Someone to Watch Over Me (8 page)

‘Hi! Sorry I’m late. Damn car was playing up again.’ The next DJ in the schedule had arrived without Margeir realizing. The man’s loud greeting startled Margeir and he had to take a deep breath before answering.

‘I was just going to put on a pre-record.’ Margeir put down the caller-ID gadget. ‘My outro music is still playing, so you have a few seconds.’

‘Who was that nutjob at the end? I was listening to it in the car. Man, I hope he doesn’t take your advice and call me too.’

Without knowing why, Margeir felt sure that wasn’t going to happen. His instinct told him the caller thought he had business with him, not the other hosts. He felt uneasy as he walked out to the dark car park. In his mind the abhorrent thought took hold that he knew exactly what the caller had been talking about, and as soon as he was in his car he quickly locked the door.

‘Is she asleep?’ Svava put down the pen and took off her reading glasses, happy to be able to take a break from peering at the small print. She had chosen the glasses at random in a petrol station and their strength was not right for her at all. She couldn’t put off making an appointment with the optician any longer.

‘Who?’ The young woman was one of the temps who moved from department to department, covering sick leave and holidays, so it was hardly surprising she didn’t know who Svava meant.

‘Room
7
, the girl who was just admitted.’

‘To be honest, I didn’t look in on her. I was checking the drip in Room
3
. It was running out, so I changed the bag.’

‘No problem.’ Svava stood up. ‘I guess I’d better check on her.’ She placed her glasses on her forehead in case she needed them; they didn’t make that much difference, but they were better than nothing. She smiled at the temp; it actually didn’t matter whether she’d checked on the patient, as Svava liked to keep an eye on the new patients and try to learn a bit about them. Often you could detect when a patient was about to go downhill, through signs you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you knew them. Only by learning what was normal for a patient could you identify abnormalities.

She walked from the staffroom down the corridor to Room
7
. Her route took her past several rooms, and from each open door she could hear slow breathing and the electronic beeps of monitors and other equipment. Everything seemed normal, or as normal as could be expected, and as she approached Room
7
she heard nothing to make her quicken her pace. Assuming the girl was asleep, she tiptoed into the spartan white room, almost empty apart from the huge bed. No attempt had been made to disguise the hospital bed as something more homely; the chrome frame was clearly visible.

Svava had never given it much thought until this young woman was admitted, since there seemed little point. Most patients weren’t in the department for long, and their illnesses ended with them either going home or being carried out in a coffin, which would at least be spruced up with a satin lining. It was a different matter for this girl, who was a young woman really. She had spent many years of her short life in hospital beds, and would be in one until it ended. She was completely paralysed, which confined her to the bed for the larger part of each day. The only change came when she was moved – with great effort – into a specially modified wheelchair and allowed to go out for a breath of fresh air with an orderly. This was not a service provided by the hospital; she was seriously ill and it was not considered safe to move her. Svava wished the room could be made more comfortable somehow, but she thought any attempt to do so would be like hanging Christmas lights on a shotgun. The girl wouldn’t be in the room for long no matter what, so it was futile to make any kind of effort doing it up; Svava’s role, like the others’ in the department, was to nurse and heal, not to play interior designer.

As Svava entered the room she noticed something odd. The sterile smell that generally overwhelmed everything was contaminated with what smelt like body odour. She went to the girl’s bedside and saw that her forehead was damp. Grabbing a flannel from the bedside table, she wiped off the girl’s brow before laying her hand across it to check whether she might have a temperature. This didn’t seem to be the case; the girl was rather cold to the touch, if anything. Still, there was something wrong, because the girl’s eyes were wide open and moving back and forth as if she were having some kind of attack. Maybe she was suffering from cramps, though of course her body lay motionless, as her muscles were no longer under her brain’s control. Her EKG showed a rapid pulse, far
too
rapid, although her systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings appeared normal. If the girl was simply feeling off colour she might be a bit panicky. Svava had plenty of experience in dealing with the physically disabled, but it was rare to see someone this seriously affected, who was unable to express herself except with her eyes.

