Black Skies de-8

by Arnaldur Indridason

  The man did not move.

  ‘Look at me! Look at me if you dare. Do you see? Do you see what little Andy has turned into? Not so little now, is he? He’s all grown up and strong. Maybe you didn’t think that would ever happen. Maybe you thought Andy would always be the same little boy?’

  He hit the old man.

  ‘Where’s the camera?’ he snarled.

  He was going to find that camera and destroy it, along with all the films and the images they had recorded. He was convinced that the bastard still had the lot stashed away somewhere and he was not going to give up until he had found them and burnt them.

  Still no answer.

  ‘Do you think I won’t find it? I’m going to tear this dump apart until I find it. I’m going to rip up the floors and pull down the ceilings. How do you like that, eh? How do you like little Andy now?’

  The eyes behind the mask closed.

  ‘You took my thousand-krona note,’ he whispered. ‘I know it was you. You lied that I’d lost it but I know you took it.’

  He was sobbing as he spoke.

  ‘You’ll burn in hell for that. For that and everything else you did. You’ll burn in hell!’

  12

  One of the measures taken by the police in connection with the attack on Lína was to note down the licence plates of every vehicle parked near her house, in the hope that her assailant might have arrived by car. The idea was not implausible; in fact, it was highly likely. He would hardly have travelled on public transport with the baseball bat hidden inside his jacket, and a simple check confirmed that he had not taken a taxi. Another possibility was that he had walked there, in which case he was unlikely to have come far and might well live within a few kilometres of the crime scene. It was also conceivable that someone had given him a lift and had been waiting outside when they saw Sigurdur Óli enter the house, but Sigurdur Óli had not noticed anyone. The most likely scenario was that the assailant had arrived by car but instead of parking outside had left it in a side street and been forced to abandon it when Sigurdur Óli had disturbed him.

  Most of the licence plates collected by the police, and there were dozens of them, were traced to addresses nearby, decent people with families and jobs who would not hurt a soul and did not know Lína and Ebbi from Adam. However, several were registered to owners who lived further away, in other neighbourhoods or even other parts of the country, though none had a police record for violence.

  Sigurdur Óli, who was at least familiar with the assailant’s running style, volunteered to talk to the owners of any cars which required further investigation.

  Lína’s condition remained unchanged and Ebbi had hardly left her bedside. The doctors believed that it could still go either way.

  Sigurdur Óli’s evening with Bergthóra had ended badly, with accusations flying back and forth, until Bergthóra had finally stood up, said she could no longer cope with this and left.

  Sigurdur Óli believed himself to be perfectly capable of working on the investigation despite his highly irregular personal involvement in the affair. After thinking it through, he decided that nothing he knew could be prejudicial to the interests of the inquiry, since he had absolutely no desire to protect Hermann and his wife, and Patrekur was not involved. He had done nothing that would require him to declare an interest and resign from the case. The only point that troubled him, and then only briefly, was the conversation about the photos he had had with Ebbi at the hospital. He was not acquainted with Lína or Ebbi; for all he knew they might be up to their necks in debt from drug use, a mortgage or a car loan, and might owe money to the kind of people who employed debt collectors. After all, drugs were not the only reason enforcers were set on defaulters. Sigurdur Óli thought it likely that Lína and Ebbi had gone too far in their clumsy attempts to blackmail fools like Hermann and his wife with their incriminating photos. It was not improbable that somebody who felt pushed into a corner would want to shut them up by violence, or at least by the threat of violence. Whether Hermann was behind it or not was another matter. He denied it now but time would tell.

  He felt a nagging guilt at not having come clean to Finnur, either about the photos or Lína and Ebbi’s alleged blackmail attempt, since it was only a matter of time before the information would come out. And when that happened, and Hermann and his wife’s names became mixed up in the inquiry, Sigurdur Óli would have some explaining to do.

  Preoccupied by these thoughts, he walked into a small meat-processing factory in search of a man called Hafsteinn, who turned out to be the foreman and who professed himself astonished by Sigurdur Óli’s visit, exclaiming that he had never spoken to a detective before in his life, as if this were a guarantee of a blameless existence. Hafsteinn invited him into his office and they both sat down. The foreman was wearing a white coat and a lightweight white hat bearing the firm’s logo on his head. He had the figure of a German beer drinker at Oktoberfest, stout and cheery, with plump red cheeks; hardly the type to attack a defenceless woman with a baseball bat, let alone run further than ten metres. This fact did not deter Sigurdur Óli, however, and he stuck doggedly to his task. After a short preamble, he said he wanted to know what Hafsteinn had been doing in the area where Lína was attacked, and whether there was anyone who could provide an alibi for his explanation, whatever it was.

  The foreman gave Sigurdur Óli a long look.

  ‘Hang on a minute, what are you saying? Do I have to tell you what I was doing there?’

  ‘Your car was parked one street down from the crime scene. You live in Hafnarfjördur. What were you doing in Reykjavík? Were you driving the car yourself?’

