The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  It was almost impossible to find any free parking spaces outside the block of flats but eventually Huldar managed to squeeze in between two other cars.

  The flat was on the ground floor. One of the keys fitted the entrance to the block, another the flat itself. The front door was unusually wide, much wider than the other doors on the corridor. He guessed this was because Mördur’s wife had been an invalid, confined to a wheelchair.

  Huldar turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door, then reached inside and switched on the light. His hands, still encased in the rubber gloves, felt sweaty and clammy. Poking his head through the door, he sniffed warily. To his immense relief, there was only a smell of stale house, made up of countless indefinable elements. He’d been prepared for much worse.

  Instead of closing the door again and heading back to the station, Huldar decided, now he’d come all this way, that he might as well do a circuit of the flat. He carefully removed his shoes in the hall and touched as little as possible as he padded around what turned out to be a very ordinary home. Most of the furniture was made of dark-stained wood, and there was a lot of velvet upholstery. It reminded Huldar of his grandparents’ house. He couldn’t resist the temptation to step outside onto the fenced-in decking to see with his own eyes the few square metres that for two whole decades had been Laufhildur’s only access to the great outdoors. The space turned out to be much smaller than the exercise yard in a prison. He went back inside and continued his exploration of Mördur’s bedroom, the sitting room and adjoining dining room without discovering anything of interest.

  Until he opened the door to Laufhildur’s room.

  Huldar took out his phone and rang Erla. She’d have to have another go at getting a search warrant. There was no time to lose. He’d never in his life seen so much evidence in one place.

  It was a real smorgasbord.

  But on the rare occasions when a smorgasbord of evidence had turned up like this, it had almost invariably been specially prepared for the police, as Huldar knew from bitter experience. It wasn’t the evidence that held him transfixed, though, so much as the bedroom window; the window that more than anything else bore silent witness to the misery and isolation that Laufhildur had chosen in preference to braving the outside world in her disfigured state. It had been blacked out with paint.

  Chapter 37

  Huldar wasn’t the only one who turned up to work dishevelled and desperate for caffeine. He’d only slept for four hours, in addition to the half-hour it had taken him to drop off. Usually he had no problem conking out. But last night he had tossed and turned, alone in his double bed, trying not to obsess about the case and all the material he’d found in Mördur’s flat. Even his attempt to distract himself by thinking about his upcoming date with Freyja hadn’t worked.

  ‘Erla’s looking for you.’ Gudlaugur, being younger, wore his lack of sleep better. He’d gone home around the same time as Huldar, shortly after the items from Mördur’s flat had started arriving at the station.

  It had taken a maddeningly long time to secure a search warrant and while Huldar was waiting at the flat for his colleagues, he had passed the time by examining everything he could without disturbing the evidence. In the end, tired of being on his feet, he had gone out to the squad car for a smoke. He could expect a reprimand for that, but as an infringement it paled into insignificance next to the fact that he’d entered Mördur’s flat without permission. As yet no one had commented on this. Last night they had all been too high on adrenaline to think of anything but itemising and examining the evidence, but no doubt they’d sober up as the day went on. Then he could expect to be hauled up in front of the senior command or the departmental lawyer. Fuck it. He’d just have to let it wash over him; pretend to be ashamed of himself while focusing on the prospect of his evening with Freyja. It was a trick he’d learnt as a kid when he was always getting into trouble.

  Huldar sat down and switched on his computer. He didn’t ask Gudlaugur where Erla was; she’d come and find him if it was urgent. ‘Where’s the evidence? Still with Forensics?’

  Gudlaugur stood up to see Huldar over his monitor. ‘Part of it. Only some of it’s been processed but they’ve made copies of the lot. Erla’s had them hung on the walls of the incident room. It’s worth a look.’

  ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ Huldar had already seen most of it. A succession of weird ramblings, the justifications of a madman plotting to kill teenagers who bullied other kids, with the express aim of putting an end to the problem once and for all. And, at the same time, of taking revenge on the world for the fate his daughter had suffered after being bullied as a kid. Total insanity. Nowhere in any of the printouts of his crazy outpourings that had been strewn over the floor of his flat was there the slightest hint that he shouldered any of the blame for his daughter getting hold of a gun. Yet it was pretty evident that the weapon had been his as he’d been on the board of a shooting club at the time and stood down shortly after the accident. Much easier to blame the whole thing on other people. Easier and no doubt less painful.

  To carry out his plan, Mördur had managed to dig up the names of several school bullies, including by putting up notices in schools, and, with the help of some careful detective work, had amassed detailed information about each one of them. After that he had created a table in which he awarded them marks to work out who was the most deserving of punishment. The greatest number of points was reserved for those cases where the victim had tried to commit suicide, with bonus points if the suicide was successful. Credit was also given for stamina: the longer the bully had kept up the pressure on a particular individual, the more points he or she earned. Then there were points for involving other kids; the more likes or hurtful comments the bullies got on their posts about the victim, the higher the marks. They also went up the list based on how multi-faceted their attacks were and how many social-media platforms they used. The more vicious the bullying, the more points they scored. Destruction of a human soul: douze points.

  It was no surprise to find Stella and Egill high up the list. Not at the very top and not marked out in any way, but near the top, in second and fifth position. There were ten names in all. ‘Have we established that the other kids on this list are alive?’ In the bin under Mördur’s kitchen sink Huldar had spotted some packaging and, when he pulled it out, his blood had run cold. The picture on the box was of a big, heavy-duty knife that obviously wasn’t designed for the kitchen. Since the attacks on Stella and Egill had been carried out with a blunt instrument, he wondered if the knife had been reserved for the first victim. There was no sign of it anywhere in the flat.

  Gudlaugur nodded. ‘Yes. They checked first thing this morning and none of the kids are missing.’

  ‘So none of them are victim number one?’ Gudlaugur shook his head but Huldar wasn’t convinced. ‘Are they absolutely sure they contacted the right people? Some of those names are pretty common.’

  ‘They’re the right kids. He had so much information on them in his database that there can’t be any doubt.’

  ‘What about his phone? Have they finished going through that yet?’

  ‘No, not yet, but a couple of things have come to light.’ When Huldar made it irritably clear that he was fed up with having to prise the answers out of him, Gudlaugur elaborated. ‘For one thing, he had a Snapchat account that he deleted. His username was Just13. God knows what that means. We’ve submitted a request to the company for the records of who he exchanged Snaps with and who he followed. The snag is that his account was deactivated on Thursday and it’s possible that Snapchat does a regular clean-up. If so, all the information about him has probably vanished. Which means that if he sent Snaps instead of just lurking and spying on what the kids were doing, they’ve almost certainly disappeared. Assuming the recipients opened them.’

  ‘What about his home computers? I noticed both a laptop and a desktop computer.’ The laptop had been open on the kitchen table beside a half-drunk cup of tea and a stale p
iece of bread and cheese with a bite taken out of it. Having seen how tidy the rest of the flat was, Huldar took this as a sign that the man had been intending to return home. The tea had struck him as incongruous. Irrational though it was, he’d have expected a murderer to drink something a bit more hard-core, like black coffee or whisky.

  ‘They’re going through them now. I overheard someone saying he’d installed a Tor search engine, both on his phone and on the computers. If I’ve understood right, that allows you to erase your digital tracks, though it’s not impossible to retrieve the information. It also looks as though he had access to the records of a psychologist who specialises in bullying cases, since some of them turned up on his laptop. Though whether the man gave them to Mördur or he managed to access them illegally is unclear. They’re going to call the psychologist in for questioning. They’re also sorting out a warrant to confiscate Mördur’s work computer, though that’s a bit more complicated as it’s the property of his employer.’

  Huldar doubted Mördur would have been any less cautious when using his work computer than he was with his home ones. It wasn’t the first time Forensics had got their hands on a machine where the user had been trying to hide their tracks, though usually the people they dealt with were amateurs, not experienced programmers like Mördur. If anyone could operate anonymously online, presumably he could. ‘Who’s the psychologist?’

