Arctic Chill

29

Hallur and Agust were taken straight in for questioning and later that night committed to the care of the Reykjavik Child Welfare Agency. The police interviewed both sets of parents as well and ordered that they be detained in custody. They blamed each other for the idea of covering up the boys” crime and both they and their sons gave conflicting accounts as to who had actually wielded the knife. After three days of interrogation Hallur finally confessed and the detectives were gradually able to piece together a picture of how Elias died.

The boys had all lied to the police. Hallur saw Anton with the knife that Doddi had stolen and offered to swap a recent computer game for it. All four met at Anton’s house, where he tried out the computer game Hallur had brought along. They discussed doing a swap but nothing came of it. Thorvaldur and Anton admitted that they had scratched Kjartan’s car on the morning of the day Elias was attacked and afterwards decided to get rid of the knife. Meeting Hallur in the school playground, they decided to hand it over to him.

Hallur had arranged to meet Agust straight after school. They were in the mood for trouble and went into a supermarket where they shoplifted some CDs and sweets. It was something they did from time to time, although they received plenty of pocket money from their parents. This was different. “For the kicks,” Agust said, and could not give any better explanation. They were a bit high on adrenalin when they came out of the supermarket and saw Elias ahead of them with the large schoolbag on his back and the anorak askew on his little shoulders.

Perhaps he caught their attention because he was dark-skinned. Perhaps that was irrelevant. Agust said during questioning that of course they would have done the same if he had been a white boy. Hallur shrugged and could not answer the same question. He could not really explain what sort of state they were in. They were buzzing, he said. Excited after the shoplifting. Up for anything. They didn’t know the boy who caught their eye. Didn’t know his name was Elias. Hallur couldn’t remember seeing him before, even though he attended the same school. They had no score to settle with him. Elias had never crossed their path before. He had never done anything to them.

They were buzzing.

They caught up with Elias where the path was at its narrowest and the concealing bushes rose highest. Dusk was falling and it was cold but they were feverish with excitement. They asked his name and if he had any money and what he was doing in Iceland anyway.

Elias said that he did not have any money. He tried to tear himself free but Agust held on to him. Hallur took out the knife to frighten him. They didn’t mean to hurt him, they were just messing about. Hallur threatened him with the knife. Brandished it in his face.

Elias struggled even more frantically when he saw the knife. He began to call for help and Agust put a hand over his mouth. Elias fought for all he was worth. Agust shouted to warn Hallur that he was going to let him go when Elias bit his hand, hurting him so badly that he yelled out.

Hallur had hold of Elias’s anorak and before he knew what he was doing he had stabbed him with the knife. Elias stopped struggling. He fell silent, clutched his stomach and crumpled onto the path.

Hallur and Agust looked at one another, then set off at a run down the path, back the way they had come.

They took the bus to Agust’s house. They were in shock. Agust’s father was home and without a moment’s hesitation they poured out the whole story. Hallur’s hand was covered in blood. He had thrown away the knife on the way home. They said that they had stabbed a boy on the path by the school. They didn’t mean to. It was an accident. They never meant to hurt the boy. It just happened. Agust’s father stared at them, stunned.

Agust’s mother came home at that point and immediately saw that something serious had happened. When she heard what the boys had done she wanted to call the police straight away. Her husband prevaricated.

“Did anyone see you?” he asked the boys.

They shook their heads.

“No, no one,” Hallur said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the knife?”

Hallur described the place.

“Wait here,” Agust’s father said. “Don’t do anything till I get back.”

“What are you doing?” his wife moaned.

He took her aside, out of earshot of the boys.

“Think about it,” he said. “Think about the boys” future while I’m away. Call my sister. Tell her to come round and bring Dori with her.”

He went out and returned three-quarters of an hour later with the knife. He announced that the boy was not on the path and they breathed easier. Maybe he was all right.

At that moment Hallur’s parents arrived and were told what had happened. They couldn’t believe their ears at first until they saw the boys” expressions and sensed Agust’s parents” helplessness in the face of the unthinkable. They looked at their son, and all of a sudden they knew that it was true. Something horrific and incomprehensible had happened and nothing would ever be the same again.

“We didn’t mean to do it,” Hallur said.

“It just happened,” Agust added.

They had nothing else to say.

“So it wasn’t Agust who stabbed him?” his mother asked.

“They were both involved,” Hallur’s father said firmly. “Your son was holding him.”

“Your son stabbed him.”

A row broke out and the boys looked on. The brother and sister, Hallur’s mother and Agust’s father, eventually managed to calm down their spouses. Agust’s father proposed that they should not go to the police yet.

They quarrelled again. In the end, the fathers went out looking for Elias. If he had disappeared from the path it might mean that he was all right. As they drove through the neighbourhood they noticed police cars parked by a block of flats. Cruising slowly past they saw uniformed officers in the garden of the block and a number of squad cars, their blue lights reflecting off the surrounding buildings in the winter dusk.

They drove away.

They waited at Agust’s house for the news, caught between hope and fear. The radio reported that Elias had been found dead. The police were refusing to release any details but the attack seemed to have been entirely unprovoked and might conceivably have had a racist motive. It was not known who was behind the deed and no witness to the incident had yet come forward.

In the end they agreed to wait. Hallur’s father would dispose of the knife. The cousins were not to meet for a while. They would behave as if nothing had happened. The damage had been done, their boys had killed another boy, but surely it was an accident rather than premeditated murder. It had started out as a harmless prank. They hadn’t meant to hurt the boy. Of course they would never be able to forget what had happened but they had to think about their sons” future, at least for the time being. Wait and see.

Erlendur took part in cross-examining Agust’s mother. She had been seeing a psychiatrist since the arrest and was on tranquillisers.

“Of course we should never have done it,” she said. “But we weren’t thinking of ourselves, we were thinking of the boys.”

“Of course you were thinking of yourselves,” Erlendur said.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Did you really think you’d be able to live with that on your conscience?” Erlendur asked.

“No,” she said. “Not me. I…”

“You called me,” Erlendur said. “You were the weakest link.”

“I can’t describe it,” she said, rocking in her seat. “I was suicidal. It was a mistake. Not a minute has passed since it happened when I haven’t thought about that poor little boy and his family. Of course it was an error of judgement on our parts, a moral lapse but-‘ She broke off.

“I know we shouldn’t have done it. I know it was wrong and I tried to tell you. But you . . . you reacted so strangely.”

“I know,” Erlendur said. “I thought you were somebody else.”

“We believed them when they said it was an accident. Things like that can happen. We wouldn’t have done it otherwise. We would never have tried to cover up a murder. My husband said that every parent would understand what we did. Understand our reaction.”

“I don’t believe that,” Erlendur said. “You wanted it to go away, to disappear as if it had nothing to do with you. You added outrage to an already terrible crime.”

When it was all over, the police had obtained their confessions and the case was officially deemed to be closed, Erlendur sat down with Hallur in an interview room at the place where he was being held by the Child Welfare Agency. They talked over the incident at length and Erlendur asked why they had decided to attack Elias. What had given them the idea.

“Just, you know,” Hallur said.

“You know what?”

“He was there.”

“That was the only reason?”

“We were bored.”