‘Are you Kristján?’ he asked directly.
Kristján admitted that he was. The moment he set eyes on him, Sigurdur Óli realised that this could not be the man who had sprinted with such a terrific turn of speed towards the Kleppur mental hospital before vanishing into the night. He was not even convinced that such a feeble specimen would be able to lift a baseball bat, let alone wield it. Kristján cut an unimpressive figure: about twenty years old, his Bíkó uniform hanging from his skinny body like dirty laundry. Sheepish was the word that sprang to mind.
‘I’m from the police,’ Sigurdur Óli said, taking in their surroundings as he spoke. They were standing in the shelter of shelves displaying gardening tools, where Kristján was pretending to arrange the pruning shears. ‘I’ve just been talking to your sister,’ Sigurdur Óli continued, ‘and she told me you stole her car.’
‘That’s a lie, I didn’t steal it,’ Kristján said. ‘She lent it to me. And she got it back too.’
‘Where did you go in it?’
‘You what?’
‘What did you need the car for?’
Kristján hesitated. Avoiding Sigurdur Óli’s eye, he put down the shears and picked up a plastic bottle of weedkiller.
‘That’s my business,’ he said, with an unconvincing show of bravado.
‘The car was parked in a street not far from the Laugarás cinema, near where a woman was attacked and murdered on the same evening that you had use of the car. We know you were in the vicinity when the crime was committed.’
Kristján gaped at Sigurdur Óli, who pressed on before the boy could collect his wits.
‘What were you doing with the car? Why did you leave it behind overnight?’
‘It’s just that there’s been some kind of, some kind of misunderstanding,’ Kristján stammered.
‘Who were you with?’ Sigurdur Óli demanded. He spoke in a brusque, impatient voice, taking a step closer. ‘We know there were two of you. Who was with you? And why did you attack the woman?’
However Kristján may have prepared himself for this eventuality, his mind went blank when it came to the crunch. Sigurdur Óli had often seen boys like Kristján lose their nerve. They would stand in front of him, full of lies and defiance, answering back, denying everything and telling him to fuck off, then quite suddenly they would crumple, abandoning their insolence and becoming pathetically cooperative. Looking even more sheepish, Kristján replaced the weedkiller so clumsily that he knocked over three other bottles in the process, then stooped to pick them up and return them to the shelf. Sigurdur Óli watched his efforts dispassionately, offering no help.
‘I can’t believe Sara blabbed to you,’ Kristján said.
You contemptible little creep, thought Sigurdur Óli.
19
SIGURDUR ÓLI HAD no interest whatsoever in learning how Kristján had gone off the rails. He had heard countless similar sob stories, used either as an excuse for a career of criminality, or as proof of the mess the welfare state was in. It was enough for him to know that Kristján had messed up to the point where he was up to his neck in debts, mostly drugs-related, and owed money all over town, even, in two instances, to individuals based in other parts of the country. Kristján was not much of an earner either; he managed to score casual jobs here and there, as there were more than enough to go round these days, but for the most part he loafed about, idle and shiftless. He scrounged loans for as long as he could get away with it, particularly from banks and savings institutions, managing to amass an array of debit and credit cards, which had now been passed on as bad debts to official debt-collection agencies. But it was the thought of another kind of debt collector that made Kristján nervous.
He had broken the law and got away with it, though he was not prepared to go into details for Sigurdur Óli, and had a history of using girls, sucking them dry financially before they eventually got wise to him. One prospective father-in-law, a former championship-winning footballer, had beaten him to a pulp when he discovered that Kristján had stolen valuables from his house and pawned them.
Some of this information had been supplied by his sister Sara; the rest Kristján explained to Sigurdur Óli down at the station on Hverfisgata.
For it seemed that Kristján was not averse to talking, now that he was in the hands of the police. Of course, it helped that he was suspected of being party to a murder and was therefore anxious to clear his name, but Sigurdur Óli thought that this was not the only reason. It was as if Kristján had never spoken to anyone about his life and after some initial vacillation and awkwardness, the floodgates opened and out poured episodes from his past and encounters with people who had led him astray. To begin with, his account was incoherent but gradually he managed to impose some order on the tale and one name began to crop up repeatedly, that of a certain Thórarinn who drove a delivery van for a living.
If Kristján’s word was anything to go by, Thórarinn was both a dealer and a debt collector, a common arrangement, which made for efficiency. Kristján did not think he imported drugs on any large scale but he was a hard man with little tolerance for people who owed him money, which was how Kristján had ended up in his hands. Since Kristján was seldom able to pay for his habit, and no amount of threats or beatings did any good, Thórarinn had started to use him instead for small jobs in part payment for the drugs. These ranged from being sent out to buy alcohol or groceries to picking up new consignments from smugglers or cannabis farmers, since Thórarinn avoided undertaking such errands personally. Nor did Thórarinn touch drugs himself, though he could drink anyone under the table, according to Kristján. A former athlete and now a family man with a wife and three children, he was careful to stay under the radar and often claimed that the drugs money was his pension and that he would quit the business once he had raised enough. Kristján frequently had to do jobs for him in the van and his wages went towards paying off his debts.
