The Doll

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘Nothing. Oh, apart from the fact he’s been murdered. Don’t you follow the news?’

  A blast of the horn indicated that the occupants of the car were growing impatient. The girl gaped at Huldar, unsure what to do.

  ‘I’d get yourself back over there. Tell them the police have got their registration number, so you’d better all steer clear of drugs in future. We’ll be keeping an eye on you. Believe me. Cops don’t lie.’

  ‘Cops?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m a cop. Oh, sorry, did I forget to mention that?’

  The girl spun on her heel and tottered off in her ludicrous shoes. When she reached the car and got in, it screeched away as fast as an old wreck could move. The girl didn’t even have time to slam the door but it swung shut under its own momentum as the car lurched forwards.

  Huldar watched it go but didn’t bother memorising the number plate. They were just stupid kids. The Drug Squad didn’t have the manpower to keep them under surveillance and there was no point arresting them. It would only marginalise them and risk turning them into criminals. He would just have to hope that he’d given the girl a bad enough scare to keep her away from that bloody crap. But he wasn’t holding out any hope.

  Finishing his cigarette, he called, ‘Puss, puss, tsk, tsk, tsk,’ a few more times, then gave up and left the open tin of tuna on Týr’s step. Although he’d failed to find the cat, it hadn’t been a completely wasted journey. He now had evidence that Binni had been dealing. That changed things a bit.

  When he reached the car, he glanced back once and saw a small black shape crouching over the tin outside Týr’s container.

  Chapter 17

  Friday

  Any possessions of Binni’s that were thought to merit closer attention had been placed in two cardboard boxes, which were now sitting on the floor beside Huldar’s desk. He hadn’t yet taken a look inside but he had picked them up and found them depressingly light. Some of the man’s belongings had been left behind in the container but, going by photos of the scene, Huldar reckoned two more boxes would have been sufficient to empty the place of all loose items.

  The unsettling thought occurred to Huldar that the same would be true of his own flat. He hardly owned any personal items; if you couldn’t plug it in, he wasn’t interested. Apart from the contents of his basement storage unit and wardrobe, his possessions would probably fill a shoebox – or one for boots, anyway. So he wondered why Binni’s half-empty boxes should have affected him so much. If he himself could choose to live a life stripped of all but the bare essentials, why shouldn’t the dead man have done the same? There was nothing to suggest that Binni had been forced into the role of ascetic since moving into the container. He could have chosen that life, as Huldar had chosen his. But the photos and Huldar’s brief glimpse of Binni’s living quarters had told a different story. Unlike him, Binni had put up a handful of ornaments – scrappy and recently acquired, maybe, but then he was unlikely to have carted around shelves of books and knick-knacks during his years living rough.

  It wasn’t the first time Huldar had been touched by melancholy at the sight of a deceased victim’s worldly possessions. Anyone who came into contact with death would be familiar with the feeling. Few of the things that were precious to people while they were alive had any intrinsic value for others. Viewed in the cold light of day, without the sentiments associated with them, the objects were revealed as worthless. It was better to own nothing but electrical gadgets.

  The photos taken outside Binni’s container hadn’t stirred up the same emotions. Huldar had seen the rubbish with his own eyes the night they discovered the body, and it wasn’t improved by a second viewing. There was no telling who owned what as the scrap metal and other junk was strewn all over the place, most densely around the containers, then thinning out the further you got from the little colony. In time, the whole area would be covered in junk. You’d have thought the occupants were human magnets. What they wanted with all this crap was hard to guess. But no doubt their intentions were good and, if they hadn’t collected it, the stuff would only have gone to the dump.

  Huldar clicked through the most recent photos that had been loaded onto the server. It wasn’t part of the job Erla had assigned to him; he was supposed to be sorting through and listing the items in the boxes. Thanks to the tip he had brought Erla about Binni’s dealing, he had got out of being sent to Grandi to search through the junk on site. He had also got out of viewing the CCTV footage of the area. The man to whom that task had fallen was hollow-eyed from long hours staring at his screen.

