Arctic Chill

23

One of the younger employees at the recycling depot was feeling quite satisfied with his day. He had found two vinyl records that were well worth keeping. Of course, he was supposed to hand them in to the market at which useful goods from the recycling depot were sold, instead of taking them home with him. But no one kept tabs on what people salvaged from the dump. In fact, anybody could wander round the depot and have a rummage. Sometimes record collectors almost ended up in the crusher. Book collectors too. All sorts. Later he would take the two records to a collectors” shop and get a good price for them. He was not especially interested in records or music but after working for two years at the depot he knew what was valuable. One day he had come across a whole set of golf clubs by the scrap-metal container, which someone had forgotten to put back in the car after throwing away their rubbish. The bag was rather tatty but otherwise the set was in excellent condition and he sold it later for a tidy sum. He got an especially good deal on the “driver’. Two days after he found the set the owner came looking for it but the poor man was easily fobbed off with the lie that unfortunately the clubs had probably ended up in the rubbish.

During his time at the depot he had learned to keep an eye out for useful objects, things he might be able to sell or use himself. He knew some of the collectors complained that not everything ended up on the second-hand market according to the rules but he did not give a toss about those weirdos. He had a nice little sideline in watching what people threw out, and, after all, it was not as if the company was generous with its wages. It was shitty pay for a shitty job.

He never ceased to be surprised by what people threw away. They would chuck out literally anything. He was not much of a reader himself but he saw vans bringing whole libraries that people wanted to clear out, as well as apparently intact furniture, perfectly good clothes, kitchen appliances, even relatively new audio equipment.

It had been quite busy that day, despite the cold and the northerly gale that ripped and tore at his blue overalls. People threw out rubbish all day long, all year round, whatever the weather. Vans brought the personal effects of the recently deceased, someone was getting rid of a bath, others were replacing their kitchen units. And then there was the drink-can gang. Receiving cans and bottles was his least favourite job. They were always trying to lie about the number. Sometimes when he could be bothered to count out the contents of the bags (nice clean job that was), their estimate would turn out to be wildly different from his calculation. And they were not even abashed. Just grinned and acted all surprised.

A car drove up to the gate and halted by the large sign that directed everyone to stop and await instructions. Most obeyed. When he saw that no one else was going to attend to the driver, he slouched over.

“I’ve got an old bed here,” the man said as he lowered the window.

He was in a large jeep and had broken up the bed to fit it in the back. No use to anyone then.

“Does it come with the mattress and everything?” he asked.

“Yes, the lot,” the man said.

“Straight on, mattress on the right, planks on the left, okay?”

The man wound up his window. The employee watched him go, then put his head round the door of the staff hut by the gate. The seven o’clock news was just beginning and he wondered if he should step into the warmth for a minute. He could not hear the television but could see the screen: crowds throwing stones in the Middle East, the American president giving a speech, Icelandic sheep, a knife on a table, an Icelandic cabinet minister cutting a ribbon, the president of Iceland receiving guests …

Another car pulled up at the gate. Window down.

“I’ve got a fridge,” the man said.

“Does it work?” he asked. He always checked on the refrigerators to see if they were in working order as he could use a decent one himself.

“Completely caput, I’m afraid,” the man said with a smile.

He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the knife had reappeared on the TV screen and all of a sudden he had the feeling that he had seen it before.

“Where do I go with the fridge?” the driver asked.

“Over there, to the right,” he said, pointing to where kitchen appliances stood around, forlorn and abandoned in the howling gale.

He hurried into the hut and sat down in front of the little television set. The newsreader was saying that the murder weapon could possibly look like this; it was a wood-carving knife of the type used in school carpentry workshops. He knew what murder they were talking about: the Asian boy by the block of flats. He had seen the news footage.

He took the knife out of its sheath and examined it. It was identical to the knife on TV. He had found it in the scrap-metal container and made a sheath for it. Then he had found a belt which he now wore over his overalls, with the sheath fixed to it and the knife in the sheath. It made an excellent tool for cutting string, opening bags of drink-cans, or simply whittling bits of wood in the hut when business was slow. He stared at the knife in his hand as gradually it dawned on him that he might be holding a murder weapon.

A car drove up to the gate and stopped.

