by Chris Ould
Lýdia Reyná – as she was then – had been a good-looking young woman, Sofia wanted to emphasise. Everyone acknowledged that. But as a result she was allowed to get away with more than many others. She had a wild streak: rebellious or unruly – at least unconventional.
This didn’t greatly disturb me. I suppose I thought it wasn’t a bad impression to gain; of a girl and young woman who wasn’t cowed by custom, who did her own thing. And maybe Sofia saw that in my reaction because her expression hardened a little. Through Magnus she said she was telling me this not so I would think it was good, but so that I’d understand when she said that Lýdia’s death had not been the first time she’d tried to take her own life. She’d done it before.
I’d half expected it, I realised. Nearly a quarter of all people who kill themselves have already tried and failed at least once. I knew that, so I wasn’t stunned by the revelation; just a little saddened to hear it.
“Only the family knew,” Magnus went on, translating his mother’s words. “Afterwards it was told – explained – that Lýdia had to go to Denmark for an operation, but only Signar knew it was to a different sort of hospital.”
“What sort of hospital?”
“A clinic for mental illness,” he said, glancing at his mother for confirmation.
“Do you know where?”
“No, just in Denmark.”
“She has to be made to go,” Sofia said for herself now. “And even then she will not stay. She comes home again after a few weeks and so she makes a hard time for all: for a year maybe. She goes with the wrong people – never at home.”
“What do you mean the wrong people?” I asked.
Sofia curled her lips. “They were at Múli,” she said. “A place they call the Colony. Everyone knew what they did there.”
“Which was what?”
But she shook her head, as if she wasn’t interested in giving me details. Instead she dropped back into Faroese, speaking to Magnus as if she wanted to get back to the nub of the matter. And that was to tell me that Signar had been hard done by. She didn’t say it directly, but that was what it amounted to. Here was a man whose wife had tried to kill herself, who then wouldn’t accept treatment and instead sought out the wrong company. And if that wasn’t enough, after a year she abandoned him altogether: took their young child and left the country; disappeared without trace for over a year.
It was only when Lýdia wrote to Signar from England, asking for money, that he was finally able to go and find her. He returned from this trip alone, though, and after that he neither saw nor heard from his wife again until he got the news that she’d killed herself in Copenhagen and I had been taken to England by Lýdia’s sister, Ketty. By then, Sofia said, it was too late.
“Too late for what?” I asked, looking at her directly.
“For you to come home.”
“Really?” I frowned. “Is that what Signar wanted?”
“Of course. You were still his son.” She said it as if that made his desire to look after me an undeniable fact. But for the first time I knew that she wasn’t telling the unvarnished truth she’d set so much store by. Sofia saw my recognition of that, too.
“He wanted to bring you here,” she repeated resolutely. “I know this.” Then she turned and said something to Magnus, before starting to push herself out of her chair. Magnus rose quickly to offer his arm and then her walking stick.
I stood up, too, out of politeness, and Sofia fixed me with a look for a moment. “Excuse me please,” she said, then leaned on her stick and moved away.
Magnus escorted her out of the room and was gone for a few minutes. When he came back he was on his own.
“Perhaps we can call it a day,” he said. “My mother is tired and her er – arthritis – isn’t so good. It hurts her to sit here. She says she hopes you’ll understand.”
“Sure. Of course.”
* * *
Outside we got into his car for the short journey back down the hillside. The misty rain was clearing and there were lengthening periods of sunshine.
“Thanks for arranging that,” I said when he brought the Mercedes to a stop in the car park.
Magnus glanced at me. “You understand… my mother says things the way she saw them from the time after Lýdia left. She has told me before that things were not easy for Signar, to have lost a wife and his son.”
There were a couple of things I could have said about that, but I thought Magnus had been given a rough enough ride already.
“Yeah, I understand that,” I said.
“I am just sorry it had to be so…” He searched for a word.
“Blunt?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “It was what I wanted,” I told him.
“Yes. Even so…” He paused for a moment. “The things my mother told you – I haven’t known them before. Maybe small pieces, but not as a story. Do you know what I mean? It can’t be easy for you to hear things like that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Really. Takk fyri again.”
I held out my hand and he shook it, then I got out of the car. I was a few paces away when the engine of the Mercedes stopped.
“Jan?” Magnus had opened his door and was getting out.
“I forgot there is something else I need to talk about,” he said, coming across to me. “But if now isn’t a good time…”
“No, go ahead,” I said, wondering what was pressing enough after his recent discomfort.
“It concerns our father’s will,” Magnus told me. “There is a gift for you.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected. He’d referred to the will at the funeral, but I hadn’t given it more than cursory speculation since then. I had no expectations, great or small; just vague curiosity.
“What sort of gift?”
“He has left you a house at Tjørnuvík,” Magnus said then. “I don’t know it or what it is like, but when all the details are finished I will let you know.”
“A house?” I repeated. Stupid, but the only thing that came to mind.
“There is also some money,” Magnus said. “I think it will be about five hundred thousand – krónur,” he added quickly, in case I got the wrong idea.
