Arctic Chill

12

Elinborg was waiting to meet Elias’s teacher at the school the boy and his brother had attended before they moved from Snorrabraut. Having been told that a meeting was just finishing, she sat outside the closed classroom and thought about her youngest child, a daughter, who was still at home with gastric flu. Her husband, a car mechanic, would spend the first part of the day with her, then Elinborg would take over.

The classroom door opened and a middle-aged woman greeted her. During the meeting, she had been passed a note that the police wanted to talk to her. Elinborg shook the woman’s hand, introduced herself and said she needed to talk to her in connection with Elias’s murder, which she had doubtless heard about. The woman gave a sad nod.

“We were talking about that at the meeting,” she said in a low voice. “Words can’t describe that, that sort of… outrage. Who would do something like that? Who on earth would be capable of attacking a child?”

“We intend to find out,” Elinborg said, looking all around in search of a place where they could talk together without being disturbed.

The woman, whose name was Emilia, was petite with long, dark hair in a ponytail, just beginning to turn grey. She said that they could sit inside the classroom: the children were at a music lesson and it was empty. Elinborg followed her. Pupils” drawings were pinned up on all the walls and displayed different stages of maturity, from matchstick men to proper portraits. Elinborg noticed a few traditional pictures: Icelandic farmhouses, at the foot of a mountain with a bright blue sky, wisps of cloud and a brilliant sun. She remembered that classic theme from her own schooldays and was silently surprised at its longevity.

“This one’s by Elias,” Emilia said, taking out a picture from a drawer in the teacher’s desk. “They never came to fetch his artwork when he left this school and I didn’t want to throw this one away. It shows how genuinely talented he was at drawing, at such a young age.”

Elinborg took the picture. The teacher was right, it showed that Elias had an exceptional command of drawing. He had drawn a female face with unnaturally large brown eyes, dark hair and a broad smile, bathed in bright colours.

“It’s supposed to be his mother,” Emilia smiled. “Those poor people, having to go through all this.”

“Did you teach him from the time he started school?” Elinborg asked.

“Yes, from the age of six, I guess, only four years back. He was such a nice, sweet boy. A bit of a dreamer. Sometimes he had trouble concentrating on his schoolwork and it took some effort on my part to get him to apply himself. He could stare into space for hours on end and be off in a world of his own.”

Emilia stopped talking and turned pensive.

“It must be difficult for Sunee,” she said.

“Yes, of course, really difficult,” Elinborg said.

“She always showed the boys such love,” the teacher said, pointing at the drawing. “I taught them both, Elias’s brother Niran too. He didn’t speak Icelandic well at all. I’m told they mainly spoke Thai at home and I discussed the fact with Sunee, how it could cause them problems. Her Icelandic was so-so and she preferred to have an interpreter with her at parents” meetings.”

“What about the father? Did you get to know him?” Elinborg asked.

“No, not at all. He never attended any events here, not the Christmas party or anything of that sort. Never came to parents” meetings, for example. She always came by herself.”

“Moving to a new part of town and a new school might have been tough for Elias,” Elinborg said. “It’s not certain that he adapted to the new school. He hadn’t made any friends and he spent a lot of time alone.”

“I can believe that,” Emilia said. “I remember what he was like when he started at this school. I thought he would never let go of his mother. It took me and the class welfare officer ages to get him to relax and realise that everything would be fine even if Sunee went.”

“What about Niran?”

“The brothers are so different,” Emilia said. “Niran is tough. He’d survive anywhere. There’s not a hint of the whiner about him.”

“Did they get on well together, the brothers?”

“As far as I could see, Niran took very good care of his brother and I know Elias worshipped him. He made a lot of drawings of Niran. The difference between them was that Elias wanted to fit in, to be part of the class. Niran was more of a rebel, against the class, the teachers, the school authorities, the older pupils. There was a group of immigrant kids here, five or six boys that Niran went around with a lot. They kept themselves to themselves and did little schoolwork, because they had absolutely no interest in Icelandic history or anything like that. Once they fought with some Icelanders. This was outside school hours. It was in the evening and the gangs fought with sticks and broke windows. You hear about that sort of thing sometimes. You must be familiar with it”

“Yes, we are,” Elinborg said. “Generally it’s to do with girls.”

“The two ringleaders moved away from this part of town in the last school year and it died down. It only takes a tiny minority. Then Elias and Niran changed schools. I haven’t seen either of them since. And then you hear this on the news and can’t understand what’s going on.”

Emilia spoke quickly, almost gabbling. Elinborg refused to be drawn and dodged all her questions about how the boys had been doing since they left the area and about Sunee’s personal circumstances. Emilia was an inquisitive woman and not afraid to show it. Elinborg liked her but did not want to reveal any details of the case. She merely said that it was at a very early stage. Emilia’s curiosity was understandable. Elias’s murder dominated the media. The police had probably talked to almost a hundred people in the neighbourhood, the surrounding blocks of flats, the school and nearby shops. Photographs of Elias were being circulated and attempts made to trace his precise movements on the fateful day. Witnesses who might have seen him on his way back from school were asked to come forward. Nothing concrete had come out of it yet. The only solid evidence the police had was that Elias had left school alone and was going home when he was stopped on the way.

Elinborg smiled and looked at the clock. She thanked Emilia for her comprehensive answers and the teacher accompanied her down the corridor to one of the exits. They shook hands.

“So you’re no closer?” Emilia said.

“No,” Elinborg said. “No closer.”

“Well,” Emilia said, “as it happens I… Is Sunee still with that man of hers?”

“No … ?”

