Why Did You Lie? (12 page)

Nína turned the pages until she found Thröstur’s statement and noticed a tiny smear of blood at the top of the page that hadn’t been there before.

Örvar’s paper cut. He had been looking at the report.

Instinct told Nína that his comment about selfishness and destroyed lives had been in reference to this case. Örvar’s police career stretched back decades and he would have already joined the force by 1985. Perhaps he was on the ball enough to remember the case, despite the scanty details. So why couldn’t he have admitted the fact? What the hell was wrong with the man?

She stood up to go and track down a video player. She would call the hospital back later. There was no way she was ready to face a difficult conversation just now.

Chapter 9

21 January 2014

The shelves sagged beneath the weight of obsolete equipment that looked clumsy and antiquated where once it must have seemed state of the art. So museum-like was the atmosphere that Nína wouldn’t have been surprised to spot a traditional carved wooden bowl among the clutter or a butter churn in the corner. She had been given a place to sit just inside the little room opening off the technical manager’s office, where he had hooked up a video player and small boxy TV set for her. He had handled both with such loving care you’d have thought they were priceless artefacts. Fortunately, however, he seemed less keen on people than gadgets and made no attempt at small talk. The only words they had exchanged from the moment she turned up with a box full of VHS tapes until he left her to get on with it, were her request to use a video player and his parting warning that she wasn’t to muck around with the controls. If anything went wrong, she was to give him a shout immediately.

Apart from the grating squeak emitted by the machine as she fast-forwarded, there was silence in the room. On the screen in front of her, a young man was squirming on an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair. His long dark hair fell over his eyes, helping him avoid the policeman’s gaze. If you ignored the haircut and clothes, the recordings could have been made yesterday. Evidently human nature didn’t change. The guilty manipulated the truth and the police, undeterred, continued mechanically firing questions at them. It proved wearing in the long run to listen to strung-out suspects entangling themselves in ever more intricate webs of lies, so Nína had removed the headphones after the first tape. The lips of the man on screen moved noiselessly as he answered questions about an old misdemeanour that no longer mattered. Nína had soon realised that this was a complete waste of time, yet she carried on watching anyway. She lacked the initiative to press the ‘Off’ button, say goodbye to the crooks of the eighties and get the hell out of there. It was always possible the tapes might contain something worth keeping, though what that might be was impossible to say. Perhaps one of the officers would suddenly lose his rag and attack the suspect. It wasn’t unheard of. She really would be popular if she uncovered evidence of excessive force employed in the line of duty, however far in the past.

The long-haired man returned his hands to the edge of the table after gesturing for emphasis. Soon he was twisting his fingers together, as if he meant to tie them in knots. It was the sign of a liar. Nína had been in the police long enough to see through people without the need to turn up the volume. The suspects’ mannerisms and eyes often inadvertently gave them away. If she were listening she would no doubt have heard the man going into far too much detail when describing events, which was always a dead giveaway, or repeating the police officer’s questions – a well-known method of buying time.

As she fast-forwarded in search of the next interview, the movements of the suspect and the policemen facing him appeared absurdly jerky. Then she pressed play and read the name, date and case number written on a piece of paper and held up to the camera. The date of the interviews seemed to be the only system to the recordings, which meant that cases were not dealt with consecutively; instead people trickled in to be questioned about a whole variety of different incidents. The technology had been new at the time and perhaps the received wisdom had been that it was better not to keep changing the tape. She remembered the fuss there had been the time her father managed to snarl up a rented video in their family VHS player, back when they first became popular. She and her sister hadn’t dared go near the machine for months for fear of destroying another tape.

When she read the handwritten sign, Nína did a double take. She paused the frame with clumsy fingers and stared, stunned, at the white sheet of paper almost filling the screen.

Thröstur Magnason, witness

18 April 1985

Case no. 1363-85

She leant back as far from the television as she could. She hadn’t for a minute expected to find the interview of Thröstur as a child among the recordings, let alone on the second tape she watched. She read the text again to assure herself that she wasn’t imagining it.

