by Chris Ould
There was no sign of life on the other two vessels, but the Kári Edith’s engine was ticking over and Høgni Joensen had stopped to look up from unhitching a stern line from a mooring ring.
When he saw who it was, Høgni clearly felt several conflicting urges to move in different directions, all of which resulted in no movement at all. As if to confirm that that was the right thing to do, Dánjal made a gesture that Høgni should stay put while Ári Niclasen approached the edge of the quay.
The relative heights of the boat and the quay meant there was a good half-metre drop to the Kári Edith’s deck, over side rails and between the line haulers. For a second Ári Niclasen hesitated, then turned and clambered down awkwardly, due in part to his attempts to keep his suit from touching the rails.
His feet had barely hit the deck when the door of the wheelhouse banged open and Finn Sólsker came out. He was dressed in waders and an oil-stained sweater.
“Get off my boat,” Finn demanded before Niclasen could speak. “Unless you want a job on the lines.”
Ári straightened up. “You need to come with us,” he said. “Switch off the engine and come to the car.”
“Fuck you,” Finn said, his stance becoming more resolute. “I’m going fishing. You’ve already cost me two days when I could’ve been working. If you want to talk to me you can wait till we get back.” He turned to look for Høgni who was still at the stern line. “Cast off, for Christ’s sake. Don’t just stand there!”
“Listen—” Ári started, but Finn cut him short.
“You’ve got ten seconds to get off or you’ll be with us all day. Please yourself.”
He started towards the bow and the rope there but Niclasen went after him and grabbed his arm. In an instant Finn Sólsker spun on his heel and swung a solid right hook, which sent Niclasen sprawling on the slippery deck.
For a moment everything was frozen, as if no one had expected what had just happened, but then Dánjal was first out of the traps.
“Shit! Finn, are you mad? Stand still!” With an agile jump Dánjal was down on the deck, putting himself between Finn and Ári, still supine on the deck. “Okay, that’s enough,” Dánjal said, even though Finn had made no further movement. “You’re under arrest for assault. Turn around, hands behind your back.”
Finn only reacted when he saw Dánjal pull the handcuffs from his belt. “All right, you don’t need those,” he said.
“Yeh, yeh, I do,” Dánjal said. “Turn around now.” He glanced at Høgni who was now standing over them, still on the quay. “Stay out of this, Høgni, it doesn’t concern you, all right?”
The last thing Dánjal wanted was Høgni Joensen weighing in. Luckily, however, Høgni seemed even more thrown by the situation than Ári and he just stood looking down as Dánjal fastened the cuffs round Finn’s wrists.
42
ÁRI NICLASEN HAD BEEN DESPATCHED TO THE HOSPITAL TO have his elbow examined. He’d hit it on the deck of the boat when he fell and was complaining of pain and pins and needles when he moved it. He was also developing an amazing black eye, so Remi Syderbø had instructed him to attend the emergency department. It was not a request.
In some ways it helped matters that Ári was unavailable to interview Finn Sólsker. But even before that, Remi had decided that a different approach might be in everyone’s best interests. Perhaps contrary to appearances, Remi Syderbø was more in touch than people imagined and he had picked up on the growing groundswell of concern about Ári’s handling of the Sivertsen case. He also knew of Dánjal Michelsen’s disquiet, and Hjalti Hentze’s misgivings were more than evident if you knew how to read the signs.
All of this gave Remi Syderbø cause for concern, but not half as much as the involvement of the man, Munk, from the security services. Remi didn’t like the feeling that his instructions from the Commander – about what direction to push the case in and who to take off it – were being driven by motives unconnected with the best interests of the investigation. He also knew that information was being withheld from him and that, by implication, he wasn’t deemed trustworthy.
In that respect, Remi thought, he and Hjalti Hentze were probably on the same track, which had made it all the more irritating that Hentze had refused his olive branch that morning. But then – phlegmatic as he was – even Hentze wasn’t immune to bruised pride.
