Arctic Chill

24

Erlendur woke from a dreamless sleep. A book about avalanches in Iceland lay open on the bedside table. More books were piled beside it: Icelandic novels, descriptions of arduous journeys over mountain tracks, folktales and legends, ghost stories and travellers” tales from days gone by, but mostly tragic accounts of death and destruction in extreme weather conditions. Valgerdur had asked if these accounts he revered so much dealt only with death and injury. Erlendur said that on the contrary many of them told of miraculous rescues, and the apparently limitless capacity and endurance of people who survived the most extraordinary ordeals. That’s the point of the stories, he said. That’s why they’re so relevant.

He admitted that they contained few laughs, though he did find the occasional glimmer of wry amusement amidst all the trials and tribulations. Before going to sleep he had read an account in a parish register from 1847 that told of a farm labourer who went far into the mountains in search of sheep, having been warned of the danger from avalanches. When the labourer did not return at the appointed hour, two men were sent out to look for him. After searching for some time they saw that he had probably fallen over a snowy precipice into a large gully that was by now almost entirely full of snow. The men scraped away at the snow with their hands and after they had dug down about four feet they uncovered the soles of the labourer’s feet. Assuming he must be dead, they ceased their digging and returned to the farm, but when they reported their discovery, there was a commotion. The farm people would not have it that the labourer’s death was beyond doubt, and ordered the pair back up the mountain, this time armed with a shovel, some Hoffmann’s drops and camphor oil. When they dug the man out of the snow, it transpired that he had been trapped head-down in the drift, was still very much alive in spite of everything, and “came out talking furiously’.

Erlendur smiled to himself as he got out of bed and put on some coffee. Sigurdur Oli phoned and they had a brief conversation about the knife from the recycling depot. Anyone from the school could have removed the knife from the workshop, assuming it came from there in the first place, as there was a steady stream of pupils, teachers and other staff through the classroom. Egill was right, the carving knives used at Icelandic schools were identical, and it was uncertain whether they would be able to find any evidence to link the knife to the attack on Elias. The employee who discovered it had been using it at work and claimed that it was so shiny when he found it that someone must have cleaned it before it ended up in the scrap-metal bin.

The phone rang again. This time it was Elinborg.

“She’s been found,” she announced without preamble. “The missing woman.”

“Who?”

“The missing woman. Exactly where I said we’d find her. On Reykjanes. In the lavafield south of the aluminium plant.”

The police forensics team were standing over the body, well bundled up in thick down jackets. A tripod supporting two arclights lay on its side with the bulbs smashed, where it had blown over. Erlendur had driven the Ford along the old track as far as he dared before getting out and walking the last stretch. The place was known as Hraun, a short distance from the aluminium plant at Straumsvik. The lava shoreline was indented here by small coves full of sharp skerries. Snow fell in intermittent flurries and an angry sea crashed on the rocks. Erlendur was aware that this used to be a landing place for rowing boats and noted the outlines of ruined walls, which were all that remained of the old fishermen’s huts and sheds.

The corpse had been washed up in one of the coves. Although the official search for the woman had been called off some time ago, a small team of voluntary rescue workers from nearby Hafnarfjordur had been on a dawn exercise, combing the beaches south of the aluminium plant, when they stumbled across the body. Elinborg was talking to members of the team in one of the patrol cars that had made it all the way down to the sea. An ambulance and two other police cars were parked a short way from the corpse, their headlights illuminating the narrow cove, the breakers on the beach and the figures stooping over the body.

Elinborg stepped out of the car when she saw Erlendur approaching.

“Has someone let the husband know?” he asked, stopping.

“I gather he’s on his way.”

“Is it definitely her?”

“There’s no question. We found her ID. Aren’t you going to take a look at her?”

“Yes, in a minute,” Erlendur said, taking out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one. He had dreaded this moment. It would be the first time he had seen the woman and he wished that it had not been like this, as a corpse on a Reykjanes beach. He remembered their last telephone conversation. He had been a brute. He regretted it now.

The Hafnarfjordur district medical officer had been summoned to sign the death certificate. When he had finished examining the body, he walked over to them.

“Can you see any injuries?” Erlendur asked.

“No, not at first sight,” the medical officer said.

The phone calls had been so brief, so truncated. Erlendur wondered if he could have responded differently. Could he have helped her? Ought he to have listened to her better?

