‘Did Tryggvi visit you around the time that you left the residence for the hospital?’
One blink. Yes.
‘Did he say anything?’ Tryggvi had reportedly never spoken, but Thóra decided to ask nonetheless. It could be that he’d made more progress than people wanted to admit; similar things had been kept quiet.
Two blinks. No.
‘Did he get into bed with you?’ Thóra was looking straight at Ragna, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the therapist turn her head sharply in her direction.
Two blinks. No.
‘Did anyone else ever get into bed with you?’ The therapist gripped Thóra’s arm firmly, but Thóra shook her hand off and focused on the young woman’s reaction. For a long time nothing happened; they just stared into each other’s eyes. Then the girl blinked.
One slow, heavy blink. Yes.
Thóra sat outside in her car in the National Hospital’s crowded car park. The heater was trying to battle the hoarfrost on the window and Thóra put her hands under her thighs to protect them from the cold seat. But it wasn’t the frosty windscreen or her cold thighs that bothered her; her mind was in overdrive and it would be dangerous to launch herself out into the traffic before she’d tried to put her thoughts in order. This was serious stuff, and the conversation with Ragna had ended long before Thóra had received answers to all her questions. There had proved to be a limit to how long Ragna could keep up a conversation. Although it could have continued for some time after it emerged that someone had climbed into bed with the young woman, it came to a natural conclusion when she simply couldn’t go any further. Thóra didn’t know whether it was from agitation or fatigue, but it was difficult to understand how a person might feel who was only capable of expressing themselves one letter at a time. Ragna had made her feelings known very simply: she had shut her eyes and not opened them again until she was asked whether she wanted to conclude the conversation. Then she blinked once. Yes.
Thóra was startled by a brisk tapping on the window. Outside stood the therapist, insufficiently dressed for outdoors and shaking like a leaf. It took Thóra a moment to catch her breath and free her hands from beneath her thighs. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ said the woman after Thóra rolled down the window and wrapped her arms around herself to better preserve her body heat. ‘I simply must ask you about what happened in there.’ This came as no surprise to Thóra. Although the therapist had initially been totally opposed to discussing these sensitive matters, she had changed her mind almost immediately and quickly became just as eager as Thóra to know what had taken place. After leaving the girl in the care of the nurse, it was clear that the woman wanted Thóra to tell her everything about the investigation, but Thóra merely thanked her for her help and hurried away. ‘I must point out that the topics of these conversations are usually of no concern to me; I sort of put myself in the role of stenographer, but in this case I find it very difficult.’
‘Hopefully there isn’t generally a need to ask the sorts of questions that I just did.’
‘No. At least I’ve never been at that kind of interview before.’ The woman smiled, but her smile disappeared quickly as her teeth began to chatter. ‘Of course I’d heard of something similar happening at the National Hospital some decades ago, and then again recently at a community residence, but it was completely hushed up. A girl there became pregnant, but she died before further news of it got out. At least that’s how I heard it.’
‘I think the second story you’re referring to relates to the same case we were discussing with Ragna.’ Thóra was in a dilemma: she didn’t really want to speak to this woman, but she might need her services in the near future. It seemed clear that news of Lísa’s pregnancy had spread throughout the Regional Office, but had stopped there, since the woman had only heard secondhand rumours.
‘I’m bound to confidentiality about what I hear in these kinds of interviews. You needn’t worry that it will go any further.’ This sounded credible. The same applied to interpreting in court. Had Thóra been given time to prepare more thoroughly, this was one of the things she would have swotted up on, but now she had to decide whether the woman was telling the truth. ‘I’m trying to find the man who forced himself on one of the inhabitants of the care home that burned down. The woman was pregnant when she died in the fire and I suspect attempts have been made to cover this up.’
‘But what did she mean when she kept repeating the word oxygen?’
‘I have no idea, more’s the pity.’ This was one detail that had perplexed Thóra. When the girl had first spelled out the word, they had both thought she was in respiratory distress, which turned out not to be the case. How oxygen was related to the horrible thing that had happened to her was difficult to understand, but in the girl’s mind clearly the two were inextricably – if inexplicably – linked. ‘Did the description of the man mean anything to you?’ The likelihood that anyone would recognize the perpetrator from the description the girl had given was negligible: dark hair, blue-grey eyes, slim, straight teeth. Why couldn’t the bastard have had a wart or a tattoo in the middle of his forehead?
‘No, but I didn’t know anyone there. I never set foot in the residence, I’m afraid.’ The woman hopped from foot to foot. ‘What about the police? Shouldn’t you let them know?’
‘Yes, absolutely – I’ll contact them as soon as I get back to my office. It’s too cold to do it now.’ Even though the police had honoured Lísa’s parents’ request to keep her case quiet, the rape had taken on a different aspect now that it was clear there had been two victims – especially since one of them was still alive.
‘Sure, of course.’ The woman stood up straight and prepared to leave, even though she was obviously itching to ask Thóra more. It was probably as difficult for her to formulate her questions as it was for Thóra to digest what had happened.
‘One question before I go.’ Thóra sat on her hands again, this time to heat up her fingers a little before driving off. The wind blew into the car and the heater couldn’t compete. ‘Do you think you might have misread any of the cards? Might she have been trying to say something else? Those symbols are pretty close to each other, and it must be difficult to read them with absolute precision.’
‘No, that’s highly unlikely. I asked her about all of the symbols, as you saw, and she specifically agreed to those I pointed at. Obviously it’s harder to communicate through the cards than through standard spoken language; it’s impossible to have icons for everything in the world and communication becomes stilted when we have to spell out each word. But what I told you was what she indicated. I’ve been doing this long enough to assure you of that.’