Arctic Chill (16 page)

Elínborg told him.

'No one here by that name,' he said.

'Have you had a sales campaign, cold-calling people or the like, during the last month?'

'No, the last campaign was three months ago. There's been nothing since then.'

'Then I'll have to ask you to keep your ear to the ground for us and find out if any employee of this office knows the woman. How will you go about that?'

'I'll ask around,' the PR man said, leaning back in his chair.

'Keep it low-key, though,' Elínborg said. 'We only want to talk to the individual concerned. That's all. He's not under suspicion. He could be a friend of Sunee's, possibly her boyfriend. Do you think you could make some discreet enquiries for me?'

'Shouldn't be a problem,' the PR man said.

Erlendur rang the doorbell. He heard a squeaking noise from inside the flat as he pressed the bell. Time passed and he rang again. The same squeaking noise. He listened hard. Soon he heard a rustling from inside and finally the door opened. Erlendur had obviously woken the man, although it was midday, but since he appeared to be an old-age pensioner, he could presumably sleep whenever he liked.

Erlendur introduced himself but the man was not yet properly awake, so he was forced to repeat that he was from the police and wanted to know if the man could help him with a minor matter. The man stood at the door and stared at him. Evidently he was not accustomed to receiving a stream of visitors. The bell probably squeaked like that from lack of use.

'Huuhh... eh... ?' the man said hoarsely, peering at him. His jaw was covered in white stubble.

Erlendur repeated his spiel and the man finally grasped the fact that he had a visitor. Opening the door wider, he invited Erlendur in. He was rather dishevelled, his white hair sticking up in all directions, and his flat was a tip, the air a stale fug. They went into the sitting room where the man sat down on the sofa and leaned forwards. Erlendur took a seat facing him. He noticed that the man had enormous eyebrows; when he moved them they looked like two small furry animals squirming above his eyes.

'I haven't quite grasped what's going on,' the man said. His name, it transpired, was Helgi. 'What do the police want with me?'

The flat was one of several in an old building near a busy road in the eastern part of town. The rumble of traffic was clearly audible. The house was showing its age both outside and inside. It had not been particularly well maintained and large patches of concrete had flaked off the façade; not that any of the residents seemed to care. The stairs were narrow and squalid, the carpet full of holes, and it was dark in the flat, despite the daylight outside, the windows grimy from exhaust fumes.

'You've lived in this house a long time,' Erlendur commented, watching the small furry animals above the man's eyes. 'I wanted to ask you if you remember some neighbours of yours from many years ago. A woman with one child, a boy. She may have lived with a man, who would have been the boy's step-father. It was a long time ago. We're talking – what? – thirty-five years.'

The man looked at Erlendur without speaking. A long moment passed and Erlendur thought perhaps he had nodded off with his eyes open.

'They lived on the ground floor,' he added.

'What about them?' the man said. So he had not been asleep after all, merely trying to recall the family.

'Nothing,' Erlendur said. 'There's some information we need to pass on to the stepfather, that's all. The woman died some time ago.'

And the child?'

'It was the child who asked us to trace the man,' Erlendur lied. 'Do you remember these people, by any chance? They lived on the ground floor.'

The man continued to stare at Erlendur without saying a word.

A woman with one son?' he asked at last.

And a stepfather.'

'It's a hell of a long time ago,' the man said, beginning to wake up properly from his nap.

'I know,' Erlendur said.

And what, wasn't he registered as living there with her?'

'No, there's no one registered at the flat during the time she lived there apart from her and her son. But we know this man was living with her.'

Erlendur waited.

'We need the name of the stepfather,' he added, when it became apparent that Helgi was not going to volunteer anything else, merely sit there motionless, staring vacantly at the coffee table.

'Doesn't the child know?' Helgi asked after a pause.

Ah, so he is awake after all, Erlendur thought.

'The child was young,' he said, hoping that this answer would satisfy the man.