He would probably have to hand in the knife, let the cops know. Or would he? What did it have to do with him? It was a bloody good knife.

The driver spotted him loitering in the hut and hooted.

He did not hear the car horn. He was thinking that the cops might jump to the conclusion that he had killed the boy if he had the knife on him. Would they believe him that he had found the knife in the scrap-metal bin? Had crawled inside because he glimpsed the little wooden handle and was well trained in spotting handy objects? They emptied the container every few days and it had been only about half full. Someone had come to the depot and thrown the knife in the container.

The murderer?

The newsreader had said that the murder weapon might possibly be a knife of this type, and if so the attacker might be connected in some way to the school.

The driver, who was growing extremely impatient, hooted again, this time for longer.

The employee jumped and looked outside.

Maybe they wouldn’t believe him. He had been called a racist once when he described how the Asians brought in bags of cans and lied about the number.

But then again, he might become famous.

He might become famous.

He looked at the driver who glared angrily back at him and beckoned him to come out and attend to him.

He smiled.

The driver emitted a shout of rage when the employee gave him an idiotic grin, then picked up the phone right in front of his eyes and started making a call.

He dialled the emergency number, 112.

He could be famous.

Sigurdur Oli was waiting for Erlendur in the corridor outside Andres’s flat.

“How did it go?” he asked as they walked down the stairs.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said, preoccupied. “I reckon Andres has really lost the plot.”

“Did you get anything useful out of him? Did he say anything?”

“Nothing about Elias.”

“What then? What did he say?”

“Firstly, he knew the man in the photo,” Erlendur said. “It is his stepfather. He implied that the man had committed a murder a long time ago.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“What murder?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it just a wind-up?”

“Probably,” Erlendur said. “But the little he’s said so far has proved accurate.”

“Yes, but that’s not saying much.”

“Then he said he was going to sort it out himself, whatever that means. We should have Andres watched over the next few days.”

“Yes. Anyway, they think they’ve found the knife,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Really?”

“They just called. Someone disposed of it in a rubbish container. We still have to check whether it’s the same knife but it seems likely. I gather it’s identical. They showed it on the news and some boy turned out to have retrieved it from the tip. We may find some trace elements, though the boy who found it had been using the knife at work and would have given it a good clean first. But forensics always manage to find something with that fancy equipment of theirs.”

They drove to the recycling depot. The forensics team had closed the place to traffic and a yellow police cordon flapped in the wind. The technicians were searching for clues as to who had thrown the knife away, but only for form’s sake. Two days had elapsed since the employee found the knife. Countless people and cars had passed through the depot since the murder was committed and none of the employees had spotted anything out of the ordinary. No one had been seen sneaking around the container. There was no CCTV on the gate. The police had nothing to go on.

They had contacted the woodwork teacher Egill about the discovery. He was shown the knife and judged that it could well have come from the carpentry knife store. He pointed out, however, that similar knives could probably be found in every school workshop in the country.

Erlendur went to question the young employee who had found the knife and soon established that he was telling the truth. He asked Erlendur if he could sell his story to the papers; did Erlendur know whether the tabloids would pay for it and, if so, how much. He had been carrying the knife and using it, you see, ever since he found it.

Prat, Erlendur thought.

He came home some time later. It was late and he had stopped off at a twenty-four-hour convenience store to buy a ready-meal of Icelandic stew. He stuck it in the microwave and set the timer to three minutes. Valgerdur phoned and they talked; he told her the latest on the investigation without divulging too much. She asked if he had been in touch with Eva Lind. Valgerdur told him she had to take an extra shift and would not be able to see him tonight after all, so they decided to meet the following evening when she was free.

“Come over to mine,” she insisted.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll come. I maybe late though.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

They rang off.

He took the stew out of the microwave, fetched a spoon and sat peacefully slurping it out of the plastic tray at the kitchen table. He tried not to brood on the cases he was handling, but his thoughts kept slipping back to Elias in the garden behind the block of flats. He wondered about the men who brought as many as three or four women like Sunee into the country, married them, then dumped them when the fun was over or when the women walked out on them because they were only really interested in acquiring residency and a work permit. How did such things happen? He thought about Niran whom Sunee had summoned after many years” separation, but who could not find his feet in the new country, so ended up an outsider, seeking out the company of kids with the same kind of background and experience, kids who could not come to terms with their fate, could not understand the country or its language and history, and anyway had little interest in understanding any of it. He sympathised with them.

