"We haven't got any money," Fjóla said.
"We don't keep money here," Birna said. "And we told him so."
"But he didn't believe us."
"And he attacked us."
"He was wild."
"And swore. The things he called us."
"In that horrible green jacket. Like a soldier."
"And wearing these sort of boots, heavy, black ones laced up his legs."
"But he didn't break anything."
"No, just ran away."
"Did he take anything?" Erlendur said.
"It was like he wasn't in his right mind," said Fjóla, who was trying as hard as she could to find some saving grace for her attacker. "He didn't break anything and he didn't take anything. Just attacked us when he realised he wouldn't get any money from us. Poor wretch."
"Stoned out of his mind more like," Birna spat out. "Poor wretch?" She turned to her sister. "Sometimes you can be a real dimwit. He was stoned out of his mind. You could tell from his eyes. Harsh, glazed eyes. And he was sweating."
"Sweating?" Erlendur said.
"It was running down his face. The sweat."
"That was the rain," Fjóla said.
"No. And he was shaking all over."
"The rain," Fjóla repeated and Birna gave her the evil eye.
"He hit you over the head, Fjóla. That's the last thing you needed."
"Does it still hurt where he kicked you?" Fjóla asked, and she looked at Erlendur. He could have sworn her eyes were dancing with glee.
It was still early morning when Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli arrived in Nordurmýri. Holberg's neighbours on the ground and first floor were waiting for them. The police had already taken a statement from the family who had found Holberg but Erlendur wanted to talk to them further. A pilot lived on the top floor. He'd arrived home from Boston at midday on the day Holberg was murdered, gone to bed in the afternoon and not stirred until the police knocked on his door.
They started with the pilot, who answered the door unshaven and wearing a vest and shorts. He was in his thirties, he lived alone and his flat was like a rubbish heap; clothes strewn everywhere, two suitcases open on a newish leather sofa, plastic bags from the duty-free shop on the floor, wine bottles on the tables and open beer cans wherever there was space for them. He looked at the two of them then walked back inside the flat without saying a word and slumped into a chair. They stood in front of him. Couldn't find anywhere to sit. Erlendur looked around the room and thought to himself that he wouldn't even board a flight simulator with this man.
For some reason the pilot started talking about the divorce he was going through and wondered whether it could become a police matter. The bitch had started playing around. He was away, flying. Came home from Oslo one day to find his wife with his old school-friend. Godawful, he added, and they didn't know which he found more godawful, his wife being unfaithful to him or his having to stay in Oslo.
"Concerning the murder that was committed in the basement flat," Erlendur said, interrupting the pilot's slurred monologue.
"Have you ever been to Oslo?" the pilot asked.
"No," Erlendur said. "We're not going to talk about Oslo."
The pilot looked first at Erlendur and then at Sigurdur Óli, and finally he seemed to cotton on.
"I didn't know the man at all," he said. "I bought this flat four months ago, as far as I understand it had been empty for a long while before that. Met him a few times, just outside. He seemed all right."
"All right?" Erlendur said.
"Okay to talk to, I mean."
"What did you talk about?"
"Flying. Mostly. He was interested in flying."
"What do you mean, interested in flying?"
"The aircraft," the pilot said, opening a can of beer that he fished from one of the plastic bags. "The cities," he said, and gulped down some beer. "The hostesses," he said and belched. "He asked a lot about the hostesses. You know."
"No," Erlendur said.
"You know. On the stopovers. Abroad."
"Yes."
"What happened, were they hot. Stuff like that. He'd heard things get pretty wild . . . on international flights."
"When was the last time you saw him?" Sigurdur Óli asked.
The pilot thought. He couldn't remember.
"It was a few days ago," he said eventually.
"Did you notice whether anyone had visited him recently?" Erlendur asked.
"No, I'm not home much."
"Did you notice any people snooping around in the neighbourhood, acting suspiciously, or just loitering around the houses?"
"No."
"Anyone wearing a green army jacket?"
"No."
"A young man wearing army boots?"
No. Was it him? Do you know who did it?"
