Arctic Chill

18

Kjartan was not at home but the detectives said that they would wait. The woman regarded them in astonishment.

“Out here?” she asked, her features stretching in surprise.

Erlendur shrugged.

“Why do you keep wanting to talk to Kjartan?” she asked.

“It’s in connection with the incident at the school,” Elinborg said. “Routine procedure. We’re interviewing teachers and pupils.”

“I thought you’d already talked to him.”

“We need to talk to him again,” Elinborg said.

The woman looked from one of them to the other and they sensed that she would have preferred to shut the door in their faces and never see them again.

“Wouldn’t you rather come in?” she asked after an awkward pause.

“Thank you,” Erlendur said and ushered Elinborg inside before him. Two children, a boy and a girl, watched them enter the living room and take a seat. Erlendur would rather have talked to Kjartan down at the station or at the school but he had been avoiding them. He failed to turn up for a meeting at the station and when they went to pick him up from the school he was not there. As he was not answering his phone either, Elinborg suggested they pay him a visit at home and Erlendur had agreed.

“He took the car to the garage to get it looked at,” the woman said.

“I see,” Erlendur said.

It was evening and the woman had been making supper in the kitchen when they knocked on the door. She did not elaborate on the business with the car. She said she had heard from Kjartan that afternoon but not since then. Sensing her apprehension at the visit from the police, Erlendur tried to reassure her, repeating Elinborg’s words about routine procedure.

The woman was not entirely convinced, however, and when she went back into the kitchen she took her mobile with her. The two children followed, turning round in the kitchen doorway to stare wide-eyed at the detectives. Elinborg smiled at them. The woman’s voice carried into the living room. They heard her voice rise sharply at one point, then fall silent. Some time passed before she emerged. By then she was calmer.

“Kjartan’s been slightly held up,” she said, trying to smile. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Thank you,” Elinborg said.

“Can I offer you anything?” the woman asked.

“Coffee, please, if there’s any in the pot,” Erlendur said.

The woman disappeared back into the kitchen. The children were still standing in the doorway, staring at them.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Elinborg murmured to Erlendur after a long silence. She didn’t take her eyes off the children.

“It was your idea,” Erlendur said.

“I know, but isn’t it a bit OTT?”

“OTT?”

“We could make up some lie about a call-out. I had no idea it would be so awkward. If he comes, we could nab him outside.”

“Maybe you should never have quit geology,” Erlendur said.

“Geology?”

“Bits of rock don’t give you this sort of bother,” Erlendur said.

“Oh, ha ha!” Elinborg replied.

She had managed to irritate him in the car on the way over. Started quizzing him about Valgerdur and their future plans, and Erlendur had instantly retreated into silence. Elinborg was not daunted, however, even when he told her not to keep asking those infernal bloody questions. She asked if Valgerdur was still involved in some way with her former husband, a question that Erlendur would have had to answer in the affirmative, if he had answered at all, and if she ever intended to move in with him, a matter that he had still not confronted himself. Elinborg’s tendency to pry into his private life got on his nerves at times; questions about Eva Lind and Sindri Snaer, about himself. She seemed incapable of leaving well alone.

“Are you conducting a distance relationship, by any chance?” she asked. “Lots of people prefer it to living together.”

“Will you give me a break?” Erlendur said. “I don’t know what you mean by a distance relationship.”

Elinborg shut up temporarily, then began to hum the tune to a well-known poem by Steinn Steinarr: Cadet Jon Kristofer, the Sally Army meeting’s at seven, when Lieutenant Valgerdur will show you the way to heaven…”

She kept up her humming until Erlendur lost patience.

“I don’t know how things’ll work out,” he said. “And it’s none of your business anyway.”

“All right,” Elinborg said, still humming.

“Lieutenant Valgerdur.…!” Erlendur snapped.

“What?”

“The things you come out with!”

