I Remember You

Chapter 2

‘I don’t know who could have done this, but I doubt it was kids or teenagers. Although it’s certainly possible.’ Freyr stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the destruction in front of him once more. Tattered teddy bears and rag dolls were strewn across the floor, the limbs torn from most of them and the eyes pulled out. ‘My first hunch is that we have every reason to be concerned about this person or persons, although it’s difficult to make a complete diagnosis based on this mess. If it helps, I’m leaning more towards the idea that whoever did this worked alone. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.’ He stared at the yellow wall and the remnants of the drawings made by the Ísafjörður schoolchildren, which consisted only of the corners where they had been fastened to the wall with Blu-tack. The remainder of the drawings lay on the floor, torn and tattered; thick white paper covered with brightly coloured pictures. At first glance it appeared that the vandal had torn them down hastily in order to make room for his message. Upon closer inspection, it was clear that he’d taken time to tear the pictures up. Clumsy letters covered the wall. He had gone over each one repeatedly, scrawling them in violent strokes with crayons, which lay in pieces among the shredded drawings. There was no way of guessing the age of the person who had written the message on the wall, if it were in fact a message: DIRTY.

The wall was illuminated for a moment and Freyr was blinded by the flash. ‘Have you got anything to say about this graffiti?’ Dagný removed the bulky camera from her face without turning towards him, and instead continued to inspect the inscription.

‘No, nothing.’ Freyr studied her profile. Although it conveyed a particular kind of toughness, her short, messy hair brought out the femininity in her face – which was no doubt the opposite of what she intended. He hadn’t worked out whether it was her role as a policewoman that made her try to conceal her sex appeal, or whether it was down to her lifestyle. Dagný was unusual in this regard; generally he could read people like a book, and this uniqueness of hers attracted him, even though he received little or no response to his feeble attempts to deepen their relationship. She seemed comfortable in his presence on the rare occasions that they met, yet their friendship never seemed to have a chance to intensify. Either he was ready for it and she wasn’t, or else the few times she had shown some interest, he was immediately racked by doubt and backed off. His doubts had nothing to do with her, but with himself; deep within him dwelt the suspicion that he wasn’t worthy of her, that he was too broken and burned to make a connection with her or with any other person. But then his doubts would evaporate and she would retreat, leaving them permanently caught in this ridiculous vicious circle.

This was the first time for many years that he hadn’t known how to go about handling a relationship with someone, and it had awakened in him memories of his life before he’d become a specialist in human behaviour. These memories were probably the root of his attraction to Dagný, but he made a point of not wondering about this or drawing conclusions for fear of obliterating his feelings and ending up all alone, as he had been before. He turned away from her and focused on the word scribbled on the wall. He shook his head and blew out slowly, as he always did when he was thinking. ‘Of course, various things come to mind, though none of them are particularly helpful.’

‘For example?’ Her voice was devoid of feeling, reminding him of the bored girls who worked in his local bakery when they asked whether he wanted them to slice his bread.

‘Well, dirty money, dirty laundry, dirty politicians, dirty cops, dirty movies. Something along those lines, though I don’t see how they could possibly be connected to the vandalism.’ Dagný’s expression didn’t change. She raised the camera to her eyes again and snapped a photo. It was hard to see what that one photo would add. After taking a photo she always examined the image in the little screen to make sure she’d captured what she’d intended, so she could hardly be worried she’d messed up the ones she’d already taken. He wondered if she used the camera as a mask to hide behind.

‘I thought psychologists studied these things. Don’t you need to know the motivation behind what people write when they’re in an agitated mental state?’