'There's a bunch of riff-raff living downstairs now,' Helgi said, continuing to stare absent-mindedly at the table in front of him. 'A pack of yobbos, up all hours making a racket. Doesn't matter how many times I phone you lot, it's not the blindest bit of use. One of those hooligans owns the flat, so it's impossible to turf him out'

'One's not always lucky with one's neighbours,' Erlendur said, for the sake of saying something. 'Can you help us out at all with this man?'

'What was the woman called?'

'Sigurveig. The child's name was Andrés. I'm trying to cut corners; it would be tricky and time-consuming to trace the man through the system.'

'I remember her,' the man said, looking up. 'Sigurveig, that's right. But hang on a minute, that boy wasn't too young to remember the man who lived with them.'

Helgi gave Erlendur a long speculative look.

'Maybe you're not telling me the whole truth?' he said.

'No,' Erlendur said. 'I'm not.'

A faint smile touched Helgi's lips.

'He's a ruddy menace, that chap downstairs,' he said.

'You never know, it might just be possible to do something about that,' Erlendur said.

'That man you're asking about lived with the woman for several years,' Helgi said. 'I hardly got to know him at all, he seemed to be away a lot. Was he at sea?'

'I haven't the foggiest,' Erlendur said. 'He could well have been. Can you remember his name?'

'Not for the life of me, I'm afraid,' Helgi said. 'I'd forgotten Sigurveig's name too, and it only came to me just now that the boy was called Andrés. It all goes in one ear and out the other, and seldom stops for long in between.'

'And of course a lot of people have come and gone since then,' Erlendur added.

'You can't imagine,' Helgi said, now more or less recovered from the shrill interruption of his afternoon rest and pleased that someone had come round to talk to him and, what's more, seemed to take a greater interest in what he had to say than anyone else had for years. 'But I'm afraid I can't remember much about those people,' he added. 'Hardly a thing, to be honest'

'It's a general rule in my profession that everything helps, however trivial,' Erlendur said. He had once heard a cop say this on TV and thought it might come in handy.

'Is he supposed to have done something wrong? This man?'

'No,' Erlendur said. Andrés approached us. We shouldn't really be wasting our time on this but...'

Erlendur shrugged. He saw that Helgi was smiling. By now they were almost bosom buddies.

'If I remember correctly, that fellow came from somewhere in the countryside,' Helgi said. 'He came along with her to a house meeting once, in the days when they still had house meetings. Now you just get a bill, if anyone can be bothered to do anything, which is once in a blue moon. It was one of the few occasions that I met him.'

'Can you describe him to me?'

'Not really. Quite tall. Strongly built. Made a good impression. Quite pleasant, if I remember correctly. He moved out, as far as I can recall. They split up, didn't they? I don't know why. You should talk to Emma. She used to live opposite them.'

'Emma?'

'Wonderful person, Emma. Moved out about twenty years ago but still keeps in touch, sends Christmas cards and so on. She lives in Kópavogur now. She's sure to remember more than me. Talk to her. I just can't remember those people well enough.'

'Do you remember anything in particular about the boy?'

'The boy? No ... except...' Helgi paused.

'Yes?' Erlendur said.

'I seem to recall that he was always rather hangdog, poor little
wretch. A sad little chap, a bit scruffy, as if no one took proper care of
him. The few times I tried to talk to him I got the feeling he wanted to avoid
me.'

Andrés was standing out in the cold, a short distance from a corrugated-iron-clad house on Grettisgata, his eyes fixed on a basement window. He could not see inside and did not dare to risk going any closer. About six months ago he had trailed the man he had mentioned to the police to this house and seen him disappear into the basement flat. He had followed him, keeping a little way behind, from the block of flats and onto a bus. The man did not notice him. They had got out at the Hlemmur bus station and Andrés had followed him to this house.

Now he was standing at a safe distance, trying to protect himself from the bitter north wind. He had walked the short way from Hlemmur several times since then and ascertained that the man had a second home on Grettisgata.

Andrés dug his hands into his pockets.

He sniffed, his eyes wet from the cold, and stamped his feet before walking away.

Kjartan was not at home but the detectives said that they would wait. The woman regarded them in astonishment.