“I’m only here to sign the death certificate,” the medical officer said. “The police pathologist will have to determine the cause of death.”

They saw a jeep approaching. Erlendur flicked away his cigarette butt. The jeep stopped by the squad cars and the woman’s husband jumped out and started running towards them.

“Have you found her?” he called.

Erlendur and Elinborg exchanged glances. The man’s path was blocked by police officers.

“Is it her?” the man yelled, staring over towards the body. “Oh my God! What has she done?”

He tried to push past them but the police officers held him back.

“What have you done?” he shouted in the direction of the body.

Erlendur and Elinborg stood motionless in the cold, their eyes meeting. The man turned to Erlendur.

“Look what she’s done!” he shouted in utter despair. “Why did she do this? Why?”

The officers led the man aside and tried to calm him.

Erlendur stood in the shelter of a large police vehicle with Elinborg and the medical officer. His thoughts went out to the woman’s children and former husband. He knew that the more time that elapsed after her disappearance, the more their fears for the worst had grown, and now their worst nightmares had been realised.

Erlendur had told the husband about the phone calls and had no idea what to do about that now that she was dead. He felt it was probably best to maintain a discreet silence about them. He heard her voice, heard her desperation and fear and that strange hesitancy, the half-finished sentences that made it hard for him to know what she wanted of him. He sighed heavily and lit up another cigarette.

“What are you thinking?” Elinborg asked.

“Those bloody phone calls,” Erlendur said.

“From her?” Elinborg asked.

“They keep preying on my mind. The last time I spoke to her I was … I was a bit sharp with her.”

“Typical,” Elinborg said.

“I could tell she was suffering but I had the feeling that she was playing some kind of game with me. I didn’t give her enough time. I’m such a crass idiot”

“You couldn’t have changed anything.”

“Excuse me,” the medical officer said. “When did you talk to her?”

He was an older man with whom Erlendur was slightly acquainted.

“Yesterday evening,” Erlendur said.

“You were talking to that woman yesterday evening?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.”

“Oh?”

“That woman hasn’t been phoning anyone recently.”

“Really?”

“And certainly not yesterday”

“I’m telling you, she’s called me several times over the past few days.”

“Of course I’m just an ordinary doctor,” the medical officer said. “I’m no expert, but it’s out of the question. Forget it. She’s unrecognisable.”

Erlendur ground his cigarette under his shoe and stared at the medical officer.

“What are you saying?”

“She’s been in the sea for at least two weeks,” the medical officer said. “It’s out of the question that she could have been alive a couple of days ago. Totally impossible. Why do you think they haven’t let her husband see her?”

Erlendur gazed at him, speechless.

“What on earth’s happening?” He sighed and started to walk towards the woman’s body.

“You mean it wasn’t her?” Elinborg said, following on his heel.

“What… ?”

“Who else could it have been?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it wasn’t her who called, who was it?”

Erlendur looked down at the corpse with utter incomprehension. It had been badly battered during its stay in the sea.

“Who was it then?” he groaned. “Who is this woman who’s been calling me and talking to me about… about… What was it she said? I can’t do it ?”

The man who had first complained about the scratches on his car was voluble on the subject of the indifference shown by the police when he originally reported the vandalism. They could not have been less interested, merely wrote a report for the insurance company, and he had heard nothing since. He phoned to find out what progress they were making in catching the bastards who vandalised his car but could never get to speak to anyone who had a clue what was going on.

The man ranted on in the same vein for some time and Sigurdur Oli could not be bothered to interrupt him. He was not really listening; his thoughts were preoccupied with Bergthora and the issue of adoption. After exhaustive tests it had emerged that the problem lay with Bergthora. She could not have children, although she yearned to with all her heart. The whole process had put a severe strain on their relationship, both before they discovered that Bergthora could not have children — after bitter experience and countless visits to specialists — and, not least in the aftermath. Sigurdur Oli felt sure that Bergthora had not yet recovered. He himself had come to the conclusion that “since that’s the way it is’, as he put it to Bergthora, perhaps they should accept the situation and leave it at that. The subject had raised its head again when he came home from work yesterday evening. Bergthora had started saying that, as Sigurdur Oli was well aware, Icelandic couples mainly adopted from South East Asia, India and China.

