After speaking to the parents of all of the residents, she had nothing to indicate that the fire was connected to their offspring at all. Ultimately, it seemed more likely to have involved a member of staff, or someone else otherwise linked to the unit. There was no logical reason for any of the young people living there to have wanted to kill the others, and the more Thóra thought about it, the harder she found it to come up with any motive for such an evil act. If the aim was to hide Lísa Finnbjörnsdóttir’s pregnancy, nobody could argue that this was the best way to do it; there had been no obvious attempt to make the fire look like an accident, and it would have been easier to suffocate Lísa, since she was confined to her bed. In fact, it was the very manner of her death that had precipitated an autopsy, so if somebody had killed her in order to hide her condition their strategy had been extraordinarily stupid. Perhaps the plan hadn’t been to hide the deed, but rather to detract attention from Lísa by making all the residents and the night watchmen suffer the same fate as her. Still, what Thóra found most troubling was the fact that no one seemed to have known that the girl was pregnant, which in turn made it difficult to state in the petition that the fire might have been intended to hide this fact. Of course somebody may have known about the pregnancy, but Thóra had no way of proving it. According to Glódís the girl’s periods had been irregular, to say the least, and her pregnancy was so recent when she died that she had no noticeable bump. So perhaps the question was how the perpetrator could have known about the pregnancy at all.
No matter what the reason for the fire, it was clear from the number of lives lost that it had been reckless and illogical. Potentially, then, the act of someone of limited intelligence, someone who didn’t comprehend the consequences of their actions – unless the perpetrator had deliberately made it look that way. But why, and who could it be? There weren’t many possibilities, but still Thóra’s mind spun in endless circles.
Who had sent her the text messages, and why? Who had known that the fire alarm system was offline? Was it a coincidence that the same lawyer had defended both Jakob and his creepy friend Jósteinn? Did the words look at me, which Jakob had repeated to her, have any significance? Had the residents been unhappy with their living conditions, unbeknownst to their parents, and was that significant? Why had only one staff member been on duty, not two – and who had been aware of this?
But the complexity of the case was not Thóra’s only problem. There were very few precedents for a petition to reopen a case, so other than the laws themselves, she didn’t have much to go on; and although these were clear, they weren’t particularly detailed. The case had to satisfy at least one of four criteria for the Supreme Court to approve the petition: new evidence that had come to light; an accusation that the police, the prosecution, the judge or other parties had prejudiced the case, especially through falsified evidence or false testimony; reasonable suspicion that the evidence presented in the case had been wrongly evaluated; or the discovery of substantial flaws in the prosecution of the case in court. Since any retrial required the prior authorization of the Supreme Court, Thóra didn’t need to present a perfect defence immediately, but merely demonstrate unequivocally that one or more of these prerequisites was met. If the petition were approved, the case would move to the next level.
She still hadn’t come across anything to suggest any element of wrongdoing on the part of the police, prosecutor or judge, though there was the question of whether Lísa’s pregnancy should have been made clearer. As the autopsy report was part of the case files she couldn’t present the pregnancy as new evidence, even though this detail hadn’t come up in court. The third criterion, however – insufficient evaluation of the evidence – could be enough to reopen the case; she was thinking not only of Lísa’s condition, but also of Jakob’s description of the angel with a suitcase, which in her opinion had not been dealt with appropriately in court. If it was true that he had tried to inform the police of this detail, then his testimony had not been recorded; at least, Thóra couldn’t find it in the reports or other files. She was also interested in the fourth requirement, the one concerning flaws in the prosecution of the case, and Ari’s performance in this regard. Although it would be tough to prove that he hadn’t acted in his client’s best interests, Thóra was convinced of it. The best thing would be if she were to unearth new evidence. Then they could run the case back through the system, with a fairer outcome.
As Thóra considered these points, she couldn’t avoid the most difficult question, the one really plaguing her: when all was said and done, was she sure Jakob wasn’t guilty? Perhaps he was more cunning than she gave him credit for, and had had the sense to keep all the apartment doors open so the fire could spread freely. Unlikely though it seemed, it wasn’t out of the question that Jakob had more organizational ability than they credited him with. His innocent appearance might be colouring her view of him, and it was conceivable that there was something in what Glódís and Ari had said about Jakob’s violent tendencies. Perhaps it would help if she could see footage of a typical day at the home – if the filmmaker had such a thing and were willing to share it with her. She really had no firm grasp on what it had really been like there. She wasn’t expecting to see someone scurrying around trying out the door mechanisms, or climbing a stepladder to inspect the sprinkler system, but maybe she would get a better feeling for the conditions that might have set the fateful sequence of events in motion. She didn’t have any further evidence to suggest Jakob’s innocence; for the moment, it looked as though she was relying on lots of small things combining to become greater than the sum of their parts.
She recalled Jakob’s description of the angel with the suitcase and sighed heavily. She had no idea what he’d meant, but right now the ‘angel’ was just as likely to have started the fire as anyone else.
CHAPTER 17
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Thóra logged off the Internet in order to avoid the temptation to sit there reading the day’s news. She needed to get to work, and besides, the news was always rather depressing. Foreign news had always been more exciting than domestic news, but after the bank crash, all that had been reversed. Icelandic drama – yes please! The more she read and heard in passing from better-informed colleagues, the more appalled she was by how events had panned out before the crash. In some ways, Thóra envied her parents, who must surely be the only ones who felt that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. Still, they were victims of the criminal masses and had lost more than most people Thóra knew, although everyone had been affected in some way. She missed the time when everything had been fine; when the nation had celebrated its handball team’s medal in the Olympic Games and the Icelanders’ successes in foreign markets had seemed unstoppable. Now that was all so unreal. She resolved to stop reading about the crash in the mornings; it was unhealthy for anyone to start the day on such a depressing note. It was bad enough having to look at Bella.