Voices de-5

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Eva Lind saw him stop and fish under the pipe to fetch something that had caught his attention. He got to his feet, walked over to her and showed her what he had found.

  “At first I thought it was rat droppings,” he said, holding up a little brown lump between his fingers.

  “What is it?” Eva Lind asked.

  “It’s a gauze,” Erlendur said.

  “A gauze?”

  “Yes, containing chewing tobacco that you put under your lip. Someone has thrown away or spat out his chewing tobacco here in this corridor.”

  “But who? Who could have been in this corridor?”

  Erlendur looked at Eva Lind.

  “Someone who’s a bigger tart than I am,” he said.

  CHRISTMAS EVE

  30

  He found out that Osp was working on the floor above his room, and he went up the stairs after having coffee and toast from the breakfast buffet.

  He contacted Sigurdur Oli about some information he needed him to gather and phoned Elinborg to find out whether she had remembered to question the woman Stefania claimed to have met at the hotel when she was captured on the security camera. Elinborg had gone out and did not answer her mobile.

  Erlendur had lain awake in bed until almost morning, in pitch darkness. When he finally got up he looked out of the hotel window. It would be a white Christmas this year. The snow was setting in seriously. He could see it in the light from the lamp posts. Thick snow fell into the light they shed and formed a kind of backdrop for Christmas Eve.

  Eva Lind had said goodbye to him in the basement corridor. She was going to meet him at home that evening. They were going to boil some smoked lamb and when he woke up he started wondering what to give her for Christmas. He had given her small presents after she began spending Christmas with him and she had given him socks, which she admitted she had stolen, and once a pair of gloves, which she said she had bought and he soon lost. She never asked about them. Perhaps the aspect of his daughter’s character that he liked most was that she never asked about anything unless it mattered.

  Sigurdur Oli called him with the information. It wasn’t much, but enough to go on. Erlendur didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but thought his hypothesis was worth putting to the test.

  He watched her working on her hotel floor as before, until she noticed him. She did not show any particular surprise at seeing him.

  “Are you up?” she said, as if he was the laziest guest at the hotel.

  “It took me ages to get to sleep,” he said. “Actually I was thinking about you all night.”

  “Me?” Osp said, putting a heap of towels into a laundry basket. “Nothing dirty, I hope. I’ve had enough of dirty old men at this hotel.”

  “No,” Erlendur said. “Nothing dirty”

  “Fatso asked me if I’d been grassing to you, telling you shit. And the chef shouted at me like I was stealing from his buffet. They knew we’d been talking.”

  “Everyone knows more or less everything about everyone else at this hotel,” Erlendur said. “But they never really say anything about anyone. Such people are very difficult to deal with. Like you, for example.”

  “Me?” Osp went into the room she was cleaning and Erlendur followed her inside as he had done before.

  “You tell me everything and I believe every word because you create an honest and truthful impression, but actually you’re only telling a fraction of what you know, which is also a lie of sorts. No less serious for us, the police. That sort of lie. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  Osp did not reply. She was busy changing the beds. Erlendur watched her. He couldn’t read what she was thinking. She acted as if he wasn’t in the room. As if she could shake him off if she just pretended he was not there.

  “For example, you didn’t tell me that you have a brother” Erlendur said.

  “Why should I tell you that?”

  “Because he’s in trouble.”

  “He’s not in any trouble.”

  “Not with me, he’s not,” Erlendur said. “I haven’t got him into trouble. But he is in trouble and he sometimes goes to his sister for help when he needs it.”

  “I don’t get you,” Osp said.

  “I’ll tell you. He’s been in prison twice, not long stretches, for burglary and theft. Some of it has been found out, other things doubtless haven’t, that’s the way it goes. These are typical petty offences by a small-time criminal. Typical crimes by a junkie who’s in debt. He’s on the most expensive stuff now and never has enough money. But dealers don’t do things by halves. They’ve caught him more than once and beaten him up. Once they threatened to kneecap him. So he needs to do odd jobs besides stealing to buy his drugs. To cover his debts”

  Osp put down the linen.

  “He has various recourses for financing his habit,” Erlendur said. “You probably know that. Like all those kids do. Kids who are hopeless junkies”

  Osp remained silent.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Did Stina tell you this?” Osp said. “I saw her here yesterday. I’ve often seen her here and if anyone’s a tart it’s her.”

  “She didn’t tell me any of this,” Erlendur said, not allowing Osp to change the subject. “It wasn’t long ago your brother was in the corridor where Gudlaugur was living. He could even have been there since the murder. He may have been there very recently. His smell’s still mere, for those who recognise it. For people who smoke hash and use speed and cook heroin.”

  Osp stared at him. Erlendur didn’t have much to work on when he went to see her. Only the fact that the alcove was spotlessly clean, but he could tell from her reaction that what he was saying was not so wide of the mark. He wondered whether to take an even greater gamble. After deliberating for a while, he decided to give it a shot.