  The Drug Squad had been notified of Binni’s alleged activities. According to Erla, they had been nonplussed, as it was the first they had heard of him. In fact, they claimed it was unthinkable that the man could have been active for long without crossing their radar. But then what else were they supposed to say?

  There was something rather disheartening about the empty seat at the desk facing him. Although Gudlaugur could be withdrawn and moody, he was quite good company at times and Huldar enjoyed talking over cases with him. But Gudlaugur had been up half the night searching for Rósa and wasn’t due in until after lunch. The search had drawn a complete blank and, although no one had actually said as much, the team was growing increasingly concerned. How could a teenager vanish off the face of the earth for days at a time? Usually, no sooner had the missing-persons’ notice and photo been circulated online than the news came in that the kid had turned up. Sometimes the second notice to report the fact appeared hot on the heels of the first. But not in Rósa’s case.

  A request for information had been put out the day before. The news had stayed there a while, before slipping ever further down the screen, displaced by fresh items. Few people seemed to have paid any attention to the notice and it wasn’t even on the list of the most read articles. Still, it wasn’t as if the whole country needed to see the news; it would be enough for one person who knew the girl’s whereabouts to come forward. In practice, missing kids were rarely found as a result of information from strangers. And Rósa had no obvious distinguishing features to make her stand out from any other teenage girl.

  So far, nobody had called. Or nobody with genuine information. They’d had the usual cranks and time-wasters, but the officers manning the phones were trained to see through this kind of thing and quickly cut off any idiots.

  Huldar got up to fetch a pair of gloves. If he didn’t get his arse into gear soon, Erla might notice and tear a strip off him, which was never a good start to a day. Especially when she was already as prickly as hell due to the shortage of manpower, which hadn’t improved despite her attempts to recall officers from their summer holidays. So far, only one had obeyed the call. The others were all out of town; either chasing chinks in the clouds in the north or east of Iceland, or sunning themselves on foreign beaches. Although Huldar had heard on the news that one in three Icelanders had fled the country because of the relentless rain, he was struck by the perhaps cynical suspicion that most of his colleagues had bought their tickets the day the discovery of the bones hit the news. They knew that if they were in town, they risked having days shaved off their holiday. Huldar would have acted no differently in their shoes; he’d have booked a plane ticket or jumped in the car and headed into the wilds.

  Unable to find any gloves in his size, he had to make do with a pair that were too small. The fit was so tight, they felt like a second layer of skin.

  The first box turned out to be half empty. The scene-of-crime team hadn’t bothered to bag each item separately since none were likely to be of any relevance for the murder inquiry. The handful of objects that did enjoy that honour – the pill packaging, the ashtray and its contents, beer cans and anything else the killer might have touched – were already down at Forensics, being checked for fingerprints or biological traces. An old mobile phone that was thought to have belonged to the victim was also being examined. It was a battered model of the cheapest kind that even a pre-school kid would have turned up their
nose at these days. Since the SIM card was prepaid and unregistered, the phone had presumably been used for drugs deals. If so, it would be a goldmine for the Drug Squad, though they were sceptical that it would be possible to find out who procured Binni’s drugs by tracing messages or numbers. His suppliers were bound to use their own unregistered SIM cards and would have ditched them the moment news of the murder got out, regardless of whether they had any link to the case.

  Forensics thought it unlikely that the murderer would have handled any of the objects that had been on the shelves or in the kitchen cupboard. The man hadn’t had his throat cut with a picture frame, after all. Nevertheless, although it wasn’t a priority, everything would be carefully examined once Huldar had listed it.

