable of communicating with her effectively.’
‘It’s not a good idea to upset her, and I see no reason for you to do so. As I’ve said, I’ll answer all your questions – which I’m much more capable of doing than Ragna, since she generally just stares into the middle distance. It’s not like she has anything to add to what’s already come out, so you don’t need to disturb her.’
Thóra didn’t recall Glódís saying that she was going to answer all her questions; in fact her response had been entirely to the contrary. ‘I must insist on meeting her, though I’m certainly very grateful for your willingness to give me more of your valuable time. But as they say, “two heads are better than one”, and your answers have sometimes been a little inconsistent.’
‘What do you mean?’ Glódís was now tapping her palm more forcefully, but more slowly. ‘I’ve been completely open with you – too open, in fact.’
Thóra smiled politely. ‘You didn’t tell me about Ragna, or that Tryggvi Einvarðsson had undergone special treatment that seemed to be having some positive results. I understood from you that Jakob was the only male there capable of moving about freely. Nor did you mention that the night watchman Friðleifur and his friend had been suspected of drinking at work and possibly stealing drugs. Perhaps there are other things you forgot to mention.’
‘None of this is relevant to the fire.’
‘I’ll be the judge of what’s relevant to my investigation.’ If they were to avoid just sitting there bickering, Thóra needed to change her tactics. She had deliberately spoken brusquely, because she wasn’t going to make any progress by listening to half-truths and outright lies. ‘But I must emphasize that I am very grateful for what you’ve told me. I do realize that you’re concerned about those who died, but it simply isn’t fair that their rights should outweigh those of Jakob, who’s still alive.’ She was trying to give Glódís a way out that would encourage her to continue the conversation. Still, Thóra decided to drive the point home a bit further: ‘I could probably get this information from Einvarður, Tryggvi’s father. He has made it clear several times that he wants to be of help to me.’ She didn’t mention that he too appeared to have carefully selected the information that he’d chosen to share with Thóra.
‘There’s no need to trouble him with this.’ Glódís’s arrogance seemed to have diminished. ‘I’ll find out where Ragna is and let you know, as long as she has no objection to meeting you.’
‘I’d really appreciate it.’
‘I doubt it’ll do any good, though,’ said Glódís, putting down the pencil and rubbing her hands together. ‘I think I should also mention that Tryggvi did indeed display a certain amount of progress – not inconsiderable, in fact – but you need to keep in mind that it was all relative. He was severely autistic, so even major advances still left him seriously disabled.’
‘So do you think it’s possible that he could have roamed about the unit at night?’
‘I very much doubt it. The progress he made was mainly to do with expressing himself. All of a sudden he started interacting a little with people around him, though not in the sense that he had conversations with them, more that he started to take in some of what was directed at him and attempted to respond.’
‘Did he speak?’
‘No, he had a long way to go before that was likely to happen, if he ever would have achieved it at all. He expressed himself in another way; through drawings, clapping and gestures. It was all very primitive, but it was still a huge success if you consider that up until then, Tryggvi had gone through life without giving any indication that he was aware of those around him. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration; he was aware of people, but he made no attempt to communicate with them. He found their presence uncomfortable, especially if they were strangers or there were too many people at once.’
‘So in your professional opinion, he couldn’t have played any part in the fire?’
‘Absolutely not.’ Glódís sounded confident, even more so when she added: ‘It’s out of the question.’
‘And what can you tell me about Friðleifur and the drinking at work? Is that an unjust allegation as well?’
‘I won’t deny that his shift was under suspicion. But the suspicion turned out to be unfounded; they were both tested for alcohol three times, if I remember correctly, and the result was always the same: they were absolutely sober. So it was never more than a suspicion, which means that there’s no reason for me to discuss it with you. I don’t feel it’s right to spread rumours that have no basis in reality.’
‘But what about the drugs? Could they have been on dope? You can’t buy a drug test kit at the chemist for that.’
‘They weren’t on any drugs, unless caffeine counts. After the rumours started I made sure I was there when they finished their shifts at the weekends, and they weren’t high at all; each time they only seemed tired after being up all night.’ The phone on Glódís’s desk rang and she asked Thóra to excuse her. She answered and listened to the person on the other end of the line. The dull echo of a man’s voice came from the receiver, and he sounded annoyed about something. Glódís blushed slightly before interrupting to say: ‘I have a visitor, can I call you back in a moment?’ Then she hung up and turned to Thóra. ‘Where were we?’
They continued speaking for a while longer, but Glódís’s eyes wandered constantly to the phone and her replies were distracted. Thóra decided to call it a day and concluded the visit by making Glódís promise she’d try to arrange a meeting between Thóra and Ragna. She followed Thóra only as far as the door of her office, and after saying goodbye she closed it behind her. As Thóra walked down the corridor she heard the murmur of Glódís’s voice.