‘I’m sure they’ll be here any minute.’ Freyja checked the clock and saw that there were still five minutes until the interview was due to begin. If Erla and her team were to turn up now, there was every chance it would start punctually. But there was still no sign of them. Instead, Bjarni Einarsson, Bergur’s lawyer, now appeared, carrying a battered briefcase that was so heavy that he was listing slightly to one side. He came up and greeted them curtly: ‘Hello.’ His tone was cold, leaving them in no doubt that he wasn’t pleased to see any of them.
He shifted the briefcase in front of him so he could support its weight with both hands, then turned to Tristan with a chilly expression: ‘So, Tristan, have you made up your mind? Are you going to persist with these false allegations against my client?’
Tristan didn’t grace this with an answer. Instead, he looked round at his own lawyer, Magnús, who was standing with his back to them, absorbed in a phone call. Then, his cheeks flushed, Tristan dropped his gaze. Surprisingly it was his mother who raised her head, her timidity forgotten, and snapped: ‘Who the fuck are you?’ She must have seen the man storm out of Tristan’s last interview, but presumably he hadn’t paused to introduce himself.
Freyja intervened to prevent the row that was brewing. She addressed the lawyer, Bjarni: ‘If your presence is a cause of distress to Tristan, you can be sent out of the room. So I’d watch it, if I were you.’
The lawyer muttered huffily that she had misunderstood him. Tristan’s mother was directing a baleful glare in his direction. Her pallid skin and the black circles under her eyes lent her scowl a peculiar venom. The lawyer was quick to avert his gaze. Luckily, the awkward situation was defused when Erla, Hafthór, Huldar and Gudlaugur swept into the corridor with the IT man on their heels. Tristan’s mother dropped her eyes to the floor again and Bergur’s lawyer’s manner instantly became as smooth as butter. Magnús, the boy’s legal adviser, finally ended his phone call and joined the group.
It transpired that Tristan’s status hadn’t changed: he was still to be interviewed as a witness. The decision had been taken in-house. This meant his lawyer had to wait in the corridor and Freyja guessed he had taken his phone out again the moment the door shut behind them. He and Tristan’s mother were unlikely to have much to say to each other. It would be hard to imagine two more different people: Magnús in his expensive pressed suit and polished brogues, organised, his life under meticulous control; Berglind in her threadbare anorak and grubby trainers, her life in tatters.
Tristan was as neatly presented as he had been the previous day. He gave off a powerful whiff of some strongly scented washing powder that would no doubt become oppressive if the interview dragged on, especially when combined with the powerful reek of aftershave from Bergur’s lawyer. Freyja took care to sit as far from him as she could and just hoped the others weren’t having a similar reaction to the smell of her nit shampoo. She caught Huldar’s eye as she sat down. He gave her a wink and she smiled. It was good to know there was at least one friendly face in the group, which was more than poor Tristan could hope to find.
Erla and Hafthór took it in turns to grill the boy. It felt like an unequal table-tennis match, with two players against one, but they soon realised this and switched tactics.
The questions were more or less the same as last time. Most were about Rósa. It was clear to everyone as the barrage of questions started to get repetitive that they were avoiding the subject of Bergur; they were planning to postpone that for as long as possible.
Tristan answered everything in more or less the same words as the previous time. He spoke clearly and looked his interrogators in the eye. When Erla finally brought up something new, his demeanour didn’t alter.
‘We have reason to believe Rósa had heard of or knew Bergur before she was placed with him and before you two first met. Do you know anything about that?’
Bergur’s lawyer woke up on hearing his client’s name. He had been on the verge of dropping off – or suffocating on the noxious fumes of his own aftershave.
‘Yes. We met at a different home like I told you. I’d stayed at Bergur’s before but she hadn’t. She’d heard of him, though.’
‘Did you two become friends straight away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you say you quickly became close, confiding in each other about private matters?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘Did she confide in you about how she knew Bergur or where she’d heard of him?’
‘Yes, she did.’
Erla, who had been prepared for a flat denial, couldn’t hide her astonishment. Recovering quickly, she went on: ‘Could you share that story with us?’
‘Someone told Rósa that Bergur had killed her mother.’
Bjarni, Bergur’s lawyer, jumped to his feet and banged the table so hard it echoed. ‘What in God’s name is going on? I’m not sitting here and listening to this. My client has had to suffer enough thanks to this boy’s defamatory lies. Surely there’s a limit to how much of this rubbish we should have to put up with? It’s outrageous that this boy should bring false allegations, then recant, only to bring new, even worse ones now. He’s citing the word of a deceased witness who never made any such claim while she was alive.’
Erla cut him off, in a voice that sounded as if acid was dripping from every word. ‘Sit down and shut up or get out.’
‘I demand that you record my objection.’
Pointedly ignoring him, Erla turned her attention back to Tristan. After a moment, Bjarni sat down again with a disgruntled air, obviously afraid of losing his seat at the table.
‘You were saying, Tristan …’
‘Rósa wanted a chance to see him. To find out what he was like. No one would listen to her, so she wanted to find some proof that would make people believe her. Make the police believe her.’