I shook my head. “Listen, thanks, but no thanks. Signar can’t play that sort of game just because he’s dead.”
Magnus frowned: a look of genuine confusion. “What sort of game? To leave something to a son is… It’s a natural thing. What else would he do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, because I didn’t. But for some reason I suddenly felt irritated by the whole thing. Because we were standing in a damp car park and he was telling me that the man who had barely acknowledged my existence in the last forty years had still deigned to remember me in his will.
What was that? Guilt? Remorse? Recompense? Or was it a way of trying to prove – as Sofia had put it – that I was still his son, no matter how far away he’d chosen to stay?
I realised that Magnus was watching me closely, still not understanding, it seemed from his look.
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want anything of Signar’s. It’s like I told you before: he was your father, not mine. So do what you want. Give it to the cats’ home or something, okay? I’ll see you later.”
He stepped back when I started the car, but he stayed watching as I reversed, turned and pulled out on to the road. It was a grand gesture, I knew that, but at that moment I had nothing else.
11
REMI HAD CHOSEN ONE OF THE FRONT OFFICES OVERLOOKING the road to be the main incident room, but the office was too prone to comings and goings for Hentze’s liking, so he’d taken over the adjacent room, just for some peace and quiet. One of the advantages of Sunday: there was no one around to lay prior claim.
Having a more private space also meant that the photographs of Erla Sivertsen’s body were not on display for everyone to see; and to make sure of this, Hentze had lowered the blinds on the offic
e windows. He had chosen to put up only six pictures from the scene: one showing the huts from a distance, three of Erla Sivertsen’s body in situ, one close-up of the wound to her chest, and the last of the writing on the wooden beam.
He was just writing up the few facts they knew on a whiteboard next to the photos when there was a knock on the door.
“Yeh?” Hentze called.
Oddur put his head in at the door. “Hjalti? Have you got a minute?”
“Yeh, come in.”
Oddur did so. He had a laptop – his own – under his arm.
“I’ve got some of Erla Sivertsen’s photos I think you should look at,” he said.
“You’ve accessed her computer already?”
“No, not yet. I need to clone the hard drive before I start digging around. These are from a hard drive I found in her room. Looks like she was religious about making backups,” he added with a note of approval, as if that fact alone made Erla Sivertsen someone of sense.
“Okay. So what are these pictures of?” Hentze asked.
Putting his laptop on the desk, Oddur told Hentze what Annika had said about Erla Sivertsen arguing with a man after the whale drive at Sandur two days ago.
“It seemed like it might be a good lead so I looked at files dated for Friday and found the photos she took,” Oddur said. He tapped the laptop’s keyboard and half a dozen images filled the screen. “There are about three hundred from the day, but these are the only ones that specifically show someone cutting up a whale,” he told Hentze, expanding the first photo so it filled the screen.
A man in waders was bending down to cut into the belly of a whale, his back to the camera. Oddur scrolled through the images one by one, until the final photo showed the man standing upright and facing the camera. His mouth was open in mid-speech, giving him a threatening look, and the knife in his hand pointed upwards.
“No, I don’t know him,” Hentze said. “Will you circulate it and see if anyone else does? Maybe without showing the knife or the background.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll email it round,” Oddur said.
“As a matter of interest, how many photographs did she have?”
“In total? I don’t know. I’ve only looked at a couple of files, but altogether there must be several thousand.”
“So many?” Hentze was surprised.
“It’s not unusual for a professional,” Oddur said with a shrug. “Actually, it’s quite modest. She seems to have been selective about what she shot, rather than using a spray and pray approach.”
“What about her emails and Facebook account and so on – can we check on those?”
“I’ll get on to it as soon as I’ve cloned her laptop.”
“Good, okay. Did you find a phone in her room by the way?”
“No – there wasn’t one on the body?”
“No.”
“She must have had one.”
Hentze nodded. “You’d think.”
When Oddur had departed Hentze picked up a marker and wrote the word Argument under a short list of other words on the left-hand side of the whiteboards. It was the only one not followed by a question mark: rape?; whales?; location?; phone?
He leaned on the table to survey the list. There was more space than information. Too much space to even start putting theories together. They needed a timeline, they needed a post-mortem, they needed some kind of framework – none of which would appear in the next few minutes. He went to make coffee, locking the office door behind him.
Outside the communal CID kitchen/canteen he met Annika Mortensen, heading the opposite way.
“Have you finished with statements at the house on Fjalsgøta?” he asked.
“Yeh,” Annika said. “Five people live there, not including Erla. They’re a pretty mixed bag: Dutch, German, English and French. And there was a Danish guy who was visiting.”
“Do we know when they last saw Erla?”
“Yesterday afternoon, about three o’clock is the latest time. She was with a Dutch girl called Veerle, then she went out.”
“Okay, good. That’s useful to know.”
“Listen, has Oddur talked to you about a man Erla argued with?” Annika asked then.
“Yeh, a few minutes ago. He’s found some photos he thinks might be of the man. Was that your lead?”
“Sort of.”
