‘Besides, he’s ideal for the job. His ankle’s killing him, remember?’ Huldar lied smoothly.
Erla pursed her lips. ‘I suppose we could get away with that. But if—’
‘Understood.’ Huldar quickly changed the subject before she could have second thoughts. ‘Did Lína tell you what she’s found out about the area from the police database?’
Erla sighed and tutted. ‘Yes, she did. I don’t know what to say. We’re so short-staffed, we need to focus on the here and now. “Friends of the Lava”?’ Her face suddenly split into a grin. ‘Seriously? What the fuck?’
‘Yeah, I’m with you on that one. But what about the bodies washed up there? There could be a connection.’
‘I took a quick look at the cases and I have to say I’d be surprised. No one flagged them as suspicious at the time and I can’t see how they could have anything to do with Helgi’s murder. We could ask his parents if he knew any of the people involved but, if not, there’s no point wasting any more time pursuing that angle.’ Erla glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Speaking of which, I’m due to meet them now. You’d better come along.’
Huldar refused coffee for the fourth time since they’d arrived at the home of Helgi Fridriksson’s parents. Erla followed suit. It was the mother: whenever a silence fell between questions, she’d jump in with the offer of coffee. She was staring at them unseeingly, too distraught to take anything in – all the lights on but nobody home. ‘Are you sure? Quite sure?’
‘Quite sure, thank you.’ Huldar summoned up the same polite smile with which he had refused all her previous offers. Erla didn’t say anything.
The four of them were sitting in the living room. Fridrik, Helgi’s father, was an engineer and his mother, Thórhildur, a kindergarten teacher. They were both visibly shattered: her eyes were puffy with weeping; his hair was sticking up in tufts, his cheeks covered with grey stubble. Their home appeared very ordinary, showing signs of neither affluence nor poverty – except in the living room. Huldar and Erla were perched on a singularly uncomfortable leather sofa that had evidently been designed to please the eye rather than the backside. The couple sat facing them in matching chairs that looked no more forgiving. The furniture didn’t seem suited to them, any more than the other stuff in the room, which bore the signs of having been chosen by a much younger person, particularly the kitschy cartoon-like paintings. Huldar was convinced Helgi must have been responsible for those. And there was no question that he had been behind the fantastically expensive music system gathering dust in the corner, with incongruously large speakers, out of all proportion to the modest-sized room.
From what Huldar and Erla had seen so far, the rest of the house couldn’t have shown a greater contrast to this decor. It reminded Huldar of his parents’ place; they were the same sort of generation. He had spotted a glass cabinet in the dining room containing wine glasses and tasteless figurines that would no doubt end up in a charity shop once the couple were no more. The walls were hung with a few small landscapes and a calendar displaying a long-passed month. Framed photographs, vases and pointless bowls were arranged on the sideboard and shelves; a lifetime’s accumulated tat.
Huldar forced his gaze back to the grieving couple, but it kept straying to the music system in the corner. It was a strain to concentrate when all he wanted to do was go over there, put on some music and crank up the volume full blast.
The couple had supplied them with the names of the friends they believed Helgi had been planning to meet on Saturday evening. Erla had jotted them down: Thormar and, in the case of Gunnar and Tómas, their nicknames, Gunni and Tommi, which seemed to come more naturally to Helgi’s parents. They were all old school friends of Helgi’s, who had stuck together over the years. Helgi had eaten lunch with his parents on Friday – a good, traditional Icelandic meal of rice pudding served with steamed rye bread. Helgi’s father gently stopped his wife when she started itemising everything her son had put on his bread. They hadn’t seen or heard from him since, though Thórhildur hastened to add that this wasn’t unusual. Several days often passed without their being in touch. This was because he was so busy, she explained. If he wasn’t on business trips abroad, he was dealing with clients here at home. The couple were under the impression that he spent as much time abroad as he did in Iceland. For example, when he came round for lunch he had just returned from a week-long trip to New York. They disagreed about whether he had got home that Friday morning or early the day before. Although the information was unlikely to be of any relevance, Erla noted it down.