‘Yes, but usually we have more to go on than a single word. Maybe I missed the class on people who break into schools, go berserk and write mysterious messages on the wall.’ As soon as he said this, Freyr regretted it. Why was he letting her sarcasm get on his nerves? It wasn’t as if he was trying to be a comedian, or making light of the situation. ‘I recommend you try to find the culprit the traditional way, then if you do, I’ll speak to him and give you my opinion as to what might have made him do this. For the moment I can’t add much to your investigation.’ In fact, he didn’t know why she’d called him out; his job description at the Regional Hospital in Ísafjörður didn’t include giving advice to the police, and she hadn’t behaved as though she expected his opinion to mark a turning point in the investigation. ‘Unless you want me to look up similar incidents elsewhere and see what conclusions I can draw from them? I don’t know if that would be useful.’

‘No, no.’ Dagný’s tone was brusque, but softened when she hurriedly added: ‘Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.’

The sound of children’s voices carried in through the window. Under normal circumstances they would probably have been in this room, playing or drawing more pictures to adorn its walls, but this morning was far from ordinary. The teacher who had turned up first had been stunned, and had immediately called the police to report the break-in. Dagný and an older officer had been sent to the scene; Freyr supposed she’d been sent because she reported for work early. The normal day shift for police officers didn’t start until eight, but Dagný habitually woke around six, regardless of whether she was working. The only difference was that she was generally out of the door at seven o’clock on work days, apparently too restless to hang around at home any longer. This he knew only because she lived across the road from him, and his morning routine was much the same. In this respect they had something in common: neither of them liked wasting time doing nothing. This appealed to him; in the few relationships he’d had in his life, the women had always wanted to cuddle in bed for as long as possible and hadn’t understood his urge to jump out of bed as soon as he opened his eyes, preferably before the paper came through the letterbox. He could happily imagine a relationship in which he would have company in the kitchen while it was dark and quiet outside and others slept. He had no other ideas as to what he was looking for in a life companion; too little time had passed since his divorce. He couldn’t work out whether his memories of his previous relationship before everything went wrong were a realistic reflection of what he was looking for, or whether he was viewing them in a rosy light. In fact he knew the answer; he just didn’t want to face it.

Freyr went over to the window and at first saw only his own reflection in the glass. He looked younger than his age but that was doubtless because he kept himself in shape, thus avoiding the extra pounds that had started to weigh down his former classmates from medical school. Still, this was only fair, since he hadn’t enjoyed as much female attention as they had during his university years. These days, luckily, women seemed to appreciate his strong facial features; and, given that he remembered what it was like to have to clear his throat to get a woman’s attention, he was planning on holding onto his looks for a while. Naturally they would start declining at some point, but he still had several years to go until he hit forty, so it wasn’t like he had one foot in the grave just yet.

The children were scattered around the playground, their snowsuits making them look stiff and almost spherical. Although the winter had been unusually mild, it was still cold outside and their fiery red cheeks glowed beneath multicoloured bobble hats. Freyr could well imagine that this incident would result in a spate of visits to the health clinic; the flu was going round and ear infections were on the increase. If the children weren’t going to be allowed back in until things were cleaned up here, they might have to stay outdoors for the rest of the day. ‘When can the poor things come back inside?’ Freyr watched a girl topple onto her head after walking straight into a sandpit.

‘When we’re finished.’ Dagný took more photos. The flash in the window indicated that she’d moved over to the basic-looking bookshelves lying on top of their former contents. ‘It shouldn’t take too much longer; we’ve already taken fingerprints from most of what the vandal might conceivably have touched, but I don’t expect anything to come of it. It’s my understanding that every square centimetre in here is covered with fingerprints. It’s going to be nearly impossible to determine whether any of them belong to him.’

Freyr said nothing as he continued to watch the children. If he squinted, he could imagine that he’d gone back in time several years and that this was his son’s playground. One of the children could then be his son; there were several boys who moved like he had as a toddler, and when they were this bundled up it was easy for Freyr to deceive himself. However, he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in the fantasy. It would be too painful to abandon the dream world and return to the cold reality in which there was no longer any place for his son.

