His voice broke as he tried to give force to this order, ending in another high-pitched shriek. Erlendur studied him, this pathetic human being, isolated, imprisoned, afraid, and experienced an odd sense of sympathy.
‘I’d like a proper chat with you about Dagbjört,’ he said. ‘We now know where she was going the morning she vanished and –’
‘Well, I have no interest in discussing that any further with you,’ said Rasmus. ‘You can just get out of here right now.’
‘– and we know the route she took,’ Erlendur continued stubbornly. ‘It wasn’t far and there weren’t many obstacles on the way and there’s every likelihood that she passed your house.’
‘I’m not listening to this,’ said Rasmus. ‘Please leave; I’m going upstairs and I hope I never have to see you again.’
He went to the stairs and had mounted two steps when Erlendur seized his arm and yanked him down again.
‘Stop it,’ said Erlendur sharply. ‘Wake up. It’s over. Finished. Tell me where she is.’
‘No,’ screamed Rasmus. ‘You’re using violence! I have nothing whatever to say to you. Nothing!’
‘Did she want you to stop spying on her? Was that why she came round? Did she threaten to report you? She saw you outside your house, didn’t she? What did you do? Wave to her? Call her over? Invite her in? Lure her inside?’
Erlendur still had hold of his arm but Rasmus had his head averted as if he couldn’t bear the relentless questioning or didn’t dare meet his eye. His body writhed as he tried to tear himself loose, break Erlendur’s grip, evade the merciless interrogation. Erlendur hung on tight, then realised that Rasmus had begun to cry. His body shook with silent sobs and he covered his face with his free hand, overcome with humiliation. Eventually he seemed to grow calmer and even rallied a little. He looked down at Erlendur’s hand which was still gripping his arm.
‘No one’s touched me in all the years since Mama died,’ he whispered.
‘What did you say?’
‘No one,’ breathed Rasmus. ‘No one’s touched me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Erlendur. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Rasmus. ‘You didn’t.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m all right,’ said Rasmus. ‘I’m all right now. Thank you for coming by. It’s a pity I wasn’t expecting guests. I don’t have anything to offer you.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Erlendur, ‘really, don’t worry about it.’ As on the last occasion, Rasmus seemed to have reverted, with disorientating suddenness, to the role of embarrassed host. He kept making excuses about having no refreshment to offer.
‘I ought to put on some coffee. It’s the very least I could do.’
‘Please don’t –’
‘No, hold me,’ said Rasmus urgently, sensing that Erlendur was about to release his arm. ‘Don’t let go of me. I … I want you to hold me.’
‘Is there somewhere we could sit down?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Do you want a glass of water? Can I get you some water?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Rasmus. ‘I want you to know I’m not a monster. I know that’s what you think, but I’m not. You must never talk to me like that. I’m a person like anyone else. Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? I haven’t always been like –’
‘Of course,’ said Erlendur. ‘I know you’ve had a tough time. You don’t have to tell me. All you need do is tell me about Dagbjört, then it’ll be over. I know you’ll feel better if you own up. I know that deep down that’s what you’ve been wanting all these years. For someone to come here and listen to you and understand what you did.’
‘Nobody understands me. Nobody. No one’ll ever be able to understand. Who I am. What kind of person I am. Nobody understands. Nobody.’
Rasmus ran two fingers over the back of Erlendur’s hand. They were almost fleshless, with long, yellow nails. They caressed his hand, then felt their way up his arm to his cheek. Erlendur didn’t dare move as Rasmus softly stroked his face with his bony fingers, his eyes brimming with tears.
‘I loved her,’ he whispered gently, then laid his own cheek on Erlendur’s chest. ‘I loved her so much. She was my girl. She’s always been my girl. You’re not taking her away from me. You can’t. No one can take her away from me.’
Erlendur stood dumbstruck, not daring to move, with Rasmus pressed to his chest, and listened to him rambling about the girl he loved. He was so thrown that he didn’t see as Rasmus’s fingers reached out to a large pair of scissors that lay on a shelf beside them, grasped them cautiously, then raised them and plunged them deep into Erlendur’s body.