There was no mistake: it was him.

She was dying to watch the recording but simultaneously felt a panicky urge to leap up and run out of the room. To calm her nerves, she plugged in the clunky headphones and put them on. It was like plunging her head under water; she could hear nothing. If she pressed play, her body would remain in the present while her mind was transported back to 1985. With Thröstur.

Her hand moved towards the ‘Play’ button. Her fingers trembled slightly as they hovered in front of the machine, as if they couldn’t make up their mind whether to go all the way. Then suddenly her index finger went for it and pressed the button.

The white paper was removed and a tall policeman opened the door of the interview room. He moved into the gap, talking to someone outside in the corridor, then showed the person in. He was careful not to turn his back on the interviewee, as per the regulations, but the procedure seemed laughable when a small boy appeared. He was accompanied by a woman in a buttoned-up coat, holding her handbag in front of her like Moominmamma. She looked about as likely to cause trouble as the boy, and he barely came up to the man’s waist. Not that Nína took much notice of the woman. Her attention was riveted on the boy as he walked warily over to the interview table and took up position behind a chair, glancing nervously round the room. His face could only be seen in full when his gaze passed over the camera. Nína’s heart lurched.

It was her Thröstur. She recognised the child’s face from the framed photos on the dusty piano that nobody played any more in her father-in-law’s house. But even if she had never seen them, she would still have recognised him. His features were the same, though the overall impression was much softer. There was no hint of shadow in the round face and the strong jawline, still unformed, was barely detectable. He was still blond, though later his hair would darken so much that no one would have guessed he had once resembled a Swede. His complexion, too, was very fair, and it looked as if all the colour in his face was concentrated in his bright red lips. Nína felt again that sharp stab in her heart that people often talk of but she had up to now regarded as a mere figure of speech. It felt as if she’d picked up a pencil and jabbed herself in the chest.

Only when the boy Thröstur finally turned to the woman in the coat did Nína tear her gaze from him and look at her. She recognised her face immediately, now that the woman had moved closer and was facing the camera. It was her late mother-in-law, Milla Gautadóttir. Although she had inev-itably changed less than her son in the intervening years between this recording and the time Nína had first met her, it was strange to see her looking so young. Nína had only got to know her in middle age and had never stopped to wonder what she had looked like as a girl. To her mind her mother-in-law had simply sprung into being as a middle-aged woman – who was never permitted to grow old. The breast cancer that had got the better of her in the space of just two months had at least spared her from having to witness Thröstur’s fate. Not that this in any way lessened the tragedy of her early death.

‘Take a seat. It doesn’t matter who sits where.’ The police officer waited until mother and son were sitting down. Both looked as if they expected the chairs to collapse under their weight. Thröstur’s mother put her bulky handbag on her lap and smiled apprehensively at the policeman. Thröstur stuck his hands under his thighs and swung his legs. He looked around again, still wide-eyed.

‘I’d like to begin by thanking you for coming in.’

Milla nodded, still smiling awkwardly. She didn’t speak.

‘It’s not often that boys your age get the chance to come in here, you know.’ The man placed his hands on the table, one on top of the other. Beside them was a notepad and pen. ‘So I need to make absolutely sure I do everything right. I don’t want you to think the police are mean or bullies.’

Thröstur turned to the man and shook his head vehemently. His hair was much longer than was the fashion nowadays and his golden locks swung. ‘I don’t think that.’ His expression shone with sincerity; the ingenuous child’s face was irresistible. The sharp pain in Nína’s heart intensified and she was pierced with sadness that she and Thröstur would never have children. Their son might have looked like this.

‘I’m glad to hear it. Do you understand why you were asked to come in?’ The policeman’s voice was firm but friendly. In spite of this, Thröstur’s manner showed a trace of anxiety or fear. He darted a quick glance at his mother but when his profile reappeared he looked as confused as before. ‘I think so. I’m not sure.’

