‘We have reason to believe you sheltered Rósa Thrastardóttir during the week between her disappearance from her foster home in Reykjavík and last Friday.’ Erla’s eyes bored into Fridrik’s as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Is that correct?’
Fridrik drew over the glass of water he had been offered, raised it slowly to his lips and took a sip. His hand was trembling so badly that the water slopped around in the glass as he put it down again. ‘Erm. Could I ask a question before I answer that?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Would it be breaking the law if I had?’
‘Yes, possibly. You risk being found to have contravened article 193 of the criminal code. I’ll read it for you.’ Erla picked up a printout and read: ‘“Any person who deprives parents or other proper persons of authority over or custody of a child who is a minor, or who assists in the deprivation of such authority or custody, shall be subject to fines or imprisonment for up to sixteen years or life.”’ Erla put the printout down again. ‘As Rósa was a minor and in the custody of the Reykjavík Child Protection Agency, the act of sheltering her while she was absconding comes under this definition.’
She went on relentlessly: ‘If it transpires that you had sexual intercourse with her before she was fifteen, or seduced her after she’d reached that age, we’re talking about punishment within the more severe end of this framework, although you would avoid a fine.’
Huldar smiled grimly to himself. The post-mortem had revealed that Rósa was still a virgin and showed no sign of damage to her anus. But there was no need to tell the man that.
Huldar watched as the remaining colour drained from Fridrik’s face. The man slid his trembling hands under the table. Although he didn’t know it, he could in fact save himself the worry about serving a life sentence. Rósa wasn’t the only minor who had absconded from the custody of children’s services. In most cases the kids concerned were addicts who turned to far more insalubrious characters than Fridrik for help. Up to now it had proved almost impossible for the police to get permission to forcibly remove children in such circumstances. It was only recently that they had succeeded in prosecuting certain dodgy individuals for violating the provision.
Erla had no intention of pursuing this course against Fridrik. All she wanted was to establish where Rósa had been staying and who had killed her. Fridrik was a possible candidate, if it turned out that he had provided the girl with a roof over her head, but Huldar had to admit to himself that he found the man a very unlikely suspect.
Erla twisted the knife in the wound: ‘And if you turn out to be responsible for her death, you can expect a prison sentence of sixteen years. Minimum. More likely eighteen. If, on the other hand, you turn out not to be implicated in Rósa’s murder or to have sexually assaulted her, a reduced penalty may be considered if you freely volunteer the information and provide an honest account of what happened. This could even result in the charges being dropped altogether.’
Fridrik needed a few moments to take all this in. His hands were fidgeting under the table and he kept gulping. In the end, he pulled himself together and started talking in a shaky voice: ‘I want to make it absolutely clear that I had nothing to do with Rósa’s murder. Nothing. And I never laid a finger on her or had the slightest sexual interest in her. Never. All I did was feel sorry for her and let her stay with me when she was having a tough time. If I hadn’t done that, she’d only have gone somewhere else, and she might have fallen victim to exactly the kind of thing you were describing – been sexually abused, I mean. I’m very sorry if I caused concern to the people who were responsible for her, but I did notify the authorities that she was safe.’
‘So it was you who sent the letters to the Child Protection Agency?’
‘Yes.’ Fridrik bowed his head, as shamefaced as a schoolboy. ‘I didn’t want to send an email or make a phone call because they would have been too easy to trace back to me.’
‘Was it always you she stayed with, for all these years, whenever she ran away?’
Fridrik nodded and Erla prompted him to answer aloud for the recording. ‘Yes, I think so.’ The man rubbed a hand over his forehead, then took another sip of water. ‘She first came to see me about a year after Dísa – her mother – died. She wanted me to go to the police with her to tell them about the doll we fished up from the sea. She had some crazy idea about her mother being killed because of the doll. She said no one would believe her but they’d believe me. I told her the police had already called me to ask about the doll. It wouldn’t change anything if I told them again. I also told her that the detective I’d talked to had thanked me for my information but said they saw no reason to take any further action. The case was closed and the fact the doll had really existed didn’t change anything. Her mother had probably thrown it in the dustbin. I tried to get Rósa to agree that this was the likely explanation but it was no good. She was obsessed with it.’
‘Were you in a relationship with her mother before she died? Closer than just work colleagues, I mean?’ Erla raised her eyes from her notes. ‘Were you a couple?’
‘No. We weren’t a couple. We were just friends.’ Fridrik flushed.
‘So you knew Rósa slightly before her mother died?’
‘I’d met her several times. She used to come to work with her mother occasionally when the schools were on holiday. Then we took that boat trip. So you could say I knew her, but not well.’
‘What were you thinking of to let her stay with you, when you knew children’s services were looking for her?’