He thought about Sunee and her grief.

When his mobile started ringing he assumed it must be Sigurdur Oli calling so late but the voice was a woman’s, whispering as if she was using the phone in secret. Erlendur could not hear what she was saying.

“What?” he said. “Sorry… ?”

“… and take… But he won’t. He absolutely refuses. I’ve tried to talk to him. It’s hopeless.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Erlendur said when he realised who it was. He decided to try a new approach with this woman who he had been searching for since before Christmas. “Either come and see me or forget it. I can’t be doing with this sort of nonsense!”

“I’m telling you, he won’t—”

“I think…,” Erlendur said.

“I just need more time.”

“I think you should stop messing me about like this.”

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “It’s just so hard. I don’t want it to be like this.”

“What’s the point of all this?” Erlendur asked. “What are you both up to? What nonsense is this?”

The woman did not answer.

“Come and talk to me.”

“I keep trying to make him. But he won’t”

“Stop being so silly,” Erlendur said. “You should go home to him and stop bothering me. It’s getting ridiculous!”

There was silence on the other end.

“I went and saw your husband,” Erlendur said.

Still the woman said nothing.

“Yes, I went and saw him. I don’t know what you’re both plotting and it’s nothing to do with me. Just stop making these calls. Stop bothering me with this stupid nonsense.”

There was a long silence.

Then the woman hung up.

Erlendur stared at the phone in his hand. He had no idea what he had done. He half expected the woman to call straight back but when nothing happened he put the phone down on the kitchen table and stood up. Taking the book he had read aloud to Marion Briem at the hospital, he settled down in his armchair. It contained stories of travellers” ordeals and fatal accidents in the East Fjords. He weighed the book in his hands as he had done so often before and opened it at the account he knew so well, but which contained only a fragment of the true story.

He began to read it for the umpteenth time but was soon interrupted by a quiet tap on the door. Putting down the book, he got up and went to answer it. Eva Lind stood out on the landing. Sindri Snaer was with her.

“Do you two never sleep?” he asked as he let them in.

“No more than you,” Eva said, slipping past him. “Were you eating stew?” she asked, sniffing the air.

“From the microwave,” Erlendur said. “Can’t really call it food.”

“I’m sure you could cook yourself a proper meal if you could be arsed,” Eva said and sat down on the sofa in the living room. “What are you reading?” she asked when she saw the open book on the desk by his chair. Sindri sat down beside her. It was a year and a day since they had last visited him together.

“Travel stories,” Erlendur said. “What are you two up to?”

“Oh, you know, we just felt like seeing how it’s hanging with you.”

“How it’s hanging?”

“Are they about people lost in the wilderness?” Sindri asked.

“Yes.”

“You told me once that there was a story like that about your brother,” Eva said.

“That’s right, there is.”

“But you won’t show it to me?”

He didn’t know why he didn’t hand Eva Lind the book. It lay open on the desk between them and although it didn’t contain the whole truth, it would be enough to give her and Sindri a reasonably good idea of what happened. Erlendur had only told them the bare facts about the brothers” ordeal. The account did not really add much more. He no longer knew what it was that he was clinging on to so stubbornly. If he ever had known. Sindri had heard about the events when he was living out east; it wasn’t as if they were a secret.

“I dreamed about him,” Eva said. “I told you. I’m sure it was your brother.”

“You’re not going to start on about that again? I don’t know what tales you’ve been filling her head with, Sindri.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Sindri said, taking out a packet of cigarettes.

“It’s only a dream. Why are you so afraid of dreams? I can’t imagine you taking them seriously.”

“I don’t, I just find it hard to rake up the memory of what happened.”

“Yeah, right,” Eva Lind said, nodding towards the book on the table. “You’re forever reading about it or stuff like it. It’s not like you’ve just forgotten about it!”

“I don’t want to rake up the memories with other people,” Erlendur corrected.

“Ah,” Eva said. “So you want to keep it all to yourself. Is that it?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t want anyone to take it away from you?”

“I don’t think even you know what you’re talking about,” Erlendur said.