Apart from this, the conversation hadn’t provided much new information. In between breaking down in tears, Helgi’s parents had simply confirmed what the police had already discovered, though they were able to add a few personal insights that couldn’t have been found online or from a computer database. The descriptions rang true when they related to Helgi’s childhood but became less plausible when they touched on his adult career. No wonder – their son had left home and gone abroad straight after school, just on the cusp of adulthood.
They were able to give detailed accounts of Helgi’s friendships during his teenage years, and the three men he’d met on Saturday evening loomed large in these. The stories all revolved around what a good, handsome, intelligent boy their son had been and how he had excelled in every arena, both academically and socially. If anything, the couple seemed to feel that his friends hadn’t been his intellectual equals, and on the handful of occasions when Helgi had gone off the rails, the parents were inclined to blame them. They drank too much, smoked, played computer games and skived off school, dragging Helgi down with them. His youthful indiscretions were so trivial that Huldar wondered why on earth his parents would think they were even remotely relevant to the inquiry, until, belatedly, he realised that the couple simply couldn’t bring themselves to talk about the present. The past was neutral ground where nothing really bad had happened and any problems had been solved.
The parents had brought out their old photo albums, which were now spread over the coffee table or on Erla’s and Huldar’s laps. Neither of them had the slightest interest in seeing pictures of Helgi growing up but, suppressing their impatience, they accepted one album after another and tried to smile from time to time as they turned the pages of photos showing a boy with a gappy grin and later with braces on his teeth. Many also featured Leifur, the younger brother, either on his own or with Helgi. The pictures seemed mainly to have been taken on special occasions, like Christmas, birthdays and summer holidays, as was common in the days before smartphones; before all occasions became of equal importance.
‘How did the brothers get along?’ Huldar looked up from a photo of Helgi and Leifur sitting on a sofa, beaming from ear to ear. Both had Christmas presents in their laps and were clearly itching to tear off the wrapping paper as soon as the picture had been taken.
‘Helgi and Leifur, you mean?’ Fridrik’s question was redundant. Which other brothers could Huldar be talking about? He nodded and the man continued: ‘Well, badly and everything in between. They used to fall out sometimes, especially when Helgi hit adolescence. Leifur used to really get on his nerves because he was still a child. But their relationship improved later. They’re … they were … very different types, and they probably wouldn’t have had much to do with each other if they hadn’t been brothers. But ultimately they got on all right despite their differences, as siblings usually do.’
‘Where’s Leifur now? Is he in the country?’
The couple exchanged glances, their grief giving way to anger. The wife answered first. ‘Don’t go thinking that Leifur had anything to do with it. That’s so ridiculous it might make me refuse to tell you where he is. The last thing he needs is for you to start harassing him with absurd suspicions.’
‘I assure you, that’s not our intention. We simply want to talk to him. It’s possible that Helgi confided in him about things he didn’t share with you. That’s all we’re interested in. For now.’ Erla lowered h
er voice towards the end of this speech, so the final words were barely audible.
The sadness returned to the couple’s faces. ‘Of course Leifur’s in the country. Where else would he be?’ The woman’s hand darted up to wipe her eyes, then fell back into her lap. ‘He doesn’t go abroad much. He’s a sports teacher and can’t get away during term time. And even if he had been away, he’d have caught the first plane home. He wouldn’t have stayed away when something like this happened.’
‘No, of course not.’ Erla and Huldar both turned their attention back to the photo albums. They would get Leifur’s phone number and address at the end of the visit but it was clearly better to back off for the moment.
The album on Huldar’s knee was full of pictures from Helgi’s sixth-form days. Since these were more recent, he no longer had to fake an interest. Huldar asked Helgi’s mother to point out the friends who’d been with her son on Saturday evening and she seemed relieved at being asked to do something that didn’t require too much of her. Meanwhile, Erla was stuck irritably flicking through an album containing pictures of Helgi as a three-year-old and Leifur as a newborn baby.
