Arctic Chill (21 page)

'It... I...' Sigurdur Óli wanted to say more but floundered in his attempt to find the words. 'It wasn't like me at all. I'd never been mixed up in anything like that before and I've never lost control of myself since.'

Erlendur said nothing.

'I injured the teacher really badly,' Sigurdur Óli said.

'What happened?'

'That's why everyone remembers it. He was taken to hospital.'

'Why?'

'He fell and cracked his head on the floor,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'I knocked him down and he landed on his head. At first I didn't think he was going to pull through.'

'You can't have been very happy with that on your conscience.'

'I ... I wasn't very happy at the time. There were various things that...'

'You don't have to tell me.'

'They got divorced,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'My parents. That summer.'

Ah,' Erlendur said.

'I moved out with my mother. We'd only been here two years.'

'It's always rough on the kids. When their parents split up.'

'Were you discussing me with that woodwork teacher?' Sigurdur Óli asked.

'No, he recognised you,' Erlendur said. 'Remembered the riot'

'Did he mention my dad at all?' Sigurdur Óli said.

'He may have done,' Erlendur said guardedly.

'Dad was always working. I don't think he ever realised why she left him.'

'Had it been on the cards for a long time?' Erlendur asked, amazed that Sigurdur Óli was willing to discuss this with him.

'I didn't know the background. Still don't really know what happened. My mother didn't much like talking about it.'

'You're an only child, aren't you?'

Erlendur recalled that Sigurdur Óli had once alluded to the fact.

'I spent a lot of time alone at home,' Sigurdur Óli said, nodding. 'Especially after the divorce, when we moved house. Then we moved again. After that we were always moving.'

Neither of them spoke.

'It's weird coming back here after all this time,' Sigurdur Óli said.

'Small world, this town.'

'What did he say about Dad?'

'Nothing.'

'Dad was a plumber. He was known as Permaflush.'

'Really?' Erlendur said, feigning ignorance.

'Egill remembered me clearly. I could tell at once. I remember him too. We were all a bit scared of him.'

'Well, he's not exactly Mr Nice Guy,' Erlendur said.

'I know people used to call Dad that, he was the type. You could make fun of him. Some people are like that. He didn't mind but I couldn't stand it.'

Sigurdur Óli looked at Erlendur.

'I've tried to be everything he wasn't.'

She greeted Erlendur at the door with a smile, a small woman in her sixties with thick, brown, shoulder-length hair and friendly eyes that radiated complete ignorance about the purpose of his visit. Erlendur was alone. He had popped over at lunchtime on the off-chance that he would find her at home. The woman lived in Kópavogur and was called Emma, that was all he knew.

He introduced himself and when she heard that he was a detective she invited him into an overheated sitting room. He hastily removed his coat and unbuttoned his jacket. It was minus nine outside. They sat down. Everywhere there were signs that she lived alone. She had an aura of extraordinary calm, a serenity that suggested a solitary existence.

'Have you always lived alone?' he asked to break the ice and help her relax, only realising too late what a personal question it was. She seemed to think so too.

'Is that something the police need to know?' she asked, her manner so deadpan that he wasn't sure if she was teasing him.

'No,' Erlendur said sheepishly. 'Of course not.'

'What do the police want with me?' the woman asked.

'We're looking for a man,' he said. 'He was once a neighbour of yours. You lived in the flat opposite him. It's rather a long time ago, so I don't know if you'll remember him, but I thought it was worth a try.'

'Does it have something to do with that terrible case in the news, with that boy?'

'No,' Erlendur said, telling himself that this was not strictly a lie. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for or why he was intruding on this woman.

'It's dreadful knowing that something like that can happen,' the woman said. 'That a child should be attacked like that, it's quite incomprehensible, an incomprehensible outrage.'

'Yes, it is,' Erlendur said.

'I've only lived in three places in my life,' the woman added. 'The place where I was born, the block of flats you're talking about and here in Kópavogur. That's it. What year was this?'

'I'm not absolutely certain, but we're probably talking about the end of the sixties or beginning of the seventies. It was a small family. A mother and son. She may possibly have been living with a man at the time she was resident in the block. It's him I'm looking for. He wasn't the boy's father.'

'Why are you looking for him?'