  Sigurdur Óli reasoned that even if the man had not attacked Lína, he might conceivably know something about the attack; he might have driven the assailant to the scene and abandoned his car in a panic.

  ‘Yes, I was driving. I was visiting someone. Do you need to know any more?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I ask what you’re going to do with the information?’

  ‘We’re trying to find the assailant.’

  ‘You don’t think I attacked the poor woman?’

  ‘Did you take part in the attack?’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  Sigurdur Óli observed that the red cheeks had lost some of their colour.

  ‘Can I speak to someone who can confirm your alibi?’

  ‘Are you going to mention this to my wife?’ Hafsteinn asked hesitantly.

  ‘Do I need to?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

  The man sighed heavily.

  ‘There’s no need,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I … I have a lady friend on that road. If you need to confirm my story you can talk to her. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’

  ‘A lady friend?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘You mean a mistress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you were visiting her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Did you notice anyone in the area who could have been connected to the attack?’

  ‘No. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that’s all,’ Sigurdur Óli said.

  ‘Are you going to speak to my wife?’

  ‘Can she confirm any of this?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘Then I’ve no interest in talking to her,’ Sigurdur Óli said. He took the lady friend’s phone number just in case, then got up and left.

  Later that day he met a man who was unaware that his car had been parked near Lína’s house, as he had not been driving it himself but had lent it to his son. After the man had made some enquiries it turned out that his son had been round at a nearby house with a friend. They were visiting a classmate from their sixth-form college and had all gone together to a film in the Laugarás cinema which had started at around the time Lína was attacked.

  The man gave Sigurdur Óli a considering look.

  ‘You needn’t bother about the boy,’ he said.

&nbs
p; ‘Really?’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Scared of his own shadow.’

  Finally Sigurdur Óli sat down with a woman of about thirty who worked on the switchboard at a soft-drinks bottling plant. After Sigurdur Óli had introduced himself, she asked someone to cover for her and since he did not want to explain his business where they could be overheard, she went and sat with him in the staff cafeteria.

  ‘What’s going on exactly?’ the woman asked. She had dark hair and a broad face, a small metal ring in one eyebrow and a tattoo on her forearm. Sigurdur Óli could not see what it was supposed to be; it looked like a cat but could equally have been a snake that wound around her arm. Her name was Sara.

  ‘I’d like to know what you were doing in the east of town, near the Laugarás cinema, on the evening of the day before yesterday.’

  ‘The day before yesterday?’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know that?’

  ‘Your car was parked not far from the street where a brutal attack occurred.’

  ‘I didn’t attack anyone,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ Sigurdur Óli agreed. ‘But your car was in the area.’

  He explained that the police were checking up on the owners of any vehicle that had been seen in the vicinity that evening. It was a serious case of assault and battery, and the police wanted to ask all those who had been in the area whether they had noticed anything that might assist the investigation. It was a long speech and Sigurdur Óli could tell that Sara was bored.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ she said.

  ‘What were you doing in the area?’

  ‘Visiting a friend. What actually happened? I saw something on the news about a break-in.’

  ‘We don’t have any more information as yet,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘I’ll need your friend’s details.’

  Sara gave them to him.

  ‘Did you stay the night?’

  ‘What? Are you spying on me?’ she asked.

  The cafeteria door opened and an employee of the bottling plant nodded to Sara.

  ‘No. Is there any reason why I should?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

  Sara smiled. ‘I very much doubt it.’

  Sigurdur Óli was getting into his car outside the plant when his phone rang. He recognised the number immediately. It was Finnur, who informed him brusquely that Sigurlína Thorgrímsdóttir had died a quarter of an hour earlier as a result of the blow to her head.

  ‘What the hell were you doing at her place, Siggi?’ Finnur whispered and hung up.

  13

  Sigurdur Óli’s mother opened the door, her expression indicating that he was late. He did not have his own key because she said she would feel uncomfortable knowing that he could walk in on her whenever he liked. She had invited him for supper but had not waited for him before serving up, and now the food was growing cold on the table. Saemundur was nowhere to be seen.

  His mother, known to all as Gagga, was on the wrong side of sixty and lived in a large detached house in the smart satellite town of Gardabaer, surrounded by fellow accountants, doctors, lawyers and other wealthy professionals, the kind of people who owned two to three cars apiece and hired professionals to look after their homes and gardens and put up their Christmas lights. Not that Gagga had always lived this well; she had been hard up when she met Sigurdur Óli’s father and in the period immediately after the divorce, although ‘the plumber’, as she insisted on calling her ex-husband, had offered to assist in any way he could. She had rented at first but was forever falling out with her landlords. Then there was nothing for it but to move on. It made no difference when Sigurdur Óli complained that he found it hard to keep changing schools. His mother had a talent for putting people’s backs up, including the teachers and principals of his schools, so in the end his father had to take over all communication about his education.