“Good. Thanks.” And then, because there was no one else around, “So have you told Heri about your application to Vesterbro CID yet?”
Annika nodded. “A few days ago.”
“And?”
“Yeh, he said it was a good thing to do.”
“So it is,” Hentze said. “You need a new challenge.”
“As long as I get accepted.”
“Nah, don’t worry,” Hentze said. “You will.”
* * *
On his way back from the kitchen, coffee mug in hand, he met Remi Syderbø who had clearly been looking for him.
“So, how are we doing?” Remi asked.
“Come and see for yourself.”
Hentze unlocked the office door and let Remi go in first. He sipped his coffee patiently as Remi surveyed the photos on the wall then moved in closer to look at the photograph of the wooden beam.
“This ‘Fuck the Whales’ bothers me,” Remi said. “If you had just killed a person would you stay around to write something like that?”
“Perhaps, if I wanted to make a point about something,” Hentze said neutrally.
“So we’re to believe she was killed because she was opposed to the whaling?”
“Possibly. Or by someone who wanted to make it look that way – to distract us. There’s no way to tell at the moment.”
Remi let the issue lie for the moment. “Okay, well maybe we’ll get a better idea when we collate the information from the interviews with her AWCA colleagues. The main thing we need to work out is what her movements were before her death, but even that’s not going to be easy until we know when she died.”
“I’d like to gather some more information about her background as well,” Hentze said. “Do we have any intelligence on her?”
Remi cocked his head. “How do you mean?”
“I just wondered if there was a file somewhere. I assume our Danish friends didn’t come empty-handed and it seems likely that they’d have information on all the AWCA staff, if not the volunteers as well.”
“I don’t know what information the Danes have,” Remi said somewhat stiffly. “I can ask, of course. Have you checked for a criminal record?”
“Yes. She didn’t have one.”
“Well, as I say, I’ll make enquiries about intelligence.”
“Okay, thanks.”
There was a knock on the door and at Hentze’s call one of the younger uniform officers called Sólja looked in rather tentatively.
“Hjalti? Sorry to interrupt. I’ve just seen a photograph Oddur emailed round. He said you want an ID for the man in the picture?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“Yeh, his name’s Arne Haraldsen: he’s a friend of my father, from Sandur. I looked up the address for you, from the phonebook.” She handed him a slip of paper.
“Thanks, that’s great,” Hentze said.
“Is he a suspect?” She sounded slightly concerned.
“No, just a potential witness.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.”
With a nod towards Remi Syderbø, Sólja departed. Hentze looked at the address, then at Remi.
“Who’s this Haraldsen?” Remi asked.
“According to one of the Alliance people Erla Sivertsen had an argument with a local man on Friday after the whale drive. Looks like Haraldsen might be him.”
“They argued about the grind?”
“I guess so. Of course, they must get into arguments all the time. It may be nothing.”
“Yeh,” Remi conceded. “Still, you’d better check it out. And if you’re going back to Sandoy you can meet the technical team when they arrive. It’
s probably best if you do that anyway, seeing as you’ve already looked at the scene.”
There seemed to be a touch of expediency about the way Remi had grasped the opportunity to get him out of the office, Hentze thought, but he let it lie.
“Yes, that makes sense,” he said instead. “Do you want me to wait and bring Ári up to speed when he gets here, or should I go now?”
“No, there’s no need to wait,” Remi said. “I’ll fill Ári in.”
* * *
Hentze ate an indifferent hotdog from the Teistin’s snack bar because there was nothing else to do on the ferry, and because he believed in the old policeman’s maxim: never pass up the chance for the toilet, a coffee or something to eat. There was no telling how long any of them would be working tonight.
So far Remi Syderbø’s leadership of the investigation had been positive and proactive, to say the least. That was no bad thing as far as Hentze was concerned, but by taking direct control, he wondered what sort of message Remi was putting out. He also wondered again whether Remi had had an ulterior motive for sending him out to Sandoy before Ári Niclasen got back.
Hentze and Ári had exchanged fewer than a dozen non-work-related sentences in the previous couple of weeks. Not that they’d exactly been bosom buddies before, but Hentze knew that Ári still felt burned over the Tummas Gramm murder, and that Ári saw him as the main cause of that.
The situation was unfortunate, but not really of Hentze’s making. He had simply pursued the Gramm case as he would any other; but Ári had held back, which left him seemingly lacking when things had come to a head. Now, with another high-profile case so close to the last, Hentze knew that Ári would see any hint of reservation from Remi as salt in his wounds. Ári was senior to Hentze and known to aspire to Remi’s position as head of CID one day. And because Ári held grudges the next few days might be tricky. So maybe it was better that he’d been sent off to do leg work, Hentze thought: out of the way. Let Ári stay close to Remi if that suited him. Hentze would just get on with the job, away from the politics. That suited him, too.
When the Teistin docked Hentze drove off the clanking ramp and then on up the hill, following the only road south. The light was already fading under a leaden overcast and it was a reminder that autumn was closing in, the days shortening ever more quickly.