'It's a police matter,' Erlendur said and smiled. 'Nothing serious. We just need to have a word with him. The woman's name was Sigurveig. The boy was called Andrés.'

Emma hesitated.

'What?' Erlendur said.

'I remember them well,' she said slowly. 'I remember that man. And the boy. The mother, Sigurveig, was an alcoholic. I used to see her coming home late at night, drunk. I don't think she looked after the boy properly. I don't think he was very happy.'

'What can you tell me about the man she lived with?'

'His name was Rögnvaldur. I don't know his patronymic, I never heard it. He was at sea, wasn't he? Anyway, he wasn't home much. I don't think he drank, at least not like her. I didn't really understand what they saw in each other, they were such different types.'

'Do you mean they didn't seem fond of each other or ... ?'

'I never understood that relationship. I used to hear them quarrelling, I could hear it through their door if I was on the landing—'

She abruptly broke off her account as if she felt it necessary to clarify.

'I wasn't eavesdropping,' she said, with a faint smile. 'They used to argue pretty loudly. The laundry was in the basement and I'd be on my way down there or coming home ...'

'I see,' Erlendur said, picturing her standing on the landing with ears pricked outside her neighbours' door.

'He spoke to her as if she was worthless. Always denigrating her, mocking and humiliating her. I didn't like him, from what little I had to do with him, not that that was much. But I heard what he was like. Nasty. A nasty piece of work.'

'What about the boy?' Erlendur asked.

'Quiet as a mouse, poor little thing. He avoided the man completely. I had the impression he wasn't happy. I don't know what it was, he was somehow so forlorn. Oh, those poor little dears, some of them are just so vulnerable ...'

'Can you describe this Rögnvaldur for me?' Erlendur asked when she trailed off in mid-sentence.

'I can do better than that,' Emma said. 'I believe I have a photo of him somewhere.'

'You do?'

'Where he's walking past the block of flats. My friend took a picture of me standing outside the front door and it turned out that he was in the background.'

She stood up and went over to a cabinet. Inside were a number of photograph albums, one of which she removed. Erlendur looked around the flat. Everything was spotlessly tidy. He guessed that she put her photos in an album the moment she had them developed. Probably numbered them and labelled them with the date and a short caption. What else was one to do alone in a flat like this during the long, dark winter evenings?

'One of his forefingers was missing,' Emma said as she brought the album over. 'I noticed it once. He must have had an accident'

'I see,' Erlendur said.

'Maybe he was doing some carpentry. It was only a stump. On his left hand.'

Emma sat down with the album and turned the pages until she found the picture. Erlendur was right, the photos were carefully arranged in chronological order and clearly labelled. He suspected that every single one had a place in her memory.

'I simply adore looking through these albums,' Emma said, inadvertently confirming Erlendur's guess.

'They can be precious,' he said. 'Memories.'

'Here it is,' she said. 'It's actually not a bad picture of him.'

She handed Erlendur the album and pointed to the photo. There was Emma, more than thirty years younger, smiling at the camera, a slender figure wearing a headscarf, a pretty little cardigan and Capri pants. The picture was in black and white. Behind her he saw the man she referred to as Rögnvaldur. He was also looking at the camera but had raised a hand as if to shield his face, as if it had dawned on him too late that he might be caught in the shot. He was thin with a receding hairline, fairly large protruding eyes and delicate eyebrows below a high, intelligent forehead.

Erlendur stared at the man's face and a shiver ran down his spine when he realised that he had seen him before, very recently. He had changed extraordinarily little despite the passage of time.

'What's the matter?' Emma asked.

'It's him!' Erlendur groaned.

'Him?' Emma said. 'Who?'

'That man! Is it possible? What did you say his name was?'

'Rögnvaldur.'

'No, his name's not Rögnvaldur.'

'Oh, then I must be mistaken. Do you know him?'

Erlendur looked up from the album.

'Is it possible?' he whispered.

He looked again at the man in the picture. He didn't know anything about him but he had been inside his home and knew who he was.

'Did he call himself Rögnvaldur?'

'Yes, that was his name,' Emma said. 'I don't think I'm making it up.'

'I don't believe it,' Erlendur said.

'Why? What's the matter?'

'He wasn't called Rögnvaldur when I met him,' Erlendur said.

'You've met him?'

'Yes, I've met that man.'

'So? If he wasn't called Rögnvaldur, what was his name?'

