Snowblind (22 page)

Karl stared at Ari Thór in silence.

‘Nobody was ever charged with that murder,’ Ari Thór said at last, without dropping his eyes.

Karl shrugged. ‘I don’t know what that has to do with me,’ he said, picking up the knife and continuing to slice the lime.

‘You’re handy with a knife.’

‘I learned young how to handle one.’ He scowled and then chuckled. ‘You don’t have anything on me. A wet-behind-the-ears fuckwit from down south, coming here and trying to scare me. No chance.’

There was determination in his voice.

We’ll see.

Ari Thór had been right so far. He was sure of it, even though Karl hadn’t really confirmed his suspicions. There was one more thing he wanted to clear up, and then it would be time to let fly.

‘When did you move abroad?’

‘To Denmark? 1983. I wish I had never bothered coming back.’

‘That summer?’

‘No, that autumn.’

‘I gather your family had a tough time in Siglufjördur in the old days.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Your parents weren’t that well off, were they?’

‘My bloody parents were always too poor to give me anything.’

‘All the same, you were able to buy a car at that time … the jeep. The jeep that Anna’s father owns today.’

For the first time a look of concern flashed across Karl’s face.

‘And what the hell does that have to do with anything?’

‘A beautiful vehicle,’ Ari Thór said, not that he had actually seen it.

‘It was a great car. A crying shame I had to sell it.’

‘Why did you move?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Karl said, and thought for a moment, obviously deciding to play the good guy. ‘To find work. Dad couldn’t find work here.’

‘You’re sure that was the only reason?’

‘What are you trying to say?’ He lifted himself in his chair, still holding the knife. The lime lay forgotten.

‘How come you could afford such an expensive car?’

Karl said nothing.

‘Surely the old lady didn’t pay that well?’

This time Karl went pale, but said nothing.

‘The old lady, Pálmi’s mother. You were working for her, weren’t you? I heard you’d done odd jobs for her, cleared up, killed vermin, and when I asked about that a few other things popped up. The old lady I spoke to worked at the Co-op at that time and she remembered you buying rat poison; she just assumed that you were going to poison rats for the old woman.’

Ari Thór took the opportunity to pause and watched Karl squirm in his chair.

At last.

‘Pálmi told me that his mother had never trusted banks and kept her savings hidden away … but when she died, there was barely enough to cover her funeral. That’s a little odd, don’t you think?’

Ari Thór waited. Karl rose to his feet. He stood motionless, the knife clasped in his hand.

‘Suppose she had trusted you enough to tell you that she kept her savings in the house. Or let’s say you came across it when you were clearing up. Either way, she died suddenly in the summer of 1983, of a brain haemorrhage. I spoke to a doctor and asked if rat
poison could produce the same symptoms as a brain haemorrhage, and he confirmed that it would. At the time nobody suggested a thing. A woman of sixty-seven suffers a brain haemorrhage and dies. An amiable youngster who had worked for her buys himself a smart jeep soon afterwards … Were your parents the only ones who made the connection?’

Karl said nothing. The fury was clear on his face. Ari Thór pressed on, regardless.

‘It’s obvious, Karl. You killed the old lady to get your hands on her cash. How much was it? Enough to buy yourself a jeep, we know. Was there any left over? You managed to fool her just as you fooled me; innocent on the surface, friendly, polite. But your parents saw through you. They left the country so the truth wouldn’t come out. You couldn’t fool them, could you? They knew what you were like inside, what you were capable of doing.’

Karl was suddenly at the table, the knife still in his hand.

Ari Thór sat still. Only the table was between them.

‘You bastard! You don’t say a word to anyone … or else …’

‘Or what?’

He regretted the question the second he had asked it. He knew precisely what was being threatened.

Karl reached quickly over the table and grasped Ari Thór’s shoulder, the injured shoulder, his arm still in its sling.

The pain shot through him and he was gripped with fear; a rat in a trap, cornered.

‘I ought to sort this out right now.’ Karl’s eyes blazed with madness and he lifted the knife closer to Ari Thór.

Ari Thór stood up, smartly and without warning, his fist clenched. His punch was enough for Karl to lose his balance. Staggering backwards, he dropped the knife, as Ari Thór leapt over the table. Leaving his phone where it lay he made for the door at the end of the corridor.

He could hear Karl getting to his feet with a roar.

He yanked open the door and ran out into the storm, into the
darkness, as the driving snow blinded him. His feet were as heavy as lead, just as in his worst nightmares.

