Black Skies de-8

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you to give yourself up?’ asked Finnur.

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ said Thórarinn. ‘She was alive when this bloke turned up.’ He pointed at Sigurdur Óli. ‘He must have finished her off. I knew you’d try to frame me for what he did; that’s why I legged it.’

  Sigurdur Óli turned to Thórarinn’s lawyer in astonishment.

  ‘And you believe this?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t you done any homework at all?’

  The lawyer shrugged. ‘That’s his statement,’ he said.

  ‘Sure, she was alive when I found you both,’ said Sigurdur Óli, ‘and she was still alive when the ambulance men took her to hospital, where she died the next day. But the post-mortem revealed that she died from a blow to the head — a blow administered using the implement we found two hundred metres from your hiding place. I didn’t run there carrying it. You must have hired the worst lawyer in Iceland, Toggi. A four-year-old could have told you that. Then you wouldn’t have been left looking like an idiot right from the off.’

  Thórarinn glanced at his lawyer.

  ‘We want to know what you were doing at the scene,’ retorted the lawyer, in an attempt to save face. ‘What was your business with Sigurlína? I think my client has a right to know that.’

  ‘On the contrary, it’s none of your business,’ corrected Sigurdur Óli. ‘Thórarinn is a drug dealer and a debt collector. I found him at Lína’s house where she was lying on the floor, more dead than alive, and bleeding from a head wound. My visit was connected with the investigation of a completely unrelated matter. Thórarinn attacked me, then fled from a large number of police officers — made off in a hell of a hurry. Not exactly the behaviour of an innocent man, was it?’

  ‘What were you doing at Sigurlína’s place, Thórarinn?’ asked Finnur, who had been silent.

  Sigurdur Óli had been trying to calculate what was on Finnur’s mind and how he would react to the ludicrous defence put forward by Thórarinn and his lawyer. There was no possible way they could know Sigurdur Óli’s business with Lína; they were merely trying to complicate the matter and cast doubt on him. He was not sure whether the reason for his presence at Lína’s would ever need to come out officially, since so much about the sequence of events still remained obscure. But there was little he could do to influence the course of the investigation, so he could only hope for the best. In fact, what happened next was pretty much up to Finnur.

  Thórarinn caught the eye of his lawyer, who nodded.

  ‘A drugs debt,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I sometimes sell a little dope and she owed me money. There was some aggro; I acted in self-defence and hit her. Never intended to do any damage, mind. It was accidental. Then I panicked when that prick appeared.’ Thórarinn gestured at Sigurdur Óli again.

  ‘Is that your defence?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘It was an accident. It all happened by mistake,’ said Thórarinn. ‘She went for me. I defended myself. End of.’

  ‘She went for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You forced your way into her home with a baseball bat, smashed the place up and she went for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That will be all for now,’ announced Finnur.

  ‘Can I go then?’ said Thórarinn with a grin. ‘I haven’t got time for this, you know. I have a family. Us van drivers don’t get paid like bank managers.’

  ‘I reckon it’ll be a while before you go anywhere except on the odd little prison outing,’ replied Finnur.

  ‘What car were you driving when you went to her house?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

  Thórarinn paused.

  ‘Car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘If you didn’t mean to do her any harm and the whole thing was an accident, why did you need to borrow a car to go to her place?’

  ‘How is that relevant?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘It shows premeditation — mens rea is probably the phrase you’d use. He didn’t want to be spotted near the house.’

  ‘Was it Kiddi?’ said Thórarinn, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Of course, you’ve spoken to Kiddi. The stupid twat! I’ll fucking — ’

  ‘Kiddi who?’ asked Finnur, looking at Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘Just answer the question,’ said Sigurdur Óli, aware that he had said too much, too soon.

  ‘Was it Kristján who squealed? Was it him who told you about Höddi? The stupid little fucker.’

  ‘Kristján who?’ asked Finnur again.

  ‘Search me,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

  35

  IT TOOK HIM forever to wake up and when he did, he had no idea whether it was day or night. He lay motionless while he was getting his bearings and gradually it came back to him: the conversation in the graveyard, the greyness, the cold, the twisted trees and tumble-down gravestones. The peace.

  His memory of what had passed between him and the policeman was hazy, though he recalled meeting him, recalled sitting and talking to him for a while. But then something had happened and he could remember no more. Exactly what had happened, how they had left each other or how much he had revealed, he did not know. He had meant to tell him everything. When he rang the policeman, he had been determined to tell him the lot, about Grettisgata and Röggi and his mother, about what had happened to him when he was a boy, how he had been mistreated. He had meant to take the policeman back to Grettisgata, show him the old man and tell him the whole story. But for some reason he had not done so. Had he run away? All he remembered was waking up just now on the floor of the basement flat.

  Sitting up with difficulty, he groped for the plastic bag. He had finished one of the bottles but the other was still half full, so he took a deep draught, thinking that he would have to go straight back to the off-licence. A sudden memory returned, of climbing over the graveyard wall into the road where a car had almost knocked him down. Yes, it came back to him now; the policeman had been on the phone.