Erlendur didn't answer immediately.

'What was he called?' Emma repeated.

'He was called Gestur,' Erlendur said absently, staring at the picture of Sunee's neighbour from across the landing, the man who had invited him in, the man who knew both Elías and Niran.

Erlendur was present when they entered Gestur's flat across the landing from Sunee's. Elínborg was with him. The Reykjavík District Court had issued them with a search warrant that afternoon. According to the police officers who had been guarding the staircase since the boy's body was found, Sunee's neighbour from the top floor but one had not shown his face at all. Erlendur was the only person to have met and spoken to him. He had not been seen since.

In the end there was no need to break down the door. Gestur rented his flat like the other residents on the staircase, and Erlendur had managed to obtain a spare key. When all the necessary documents were in place and their ringing and knocking had elicited no response, Erlendur put the key in the lock and opened the door. He knew that he had only Andrés's intimation that there was a paedophile in the area, and Andrés was an accomplished liar, but Erlendur was disposed to believe him this time. There was something about Andrés's manner when he spoke of this man. Some old fear that still haunted him.

The flat was unchanged since Erlendur's last visit, apart from the fact that someone seemed to have gone over the whole place with a cloth and disinfectant. The smell of cleaning fluid hung in the air. The kitchen shone like a mirror, as did the bathroom. The living-room carpet had obviously been recently vacuumed, and Gestur's bedroom looked as if no one had ever slept there. Erlendur was more aware this time of how sparsely furnished the flat was. When he first entered he'd had the impression that it was larger than Sunee's place, although they were, in fact, identical. Standing in the middle of the living room, he thought he knew why: there was very little furniture in Gestur's flat. Erlendur had entered it on a dark winter's evening and Gestur had only turned on one lamp but even so he had sensed the emptiness. There were no pictures on the walls. The living room contained only two armchairs and a coffee table, besides a small dining table with three chairs, and a bookcase containing foreign paperbacks. There was nothing in the bedroom but a bed and an empty bedside table. The kitchen contained three plates, three glasses and three sets of cutlery, a small frying pan and two saucepans of different sizes. Everything had been thoroughly cleaned and put away.

Erlendur looked round the flat. It contained nothing new. The tables and chairs were probably second-hand, the bedside table too. The single bed in the bedroom had an old spring mattress. He wondered if Gestur had set to work immediately after their talk, obliterating all traces of himself in the flat. There were no shaving things or toothbrush in the bathroom. The flat was completely devoid of personal belongings. The man did not even have a computer, and no bills or letters of any sort were found in the drawers, no papers or magazines, no sign that anyone had ever lived there.

The head of forensics came over to Erlendur. He had two assistants with him.

'What did you say we were looking for?' he asked.

'A child abuser,' Erlendur said.

'He hasn't exactly left much behind,' the head of forensics pointed out.

'Maybe he was prepared to have to leave at short notice,' Erlendur said.

'I doubt we'll find so much as a fingerprint.'

'No, but do your best anyway.'

Elínborg was walking silently around the flat when her mobile rang. She spoke into it for a good while before replacing it in her pocket and going over to Erlendur.

'I wish my flat would look like this for once,' she said. 'Do you think this Gestur attacked Elías?'

'It's a possibility like any other.'

'He seems to have done a runner, doesn't he?'

'Perhaps he got out the cleaning things the moment I left,' Erlendur said.

'It couldn't just be that he's terribly house-proud and has gone away for a few days?'

'I don't know,' Erlendur said.

'Sigurdur Óli can't find anything on this man,' Elínborg said. 'There's no one of either name on our paedophile register, which goes back decades. He's running a match of the photo with our visual database. He sent his best regards.'

'Visual database,' Erlendur said. 'I hate these clunking terms. Why not just "our picture files"? What's wrong with that?'

'Oh ... let people talk how they like.'

'I suppose I'm tilting at windmills anyway,' Erlendur said.

'It's not as if he brought children here,' Elínborg remarked.

This was not intended to be ironic. Erlendur knew what she meant. They had entered the homes of paedophiles that looked like a children's fairytale come true. There was nothing like that here. Not a single sweet wrapper. Not a single computer game.

'Gestur knew Elías, assuming he wasn't lying,' Erlendur said. 'Our search should focus on that. But as you say, if Elías did come in here, Gestur has obliterated all sign of it.'

