The Commandments : A Novel (2021)

by Gudmundsson, Oskar

  ‘I thought you wanted me to be there in case you wanted some background about Rafn?’ Magnús said, following her into the corridor.

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry about that. I was a little too quick wrapping things up. We’ll have to wait and see what progress he makes, and hopes he come around. If he does, then I’d like you to be part of it when we talk to him,’ she said, and smiled.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, slipping an arm around her shoulder. ‘Shall we get a bite to eat?’

  ‘Now?’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘It’s not five yet.’

  ‘Yes, certainly. I just wanted to eat together. I have to go to Húsavík this evening and I’ll be there overnight.’

  ‘Sure. What are you doing there?’

  ‘I have to meet a friend. Planning a fishing trip.’

  ‘I see. Let’s go for tomorrow, in that case. I said I’d drive Gunnleifur home and my parents asked me to dinner tonight. It’s a while since I spent much time with them.’

  ‘No problem. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Let’s do that.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ Gísli asked as Salka went down to the ground floor.

  ‘Yes. I’m driving Gunnleifur home.’

  ‘Want me to come too?’

  ‘No, it’s all right. But, hey,’ she said, and looked up. ‘It’s been a tough day. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go home. Go and give the girlfriend a cuddle,’ she said with a grin.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Right now, yes. If I were you, I’d make tracks quick before I change my mind.’

  In the holding area she opened the cell door.

  ‘Well, Gunnleifur. Let’s be on our way.’

  ‘About time. You can expect to hear complaints. You can be certain of that.’

  ‘Really? From St Peter?’

  Gunnleifur glared and snorted as he left the cell.

  Salka went into the room and placed a chair against the wall. She sat down and waited.

  She checked the news on her phone. Most media complained that the police were remaining tight-lipped about the investigation. Eysteinn had been right. The case had been mentioned on the BBC and on most media across the Nordic countries.

  She waited.

  She stood up and massaged her hips. Her back was sore after sitting in the chair for, how long? She checked the time. It had been three hours. She sat on the floor, opened a bottle of water and sipped.

  She started, glanced at the time and thought. No, she probably hadn’t fallen asleep, but could have dozed for a moment. An hour had passed since the last time she had checked, and it was now ten-thirty. She stood up and went to the window, peering out between the thick curtains. It was dark. She heard the occasional creak or click, and at first had been on the alert. But she had figured out that these sounds were either the hot water pipes or else branches brushing against one of the windows in the freshening breeze outside.

  Salka heard a light drumming sound that accelerated swiftly, and realised that this was rain hammering the steel sheets of the roof. The window where she sat had to be sheltered from the wind, as no drops appeared on the glass. She looked around the darkened room at the many photographs that hung on one wall. Most were black and white pictures of elderly people who she assumed had long passed away. She examined the shelves that were filled mainly with books, apart from one that had been reserved for ornaments, little porcelain figurines, an old fountain pen and an etching of a bird. In the darkness she couldn’t be sure if it was a whimbrel or a redshank.

  She sat down again on the floor and was about to check the internet, when she noticed that Magnús had sent a message fifteen minutes before. With her phone set to silent, she hadn’t noticed it right away.

  Thanks for last night.

  Likewise

  Still with your parents?

  Yes. I’ll stay at their place tonight. Dad’s not good. And you? In Húsavík?

  It was a few minutes before a reply popped up.

  Yes. Having a beer. Soon time for bed. Good night.

  Good night.

  Salka leaned her head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes closed.

  She waited.

  She was startled and took a sharp breath. She wiped a sliver of saliva from her mouth, glanced at the clock and swore to herself. She had fallen asleep and it was one-thirty in the morning.

  She moved forward onto her knees and listened.

  Had some sound woken her? It was still raining and she could hear branches brushing against a window somewhere in the house with even more force now that the wind had picked up.

  Salka got slowly to her feet.

  She stood still, listened and heard a knock.

  Going on tiptoe to the door, she listened without looking through the gap.

  Someone opened a door.

  She felt her heart hammer so hard that she could almost hear it. She took a deep breath in the hope that it would calm her.

  She heard footsteps approaching beyond the door. She backed away, moving to stand behind the door as someone eased it open.

  Salka held her breath. She saw that she had forgotten to pick up the phone from where she had been sitting on the floor.

  She could hear the breathing of the person on the other side of the door, with just three centimetres of wood separating them. She exhaled as carefully as she was able.

  Suddenly the door was pulled to and she heard the footsteps retreat. Doors elsewhere in the house creaked as they opened.

  Salka peered through the gap between the door and the jamb. She could see someone going into a room further along the corridor.

  She dipped a hand into the pocket of her jacket and pressed the emergency button.

  Then she opened the door cautiously and went along the corridor to the open bedroom door she had seen the figure go through.

  She heard a rush, and imagined that the intruder had snatched the duvet from the bed.

  She took one more step, and stopped, wincing as the parquet creaked under her feet. She waited for a moment, and continued, focused on the door.

  As soon as she looked inside, hands grasped her shoulders, hurling her into the room, where she landed hard against the wall.