Thinking this through as he watched a boat heading for Nólsoy, Remi Syderbø made a decision. He turned in his chair when Dánjal Michelsen knocked on his office door and came in.
“How well do you know Finn Sólsker?” he asked as he waved Dánjal to a chair.
“Not very well,” Dánjal said, with just a touch of caution. “Just in passing.”
“Because of Hjalti?”
“Yeh, I suppose so.”
“And at the boat, when you arrested him, he didn’t try to take a swing at you, too?”
“No.” Dánjal shook his head, hesitated for a second, then said, “For what it’s worth, I think the only reason Finn hit Ári was because he’d reached the end of his rope and he snapped. He must have been under a lot of strain for the past few days and when Ári said he had to come back with us…”
“Maybe,” Remi said, not convinced either way. “But if he’s got a temper that’s something we should bear in mind. Anyway, I want you to take the interview.”
“Er, okay. Just me?”
Remi nodded. “I think it needs a change of tack. The Prosecutor’s already agreed that we should charge him with Erla’s murder, and that’s what we’ll do after this interview – unless he can come up with a better explanation of events than he’s given until now. And ‘no comment’ won’t cut it any more. He needs to realise that and to tell us – you – the truth.”
“Okay,” Dánjal said, still slightly surprised that Remi Syderbø wasn’t going to take part. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Take your time,” Remi said as Dánjal stood up. “You don’t have to go straight for the jugular.” He didn’t add “this time” but he knew Dánjal heard it.
“Okay,” Dánjal said.
“Have you spoken to Hjalti today?”
“No, not today.”
“Right.” Remi left it at that.
* * *
At Múli the fire tenders had gone, but in their place were several cars and a flatbed truck from a scaffolding company. Four men in fire officer uniforms were stacking corrugated roof sheets on a patch of grass, but the activity gave the impression that it was merely to pass the time rather than being essential.
Hentze and Mikkjal Godtfred left the car and walked down the track that led to the burned house. Mikkjal was in his forties, slightly scruffy in a recently-divorced-man sort of way, but like a third of the Faroes CID personnel he’d had extra training in a specialist field, and in his case it was fire: its causes and effects, accidental and deliberate. That was one reason Hentze had brought him along; the other was that this was Mikkjal’s first day back from holiday and he’d had no involvement in the Erla Sivertsen case.
Squeezing past the scaffolding truck they found Jónas Simonsen drinking tea from a Thermos as he gazed dubiously at the remains of the house. If anything, the building looked even more gutted than it had in the dark and from the front it reminded Hentze of a child’s doll’s house, opened up to reveal the inner structure. Modern timber-framed houses would have had fire retardant boarding, but this one looked over a hundred years old and the timbers were probably resinous pine. It had been a blaze waiting to happen, Jónas Simonsen told them, and Mikkjal Godtfred concurred as they stood together assessing the wreckage.
“So is it safe now?” Hentze asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it safe,” Simonsen said. “But it’s safer than it was. We’ve supported the main joists of the first floor so you can walk on it without it collapsing, but everything above that…”
“You mean it could still come down?”
“Put it this way: if you didn’t have to go in to recover the body I wouldn�
��t let anyone near it. I think it should be demolished – especially the gable ends – so it doesn’t come down unexpectedly. You’ll be probably be safe enough, but I wouldn’t spend any unnecessary time on it, or do any tap-dance routines.”
A faint gust of damp wind blew in along the track. Hentze cast a distrustful look at the stone end walls of the house. “We’d better get on with it, then,” he said.
* * *
Mikkjal and Hentze put on forensic suits – as much to protect their clothes as to avoid contamination – then climbed up the ladder. Hentze went first, stepping gingerly off the ladder and on to the charred wooden floor above the undercroft. Despite Simonsen’s assurances that it wouldn’t collapse he had no desire to tempt fate.