'He may have some other bolthole where he keeps the chocolate and cakes.'

'It wouldn't be the first time.'

'Should we talk to Andrés again?' Elínborg asked.

'Yes, we'll have to,' Erlendur said, without much enthusiasm.

They had tried to gather more information on Gestur while waiting for the search warrant to come through. Erlendur and Elínborg drove over to meet the landlord who owned most of the flats on the staircase at his office in the centre of town. He was a rather manic individual in his thirties who had sold the fishing quota he inherited up north and gone into property dealing in Reykjavík, apparently with some success. He told them he planned to sell off the flats on the staircase, the lettings business was far too stressful, the rental market attracted all sorts. He also rented out flats in another part of town and was involved in constant legal wrangles, evictions and debt collection.

'This Gestur, did he keep up with his payments?' Elínborg asked.

'Always. He's rented the place for a year and a half and I've never had a moment's trouble with him.'

'Does he pay into an account?'

The landlord hesitated.

'Is it cash in hand?' Erlendur asked. 'Does he come here and pay you in person?'

The landlord nodded.

'That's how he wanted it,' he said. 'He was the one who insisted on it. In fact, he made it a condition.'

'You didn't check his ID number when you took him on as a tenant?' Elínborg asked.

'I must have forgotten.'

'You mean it's black?' Erlendur asked. 'The rent he pays you?'

The landlord did not answer. He cleared his throat.

'Er, does this have to go any further?' he asked hesitantly. They had not told him why the police were asking questions about this particular tenant. 'Does the taxman have to find out?'

'Only if you're a lying scumbag,' Erlendur said.

'It's ...,' the landlord said awkwardly. 'I do all sorts of deals, okay. This man came in wanting to know if we could come to an arrangement. He didn't mind paying the full amount but he didn't want any paperwork. I told him I would need him to fill in a tenancy agreement but the old guy was very convincing. He said he would pay six months in advance and I could keep three months' payment as a deposit. He paid in cash. Said he was too old for all that electronic nonsense. I believed him. He's one of the best tenants I've ever had. Never late with a single payment.'

'Did you see him at all?' Elínborg asked.

'I've met him maybe a couple of times since then. That's all. Are you going to the tax authorities with this?'

'So the flat wasn't registered in anyone's name?'

'No,' the landlord said with a shrug, as if confessing to a minor oversight.

'Tell me something else. Sunee who lives opposite him, does she always pay on time?' Erlendur asked.

'You mean the Thai?' the landlord asked. 'Always pays.'

'Cash in hand?' Elínborg asked.

'No, no,' the landlord said. 'It's all above-board. They're all above-board except for that bloke.'

He paused.

'Well, and maybe two or three others. But no more. And I told her that I'd kick her out double quick if she didn't pay. I don't like letting to her sort but the market's a nightmare, the types you get renting! I'm going to call it a day. Sell the flats. I can't be doing with it any more.'

That was all they had to go on when they entered the flat. They stood in the living room of the man who called himself either Gestur or Rögnvaldur, utterly perplexed. They had no idea where to look for him, did not know who he was. In fact, they had nothing whatsoever to go on but the word of a known criminal.

'Strange how people keep vanishing in this case,' Elínborg said. 'First Niran, now this guy.'

'I'm afraid it'll prove a harder job to track this man down than Niran,' Erlendur said. 'It's as if he's done the same thing before. As if he's been forced to do a disappearing act at short notice before.'

'You mean, if he is what Andrés says he is?'

'It's too well prepared somehow,' Erlendur said, 'too premeditated. He probably has some other bolthole where he can lie low if something happens to draw attention to him.'

'He doesn't even keep any personal belongings here,' Elínborg said. 'He's left nothing behind. As if he doesn't exist – as if he never existed.'

The landlord had told them when handing over the spare key that he himself owned the few bits and pieces that were in the flat. Even the paperbacks in the bookcase were his property. There was an old television in the living room and an ancient radio-cassette player in the kitchen. The television was licensed to the landlord as well.

'We need to talk to his neighbours on the staircase,' Erlendur said with a sigh. 'Ask about his movements. Whether he showed any particular interest in the kids in the block or in the neighbourhood. That sort of thing. Would you mind seeing to it?'