'Out here?' she asked, her features stretching in surprise.

Erlendur shrugged.

'Why do you keep wanting to talk to Kjartan?' she asked.

'It's in connection with the incident at the school,' Elínborg said. 'Routine procedure. We're interviewing teachers and pupils.'

'I thought you'd already talked to him.'

'We need to talk to him again,' Elínborg said.

The woman looked from one of them to the other and they sensed that she would have preferred to shut the door in their faces and never see them again.

'Wouldn't you rather come in?' she asked after an awkward pause.

'Thank you,' Erlendur said and ushered Elínborg inside before him. Two children, a boy and a girl, watched them enter the living room and take a seat. Erlendur would rather have talked to Kjartan down at the station or at the school but he had been avoiding them. He failed to turn up for a meeting at the station and when they went to pick him up from the school he was not there. As he was not answering his phone either, Elínborg suggested they pay him a visit at home and Erlendur had agreed.

'He took the car to the garage to get it looked at,' the woman said.

'I see,' Erlendur said.

It was evening and the woman had been making supper in the kitchen when they knocked on the door. She did not elaborate on the business with the car. She said she had heard from Kjartan that afternoon but not since then. Sensing her apprehension at the visit from the police, Erlendur tried to reassure her, repeating Elínborg's words about routine procedure.

The woman was not entirely convinced, however, and when she went back into the kitchen she took her mobile with her. The two children followed, turning round in the kitchen doorway to stare wide-eyed at the detectives. Elínborg smiled at them. The woman's voice carried into the living room. They heard her voice rise sharply at one point, then fall silent. Some time passed before she emerged. By then she was calmer.

'Kjartan's been slightly held up,' she said, trying to smile. 'He'll be here in five minutes.'

'Thank you,' Elínborg said.

'Can I offer you anything?' the woman asked.

'Coffee, please, if there's any in the pot,' Erlendur said.

The woman disappeared back into the kitchen. The children were still standing in the doorway, staring at them.

'Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,' Elínborg murmured to Erlendur after a long silence. She didn't take her eyes off the children.

'It was your idea,' Erlendur said.

'I know, but isn't it a bit OTT?'

'OTT?'

'We could make up some lie about a call-out. I had no idea it would be so awkward. If he comes, we could nab him outside.'

'Maybe you should never have quit geology,' Erlendur said.

'Geology?'

'Bits of rock don't give you this sort of bother,' Erlendur said.

'Oh, ha ha!' Elínborg replied.

She had managed to irritate him in the car on the way over. Started quizzing him about Valgerdur and their future plans, and Erlendur had instantly retreated into silence. Elínborg was not daunted, however, even when he told her not to keep asking those infernal bloody questions. She asked if Valgerdur was still involved in some way with her former husband, a question that Erlendur would have had to answer in the affirmative, if he had answered at all, and if she ever intended to move in with him, a matter that he had still not confronted himself. Elínborg's tendency to pry into his private life got on his nerves at times; questions about Eva Lind and Sindri Snaer, about himself. She seemed incapable of leaving well alone.

'Are you conducting a distance relationship, by any chance?' she asked. 'Lots of people prefer it to living together.'

'Will you give me a break?' Erlendur said. 'I don't know what you mean by a distance relationship.'

Elínborg shut up temporarily, then began to hum the tune to a well-known poem by Steinn Steinarr:
Cadet Jón Kristófer, the Sally Army meeting's at seven, when Lieutenant Valgerdur will show you the way to heaven...'

She kept up her humming until Erlendur lost patience.

'I don't know how things'll work out,' he said. 'And it's none of your business anyway.'

'All right,' Elínborg said, still humming.

'Lieutenant Valgerdur.
..!' Erlendur snapped.

'What?'

'The things you come out with!'

Kjartan's wife emerged from the kitchen with some coffee cups. Her face wore a look of acute anxiety. The children followed and were left standing in the middle of the room at something of a loss when their mother returned to the kitchen to fetch the coffee. At that moment the door opened and Kjartan came in. Elínborg and Erlendur rose to their feet.