Sigurdur Óli studied Kristján as he sat facing him in the interview room, a miserable, hunched figure. He was inclined to take his statement with a pinch of salt, though he was prepared to believe that this feckless boy was effectively a slave to his dealer. His request to smoke had been met with a flat refusal, and he had received short shrift from Sigurdur Óli when he asked if he had anything for him to eat. Finally, he asked if he could go to the Gents but that was refused as well.
‘You can’t ban me from that,’ Kristján objected.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘So, what happened on Monday evening?’
‘He didn’t want to use the van,’ Kristján said. ‘So he asked me to get hold of a car. Ordered me, more like. I told him I didn’t own one and he said to talk to my sister. I’d mentioned her to him, you see, and he knew she had a car.’
‘Did he tell you what he was going to do with it?’
‘No, he was just going to return it to me later that evening.’
‘You didn’t go with him?’
‘No.’
‘Did he go alone?’
‘Yes, I think so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Is he always that careful? Taking the precaution of obtaining a car specially?’
‘He’s very careful,’ Kristján confirmed.
‘Have you met him since he borrowed the car?’
‘I … he dropped into Bíkó the next day,’ Kristján said after a pause. ‘Only for a minute. He told me where he’d left the car and that I wasn’t to mention to anyone that he’d borrowed it and that we mustn’t be in touch for the next few weeks or months or whatever. Then he just walked out. I spoke to Sara and told her where the car was. She went ballistic.’
‘Did this Thórarinn tell you what business he had with the woman in the house?’
‘No.’
‘Did he go to see her for reasons of his own or was he acting for someone else?’
Kristján stared at him, and Sigurdur Óli realised that he had lost concentration. This had happened several times during their
conversation, especially when Sigurdur Óli’s questions were too convoluted. Kristján would gawp at him with incomprehension and Sigurdur Óli would have to rephrase his question more concisely. He did so again, trying not to speak too quickly.
‘Did Thórarinn know the woman?’
‘The one he attacked?’ Kristján asked knowledgeably. ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. He didn’t mention it.’
‘Was he calling in a drugs debt?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you any idea what he wanted with her?’
‘No.’
‘Does Thórarinn know the woman’s partner? His name’s Ebeneser.’
‘I’ve never heard him mention anyone called Ebeneser. Is he a foreigner?’
‘Would you say that Thórarinn was a violent man?’
Kristján thought. He wondered if he should tell them about the time Thórarinn had battered him for being behind on his debts, or the time he had broken his middle finger. He had held his finger and bent it slowly but inexorably backwards until something inside it snapped. The pain had been unbearable. But Thórarinn could be OK; that is, once he had come to terms with the fact that he would never get any money out of Kristján except by making him work. After that they had become mates of sorts, though he did not think that Thórarinn could have many friends, at least not that he knew of. He had heard how he spoke to his wife as well and it was not pretty; he had once seen her with a bump on her forehead and a split lip. The way Thórarinn talked about her was not pretty either, though he was good to his kids. But he was no barrel of laughs; indeed he had never really seen Thórarinn in a good mood, and he had warned Kristján on numerous occasions that if he squealed to the police he would kill him. Without hesitation. Just take him out.
‘What did you say?’ asked Kristján, having forgotten the question.
Sigurdur Óli sighed in exasperation and repeated himself.
‘He certainly can be,’ Kristján replied. ‘I don’t think his wife has a very good time.’
‘And you claim that Thórarinn is a debt collector?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that for sure? Have you witnessed it?’
‘He came after me for money,’ Kristján said. ‘And there are others I know about. He’s not a guy to mess with when he’s calling in his own debts. And he works for other people too.’
‘What people?’
‘Other dealers. Anyone, really.’
‘Does he use a baseball bat?’
‘No question,’ said Kristján without hesitation. But then he had never heard of a debt collector who did not use a baseball bat.
‘When were you last in contact with him?’
‘When he came to see me, the day after it happened.’
‘Do you know where he is now?’
‘I expect he’s at home. Or at work.’
‘You don’t think he’s gone into hiding?’
Kristján shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Where would he go in that case?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Sigurdur Óli continued to grill Kristján with some success. In spite of the countless death threats he had received, the boy held nothing back. It turned out that like so many other members of Reykjavík’s benighted underworld, Thórarinn had a nickname that explained a lot to Sigurdur Óli. Toggi ‘Sprint’.
20
TO BEGIN WITH, he hardly got to know his mother’s new boyfriend, as the man, who she never called anything but Röggi, was rarely home. Röggi was either at sea or working out of town and had little contact with mother and son.
