‘It is your computer. The laptop.’ She looked from the paper to Einvarður. ‘Where do you keep it? Could anyone else have had access to it? At your home, for instance?’
Einvarður stared open-mouthed at Thóra. Then he turned to Matthew, as if in search of support. ‘This is absolute nonsense. I didn’t send any messages.’ He pushed his chair firmly back from the desk, and pulled out a black leather briefcase. ‘This is the laptop. I usually take it home with me and of course both Fanndís and Lena have occasionally used it, but only very rarely. My wife isn’t that keen on computers and she’s only used it to look up phone numbers from time to time. Lena uses it to upload photos from her camera, since the USB port on her desktop is so inaccessible. Otherwise they never touch it. They’re just as unlikely to have sent the text messages as I am. As you can see, I have it with me at work, so someone here must have used it without my knowledge.’
‘I received at least one message in the middle of the night.’ Thóra pointed at the laptop. ‘If you always take it home, then that message was sent from your house.’ She thought about how busy the office seemed. ‘Unless there’s always work being done here at night.’
‘Of course I occasionally leave it behind. That’s what must have happened.’ He opened the case and with fumbling hands pulled from it a silver laptop, marked Dell.
‘Dell?’ Thóra picked up the sheet of paper with the information the computer technician had given her. ‘Here it says IBM. Do you have two laptops?’
Now it was Einvarður’s turn to examine the paper. ‘I only have this one. The IBM laptop must be my old computer. It’s been out of order for ages.’ He seemed relieved. ‘This is just a mistake. It must be. It’s been months since I stopped using it – at least six, I think.’
‘And where is it now?’ asked Matthew.
‘No idea.’ He looked stressed again. ‘I don’t have it, that’s for certain.’
‘I think I know where it is.’ Thóra felt anger welling up inside her. ‘Do you still have the key, or could it have conceivably gone with the computer?’
‘I still have it.’ Einvarður hesitated. ‘I think so, anyway.’ He dug through the case’s pockets one after the other. ‘No, it’s not here. I might have forgotten to take it out of the old case when the other computer crashed. I suppose it must still be there.’
‘It looks like it.’ Thóra’s mind was racing. That bastard Jósteinn. ‘Does the ministry send defective computers to Sogn?’
Einvarður paled. ‘Yes, I imagine so.’ His licked his lips, which suddenly felt dry. ‘Are you suggesting that the computer is at the Psychiatric Secure Unit – and in working condition?’
Thóra nodded. ‘I think it’s highly likely.’
‘Oh, God. I thought it was broken.’ Einvarður was breathing unusually quickly. ‘Oh, God.’
The snowfall hadn’t subsided by the time they finally left the ministry, but the bustle in the corridors had diminished signifi-cantly. They could barely see across the street through the big, drifting snowflakes, which were turning the National Theatre into nothing more than a hazy silhouette behind a white curtain. Thóra felt as if they were figures in a snow globe that a giant had shaken as hard as he could. ‘Look at the car,’ said Matthew over the turned-up collar of his coat. ‘How long were we in there?’
Thóra didn’t know precisely, but a thick layer of snow now nearly covered the vehicle. After the mystery of the computer was solved Einvarður had seemed distracted and anxious, and it was difficult to get him to focus on their questions. This did have an upside as well as a downside; for example he seemed less cautious, saying that of course it was perfectly natural that they would want to speak to his daughter, after Thóra had told him about the Facebook memorial page for Friðleifur. He seemed less concerned about there being a photo of Lena in that group than he was about the fate of the computer; he tried to play it down, saying that his daughter was a young woman and of course she went out and partied like other people her age. For her to have made friends with people of the same age at the residence just showed how sociable she was. She had a wide group of friends from all walks of life. Thóra decided not to press him about the nightlife at the care home, since he clearly didn’t realize that it could have been connected to the fire. Thóra felt reasonably confident that his daughter hadn’t had anything to do with the tragedy, but she was still certain that Lena would be able to shed some light on what had gone on there.
When she brought up his family connection to Ari, Einvarður grew wary, but he defended himself with the old tried and tested ‘Iceland is a small country’ line. Thóra didn’t believe for a minute that this was sheer coincidence. But however much she questioned him about it, it got her nowhere; Einvarður wouldn’t budge a millimetre. So Thóra changed tack and asked whether he knew anything about the case of Jósteinn Karlsson, which she described in general terms. Einvarður said he vaguely remembered it, but only because of the media reports at the time. He hadn’t been involved, either privately or through the ministry. He did know Jósteinn’s name well, though, because the man had recently been under discussion at Prison Services in connection with where he and Jakob were now to be housed – though he didn’t mention this until the end of their conversation, after they’d exhausted their list of questions. As they left, Thóra couldn’t resist a parting shot: he could inform Prison Services that they no longer needed to concern themselves with Jakob’s incarceration as in all likelihood he would be released from custody before long. This didn’t appear to have any effect on Einvarður; it was as if he wasn’t interested in knowing who had started the fire if it hadn’t been Jakob. Perhaps he simply didn’t understand the connection.
‘Why isn’t the scraper kept on the outside of the car?’ Matthew stood next to the white hump covering the vehicle. ‘If I open the door to fetch it, the seat will get covered with snow.’
Thóra stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and used her elbows to scrape as much snow as she could off the car above the passenger door. ‘You just do it like this. You should know that, after all this time and all this snow.’
Matthew rolled his eyes but gave in and copied her. In the end they managed to clear enough snow from around the gap to be able to open the door and take out the much more effective scraper. ‘Do you want to go back to the office or are you done for the day?’ he asked as she scraped off the windscreen. ‘Weren’t you going to swap monitors with Bella?’
‘No, that’ll have to wait. We need to go and see Lena before her father comes to his senses and forbids her to speak to us.’
CHAPTER 33
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
‘I never suspected so many people had gone there. When I went there with my friends it was only the two of them. I thought they would have told me about it because I had a connection to the centre.’ Lena spoke quickly, her voice trembling a little. ‘I was really surprised when I saw all the photos on Facebook and maybe I should have told someone, but they’d already sentenced Jakob so I thought it was too late. How was I to know that it mattered?’ She looked imploringly at Thóra and Matthew. When neither of them displayed any reaction she looked down, embarrassed. Turning an ornate ring several times around her finger she added in a low voice: ‘But the damage is done and I would be very grateful if you could make sure that Mum and Dad don’t hear about this.’