A weathered finger with a dark-red nail picked out the adolescent faces of the three boys, one after the other – Gunni, Tommi and Thormar. Still childishly gangly and awkward.
‘Is any of them a carpenter, by any chance?’ Huldar asked, thinking of the nail gun and the plank that had served as a gallows. Helgi’s parents shook their heads, puzzled. When Huldar followed this up by enquiring if any of them were good with their hands, Helgi’s father smiled and said quite the opposite. Huldar quickly returned to studying the pictures, to forestall any questions about why he wanted to know.
As he turned the pages full of photos of almost indistinguishable teenagers, Huldar recognised the type: ordinary, rather geeky boys, holding zero attraction for the opposite sex. The poor kids looked as if they knew it, too, all except the one Helgi’s mother had identified as Gunni. He appeared to have the most self-confidence, and wore trendier clothes than his mates. Plainly the cool guy in the group.
At the other end of the spectrum was Tommi, the smallest, who always looked ready to melt into the background. Perhaps he’d been desperately hoping for a growth spurt and didn’t want to be caught on film until he had. Helgi and Thormar looked so alike that Huldar found himself mixing them up. Similar colouring, similar height, wearing their fringes over their eyes in a vain attempt to hide the acne on their foreheads.
Girls rarely featured and when they did it tended to be in class pictures taken by a professional photographer or in photos from school socials. In the latter the girls were always in the background, never beside Helgi or his mates.
‘Did Helgi ever go out with any of these girls?’ Huldar turned the album, open at one of the class pictures, to Thórhildur.
‘No. He wasn’t interested. He didn’t have a very high opinion of them.’
Huldar couldn’t see anything wrong with the girls smiling into the camera. They looked attractive enough. He suspected that Helgi and his friends had fancied the girls but their feelings hadn’t been reciprocated. But perhaps he was wrong. He glanced up. ‘Was your son by any chance gay?’
The couple seemed more in tune with the times than Huldar’s colleagues since they didn’t appear remotely fazed or affronted by the question. Thórhildur’s reply sounded perfectly genuine: ‘No. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t. He’d have had no reason to hide it from us if he was, but he never mentioned it.’
Huldar and Erla turned back to the albums but nothing they saw was likely to further the investigation. Erla had less patience than Huldar with the grieving parents’ reminiscences. She wasn’t here in the role of counsellor. When Thórhildur took out yet another album, Erla said rather curtly: ‘I think it’s pretty clear that your son’s early years aren’t going to help solve the case. I’m sorry to dismiss the photo albums, but could you tell us about something more recent, like any relationships he’s had in the last few years?’
Huldar smiled apologetically and tried to soften this by adding: ‘We believe the killer had some connection to Helgi. We also think he may have had a grudge against your son. But it’s highly unlikely to have had anything to do with his school days. One possibility is that Helgi had a girlfriend, or had been seeing a woman, with a jealous ex or a stalker.’
Fridrik answered as soon as Huldar had finished, glancing at his wife as he did so, as if to check her reaction. Her mouth was shut in a tight line, apparently in offence at Erla’s brusqueness. ‘Helgi wasn’t in a relationship. Not recently. Not that we know of. He used to take women out when he came home on visits, while he was still living abroad, and after he moved back to Iceland too, but it was never the same woman. He hadn’t settled down yet – and now he never will.’
Erla muscled in, as if afraid this last comment would trigger another flood of tears. ‘Did you meet them or did he tell you about them? You don’t happen to know any of their names?’
The couple looked oddly embarrassed. ‘No, actually. He never discussed his love life with us,’ Thórhildur said. ‘After he left home, we used to see pictures on his friends’ Facebook pages of Helgi out on the town. Sometimes with women. But the relationships weren’t serious, as far as I know. At least, he never introduced us to any of them.’ She flashed a look of appeal at her husband, in case he could add anything.
But clearly he could only agree with his wife. ‘He didn’t discuss his love life with me or his mother. Don’t get me wrong – we had a good relationship with him. Both when he was living in America and after he moved home. It’s just that we never discussed his private life.’