“I don’t spend as much time thinking about it as you do,” he said as carefully as he could.

“So you don’t care then?” Bergthora asked.

“Of course I care,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I care about your feelings, about our feelings. I just…”

“What?”

“I don’t know if you’re in any state to make a snap decision about adoption. It’s a pretty big step.”

Bergthora took a deep breath.

“We’ll never agree on this,” she said.

“I just feel we need more time to recover and talk it over.”

“Of course, you can have a child any time you like,” Bergthora said cynically.

“What?”

“If you had the slightest interest, which you never have had.”

“Bergthora.”

“You’ve never really been interested, have you?”

Sigurdur Oli did not reply.

“You can find someone else,” Bergthora said, “and have children with her.”

“This is exactly what I mean. You’re not… you can’t discuss it reasonably. Let’s just give it time. It won’t do any harm.”

“Don’t keep telling me what sort of state I’m in,” Bergthora said. “Why do you always have to belittle me?”

“I’m not”

“You always think you’re somehow better than me.”

“I’m not prepared to adopt as matters stand,” he said.

Bergthora stared at him for a long time without saying a word. Then she gave a wan smile.

“Is it because they’re foreign?” she asked. “Coloured? Chinese? Indian? Is that the reason?”

Sigurdur Oli stood up.

“We can’t talk with things as they are,” he said.

“Is that why? You want your children to be Icelandic, do you?”

“Bergthora. Why are you talking like this? Don’t you think I’ve … ?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think I’ve suffered? Don’t you think I was upset when it didn’t work, when we lost the ba-‘ He stopped.

“You never said anything,” Bergthora said.

“What was I supposed to say?” Sigurdur Oli said. “What is it that I’m always supposed to say?”

He started out of his reverie when the man raised his voice.

“Yes, er . . . no, sorry?” Sigurdur Oli said, adrift in his own thoughts.

The owner of the vandalised car glared at him.

“You aren’t even listening to me,” he said in disgust. “It’s always the same story with you cops.”

“I’m sorry, I was just wondering if you saw who did this to your car.”

“I didn’t see anything,” the man said. “I just found it scratched like that.”

“Any idea who could have done it? Someone with a score to settle? Local kids?”

“I have no idea. Isn’t that your job? Isn’t it your job to find the bastard?”

Next Sigurdur Oli had arranged to meet the man’s neighbour, a young woman who studied medicine at the university and rented a small flat in the next-door block. She sat down for a chat, and Sigurdur Oli made an effort to concentrate better than he had when he spoke to the man, who had left in something of a huff.

The woman was about twenty-five and rather fat. Sigurdur Oli had caught a brief glimpse of her kitchen where fast-food packaging predominated.

She told Sigurdur Oli that her car was nothing special but it was still awful to have it scratched like that.

“Why the sudden interest now?” she asked. “Your lot could hardly be bothered to come round when I originally reported the damage.”

“Several other cars have been vandalised,” Sigurdur Oli said. “One belonging to someone from the block of flats next door. We need to put a stop to it.”

“I think I saw them,” the woman said, taking out a packet of cigarettes. The flat stank of smoke.

“Really?” Sigurdur Oli said, watching her light up. He thought of the fast-food packaging in the kitchen and had to remind himself that this woman was studying medicine.

“There were two boys loitering outside,” she said, exhaling smoke. “You see, I was at home when it happened. It was so peculiar. I had to run back inside because I’d forgotten my lunch. I left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, something you should never do.”

She gave Sigurdur Oli a look, as if she was giving him important advice.

“When I came out, only a few minutes later, there was this terrible scratch on my car.”

“Was it early in the morning?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“Yes, I was on my way to lectures.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A week or so.”

“And you saw who did it?”

“I’m sure it was them,” the woman said, stubbing out her cigarette. There was a small bowl of toffees on the table. She put one in her mouth and proffered the bowl to Sigurdur Oli who declined.

“What did you see?”

“I told the police all this last week but they didn’t seem very interested in the scratch at the time.”

“There have been other incidents,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Yours is not the only car they’ve vandalised. We want to catch them.”

“It was about eight o’clock,” she said. “Still pitch black, of course, but there’s a light by the entrance to the block and as I was on my way upstairs I saw two boys walk past. They can’t have been more than about fifteen, both carrying schoolbags. I told the police all this.”