Kjartan’s wife emerged from the kitchen with some coffee cups. Her face wore a look of acute anxiety. The children followed and were left standing in the middle of the room at something of a loss when their mother returned to the kitchen to fetch the coffee. At that moment the door opened and Kjartan came in. Elinborg and Erlendur rose to their feet.

“Is this really necessary?” Kjartan said, clearly agitated.

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” Elinborg pointed out.

Kjartan’s wife came in with a coffee pot.

“What’s going on?” she asked her husband.

“Nothing,” Kjartan said, immediately calming down. He spoke reassuringly to his wife. “I told you on the phone, it’s because of the attack on the boy at school”

“What about it? It doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

“No,” Kjartan said, looking at the detectives as if for help.

“We’re talking to all the teachers at the school, as I’ve already told you,” Elinborg said. “Could we maybe sit down somewhere where we won’t be disturbed?”

She addressed her words to Kjartan, who hesitated. He looked at the three of them in turn and they all waited for him to speak. At last he nodded.

“I have a study down in the basement,” he said reluctantly. “We can go in there. Is that all right?” he asked his wife.

“Take the coffee with you,” she said.

Kjartan smiled.

“Thanks, love, I’ll be up as soon as they’ve gone.”

Picking up his younger child he kissed her, then stroked the elder child’s hair.

“Daddy’ll be right back,” he said. “He just needs to talk to these people, then he’ll be back.”

Kjartan showed them down to the basement. He had set up a study for himself in a little storeroom with a desk, computer and printer, books and papers. There was only one chair, which he occupied himself. The two detectives stood by the door. Kjartan had led them down to the basement in silence but now his anger seemed to erupt.

“What do you mean by persecuting me in my own home like this?” he snarled. “In front of my family! Did you see the look on my children’s faces? Do you really think this is an acceptable way to behave?”

Erlendur did not respond. Elinborg was poised to speak but Kjartan pre-empted her.

“Am I some sort of criminal? What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment?”

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” Erlendur said again. “You haven’t been answering your phone. We decided to check if you were at home. Your wife was kind enough to invite us in and make coffee. Then you turned up. Is that any reason to get excited? We only came round to try to catch you at home. Luckily, we did. Do you want to make a complaint?”

Kjartan looked at them in turn.

“What do you want with me?” he asked.

“Perhaps we could begin with something that calls or called itself “Fathers of Iceland”,” Erlendur said.

Kjartan smirked. “And with that you think you’ve solved the case, do you?”

“I don’t think anything,” Erlendur said.

“I was eighteen years old,” Kjartan said. “It was kids” stuff. You can imagine. Fathers of Iceland! Only kids come up with that sort of crap. Teenagers trying to sound big.”

“I know plenty of eighteen year olds who couldn’t even spell Weimar Republic”

“Look, we were a bunch of college boys,” Kjartan said. “It was a joke. It was fifteen years ago. I can’t believe you’re going to try and smear me as some kind of racist because of what happened to that boy.”

Kjartan said this sneeringly, as if any connection to the case was so far-fetched that it was a joke, and Elinborg and Erlendur were jokes as well; dumb cops barking up the wrong tree. There was something inexpressibly arrogant about the way he lounged in his chair, legs splayed, grinning at their stupidity. As if he pitied them for not having the same watertight view of life as him. Elias’s fate did not seem to have touched him in the slightest.

“What did you mean when you said that an attack like the one on Elias was only a matter of time?” Elinborg asked.

“I think it’s self-explanatory. What do people expect when they let those people in? Everything’s supposed to be just fine, is it? We aren’t prepared for it. People pour into this country from all over the world to do menial jobs and we turn a blind eye. We’re all supposed to be one big, happy family. Well, it doesn’t work like that and it never will. The Asian lot create their own little ghetto, cling to their customs and traditions and make sure they don’t marry outside their own community. They don’t bother to learn the language, so of course they underachieve at school — how many of them make it to university? Most drop out of education once they’ve finished compulsory schooling, grateful not to have to waste any more time on crappy Icelandic history, the crappy Icelandic language!”

“I see you haven’t entirely given up on Fathers of Iceland,” Erlendur remarked drily.