At this point Huldar felt compelled to chip in, to help dispel their embarrassment. ‘I can understand that. I don’t discuss my love life with my mum and dad either.’ He stopped short of saying that it would probably finish them off if he did. ‘I think that’s quite common. In any case, I’m sure we can trace some of the women from the Facebook pages you mentioned, or maybe his friends can help. So don’t worry.’ Seeing the couple’s relief, Huldar asked: ‘Did Helgi stay with you when he was visiting from New York? Before he moved home for good, I mean.’
Thórhildur smiled. ‘No, he didn’t. He had a flat here.’
Huldar nodded. Of course the man hadn’t camped on his parents’ sofabed as he himself was forced to do whenever he visited his family out east. It was a pity, though; if Helgi had stayed at home, his parents might know more about his life. ‘So, as far as you know, there hadn’t been any trouble over a woman recently? Nothing you noticed from his behaviour, even if he didn’t discuss it?’
When the couple said no, Huldar handed over to Erla again, who was quick to fire off the next question: ‘What about his business? Could someone have felt they’d been ripped off by him?’
‘No. Helgi wasn’t involved in the banking crisis. We’ve already told you that. He was working in America until last year.’
‘He went abroad with nothing and came back one of the richest men in Iceland,’ Erla went on. ‘We understand he made a packet out of creditors’ claims connected to the failed banks. There would probably have been domestic claims among those. He made a fortune – others lost out. While that sort of thing’s not necessarily dishonest, it doesn’t alter the fact that people are going to be sore about losing everything. Did he ever mention receiving threats or getting into disputes as a result?’
‘No. Never. But then he didn’t discuss money or his job with us. All we knew was that he was doing well. That was obvious.’
‘You haven’t heard any rumours – any complaints, for example? Like snide comments below pictures of him on social media?’
Huldar wondered if Erla had failed to notice that pretty much everything online attracted nasty comments. But the couple merely shook their heads. And no one had badmouthed their son in their hearing.
‘Do you know if your son knew or had any connection to a man called Dagur Didriksson, who died about eighteen years
ago? He’d just turned sixty at the time of his death.’
The couple shook their heads, looking mystified. ‘No, why do you ask?’
‘There are some angles we need to eliminate from our inquiries. If you could bear with us.’ They nodded and Huldar went on. ‘What about a young man by the name of Olgeir Magnússon, who drowned three years ago while swimming at Nauthólsvík? He was close to Helgi’s age – only a year younger.’
‘No, I don’t recognise the name.’ Helgi’s father looked enquiringly at his wife, who shook her head.
‘OK. What about a young woman called Maren Thórdardóttir? She died five years ago and was six years younger than Helgi.’ The parents’ answer was the same: no, they’d never heard of her. That left only one question. ‘I don’t suppose your son was ever involved with the Friends of the Lava?’
‘The Friends of the Lava?’ Incredulity briefly banished the grief from the couple’s faces. ‘You mean the people who were protesting against the road through the lava-field?’
‘Yes, them.’
‘No. Definitely not. Helgi was living abroad at the time and anyway I assure you he hadn’t the slightest interest in roads in Iceland.’ Helgi’s mother couldn’t have been more emphatic.
Erla jabbed Huldar hard in the thigh under cover of the photo album she was holding. He was glad he hadn’t mentioned eiderdown theft or possible links to the former prime minister, Bjarni Benediktsson, or she’d probably have bored a hole in his leg. Getting the message, he changed tack and slid the picture of Siggi across the table. ‘Do you recognise this boy?’
The couple bent over the picture, then raised their heads, looking uncomprehending. ‘No. Who is he?’
‘His name’s Siggi. Short for Sigurdur.’
‘It doesn’t ring any bells. Whose son is he?’
‘We don’t know. His mother goes by the nickname of Systa and his father’s known as Sibbi.’
The couple looked even more baffled – or at least Fridrik did. Thórhildur had picked up the photo and was studying it closely.
Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020) Page 11
