As if a magic wand had been waved, it was immediately different in the house, though it was hard to pinpoint what exactly had changed. The atmosphere at home felt like it used to. Of course it would be difficult to rid themselves of the constant fear that something was about to happen, and it would doubtless take time for their hands to stop trembling. But time healed all wounds, and Berglind thought to herself now that she would settle for a slow but steady recovery.
The parquet creaked upstairs, in Pési’s room. Berglind put down her glass and turned around slowly. The sound continued, as though the boy was walking around. Her mouth went dry and her goose bumps sprang up again. She was ridiculous, still jumping at shadows. With measured steps she climbed the stairs, and when she reached the door to her son’s room she could hear his muffled voice inside. She wanted to put her ear to the door and listen, but instead she opened it calmly. Pési was standing on tiptoe at the window, looking out. He stopped talking and turned around when he heard the door open, and Berglind’s hand flew to her mouth when she saw the condensation on the windowpane.
‘Hello, Mummy.’ Pési smiled at her sadly.
Berglind hurried to her son and pulled him forcefully from the window. She held him close and tried at the same time to wipe the windowpane. But the haze couldn’t be wiped away. It was on the outside of the glass.
Pési looked up at her. ‘Magga’s outside. She can’t get in. She wants to look after me.’ He pointed at the window and frowned. ‘She’s a little bit angry.’
CHAPTER 1
Monday, 4 January 2010
The building looked quite ordinary from the road. Tourists probably assumed it was just another farm where men toiled and sweated happily, at peace with God and the world. Perhaps they thought it was an unusually large and imposing family home, but either way they wouldn’t have dwelled on it too long and probably wouldn’t have looked back once they had passed it. Actually, it was just as likely that Icelanders thought much the same, but the place hardly ever came up in conversation; the rare times it was mentioned in the press, it was usually because something tragic had happened to one of the poor unfortunates inside. As they always do, readers would have skimmed over the general details in search of the juicier parts that described the most shocking and bizarre aspects of the residents’ behaviour, then skipped ahead in the hope of finding something more positive. After closing the paper it was unlikely they would retain much information about the place or its inhabitants; it was easier to forget about people like them. Even within the system there was a tendency to sideline the unit; certainly people understood the value of the work they did there, but there seemed to be a silent consensus among government officials to have as little to do with it as possible.
Thóra was sure that if they’d had more work at the law firm right then, she might have turned down the case that had brought her here. Of course, it was possible that her curiosity about the vaguely worded assignment would have made her take it on even if she were busy – it wasn’t every day that an inmate of the Secure Psychiatric Unit at Sogn requested her assistance.
Actually, the history of the SPU was short; until 1992 prisoners with mental health problems had either been placed in institutions abroad or simply kept among the general population at Litla-Hraun prison. Neither option was ideal. In the first eventuality the language barrier must have caused patients untold hardships, not to mention the distance from their family and friends; and in the second, the prison was not an adequate healthcare facility. Thóra didn’t know how well the prisoners considered to be of sound mind would interact with those suffering from mental illness, and she couldn’t imagine how the harsh conditions of prison life could possibly be conducive to the treatment of the criminally insane. All seven places at Sogn were always occupied.
The turn was sharp and her car’s wheels skidded on the slippery gravel. Thóra gripped the steering wheel more tightly and concentrated on getting up the short driveway. She didn’t want to start her visit by driving off the road and having to be towed up out of the shallow ditch – today was going to be weird enough without that. The woman she’d phoned to put in her request to see the inmate had been quite pleasant, but it was clear from her tone that such enquiries were anything but commonplace. Thóra thought the woman had also sounded nervous, as if she was worried about the purpose of Thóra’s visit. Not that that was surprising, given the background of the man she was there to meet. This was no run-of-the-mill inmate, no nervous breakdown, drug addict or alcoholic. Jósteinn Karlsson had been firmly on the road to perdition since his youth, despite numerous interventions by the system.
Thóra had acquainted herself with his record after deciding to assist him, and it hadn’t made for pleasant reading. She had only had access to two of his cases – the details of the crimes he’d committed as a juvenile were off-limits – and in one of them, from twenty years ago, Jósteinn had been charged with false imprisonment, actual bodily harm and sexual offences against children. He was alleged to have lured a nearly six-year-old boy into his home from the street, for a purpose that thankfully never became clear because the man in the flat next door called the police. The vigilant neighbour had long distrusted Jósteinn and insisted that he was responsible for the disappearance of his two cats, after the animals had been found in poor condition directly below Jósteinn’s balcony. But although Jósteinn had been caught red-handed in his home with a child unknown to him, and in spite of the existence of a character witness without a good word to say about him, Jósteinn escaped from the affair relatively unscathed. The child couldn’t be persuaded to testify, either in court or elsewhere. A psychologist had attempted to speak to him, but to no avail. The child clammed up as soon as the topic was broached. It was the opinion of the psychologist that Jósteinn had scared the boy into silence by threatening him. This, he said, was a common technique of abusers, to buy the child’s silence with threats before violating their innocence, and nobody was easier to frighten than a young child. It was impossible to get the boy to tell him how Jósteinn had threatened him, or anything about what had occurred before the police arrived, which made it impossible to prove beyond doubt that Jósteinn had abused the child in the apartment. The prosecution’s allegation of sexual assault and bodily harm did not get far, since the boy had no injuries. Yet no one in the courtroom could have believed Jósteinn’s claim that he’d thought the child was lost and wanted to help him find his parents. Due to the lack of evidence, Jósteinn received a suspended sentence of six years for false imprisonment.
Twelve years later Jósteinn sexually assaulted a teenager, and this time there was no vigilant neighbour. The parents of the little boy who’d escaped relatively unharmed must have offered up heartfelt prayers of thanks when the media began to report the details of what Jósteinn had done to the second boy. Thóra remembered the case well – though almost a decade had passed – but this was the first time she had read the verdict itself. It seemed clear that Jósteinn had intended to kill the boy, and only pure chance had prevented him; the woman who cleaned the hallways had come to work a day earlier than usual that week, as her daughter was due to be confirmed the next day. She probably wouldn’t have noticed anything if she’d only vacuumed the communal areas as usual, but some kid had spilt his ice cream on the wall right next to Jósteinn’s front door, meaning she stopped there for longer than she usually would. When she turned off the vacuum cleaner she could hear the victim’s muffled cries for help, and after a moment’s hesitation she decided to phone the police instead of knocking on the door. In her call the woman had told the emergency services operator she’d never heard anything like the sounds coming from the apartment, and she was unable to describe them in detail. All she could say was that it was the sound of terrible suffering. The police broke into Jósteinn’s flat again, and this time he was caught red-handed.