Fridrik coughed. ‘I can’t really explain. It began with her visiting me – the first time was the one I just described. After that she took to dropping in from time to time. She used to come alone on the bus. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She was an orphan and just, well … just so alone. She had nobody else in the world and I could hardly push her away.’ Fridrik fell silent, took a deep breath, then continued. ‘The first time she stayed, she arrived late in the evening, so I gave in and let her sleep in the spare room. She begged me not to call the police to come and take her away, saying all she wanted was to spend one night in a proper home. She left straight away the following morning, as she had promised, and it didn’t occur to me that this would become a regular thing. The spare room gradually became hers. It just happened. Perhaps I let it because we got on so well together; we went out on the boat and watched films on TV. She used to lie on the sofa and read. Sometimes I cooked for her. Sometimes she cooked for me. I anticipated that once she was eighteen and independent, she would move in properly. But … then what happened, happened and now nothing will ever come of it.’
Neither Erla nor Huldar said anything. To Huldar, it was clear that Fridrik had been lonely and welcomed Rósa’s visits. But as the man seemed pretty normal, he must have experienced some inner tension between his pleasure in her company and his guilty conscience over sheltering a runaway teen. No doubt he had found some way of justifying it to himself, as people so often did.
‘It didn’t cross your mind to make an official application to foster her?’
Fridrik gave a dry, humourless laugh. ‘Huh, right. Because a request like that would have gone through like a shot, wouldn’t it? A single man adopting a teenage girl? No, the thought didn’t enter my head. I couldn’t exactly tell them that Rósa had already been staying with me and was happy at my house, could I?’
Evidently, Fridrik had considered the possibility.
Erla brought the conversation back to the point. ‘Rósa was murdered. You knew her well. Are you aware of anyone who would have wanted to harm her?’
‘No. God, no. No one.’
‘Did she tell you where she was going that evening?’
‘Yes. She was going to meet her friend, Tristan. I’ve never met him myself. She didn’t tell me what they were planning to do but she mentioned coming home early. She had her own key, so she could come and go as she pleased.’
Huldar and Erla exchanged glance
s. No key had been found on Rósa’s body.
Leaving this aside for now, Erla prompted him: ‘And after that? Was she going to meet someone else?’
‘No. She was planning to come home. Home to my place. But she didn’t show up. I thought she must have gone back to the foster home. She used to do that sometimes, without telling me.’
Erla nodded. ‘I see. What about you? Where were you?’
‘I was at a barbecue. A party. At my brother’s place. I went there at half past seven, which was a bit more than half an hour after she’d left to meet Tristan. When I got home, she wasn’t there.’
‘Can your brother confirm that you were at his party?’
‘Yes, of course. So can the other guests.’ Fridrik looked unaccountably embarrassed, then added: ‘Well, the ones who noticed me, that is. I didn’t stay long. I was home by nine.’
‘Rósa died at around midnight. You say you were at home. Can anyone confirm that?’
‘No. No one. But I was at home. I didn’t go out again after that.’
Next, Erla asked if he had been drinking that evening and Fridrik replied that he had been driving. Then she repeated some of her earlier questions and received the same answers. Like most people who had sat in the chair before him, Fridrik grew increasingly irritated by the repetitions. When he’d had enough, he presented them with a new piece of information. ‘Someone broke into my house on Sunday evening. I didn’t report it, because nothing was stolen. All they did was trash Rósa’s room. I don’t think they took anything but I can’t be sure. She didn’t leave many belongings in there, or any cash.’
Erla’s next questions were concerned with the break-in, but elicited nothing of any use. Since Fridrik was adamant that no one knew Rósa had taken refuge with him, he couldn’t explain why someone would have broken in purely to search through her stuff. All he could think of was that her murderer must have forced her to reveal where she had been hiding. But Huldar was troubled to hear that a window had been broken to gain entry because it meant that whoever had taken the key out of Rósa’s pocket was unlikely to have been the murderer. Otherwise surely he’d have entered by the front door?
After they had milked every last drop out of the burglary, Erla went back to her original line of questioning, before deciding that they’d got as far as they were going to for now. They’d been hoping for something more substantial that would bring them a step closer to the solution, but they remained totally in the dark.
Before the interview ended, Fridrik agreed to go home with a police escort who would take Rósa’s belongings away and check her room for fingerprints. He didn’t protest about having his own prints taken or providing a saliva sample for his DNA profile. Lastly, he told Huldar his brother’s name, so he could confirm that Fridrik had been at the barbecue.
Huldar managed to note it down without betraying his astonishment.
‘Look at this. The independent witness into Rósa’s father’s death was called Fjalar – Fjalar Reynisson.’ Huldar jabbed a finger at Erla’s screen so hard that it dimpled and the letters in the man’s name were momentarily distorted.
Erla frowned thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I see that. I can read. But what do you want me to do about it? Iceland’s a small country. We can’t go after him on that basis alone.’ Putting on a different voice, she said: ‘Fjalar, we need to talk to you about a fatal accident you witnessed, because your brother knew the victim’s daughter.’ She broke off and looked Huldar in the eye. ‘We’d be a laughing stock.’
‘But …’
‘No buts. Try and dig up more info if you’re so sure this Fjalar has something to hide. You don’t even have a theory about what he’s supposed to have done. Killed Rósa? Broken into his brother’s place while simultaneously hosting a barbecue? He had a house full of guests the night Rósa died, remember?’