'Is this really necessary?' Kjartan said, clearly agitated.

'We've been trying to get hold of you all day,' Elínborg pointed out.

Kjartan's wife came in with a coffee pot.

'What's going on?' she asked her husband.

'Nothing,' Kjartan said, immediately calming down. He spoke reassuringly to his wife. 'I told you on the phone, it's because of the attack on the boy at school'

'What about it? It doesn't have anything to do with you, does it?'

'No,' Kjartan said, looking at the detectives as if for help.

'We're talking to all the teachers at the school, as I've already told you,' Elínborg said. 'Could we maybe sit down somewhere where we won't be disturbed?'

She addressed her words to Kjartan, who hesitated. He looked at the three of them in turn and they all waited for him to speak. At last he nodded.

'I have a study down in the basement,' he said reluctantly. 'We can go in there. Is that all right?' he asked his wife.

'Take the coffee with you,' she said.

Kjartan smiled.

'Thanks, love, I'll be up as soon as they've gone.'

Picking up his younger child he kissed her, then stroked the elder child's hair.

'Daddy'll be right back,' he said. 'He just needs to talk to these people, then he'll be back.'

Kjartan showed them down to the basement. He had set up a study for himself in a little storeroom with a desk, computer and printer, books and papers. There was only one chair, which he occupied himself. The two detectives stood by the door. Kjartan had led them down to the basement in silence but now his anger seemed to erupt.

'What do you mean by persecuting me in my own home like this?' he snarled. 'In front of my family! Did you see the look on my children's faces? Do you really think this is an acceptable way to behave?'

Erlendur did not respond. Elínborg was poised to speak but Kjartan pre-empted her.

'Am I some sort of criminal? What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment?'

'We've been trying to get hold of you all day,' Erlendur said again. 'You haven't been answering your phone. We decided to check if you were at home. Your wife was kind enough to invite us in and make coffee. Then you turned up. Is that any reason to get excited? We only came round to try to catch you at home. Luckily, we did. Do you want to make a complaint?'

Kjartan looked at them in turn.

'What do you want with me?' he asked.

'Perhaps we could begin with something that calls or called itself "Fathers of Iceland",' Erlendur said.

Kjartan smirked. 'And with that you think you've solved the case, do you?'

'I don't think anything,' Erlendur said.

'I was eighteen years old,' Kjartan said. 'It was kids' stuff. You can imagine. Fathers of Iceland! Only kids come up with that sort of crap. Teenagers trying to sound big.'

'I know plenty of eighteen year olds who couldn't even spell Weimar Republic'

'Look, we were a bunch of college boys,' Kjartan said. 'It was a joke. It was fifteen years ago. I can't believe you're going to try and smear me as some kind of racist because of what happened to that boy.'

Kjartan said this sneeringly, as if any connection to the case was so far-fetched that it was a joke, and Elínborg and Erlendur were jokes as well; dumb cops barking up the wrong tree. There was something inexpressibly arrogant about the way he lounged in his chair, legs splayed, grinning at their stupidity. As if he pitied them for not having the same watertight view of life as him. Elías's fate did not seem to have touched him in the slightest.

'What did you mean when you said that an attack like the one on Elías was only a matter of time?' Elínborg asked.

'I think it's self-explanatory. What do people expect when they let those people in? Everything's supposed to be just fine, is it? We aren't prepared for it. People pour into this country from all over the world to do menial jobs and we turn a blind eye. We're all supposed to be one big, happy family. Well, it doesn't work like that and it never will. The Asian lot create their own little ghetto, cling to their customs and traditions and make sure they don't marry outside their own community. They don't bother to learn the language, so of course they underachieve at school – how many of them make it to university? Most drop out of education once they've finished compulsory schooling, grateful not to have to waste any more time on crappy Icelandic history, the crappy Icelandic language!'

'I see you haven't entirely given up on Fathers of Iceland,' Erlendur remarked drily.