  She kicked at the wall and threw herself at the man who was about to run out into the corridor. Salka managed to get a grip on the man’s neck and clung to his back.

  She received a punch to the face, but the anger and surge of adrenaline deadened the pain. She tightened her grip on the man, who stopped in the passage and was ramming her repeatedly against the wall.

  Salka lost her grip and tumbled to the floor. She looked up and saw that the man was wearing a black balaclava. She was determined to stand up, narrowly managing to dodge a kick that had been meant for her head. On her feet, she felt a sudden pain in her arm. Something had cut her. The man was about to run when she fought to grab hold of his feet, so that he fell forward. He twisted around as she was about to throw herself at him.

  She saw the drops of blood on the blade of the knife.

  There was a deafening crash as the armed response unit burst into Gunnleifur’s house, with shouts and yells.

  The man in the balaclava froze as he was bathed in beams of light from the armed officers, and the knife fell to the floor.

  One of the team clicked handcuffs into place and shoved him into a sitting position.

  ‘What the hell took you so long?’ Salka yelled from where she lay on the floor, holding her arm.

  ‘Delay in the system,’ one of the team replied.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she called out, as one of the team reached to pull the balaclava from the man’s head.

  Salka hauled herself up and onto her knees, looking through the eyeholes and into the eyes that appeared almost black, and which she knew well.

  Salka looked down and shut her eyes for a moment.

  She opened them and stared into the man’s eyes.

  She pulled the balaclava off him.

 
; 37

  Salka sat at the desk in the interview room and switched on the recording. She hadn’t slept and could feel her fingertips were numb with fatigue. She took a deep breath and lowered her head, gazing into her lap for a long time, until she had summoned the courage at look at the man seated opposite her.

  ‘Did you manage to organise the fishing trip?’ she asked, and looked up.

  After a minute’s silence she continued.

  ‘You were certainly in a hurry to murder Gunnleifur. And you had everything you needed in your backpack. Tape, carpet knife, restraints, rope, overalls and whatnot. And you were ready to murder me, Magnús.’

  There was silence.

  'You were the one who jumped me in the garden behind Gunnleifur’s house the other night, weren’t you?’

  Magnús made no reply.

  ‘If I were to run my fingers through your hair, right there,’ she said, pointing. ‘I’d find a bump. Because you’re the one I cracked over the head with the flashlight.’

  Magnús inclined his head in a slight nod.

  ‘You didn’t fall while you were fishing. That video was acted out. You recorded it afterwards. Just to be sure. Helgi managed to give you a scratch with the knife he had in his hand when you attacked him in the hall at his house.’

  ‘You know what this is?’ she asked, placing a small bag on the table in front of him.

  He looked at it and shook his head.

  ‘It’s dog hair. We haven’t checked yet, but I know perfectly well it’ll match Húbert. And guess where I found this? I can’t hear what you’re saying,’ she said as Magnús mumbled something.

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is from the tread-less shoes you were wearing at Gunnleifur’s house. This was in a crack at the toe of one shoe. Look at me, Magnús. It’s the least you can do,’ she said, as he continued to avoid looking her in the eye.

  ‘Why did you murder Hróbjartur and Helgi? And Skúli? You murdered him as well, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I murdered him,’ Magnús said, looking up. ‘And Hróbjartur and Helgi.’

  ‘Why Skúli?’

  ‘He would have blabbed.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘No. He didn’t know me. I knew through my work that he was caught up in with Hróbjartur’s and Helgi’s network. He was the enabler. He caught young boys in their net.’

  ‘So how did your paths cross?’

  ‘He appeared unexpectedly in the church, with that mutt of his making a racket.’

  ‘You had already murdered Hróbjartur?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the summer house. I took the body to the church, and then Skúli turned up.’

  ‘Did he see your face, or was it covered?’

  ‘I didn’t have the balaclava on when he turned up, but then I pulled it on. I don’t know if he saw my face. I asked, of course. He said he hadn’t seen anything. I’m sure he lied. We talked and I let him handle the knife. He said he hated Hróbjartur. He stabbed the body.’

  ‘Did he do that on his own initiative?’

  ‘I encouraged him. Told him he’d feel better. That made him guilty as well. I wanted to ensure he would keep quiet, in case he had seen me. His fingerprints were on the knife, and I also used it for Helgi,’ he said, and fell silent.

  ‘Go on,’ Salka said gently.

  ‘I threatened him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Said I’d use the knife to prove he was the guilty one, and that I could harm his family. Then he attacked me, but he didn’t have much of a chance, and I smacked him in the eye with the handle of the knife. How about taking these off?’ he said, lifting his cuffed hands.

  ‘Why did you want to meet him by the dock in Grenivík?’ Salka asked, as if she hadn’t heard his question.

  ‘I kept wondering if he’d seen my face. Couldn’t get it out of my mind. I wanted to make sure he knew I meant it. I told him I’d kill his mother, and reminded him of that. Then he flared up and was going to attack me. It was an accident. He shouldn’t have died. I was just going to frighten him into keeping quiet,’ Magnús said, his eyes dropping to the floor.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Salka said.