‘Who told her that Bergur was responsible for her mother’s death?’
‘Binni. The guy on Grandi. He was at her mother’s funeral. He came up behind her afterwards and whispered that he was sorry. He said it was all the doll’s fault – it should have stayed at the bottom of the sea. Her mother would still be alive if it wasn’t for the doll. Then he mentioned Bergur and told Rósa to keep away him. He said Bergur had killed her mother by accident to get hold of the doll and that it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to end up at his home. It would be best if she stayed out of trouble so she never had to go into care. But at that point someone noticed that Binni was bothering Rósa and came and chucked him out. He was drunk.’
Erla and Huldar exchanged glances. Huldar gave a faint nod and took over the questioning. He knew the story of Rósa’s obsession better than anyone else at the table, bar Freyja. ‘Tristan. I’ve looked at the files from the time when Rósa went to the police with her suspicion that her mother had been murdered. She never mentioned Brynjólfur – Binni, that is. Or Bergur either. Your story isn’t consistent with what she said then.’
‘She didn’t know Binni’s name. No one would give it to her. They just said he was some drunk who shouldn’t have been allowed in. Rósa thought that if she admitted a drunk had told her, the police would say she shouldn’t take any notice of him – that drunks talk nonsense. But Rósa knew what drunks are like. Her grandmother drinks. The fact is, when they’re drunk, people often tell the truth about things that they refuse to discuss when they’re sober.’
‘How did Rósa find out that the man was Binni, if no one would tell her who he was at the funeral or afterwards? Did she learn it from someone else later?’
‘No. Her grandparents refused to discuss it. Perhaps because her grandmother’s an alky too. I don’t know. But two years ago, when a girl who’d been at the home with us for a while committed suicide, we went to the funeral and the party afterwards.’
‘The reception,’ Gudlaugur blurted out, earning himself a filthy look from Erla.
‘Whatever. Anyway, there was a sort of visitors’ book there that we were supposed to sign. Then R
ósa remembered that there’d been a book like that at her mother’s funeral, so she decided to ask her grandmother if she could have it. She found a signature in it that looked like it had been written by someone who was drunk. And it was him. But it was hard to find him because he’d signed it “Binni Briefcase”, instead of putting his patronymic.’
‘It can’t have been easy to track him down with only that information to go on. Especially since he spent most of his time on the streets. I don’t suppose she looked him up on the internet?’ Huldar’s voice was matter of fact, devoid of any sarcasm.
‘I helped her. I asked Mum and it turned out she knew who he was.’ The boy went red. He took a deep breath, then continued: ‘Mum had heard that Binni had just moved out of town to some treatment centre in the countryside, but she said he wouldn’t last long there. He’d be back on the street before you knew it. So Rósa used to go downtown regularly to look for him. She never had any luck, though; not until some homeless guy told her Binni’d just moved to Grandi. That’s when she found him. About a year ago. She started going round to see him in the hope of getting the whole story but it didn’t work. He was too out of it most of the time, and when he wasn’t, he wouldn’t admit to knowing anything.’
‘Did she find out why Bergur should have wanted the doll?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Not as far as I know. But she did hear something else.’
‘What?’ The word was forming on everyone’s lips as Huldar said it.
‘Bergur killed her father as well. Binni did tell her that much. That was supposedly an accident too. They had a fight while they were fishing. Bergur pushed her dad over and he drowned.’
Bergur’s lawyer reacted to this with outrage. ‘Stop right there!’ he bellowed.
‘Sit down and shut up or get out.’ Huldar said, echoing Erla’s words and seemingly getting just as much of a kick out of saying them.
‘Tell me, Tristan, did Brynjólfur ever tell Rósa where the doll was or how he came to have it in his possession?’
‘No. She never said anything about that. She’d have told me.’
Huldar inhaled deeply, then let out his breath in a sigh. ‘Why on earth didn’t you two come to us? An investigation into the kind of crimes you’re describing is best dealt with by the police, not by kids. That’s what we do all day long – investigate crimes. What were you and Rósa thinking? How were you planning to get justice?’
‘There wasn’t any plan. We hadn’t got that far. You lot had the chance to investigate but you screwed up. Rósa didn’t want to talk to you again. She might have changed her mind if she’d had any proper proof that would have forced you to do something. But she died before she could get hold of it.’ Tristan broke off and clamped his lips shut for a moment. ‘I’d promised. I’d promised not to say a word.’
Huldar and Erla shared another look. Erla shook her head slightly but before Huldar could work out what she meant, Tristan coughed and started speaking again: ‘There’s something I want to say.’
‘Go ahead.’ Huldar sat back and gave him the floor.
‘I’m going to stick by my decision to withdraw what I said about the abuse. Not because it didn’t happen. It’s just that I know there’s no point. He won’t be charged because my word won’t be enough. The judge will believe him. So I withdraw my accusation.’
Hafthór leant forwards. ‘A crime has been reported to us and it’s our duty to investigate it, regardless of what you say now. Whether the prosecutor will decide to pursue the charges is another matter.’