“Yeah, right, the moment anyone says anything they’re branded a bloody racist. No one’s allowed to open their mouth. Everyone has to be so diplomatic. A positive addition to Icelandic culture and all that crap. Fucking bollocks!”

“Do you think Elias’s attacker was of Asian origin?”

“Of course you lot have ruled that out entirely, haven’t you?” Kjartan said contemptuously.

“Do you talk like that to your pupils?” Elinborg asked. “Do you talk about immigrants like that to your pupils?”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with you,” Kjartan retorted.

“Do you stir up trouble between the kids at school?” Elinborg continued.

Kjartan looked from one of them to the other.

“Who have you been talking to? Where did you get hold of that stuff about Fathers of Iceland? What have you been digging up?”

“Answer the question,” Erlendur said.

“I haven’t done anything of the sort,” Kjartan said. “If anyone says I have, they’re lying.”

“It’s what we’ve been told,” Elinborg said.

“Well, it’s a lie. I haven’t been inciting anyone to do anything. Who says I have?”

The detectives did not answer.

“Don’t I have a right to know?” Kjartan asked.

Erlendur stared at him without saying a word. He had looked Kjartan up in the police records and found nothing but a speeding fine. He had never been in any trouble with the law. Kjartan was a respectable citizen, an upstanding family man and a good father, from what Erlendur could tell.

“How did you arrive at the conclusion that you’re somehow better than other people?”

“I’m not saying I am.”

“It seems blindingly obvious from everything you say and do.”

“Is that any of your business?”

Erlendur looked at him.

“No, none at all”

Ragnar, nicknamed Raggi at school, sat face to face with Sigurdur Oli at home in his living room. His mother sat beside him, looking anxious. She was divorced; Ragnar was the eldest of her three children and she struggled to make ends meet as the sole breadwinner. She’d had a chat with Sigurdur Oli before Raggi came home. “It’s not easy to provide for three children,” she’d said, as if excusing herself in advance. Yet Sigurdur Oli had done nothing but trot out the usual cliche about routine inquiries due to the incident at the school; the police were speaking to a number of pupils from different forms. The woman listened with apparent understanding, but since the police had come round to the little basement flat she rented for an extortionate amount from the rich old lady upstairs, who owned the whole house and at least three fur coats, it seemed a good opportunity to pour out her troubles. The mother was very overweight and short of breath; she smoked almost incessantly. The air in the flat was stifling. Sigurdur Oli never saw the other two children during his visit. The flat was littered with dirty laundry, junk mail and newspapers. The mother stubbed out her cigarette and he gave a despairing thought to his clothes. They would reek of smoke for days.

Raggi was initially alarmed to see a police officer in his home but quickly recovered. He was tall for his age with a shock of jet-black hair and acne, especially round his mouth. He seemed on edge. Sigurdur Oli began by asking him general questions about the school, the atmosphere there, the teachers and older kids, before gradually bringing the conversation round to immigrants and Niran. Raggi answered mainly in monosyllables. He was polite. His mother stayed out of the conversation and just sat there lighting one cigarette from another and drinking coffee. She had only just come home from work when Sigurdur Oli rang the doorbell. The coffee she made was good and strong, and he waited for her to offer him another cup. He used to be a tea drinker but Bergthora had taught him to appreciate coffee through her connoisseurship of different types of beans and roasts.

“How do you get on with Kjartan who teaches Icelandic?” he asked.

“He’s all right,” Raggi said.

“He’s not keen on coloured people, is he?”

“Maybe not,” Raggi said.

“How does it show? In something he says or something he does?”

“No, just, you know.”

“Just what?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you know Elias?”

“No.”

“What about his brother, Niran?”

Raggi hesitated.

“Yes.”

Sigurdur Oli was on the point of mentioning Kari but refrained. He did not want to give Raggi any reason to suspect that he had just come from visiting the other boy.

“How?”

“You know,” Raggi said.

“You know what?”

“He thinks he’s special.”