Huldar pushed himself off Erla’s desk where he had been leaning his hands while bending over her computer screen. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to imagine how Fridrik’s brother could be mixed up in the case. But it was no good. He was all out of ideas. ‘OK. I’ll do that.’
After closing Erla’s door behind him, Huldar walked over to Lína’s desk. She must be used to going through other people’s social media accounts by now. Perhaps she could find out something useful about Fjalar Reynisson.
‘Lína.’
She looked up and smiled. ‘I’ve checked it out for you. That Icelandic couple look a bit dodgy to me. As far as I can work out, they’re serious addicts. They’re both on the Police Information System for possession. For repeated offences, in fact. They supposedly flew to Iceland in May and didn’t turn up for their flight back, yet if their Facebook pages are anything to go by, they were actually at home in Spain all the time.’
Huldar tried to appear interested in this news. He would have been pleased to hear it before he got hold of Fjalar’s name, as it represented a major step forward in the investigation into the fate of the British couple. This was almost certainly the explanation for how they had got to Iceland – using tickets bought in the names of two young Icelandic addicts, who would now have to be questioned. ‘Great, Lína. That’s brilliant.’ He smiled as enthusiastically as he could. ‘Listen, I’ve got another job for you.’
‘But—’
‘It shouldn’t take long. I just want you to have a look at this man for me. Check if he seems suspicious at all. I did a search for him on the information system but he hasn’t committed an offence since losing his licence twenty years ago for drink-driving. But maybe you could find something interesting on his social media sites, since you’re such an expert.’
‘OK. What’s his name?’
‘Fjalar. Fjalar Reynisson.’
Lína glared at him. ‘Fjalar Reynisson? Are you joking?’
‘No.’
‘That was what I was about to tell you when you interrupted me. Look.’ She handed him the folder of passenger lists that had been lying open on her desk, then pointed to an entry she had marked with yellow highlighter. ‘It’s awfully small, but see? The tickets used by the British couple were bought with a credit card belonging to a man with that name.’
Lína withdrew her finger and raised her eyes to meet Huldar’s. ‘Fjalar. Fjalar Reynisson.’
Chapter 35
Friday
The smart kitchen looked like a bomb site. The sink was full of pots and pans, and all the work surfaces were covered in empty packaging, spices and utensils that Freyja had used while cooking. Unfortunately, the results hadn’t lived up to expectations, and couldn’t justify the Herculean cleaning task she was left with. She had to face facts: she was no masterchef.
‘Very good.’ Huldar put down his knife and fork with apparent satisfaction. His plate was spotless, so it seemed he actually meant it. Then again, coming from a man who mainly lived on burgers, this praise wasn’t worth much.
At least the red wine was good. Freyja reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses. She had been planning to offer him coffee and shop-bought cheesecake for dessert but had decided not to bother. The food was lying like lead in her stomach, leaving no room for anything else.
‘Right. Now you have to tell me everything, like you promised.’ Freyja leant back in her chair. She had been dying of curiosity all week to hear what had been going on behind the scenes in the Rósa case, having been forced to content herself with what she’d read on the news sites. Her role had been abruptly terminated, with the explanation that no more young people were to be interviewed for now. The inquiry into the care-home abuse case had been put on hold while an investigation was being carried out into its putative connection to the murders.
Freyja had swallowed her pride and tried several times to get hold of Huldar on the phone. The last she had heard, on Tuesday afternoon, was that Bergur had met the British couple in Spain, the boat owner Fridrik had admitted to sheltering Rósa, and his brother, Fjalar, was apparently mixed up in the affair as well. But an awful lot had happened si
nce then.
When she’d tried Huldar on Wednesday and Thursday, he either hadn’t answered his phone or had excused himself on the grounds that he was busy and would ring her back later. He had finally done so at lunchtime on Friday, with a deal: he would tell her everything if she invited him to supper. She had accepted, and now here they were.
Huldar was looking well: the progress they were making in the investigation clearly agreed with him. He had also made an effort with his appearance: he was freshly shaven and his hair was neatly combed. What’s more, he got into her good books by immediately asking after Saga and Molly. She was pleased that he showed an interest in her little niece’s wellbeing and told him that Saga and the dog were staying with Baldur; they were fine and didn’t miss her at all. They were too busy spending the fortune Baldur had received in tips from his tour group. He seemed to have decided to blow it all on ice-cream, children’s amusements and bones for Molly, which was a far better use for it than many other things he was known for spending his money on. He had collected Saga ten minutes late the day he’d got back to town, which, in Baldur’s world, was equivalent to arriving fifteen minutes early. He had called shortly afterwards to ask what on earth had happened to his daughter’s hair. Freyja had feigned ignorance, sparing him the nit saga and keeping her fingers crossed that her blitzkrieg against the lice had had the desired effect.
‘We believe Rósa’s murder has been solved. And the mystery of the bones, too. In the end it turned out they were both part of the same case.’
Freyja prompted him to continue, reminding him that her duty of confidentiality was still in force. According to the news, a suspect had been arrested for Rósa’s murder but the police weren’t releasing any details. After all her efforts in the kitchen, Freyja felt she deserved to be told who it was.
The Doll Page 35
