Someone to Watch Over Me Read Free Page B

believed Jósteinn’s claim that he’d thought the child was lost and wanted to help him find his parents. Due to the lack of evidence, Jósteinn received a suspended sentence of six years for false imprisonment.
    Twelve years later Jósteinn sexually assaulted a teenager, and this time there was no vigilant neighbour. The parents of the little boy who’d escaped relatively unharmed must have offered up heartfelt prayers of thanks when the media began to report the details of what Jósteinn had done to the second boy. Thóra remembered the case well – though almost a decade had passed – but this was the first time she had read the verdict itself. It seemed clear that Jósteinn had intended to kill the boy, and only pure chance had prevented him; the woman who cleaned the hallways had come to work a day earlier than usual that week, as her daughter was due to be confirmed the next day. She probably wouldn’t have noticed anything if she’d only vacuumed the communal areas as usual, but some kid had spilt his ice cream on the wall right next to Jósteinn’s front door, meaning she stopped there for longer than she usually would. When she turned off the vacuum cleaner she could hear the victim’s muffled cries for help, and after a moment’s hesitation she decided to phone the police instead of knocking on the door. In her call the woman had told the emergency services operator she’d never heard anything like the sounds coming from the apartment, and she was unable to describe them in detail. All she could say was that it was the sound of terrible suffering. The police broke into Jósteinn’s flat again, and this time he was caught red-handed.
    As she read through the ruling Thóra noticed a strange detail that piqued her curiosity. During the investigation, the police had received an anonymous tip telling them exactly where in Jósteinn’s flat to find certain photographs; these photos had been taken over a number of years and showed clearly how many children he had abused, and in what ways. The photographs had raised the level of the investigation; had they not been found, the individual offences Jósteinn would have been charged with might have only seen him sentenced to a few years. The discovery of the pictures allowed the police to obtain a search warrant for Jósteinn’s workplace, a computer workshop, to which they had not previously had access. An enormous amount of child pornography and other hardcore material was found, which gave the investigators enough evidence to bring the case against him. Shortly thereafter it went to trial and Jósteinn was ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation, following which he was found guilty but declared not criminally liable due to insanity. This meant he was acquitted of the criminal charges, but sentenced to detention in the Secure Psychiatric Unit at Sogn, where he was to remain until the courts ruled that his treatment was complete and that he no longer posed a threat to those around him.
    Thóra could glean little more except that Jósteinn seemed to have fared rather better than his victim, who was still recovering in Reykjavík City Hospital’s rehabilitation unit when the sentence was passed. In her peculiar phone call with Jósteinn he’d hinted that he wanted to discuss an old case, but it was unclear whether he meant the first one or the second. To reopen either seemed preposterous; he had received a ridiculously light sentence first time round, and the more recent case was so clear-cut that she couldn’t see what there was to challenge about the verdict. Was Jósteinn hoping to overturn the ruling of insanity and have his incarceration transmuted to an ordinary prison sentence, after which he might be able to gain his freedom? From the short conversation they’d had it was impossible to assess his mental condition; he’d sounded completely normal, if a little brusque and arrogant. He was probably just as ill as the day that he’d arrived; the verdict