"No," Erlendur said, and knocked over a half-full can of beer as he turned to leave the flat.
The woman had decided to take her children to her mother's for a few days and was ready to leave. She didn't want the children to be in the house after what had happened. Her husband nodded. It was the best thing for them. The parents were visibly shocked. They'd bought the flat four years before and liked living in Nordurmýri. A good place to live. For people with children too. The boys were standing by their mother's side.
"It was terrible finding him like that," the husband said, in a voice like a whisper. He looked at the boys. "We told them he was asleep," he added. "But . . ."
"We know he was dead," the elder boy said.
"Murdered," the younger one said.
The couple gave embarrassed smiles.
"They're taking it well," the mother said and stroked the elder boy on the cheek.
"I didn't dislike Holberg," the husband said. "We sometimes talked together outside. He'd lived in the house for a long time, we talked about the garden and maintenance, that sort of thing. As you do with your neighbours."
"But it wasn't close," the mother said. "Our contact with him, I mean. I think that's as it should be. I don't think it should be too close. Privacy, you know."
They hadn't noticed any unusual people in the vicinity of the house and hadn't seen anyone in a green army jacket roaming the neighbourhood. The wife was impatient to take the boys away.
"Did Holberg have many visitors?" Sigurdur Óli asked.
"I never noticed any," the wife said.
"He gave the impression of being lonely," her husband said.
"His flat stank," the elder son said.
"Stank," his brother chorused.
"There's rising damp in the basement," the husband said apologetically.
"Spreads up here sometimes," the wife said. "The damp."
"We talked to him about it."
"He was going to look into it."
"That was two years ago."
4
The couple from Gardabaer looked at Erlendur with anguish in their eyes. Their little daughter had gone missing. They hadn't heard from her for three days. Not since the wedding she'd run out from. Their little girl. Erlendur was imagining a child with curly golden locks until he was told she was a 23-year-old psychology student at the University of Iceland.
"The wedding?" Erlendur said, looking around the spacious lounge; it was like a whole storey of the block of flats where he lived.
"Her own wedding!" the father said as if he still couldn't understand it. "The girl ran away from her own wedding!"
The mother put a crumpled handkerchief to her nose.
It was midday. Due to road works on the way from Reykjavik it had taken Erlendur half an hour to reach Gardabaer and he found the large detached house only after a considerable search. It was almost invisible from the street, enclosed by a large garden with all kinds of trees growing in it, up to six metres high. The couple met him in a clear state of shock.
Erlendur thought this was a waste of time. Other more important matters were waiting for him, but even though he'd hardly spoken to his ex-wife for two decades he still
felt inclined to do her a favour.
The mother wore a smart, pale green dress suit, the father a black suit. He said he was growing increasingly worried about his daughter. He knew she would come home eventually and that she was safe and sound – he refused to believe otherwise – but he wanted to consult the police, although he didn't see any reason to call out the search parties and rescue teams immediately or to send announcements to the radio, newspapers and television.
"She just disappeared," the mother said. The couple looked a little older than Erlendur, probably about 60. They ran a business importing children's wear and that provided for them amply to enjoy a prosperous lifestyle. The nouveaux riches. Age had treated them kindly. Erlendur noticed two new cars in front of their double garage, polished to a shine.
She braced herself and started to tell Erlendur the story. "It happened on Saturday – three days ago, my God how time flies – and it was such a wonderful day. They had just been married by that vicar who's so popular."
"Hopeless," her husband said. "Came rushing in, delivered a few clichés and then he was off again with his briefcase. I can't understand why he's so popular."
His wife wouldn't let anything mar the beauty of the wedding.
"A marvellous day! Sunshine and lovely autumn weather. Definitely a hundred people at the church alone. She has so many friends. Such a popular girl. We held the reception at a hall here in Gardabaer. What's that place called? I always forget."
"Gardaholt," the father said.
"Such a wonderful cosy place," she went on. "We filled it. The hall, I mean. So many presents. And then when . . . then when . . ."