51
Dagbjört hastily finished dressing, put her school books and pencils in her satchel, checked her pocket to make sure she had the money for Rósanna’s cousin with the funny name, then bounded downstairs. She grabbed a slice of toast in the kitchen, pulled on her coat, called goodbye to her mother who was engrossed in the newspaper, and flew out of the door. She didn’t want to be late for her meeting with Rósanna’s cousin. He wasn’t only going to sell her some records but give her a lift to school as well.
As she passed Rasmus’s house, she saw him standing at the front door, waving to her. It looked as if he needed help.
She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen him, so she went over and asked if everything was all right. She didn’t like Rasmus. On the rare occasions she had bumped into him in the street or the corner shop and stopped for a brief chat, his manner had struck her as oddly smarmy. And after this latest business she was going to give him an earful. His behaviour had upset and angered her, but she knew he had recently lost his mother, had few friends and was probably lonely, so she felt a little sorry for him. He and his mother had been very close. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t told anyone yet about him spying on her.
‘Could you help me a moment?’ asked Rasmus. ‘I’m in a spot of bother.’
He quickly closed the door behind her, then dithered, unsure how to begin, as they stood there in the hall, so she asked what the matter was and how she could help. She couldn’t stay long; she was in a hurry to get to school.
‘I wanted to talk to you about what you saw,’ he said, leading her along the hall towards the stairs. ‘When you … when I was in the window. It may not have been quite what you … you might have thought.’
‘Oh?’
‘No, I’m … it was a coincidence, I assure you. A complete coincidence.’
‘Why did you spy on me like that?’ asked Dagbjört.
‘It wasn’t really spying,’ said Rasmus apologetically. ‘I just want us to be friends. Good friends. I wasn’t doing anything nasty. I wouldn’t dream of it. Of doing anything nasty to you. Please believe me. It’s important you don’t think I’m … it’s important you …’
‘I have to get to school,’ said Dagbjört when it became evident that Rasmus didn’t know what he wanted to say or how to phrase it. ‘Did you want help or not?’
‘Yes, no, I … I thought … perhaps … you’d be my friend. I’ve been a bit lonely since Mother died and I was hoping we could … because we’re next-door neighbours and so on, and you’re so pretty, such a lovely person, I thought maybe we could be friends.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Oh, but –’
‘And I want you to stop spying on me,’ Dagbjört said in a harsh voice. ‘It’s disgusting. I’ve seen the curtain moving. And if you don’t stop, if I catch you doing it again, I’ll tell my dad and then you’ll have him to deal with.’
‘Your dad? You mean you haven’t told him … haven’t told anyone?’
‘No. But I will. If I see you there again I’m telling my dad.’
‘Dagbjört, dear,’ said Rasmus. ‘I don’t want you to leave while you’re angry. I don’t want you to be angry with me.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ repeated Dagbjört. ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’
‘Don’t be angry, darling.
My love. I can’t bear it.’
‘I’m not your love! I’m going to tell Dad … I’m going to tell him. How you –’
Dagbjört tried to return to the front door but Rasmus blocked her way.
‘You mustn’t.’
‘Get away from me!’ shouted Dagbjört.
‘You mustn’t leave here angry,’ said Rasmus, regarding her gravely. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone. You mustn’t …’
She tried to push him away but he resisted and shoved at her. Dagbjört lost her balance, fell backwards and as she landed her head hit the bottom stair. She was dazed by the blow. Rasmus seized her as she lay there on the floor and started banging her head again and again against the step.
‘You mustn’t leave … mustn’t … mustn’t leave …’
* * *
‘I thought surely someone must have seen me when I called her over so I waited in a panic for the police, but nothing happened. Nobody had noticed her come in here. I was asked lots of questions like everyone else in the street but said I didn’t know anything and unfortunately couldn’t help; I’d slept in that morning until lunchtime. When I told the police that they left me alone. I even took part in the search. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Right up until you came to the door and started pestering me with your questions and I couldn’t get rid of you. Came here uninvited, banging on all the doors and windows and insulting me. There’s no other word for it. You insulted me, like those hooligans who cornered me that time.’