  He could not make up his mind whether he should ring the man again and try to arrange another meeting. He was almost certain that he had sent him a short strip of one of the films he had found in the old man’s flat. As far as he could remember, there had been two reels, but he had not found any more, despite turning the flat upside down, smashing holes in the walls and tearing up the floorboards.

  Hours after discovering the films he had attempted to watch them but the experience proved too overwhelming. Having threaded one into the projector, he turned it on, the film began to roll and an image suddenly appeared on the white wall of a boy — himself. Then all the circumstances of the shoot flooded back. Ironically, although he had trouble remembering the last twenty-four hours, he had absolutely no difficulty recalling the events of more than thirty years ago. In frantic haste he switched off the projector, pulled out the film, and finding a pair of scissors in the chaos, snipped off a short section and put it in a plastic bag lying on the floor.

  He did not want anyone to watch the films; they were his secret, so he put them in the kitchen sink and set fire to them. The burning reels emitted a great cloud of foul-smelling smoke, as was only to be expected of such filth, so he opened the window in the kitchen and another in the living room to air the flat. Once he had made sure that every last frame had been reduced to ashes, he washed the remains down the sink.

  It was over, finished.

  He took another swig from the bottle, almost draining it. He would have to get more.

  He wanted to talk to the policeman again, to unburden himself. Not to run away. This time he would try not to run away.

  36

  There was no answer from Ebeneser when Sigurdur Óli rang the bell, then rapped on his door. He tried calling his name, to no avail, though Ebeneser’s jeep was parked in front of the house and Sigurdur Óli felt instinctively that he was at home. Next he tried the windows, peering first into the kitchen, which needed tidying, then going round the back of the house to the sitt
ing-room window and squinting inside. Only after straining his eyes could he make out a man’s leg, then a head under a blanket. He banged on the windowpane till it rattled and saw Ebeneser stir, only to turn onto his side. The coffee table was littered with bottles and beer cans: Ebbi had been drowning his sorrows.

  Sigurdur Óli banged on the glass again and shouted at Ebeneser, who regained consciousness by slow degrees. He struggled to work out where the noise was coming from but eventually he caught sight of the obnoxious policeman outside the window and sat up on the sofa. Sigurdur Óli went round to wait at the door of the house. Nothing happened. He lost patience, assuming that Ebeneser must have fallen asleep again, and started ringing the bell and thumping on the door.

  After a considerable delay Ebeneser appeared, looking extremely rough.

  ‘What’s all this noise in aid of?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘Do you mind if I come in for a minute?’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘It won’t take long.’

  Ebeneser screwed up his eyes against the sunlight which was still bright, though it was getting late. He glanced at his watch, then back at Sigurdur Óli before inviting him in. Sigurdur Óli followed him into the sitting room where they both sat down.

  ‘Just look at this mess,’ Ebeneser remarked. ‘I haven’t …’ He searched for something to say that would justify the disorder and his own dishevelled state, but finding nothing satisfactory, he gave up the attempt. ‘I saw on the news that you’ve caught him,’ he said instead.

  ‘Yes, we’ve arrested the assailant,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘He gave us a motive but we can’t be certain what’s true and what’s not at this stage. That’s why I’m after additional information.’

  ‘What motive?’

  ‘The motive for his attack on Lína,’ Sigurdur Óli explained.

  ‘Oh. Who is he?’ Ebeneser was still half asleep.

  ‘His name’s Thórarinn. We know it was him who attacked her.’

  ‘She didn’t know anyone called Thórarinn,’ said Ebbi, picking up a can and giving it a hopeful shake. It was empty.

  ‘No, they didn’t know each other.’

  Sigurdur Óli did not want to disclose too much about the investigation at this stage, so he gave him a brief summary of the latest developments, describing the circumstances in which Toggi had been located and stressing that, now that questioning was under way, it would be a good time to go over a few details. Ebeneser did not appear to be listening.

  ‘Perhaps you need more time to wake up,’ prompted Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘No,’ Ebbi replied. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘It won’t take a moment,’ said Sigurdur Óli, hoping this was not too wide of the mark.

  Ebeneser looked tired and haggard; his air of heavy numbness went beyond a simple hangover. It occurred to Sigurdur Óli that he might have been mistaken; that Lína’s death might in fact have had a much more serious impact on Ebbi than he had imagined, so he resolved to be polite and tactful, though neither was his forte. And it did not help that he had taken a dislike to the man, being unable to forget what Patrekur had said about Ebbi and Lína’s demented threats of exposure in the gutter press and on the Internet.

  ‘So what was his motive?’ asked Ebeneser. ‘The man you’re holding, I mean.’

  ‘A drugs debt,’ answered Sigurdur Óli. ‘I’ve been informed by other sources that you do drugs — that you and Lína were regular users — so, in our view, a drugs debt doesn’t seem implausible.’

  Ebeneser eyed Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘We didn’t owe anyone,’ he said at last.

