But this turned out not to be the case. With the help of the GPS tracker, Freyr drove straight to the grieving widower’s home. He parked the car, slowly unbuckled his seatbelt and looked over the house and its garden: an unassuming, single-storey concrete abode, considerably smaller than the palaces in the newer neighbourhoods of Reykjavík. The house appeared to be decently maintained, with clean curtains and several thriving plants in flowerpots in the windows. The hedges, at present no more than naked branches, looked as if they’d been trimmed in the autumn. In other words, there was no evidence of serious depression on the part of the homemaker. Of course it was possible that the deceased woman’s husband had seen to keeping the house and garden tidy in the hope that if everything looked fine on the surface, the situation would improve; order and control would be infectious. This would be resolved in his conversation with the man, although it was difficult to know whether he would answer honestly questions concerning the division of the household tasks; some men his age felt it beneath their dignity to put on rubber gloves.
While Freyr waited for the door to be answered, he scrutinized the copper doorplate bearing the couple’s names: Halla and Bjarni. Below them were the names of their grown-up children: Unnsteinn, Lárus and Petra, whose names were still engraved on the plate even though they had long since left home. This wasn’t the only copper ornamentation at the entrance; on each side of the door hung crosses that were far less weathered than the nameplate beneath the doorbell. A third cross had been attached to the front door itself. These symbols seemed to indicate that they were people of faith, and perhaps tied in with the place where the dead woman had chosen to end her life. However, it didn’t tally with religious devotion – or the decree of the Bible – to take matters into one’s own hands in the way the woman had, rather than entrusting oneself to God. Freyr himself was no believer, and he hoped the widower would avoid going into the subject of religion.
It was so calm and quiet outside that Freyr could hear footsteps approaching from within the house. The door opened slowly and silently. The man who appeared in the doorway was dressed in clothes that hung off him loosely, as if he had put them on out of long-standing habit and not bothered to adjust them properly on his body. His thin white hair was wiry and hadn’t been combed for some time. His eyes were swollen. ‘Are you the doctor?’ His voice was hoarse, as if he were speaking for the first time that day.
Freyr affirmed that he was and extended his hand. At first the old man looked at it in surprise, or so it seemed, before taking it. His handshake was weak and he muttered something about Freyr coming in. He didn’t need to take off his shoes. In the lobby, Jesus Christ, a crown of thorns on his head, stared upwards, the very picture of melancholy. The image was in an impressive frame, considering that it was a reproduction, and although Freyr was no art expert he came to the conclusion that the picture and frame were rather new. As he followed Bjarni into the house he spotted a sturdy candle with a golden cross and an inscription from the Bible, a carved wooden plaque praising the Lord, and several crosses similar to those hanging at the entrance. Apart from the image of Jesus, the objects seemed to have been placed quite haphazardly. Perhaps the couple had come across a clearance sale at a Christian bookshop and had had trouble arranging their purchases. Otherwise it was an extremely normal-looking home, apart from the little pile of newspapers and mail lying on the mat beneath the letterbox.
‘Are you a man of faith?’ Freyr sat down on the sofa opposite the widower, who had taken a seat in a tired old easy chair.
The man stared distantly at the coffee table between them, then said: ‘Yes. No. Maybe not right now.’ His voice was devoid of all emotion. Freyr recognized this hollow sound very well from his job, and he’d lost count of the number of times he’d watched people knead their hands together as the defeated widower did now.
‘But Halla? Was she a believer?’
‘No. Yes. The opposite of me. Wasn’t so, but became so.’
‘I ask because your home seems to indicate as much – or at least it gives the impression that Christian folk live here. That’s not too common these days.’ This was a white lie; Freyr wanted to know whether Halla had been gripped by strong religious extremism, which in some cases could be a sign of underlying psychological problems or even illness. Mental illnesses could usually be characterized by changes in thinking, behaviour or mood, or a combination of all three, and Freyr was fairly certain that one or more of these changes must have applied to Bjarni’s deceased wife. He just needed to find out which ones.
‘Halla’s interest in religion resurfaced a short time ago. I didn’t give it much thought, and it didn’t bother me. The only difference was that she started reading the Bible instead of trashy novels.’
‘It looks to me as if her renewed religious interest went a bit deeper than that.’ Freyr let his eyes wander over the Christian decorations. ‘When did you start noticing it?’
The man looked up at the ceiling, as if a calendar were hanging there. ‘Three, four years ago. I don’t remember precisely.’
Freyr changed tack. ‘As far as I understand, your wife didn’t have any obvious difficulties, wasn’t struggling with alcoholism and hadn’t been physically ill. Is that right?’ The old man nodded, apparently sincerely.
‘Was there anything in your relationship or your circumstances that might possibly have deprived her of the will to live?’
‘No. We got along fine. We were happy, even. Or so I thought.’ The man paused. ‘We weren’t in any financial trouble – we’d never been rich, or particularly poor, and we were happy with what we had, which wasn’t likely to change. Although my expenses have been cut in half now, I suppose.’
This final addendum indicated that although the man was crossing an emotional minefield, he did have a mental map of the area and would probably make it through unscathed. He was able to view his circumstances from a neutral perspective; although his black humour wasn’t particularly funny, it was a sign that he wasn’t completely overwhelmed by the gloom of his current situation.
‘I’ve come to help you, as you know,’ said Freyr. ‘There must be a lot going on in your head and hopefully I’m better than nothing if you have any questions. Or I can do the talking, if you find it more comfortable.’
The man snorted. ‘I just want to know why she did it. You can hardly answer that, can you?’
‘No, maybe not, but I think it’s likely she was ill. Mental illness can cause people unbearable pain and they can see no way to relieve their suffering other than suicide. When that’s the case, there’s no one to blame; there’s nothing that you or anyone else could have done. You should keep that firmly in mind.’
The man gave Freyr a sceptical look. ‘Halla wasn’t in any pain. I would have known.’
‘Maybe her faith eased her discomfort, or else she concealed it out of consideration for you.’
The man shook his head, but no longer seemed quite so convinced. ‘I’ve been thinking about it almost constantly since it happened, trying to remember something in her behaviour that I should have noticed. Something that could have helped me prevent her from doing what she did. But I can’t recall anything.’
Freyr decided not to reel off all the principal manifestations of suicidal tendencies. One of the clearest warning signs was a similar earlier attempt. But this was certainly not the case here. Right now it would be unhealthy for the man to become filled with regret; if Freyr were to name some of the signs, it could cause the widower even more distress if it turned out that any of them applied to Halla’s behaviour. Instead Freyr directed the conversation to how Bjarni might best arrange things to help him come to terms with the loss of his wife. The man seemed to listen and take note, and even asked a question or two, which was a good sign. Freyr was heartened to hear that the couple’s daughter, Petra, still lived in town, although the sons had long since left for the south. So the old man wasn’t left entirely alone, and Freyr urged him to have his daughter come and visit as often as possible, to go to her place for supper and accept all the companionship that she and the family had to offer. When asked, Bjarni said that he wasn’t considering following the same path as his wife, which was also a good sign, although his saying it didn’t mean they could assume it was true. Freyr was feeling reasonably satisfied with the way things were going when he realized that he had to get home. Bjarni also looked a bit tired and seemed to have stopped taking in what he was being told.