Elínborg nodded.

'Do you think Sunee hid Niran because of this man?' she asked.

'I don't know,' Erlendur said. 'It's all so hazy still.'

'Why doesn't she just tell us what she's afraid of so that we can help her?'

'Search me.'

Erlendur walked across the landing to Sunee's flat once Gudný had arrived. He had called her over to assist. He did not know exactly how to express the questions to find out what he wanted to know without distressing Sunee. He sat down with her and Gudný under the yellow dragon and told her about her next-door neighbour and their suspicions as to what kind of offender he might be. Sunee listened attentively, asked questions and answered without hesitation, and by the time they stood up again Erlendur was convinced that the man had never behaved in an inappropriate way towards her boys.

'I'm sure,' Sunee said firmly. 'It never happen.'

'He seemed to know Niran and Elías.'

'They knew him because he lives right opposite,' Gudný translated. 'It's out of the question that they ever went into his flat. Elías went to the shop for him a couple of times, that's all.'

The other residents on the staircase had had little to do with the man; he came and went without anyone paying much attention. There was never any noise from his flat. 'He crept around here like a mouse,' Fanney said.

Elínborg noticed that Erlendur seemed preoccupied when he returned from Sunee's flat.

'Has Sigurdur Óli ever talked to you about his father?' he asked as they walked downstairs. 'Do you know anything about him?'

'Sigurdur Óli? No. Not that I remember. He never talks about himself. Why do you ask? What about his father?'

'Oh, nothing. I was talking to Sigurdur Óli today and it suddenly occurred to me that I don't know anything about him.'

'I don't know anyone who does,' Elínborg said.

It was intended as a joke but she sensed that Erlendur was being serious and regretted her words. She often made snide comments at Sigurdur Óli's expense, but then he asked for it by being so inflexible in his views, so pedantic and lacking in empathy. He never let his job get to him, whatever happened. He seemed completely thick-skinned. Elínborg knew that this was the difference between Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli; the source of the friction, almost amounting to antipathy, that existed between them.

'Oh, I don't know,' Erlendur said. 'He's not a bad cop. And he's not as bad as you think.'

'I never said he was,' Elínborg answered. 'I just don't feel like spending much time with him.'

'It suddenly struck me as odd when I was talking to him today that I don't know him at all. I know nothing about him, any more than I ever really knew Marion Briem. You know Marion's passed away?'

Elínborg nodded. The news had spread around the force. Few people remembered Marion, apart from the oldest members. No one had stayed in touch except Erlendur, who had been wondering ever since Marion died just what their working partnership and friendship had been based on. His thoughts had turned to Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg, his closest colleagues. He barely knew them and recognised that this was not least his own fault. He was well aware that he was not a sociable man.

'Do you miss Marion?' Elínborg asked.

They stepped outside into the bitter cold. Erlendur stopped and pulled his coat tight around him. He had not had time to consider the question until suddenly confronted by it now. Did he miss Marion?

'I do,' he said. 'I miss Marion. I'll miss—'

'What?' Elínborg said when Erlendur broke off in mid-sentence.

'I don't know why I'm burdening you with this,' he said and walked towards his car.

'You're not burdening me,' Elínborg said. 'You never do,' she added, in the belief that Erlendur would not hear.

'Elínborg,' Erlendur said, turning.

'Yes.'

'How's your daughter? Is her gastric flu any better?'

'She's perking up,' Elínborg said. 'Thanks for asking.'

They arrived at Andrés's place shortly after dinnertime. He was at home, rather the worse for wear but not too drunk to hold a conversation. The police had released him after the initial interview; they did not have sufficient grounds to detain him any longer. He let them in with a grin that immediately got on Erlendur's nerves. Sigurdur Óli closed the door behind them. He had spent the best part of the day looking for leads that might help them trace Gestur but had found nothing on him in the police records and was feeling tired. Elínborg had gone home. It was dark in Andrés's flat and there was a suffocating odour of cooking, almost a stench, as if he had been eating putrefied skate with dripping. They stood in the living room. Andrés sat down in front of the television. Beer cans littered the table beside him and empty schnapps bottles lay overturned on the floor. He sat with his back to them, glued to the television as if they did not exist. The sole illumination was the flickering glow of the screen. Only the top of his head was visible over the high back of the chair.