Mikkjal followed him up and after he’d taken video and photographs of the scene they moved to the body, which lay on its side. The clothes on the top half of the body were scorched and badly burned, but oddly the jeans and shoes seemed relatively unscathed. They were male clothes, however, and despite the fact that the facial features had been distorted by the flames and the heat it was still possible to make out where sideburns and whiskers would have been.
While Mikkjal took more photos Hentze considered the dead man’s frame against the information from Boas Justesen’s arrest record. Both the height and weight – 175 cm, 60 kilos – seemed about right. Added to the fact that the house was Justesen’s property, that his car was parked by the outbuildings, and that he hadn’t been home since last night, Hentze was left with little significant doubt that he was looking at all that was left of Boas Justesen. It wasn’t conclusive – there would have to be dental identification for that – but for the time being he was content to accept the obvious conclusion.
After a couple of minutes Mikkjal announced himself satisfied that he had everything he needed, so they spread a sheet of plastic on the floor beside the body. Mikkjal went to the feet and Hentze moved around to the torso, preparing to lift the body by the shoulders.
“Up, across and down,” Hentze said. “Ready?”
The action was made easier by the fact that the body was in rigor and didn’t sag, but during the process Hentze spotted something and now kneeled closer to look, carefully folding back a piece of brittle fabric to expose the man’s neck. There – although charred and blackened – was a piece of blue nylon rope about a centimetre thick. It appeared to encircle the neck and a loose end about fifteen centimetres long was part-welded to the lower shoulder.
“What do you make of this?” Hentze asked, beckoning Mikkjal closer.
“Looks like some kind of noose,” Mikkjal said, squinting. “Like you’d hang yourself with.”
Hentze looked for a knot and found it – so he thought – under Justesen’s collar at the back of his neck. It was hard to be sure what sort of knot it was because the nylon was partly melted, but in Hentze’s limited experience of hangings – three in twenty-odd years – all had had the knot in roughly the same place.
“What do you think?” Mikkjal asked when Hentze straightened. From his tone he seemed to expect Hentze to pronounce a verdict.
“It could be a suicide,” Hentze said. “I’ve seen others like it. Let’s wait till we hear what the pathologist says. Shall we get him bagged up and moved? Less weight on this floor would make me feel better.”
* * *
“We know you had sex with her, Finn. The DNA proves it. That’s all they need.”
It was just the two of them in the room, with the digital audio recorder sitting on the edge of the table where Dánjal Michelsen hoped it wouldn’t be a distraction.
Finn Sólsker sat with his arms folded. He said nothing. There was a small chip in the varnish of the table and his gaze was fixed on it. Finn had not raised his eyes since Dánjal had sat down.
Dánjal let the silence continue for a few seconds, then he opened a manila folder and took out two photographs. He placed them side by side over the chip in the varnish.
“If you did this, just say so. If not…”
There was a slight movement of Finn Sólsker’s head – perhaps a shake, but perhaps just the movement as he looked at the photographs. Nothing more.
“Okay then,” Dánjal said. He retrieved the photographs, then placed them back in the folder. He stood up.
“I didn’t kill her.”
Dánjal paused. “Do you want to say what did happen?” He barely placed any stress on the word did, not wanting to make it sound like a demand.
Nothing.
“It was an affair?”
A moment, then Finn nodded – once.
“Okay,” Dánjal said. And then because he couldn’t think of anything better, “I understand.”
He put the folder back on the desk and sat down again.
43
ONCE JUSTESEN’S RIGID BODY HAD BEEN REMOVED, MIKKJAL Godtfred started a step-by-step examination of the woodwork and burned contents of the room. With nothing much to contribute to that Hentze made his own appraisal of the wrecked house. He considered the mechanism of hanging and assessed the original height of the room. It was hard to do given that most of the ceiling above had collapsed or burned away, but he estimated it had not been an especially high room and that a man of average height would have had about thirty centimetres of head clearance. Not exactly a great amount of space to hang yourself in. Still, people could hang themselves from doorknobs and shower rails if they were determined enough.