‘Did you have a bad dream?’ Svava leaned closer to the girl’s face and followed her eyes closely. She thought she’d been told that the girl would blink once for yes and twice for no but had never tested this out, so it could very well be the other way around; Svava couldn’t remember. The girl blinked twice and Svava decided to stick to her first instinct. ‘Are you thirsty?’ Again the girl blinked twice. Svava hoped she’d guessed correctly; it would have been awful if the girl had woken from a nightmare dying of thirst and was given nothing to relieve it. ‘Are you … are you awake?’ A ridiculous question, but it was the only one that Svava could think of to test out the answer. The girl blinked once. So Svava
had
got it right: one blink was yes and two was no. But although she had worked this out, they’d be here all night if she didn’t ask the right questions.

‘You can use the cards.’ She looked up and saw the locum nurse in the doorway. ‘I’ve worked in departments that take care of people as acute as her, and I learned a bit about communicating with them. There’s computer equipment that’s a lot more sophisticated, but nothing like that seems to have come with her, if she even knew how to use it.’ She looked at the girl, then back at Svava. ‘Not that I know how to use that kind of thing myself, so I wouldn’t have been much help. But I’m pretty good with the cards, which should be here somewhere …’

‘What cards?’ Nobody had told Svava.

The girl walked in and looked around. She bent down to the bedside table and picked up some plastic cards, each of which was divided into a number of squares with pictures or symbols. She positioned one of them directly in front of the girl’s face and started pointing. The girl used her eyes by blinking or looking left or right, seemingly directing the nurse to the right square. After doing this for some time and working through several cards, the girl suddenly shut both eyes and didn’t open them again. Only then did Svava dare to say anything – she hadn’t wanted to disturb this primitive, almost alien communication. ‘Did you make any sense of that?’

The woman shrugged and looked puzzled. ‘I’m no expert at this so I may have misunderstood her, but what I did get wasn’t exactly helpful.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Hot. Burning.’ The woman shrugged apologetically. ‘Something like that.’

‘Burning?’ Svava didn’t think the cards were much use if this was the result. ‘She doesn’t seem hot to the touch; but maybe I need to change her duvet for a lighter blanket.’ She put her hand on the motionless girl’s leg; yes, if anything, it felt rather chilly. ‘I guess the best thing would be to advise the morning shift to get a developmental therapist in to speak to her. Someone who can communicate with her properly.’ She looked at the young woman, who appeared to be sleeping – though that wasn’t very likely – and noticed that she had an earphone in one ear, plugged into the radio. She pulled it out carefully and held it up to her own ear. It was set to one of the talk-radio stations; she recognized the theme music that was playing. ‘Wouldn’t it be nicer for her to listen to something a bit lighter? Although whatever’s playing, it’s not ideal to sleep with that in your ear. Maybe she just wanted to block out the noise.’

After putting the plastic cards back in their place, they both walked out. Svava turned in the doorway and looked back at the young woman’s pale face and lank hair.

Hot. Burning.

What did she mean?

The residence stood on the edge of the neighbourhood – if it could be called a neighbourhood. Paved streets lay between empty plots that were still waiting for houses to be built on them. At one junction after another the street signs served as uncomfortable reminders of the area planners’ broken dreams. It would be a long time before any happy families drove down Mímisbrunn, Friggjarbrunn or any other ‘brunn’ to their new homes. If anyone was thinking about building there, they would either have to have a lot of spare cash or a loan at favourable terms, neither of which was available these days. It was as if Iceland’s castles were no longer in the sky but had crash-landed there on the outskirts of the city to remind them to be more cautious next time around. The roundabout that was meant to keep traffic flowing smoothly now did nothing more than complicate the route of anyone who strayed there by accident. Thóra stared out of the window while Matthew sat at the wheel, just as dumbfounded as she was by what they saw. As they turned a corner a single house appeared at the end of a cul-de-sac, but instead of lessening the surreal atmosphere, this solitary building only underlined it.