‘Can I say something else?’ Tristan asked.
‘Please do.’ Hafthór waved a hand at him.
‘Bergur used the addicts he met through his job to distribute drugs – pills, like Oxy.’
A peculiar rattling noise exploded from the lawyer’s throat but he didn’t say anything. Freyja got the impression he had relaxed a little after this latest revelation. No doubt he thought that the more excessive Tristan’s accusations were, the better it would be for his client. It would be simpler to sweep all Tristan’s claims off the table if the boy overreached himself.
If so, Tristan’s next words must have cheered him up still further, because it seemed the boy hadn’t finished. ‘And he killed the people whose bodies were found in the sea. They were supposed to bring a load of pills to Iceland but they threw them away. So he murdered them and dumped their bodies in the sea. Not alone, though. With help from somebody else.’
The lawyer’s patience was at an end, so presumably he didn’t think the string of far-fetched allegations was doing Bergur any good after all. Leaping to his feet, he demanded the interview be suspended. This time no one ordered him to sit down and shut up.
Chapter 34
Tuesday
‘According to the Police Information System, Bergur wasn’t at the river at the time of the accident.’ Huldar laid a printout of the incident report on Erla’s desk. ‘I’d have noticed his name, anyway, when I looked at this the other day. On the other hand, Brynjólfur was there and so was a passer-by who witnessed the incident and confirmed that it was an accident. Perhaps we should get hold of him?’
Erla skimmed the text. ‘Oh, shit. It happened nearly ten years ago. As if the witness would have anything to add to his previous statement. I think we’ll have to face the fact that either Tristan swallowed too much of Rósa’s bullshit or he invented the story himself.’
‘What for? Why would he do that?’
‘Don’t ask me. Maybe he hates Bergur. Kids in care don’t always have much time for the people who are supposed to be looking after them. Perhaps the guy was useless. That doesn’t necessarily make him a serial killer, though. I’m actually starting to think it might have been a weird coincidence that he was at the same hotel in Spain as the British couple.’
‘No. I don’t believe that for a minute.’ The thought had crossed Huldar’s mind after he’d listened to the stream of accusations Tristan had come out with, but although he had his doubts about the boy’s claims, he was absolutely sure Bergur was linked to the British couple – and not just because he had been standing beside Leonard at the bar. ‘Tristan had no way of knowing there was a picture showing Leonard and Bergur together, so his claim about the link can’t have been a shot in the dark, can it? There’s been no official disclosure to say that the bones belonged to a young British couple, or that they travelled here from Spain. I just don’t buy the idea that he made up a story that by a million-to-one chance fits the actual events.’
Erla didn’t respond, which meant she agreed with him: she never could back down gracefully. Instead, she changed the subject. ‘I’ve just received a summary of the passenger lists from May. They’ve all come in, apart from the ones from the company that’s gone bust. The British couple are nowhere to be seen on them. But the guy who went through them made a list of all the passengers who missed their flights out of Iceland. Some of the airlines also sent information about passengers who took a later flight. That leaves only five no-shows, out of which there’s only one couple travelling together.’
‘OK … and?’
‘And nothing. The names belong to two Icelanders who live in Spain. They’re back in Spain now, according to Facebook. They must have flown back with a different airline after they missed their flight.’
‘Can I see?’
‘Sure.’ Erla indicated the folder on her desk. ‘The summary is at the front. All the passenger lists are at the back. The lettering’s so tiny you need a magnifying glass to read it. But for God’s sake don’t bother. You won’t find any more than the guy who compiled the summary.’
Huldar had no plans to do so. It wasn’t long until the next interview. which was bound to be much less dramatic than Tristan’s. No lawyer had expressed any interest in attending and there was little likelihood of their having to suspend it halfway through. Both Erla and Hafthór had agreed that it would be better to investigate Tristan’s wild allegations before continuing the interview with him.
‘Lína, you couldn’t have a look at these people for me, could you?’ Huldar put the folder on her desk, placing his finger on the name of the Icelandic couple. ‘I’m wondering if it’s possible that the British couple used their tickets to travel to Iceland. It’s probably a long shot but who knows? You’re so clever, if there’s anything there, you’ll find it.’
Lína didn’t smile or thank him for the praise, just took it as her due. She read the names and got straight down to work. ‘When do you need the information?’
‘I’m going into an interview. I’ll drop by afterwards. We’ll see what progress you’ve made by then.’
Fridrik Reynisson proved as nondescript as his online profile had suggested. He was a quiet man in his early forties, clean shaven, with neat, curly hair. He gave the impression of having woken up that morning expecting nothing but another average day at work. He spoke in a low voice as he answered their questions, as if from a desire to be self-effacing, though he could hardly hope to escape notice in the small interview room where he had the starring role. He was deeply shocked when Erla told him at the outset that he was being interviewed as a suspect in the inquiry into Rósa’s murder. He went pale and his eyes bulged, showing their whites. He swallowed audibly.
The Doll Page 34
