Outrage
( Detective Erlendur - 7 )
Arnaldur Indridason
Arnaldur Indridason
Outrage
1
He dressed himself in black jeans, a white shirt and a comfortable jacket, put on a pair of smart shoes he had had for three years, and considered the venues in the city centre that one of the women had mentioned.
He mixed himself two stiff drinks, which he drank as he watched TV and waited until it was time to go into town. He didn’t want to set off too early — someone might notice him hanging around in a half-empty bar and he wanted to avoid that. The most important thing was to melt into the crowd, to go unnoticed, to be like everyone else. He mustn’t be memorable in any way, must not stand out. In the unlikely event that anyone asked him about his movements that evening, he would say he had been at home all night, watching TV. If everything went according to plan, no one, anywhere, would remember his presence.
When the time was right he drained his glass and left. He was slightly tipsy. He walked from his home near the city centre through the autumn darkness towards the bar. The town was already buzzing with weekend revellers. Queues were forming at the most popular venues, bouncers were flexing their muscles and people were wheedling for admission. Music could be heard in the street, and food smells from restaurants mingled with the alcoholic fumes seeping from the bars. Some people were drunker than others. He despised them.
He had only a short wait before he made it inside. It wasn’t one of the most fashionable places, but it was crammed all the same. That was fine. He had already been on the lookout for girls or young women on his way through town: preferably not much over thirty, preferably not stone-cold sober. It was all right if they’d had a bit to drink but he didn’t want them too drunk.
He kept a low profile. He patted his jacket pocket once more, to be sure he had it. He had touched the pocket lightly several times on the way, knowing that he must be one of those neurotic types who were forever checking whether they’d locked the door, forgotten their keys, whether the coffee maker was definitely switched off or a hotplate had been left on. He was obsessive like that — he recalled reading about it in some magazine. Another article had been about a different compulsion of his: washing his hands twenty times a day.
Most people were drinking half-litres of beer, so he ordered the same. The bartender hardly glanced at him, and he took care to pay cash. He found it easy to blend in. Most of the customers were about his age, out with friends or colleagues. The drinkers raised their voices to be heard over the heavy rap beat of the music and the din was deafening. He took a leisurely look around, observing groups of women sitting and standing together. Other women were with boyfriends or husbands, but there was no one who appeared to be alone. He left without finishing his drink.
At the third place he spotted a woman he recognised — he thought she was probably about thirty and she seemed to be on her own. She sat at a table in the smoking area, surrounded by other smokers, but she was clearly not with them. He observed her from a distance as she sipped a margarita and smoked two cigarettes. The bar was packed, but no one who approached her seemed to know her.
Two men spoke to her but she shook her head and they left. A third man loomed over her, apparently unwilling to take no for an answer.
She was a brunette with a pretty face, a bit heavyset but nicely dressed in a skirt and a short-sleeved T-shirt and with a beautiful shawl around her shoulders. Across the T-shirt the words San Francisco were stencilled, with a little flower growing up out of the letter F.
She managed to shake off her persistent suitor, who made an angry remark and left.
He gave her time to settle down before he approached her. ‘Have you been there?’ he asked. The brunette looked up. She couldn’t place him.
‘To San Francisco?’ he added, pointing at the shirt.
She looked down at her breasts.
‘Oh, this?’ she asked.
‘It’s a delightful city,’ he said. ‘You should go sometime.’
She looked at him, debating whether to tell him to push off like she’d told the others. Then she seemed to remember meeting him before.
‘There’s so much going on there,’ he said. ‘In Frisco. A lot to see.’
She smiled.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ she said.
‘Yes, nice to see you. Are you here alone?’
‘Alone? Yes.’
‘So, what about Frisco? You must go.’
‘I know, I’ve …’
Her words were drowned out by the noise. He passed his hand over his jacket pocket and leaned over her.
‘The airfare’s not cheap,’ he said. ‘But I mean … I went there once, it was great. A delightful city.’
He used certain words deliberately. She was looking up at him, and he imagined her counting on the fingers of one hand how many young men she had met in her life who would use a word like delightful.
‘I know. I’ve been.’
‘Oh. Well, then. May I join you?’
She hesitated for a moment, then moved over to make room for him.
Nobody took any notice of them in the bar, nor when they left a little over an hour later and headed back to his place, taking deserted side streets. By then the drug was working. He had offered her another margarita, and as he’d returned from the bar with her third drink he’d slid his hand into his jacket pocket to palm the pill and slipped it into her glass. They were getting along fine, and he was sure she would give him no trouble.
The Criminal Investigation Department received the notification two days later. Elínborg was on duty and she called out the team. When she arrived at the scene traffic police had already closed off the road, in the Thingholt district, and the forensics officers were just pulling up. She saw a representative of the Regional Medical Officer get out of his car. At the start of a case only forensics team members were permitted to enter the flat, to carry out their investigations. They ‘froze’ the scene, as they put it.