  ‘Kjartan. I think his second name’s Erlendsson.’

  Huldar was fairly sure this was the man Freyja had recommended to Haukur, Adalheidur’s father. He made a mental note to ask her about this, since it was yet another link. If he remembered right, Haukur had said he’d been to see the psychologist himself and hadn’t been that impressed. ‘What about his car? Any sign of that yet?’

  ‘Yes, it was found this morning, parked on Fjölnisvegur. They’ve brought it in and Forensics are inspecting it for biological traces. If they find any evidence that Stella or Egill was in the car, we’ll have to talk to the hospital again and establish exactly how bedbound Mördur was. Perhaps he managed to trick the monitors he was hooked up to. After all, he was an IT expert. We’ll also need to check if anyone else could have used the car while he was lying on his deathbed.’

  Huldar called up a map on his phone, unable to remember exactly where Fjölnisvegur was. When he typed it in, he saw that the road lay to the north-west of the hospital, in the opposite direction from Breidholt. Why on earth would Mördur have parked there if he had been in a hurry to get from his flat to Cardiology due to chest pains? Perhaps this theory was wrong; perhaps he hadn’t been coming from home at all, or his imminent heart attack had confused him. ‘Do you know if the car was badly parked?’

  Gudlaugur shook his head. ‘No. But there are photos of it on the server. What are you thinking?’

  ‘Not sure. I was just wondering what sort of state he’d been in and which direction he’d been coming from. Do we have any idea?’ He opened the case folder on the server and examined the photos that had been taken earlier that morning. The first few showed the interior of the vehicle, revealing that nothing of interest had been found there. The only extraneous object in the front was an empty soda-water bottle. On the floor behind the driver’s seat was another exactly the same, and an empty supermarket bag. The seat-back pocket contained a first-aid kit from the Scouts. The back seat was empty. No sign of the missing knife.

  Finally there was a picture of the car taken from the outside. It was a people carrier, the sort of vehicle no self-respecting man would buy himself out of choice and Huldar couldn’t help wondering why Mördur had picked it. Then he noticed the blacked-out rear windows and large space in the back where an extra row of seats had been removed. Convenient for moving bulky objects, like wheelchairs … or bodies.

  Leaving these details aside, the photos showed beyond a doubt that the car had been neatly parked. It didn’t jut out into the road and was well between the lines, which, considering its length, was quite a feat. Especially for a man supposedly suffering from acute chest pains. ‘You’d have thought he worked as a driving instructor on the side.’ Huldar leant back in his chair while Gudlaugur came round to study the photo. ‘He managed to park like a pro, regardless of the pain he must have been in.’

  Gudlaugur agreed, with reservations. ‘Actually, people can behave oddly when they’re having a heart attack. When my granddad got chest pains he started shifting the furniture around the living room. He’d have died if my gran hadn’t worked out there was something wrong and called an ambulance. I’m sure he’d have taken care over the parking too if he’d driven himself to hospital. But who knows, maybe someone else parked the car, after Mördur was admitted. An accomplice, for instance.’

  Out of the corner of his eye Huldar saw Erla emerge from the interview room. She looked as exhausted as the reflection that had met him in the mirror on his way up in the lift. ‘Any idea when Erla went home last night?’

  ‘Did she go home?’ Gudlaugur turned to watch Erla as she went into her office. Instead of the usual strut, her walk was slow, even a little wobbly. ‘I doubt it. When I left she was talking to the guys responsible for searching the group home. Not that there was any point since apparently they drew a blank. Laufhildur’s coat was clean, though it hadn’t been washed recently. Besides, it was red, and a completely different style from the killer’s anorak. The Darth Vader mask looked clean too, but they took it anyway and sent it to Forensics. I hear the guys were seriously spooked by having to work under the evil eye of the Joker. They still had goosebumps when they got back. Erla was still at work then and I reckon she’s been here ever since.’