“Did you notice which way they were going?”

“Towards the chemist’s.”

“The chemist’s?”

“And the school,” the woman said, chewing her toffee. “Where the boy was murdered.”

“Why do you think those boys scratched your car?”

“Because it wasn’t scratched when I ran upstairs and it was when I came back down. They were the only people I saw that morning. I’m sure they were hiding somewhere, laughing at me. What kind of people scratch cars? Tell me that. What kind of bastards are they?”

“Pathetic losers,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Would you recognise them again if you saw them?”

“I’m not a hundred per cent sure it was them.”

“No, I know that.”

“One had long, fair hair. They were wearing anoraks. The other had a woolly hat on. They were both sort of gangling.”

“Could you recognise them from photos?”

“Maybe. You lot didn’t bother to offer me the chance the other day.”

Erlendur shut the door when he got back to his office on Hverfisgata. He sat down at his desk with his hands in his lap and stared into space with unseeing eyes. He had made a mistake. He had broken one of the golden rules that he had always tried to obey. The first rule that Marion Briem had taught him: nothing is as you think it is. He had been over-confident. Arrogant. He had forgotten the caution designed to protect him from blundering when he did not know the terrain. Arrogance had led him astray. He had overlooked other obvious possibilities; something that should not have happened to him.

He tried to remember the phone calls, what the woman had said, what it had been possible to glean from her voice, what time of day she had phoned. He had misinterpreted everything she said. It can’t go on like this, he suddenly remembered her saying in her first phone call. In the most recent call he had refused to listen to her.

He knew that the woman wanted his help. She had something to hide and it was torturing her, so she had turned to him. There was only one possible explanation. If she was not the missing woman, it could only be connected to one case. He was handling the investigation into Elias’s death. The phone calls must have been linked to that. It couldn’t be anything else. This woman had information that might help the investigation into the child’s murder and he had told her to get lost.

Erlendur slammed his clenched fists on the desk as hard as he could, sending papers and forms flying.

He kept going over and over the question of what the woman might have been trying to tell him but simply could not work it out. He could only hope that she would call him again, although that was hardly likely after the way he had treated her the last time.

He heard a knock and Elinborg put her head round the door. She saw the papers on the floor and looked at Erlendur.

“Is everything all right?”

“Did you want something?”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Elinborg said, shutting the door behind her.

“Any news?”

“Sigurdur Oli’s going over photos of the older pupils at the school with some car owner. A couple of them were loitering outside her block of flats when her car was vandalised.”

Elinborg began to pick up the papers from the floor.

“Leave them,” Erlendur said and started to help her.

“The pathologist is examining the body,” she said. “The woman appears to have drowned and on first impression there are no signs of anything suspicious. She’s been in the sea for at least two to three weeks.”

“I should have known better,” Erlendur said.

“So?”

“I made an error of judgement.”

“Come on, you weren’t to know.”

“I should have talked to her instead of being hostile. I judged her for what she had done. And it wasn’t even her.”

Elinborg shook her head.

“That woman phoned me so that I would reassure her and persuade her to help us, because she knows it’s the right thing to do. And I reacted by cutting her off. She knows something about Elias’s murder. A woman of uncertain age with a slightly husky voice, perhaps from smoking. Now, after the event, I realise how worried and frightened and apprehensive she was. I thought the missing woman and her husband were playing some kind of game. I couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t work out what they were up to and it got to me. Then it turns out I’d got the wrong end of the stick entirely.”

“What was she thinking of? Why did she throw herself in the sea?”

“I think . . .” Erlendur trailed off.

“What?”

“I think she’d fallen in love. She sacrificed everything for love: family, children, friends. Everything. Someone told me she had changed, become a different person. As if she’d found a new lease of life, discovered her true self during that time.”

Erlendur stopped again, lost in thought.

“And? What happened?”

“She found out that she’d been deceived. Her husband had started cheating on her. She was humiliated. All her . . . everything she had done, everything she had sacrificed, was for nothing.”

“I’ve heard about men like that,” Elinborg said. “They’re addicted to the first flush of passion and when that begins to fade, they go looking for it elsewhere.”

“But her love was genuine,” Erlendur said. “And she couldn’t bear it when she found out that it wasn’t reciprocated.”