Outrage

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘She said she’s measured them, using some rods she has. The waves come mainly from her walls.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ll get anything useful out of her.’

  The woman lived on the upper floor of a two-storey building in the street up the hill from Runólfur’s home but some distance away, so whatever she thought she had seen might well be irrelevant. Yet Elínborg was curious. And since the police had little to go on as yet, she reckoned that she might as well check the woman out and see if she remembered anything more.

  Petrína was in her late sixties. She opened the door to Elínborg, wearing a dressing gown and worn felt slippers. Her hair was a mess, her face pale and wrinkled, her eyes bloodshot. In one hand she held a cigarette. As she welcomed Elínborg in she said she was pleased that someone was taking an interest at last.

  ‘It’s about time,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you. They’re massive waves, I tell you.’

  Petrína vanished into the flat, leaving Elínborg to follow her. Elínborg found herself in a stifling cigarette fug; all the curtains were drawn and the rooms were dark. She managed to work out that it would be possible to see down into the street from the living-room window. The woman had gone into her bedroom, and now called out to her. Elínborg went through the living room, past the kitchen and into the bedroom where she saw Petrína beneath a solitary light bulb that hung unadorned from the ceiling. A bed and bedside table stood in the centre of the room.

  ‘I’d like to tear the walls down,’ said Petrína. ‘I can’t afford to have all the electrical wiring insulated. I must just be especially sensitive. Look here.’

  Elínborg gazed in astonishment at the two longer walls of the room, which were covered from floor to ceiling in aluminium cooking foil.

  ‘It gives me such a headache,’ said Petrína.

  ‘Did you do all this yourself?’ asked Elínborg.

  ‘Me? Myself? Of course I did. The foil helps, but I don’t think it’s enough. You’ll have to take a look.’ Petrína picked up two metal rods and held them loosely in her hands with the ends towards Elínborg, who stood motionless in the doorway. Then the rods turned gradually until they pointed at one of the walls.

  ‘It’s the electrical wiring,’ said Petrína.

  ‘Oh?’ said Elínborg.

  ‘You can see that the foil helps. Come on.’

  She shoved past Elínborg, her wild hair sticking out and the metal rods in her hands, looking like a caricature of a mad scientist. She went into the living room and switched on the TV. The test card appeared.

  ‘Roll up your sleeve,’ Petrína told Elínborg, who did so without a word. ‘Hold your arm near the screen, but don’t touch it.’

  Elínborg brought her arm close to the screen. The hairs on her forearm bristled, and she felt the magnetic field. She had often noticed the effect at home if she stood close to the TV.

  ‘That’s what the walls of my room were like,’ said Petrína. ‘Just like that. They made my hair stand on end. It was like sleeping up against a television screen all night. Alterations were made to the flat, you see – they installed wooden partition walls, plywood, all full of electrical wiring.’

  As she rolled down her sleeve Elínborg asked cautiously: ‘Who do you think I am?’

  ‘You?’ asked Petrína. ‘Aren’t you from the power company? They were going to send someone. Isn’t it you?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Elínborg. ‘I’m not from the power company.’

  ‘You were going to take readings here,’ said Petrína. ‘You were supposed to come today. I can’t go on like this.’

  ‘I’m from the police,’ said Elínborg. ‘A serious crime was committed in the next street, and I believe you saw someone outside here, in front of the building.’

  ‘But I spoke to a policeman this morning,’ said Petrína. ‘Why have you come back? And where’s the man from the power company?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I can ring them if you like.’

  ‘He should have been here ages ago.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll come later today. May I ask what you saw?’

  ‘What I saw? What am I supposed to have seen?’

  ‘According to your statement this morning, you saw a man in the street on Saturday night. Is that right?’

  ‘I’ve tried and tried to get them to come here and look inside the walls, but they don’t listen to a word I say.’

  ‘Do you always keep the curtains closed?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Petrína, absently scratching her head.