  Huldar stood up. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ He didn’t explain, but then he didn’t have to.

  He marched straight across to Erla’s office. For once his colleagues didn’t bother with the snide comments and stupid sniggering. Even Jóel ignored him. They were all too busy. Even the limping Kári, who wasn’t known for his diligence, was bent over his desk, looking unaccountably red-cheeked and chastened.

  Huldar didn’t waste time knocking, just barged in and shut the door behind him. Erla’s reaction was all the proof he needed that she was wiped out. Instead of glaring at him, she looked up blearily from the computer, slack-jawed, as though doped up on sedatives. ‘What?’

  ‘How much sleep have you had since Sunday?’

  The dopey look became even more exaggerated as she tried to think. ‘I don’t know. Plenty.’

  ‘Plenty?’ Huldar had never seen her desk so buried in paperwork. Clearing a stack of documents off the visitor chair, he plonked himself down. ‘I’m betting that plenty doesn’t apply in this case. You need to go home and get some kip, even if it’s only four hours.’

  Erla rolled her eyes under their heavy lids. ‘No chance. I can’t. Do you know what I’m up against? I’ve got that sleazebag Arnar Björnsson in the interview room, suspected of the murders that Mördur Jónasson claims to have committed. But Mördur’s dead and it’s becoming increasingly clear that he didn’t kill anyone, and to make matters worse we’re still missing victim number one. On top of that I’ve got the press on my back – they’ve got wind of the fact that we’ve found Egill’s body and have a man in custody. The news has already hit the online sites. And as if that’s not enough, Egill’s dad keeps calling, freaking out and demanding to know who we’ve arrested. Egill’s post-mortem’s due to start in an hour. Then we’ve still got to question a whole load of people to find out who Mördur’s accomplice was, as well as processing the data from Forensics on his phone, computers and car. We also need to keep management informed and supply the lawyer with the material he needs to apply for all the warrants necessary to keep the inquiry going. And, to cap it all, we’ve got a woman with half her face missing, who seems to have been the main reason for the killings, judging by her father’s crazy ramblings.’ She broke off and took a deep breath that changed into a yawn halfway through. ‘Just when the fuck am I supposed to go for that rest?’


  Huldar gave up. It was pointless trying to give her any advice. ‘Can I go and have another word with Ásta?’ he asked instead. ‘It’s just too much of a coincidence, Mördur being on her ward. We can’t ignore the fact that she had access to his phone and car keys. If he had an accomplice, she’d be the ideal candidate. If nothing else, she was in a good position to tamper with the monitors he was hooked up to, so he could slip out of the hospital unobserved. Perhaps he invented his illness or it was a conspiracy between them. What do I know? But she’s mixed up in it somehow. She has to be. There was nothing random about the fact that Stella’s phone was put through her door.’

  Erla frowned, her brain working sluggishly. ‘Couldn’t he have got his accomplice to shove it through Ásta’s letterbox? Maybe he took against her for some reason after meeting her at the hospital. Maybe she was rough with him, or rude.’

  ‘Do you really think he’d play a nasty trick like that on the woman who saved his life? I don’t buy it. Besides, there are too many elements that don’t fit.’ He took out his phone and showed Erla where Mördur’s car had been parked, pointing out that a man who was having a heart attack would be unlikely to drive past the hospital car park and leave his car further away, on a side street. ‘If he hadn’t died, I’d have thought his heart attack was a total fabrication.’

  Erla was studying his phone screen thoughtfully. ‘Is that possible? Could someone actually fake a heart attack and con the doctors and nursing staff?’

  Huldar had already checked this out. ‘No. The heart releases an enzyme into the bloodstream during a cardiac arrest. They can measure it. But maybe Ásta could have tampered with the results; substituted a blood sample from another patient, for example. She’d have had plenty of opportunity. There are patients in every imaginable state on the ward and I don’t suppose they’d have blinked an eyelid at another blood test. Lots of them must have cannulas too, so she wouldn’t even have needed to use a needle.’