'Yeah, right, the moment anyone says anything they're branded a bloody racist. No one's allowed to open their mouth. Everyone has to be so diplomatic. A positive addition to Icelandic culture and all that crap. Fucking bollocks!'

'Do you think Elías's attacker was of Asian origin?'

'Of course you lot have ruled that out entirely, haven't you?' Kjartan said contemptuously.

'Do you talk like that to your pupils?' Elínborg asked. 'Do you talk about immigrants like that to your pupils?'

'I don't see what that's got to do with you,' Kjartan retorted.

'Do you stir up trouble between the kids at school?' Elínborg continued.

Kjartan looked from one of them to the other.

'Who have you been talking to? Where did you get hold of that stuff about Fathers of Iceland? What have you been digging up?'

'Answer the question,' Erlendur said.

'I haven't done anything of the sort,' Kjartan said. 'If anyone says I have, they're lying.'

'It's what we've been told,' Elínborg said.

'Well, it's a lie. I haven't been inciting anyone to do anything. Who says I have?'

The detectives did not answer.

'Don't I have a right to know?' Kjartan asked.

Erlendur stared at him without saying a word. He had looked Kjartan up in the police records and found nothing but a speeding fine. He had never been in any trouble with the law. Kjartan was a respectable citizen, an upstanding family man and a good father, from what Erlendur could tell.

'How did you arrive at the conclusion that you're somehow better than other people?'

'I'm not saying I am.'

'It seems blindingly obvious from everything you say and do.'

'Is that any of your business?'

Erlendur looked at him.

'No, none at all'

Ragnar, nicknamed Raggi at school, sat face to face with Sigurdur Óli at home in his living room. His mother sat beside him, looking anxious. She was divorced; Ragnar was the eldest of her three children and she struggled to make ends meet as the sole breadwinner. She'd had a chat with Sigurdur Óli before Raggi came home. 'It's not easy to provide for three children,' she'd said, as if excusing herself in advance. Yet Sigurdur Óli had done nothing but trot out the usual cliché about routine inquiries due to the incident at the school; the police were speaking to a number of pupils from different forms. The woman listened with apparent understanding, but since the police had come round to the little basement flat she rented for an extortionate amount from the rich old lady upstairs, who owned the whole house and at least three fur coats, it seemed a good opportunity to pour out her troubles. The mother was very overweight and short of breath; she smoked almost incessantly. The air in the flat was stifling. Sigurdur Óli never saw the other two children during his visit. The flat was littered with dirty laundry, junk mail and newspapers. The mother stubbed out her cigarette and he gave a despairing thought to his clothes. They would reek of smoke for days.

Raggi was initially alarmed to see a police officer in his home but quickly recovered. He was tall for his age with a shock of jet-black hair and acne, especially round his mouth. He seemed on edge. Sigurdur Óli began by asking him general questions about the school, the atmosphere there, the teachers and older kids, before gradually bringing the conversation round to immigrants and Niran. Raggi answered mainly in monosyllables. He was polite. His mother stayed out of the conversation and just sat there lighting one cigarette from another and drinking coffee. She had only just come home from work when Sigurdur Óli rang the doorbell. The coffee she made was good and strong, and he waited for her to offer him another cup. He used to be a tea drinker but Bergthóra had taught him to appreciate coffee through her connoisseurship of different types of beans and roasts.

'How do you get on with Kjartan who teaches Icelandic?' he asked.

'He's all right,' Raggi said.

'He's not keen on coloured people, is he?'

'Maybe not,' Raggi said.

'How does it show? In something he says or something he does?'

'No, just, you know.'

'Just what?'

'Nothing.'

'Did you know Elías?'

'No.'

'What about his brother, Niran?'

Raggi hesitated.

'Yes.'

Sigurdur Óli was on the point of mentioning Kári but refrained. He did not want to give Raggi any reason to suspect that he had just come from visiting the other boy.

'How?'

'You know,' Raggi said.

'You know what?'

'He thinks he's special.'

'In what way?'

'He calls us Eskimos.'

'What do you call him?'

'A dickhead.'

'Do you know what happened to his brother?'