  Gagga had studied business at college and was working as a bookkeeper when Sigurdur Óli was born, but subsequently improved her qualifications at university and gradually worked her way up to a good position in an accountancy firm that was eventually taken over by a large international corporation. She now occupied a managerial position at the company.

  ‘Where’s Saemundur?’ Sigurdur Óli asked, slipping off the winter coat he had bought the year before; bloody expensive it had been too, from one of the most exclusive clothing stores in the country. Bergthóra had shaken her head when he brought the coat home and accused him of being the worst label snob she knew. He recalled the way she used to say ‘you mean gaga’, whenever his mother came up in conversation.

  ‘He’s in London,’ Gagga said. ‘One of those bright young entrepreneurs who’s hit the big time abroad is opening an office there with the president in attendance and all that razzmatazz. Everything flown out by corporate jet; nothing less will do.’

  ‘They’ve done bloody well for themselves.’

  ‘It’s all on credit, you know. All they really own is debts which somebody will have to pay off in the end.’

  ‘Well, I think they’re doing a fantastic job,’ objected Sigurdur Óli, who had been taking a close interest in the success of Icelandic businessmen at home and abroad. He was impressed by their drive and enterprise, especially when it came to buying up household-name companies in Britain and Denmark.

  They sat down at the table. His mother had made tuna lasagne, an old favourite of his.

  ‘Would you like me to heat it up for you?’ she asked, taking his plate and putting it in the microwave before he could reply. The oven pinged and Gagga passed the plate back to her son. He was still disturbed by his short conversation with Finnur about Lína’s death. Finnur had sounded quite worked up, angry even, and that anger had been directed at him. ‘What the hell were you doing at her place, Siggi?’ Finnur had asked. He loathed being called Siggi.

  ‘Have you heard from Bergthóra at all?’ asked his mother.

  ‘Saw her yesterday.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s she got to say for herself?’

  ‘She said you never liked her.’

  Gagga was silent. She had not taken any food, despite having laid a place for herself, but now she picked up a spoon, helped herself to some lasagne, then got up and put it in the microwave. Sigurdur Óli was still feeling resentful about all the time he had wasted watching postboxes for her, and by the fact that she had interrupted the American football with her phone call the night before, but most of all because of what Bergthóra had said.

  ‘Why does she say that?’ his mother asked as she stood by the oven, waiting for the bell.

  ‘She’s adamant that it’s true.’

  ‘So she blames me for everything, does she? For what happened to your relationship?’

  ‘I don’t seem to remember you being particularly sad about it.’

  ‘Of course I was,’ his mother said, but did not sound very convincing.

  ‘Bergthóra’s never mentioned this before. But when I started thinking back, it occurred to me that you never used to come round and see us, and you had very little contact with her. Were you trying to avoid her?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘She talked a lot about you yesterday. She was very honest, but then we don’t have anything to hide from each other any more. She said you didn’t think she was good enough for me and that you blamed her for the fact we couldn’t have children.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ Gagga exclaimed.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ his mother declared and sat down with her steaming plate, but did not touch her food. ‘She can’t say things like that, the silly girl. What utter nonsense.’

  ‘Did you blame her for not being able to have children?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it is her fault! I didn’t need to blame her.’

  Sigurdur Óli put down his fork.

  ‘And that was all the support she got from you,’ he said.

  ‘Support? I didn’t get any support when your father and I divorced.’

  ‘Oh, you gene
rally manage to get your own way. And what do you mean by support? It was you who left him.’

  ‘Well, anyway, what now? What’s going to happen to you two now?’

  Sigurdur Óli pushed away his plate and looked around him; at the spacious sitting room that opened off the kitchen, decorated in his mother’s impersonal style: white walls, heated floors covered in large black tiles, expensive new blocky furniture, and art that was pricey without necessarily being in good taste.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s over.’

  Ebeneser had been weeping. He was still at the hospital when Sigurdur Óli went over later that evening to express his condolences. Ebeneser had been gone briefly that afternoon and by the time he returned Lína was dead. Now he was alone in the visitors’ lounge in a state of bewilderment, as if he did not know whether to go or stay. He had watched as they took her body away for an urgent post-mortem to establish the precise cause of death.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ Ebeneser said after Sigurdur Óli had been sitting with him for a little while. ‘When she died, I mean.’

  ‘So I gather. I’m sorry,’ Sigurdur Óli said. He had been itching to talk to Ebeneser but had thought it best to give him some space to recover, though no longer than the time it took for him to visit Gagga.

  ‘She never woke up,’ Ebeneser continued. ‘Never opened her eyes. I didn’t realise it was that serious. When I came back she was gone. Dead. How … how the hell did this happen?’

  ‘We mean to find out,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘But you have to help us.’

  ‘Help you? How?’

  ‘Why was she attacked?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know who did it.’

  ‘Who knew she’d be alone at home?’

  ‘Knew …? I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you had any trouble before with violent types — debt collectors, for example?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, of course I’m sure.’