‘That’s no excuse.’ Dagný bit her lip. ‘She says that he claimed it was an accident, but she rules that out. Was she right?’
‘Yes, it’s out of the question.’ Freyr took back the report. ‘The wounds are a combination of knife cuts and cigarette burns. He couldn’t have made them himself, according to her description.’ He handed Dagný the papers and pointed at the relevant part. ‘She got him to directly admit that his father had done it, after ruling out other explanations by asking him over and over and evaluating his reaction each time. This woman was really excellent. She was able to coax him out of his jumper and get him to open up, without expecting him to tell her everything immediately. Not everyone’s able to reach children who have suffered that kind of violence. The saddest thing is that her efforts came to nothing.’
‘Are these reports all about him?’ Dagný pointed at the stacks of paper, which Freyr had put in order of importance.
‘No. I also gathered data about others involved in this case and learned various things. It’s remarkable that no one’s put it all together, but that’s probably because it all happened over such a length of time.’ He reached for the bottom stack. ‘I received an e-mail just now from the doctor who autopsied Halla. I asked him to find out whether the other two classmates, Jón and Védís, also had scars in the form of a cross on their backs. It’s easier for him as a forensic pathologist to get hold of that kind of information.’
‘And?’ asked Dagný, though it was clear from her expression that she knew what would come next. Freyr handed her a printout of the e-mail. ‘They had crosses too, which means that all five of the dead classmates had almost exactly the same scars as Halla. A large cross scratched on their backs. Actually, Jón died in a fire, so information about him isn’t conclusive, but nonetheless signs of a cross on his back were noted in his autopsy.’
‘I see. But what exactly does this mean?’ Dagný skimmed the text. ‘Bernódus’s father died years ago. He couldn’t have done this. Unless… are these scars from when they were little? Did the man attack other children besides his own son?’
‘Not according to what I understand from this. The scars were formed after the victims were fully grown, maybe even when they were already elderly. Since it was possible to estimate the age of the scars, the oldest one had been made less than five years ago. So I understand this to mean that it all began in 2007, or three years ago, when most of these strange events seem to have started; this completely rules out any involvement on the part of Bernódus’s father, since he was long dead.’ Freyr paused for a moment. ‘To my mind, this means one of two things: either it wasn’t the boy’s father at all who did this to him, but someone else who lived longer; or else someone replicated the original injuries, but for what purpose I have no idea. I have even less idea how this could actually have happened, because the scars were formed over a long period of time in all instances.’
Dagný appeared far from convinced. ‘Who do you think could go around cutting people like this all over the country without anyone pressing charges? They didn’t all live in the same place. And how did this person go about it? You said that these people were getting on a bit, but the men at least could have put up a fight. I find it more than a little bit bizarre.’
There was no denying this, and Freyr made no attempt to come up with a rational explanation. ‘The same lesions were found on the class teacher’s back when she died.’ Freyr handed her the copy of the photograph. ‘It was about a decade after Bernódus went missing.’
The picture lay on the edge of the table for a few moments before Dagný picked it up to have a better look. ‘Is it possible that Bernódus survived and that he was responsible for the attacks? That he might even still be alive?’ She stared dumbfounded at the picture; to Freyr the boy seemed to absorb all her attention. He understood this well. It was hard to imagine a more poignant image, particularly knowing the boy’s story. ‘He could just as well be the one who broke into the preschool.’
‘I can’t believe that.’ Freyr looked out of the window at the cold environment. ‘Where is he supposed to have lived all this time? And how has he been supporting himself? Someone would definitely have noticed him over all the decades that have passed. Unless he took someone else’s name and lifestyle, though that’s also pretty far-fetched considering how young he was when he disappeared.’ Freyr took back the picture and placed it on the table before him. They’d wandered into yet another blind alley. He decided to tell her about his visit to Úrsúla and what she had said about the boy she ‘didn’t want to see’, and who wanted Freyr to find Benni. When he’d finished he waited for her to respond but Dagný said nothing, just sat and stared at the papers on the desk. When the silence grew uncomfortably long, he spoke up again. ‘For the moment I don’t see any other option than to wait for Úrsúla to recover and try to speak to her again in the hope that she expresses herself more clearly, as well as keep on trying to reach Lárus, the only surviving friend. He hasn’t answered my calls and I’ve actually started to think that he must be out of the country.’
Dagný looked up. ‘I’ll see to that. I think it’s time I got my colleagues down south to help us find him. Hopefully he’ll have something to tell us.’
When Freyr said goodbye from the doorway shortly afterwards and watched her walk down the corridor, he remembered the recording he’d made on his mobile phone the night before and the words that he thought he’d heard behind him. When Dagný turned the corner he shut the door and sat back down at his desk, mobile phone in his hand. He found the recording after a short search and listened.
At first he could hear little more than a buzzing sound and his own irregular footsteps. But then he heard something else that he couldn’t distinguish until he’d rewound it and turned the volume up fully. Although he’d never swear to what words he thought he heard, personally he was convinced that they were: ‘Tell the truth. Then you’ll find me, Daddy.’ Nor was there any question that it was the voice of his son. It was Benni.
Chapter 27
It wasn’t pain in her foot or elsewhere in her body that woke Katrín, but simply the fact that she’d had enough sleep. At first she was confused, blinking slowly while the dream that had been so vivid a few moments before faded and slipped steadily away as she tried to recall it. After finally waking fully, what remained was only a hazy and uncomfortable memory of a nightmare in which she’d done a terrible job as a teacher, turned a blind eye to the poor treatment of her students and been forced to pay for it. She couldn’t place any of the students or remember the conclusion of the dream or whether she’d been punished. In fact she was relieved to wake up; she was supposed to be feeling rested, but her rapid heartbeat suggested that the dream had ended badly. Katrín turned on her side and looked at Líf, who was sleeping soundly. Only her eyebrows and a bit of her hair poked out of her sleeping bag. She turned on her other side to look instead at Garðar. As she wriggled in her sleeping bag she felt as if something were wrong, though she couldn’t grasp what it might be. As soon as she laid eyes on Garðar’s empty sleeping bag she realized what was bothering her and jerked herself upright. A terrible pain shot up the front of her calf from her injured instep, but that was nothing compared to the anguish that the abandoned sleeping bag stirred in her.
It was too bright inside for it still to be night. ‘Garðar!’ Her hoarse voice broke the silence. No answer. The house was absolutely still. Putti jumped up from where he’d been lying at the foot of her sleeping bag and looked no less bewildered than she did, newly awake as he was. Katrín tried to breathe more calmly; Garðar had probably gone upstairs to sleep. Her sleep-intoxicated mind struggled to recall whether she’d woken at some point in the night to take over from him, but to no avail. It could be that Líf had kept watch alone, and Katrín turned and shook the lump lying motionless beside her. ‘Líf! Líf! Wake up.’ A vague murmur came from inside the bag. Katrín shook Líf’s shoulder even harder. ‘Wake up! Garðar’s gone.’