"They were supposed to dance the first dance," the father continued when his wife burst into tears, "and that idiot of a boy was standing on the dance floor. We called out to Dísa Rós, but she didn't show up. We started looking for her, but it was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed her."
"Dísa Rós?" Erlendur said.
"It turned out that she'd taken the wedding car."
"The wedding car?"
"The limousine. With the flowers and ribbons, that brought them from the church. She just ran away from the wedding. No warning! No explanation!"
"From her own wedding!" the mother shouted.
"And you don't know what made her do that?"
"She obviously changed her mind," the mother said. "Must have regretted the whole thing."
"But why?" Erlendur said.
"Please, can you find her for us?" the father asked. "She hasn't been in touch and you can see how terribly worried we are. The party was a total flop. The wedding was ruined. We're completely stumped. And our little girl is missing."
"The wedding car. Was it found?"
"Yes. In Gardastraeti."
"Why there?"
"I don't know. She doesn't know anyone there. Her clothes were in the car. Her proper clothes."
Erlendur hesitated.
"Her proper clothes were in the wedding car?" he said eventually, briefly pondering the plane this conversation had dropped to and whether he was in some way responsible.
"She took off her wedding gown and put on the clothes she'd apparently kept in the car," the wife said.
"Do you think you can find her?" the father asked. "We've contacted everyone she knows and no-one knows a thing. We just don't know where to turn. I have a photo of her here."
He handed Erlendur a school photograph of the young, beautiful blonde who was now in hiding. She smiled at him from the photograph.
"You have no idea what happened?"
"Not a clue," the girl's mother replied.
"None," the father said.
"And these are the presents?" Erlendur looked at the gigantic dining table, piled high with colourful parcels, pretty bows, cellophane and flowers. He walked towards it as the couple watched. He'd never seen so many presents in his life and he wondered what was inside the parcels. Crockery and more crockery, he imagined.
What a life.
"And what's this here?" he said, pointing to some offcuts from a tree that stood in a large vase at one end of the table. Heart-shaped red cards hung from the branches by ribbons.
"It's a message tree."
"A what?" Erlendur said. He'd only been to one wedding in his life and that was a long time ago. No message trees there.
"The guests write greetings to the bride and groom on cards and then hang them on the tree. A lot of cards had been hung up before Dísa Rós went missing," the mother said, still holding her handkerchief to her nose.
Erlendur's mobile phone rang in his overcoat pocket. As he fumbled to get it, the phone got stuck in the opening and, instead of patiently working it loose, which would have been so easy, Erlendur tugged at it vigorously until the pocket gave way. The hand holding the phone flew back and sent the message tree flying to the floor. Erlendur looked at the couple apologetically and answered his phone.
"Are you coming with us to Nordurmýri?" Sigurdur Óli said without any preamble. "To take a better look at the flat."
"Are you down there already?" Erlendur asked. He had withdrawn to one side.
"No. I'll wait for you," Sigurdur Óli said. "Where the hell are you?"
Erlendur hung up.
"I'll see what I can do," he said to the couple. "I don't think there's any danger involved. Your daughter probably just lost her nerve and she's staying with some friends. You shouldn't worry too much. I'm sure she'll ring before long."
The couple bent down over the little cards that had fallen to the floor. He noticed that they had overlooked several cards that had slid under a chair and he bent down to pick them up. Erlendur read the greetings and looked at the couple.
"Had you seen this?" he asked and handed them the card.
The father read the message and a look of astonishment crossed his face. He handed the card to his wife. She read it over and again but didn't seem to understand. Erlendur held out his hand for the card and read it again. The message was unsigned.
"Is this your daughter's handwriting?" he asked.
"I think so," the mother replied.
Erlendur turned the card over in his hands and reread the message:
HE'S A MONSTER WHAT HAVE I DONE?
5
"Where have you been?" Sigurdur Óli asked Erlendur when he came back to work, but he received no answer.
"Has Eva Lind tried to contact me?" he asked.
Sigurdur Óli said he didn't think so. He knew about Erlendur's daughter and her problems, but neither of them ever mentioned it. Personal matters seldom entered into their conversations.
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