  Huldar took one of the photos out of the box and put it on his desk, then opened the registration form that filled the screen, every box empty apart from the case number and the number that would be assigned to the object in question. He picked up the picture frame and started writing an uninspired description. Blue plastic photo frame, 13 x 18 cm, containing a photo of Brynjólfur when he was younger, with two children, a girl and a boy. White concrete wall visible in background. Photo a little faded and battered. Huldar assumed they were Binni’s kids but the form wasn’t designed for speculation. He shoved the frame in a bag and wrote the evidence number on it. Then he picked up the next picture and repeated the process. Oak photo frame, cracked glass, battered, 13 x 18 cm, containing a photo of Brynjólfur before he became homeless, probably aged around forty, with two men of a similar age. All three wearing waders, each holding a salmon. Picture taken on an Icelandic riverbank, location unknown. Huldar wondered who the men were and why Binni had kept the picture on display. It was in a much better condition than the one of his children, though the frame appeared to have fallen on the floor at some point. There was no sign that the picture had been carried around in Binni’s pocket during his years sleeping rough.

  The third and last framed photo was a studio portrait of a young man wearing a student’s cap. Huldar filled out yet another form, bagged up the frame and labelled it with a number.

  Three photos. Three more than could be found in Huldar’s own flat. He couldn’t be bothered to frame the few pictures he took himself, or the photos of his nephews that invariably accompanied Christmas cards from his sisters. Since he had five sisters, he simply didn’t have room for the entire collection. Nor did he particularly want his flat to look as if he were the proud weekend dad of a pack of boys. A gallery like that might lead to unfortunate misunderstandings when he invited women home.

  Erla came up to his desk and looked down into the box. ‘You’re not making much bloody progress, are you?’

  ‘I know.’ There was no point arguing. ‘But at least I’ve made a start.’

  Huldar hadn’t expected a pat on the shoulder for this and didn’t get one. ‘You do realise that we don’t have time for fannying about?’ Erla snarled. ‘We’re so short-staffed, we can’t afford to have you slacking.’

  ‘No. Understood.’ Huldar gave a perfunctory smile. Erla had obviously forgotten that she’d called him back to work the previous evening, causing him to miss out on his statutory rest period yet again. Not that he minded: he’d make up for all the lack of sleep when he was dead. What he did regret was the company he had been forced to forgo in exchange for a crap assignment. Spending the evening with Freyja and Saga was infinitely preferable to ferrying a puking drug addict to hospital. Fortunately, the vomit on the back seat of the unmarked police car wasn’t his problem. He’d dropped the car off at the station, feeling profoundly grateful that he didn’t have to clean it up himself, and unceremoniously informed the person in charge that it would need to be valeted. By then, it had been nearly two in the morning and he had been too tired to be anything other than blunt.

  ‘I’ve just got the post-mortem report,’ Erla said. ‘Not many surprises there. Brynjólfur died as a result of his throat being cut, severing an artery, as any fool could see. They estimate he’d have lost consciousness within ten seconds and been brain dead after two to five minutes. Up to that point he’d have been gushing out blood. He wouldn’t have been able to call out or scream in those few seconds because his windpipe was severed below the larynx.’

  ‘So inflicting the wound would have required quite a bit of strength?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Not if the knife was sharp and the person using it had the sense to pull his head backwards. Analysis of the wound indicates that it was made by a penknife or similarly short blade. The killer appears to have been right-handed.’ Erla sighed. ‘Týr’s left-handed so he’s unlikely to be the culprit. Which means we’re back to square one. They didn’t find any other blood or biological traces on the victim that could have come from his attacker – nothing under his nails or anything else to suggest a fight. The most likely scenario is that the killer approached him from behind and took him by surprise.’

  ‘What about Týr’s knuckles?’

  ‘They found his blood on the wall of his container, which would fit with his having punched it repeatedly. The wall panel was dented. So that probably accounts for his skinned knuckles.’

  ‘What about the tox report on the dead man? What emerged from that?’

  ‘He had a considerable amount of alcohol in his bloodstream. The test also confirmed that he’d taken oxycodone. Traces of it were found on the aluminium foil and syringe, indicating that he injected it. But that’s nothing we didn’t already know, so really we’re no better off. The window for the time of death hasn’t been narrowed down much either. He died around 11 p.m. His stomach contained skyr, which is consistent with the empty pot found in the kitchen. He’s thought to have eaten it about an hour before he died.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Various things, obviously. But nothing of any use to us. Inevitably, he had hepatitis C, and he had a leg injury too. No broken bones but a badly sprained ankle. His body was covered in scars, puncture marks and fading bruises. His lifestyle took its toll.’