‘This isn’t a test and there’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re what’s known as a witness. Witnesses are ordinary people who’ve seen something that the police are interested in. We can’t be everywhere, so it’s important that people help by telling us the truth if they see something that might be a crime.’

‘A crime? What’s a crime?’ Thröstur stopped swinging his legs. ‘I know what a criminal is. It’s a thief.’

‘Quite right. When somebody steals from another person that’s a crime and he’s a criminal. But stealing’s not the only crime. For example, it’s against the law to hurt people.’ The policeman leant confidingly over the table. ‘Crimes are bad, especially for the people hurt by them. So when people see a crime, they’re supposed to tell the police. Then we can arrest the criminal.’

‘Even if nobody told me, I’d still arrest the man if I was a cop.’

‘But first you’d have to be sure the man was a thief, wouldn’t you?’ The police officer received no answer but Thröstur appeared to be considering the matter. The man continued: ‘Wouldn’t you tell if you saw somebody stealing?’

Thröstur looked back at his mother who met his gaze but didn’t speak. He chewed at his bottom lip and began swinging his legs again. ‘Yes. I’d ring the police. When I got home.’

‘Good. I knew you were a sensible boy. Now I’m going to tell you another thing that’s just as important. Sometimes we have to talk to a witness to make sure there
hasn’t
been a crime. Again, it’s terribly important for the witness to tell the truth.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Thröstur frowned. ‘Do I have to ring the police if I don’t see a criminal?’

‘No, not exactly. In the sort of cases I’m talking about, the police would come round and ask you some questions. Like the other day, remember?’ Thröstur nodded and the policeman continued. ‘A police officer came round to see you and your friends and asked you what you’d seen.’

Thröstur’s frown deepened. ‘I know.’

‘Now I’m going to ask you the same questions again in case you remember something you forgot to tell us then. I’m also going to ask your friends who were with you. But I’m talking to you first.’

‘I’m the oldest. I was born in March.’ Thröstur sat up straighter, which had the effect of making him appear even younger and more vulnerable. Nína realised she had been holding her breath and let it go noisily. Suddenly it felt uncomfortable to be looking back in time like this, seeing Thröstur at such a young age. It would have been different if he hadn’t been lying on his deathbed. She would have gone home and teased him about his stripy polo-neck jumper and the anorak he was growing out of – that is, once she had finished interrogating him and scolding him for not telling her about this. But now all she could do was go up to the hospital and sit beside his soulless, insensible body. It was peculiar to think that the last words she would hear Thröstur speak were uttered thirty years ago. Foolish as it was, Nína couldn’t help wondering what the boy would say to the camera if he knew that his future wife would one day be watching the recording. He’d probably ask her to promise never to cook anything containing mushrooms or onion.

‘Indeed. Clearly I was right to talk to you first.’ Nína turned her attention to the police officer. It was less painful. She thought he was doing an extraordinarily good job. He was every bit as skilful as his modern colleagues who were sent on all kinds of training courses before being allowed to interview children. She wondered why the task had fallen to him and guessed he was probably the officer who had the most children of his own. He certainly knew how to talk to them. Or perhaps he was going out of his way to perform well because the interview was being recorded.

She watched the man as he reached for the notepad. ‘Now, think carefully before you answer – we’re in no hurry. Give yourself time to remember what happened and make sure you tell the truth. Your mother’s here with you and you wouldn’t want to hurt her by telling a lie. I expect you’re very fond of her, aren’t you?’

Thröstur hung his head. From the movement of his mop of hair, he appeared to be nodding. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to Mum.’

Milla put a hand on her son’s shoulder. She removed it almost immediately, as if she thought demonstrations of affection were inappropriate in the middle of a police interview.

‘Of course not. Nothing bad will happen to her, son.’

‘I know.’ Thröstur didn’t look up but stared in fascination at the zip of his pale-blue anorak. Nína frowned. She was no expert when it came to children but there had been something odd about the little boy’s reaction when the policeman referred to his mother. Did the incident relate to her somehow?