The door opened to admit Veigar, the older police officer who had responded to the call with Dagný. ‘How’s it going here?’ He looked around and shook his head. ‘What a fucking abomination.’ He was accustomed to working with Dagný, so it didn’t bother him when she didn’t reply. Instead of repeating the question or taking offence, he turned to Freyr. ‘Have you solved the case for us, mate?’

Freyr pulled himself away from the window and smiled in reply. ‘No, I haven’t pieced it together yet; but, from the evidence, I’d say a pretty sick person was at work here.’

‘Yes, it doesn’t take an expert from the south to see that.’ Veigar bent down to pick up a broken chair leg. ‘How could anyone do this? I have no interest in understanding what drove this idiot to it, I just want to know how he actually did it.’

‘Was nothing spared?’ Freyr had only managed to glance over the place but of course he’d noticed various things on his way in: the children’s coat rack in the lobby had been destroyed, the hooks and the shelves above them all torn down from the walls.

‘Very little. The kitchen, for example, was in a right bloody state.’

‘But was this the only message?’

Veigar scratched his head. ‘Yes. Maybe he meant to write more but didn’t have time for it. He was probably exhausted after making all this mess.’

‘We don’t know whether it was a man or a woman.’ Dagný didn’t look up, busying herself instead with putting the camera into a black bag. ‘It could even have been a couple or a group of people. It barely seems possible for one man to do all this alone, even if he did have the entire weekend.’

‘He certainly didn’t hold back.’ Freyr nudged a pile of track sections from a wrecked wooden train set with his foot. ‘Didn’t anyone notice anything? Neighbours, or passers-by? All this must have made quite a racket.’

‘Not that we know of. We haven’t contacted all the residents of the adjacent buildings but the ones we spoke to didn’t notice anything, or at least nothing clicked if they did hear something. There’s quite a distance between the buildings,’ replied Veigar.

A red plastic bucket bounced off the window where Freyr had just been standing and they all looked round in surprise. ‘The poor kids must be getting bored out there,’ said Veigar. ‘Something’s got to be done if they can’t come in. It’s only an hour until lunch and the only toilet they’ve got access to has a permanent queue outside.’

‘Have you spoken to the headmistress?’ Dagný pushed down hard on the camera in order to close the bag.

‘Yes, and she’s not too pleased with the situation; I mean, she understands, but she’s still annoyed. The children must be getting cold.’

Freyr waited for Dagný to snap that they would just have to grin and bear it, but she didn’t. On the contrary, she displayed an unusual amount of consideration, for her: ‘They should be able to have the smaller room in fifteen minutes or so. It was empty, so it wasn’t damaged much. They’ll have to eat with their plates in their laps, though; I still haven’t come across any undamaged furniture.’

‘I’ll let the headmistress know. She’ll be relieved.’ Veigar walked out and left the door open, giving them a clear view of the devastation.

‘I’d better get going. I don’t think I can be of much more use here – if I was of any use to start with.’ Freyr looked back towards the window and the children playing outside. They seemed even more restless than before. They were probably starting to get hungry. His attention was caught by a boy of three or four, not because he reminded him of his son but because unlike the others he stood stock-still, staring at Freyr as he stood there at the window. Although an attempt had been made to shield the children from what had happened they had sensed that everything wasn’t as it should be, and this boy’s expression suggested that he believed Freyr to be the evildoer who had destroyed the schoolroom. The child appeared fearless, in fact, his stare and frozen expression suggestive of pent-up rage, which seemed to be directed at Freyr. Freyr tried to smile and waved at the child to let him know that he wasn’t the bad guy, but it had no effect. There was not a flicker in the child’s stony face.

‘Are you making faces at that kid there?’ Dagný had come up beside him and was now pointing at the boy in the green snowsuit. ‘Weird kid.’ She rubbed her upper arms as if she felt cold, even within the warmth of the school.

‘It looks to me like he thinks I’m the vandal. At least he’s glaring at me like I am. Maybe he’s scared.’

Dagný nodded slowly. ‘It’s strange that more of the kids don’t seem scared.’