“In what way?”

“He calls us Eskimos.”

“What do you call him?”

“A dickhead.”

“Do you know what happened to his brother?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me where you were when he was attacked?”

Raggi stopped and thought. He had clearly not considered the question before and it occurred to Sigurdur Oli that he must be a bloody hardened case if he could act that well. Finally the answer came.

“We were at the Kringlan shopping mall, me, Ingvar and Danni.”

It was consistent with the accounts given by his friends Ingvar and Danni whom Sigurdur Oli had already questioned. Both flatly denied any involvement in the attack on Elias, claimed ignorance about drug-dealing at the school and talked of minor scraps with pupils from ethnic minorities. The three friends were known troublemakers at the school and no one could wait for them to finish their compulsory education that spring and leave for good. They went in for bullying, and had caused a major stir at New Year when two of them had been suspended for a week for setting off explosions in and around the school, using fireworks left over from New Year’s Eve, big firecrackers and powerful rockets that they had tampered with to make them even more potent. One of them had let off the largest make of rocket in a corridor and the explosion had shattered two large panes of glass. The whole school rocked and it was only by a miracle that no one was around because teaching was in full swing.

“When did you last see Elias?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“Elias? I don’t know. I don’t know him at all. I never see him.”

“Have there been serious clashes at school between your gang and Niran’s lot?”

“No, just, you know, that lot are always showing off.”

Raggi paused.

“The immigrants?” Sigurdur Oli prompted.

“Iceland should be for us. For the Icelanders. Not for a load of foreigners.”

“We know there have been clashes between gangs,” Sigurdur Oli said. “We know these can be serious at times. Not just in this part of town. But we’re also aware that few of them run very deep. Would you agree?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Then this incident with Elias happens.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s connected to the fights between your gangs?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I mean, we wouldn’t do anything like that. We’d never kill anyone. That’s ridiculous. We don’t do that kind of thing. It’s not like that.”

“Are you sure?”

The mother had sat silently smoking throughout their conversation. Now she intervened.

“You think my Raggi attacked that boy?” she said, as if it had finally dawned on her why a policeman had entered her home and started asking a series of questions about racial tension at the school.

“I don’t think anything,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Do you know anything about drug-dealing at the school?” he asked Raggi.

“My Raggi’s not involved in drugs,” the mother said instantly.

“That’s not what I asked,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“I don’t know anything about any drugs at the school,” Raggi said.

“No, that’s right, you just let off fireworks in the corridors,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“I-‘ Raggi began, but his mother interrupted.

“He’s been punished for that,” she said. “And it wasn’t even him that did the worst damage.”

“Is it possible that someone is dealing drugs and someone else owes him money and the debt could have resulted in the sort of thing that happened to Elias?” Sigurdur Oli asked, suddenly realising how the mother justified her son’s behaviour to herself.

Raggi stopped to think for the second time in their conversation.

“No one from the school’s dealing drugs,” he said after a pause. “Sometimes people hang around the school gates, selling something. Or at the school discos. That’s all. I don’t know about any other cases. No one’s tried to sell me anything.”

“Do you know what happened to Elias?”

“No.”

“Do you know who attacked him?”

“No.”

“Do you know where Niran was the day his brother was attacked?”

“No. I just saw when Kjartan knocked him down in the road.”

“Kjartan the Icelandic teacher?”

“Niran scratched his car. Right down the side. Kjartan went mental.”

Sigurdur Oli stared at Raggi. He remembered what Kari had said about Kjartan and Niran.

“Will you say that again?”

Raggi sensed that he had said something important and immediately began to backtrack.

“I didn’t see it, I only heard about it,” he said. “Someone said he had attacked Niran because Niran scratched the side of his car.”

“When? When was this?”

“The morning of the day the boy died.”

“More coffee?” his mother asked, exhaling smoke.

“Thanks, maybe I’ll have a drop,” Sigurdur Oli said, taking out his phone. He selected Erlendur’s number.

“What else?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Raggi said. “That’s all I heard.”