He took a short cut across the old football pitch in the centre of town, buried under layer upon layer of snow. It was years since he had run across a field like this; he had been a small boy in Reykjavík.

He wouldn’t allow things to end like this. He had to reach his destination. Karl couldn’t be far behind him and he was desperate enough to do anything. Ari Thór knew that if he stopped, his life would end there, alone in a pool of blood in the snow.

He took a jump over a deep bank of snow and onto the pavement that fronted the town’s liquor shop. He had to run faster, avoid the urge to stop and look behind him. The thought that they could now put Karl behind lock and key boosted his energy.

He was in the Town Hall Square. If he ran straight over it and round the corner he would reach the police station.

He pushed himself to go faster.

He was going to make it. Almost there.

He had to get there.

It wasn’t long until opening night.

That was when Nína was determined to make her move.

She had already waited long enough. She had offered to volunteer for the Dramatic Society just to be close to him, the man she loved.

Even though he had told her they couldn’t be together, she always felt that they would, in one way or another, end up as a couple. He had always been so kind to her.

She was going to speak to him at the reception after the opening night, ask him out on a date, like a teenager.

She’d missed out on her teenage years. She had waited for life for far too long, watching it shoot past her like a landscape seen from behind the windows of a moving car, driven much too quickly.

Nína felt the flutter inside her.

She was so excited.

It wasn’t until Ari Thór reached the police station, his mind and body overcome by exhaustion, that he finally dared to look over his shoulder. Nobody there.

Hlynur jumped to his feet and stared at Ari Thór as he staggered in through the door, cold and bedraggled – his eyes wide and pleading. It was a while before he could get a coherent sentence past his lips.

‘Karl … the bastard … tried to kill me. He’s armed and dangerous.
I found out he murdered Pálmi’s mother, and a woman in Denmark.’ Ari Thór spluttered and coughed as he struggled to make clear the impending threat.

‘Calm down, Reverend.’ Hlynur took the news calmly, almost as if he had expected Ari Thór to appear in just this state. ‘Sit yourself there and get some coffee down you. I’ve called Tómas.’

‘Tómas?’ Ari Thór took the mug Hlynur handed him. ‘You’ve already called Tómas?’

‘Karl called, a couple of minutes ago.’

‘Karl?’ Ari Thór yelped. ‘What the hell for?’

Hlynur laid a hand gently on his shoulder, the good shoulder. ‘He called because he wants to make a formal complaint.’

‘A complaint?’ Ari Thór could hardly form a complete sentence. He felt overwhelmed, besieged by Karl’s treachery. He buried his face in his shaking hands and exhaled. The murderer was going to complain about him?

‘Calm down,’ Hlynur said amiably. ‘Don’t worry … We know what Karl’s like and nobody’s going to believe him. But the complaint will have to go through the proper channels, for formality’s sake.’

Ari Thór sat speechless.

‘He said you pushed your way in and started interrogating him, even though he’d obviously had a drink and you weren’t on duty. He wants you charged with assault. Smacked him, did you?’

‘He was trying to kill me!’

Ari Thór jumped to his feet and hurled the coffee mug to the floor where it shattered into pieces, splashing coffee in every direction.

‘He was going to kill me, the bloody murderer. You hear me?’

‘Let’s wait for Tómas, shall we?’ Hlynur said, his voice oddly comforting.

‘No, you go get Karl right away!’ He yelled. ‘He may try to escape, do you hear me?!’

‘He won’t get anywhere.’

‘Are you kidding me, Hlynur? Are you going to believe him or
me? You have to go over there and arrest him! Do you hear me?’ Ari Thór said furiously.

‘Take it easy, Reverend.’ Hlynur said. ‘I’ll get you another cup of coffee.’

‘Tell me again what happened.’ Tómas tried to keep a calm and quiet voice. Ari Thór was noticeably upset and spoke incoherently. ‘Did you attack him?’

‘No, of course not. He had a knife, I had to hit him to get out of there! I confronted him with my theories. That Linda had tried to commit suicide, and that he had covered it up when he found the body, by moving the knife.’

‘Why?’ Tómas asked.

‘Because of the insurance terms. He wouldn’t get the ten million if it had been ruled as a suicide.’ Ari Thór said anxiously.

‘And did he admit to it?’

‘More or less. He didn’t deny it.’

‘I don’t think that will do, my boy,’ Tómas said calmly. ‘And anyway, it would hardly be more than a misdemeanour, interfering with a police investigation.’