  ‘What?’ Magnús said, eyes on her.

  ‘I suspect that you went to the dock intending to murder him.’

  Magnús made no reply.

  ‘But why murder Hróbjartur and Helgi? What had these men done to you that was so terrible that they deserved such cruelty?’

  Magnús said nothing.

  ‘I have a couple of pictures here, Magnús,’ Salka said, conscious of how painful it was to speak his name out loud. ‘I’d like you to look at these with me,’ she continued, placing them on the table. ‘This is a wedding photo. Anton’s parents. Did you know them?’

  There was no response.

  ‘This picture here,’ she said, placing the next one on the table. ‘It’s clearly taken at some occasion. That’s Anton’s parents here at the front, but you see the people here in the background? Recognise them? Look at the picture, Magnús,’ she snapped, and he jumped.

  He looked up, and at the picture.

  ‘Do you recognise these people? These are your parents,’ she continued when he said nothing. ‘I saw the picture at your home, with you between them. How come they’re in this picture?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘What about this?’ She placed in front of him a photocopy of the newspaper item she had found in the drawer at his house. ‘There’s a house here that’s in flames. This is the place that went up not far from your place in Hrafnagil. The picture is of the couple who lost their lives in the fire. Anton’s parents, weren’t they?’

  Salka stood up, went to the window and looked out.

  ‘Magnús,’ she said when she had sat down again. ‘You have to give me some answers. Anton’s parents. And this is Anton,’ she said, snapping the picture of him onto the table. ‘Look at him, Magnús. That’s Anton. Tell me about him.’

  ‘He’s my brother,’ he said, his voice loud, and Salka was taken aback to see his face flushed and furious. ‘He’s my twin.’

  Salka leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. She felt a surge of relief that hid a great burden. She wondered if the relief was for Magnús having said those words out loud.

  ‘Tell me about Anton,’ Salka said quietly, and poured water into a glass for him. She stood up, unlocked the handcuffs and placed them on the table.

  He sipped water and rubbed his wrists.

  ‘I never knew him. I only found out seven years ago that we were brothers. That was long after his disappearance. I was looking into family affairs and found that our fathers, or rather, our adoptive fathers, were closely related. I couldn’t ask my parents about anything as they were both dead.’

  ‘How did they die?’

  ‘They went quite close together. Dad had Parkinson's and my mother had a heart attack. Mum had been very ill. She tried to tell me something just before the end, but I didn’t understand what she was driving at. In fact, after that I started digging through this and found that our fathers had adopted us through a not entirely legal process. Hróbjartur and Gunnleifur arranged this through some network of friends and contacts. Our mother had been seriously unwell, locked away in an institution and had no family to speak of. It was unbelievable how all this was allowed to be discreetly rubber-stamped. But isn’t that how so many things get done here in Iceland? It’s about knowing the right people, having authority behind you,’ he said and fell silent.

  ‘What were you able to find out?’

  ‘That Anton’s adoptive father was a complete bastard. He had a dreadful upbringing. I spoke to any number of people who all told the same disgusting tales of violence, and the booze and drugs in that household. The worst of it was that they practically sold my brother. To this and that pervert. At a certain point these God-fearing men became part of the picture. His parents didn’t care what they got up to, because th
ese men gave them money. As long as they could fund their habit, they didn’t care what Anton had to suffer.’

  ‘What about the fire?’

  ‘I made sure they had a bunch of pills and burned the place to the ground,’ Magnús said, and he seemed to shrivel up in front of her, as his tears flowed.

  For a second it occurred to Salka to go to him, to take him in her arms. She stayed where she was.

  ‘I ran into them a few times,’ he said as he seemed to recover himself. ‘Gave them some booze and some of the dope I managed to filch every time we nabbed some small-time dope baron. At a certain point they forgot who they were talking to, and told the whole story. They said it started when he was five.’

  The tears continued to roll down Magnús’s cheeks.

  Salka sat in silence. She was struggling to hold back tears of her own.

  ‘There were two respected citizens here in the town who also abused Anton,’ he said. Wiping his eyes and coughing. ‘If those two hadn’t been six feet under long ago, I’d have finished them off as well. I made a point of going one night to the graveyard and pissed on the grave of one of them,’ he said with a shadow of a smile. ‘After that I took the decision that I was simply going to murder these men. I often wondered what would have happened if I had found myself in their hands. I had wonderful parents who gave me love and warmth. But I could just as easily have ended up with those people. I can’t imagine that it was anything but coincidence that dictated where each of us finished up. All the same, I can’t help thinking that my parents must have known of my brother’s circumstances but did nothing. That picture… the one you showed me of that gathering. I found out that they had managed to get together somehow at some point and we played together for a while, Anton and me. Just think… We met as small children. I can’t forgive my parents for not taking a stand. In that respect, they were no better than Anton’s family. I didn’t feel the slightest sympathy when I watched the place burn down around them, and I watched it from a safe distance. I knew they were in there and the flames were licking at them. I wanted to hear their screams, but the roaring of the flames drowned that out,’ he said, and looked into Salka’s eyes. ‘You must hate me, Salka.’