After moving home from the farm he mostly looked after himself. He met other kids in the neighbourhood and would go to the three o’clock cinema showings with them. When school began in the autumn he ended up in the same class as some of these new friends. He was entirely responsible for getting himself to school; waking himself up in the morning, finding his clothes and, if there was any food to be had in the kitchen, making a packed lunch. His mother never surfaced that early, since she would invariably stay up late at night, sometimes receiving visitors that he did not know and tried to avoid meeting. Unable to sleep in the living room, he would flee into his mother’s room. Sometimes he heard the sounds of drinking and once a fight broke out and someone called the police. He watched from the bedroom window as a staggering drunk was hustled into a police car, hurling abuse at the officers. They were not gentle with him either, ramming him into the car door and knocking his feet from under him. He saw his mother standing in the doorway, yelling obscenities. Then she slammed the door and the noise of partying continued unabated till morning.
He was ashamed of himself for losing the thousand-krona note that the farmer had given him in parting. He had had it in the bus on the way to town, stuffed for safe keeping into his trouser pocket which he patted from time to time. But he had forgotten all about the money during the long wait at the bus station, such was his fear that no one would come to fetch him. When he got home he had fallen asleep at the kitchen table and by the time he woke up on the sofa the next day he had forgotten all about the money, unused as he was to owning anything, least of all a treasure like that. It was not until late in the evening that he remembered the gift. As he was still wearing the same trousers, he shoved his hand in his pocket, then in the other, then in the back pockets, then in increasing desperation he found the jacket he had been wearing and searched all its pockets, followed by his suitcase, the kitchen, the sofa, the living room, even behind the television. He told his mother that he had lost the money and asked if they could go down to the bus station to see if anyone had returned it.
‘A thousand kronur!’ his mother exclaimed. ‘Who do you think would give you a thousand kronur?’
It took him a while to convince her that he was telling the truth.
‘It must have fallen out of your pocket,’ said Sigurveig. ‘You can forget it. Nobody will hand in a thousand kronur. Nobody. You’re such an idiot – it’s a lot of money. Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming?’ She lit a cigarette.
Eventually, after persistent pleading on his part, she agreed to ring the bus station. He listened to the extremely brief conversation.
‘No, of course not, I didn’t think so,’ she said when she was satisfied that no thousand-krona note had been handed in.
And that was that. His mother cut short any further mention of the money and the next time the subject came up when Röggi was at home, he claimed he had no idea what the boy was on about: he had never seen any thousand-krona note.
He felt unable to establish any real connection with his mother, and was at a loss to understand why she had insisted on summoning him home from the countryside. He knew precious little about her; she behaved like a stranger and showed virtually no interest in him. She seemed to live in a world of her own in which there was no place for him, nor did she have any contact with her other children or relatives. Since she was unemployed, the only people she mixed with seemed to be night owls like herself. She rarely asked how he was, if he had made any friends, if he liked school, if he was bullied.
If she had ever shown any curiosity he would have told her that he was happy at school and getting on fine with his lessons. He could have done with some help with arithmetic, but he did not know where to look for that. Spelling was difficult too; the rules were a mystery and he got poor marks in his tests, although his teacher was understanding and patient. He was also slow at writing, which did not help when they played the spelling test unnecessarily fast on the tape player, making it hard for him to get it all down. He could have told her too that he found it uncomfortable when people noticed that he had no packed lunch or that he had been wearing the same clothes for so long that they had begun to smell.
He did his homework conscientiously every day and spent the evenings glued to the television; it was like having a cinema in your living room. He watched the entire schedu
le with equal enthusiasm: news, chat shows, cop dramas and Icelandic light-entertainment programmes with musical interludes. At weekends they showed the odd film and he never missed any. Along with the cartoons, the films were probably his favourite.
Röggi was taciturn when he was at home and gave away little about what he did. He did not appear to have any friends or acquaintances. Nobody came round and no one ever rang for him. The man slept a lot on his days off and was up all night. Once he woke up in the middle of the night to see Röggi in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette with a bottle in front of him. Another time he woke up to find Röggi standing over him, watching him expressionlessly, before returning to the bedroom without saying a word. If anything, he felt that Röggi showed more interest in him than his mother did. He would ask him about school and about his teachers, and watch TV with him. He gave him little presents too: sweets, fizzy drinks, chewing gum.
Then, one autumn evening while his mother was out and Röggi was at home sitting in front of the TV with him, Röggi asked if he would like to see some proper films, cartoons. Yes, he said. Röggi went into the bedroom and came out carrying the strange box that he had noticed on the living-room table on his first evening home from the country. Röggi prised off the cover to reveal the projector, then went back into the bedroom to fetch a cardboard box full of films, and finally a small screen on a tripod that he pulled down out of a long cylinder.
‘I’m going to show you some cartoons I’ve got,’ Röggi said, taking some reels from the box and starting to thread one into the machine.
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