“I just want to tell you my dream. I never had a dream like it before. I don’t know why you refuse to hear it. Anyway, it was hardly even a dream. More like waking up with a picture in my head.”

“How do you know it was my brother?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone else,” Eva said.

“Dreams don’t mean anything, you know that,” Sindri said.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell him,” Eva said.

There was a silence.

“How did he die?” Eva asked.

“I’ve told you. Bergur died of exposure. He was eight years old. We got separated. I was found. His body was never found. Maybe you did dream about him. It doesn’t matter, don’t get all excited about it. Tell me about yourselves instead. What are you both up to these days?”

“Could he have drowned?” Eva Lind asked.

Erlendur stared at his daughter. She knew he didn’t want to discuss the matter any further but she did not let that deter her. She stared back defiantly. Sindri looked down at the table between them.

“Sindri told me it was one of the theories,” she added, “that he heard when he was out east.”

Sindri raised his eyes. “Loads of people know the story out there,” he said. “People who remember the whole thing.”

Erlendur did not respond.

“What do you think happened?” Eva Lind asked.

Erlendur still did not reply.

“It was dark,” Eva said. “I was in water. At first I thought I was swimming but this was different. I never go swimming. Not since I was at school. But all of a sudden I was in water and it was incredibly cold…”

“Eva …” Erlendur looked pleadingly at his daughter.

“You told me I could tell you my dream another time. Have you forgotten?”

Slowly Erlendur shook his head.

“And a boy came towards me and looked at me and smiled and he immediately reminded me of you. I thought at first it was you. Were you alike?”

“So people said.”

Anyway, we weren’t swimming or in a swimming pool,” Eva said. “We were just in some kind of water that changed into mud and slime. Then the boy stopped smiling and everything went black. I couldn’t breathe. Like I was drowning or suffocating. I woke up gasping. No dream’s ever affected me like that before. I’ll never forget it. His face.”

“His face?”

“When everything went black. It was …”

“What?”

“It was you,” Eva Lind said.

“Me?”

“Yes. All of a sudden it was you.”

No one spoke.

“Was that after Sindri had told you about the bogs?” Erlendur asked with a glance at Sindri.

“Yes,” Eva said. “How did your brother die? What about the bogs?”

“Did he drown?” Sindri asked.

“He may have drowned,” Erlendur said in a low voice.

“There are rivers running into the fjord,” Sindri said.

“Yes.”

“Some people say he must have fallen in one of them.”

“That’s probably one hypothesis. That he fell in the Eskifjordur River.”

“But there’s another, worse one, isn’t there?” Eva Lind said.

Erlendur grimaced. An old memory resurfaced in his mind of men trying to save a horse that had wandered too far into the bog. A great big beast that belonged to a man from the village. The horse floundered around, sending up a spray of mud, but the more it thrashed, the deeper it sank until only its head remained above the surface, its flaring nostrils and frenzied eyes that slowly, inexorably vanished into the mire. It was a horrific sight, a horrific death. Every time he thought of Bergur the image entered his mind of the horse sinking deeper and deeper into the bog until it disappeared.

“There are boggy areas up on the moors,” Erlendur said at last. “Quagmires that can be dangerous. They freeze over in winter, but every now and then there’s a thaw. The ice may have cracked and Bergur may have fallen through and got stuck. That’s one theory because we never found his remains.”

“So the ground swallowed him up?”

“We searched for weeks, months,” Erlendur said. “Local farmers. Our friends and relatives. It was no good. We found nothing. Not a single trace. It was literally as if the ground had swallowed him up.”

Sindri contemplated his father.

“That’s what people said.”

No one spoke for a long moment.

“Why is it still so hard after all these years?” Eva asked.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “Because I know he’s still up there somewhere lost and alone, with nothing to look forward to but death.”

They sat in silence for a long time and the only sound was the howling of the north wind. Eva Lind stood up and walked over to the living-room window.

“Poor little boy,” she said into the cold winter’s night.

When they had gone, he sat down in his chair again and a sentence from Elias’s exercise book came into his mind; a little comment or thought that Elias had written on its own at the bottom of a page, as if he had noted it down on the spur of the moment. Perhaps he had meant to ask his mother.

How many trees does it take to make a forest?