The Darkness Knows

42

Konrád woke up with a headache. He had finished the bottle and opened another, smoked several cigarillos and listened to more music before dozing off on the sofa. At some point in the night he had stirred and taken himself off to bed, but hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. In the end he had got up and fetched a sleeping pill, and after that he had finally conked out.

It was past midday when he drove at a leisurely pace east over the mountains to the little town of Selfoss, where he had arranged to meet Lúkas, one of the men who, according to Hólmsteinn, had been a contemporary of Sigurvin in the Scouts. Konrád had been deliberately vague on the phone when he’d explained what he wanted, just talking in general terms about old comrades in the Scouts and casually mentioning Sigurvin’s name. Lúkas was surprised by the request, having heard of the case like everyone else, and invited Konrád to meet him at a cafe in Selfoss. Konrád found it in good time and parked outside. The welcoming interior was fragrant with the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread when he entered and looked around for the man he’d come to meet. It was quiet at that time of day, and a man immediately got up from one of the tables and came over to greet him.

They sat down with their coffees. Like the rest of the country, Selfoss and the surrounding district had been badly hit by the recession following the financial crisis. Unemployment had risen and many people had been struggling before tourism took off in a big way. Lúkas himself had been without work for two years and lost his house because he hadn’t been able to pay off his debts. He told Konrád that he and his wife now rented a small flat belonging to a cousin of hers. He had got back on his feet, taken a course at guide school, and for some time now had been kept busy driving a tourist bus around the main sights in the south-west, like the falls at Gullfoss and the hot springs at Geysir.

Lúkas paused to drink his coffee. When Konrád asked if he could offer him a slice of cake or a sandwich, he declined. He had coarse features in a broad face and untidy light-brown hair, and wore what Konrád thought of as a typical tourist-guide uniform of thick anorak and hiking boots. Lúkas told him he’d been born and brought up in Reykjavík. It had been going to film showings at the YMCA as a boy that had led to his joining the Scouts.

Lúkas had good memories of those days and clearly enjoyed reminiscing about them. He described himself as a Reykjavík boy through and through, and said he would move back to the city like a shot if the house prices weren’t so outrageous. He often had to go there for work and didn’t like the commute, especially during cold spells in winter when he risked getting stuck in a blizzard on the mountain road over Hellisheidi.

‘I’m with you on that,’ Konrád said with feeling.

They drank their coffees unhurriedly, chatting about road conditions and house prices and what it was like growing up in Reykjavík in the old days and how the city had changed, before Konrád finally brought the conversation back to the Scouts.

‘We couldn’t really afford the whole uniform,’ Lúkas said, smiling nostalgically. ‘Those itchy green knee socks and the cap and all that. We used to march on the official First Day of Summer in April, usually in freezing weather. And for National Day on 17 June, usually in pouring rain. But it was a laugh. And the camps were fun. The people in charge were good guys too. I have nothing but fond memories of the Scouts.’

‘I spoke to a veteran Scout Master called Hólmsteinn...’

‘Oh, yes, old Hólmsteinn.’

‘He told me you’d been in the same troop as Sigurvin, but that he hadn’t stayed very long.’

Lúkas looked at Konrád. ‘Excuse my asking, but didn’t you use to be a policeman?’

Konrád nodded.

‘I thought I recognised you,’ Lúkas said. ‘I remember you from the news reports at the time, as well as the more recent TV programmes and articles about the case. Are you still working on it?’

‘No, actually,’ Konrád said. ‘I’m looking into another, possibly related crime,’ he added, without elaborating.

Lúkas seemed satisfied by this reply. ‘I do remember Sigurvin,’ he said, ‘mainly because of what happened to him, I expect. Like you said, he wasn’t in the Scouts long but we were in the same troop, and as far as I can recall he was a nice kid. A bit shy, maybe, and I had the feeling he soon got bored of the Scouts. But he fitted in well with a group of us who’d joined before him: Gúndi and Siggi and Eyjólfur and... then he left and...’

‘Did your paths never cross afterwards?’

‘No, never. Next time I heard of him, his picture was all over the papers and he’d been reported missing. That business they were involved in — him and that friend of his... wasn’t it all because of that? I’ve seen how stupid money can make people. We all learnt our lesson about that — the whole country.’

‘You yourself continued in the Scouts?’ Konrád said, not letting himself be sidetracked into talking about the crash again.

‘Yes, several of us carried on and that led naturally to volunteering for the search and rescue teams later, though I didn’t do that for long. Some of my mates were in the Reykjavík rescue team but I soon got work on the cargo ships and couldn’t take part in any exercises. And once I’d left the sea, I moved over here to Selfoss. I was on the Scout Committee for a while, though, and I’m available whenever they have events here. I always tell them they can call on me if it’s important — if they need helpers.’

‘Did any of your mates get caught up in the craze for super jeeps, that you remember?’

‘Super jeeps? No, not that I recall.’

‘Any of them have a big off-roader?’

‘Those boys? They had nothing.’

‘What about later, when Sigurvin disappeared? Or even as late as 2009?’

‘Well, it’s possible, but I wouldn’t know. Why 2009?’

‘It’s connected to one aspect of the case,’ Konrád said. ‘The rescue teams must have had those monster jeeps equipped with walkie-talkies and so on.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘And big aerials?’

‘Yes. You need good equipment if you’re undertaking search and rescue operations in the highlands.’

‘And on the ice caps?’

‘Sure.’

The cafe was growing busier. The two men finished their coffees and Lúkas’s phone rang. A tour group was waiting for him. They parted outside and Konrád strolled down to the River Ölfusá a short distance away and stood there for a while, contemplating its turbulent grey waters. The river held a strange fascination for him. He remembered from his geography lessons at school that its main source was meltwater from the Langjökull glacier, some seventy kilometres to the north. As he stood there gazing at the glacial torrent, his mind travelled upstream into the highlands, where the secret had lain frozen all those years, and he pictured again the desiccated grin Sigurvin had worn when he finally came down from the ice cap, as though he were laughing in Konrád’s face.