‘But what about public institutions? The police or prosecutors? Didn’t they carry out a proper investigation? Rape is not a private matter, once it’s discovered.’
‘No.’
This all sounded most odd. ‘How can that be? It’s a serious violation of criminal law. Her parents shouldn’t actually have had any say in how the case was handled.’
‘They got help, as I told you. The father of Tryggvi, the autistic boy at the residence who died that same night, is high up in the Ministry of Justice and they turned to him. He prevented the matter from going any further.’
‘I see.’
Glódís nodded. ‘After that, our hands were tied.’
CHAPTER 7
Friday, 8 January 2010
Thóra had an appointment with a client back at the office that afternoon. The man was divorcing his wife; the process had begun before the financial crash but had been delayed because the couple had had second thoughts in the middle of it. In the wake of the disaster, they had cosied up to each other in search of the good old days when everyone in the banking and business world had been honest and the authorities respectable. This sudden affection, however, turned out to be merely the death throes of youthful love, and after two months of renewed intimacy they came to the conclusion that nothing had changed – they weren’t made for each other after all. The divorce was put back on the agenda but now under entirely different conditions; their rather sizable assets had gone up in smoke, leaving only their debts to divide up. Their civility seemed to have evaporated along with their assets and the couple, who’d previously seemed to get along quite well, had changed into ravenous vultures in each other’s presence. Thóra and the woman’s lawyer had their hands full preventing them from coming to blows in their joint meetings. Fortunately the husband was meeting Thóra alone that afternoon.
The hot dog Thóra had bought for lunch was on the large side and the last bite went down with a bit of difficulty. She licked mayonnaise off her lower lip and took a gulp of the flat fizzy drink that came with the lunch special. She was feeling quite pleased with herself after her conversation with Glódís. She ran her eyes down a printout of the names of all those who had worked at the centre; the former director had given her the list after Thóra had informed her that she could just as easily find the staff members’ names in the court records. That was perhaps not entirely true, since such a list was unlikely to be exhaustive and there would be no easy way for Thóra to fill in the gaps. From Glódís’s list she saw that there had been fourteen full-time staff and a total of ten substitutes and specialists, which meant that, in truth, even finding all the names in the police reports would have proved a Herculean task. It would be impossible to speak to each and every one of these people, but with insight and a good measure of luck she could hopefully filter out those who she most needed to speak to. Glódís had also let her have the names of the residents’ parents, which would doubtless have proved simpler to find, but it spared Thóra the trouble of going through all the obituaries and death notices from the period following the fire. She was certain that some of these people, staff or family members, must know how Lísa’s child had been conceived, but the name of the father was probably not on either list.
Although Lísa’s rape was a vile act, it wasn’t unprecedented. Thóra had read on the Internet that morning about necrophiliacs, people whose fetish was to have sex with the dead. Nor was this sort of repulsive sexual deviance anything new. The ‘father of history’, the Greek Herodotus, told of how Egyptians let the corpses of beautiful young women rot for three to four days before they were handed over to those who were to anoint them, to prevent them from being disgraced in this way. Of course, Herodotus was also called ‘the father of lies’, so Thóra didn’t know how much this story could be trusted. It was clear, however, from other articles that she skimmed over, that this was a not uncommon modern-day fantasy. Around seventy per cent of those who suffered from this fetish said that they dreamed of sex with people who neither resisted nor gave any sign of rejecting them. A comatose person would certainly fit into this category.
Thóra dug her mobile phone out from her overflowing handbag and called directory enquiries. She decided to utilize the time that she had before meeting with her client to speak to Jakob’s former defender, the lawyer also appointed by the Supreme Court as Jakob’s supervisor. She had tried several times to reach Ari Gunnarsson since starting her investigation, to no avail, and he hadn’t responded to her messages. But Thóra had no other choice but to keep on trying, since Ari’s insight into the case was sure to aid her investigation. It was also more appropriate to let him know of her intentions formally, rather than simply through messages left on his answering machine. His role as supervisor was to ensure that the individual deemed not criminally liable remained in residence at the designated institution for no longer than necessary, although this particular issue would have no influence on the reopening of the case.
Thóra had immediately recognized Ari’s name in the dossier. His details were often given to people who’d been arrested when they asked for a lawyer. He was a decent guy, as far as she could tell; not exactly a genius, but no idiot either. She recalled a rumour which had circulated in the legal world that he had come dangerously close to being disbarred due to being bankrupt for many years, but had somehow escaped this punishment. The man appeared not to have particularly good references, which made Thóra curious about who had selected him to supervise Jakob and why. Had Jakob himself been made to point at a name on a police list, or had his mother done so? She supposed that if you didn’t know any lawyers, that was no worse a way than any other to choose one.
Ari answered on the second ring, apparently in the middle of lunch. He mumbled to her to definitely drop by – he had an hour free, and it would give him an excuse to put aside the boring job he was working on. He apologized for not having responded to her messages; he simply hadn’t got round to it. After swallowing his food in a dramatic fashion, he stopped mumbling and gave her the address of his law office more intelligibly. As she’d expected, it was close by; few lawyers set up shop in the suburbs. When she got there, she discovered that his firm shared a corridor with a few other unassuming offices, including several small wholesalers and a dentist. The latter seemed not to be taking a lunch break, judging by the whine of the drill that came from behind his closed door as Thóra walked by.
Ari’s office was a mess. He was obviously self-employed, because there was only one desk set up in the spacious room. Bookshelves lined the walls and were loaded with rubbish that seemed to have been dumped there at random. A sofa that had seen better days stood under the window, but she could hardly see it for the papers, files and books that were scattered all over it. Even the floor was being used as a filing cabinet and Thóra had the feeling that it wouldn’t take long for a narrow path to form from the door to the table and the worn-looking visitors’ chair. After Ari showed her in, she took a seat. He was on the phone when she arrived and appeared to be negotiating a car purchase, with Ari wanting more for the vehicle than the buyer was willing to pay. A half-eaten sandwich in a rustling plastic wrapper moved back and forth when Ari wanted to place particular emphasis on his words. A piece of lettuce flew out from between the slices of bread and landed on the computer screen in front of him. It slid down lazily as Ari wiped away the mayonnaise streak that it left behind. Finally he hung up, without having concluded the car deal, and smiled at Thóra.