  Elínborg’s eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of Petrína’s home and now she could see the shabby flat more clearly, with its ragged furniture, framed pictures on the walls and family photographs on tables. On one table were photographs of young people and children, presumably young descendants or relatives of Petrína. The ashtrays were all overflowing with cigarette stubs, and Elínborg noticed scorch marks here and there on the pale carpet.

  Petrína stuck the cigarette she had just finished into the pile in one of the ashtrays. Looking at a burn in the carpet, Elínborg thought that the old lady probably dropped a smouldering stub on the floor from time to time. She wondered if she should contact Social Services; Petrína could be a danger to herself and others.

  ‘If you always have the curtains drawn, how can you see down into the street?’ asked Elínborg.

  ‘I open them, of course,’ said Petrína, looking at Elínborg as if there were something odd about her. ‘What did you say you were doing here?’

  ‘I’m from the police,’ Elínborg reiterated patiently. ‘I’d like to ask you about a man you said you saw outside the house last Saturday night. Do you remember that?’

  ‘I don’t sleep much – because of the waves, you see. So I wander around, and wait for them. See my eyes? See them?’ Petrína craned her head forward to show Elínborg her bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s the waves. That’s what they do to my eyes. Those bloody waves. And I have a headache all the time.’

  ‘Don’t you think that might be the cigarettes?’ Elínborg asked politely.

  ‘So I sat by the window here, and waited for them,’ said Petrína, ignoring Elínborg’s comment. ‘I sat and waited all night, and all day Sunday, and I’m still waiting.’

  ‘For?’

  ‘For the men from the power company! I thought that was who you were.’

  ‘So you sat here at the window, watching the street. Did you think they would come at night?’

  ‘How should I know when they’ll come? And then I saw that man I told you about this morning. I thought maybe he was from them, but he walked straight past. I thought of shouting out to him.’

  ‘Had you ever seen him around here before?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Could you tell me a bit more about him?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. Why are you asking about him?’

  ‘A crime was committed near here, and I may have to trace him.’

  ‘You can’t,’ asserted Petrína.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t know who he is,’ observed Petrína, amazed that Elínborg could be so dense.

  ‘No, and that’s why I’m asking you to help me. You said this morning he was wearing a dark jacket and a cap. Was it a leather jacket?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But he had a hat on. A knitted woolly hat.’

  ‘Did you notice his trousers?’

  ‘Nothing special. They were those ones for running, with the legs torn up to the knee. There was nothing special about them.’

  ‘Was he driving a car?’

  ‘No. I didn’t see a car.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘Yes, he was alone. I only saw him for a moment because he moved fast, despite being lame.’

  ‘Lame?’ asked Elínborg. She did not recall hearing anything about this from the officer who had interviewed Petrína.

  ‘Yes, lame. Poor man. He had an aerial thing ar
ound his leg.’

  ‘Did he seem to be in a hurry?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but everybody hurries past here. It’s the waves. He wouldn’t want to let the waves get into his leg.’

  ‘What kind of aerial was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he limp heavily?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he didn’t want the waves in his leg? What do you mean?’

  ‘That was why he limped. The waves were massive. Really massive waves in his leg.’

  ‘Could you feel the waves?’

  Petrína nodded. ‘Who did you say you were?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t you from the power company? Do you know what I think it is? Do you want to know? It’s all because of this uranium. Massive uranium, that comes down with the rain.’

  Elínborg smiled. She should have listened to the policemen who had said it probably wasn’t worth talking to this witness again. She thanked Petrína, and promised to telephone the power company to remind them about the electromagnetic waves which were making her life so difficult – though she doubted whether they would be the right people to help the poor lady with her headaches.

