‘What do they mean?’ Matthew watched as Thóra continued to skim through the posts. They were all along the same lines. ‘Was he a drug dealer?’
‘What makes you think that?’ Thóra ran her eyes down the screen without seeing anything that might help her; there were just endless messages about partying. ‘I’m wondering whether Friðleifur and the other night watchman were selling access to the bodies of the two girls, Lísa and Ragna. To the other residents, even.’
‘Now hang on a minute, there are far too many people posting messages here for them all to have come to the residence for something like that, surely? It can’t be something many people are into and besides, there are lots of posts from women, too. I don’t think you can read anything into this other than that he prevented his friends from drinking themselves to death, since everybody on here seems to have got really drunk after he died and wished he was there to stop them.’
‘My interpretation is that his friends simply got really drunk in his memory. Maybe he was a huge party animal and mostly hung around with people who spent their whole lives getting wasted.’
‘That doesn’t make much sense – why would a party animal get a job working night shifts at the weekend?’
‘Unless he drank at work, as he was suspected of doing. Maybe he did hold parties there after all. And he only worked every other weekend.’ She read the final posts, which were also the oldest, dated about a month after Friðleifur’s death. ‘“Have an awesome time with God, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you – party in heaven!”; “Bye Friðleifur, trouble-shooter deluxe, I miss you, man”; “Friðleifur, my friend, have a good trip to heaven, when we meet there one day it’s gonna be mega”.’ Every comment was in the same vein.
‘Did you notice whether any of the people who’ve posted are connected with the case?’
Thóra shook her head. ‘If they are, I’ve missed it. I can’t actually remember all the names, but from the little pictures they all look on the young side, so I doubt any of them worked at the centre. Apart from Friðleifur and Margeir, who were both around twenty, all the employees were much older than the writers of these comments. Also, it looks to me as if these are just his friends. There are no comments from any relatives as far as I can tell.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Do you think Gylfi or Sigga might know anyone from this group? It might be worth showing them the pictures and comments – maybe they could work out why the messages are so weird.’
‘Maybe, although these people don’t really look like secondary schoolers to me. They also seem a lot more involved in the party scene than Gylfi and Sigga. But you never know.’ Thóra was beginning to feel more confident about navigating the site and managed quite easily to arrange the group’s members into alphabetical order, with their profile picture and country of origin also showing. As it turned out, this didn’t help much, because all the members seemed to have chosen not to share their personal information or profile pages with strangers. Nevertheless, she went through the list in its entirety and noticed two familiar names: Margeir and Lena. Neither of them had posted a comment. It wasn’t that odd that they’d joined the group; Margeir was Friðleifur’s main colleague and Lena had told Matthew that she’d met Friðleifur during her visits to the residence.
‘Maybe you could call her and ask her about it?’ Thóra looked at Matthew. ‘Maybe she knows what it all means, even if she didn’t know him that well and has no idea what happened there at night.’ She peered at the image next to Margeir’s name but didn’t recognize the face. Unlike Friðleifur, Margeir was fair and freckled, and he had a serious expression that didn’t fit at all with his appearance.
Matthew frowned. ‘I can’t say I’m wild about the idea. Can’t you call her?’
‘I could, but she seems to trust you. Why don’t you want to talk to her? I thought you thought she was okay?’
‘She is okay, sure, but she’s just so young, and I find it uncomfortable dealing with her. I’m not formally involved in the case and it might be misinterpreted. What do you think her father would say, for example, about a middle-aged man constantly bothering his twenty-year-old daughter?’
‘It’s hardly harassment to meet her once at a café and call her once. But I take your point. I’ll call her.’ Thóra said this last sentence slightly distractedly, since her attention was now directed at a photo album on the page. ‘Look.’ She pointed at a photo of three young people. Thóra enlarged it and saw that it was Friðleifur and Margeir, and between them an unfamiliar girl who hadn’t been tagged. She had her arms around their shoulders, almost hanging on them. The girl was in a short dress and high heels, making her look as tall as the two men.
Matthew pointed at the photo. ‘Wasn’t this taken at the residence? I think I recognize the background from the video recordings.’
Thóra shifted her attention from the people to their surroundings. ‘I’ll be damned.’ Behind the trio she saw a whiteboard and a key cabinet like those on the wall of the night watchmen’s office. ‘Well, well. So they were having a party on work time after all. At least, this girl seems to be enjoying herself.’
They looked through more photos and even though most of them showed Friðleifur in other environments, there were several of him at the care home, either with Margeir or with other unfamiliar young people of a similar age. The guests were generally dressed up to the nines. One or two were holding beers. There was no sign that they were roaming freely through the building; most of the photos appeared to have been taken in the same room, and none of them showed any of the residents or visitors in costume – neither an angel nor anything else.
‘This is one of the strangest things I’ve seen.’ Matthew leaned back in his chair.
‘Yes, I agree. Still, this explains why Friðleifur’s sister hasn’t called me. Sveinn mentioned how she’d smelled of alcohol, so she’d been partying like these people, no doubt – but pretending to come and visit with her friends in order to help.’ Thóra continued to examine the photos. ‘Now I understand why that woman who lived in the neighbourhood spoke of the street being noisy at night on weekends. It also explains why the residents at the centre weren’t always very happy; they could hardly have slept well through that all that mayhem, even if it didn’t happen every night.’ Thóra leaned back thoughtfully. ‘There must have been something to attract these people into coming all that way; the place wasn’t exactly easy to get to. Either Friðleifur and Margeir were really popular, or they had something that people wanted when they were out partying. One thing’s for sure, though – the number of people eligible to be the father of Lísa’s child is rather higher than I first thought.’
CHAPTER 29
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Thóra felt as if her thoughts were bouncing back and forth inside her brain. It didn’t matter how much she tried to organize them and think logically; one thought was always stronger than the others: who had sent her the message? She scrutinized the photos on Friðleifur’s Facebook memorial page and pored over every face, as if one might hold the answer to her question. Yes, it was me! Whoever it was had to be connected to the case; given what she had seen in the photos, there was no other possible explanation. But she couldn’t for the life of her understand why this mysterious person couldn’t simply call her or send her a detailed explanation of what he knew. He either had to be guilty of something in connection with the case, or else he was some oddball who got his kicks out of teasing her with scraps of information.