‘And then … I think he killed two people.’

‘Really?’

‘Pálmi’s mother. The old lady, Sandra, mentioned that he had done all sorts of stuff for Pálmi’s mother, including exterminating vermin. I asked her about it in more detail: she remembered him buying rat poison in the Co-op. Pálmi’s mother died shortly before Karl moved away with his parents, and just before he bought the jeep, she died penniless. They must have hurried away when they found out what he did. And …’ Ari Thór tried to catch his breath between words. ‘And, the symptoms of rat poisoning could be the same as her alleged cause of death, a haemorrhage.’

‘It’s a theory, my boy,’ Tómas said. ‘I believe Karl is capable of
anything, but do you have any real evidence? Anything concrete? Maybe you’re putting two and two together and getting five, just because you want to.’

‘He didn’t really deny it!’

‘He may be playing games with you, Ari Thór, winding you up.’

‘Anyway, the last thing is dead certain … I’ve seen the police records from Denmark, I have them printed out on my desk. He was the prime suspect in the killing of a woman in a break-in, some jewellery went missing.’

‘Again, what can we do now? The Danish police have surely done their best. You should go home, get some rest.’

‘Aren’t you going to arrest him?!’ Ari Thór looked outraged.

‘I’ll have a talk with him. You say he pulled a knife on you?’

‘Well …’ Ari Thór hesitated. ‘He had a knife when I came in, slicing a lime.’

‘Okay, that’s enough for now, my boy.’

It was Ari Thór’s word against Karl’s, Tómas thought to himself. The boy had been off duty, probably slightly unbalanced. And he had apparently hit a suspect. He had made more than one mistake that night. But he had also drawn some interesting conclusions, even though most of it could probably never be proven. Yes, the boy had potential, but he needed to be more careful.

Tómas had interviewed Karl at the police station while Hlynur had searched his house.

Karl was calm and self-possessed, answering in monosyllables or with silence. Tómas told him he was being interviewed as a possible suspect, and could have a lawyer present, or listening in via telephone. Karl said that there was absolutely no need for a laywer.

After Karl had flatly denied having anything to do with the death of Pálmi’s mother, Tómas shifted the interview to Linda.

‘We found traces of dark-blue wool on the knife. The evening
you found the body you were wearing a dark-blue wool sweater. Linda had life insurance and you stood to gain financially from her death. So tell me …’ Tómas looked steadily at Karl. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t arrest you here and now for attempted murder?’

Karl sat silent for a while.

‘She had the knife in her hand when I found her. You can’t pin an assault charge on me, no way.’ He seemed to be in total control of the situation.

Tómas sat still and waited.

‘I don’t know what came over me. I hid the knife in the garden next door to, well, so as not to damage her reputation. It was a lack of judgment on my part, of course.’

‘And because you knew you wouldn’t get a penny if it was shown to be suicide.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

He grinned in the certain knowledge that no copy of the insurance policy would be found in a search of the house.

Tómas pursued a line of questioning about the earlier reports of domestic violence, despite having nothing more than suspicion and Leifur’s testimony that Karl and Linda had argued frequently. According to the latest reports, there was nothing to indicate that Linda was likely to regain consciousness and bear witness against Karl.

‘Did you threaten Ari Thór with a knife?’ he asked, trying to wrong-foot Karl.

‘I certainly did not. I had a knife in my hand when he barged in on me. I gave him a chance to speak, though he was obviously quite unstable, and when his accusations became outrageous, I stood up and asked him to leave. That was when he attacked me. I hope that my complaint will be dealt with properly.’

‘Of course,’ Tómas said. ‘I need to ask you to wait here for a moment.’

He left the interview room and made a call to the police lawyer on duty, seeking advice on the next steps.

‘It doesn’t sound like you’ve got any real evidence linking him with the attack on Linda,’ the lawyer said after Tómas had gone over the situation in detail. ‘As to the other cases, the older ones, I don’t see that anything can be done about that. Pure speculation. No grounds for custody, in my view.’

Tómas waited for Hlynur to finish the search, which proved fruitless, and subsequently informed Karl that he could leave.

‘But don’t leave town for the next few days,’ he added as a warning.

‘I’m not likely to go far with all the roads closed,’ Karl smirked, as he stepped out into the darkness, the snow eddying around him. The smile and walk of a man, thought Tómas, who knew that he had escaped justice; because he’d done it before.