“That was one of Elias’s drawings,” Emilia hurried to say. “It showed his mother, who he often drew, with a man beside her. This was in the spring, after they’d moved away but while the boys were still at this school. I remember asking Elias who it was. It just sort of slipped out”

Didn’t it just? Elinborg thought to herself. It was as if Emilia was aware herself of how inquisitive she was.

“And he said the man was his mother’s friend.”

“Really?” Elinborg said. “Did you ask the boy his name?”

“Actually, I did.” Emilia smiled. “Elias said he didn’t know. Or he didn’t tell me anyway.”

And the man on the drawing, what… ?”

“He could well have been Icelandic”

“Icelandic?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to be nosy but I had the feeling that Elias liked him a lot.”

Andres leaned back in his chair in the interview room. A click was heard as the tape came to an end and stopped recording. Sigurdur Oli reached out, turned the tape over and started the recording again. Erlendur stared at Andres all the time.

“What’s that about the nightmare you can never shake off?” he asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I doubt you’d want to hear it,” Andres said. “I doubt anyone would want to hear about such evil.”

“Who is this man?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“Do you mean he did something to you?”

Andres said nothing.

“Are you saying he’s a paedophile?” Erlendur asked.

Andres sat in silence, looking at Erlendur.

“I haven’t seen him for years,” he said eventually. “Years on end. Not until suddenly … I guess it was a year ago.” Andres stopped talking.

“And?”

“It was like meeting your executioner,” Andres said. “He didn’t see me. He doesn’t know that I know about him. I know where he lives.”

“Where’s that? Where does he live? Who is this man?” Sigurdur Oli showered Andres with questions but he sat completely unmoved, looking at Sigurdur Oli as if he were absolutely irrelevant to him.

“I might well pay him a visit one day,” Andres said. “To say hello. I reckon I could handle him now. I reckon I could get the better of him.”

“But first you needed some Dutch courage,” Erlendur said.

Andres did not answer.

“You had to run off and hide first?”

“I always hid. You should know how good I was at concealing myself. I found new hiding places all the time and tried to make myself as small as I could.”

“Do you think he hurt the boy?” Erlendur asked.

“Maybe he gave up ages ago. I don’t know. Like I say, I haven’t seen him all these years and suddenly he’s my neighbour. Suddenly, after all these years, he walks past on the other side of the street from where I live. You can’t imagine what I really saw when he walked past. I mean up here,” Andres said, tapping his index finger against his temple.

“Do you think he’s on our paedophile register?” Erlendur asked.

“I doubt it.”

“Are you going to tell us how to find him?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

Andres did not reply.

“Who is he?” Sigurdur Oli asked, trying a new approach. “We can help you to get him. If you want to charge him. We can lock him up with your help. Is that what you want? Will you tell us who he is so we can throw him in the nick?”

Andres started to laugh in his face.

“This guy’s the dog’s bollocks,” he said with a look at Erlendur.

Then suddenly he stopped laughing. He leaned forward in Sigurdur Oli’s direction.

“Who’s going to believe a scumbag like me?”

Erlendur’s mobile phone started to ring. “The Ode to Joy” filled the interview room and Erlendur tried to dig out his phone as fast as he could. He hated that ringtone. He pressed the answer button. Sigurdur Oli watched him. Andres had clammed up. Erlendur listened and his face darkened. He rang off without saying goodbye and cursed as he leaped to his feet.

“Can this bloody mess get any worse?” he hissed through clenched teeth and rushed out of the room.

The police officer had second thoughts on his way back to the block of flats. The interpreter had popped out in her car but on the way she had asked him to fetch some bread and milk for the Thai woman and her son, who were alone in the flat. He had been in the force for two years and didn’t find this job worse than any other. He had been caught up in the downtown melees when the weekend celebrations reached their peak. He had been called out to terrible road accidents. None of them affected him much. They described him as promising. He aimed for promotion within the police. Now he had been given the job of standing guard at the home of the Thai woman and her son. All morning, a series of experts from various agencies had trooped up the stairs to her flat, and he had stood there, asking their names, occupations and business. He let them all in. They all came straight back down. The Thai woman wanted to be left alone with her child. He could understand that. What a tragedy she had suffered.

Then the interpreter came hurrying downstairs, handed him some money and a small shopping list and asked him to buy the items for the mother and son upstairs. He refused politely, shaking his head with a smile and saying he was not allowed to leave. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t. He was a policeman. Not an errand boy.

“It’ll only take five minutes,” the interpreter said. “I’d do it myself but I’m in a rush.”

Then she ran over to her car and drove off.

He was left standing there with the shopping list and the banknote and a conscience that he struggled with, but only for a moment. Then he hurried off too. He wasn’t long at all, as he told that Erlendur bloke who tore him off such a strip that he almost burst into tears. Perhaps he should have called for assistance. Perhaps he should not have gone on that ridiculous errand, which reminded him of when he was a child and his mother was always sending him out to the shop. Perhaps that was the point: he had acted instinctively and forgot himself for a moment. He had flicked through a trashy magazine containing stories of celebrity divorces, but did not dare to tell the inspector about that part of his journey. The old man was so worked up that he thought he would knock him senseless. Sigurdur Oli, whom he knew slightly, had to step in to restrain the inspector.

When he came back from the shop he ran up the stairs and rang the bell. Then he knocked on the door but there was no reply. Eventually he opened it and called in, “Hello!” The door was not locked. No one answered him. He walked around the flat, calling out in all directions. He received no reply. The flat was empty.

He stood like an idiot with a plastic shopping bag in his hand and could hardly muster the courage to inform the station that Sunee and her boy had gone missing.