  There were no other witnesses to speak of. One middle-aged man came forward, who had been walking through Thingholt that Saturday night to his home on Njardargata. Though in the throes of a severe hangover, he wanted to state, while it was still fresh in his memory, that on the way home he had seen a woman sitting alone in a parked car. She was in the passenger seat, and it seemed to him that she had been trying to avoid attracting attention. He had no further explanation to offer. He gave them the name of the street where he had seen the car, which was some distance from the crime scene, but could give no proper description of the woman who he thought was probably about sixty and had been wearing a coat. He had no more to tell them. He remembered nothing about the car: neither its colour nor its make. He did not know much about cars, he explained.

  5

  The flight was short, and the humming of the propellers was soothing. Elínborg sat in a window seat as she invariably did on domestic flights. She enjoyed seeing something of the country but this afternoon the weather was cloudy and she caught only glimpses of mountain or valley, or a river meandering across the snowy landscape. As she grew older, she was becoming increasingly afraid of air travel, although she could not explain her phobia. In the past she had never seen a flight as any more risky than a drive. But over the years she had developed a fear of flying which she attributed to having children and acquiring responsibilities in life. Generally she found it easier to cope with a short domestic flight than an international journey, although there were exceptions to the rule. She remembered one hazardous midwinter flight in stormy weather, swooping between the mountains and down into the narrow fjord of Ísafjördur: she had felt as if she were in a horror film that would culminate in a terrifying crash. She thought her time had come and clenched her eyes shut, praying until the undercarriage wheels touched down safely on the icy runway. Complete strangers had hugged each other in relief. On long international flights Elínborg took care to choose an aisle seat and tried not to worry about exactly how the heavy aircraft managed to take to the air and stay aloft, laden with passengers and their luggage.

  The local police met her at the little airport and drove to the village where Runólfur’s mother lived. A dusting of snow highlighted the rich autumnal hues of the vegetation. Elínborg sat silently in the police car’s back seat, unable to focus on the beautiful natural scenery around her. She was thinking about her son Valthór. A month ago she had discovered by chance that he was blogging on the Internet, and now she had a guilty conscience about the boy. She did not know what to do.

  Elínborg had been picking up clothes from the floor of his room when she saw on the computer screen that he had been writing about himself and his family. She jumped when she heard him approach and when they met in the doorway she pretended nothing was wrong. But she had made a mental note of the Internet thread, and after a slight tussle with her conscience she had keyed it into the family computer in the TV den. It felt like reading her son’s private correspondence, until she realised that the content of the blog was open to be read by anyone. When she saw how freely he wrote about himself she broke out into a cold sweat. He had never mentioned to her or to Teddi anything that she read in the blog, or said anything about it at home at all. There were links to other blogs. Elínborg looked through some of them, and saw that Valthór’s candid style was far from unusual. People had no inhibitions about writing about themselves, their family, their deeds, desires, emotions, opinions – anything that came into their minds as they sat at the computer, and with no self-censorship. Anything and everything went up. Elínborg had never taken any particular interest in blogs, except in the context of her work, and she had not imagined that her own children might be involved.

  Since first coming across Valthór’s blog, Elínborg had stealthily accessed the site from time to time, read about the music her son listened to, films he had seen, and what he was doing with his friends, about school and what he thought of it and of individual teachers. Everything that Elínborg and he never talked about. He reported her own remarks on a sensitive issue under debate in society; he wrote about his gifted sister and how difficult it was to cater for her – because all the special-needs teaching was directed at the needs of dunces, Valthór stated, quoting his mother.

  When she read her own words repeated on the Internet for all to see, Elínborg was furious: the boy had no right to go gossiping about her opinions. Valthór occasionally quoted his father too, but that was mostly on the subject of cars in which they shared an interest. The boy also posted some of his father’s very politically incorrect jokes.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Elínborg sighed.