Elínborg made the necessary arrangements as she waited patiently for the forensics team to give her the go-ahead. Journalists and other media reporters were gathering, and she observed them at work. They were pushy — some were even rude to the police who were keeping them away from the crime scene. One or two of the TV reporters looked familiar: a vacuous quiz-show host who had recently transferred to the news, and the presenter of a political chat show. She had no idea why he should be down here with the news teams. Elínborg recalled her early days with the CID, when she’d been one of only a handful of women detectives: back then the reporters had been much more polite, and far fewer. She preferred the press journalists. Print-media people were less rushed, less overbearing and less self-important than the TV reporters toting their video cameras. Some of them could even write.
Neighbours stood at their windows or had stepped out into their doorways, arms crossed in the autumn chill, puzzlement on their faces; they had no idea what had happened. Police officers had started questioning them: had they noticed anything unusual on the street, or specifically at the house, anyone coming or going? Did they know the resident? Had they been inside?
Elínborg had once rented a flat in Thingholt, long before it had become fashionable. She had liked living in this historic area on the hillside above the old town centre. The houses, which varied in age, encapsulated a century of the history of building and architecture in the city: some had been humble labourers’ cottages, others had been grand villas built by wealthy entrepreneurs. Rich and poor, masters and workers, had always lived there in harmony side by side until the district had started to attract young home-buyers with no interest in settling in the sprawling new suburbs that were stretching into the upland heath
s, and who preferred to make their homes close to the heart of the city. The artistic and fashionable classes moved into the old timber-framed houses, and the splendid mansions were bought up by the super-wealthy and nouveau riche. They wore their downtown postcode like a badge of honour: 101 Reykjavík.
The head of forensics appeared at the corner of the house and called to Elínborg. He reminded her to be careful, and not to touch anything.
‘It’s nasty,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘Like an abattoir.’
The entrance to the ground-floor flat was at the rear, facing the garden, and was not visible from the road; a paved path led round to the back of the house. As she entered the flat Elínborg saw the body of a young man lying on the living-room floor. His trousers were around his ankles and he was wearing nothing but a blood-soaked T-shirt with the words San Francisco stencilled on it. A little flower was growing up out of the letter F.
2
On her way home Elínborg stopped to buy food. She usually took her time shopping and avoided the no-frills supermarkets, finding that they offered a limited range and quality consistent with the bargain prices. But this time she was in a hurry. Both boys had rung to check that she would be cooking dinner as she had promised and she’d confirmed that she would, only she’d be a bit on the late side. She did her best to have a proper family dinner every day — if only for fifteen minutes while the kids wolfed down their food.
And she knew that if she didn’t cook then the boys would go and buy expensive fast food, wasting what little money they had earned during the summer holidays — or would get their dad to do so. Her husband Teddi, a motor mechanic, was a hopeless cook; he could prepare a sort of porridge, or fry an egg, but that was about it. But he was good at clearing and washing up, and did his bit around the house.
Elínborg looked around for something quick. At the cold counter she saw some minced fish which looked as if it would do, then she grabbed a bag of rice, some onions, a few other things she needed, and within ten minutes was back in the car.
About an hour later they sat down at the kitchen table. The older boy grumbled about the fish-balls, complaining that they’d had fish the day before. He would not eat onion and carefully left it at the side of his plate. The younger boy, like his father, ate whatever was put in front of him. The youngest of the children, Theodóra, had rung to ask if she could have dinner at her friend’s house. They were doing their homework together.
‘Isn’t there anything but soy sauce?’ asked the older boy, Valthór. He was sixteen and had just started high school. He knew exactly what his ambitions were and had opted to complete his secondary education at the Commercial College. Elínborg thought he had a girlfriend, although he gave no hint. He never said anything about himself, but no detective work by his mother had been necessary: when she’d been putting his jeans into the washing machine a packet of condoms had fallen out of the pocket. She did not mention it to him: it was the way of the world, but she was glad he was taking precautions. She had not managed to gain his trust and their relationship could be tense; the boy was fiercely independent and sometimes truculent. It was a character trait that Elínborg disliked, and she did not know where he got it from. Teddi handled him better — father and son shared an interest in cars.
‘No,’ said Elínborg, pouring the dregs of a bottle of white wine into her glass. ‘I couldn’t be bothered to make a sauce.’
She looked at her son and considered yet again whether she ought to confront him about her discovery. But she felt too tired to cope with an argument. She was sure he would say that she was interfering.
‘You said you’d cook steak this evening,’ Valthór reminded her.
‘Who was the dead body you found?’ asked the younger boy, Aron. He had been watching the TV news and had caught sight of his mother outside the house in Thingholt.
‘A man of about thirty,’ Elínborg replied.
‘Was he killed?’ asked Valthór.
‘Yes,’ answered Elínborg.
‘It said on the news that they didn’t know yet whether it was murder,’ commented Aron. ‘They said suspected murder.’