Erlendur had been taken by complete surprise when Rasmus stabbed him with the scissors. Unable to defend himself, he had clutched at his belly and sunk to his knees, then toppled to the floor unconscious. When he came to, Rasmus was sitting on the floor beside him, telling him how he had called out to Dagbjört and how their subsequent conversation had led to her death. The scissors had penetrated Erlendur’s abdomen on the right-hand side and he could feel the blood seeping from the wound into his clothes. A searing pain ran up the whole of his side, accompanied by a paralysing weakness. He heard Rasmus talking to him in a soothing voice about his love for the girl and how it had never been his intention to hurt her.
‘Something came over me,’ he heard Rasmus say. ‘Something horrible. I don’t know what it was. Something came over me and I shoved her. Pushed her much too hard. Much too hard, you see. I completely lost control of myself and started banging her head on the stairs. I didn’t want her telling tales about me to her father or those friends of hers. Those sluts. I don’t know what came over me … but … but all of a sudden she was dead … when I came to my senses she was dead in my hands. So I picked her up and took her … I don’t know … I don’t know what to do with you.’
‘You’ve got to help me,’ said Erlendur, feeling his strength waning. ‘I’m bleeding to death. You can help me, Rasmus. And I’ll help you. You’re sick. You need help. Let me –’
‘I don’t need any help,’ said Rasmus. ‘That’s absurd. As if I needed any help. All I need is to be left in peace. That’s all I ask. Is it too much to ask, to be left in peace?’
‘Rasmus …’ Erlendur felt himself losing consciousness again.
‘I’d better check on her. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. Except here with us. Here with us everything’s just the way it always was. With us nothing’s changed.’
‘Rasmus …’
Erlendur blacked out and Rasmus stroked his head.
‘Wait here, my friend, I need to check on her a moment,’ he said and rose to his feet.
Erlendur didn’t know how much time had passed when he surfaced again, opened his eyes and looked around. It took him a while to work out where he was but finally it came back to him that he was lying wounded on the floor of Rasmus’s house; that he had been stabbed. He had been pressing his hand against the wound, trying as hard as he could to staunch the bleeding, and he kept up the pressure now that he had regained consciousness, clutching his hand to his aching side. Rasmus was nowhere to be seen but he couldn’t be far away. With a great effort Erlendur managed to raise his head, then sit up and prop himself against the wall while he mustered his strength. The bloodstained scissors lay on the floor and he reached out for them, then braced himself against the wall and somehow succeeded in levering himself to his feet.
He listened out for Rasmus but couldn’t hear so much as a cough or a groan anywhere in the house, only his own laboured breathing. He had to get out of here as soon as possible and call for help, but then he remembered that Rasmus had entered the hall from a door that presumably led to the garage. Erlendur wavered until curiosity overcame common sense. Taking a deep breath and clutching the scissors tight, he set off in the direction from which Rasmus had come.
Slowly he hobbled to the door. It was closed but not locked and he opened it cautiously. Inside was a laundry room. There was an old washing machine against one wall. A musty stench of dirty clothes. When he stepped inside, his hair brushed against washing lines fixed to the ceiling. There was a fuse box on one wall, with meters next to it. On the other side of the laundry was another door which stood a little ajar, admitting a strip of light from the garage.
Erlendur limped warily over and peered inside. A dim bulb hung from the ceiling. The floor space was almost entirely occupied by something covered in a thick, white tarpaulin. Erlendur went over and tugged clumsily at the cover, hampered by the scissors, until he managed to pull it off to reveal a classic American automobile that had once, long ago, been reversed into the garage. It was a two-door Chevrolet Deluxe, a 1948 model, bright green, and so lovingly cared for that it looked almost like new. The paintwork was polished, the windows shone, the chrome fittings gleamed and you could see your reflection in the hubcaps. On second glance, there was no air in the tyres and the rubber was cracked and perished, but in all other respects the car was a vision and one would have thought, from its appearance, that it was still in use.