  “We found his chewing tobacco too,” Erlendur said. “Has he been using that for long?”

  Osp was still staring at him without saying a word. Finally she looked down at the bed. Took a long look, until she seemed to resign herself.

  “Since he was fifteen,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  He waited for her to go on, but she added nothing and they stood facing each other in the hotel room, and Erlendur allowed the silence to reign for a while. In the end Osp sighed and sat down on the bed.

  “He’s always broke,” she said softly. “Owes everyone money. All the time. And then they threaten him and beat him up, but he still keeps on and his debts mount up. Sometimes he gets money and can pay part of it off. Mum and Dad gave up on him ages ago. Threw him out when he was seventeen. They sent him to rehab and he ran away. He didn’t come home for a week or so and they put a missing persons announcement in the papers. He didn’t give a shit. He’s been dossing around ever since. I’m the only one in the family who keeps in touch with him. Sometimes I let him into the basement in the winter. He’s slept in the alcove when he needs to hide. I’ve banned him from having drugs down there but I can’t control him either. No one has any control over him.”

  “Have you given him money? To pay off those debts?”

  “Sometimes, but it’s never enough. They’ve been round to Mum and Dad threatening blue murder and they smashed Dad’s car in, so now they’re paying to try to get the thugs off their backs, but it’s just so much. They charge ridiculous interest on those debts and when they talk to the police, guys like you, the cops say they can’t do anything because it’s only threats, and apparently it’s OK to threaten people.”

  She looked at Erlendur.

  “If they kill Dad, maybe you’ll look into the matter.”

  “Did your brother know Gudlaugur? They must have known about each other. From the basement”

  “They knew each other,” Osp said gloomily.

  “How?”

  “Gulli paid him for…” Osp stopped.

  “For what?”

  “Favours he did.”

  “Sexual favours?”

  “Yes, s
exual favours”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My brother told me.”

  “Was he with Gudlaugur that afternoon?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for days, not since …” She stopped. “I haven’t seen him since Gudlaugur was stabbed,” she then said. “He hasn’t been in touch.”

  “I think he may have been in the corridor not so long ago. Since Gudlaugur’s murder.”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Do you think he attacked Gudlaugur?”

  “I don’t know,” Osp said. “All I know is that he’s never attacked anyone. And he’s constantly on the run and he must be on the run now because of this, even though he didn’t do anything. He could never hurt anyone.”

  And you don’t know where he is now?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Do you know whether he knew that British man I mentioned to you. Henry Wapshott? The one with the child pornography”

  “No, he didn’t know him. I don’t think so anyway. What are you asking that for?”

  “Is he gay? Your brother?”

  Osp looked at him.

  “I know he does anything for money,” she said. “But I don’t think he’s gay”

  “Will you tell him I want to talk to him. If he noticed anything in the basement I need to speak to him about it. I also need to ask him about his relationship with Gudlaugur. I need to know whether he saw him the day he was murdered. Will you do that for me? Tell him I need to talk to him?”

  “Do you think he did it? Killed Gudlaugur?”

  “I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “If I don’t hear from him very soon I’ll have to declare him wanted for questioning.”

  Osp showed no reaction.

  “Did you know that Gudlaugur was gay?” he asked.

  Osp looked up.

  “Judging from what my brother said he seems to have been. And judging from what he paid my brother for being with him …”

  Osp stopped.

  “Did you know that Gudlaugur was dead when you were asked to go and fetch him?” Erlendur asked.

  She looked at him.

  “No, I didn’t know. Don’t try to pin this on me. Is that what you’re trying to do? Do you reckon I killed him?”

  “You didn’t tell me about your brother in the basement”

  “He’s always in trouble but I know he didn’t do that. I know he could never do anything like that. Never.”

  “You two must be close, the way you take care of him.”

  “We’ve always been good friends,” Osp said as she stood up. “I’ll talk to him if he gets in touch. Tell him you need to meet him in case he knows anything about what happened.”

  With a nod, Erlendur said he would be at the hotel for most of the day and she could always find him there.

  “It has to happen right away, Osp,” he said.

  31

  When Erlendur went back down to the lobby he noticed Elinborg at the reception desk. The head of reception pointed towards him and Elinborg turned round. She was looking for him and walked over briskly wearing a concerned expression that Erlendur seldom saw.

  “Is something the matter?” he asked as she approached.

  “Can we sit down somewhere?” she said. “Is the bar open yet? God, what a pathetic job this is! I don’t know why I bother.”

  “What’s up?” Erlendur asked, taking her by the arm and leading her to the bar. The door was closed but not locked, and they went inside. Although the room was open, the bar itself seemed to be closed. Erlendur saw a sign saying it would not open for another hour. They sat down in one of the booths.

  “And my Christmas is being ruined,” Elinborg said. “I’ve never done so little baking. And all the in-laws are coming tonight and—”

  “Tell me what happened,” Erlendur said.

  “What a cock-up,” Elinborg said. “I don’t understand him. I simply don’t understand him.”