  Erla picked up one of the photos that Huldar had bagged up. ‘Are those his kids?’

  ‘I assume so.’

  ‘We’re expecting the son in later. I’ll ask him.’ Erla replaced the frame. ‘You’d better join me for that interview. Everyone else is up to their ears. Be ready for 1 p.m. Don’t make me go looking for you in the smokers’ yard. It’s vital that the interview begins on the dot and finishes ASAP. The submarine’s in working order again and I’m due to go out on the boat at three.’ Erla looked a little pale and swallowed as she said this, perhaps reliving the memory of the last trip.

  Huldar just nodded. Once Erla had gone, he noted down the time of the interview on a yellow Post-it note and stuck it to his computer screen. Better safe than sorry. Then he reached into the box again and took out a painted figurine of a shepherd boy that would have looked more at home with an old lady in a retirement home than a drug addict in a container unit.

  Binni’s son, Thorgeir, went by his matronymic, Salvararson, rather than his patronymic, Brynjólfsson; a clear sign that his relationship with his dead father hadn’t been particularly close. That was understandable enough. Binni had walked out on the family when his son was at a sensitive stage of adolescence. At that age, Huldar had hardly been able to face going to the shops with his dad for fear that he would say something cringeworthy. He couldn’t imagine how it must have been for Thorgeir to be afraid of running into his father in the gutter every time he went into town with his mates. For a teenager, it would be hard to think of anything more mortifying.

  Thorgeir had light brown hair and unusually dark rims round his eyes. He had frowned as he introduced himself and the expression hadn’t left his face since. He rested his hands on the table between him and the two detectives, as if poised to get up and leave the moment he got a chance. He hadn’t unzipped his jacket either, an unequivocal sign that he had no intention of sticking around any longer than was strictly necessary.


  There was a certain resemblance between the young man and the old photographs of his father. But Thorgeir was nothing like the man Huldar had seen lying dead on the sofa. To be fair, though, with that obscenely gaping wound in his neck, Binni had hardly been looking himself.

  ‘Is this a picture of your father with you and your sister?’ Huldar passed the exhibit in its labelled plastic bag across the table.

  Thorgeir loosened his grip on the table edge and picked up the photo, barely glanced at it, then pushed it back to Huldar. ‘Yes, that’s me and Sunneva. And Brynjólfur.’ Poor Binni had clearly forfeited his right to be called ‘Dad’.

  ‘Do you know who these men are?’ Huldar handed him the bag containing the photo of the salmon fishermen.

  Again Thorgeir took the picture, gave it a cursory glance, then replied: ‘Some blokes. Friends of Brynjólfur’s from the old days, maybe. That’s him in the picture. But of course you already knew that.’ He slid it back across the table. ‘Why are you asking me about some old photos? What have they got to do with anything?’

  ‘Did you visit your father regularly?’ Erla asked, ignoring his questions.

  ‘No. I can’t say I did. We weren’t close. There was no doubt about where me and Sunneva came on his list of priorities. It’s not like we mattered much to him. But I did look in on him once or twice when he was living in that container. I didn’t stay long, though.’

  ‘When was the last time you were there?’

  ‘About two weeks ago. Or a bit less. It was on a Saturday.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Huldar removed both pictures from the table. He didn’t bother to ask about the third photo as the student in the portrait was unmistakeably sitting in front of them.

  ‘Nothing, really. He asked how Mum was doing. How Sunneva was doing. How I was doing.’ He stopped. Huldar and Erla remained silent. Silence was the most effective lubricant for an interviewee’s vocal cords. After a pause, Thorgeir went on: ‘But it was obvious he wasn’t interested. He was drunk. Or stoned.’ Thorgeir smiled with a sudden savage contempt. ‘Just for a change.’