  But what really caught her attention was another aspect of his shameless behaviour: the blog indicated unmistakably that Valthór was something of a ladies’ man. It was clearly no coincidence that Elínborg had found a condom in his trouser pocket. He was forever mentioning girls he knew and writing about his social life with them: dances, trips to the cinema, none of which Elínborg knew anything about. Under the heading Say what you think, readers were invited to post their responses. It seemed to Elínborg that two, if not three, of her son’s girlfriends were competing for his affections.

  As the car sped through the glorious autumn woodland, under her breath Elínborg cursed the very idea of Valthór and his blog.

  ‘Pardon?’ said the policeman who was driving. The other sat in the front passenger seat, apparently asleep. They had given her some information about Runólfur’s mother and the village, but otherwise had not spoken.

  ‘Nothing. Sorry, I’ve got a bit of a cold,’ said Elínborg, digging a tissue out of her bag. ‘Do you have a police station in the village?’

  ‘No, we don’t have the funding. It all costs money. But nothing ever happens there. Nothing that matters, anyway.’

  ‘Is it much further?’

  ‘Half an hour,’ answered the policeman. They did not speak for the rest of the journey.

  Runólfur’s mother, Kristjana, lived in a fairly small modern townhouse and was expecting the police. She met Elínborg at the door. Looking tired and withdrawn, she left the door open and went back inside without speaking. Elínborg stepped inside and closed the door on her local colleagues. She wanted to speak to the woman in private.

  It was late afternoon. The weather forecast was for snow showers, but bright rays of sunshine broke briefly through the thick cloud cover, illuminating the room before vanishing again. It grew dark suddenly. Kristjana had taken a seat facing the television. Elínborg sat on the sofa.

  ‘I don’t want to hear any details,’ said Kristjana. ‘The vicar told me some of it, but I’ve stopped watching the news. I heard something about a brutal attack with a knife. I don’t want to know any more.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Elínborg.

  ‘Thank you.’ />
  ‘It must have a been a terrible shock.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say about how I feel,’ said Kristjana. ‘It was incomprehensible when my husband died, but this … this is …’

  ‘Is there someone who could come and be with you?’ Elínborg asked when Kristjana stopped in mid-sentence.

  ‘We had him rather late,’ said Kristjana, as if she had not heard. ‘I was nearly forty. My husband, Baldur, was four years older than me. We weren’t young when we met. I’d been living with someone for a few years. Baldur had lost his wife. Neither of us had children. So Runólfur was … We didn’t have any more.’

  ‘I know the local police asked you about this when they informed you of Runólfur’s death, but I want to ask you again: do you know of anyone who might have had a grudge against him?’

  ‘No. I told them, I can’t imagine that. I simply can’t conceive how someone would want to do such a thing. I think Runólfur was a chance victim, like in a car crash. That’s how Baldur went. They told me he probably fell asleep at the wheel – that poor man driving the lorry said he thought he had seen Baldur nodding off. I didn’t feel sorry for myself, although I was left alone. Self-pity’s no use.’

  Kristjana fell silent. There was a box of tissues on the table. She took one and wound it in her fingers. ‘You shouldn’t be feeling sorry for yourself all the time,’ she repeated.

  Elínborg watched the wrinkled hands twisting the tissue, the hair in a ponytail, the bright eyes. She knew that Kristjana was seventy and had lived in this remote community all her life. The policemen who had driven Elínborg had told her that Kristjana was well known in the village for never having been to Reykjavík. She said there was nothing to take her there – even though her son had been in the city for more than a decade. Enquiries had revealed that he rarely visited his mother. Scarcely ever, in fact. Over recent decades many people had left the area, as Kristjana’s son had done, and Elínborg’s impression was that the woman had been abandoned, marooned in a vanished era. Her world had remained unchanged while Iceland had undergone a transformation. In that sense Kristjana reminded Elínborg of Erlendur, who could never shake off his past, nor wished to; his mindset and manners were old-fashioned, and he clung fast to values which, without anyone particularly noticing or caring, were rapidly disappearing. How could she tell this woman that her son had carried a date-rape drug in his pocket?