Although gleaming and beautiful on the outside, inside the car was full of dust and dirt that hadn’t been disturbed for many years. Erlendur’s attention was drawn to a shapeless mass on the back seat. It was leaning against the window, covered in a yellowed blanket. He needed two hands to open the door as it was stiff and heavy and the hinges creaked as if it hadn’t been moved for a long time. He tipped the driver’s seat forward and reached into the back. Blood from his wound dripped into the interior as he stretched out his arm, grasped the blanket and jerked at it. He had to tug three times before it came away and fell to the floor of the car, stirring up a cloud of dust. He was confronted by a skeleton in old, rotten clothes. The skull, which was leaning towards him, had dead, dusty tufts of hair down to the shoulders, empty eye sockets and a jaw gaping in silent anguish.
Filled with sadness and horror at the sight, Erlendur failed to notice Rasmus materialise in the doorway behind him. But he heard him – as the other man emitted a screech and pounced on him, gripping him round the neck and trying to tear him out of the car. Finding the scissors still in his hand, Erlendur jabbed them into Rasmus’s thigh. He was rewarded with a cry of pain. Then Rasmus leapt onto his back and tightened his throttling grip until finally Erlendur managed to turn and, with the last of his strength, batter Rasmus against the door frame. He stabbed behind him with the scissors, heard Rasmus scream, and felt the grip on his throat slacken. Rasmus fell off his back, landing half inside the car. Erlendur grabbed his legs, pushed him into the front seat and slammed the door. Rasmus started frantically hammering and kicking at it and Erlendur, exhausted from the struggle, wondered how long he could hold the door against him. Casting round desperately for an implement, he seized a shovel and wedged it firmly between the car door and the wall. Rasmus tried to wind down the window but the handle broke off. He threw himself over at the passenger door but could only open it a crack because the car was parked close to the wall on that side. He rattled it madly like an animal in a cage, then, panicking, banged at the window on the driver’s side with his bare fists, weeping and shouting and hammering
until his delicate fingers were bloody, and the realisation finally sank in that he was trapped.
52
The funeral, which was held at the Fríkirkja church, was a simple affair, attended only by Dagbjört’s friends and remaining relatives. The unexpected revelation of her fate had, unsurprisingly, caused a sensation in the press but the reporters mostly stayed away from the church. The vicar spoke of being robbed of a young life in an incomprehensible manner, but avoided any other reference to the horrific crime and the ghastly scene that had confronted the police in Rasmus’s garage. A small female choir sang the funeral hymn ‘Just as the Flower Fades’. Dagbjört’s old school friends carried her coffin and weeping was heard from all sides over the tragic waste and loss.
Svava had invited Erlendur to attend. He had managed to crawl to the nearest house to raise the alarm before fainting again from loss of blood. He hadn’t woken up until noon next day. Marion told him they had found Rasmus locked in the car just as Erlendur had left him. He had put up no resistance and even asked if Erlendur was all right. The car turned out to have belonged to Rasmus’s mother; he didn’t have a licence so had never driven it himself. It had been taken off the register shortly after Mrs Kruse’s death and had remained in the garage ever since. Forensics had established that the body had in all probability been kept in the back seat from the beginning.
One of Erlendur’s first actions once he was feeling a little better, though still stuck in hospital, swathed in bandages, with an ache in his side, was to send someone round to see Svava and fill her in on the events of the last few days. He had needed an operation to repair the damage caused by the scissors but Erlendur was quick to recover and his strength was improving by the day. He was still in charge of the Dagbjört inquiry. Rasmus had been remanded in custody at Sídumúli Prison where he was undergoing psychiatric tests.
Once he was out of hospital, Erlendur went round to see Svava himself to tell her the whole story, explaining how he had picked up the trail as a result of exhaustive interviews with a number of people. He reported his encounter with Mensalder who had kept quiet all this time about his planned meeting with Dagbjört for fear of being implicated in her disappearance. It was unlikely that he could have saved the girl’s life by coming forward at once, but she would almost certainly have been found much earlier. Suspicion would immediately have fallen on Dagbjört’s nearest neighbours, including Rasmus. The man hadn’t attracted any attention at the time since there had been no reason to suppose that Dagbjört had died so close to home. He had been regarded as an eccentric recluse but not dangerous. He had nothing to do with his neighbours and they had nothing to do with him and so it remained.
Into Oblivion Page 26