‘The man was murdered,’ said Elínborg.
‘Who was he?’ asked Teddi.
‘No one we know.’
‘How was he killed?’ asked Valthór.
Elínborg looked at him. ‘You know you can’t ask me that.’
Valthór shrugged.
‘Was it drugs?’ asked Teddi. ‘Was that why-?’
‘Will you all please stop talking about it?’ pleaded Elínborg. ‘We don’t know anything yet.’
They knew that they must not press her. Elínborg felt it was inappropriate to discuss her job. The men of the family had always been fascinated by police work, and when she was involved in a major case they could not resist asking her for the details. They even came up with suggestions of their own, but if the investigation dragged on they generally lost interest and left her alone. They watched a lot of American crime drama on TV, and when the boys were smaller they had been excited and impressed that their mum was a detective like the heroes and heroines of the TV shows. But they had soon realised that the stories on screen were a world away from what she told them about her job — and what they saw for themselves. The TV detectives were glamorous, wise-cracking, insightful sharpshooters who traded repartee with plausible villains, engaged in white-knuckle car chases and, with never a hair out of place, talked psychopaths into surrender. In every episode horrifying murders were committed — two, three or four — and in the end the perpetrator was always caught and received his or her just deserts.
The boys were well aware that Elínborg did a lot of overtime. As she said, her basic salary was low so she needed to increase her earnings. She had never been in a car chase, she told them, and she carried no pistol, let alone an automatic rifle like an American cop: the Icelandic police were unarmed. The villains were mostly unfortunates and losers, as Sigurdur Óli called them: the usual suspects. Burglary and car theft made up the majority of cases. Assault. Drugs were the province of the Drug Squad, while serious crimes such as rape landed regularly on Elínborg’s desk. Murder was rare, but the numbers varied each year: some years went by without a single case, while in others there might be up to four. Recently the police had observed a dangerous trend: crime was becoming more organised, more people were carrying weapons, and violence was becoming more extreme.
Elínborg generally came home from work exhausted, made dinner, then spent a little time developing new recipes — cookery was her hobby. Or she simply lay down on the sofa and fell asleep watching TV.
Now and then the boys would look up from their cool crime dramas to glance at their mother. The Icelandic police did not impress them.
Elínborg’s daughter was quite unlike her brothers; from early childhood Theodóra had shown herself to be unusually gifted, and this had led to problems at school. Elínborg was reluctant to move her up a year as she wanted her to develop socially in step with her contemporaries, but the schoolwork was far too easy for her. She needed constant stimulation: she played handball, took piano lessons, and was a Girl Guide. She did not watch much television and had no particular interest in films or video games; she was a bookworm who read from morning to night. When Theodóra had been younger Elínborg and Teddi were kept busy borrowing books for her from the library, and as soon as she was old enough she got her own library card. She was now eleven years old. A few days earlier she had tried to summarise for her mother the main points of A Brief History of Time.
When Elínborg thought the children were out of earshot she would sometimes talk to Teddi about her work colleagues. They knew that one was a man named Erlendur, who was something of an enigma to them: sometimes Elínborg spoke as if she did not like working with him, while at other times it sounded as if she could not do without him. The youngsters had more than once heard their mother wonder aloud how such a failure of a father, such an irascible loner, coul
d be such an insightful detective. She admired his work but she did not necessarily like him. Another person she sometimes discussed in whispers with Teddi was Sigurdur Óli: a bit of a weirdo, so far as the kids could tell. Their mother sometimes groaned when his name came up.
Elínborg was dozing off when she heard a sound. They were all in bed except Valthór, who was still on the computer; she did not know whether he was working on a school assignment, or just chatting or blogging. He would not sleep until the middle of the night. Valthór had his own internal clock: he did not go to bed until the early hours and would lie in until evening, given the chance. This worried Elínborg but she saw little point in discussing it. She had tried many times, but he was obstinate and dogmatic, insisting on his rights.
The Thingholt victim was on Elínborg’s mind all evening. Even if she had wanted to, she could not have described the horrifying scene to her boys: the man’s throat had been cut, and the chairs and tables in the living room had been drenched in blood. The pathologist had not yet made his report.
The police reckoned that the killing had been premeditated. The perpetrator must have come to the victim’s home with the intention of attacking him. There was little sign of a struggle and the actual wound appeared to be a confident slash straight across the throat, at precisely the right point to inflict maximum damage. Smaller cuts on the neck indicated that the blade had been held at the victim’s throat for some time. It looked as if the assault had been sudden and unexpected: there was no damage to the outside door, which might suggest that the victim had let his killer in, while another possibility was that someone who had entered the flat with the man, or had been his guest, had launched the brutal attack without warning. Nothing seemed to have been stolen and there was no sign that the flat had been ransacked.
It was unlikely that the victim had been killed by burglars but he might conceivably have disturbed them before any damage had been done, leading them to panic and attack him.
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