  ‘Thórarinn both deals and collects debts, though he’s managed to avoid any trouble with the law. He’s careful to keep a low profile and works as a van driver. What motive could a guy like that have for attacking Lína unless you owed him money? You tell me.’

  Ebeneser sat in silence, mulling over the question.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I … Lína and I were recreational users, if I’m being honest, but we both worked hard and had the money for it. I don’t know this Thórarinn at all and I don’t believe Lína did either. I couldn’t say why he attacked her.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Say it’s not drugs, say it’s something else. What could it be? What else were you and Lína up to apart from taking drugs and blackmailing people?’

  Ebeneser did not answer.

  ‘It’s obvious that you got on the wrong side of somebody. Who could it have been?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘What are you scared of? Or should I say who are you scared of? Were you trying to blackmail someone else?’

  ‘Those pictures,’ said Ebeneser, after long reflection. ‘We hadn’t done anything like that before. Lína wanted to try it, to see what would happen. If it worked, we’d make a bit of money; if it didn’t, there’d be no harm done. I’m not trying to shift the blame on to her but the fact is that it was her idea and she was much more gung-ho than me. In the end, though, we didn’t make any use of the photos until the other day, when Lína saw her on TV.’

  ‘Hermann’s wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you sent them the photo?’ prompted Sigurdur Óli. This was the first time Ebeneser had admitted their involvement in blackmail.

  ‘Yes. Lína said she was going to be a big deal in politics, so she wanted to try it — just for a laugh.’

  ‘For a laugh? You’ve ruined the lives of two families! Lína got killed!’

  Sigurdur Óli had spoken harshly, in anger, and realised too late that it was not his place to lose his temper. Finnur had warned him that there was no way he could remain detached.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said more gently. ‘But aren’t you just trying to pass the buck?’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Ebeneser. ‘Lína was always coming up with wild ideas.’

  ‘What kind of ideas? Blackmail?’

  ‘No, just all kinds of insane ideas. But she never followed them through, except this one time.’

  ‘You’d know, would you?’

  ‘Yes, I’d know.’

  ‘You didn’t mind her sleeping with other men?’

  ‘It’s the way we wanted it,’ said Ebeneser. ‘She wasn’t bothered if I slept with other women. That’s just the way it was.’

  ‘And the wife-swapping?’

  ‘We’ve been doing that since we were at college. That’s when it started — when we got together. Somehow we just carried on.’

  ‘Did she tell you about the men she slept with?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes. Usually, I think.’

  ‘Did she sleep with anyone at work?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘Did you go with her on those corporate trips to the highlands?’

  ‘Usually. Lína persuaded her company to hire me to organise them. They knew I was a guide and arranged that sort of excursion, so when Lína said I could take care of the whole thing for them, they jumped at the chance. They were very satisfied with the results — the tours were a big success.’

  ‘Did you know the people who went?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Were they bankers? Engineers? Foreign investors?’

  ‘Yes, that sort of type. Quite a few foreigners.’

  ‘I gather there was an accident,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘Someone went missing and wasn’t found for months. Do you recall anything about that?’

  ‘Lína mentioned it — I don’t remember exactly what she said. But it didn’t happen on one of my trips.’

  ‘Did she know the people involved?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So she didn’t sleep with them?’

  Ebeneser did not answer, offended by the tenor of the question. In Sigurdur Óli’s opinion it was a perfectly valid point: Lína had had no qualms about jumping into bed with Patrekur, and she and Ebbi did not exactly have a normal marriage. At least not his idea of a normal marriage.

  ‘I want the photos,’ he said.

  ‘
What photos?’

  ‘Of you two with Hermann and his wife. Do you have them here?’

  Ebeneser considered this, then got up and went into the kitchen, off which a small utility room opened. Sigurdur Óli sat and waited. After a short interval Ebeneser returned with an envelope which he handed over.

  ‘Is that all of them?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You haven’t got them on your computer?’

  ‘No. We printed these four out in order to send one to them, to show them we meant business. We were never going to circulate them. It was just a joke.’

  Ebeneser seemed to have run out of explanations. His discomfort was obvious. He glanced round the room.

  ‘God, it’s such a bloody mess in here,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘Are you still going to deny that you’re broke?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

  Ebeneser shook his head, his face a picture of defeat. Sigurdur Óli thought he was going to burst into tears.

  ‘We’re up shit creek,’ he confessed. ‘This house, the car. Everything’s on a hundred per cent loan; we’re mortgaged to the hilt. We owe money everywhere. For the drugs too.’

  ‘Who supplies your drugs?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You may have to.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to.’

  ‘Has he been threatening you?’

  ‘We’ve got several dealers who supply us but none of them has threatened us. That’s bullshit. And I don’t know anyone called Thórarinn. I’ve never bought from him. I don’t know what he means by talking about a debt. We don’t owe him anything.’

  ‘He’s known as Toggi.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘No idea why he might have attacked Lína?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘You must excuse these questions,’ said Sigurdur Óli, ‘but somehow we have to get to the bottom of this. Do you know if Lína ever slept with anyone for money?’