Black Skies

30

A bus drove past noisily, down Sudurgata in the direction of the city centre, and the sound of laughter rose from Kirkjugardsstígur: life in the city carried on as usual but in the graveyard where Andrés sat it might as well have stopped altogether. He did not say another word. Sigurdur Óli waited for him to continue, unwilling to press him. The minutes passed. Andrés had picked up one of the bottles, taken a long draught, then shoved it back in the bag with the other one. He had retreated into a private world. When all hope of his resuming the story seemed lost, Sigurdur Óli coughed.

‘Why now?’ he asked.

He was not sure if Andrés had heard him.

‘Why now, Andrés?’

The other man turned his head and regarded Sigurdur Óli as if he were a complete stranger.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Why are you telling us this now?’ Sigurdur Óli asked again. ‘Even if we caught this Rögnvaldur, the case is long dead, long over. There’s nothing we can do. There are no laws that can touch him now.’

‘No,’ Andrés said slowly. ‘You lot can’t do anything. You never could have …’ He trailed off.

‘What happened to Rögnvaldur?’

‘He moved out and never showed his face again,’ said Andrés. ‘I didn’t know any more about him. He just disappeared. For all these years.’

‘But then?’

‘Then I saw him again. I told you about that.’

‘We couldn’t find him, and we lost interest once we had closed the case that he was thought to be involved in, because it turned out he hadn’t been anywhere near it. There was no way we could use your statement; it was so vague and you refused to give us any more specific information. So why do you want to talk about it now?’

Sigurdur Óli waited for an answer but Andrés merely gazed down at his feet.

‘If I remember right,’ Sigurdur Óli went on, ‘you hinted that he had killed someone of your age. Were you talking about yourself? Is that how you experienced what he did to you? That he killed some part of you?’

‘Maybe he should have finished me off,’ said Andrés. ‘Maybe it would have been better. I don’t remember what I told you. I haven’t been … I haven’t been in a good way for a long time.’

‘There’s support available, you know,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘For people like you, people who’ve gone through this sort of thing. Have you tried any help like that?’

Andrés shook his head. ‘I wanted to see you to tell you … to tell you that whatever happens, however things turn out, it wasn’t all my fault. Do you understand? It wasn’t all my fault. I want you — the police — to know that.’

‘How what turns out?’ asked Sigurdur Óli. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll find out.’

‘Have you found Rögnvaldur?’

Andrés did not answer.

‘I can’t let you leave without answering. You can’t just drop hints like that.’

‘I’m not trying to make excuses. What’s done is done and it’s too late to undo it. After he left I tried to … I tried to pull myself together but I couldn’t deaden the feelings. Then I found that I could keep them away with booze and dope, so I turned to them, to the people who could supply them, and that way I managed to keep the feelings under control. The minute he was gone. I got drunk for the first time when I was twelve years old. Sniffed glue. Took anything I could lay my hands on. I’ve hardly been sober since. That’s the way it is — I’m not making excuses.’

He paused, coughed, and delved into the bag for the bottle.

‘You’ll find out,’ he added.

‘What?’

‘You’ll find out.’

‘I gather you wanted to train as an upholsterer,’ said Sigurdur Óli, keen to keep him talking, to encourage him to open up, in the hope that more would emerge about Rögnvaldur. It did not take an expert to see that Andrés was on the verge of mental and physical collapse.

‘I’ve tried to clean up my act over the years,’ he said. ‘But it never lasted.’

‘Have you tried making anything out of leather recently?’ Sigurdur Óli asked carefully.

‘What do you mean?’ Andrés said, immediately on his guard.

‘Your neighbour, the woman next door, was worried about you,’ Sigurdur Óli explained. ‘She thought something might have happened to you, so she let me into your flat. I found bits of leather in the kitchen and when I put them together they made a round shape, a bit like a face.’

Andrés did not respond.

‘What were you cutting out?’

‘Nothing,’ Andrés said, beginning to scan his surroundings as if in search of an escape route. ‘I don’t understand why you had to go into my flat. I don’t understand.’

‘Your neighbour was concerned,’ Sigurdur Óli repeated.

‘You talked her into it.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You shouldn’t have gone into my place.’

‘What are you doing with the leather?’

‘It’s private.’

‘Do you remember we found child pornography at your flat in January?’ said Sigurdur Óli, changing tack.

‘I …’ Andrés faltered.

‘What were you doing with that?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘You’re right, I don’t.’

‘I … I despise myself more than anyone else … I …’ He started mumbling again.

‘Where is Rögnvaldur?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I can’t let you leave until you’ve told me.’

‘I didn’t know what to do. Then I remembered. How the farmer used the spike. Then I knew how to do it.’

‘The spike?’

‘It’s no thicker than a krona piece at the end.’

Andrés was no longer making sense.

‘Where is Rögnvaldur?’ asked Sigurdur Óli again. ‘Do you know where he is?’

Andrés sat there dumbly, his eyes on the ground.

‘I always wanted to go back there,’ he said at last. ‘But I never got round to it.’

He drifted off again.

‘Röggi was a fucking bastard. I despise him, he disgusts me. He’s repulsive!’

He was staring into the distance, at what infinitely remote scenes no one could say, whispering words inaudible to Sigurdur Óli.

‘But I disgust myself most of all.’

At that moment Sigurdur Óli’s phone rang, shattering the peace in the graveyard. Hastily, he fumbled for it in his coat pocket and saw that it was Patrekur calling. He dithered, glancing from Andrés to the phone, then decided to answer.

‘I need to see you,’ he said before Patrekur could utter a word.

‘Sure.’

‘You lied to me,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

‘What?’

‘You think it’s OK to lie to me, do you? You think it’s OK to get me into trouble and lie to me?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Patrekur. ‘Calm down.’

‘You said you’d never met Lína in your life.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’re sticking to that story, are you?’

‘Sticking to what? What are you getting at?’

‘I’m talking about you, Patrekur. And me.’

‘Don’t get all worked up. Just explain what you’re on about.’

‘You went on a glacier trip with her, you jerk!’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘With a bunch of other pricks. Remember now? A glacier trip, last year. Does that refresh your memory?’

There was a lengthy silence at the other end.

‘We need to meet,’ Patrekur said at last.

‘You bet we do,’ snapped Sigurdur Óli.

He had turned away from Andrés during the conversation to gain a modicum of privacy, but when he turned back Andrés had vanished.

He reacted instantly, breaking off the call and sprinting up the hill through the graveyard, scanning the surroundings for Andrés, but he was nowhere to be seen. Reaching the gate, he ran out into the street, which was deserted, so he raced back into the graveyard and across it, looking all around him in vain. He had allowed Andrés to slip through his fingers again.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ he shouted, coming to a halt. Andrés had been quick to make himself scarce and could have left by any gate while Sigurdur Óli was occupied.

He walked back to where he had parked, got into his car and wasted some considerable time combing the nearby streets in the hope of catching sight of Andrés, but to no avail.

The man had vanished into thin air and Sigurdur Óli did not have the first idea where he might be hiding or whether he had found Rögnvaldur and, if so, what might have become of him.

He tried to recall their conversation but did not get very far. Andrés had talked about his mother, and towards the end had begun rambling about a spike that had looked like a krona piece, and the revulsion he felt for Rögnvaldur, and that Sigurdur Óli must know that whatever happened, it was not all his fault.

For some reason it mattered to him that the police should understand this.