‘I guess the people who first noticed the fire must live there?’ Matthew nodded towards the house, which dis-appeared from view as they exited the roundabout. Thóra had told him all about the case before asking him to accompany her on this tour. She was more comfortable having him along; she didn’t know her way around the area, least of all in darkness and with a light snow falling. This way she could concentrate on finding the place without having to worry about driving. Also, it was just nice to have company.

‘Probably,’ she replied. ‘I don’t remember the name of the street, but there aren’t many houses to choose from.’

‘Are you going to pay them a visit?’ Matthew’s voice suggested he sincerely hoped not.

‘No. There was nothing unclear about their testimony, at least nothing that has any bearing on the verdict. They didn’t see anyone, they didn’t hear anything, they simply went to sleep and then woke to the smell of smoke when it was already too late. Who knows, maybe something will come to light that’ll change my mind, but I don’t think I have anything to discuss with them.’ Thóra squinted in order to read the sign ahead of them. ‘I think we should turn here.’

Matthew took his eyes off the road briefly and smiled at her. ‘You don’t say. It’s either turn here or drive off-road onto the open moor.’

‘Well, you never know,’ said Thóra. ‘According to the map I looked at, we should almost be there. We drive to the end of this road and from there a little dead-end street should lead off to the home.’

‘If it’s still standing,’ said Matthew. ‘Maybe it was demolished. The way you described the fire made it sound as if it was practically destroyed, there can’t have been much to restore.’

But the house had been neither demolished nor restored. A large concrete shell stood exactly where the map said it should, at the end of a short road that had probably only been built to serve this one house. That it should have been allocated a name was rather generous, since it looked much more like a driveway. A low fence marked the boundaries of the large plot surrounding the centre and a wide gate swung gently back and forth as if it wanted to invite them into its solitude.

‘Well, now.’ Matthew drove slowly up to the building’s entrance. There he stopped the car and glanced at Thóra. ‘Are you happy to look at it from here or do you want to walk around the house?’

Thóra had already buttoned her coat up to her chin to keep out the cold. ‘We’re getting out, of course. I’m hoping we can get inside.’ And with that she quickly climbed out of the car, so as not to have to listen to Matthew’s objections. As soon as she shut the door she noticed two things: the bracing cold, that would be unbearable if the wind were blowing, and a vague smell of smoke, despite the considerable amount of time that had passed since the fire. Thóra took a deep breath to convince herself that she wasn’t imagining it, and although the smell was faint it still made her nose prickle. She pulled the collar of her coat right up under her eyes to keep out the unpleasant odour. She saw Matthew wrinkle his nose too as he stepped out of the car, but he only shuddered slightly before pushing his repulsion aside. He wasn’t the kind of person who would hold his nose, but Thóra knew him well enough to realize that was exactly what he was longing to do.

They walked around the house, surveying the damage. The windows were boarded up from the inside with plywood panels, and around them the white paint of the exterior walls had turned black, especially near the top, where you could almost make out the shadow of the flames that had blazed up into the sky.

‘The glass probably shattered in the heat.’ Matthew shone his torch on one of the frames. ‘I’m no fire expert, but I doubt the residents who died broke the windows themselves.’ He lowered the beam. ‘Or the fire-fighters might have done it when they were trying to rescue them.’

Thóra bent down and picked up a large piece of glass she’d stepped on. ‘I don’t think so, as the glass has fallen out here – the windows must have been smashed from inside.’ She let it fall. ‘Anyway, I have a report from the Fire Prevention Unit that I’m sure will explain. It looked too complicated to read when I first went through the files.’ They came to a side door, which led through to the garden behind the building. It had a large board nailed across it, and beyond it stood a garden table with two broken legs and no accompanying chairs.

There was a large gap at the lower edge of the board. ‘The catch has come off.’ Thóra pushed carefully on the hastily attached fastening and it gave way. ‘We can go in if we want.’