He moved carefully towards the back of the building, trying to assess which part of the floor above – if it had remained in place – would have been over the spot where Justesen’s body had lain. He moved delicately around canted beams, peering around and underneath them until finally, after about five minutes’ searching, he spotted something protruding from a charred joist.
It was a blackened metal hook and had the look of something that might have been handmade by a blacksmith: sturdy and, by Hentze’s estimation, capable of supporting a decent weight. When he looked more closely it seemed that he could make out the residue of melted plastic.
“Mikkjal, I think you should have a look at this,” he called.
Mikkjal wanted to remove the hook intact by cutting it out of the beam, but Jónas Simonsen declared it too dangerous to go sawing through timbers. There was no way to know how precariously balanced other things were above it. Instead, Mikkjal had to satisfy himself with close-up photographs and scrapings of the residue on the hook. He declared himself happy enough, though.
“If this residue turns out to be the same nylon as the rope round his neck it’ll make some sense of things,” he told Hentze, once they were well away from the beam.
“In what way?”
“Well, did you notice how the upper part of the body was more burned and smoke-blackened than the lower part? His legs especially.”
“I just thought it meant part of him was closer to the blaze than the rest.”
“Yeh, it does,” Mikkjal confirmed. “But heat travels upwards and away from the source unless it’s confined or has no other fuel to go to. So, if Justesen hanged himself from that hook before the fire started, the heat would have risen and spread out across the ceiling. Imagine an upside-down waterfall. That would account for the fact that there’s more burning to the upper part of the body, which takes place until the rope melts and the body falls to the floor. By then the fire’s got hold of the ceiling beams and the wooden floor above and keeps moving upwards. That’s also why there’s not much damage to the undercroft.”
“So you think the fire started here, on this level, not below?” Hentze asked.
“I think so. On a sofa of some sort. Perhaps over here.”
Mikkjal moved to a spot where a pile of ash lay in a roughly rectangular outline. The remains of the sofa were so badly burned it was almost impossible to tell what it had been, but a few metal springs gave them a clue.
“I still need to take samples,” Mikkjal said. “But if you look at it in the context of everything else it seems to me th
at’s the seat of the fire. Was Justesen a smoker, do you know?”
“No, I don’t know. Why?”
Mikkjal squatted and used his pen to point out a soot-blackened glass dish in the ash of the sofa. “That’s an ashtray,” he said. “And here…” He stepped back a short distance and pointed to a couple of smoke-browned spirit bottles. “Smoking, drinking, old sofa… At least a third of all household fires are started by fallen cigarettes.”
Hentze weighed it up. “So what do you think – that he comes out here to commit suicide and hangs himself after a last cigarette? And then, by chance, the cigarette falls on to the sofa and starts a blaze.”
“It doesn’t have to be by chance,” Mikkjal said. “He might have kicked the ashtray over when he was hanging: perhaps if he panicked. He might even have set the fire on purpose just before he hanged himself. I saw a report on a similar case about a year ago in Sweden or Finland – I forget which. Apparently the guy didn’t want his wife or kids to come home and find his body hanging, so he started a fire in one room, then went next door and strung himself up.”
“Fantastic,” Hentze said drily. “So not only is he dead but the family’s left homeless as well.” He shook his head, then his phone rang. It was Annika.
“I thought you’d want to know that Finn’s been arrested,” she said. It sounded as if she was moderating her voice so she wasn’t overheard.
“Thanks. Remi said he would be.”
“Yeh, well it wasn’t so straightforward,” Annika said. “He hit Ári.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeh. Ári’s gone to hospital with an injured elbow.”
“So Finn’s being held for assault as well now?”
“Yeh.”
Hentze could hear the discomfort in Annika’s voice, perhaps at the conflict of loyalties between duty and friendship. “Okay, thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you later.”
He rang off, then looked towards Mikkjal. “Listen, unless you need me I’m going to go and check out Justesen’s car.”