‘I’m sure some of them are worried, but hopefully they’ve shrugged it off and got lost in playing games instead. Most children have an incredible ability to block out bad feelings, but this little boy clearly isn’t that type.’ Freyr couldn’t take his eyes off him. The other children had obeyed a staff member and gone inside to eat. The boy must have heard her too, but he hadn’t moved a muscle and didn’t take his eyes from the window. Suddenly the headmistress came out and pulled the boy away. As they walked off he turned back so as not to lose sight of Freyr. It wasn’t until he’d gone around the corner that they broke eye contact.

‘Well, well!’ Dagný raised an eyebrow at him. ‘If I hadn’t seen you this weekend I might have reason to question you about your movements.’ She smiled, which was rare; a real shame considering how beautiful and genuine her smile was. His ex-wife had smiled often and it had been a lovely sight, until life deprived her of any reason to do so. Freyr smiled back, delighted that she had paid him any attention at all. But Dagný’s expression immediately resumed its usual seriousness. ‘I don’t know why, but all of this is making me feel kind of uncomfortable.’

Freyr surveyed the destruction in the classroom again. ‘I’m not surprised. You have every reason to be concerned, and even to wonder what this individual is going to do next.’

‘No, I don’t mean uncomfortable about that. I mean I’ve got a strange feeling, as though I’m forgetting or have overlooked something, as though there’s more to this than just someone giving in to their destructive urges. I was hoping you could explain it.’

Freyr was silent for a moment as he considered his reply. He didn’t want to interact with her as a psychiatrist; it was one thing to examine the weekend’s evidence as a participant in a police investigation, but quite another to approach her personally in his clinical capacity. One of the main reasons he had taken the job in Ísafjörður was that it gave him the opportunity to practise general medicine alongside his specialism. There was no need for a full-time psychiatrist here, and that suited him well. He had enough on his plate dealing with his own mental state, without having to immerse himself in others’ every day of the week. He noticed that Dagný was fidgeting, impatient at his lack of response to her question, so he hurriedly replied: ‘I expect it’s a combination of things – this dreadful scene, which would leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth, and the urge to find the guilty party. You’re under pressure to tie up the investigation of the crime scene, so you’re also concerned about missing something that might matter. And to top it all off, your mind is trying to process all of this. The outcome is the feeling you describe.’ He stopped there, although he could easily have gone on for much longer.

‘I see.’ She didn’t seem very convinced but said nothing further, since Veigar had stuck his head round the door. ‘Dagný, we need to get going. Gunni and Stefán have come to finish up here, because we’re needed elsewhere.’ He gave her a look meant to convey that something even more serious than the desecration of a children’s classroom had taken place.

Dagný hurriedly said goodbye and rushed off with Veigar, leaving Freyr standing there. He had to content himself with calling goodbye to them before the door banged shut.

He stood in the lobby, surrounded by children, and by teachers who were deftly removing the youngsters’ snowsuits. One of them bundled four children into the corridor, telling them that now they would get to eat in the little gym, what fun! Freyr winked and waved at several of the children on his way past, then bid farewell to the staff, who responded in kind without looking up from their work. As he took hold of the front door handle, he felt a tug at his trouser leg and looked down with a smile. It was the boy who’d been standing outside. He was still wearing his green snowsuit. The boy stared silently up at Freyr without releasing his trouser leg. For some reason Freyr felt slightly uncomfortable in the child’s presence, although he was used to odd behaviour in his dealings with his patients. He bent down to the boy. ‘Did you see the police here before? I’m helping them catch the bad guy.’ The boy carried on staring, still not saying a word. ‘The police always catch the bad guy.’ The boy muttered something that Freyr didn’t catch properly, but before he could ask the boy to repeat it one of the teachers called the child over. Freyr straightened up and went outside. Apparently the child wasn’t immune to the effects of the mess and destruction inside after all – he thought he’d whispered ‘Dirty.’