  “Who?”

  “The boy!” Elinborg said. “I don’t understand what he means”

  She told Erlendur that, instead of going home and baking cookies the previous evening, she had dropped in at Kleppur mental hospital. Exactly why she did not know, but she couldn’t get the case of the boy and his father out of her mind. When Erlendur chipped in that she may just have had enough of baking for her in-laws, she didn’t even smile.

  She had been to the mental hospital once before to try to talk to the boy’s mother, but the woman was so ill then that she hardly uttered a word of sense. The same happened again on this second visit. His mother sat rocking back and forth, in a world of her own. Elinborg wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to hear her say, but thought she might know something about the relationship between the father and the son that had not yet come to light.

  She knew that his mother would only be in hospital temporarily. She was admitted intermittently, when she went through a phase of flushing her psychiatric medication down the toilet. When she took her pills she was generally in reasonable condition. She took good care of their home. When Elinborg mentioned the boy’s mother to his teachers, they also said she seemed to look after him well.

  Elinborg sat in the hospital lounge where the nurse had brought the boy’s mother, and watched her twiddling her hair around her index finger, muttering something Elinborg could not make out. She tried to talk to her but the mother seemed to be miles away. Offered no response to her questions. It was as though she was sleepwalking.

  After sitting with her for a while, Elinborg started thinking about all the assortments of cookies that she still had to bake. She stood up to fetch someone to take the woman back to the ward and found a warder in the corridor. He was about thirty and looked like a bodybuilder. He was wearing white trousers and a white T-shirt, and his strong biceps rippled with every movement of his body. His hair was crewcut and he had a round, chubby face with little eyes sunk deep into his head. Elinborg didn’t ask his name.

  He followed her into the lounge.

  “Oh, it’s old Dora,” the warder said, walking over and taking the woman by the arm. “You’re pretty quiet tonight”

  The woman stood up, just as confused as ever.

  “Stoned out of your tree again, are you, old girl,” the warder said in a tone that Elinborg disliked. It was like he was talking to a five-year-old. And what did he mean by saying she was pretty quiet tonight? Elinborg couldn’t hold herself back.

  “Will you stop talking to her like a little kid,” she said, more brashly than she had intended.

  The warder looked at her.

  “Is that any of your business?” he said.

  “She’s entitled to be treated with respect just like everyone else,” Elinborg said, but desisted from saying she was from the police.

  “Maybe she is,” the warder said. “And I don’t think I’m treating her disrespectfully. Come on, Dora,” he went on, leading her out into the corridor.

  Elinborg followed close behind.

  “What did you mean when you said she’s pretty quiet tonight?”

  “Quiet tonight?” the warder repeated, turning his head towards Elinborg.

  “You said she was pretty quiet tonight,” Elinborg said. “Wasn’t she supposed to be?”

  “I sometimes call her the Fugitive,” the warder said. “She’s always on the run.”

  Elinborg didn’t follow.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Haven’t you seen the movie?” the warder asked.

  “Does she escape?” Elinborg said. “From this hospital?”

  “Or when we take them on trips into town,” the warder said. “She ran away the last time we went. We were shitting bricks when you found her at the bus station and brought her back here to the ward. You didn’t treat her with much respect then.”

  “I found her?”

  “I know you’re from the cops. The cops literally threw her at us.”

  “What day was this?”

&nb
sp; He thought about it. He had been accompanying her and two other patients when she slipped away. They were on Laekjartorg square at the time. He remembered the date well, it was the same day that he set his personal best on the bench press.

  The date matched that of the attack on the boy.

  “Wasn’t her husband informed when she ran away from you?” Elinborg asked.

  “We were about to phone him when you found her. We always give them a few hours to come back. Otherwise we’d spend all our time on the phone.”

  “Does her husband know that you call her that? The Fugitive.”

  “We don’t call her that. It’s only me. He doesn’t know.”

  “Does he know that she runs away?”

  “I haven’t told him. She always comes back.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Elinborg said.

  “When she comes in here she has to be drugged right up to stop her running off,” the warder said.

  “This changes everything!”

  “Come on, Dora old girl,” the warder said, and the door to the ward closed behind him.

  Elinborg stared at Erlendur.

  “I was positive it was him. The father. Now she could have run away, gone home, assaulted the boy and hopped back out. If only the boy would open his mouth!”

  “Why should she assault her son?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Elinborg said. “Maybe she hears voices”

  “And the broken fingers and bruises? All that over the years? Is it always her then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you spoken to the father?”

  “I’ve just come from seeing him.”

  “And?”

  “Naturally, we’re not the best of friends. He hasn’t been allowed to see the boy since we burst into their home and turned everything upside-down. He showered me with abuse and—”

  “Did he say anything about his wife, the boy’s mother?” Erlendur butted in impatiently. “He must have suspected her.”

  “And the boy hasn’t said a thing,” Elinborg continued.

  “Except that he misses his father,” Erlendur said.