Arctic Chill

28

Agust’s mother intervened and snatched the phone as Elinborg was handing it to the husband so that he could complain to Erlendur about the conduct of his junior officers.

Passing the phone back to Elinborg, she asked her to excuse her husband’s outburst. He had no reason to criticise the police for doing their job, especially not in such a sensitive case.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sorry, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to make a complaint”

Elinborg took the phone and cut the connection, staring from husband to wife. Then she replaced the phone in her bag. Shortly afterwards it started ringing. She looked at the number display. It was Erlendur.

Kjartan took a taxi home. He had been at a pub in the city centre with some old mates who used to get together from time to time for a few beers. He had left his car at home. Three of them shared a taxi and his was the last stop. The weather had deteriorated dramatically during the evening and visibility was virtually nil. The taxi’s windscreen wipers struggled to cope with the snow and the car narrowly avoided getting bogged down in a drift on the way.

Kjartan was a little unsteady on his feet when he stepped out of the taxi, which slowly moved off. He straightened up. He’d had one too many, although they had called it a night earlier than usual because of the weather.

A wild blizzard had blown up. Erlendur drove the Ford as fast as he dared in the conditions. Virote and Johann were with him. The radio reported that whole suburbs of Reykjavik were being cut off due to the severe weather. Erlendur had ordered out a couple of squad cars to go to Kjartan’s house. He only hoped they would arrive in time.

“The woman you’re with is the one who’s been calling me ever since Elias was attacked,” he informed Elinborg the moment she answered her phone. “She’s the one I mistook for the woman who committed suicide.”

“Really?” Elinborg said.

“Is she the mother of the boy you’re with?”

“Yes.”

“Keep her talking, I’m going to try to get to you.”

“All right,” Elinborg said. “Where are you?”

“I’m on my way,” Erlendur said and hung up.

Kjartan fumbled in his pocket for the keys; his wife liked to keep the house locked at all times, but he was not as worried about burglars. He found the keys but as he was about to pull them out of his pocket, he noticed a figure emerge from the shadow of the house and block his path.

“Who are you?” Kjartan asked.

He heard police sirens in the distance.

Erlendur saw the flashing blue lights of the police cars through the blizzard. They were turning into Kjartan’s road. He glanced at Virote who was sitting beside him. In the rear-view mirror he could see Johann’s anxious face.

“Who are you?” Kjartan repeated.

The figure did not answer. He could not see its face. The sirens grew louder and Kjartan turned his head in their direction. In that very instant the figure lunged, and Kjartan felt a piercing pain as he looked back at his assailant. In the glow of the streetlights he saw that the figure was wearing a basketball cap on its head and had a scarf over its face.

He fell to his knees, aware of something hot flowing from his belly, and saw the snow at his feet turn dark with blood.

Raising a hand, he reached out for his attacker, grabbed hold of the scarf and snatched it from its face.

The two police cars skidded in the snow as they stopped in front of the house. Four officers piled out and ran over to Kjartan as he sank slowly onto his side, still clutching the scarf in his cramped fist. Erlendur’s car drew up and he leaped out with Virote and Johann. Virote ran past the police officers who were cautiously picking their way towards the figure in the shadows.

“Niran!” Virote yelled.

Niran looked up when he heard his name.

Virote saw Kjartan lying in a pool of blood.

He shouted something in Thai at Niran who stood as if turned to stone over Kjartan’s body and dropped his knife into the snow.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang at the house where Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg were sitting with Agust and his parents. An awkward silence had prevailed for a good while now. Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli had tried to fill the time until Erlendur’s arrival with questions and remarks but the conversation had gradually petered out. When it came to a complete standstill, they announced that they were expecting another detective who wanted to speak to the family, although they could not say what he wanted to talk about. The atmosphere in the living room grew increasingly tense. When the doorbell finally rang, they all jumped out of their skins.

The father went to let Erlendur in and they entered the living room together. The mother who was sitting beside her son on the sofa had become very uneasy and rose to her feet when she saw Erlendur. Smiling apologetically, she said she would make some more coffee. She was on her way to the kitchen when Erlendur asked her to wait a moment.

He walked over to her and she retreated a couple of steps.

“It’s all right. It’s nearly over,” Erlendur said.

“What? Over?” the woman said, looking to her husband for help. He stood very still and did not say a word.

Agust got up from the sofa.

“I recognised your voice immediately,” Erlendur said. “You’ve been phoning me over the last few days and I can understand why. It’s no joke finding yourself in a situation like this.”

“In a situation like this?” the woman prevaricated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”

Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg exchanged glances.

“I thought you were someone else at first,” Erlendur said. “I’m glad I’ve found you.”

“Mum?” Agust said, staring at his mother.

“I think I understand now what you meant when you said that you couldn’t live like this,” Erlendur said. “What I don’t understand is how you ever dreamed you could get away with pretending nothing had happened.”

The woman’s eyes were fixed on Erlendur.

“You wanted help,” he said. “That’s why you called. Well, that help is here. So you can start behaving like a decent human being. You can do what you wanted to do all along.”

The woman looked at her husband who had still not moved a muscle. Then she looked at Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli who had no idea what was going on. Finally she looked at her son who had started to cry. When she saw this, her own eyes filled with tears.

“It was never a good idea,” Erlendur said.

Tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks.

“Mum!” her son whispered.

“We did it for them,” she said in a low voice. “For our boys. What they did could never be undone, disgusting and horrible though it was. We had to think of the future. We had to think of their future.”

“But there was no future, was there?” Erlendur said. “Only this dreadful crime.”

The woman looked back at her son.

“They didn’t mean to do it,” she said. “They were just messing about”

“I want to speak to a lawyer,” her husband said. “Don’t say another word.”

“They behaved like bloody fools,” the woman groaned, hiding her face in her hands.

All of a sudden the tension seemed to leave her, as if everything she had had to bottle up inside her for all those long days since the murder of Elias could at last be released.

“Why?” she yelled, taking a step towards her son. “Why do you always have to behave like bloody fools? Just look what you’ve done!”

Her husband ran to her and tried to calm her down. “Look what you’ve done!” she yelled at her son. She fell into her husband’s arms. “God help us!” she moaned and slumped in a heap on the floor.