Black Skies

54

He sat outside the block of flats on Kleppsvegur, keeping an eye on the newspaper in the postbox. As usual, the radio was tuned to a station playing mostly classic rock. He was sleepy, as he had sat up late the night before watching the American football. Just briefly he had toyed with the idea of going to bed with a book. He had been given an Icelandic novel for Christmas nearly a year ago which was still in its wrapping, so he took it out of the drawer, tore off the plastic and started reading, only to return it to the drawer shortly afterwards.

He had been sleeping badly recently, still worked up about the events of the last few days. So when he woke at the crack of dawn, he had decided to go for a drive and, without realising it, found himself outside Gudmunda’s block of flats, although he had told his mother he was done with guarding her postbox. Gagga had rung him, curious about the arrests of the bankers, which she had heard about on the news, and kept asking questions about Súsanna and Patrekur, whom she knew. He had fobbed her off. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said.

His thoughts turned to the conversation he had had with Elínborg. She had rung him, worried about Erlendur, who was still travelling somewhere out east — in his birthplace — and had not been in contact for over a fortnight.

‘What’s he doing out there?’ asked Elínborg.

‘No idea,’ replied Sigurdur Óli. ‘He never tells me anything.’

‘Do you know how long he intended to be away?’

‘No. Just that he wanted to be left alone.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it,’ said Elínborg.

Sigurdur Óli yawned. As on the previous Sunday mornings, there was hardly anyone about and the few people who did appear, either on their way home after a night out or popping out to the bakery, did not so much as glance at the newspaper. He began to nod, his eyelids grew heavy, his breathing slowed and, without warning, he fell asleep.

While he was slumbering peacefully, a scruffy-looking individual of about fifty, hair sticking up on end and clad in a threadbare dressing gown, tiptoed down the staircase, opened the door to the lobby, peered out into the car park, then grabbed the paper and hurried back inside, vanishing up the stairs.

Sigurdur Óli slept for at least three-quarters of an hour and it took him several minutes to surface. The radio was emitting a familiar beat as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He looked around the car park, stretched his arms and yawned, then caught sight of a man who looked much like Andrés walking along the pavement, heading west on Kleppsvegur.

Sigurdur Óli sat up in his seat to get a better view.

There was no mistaking: it was Andrés.

He had already opened the door to jump out and run after him when he changed his mind. Shutting the door again he started the engine, drove out of the car park and began to shadow Andrés. He had to make a U-turn at the next junction and was afraid of losing him but quickly located him again, a stooped figure, apparently in another world, trudging along the coast road, past Kirkjusandur and the bus depot, across Kringlumýrarbraut and into Borgartún. He was carrying a plastic bag and wearing the same ragged clothes as before. Sigurdur Óli considered hailing him for a word but curiosity stopped him.

If Andrés was not living at home, where was he hiding?

Andrés walked up Nóatún, into the Laugavegur shopping street, past the bus station at Hlemmur, then turned south along Snorrabraut, before heading down Grettisgata in the direction of the old city centre. Sigurdur Óli had no difficulty following him but was careful to maintain his distance. He turned slowly into Grettisgata and crawled along the street until he found a parking space, then parked as quickly as he could, before trotting after Andrés, still keeping a little way behind him. Ahead, he saw Andrés turn abruptly and descend the steps to the basement of an old wooden house that had seen better days, where he opened the door with a key, then closed it behind him.

Sigurdur Óli halted and examined the house. It looked tumble-down, neglected, the corrugated-iron cladding covered in rust and large patches of worn paint, leaving it vulnerable to the wind and weather. The house consisted of one storey and a basement, but the ground floor looked unoccupied.

After waiting for about twenty minutes, he decided to knock at the door and climbed carefully down the steps which were crumbling dangerously. The door was unmarked and there was no bell. Sigurdur Óli knocked vigorously several times, then waited. He noticed a foul odour, like the stench of rotten fish.

No reply. He knocked on the door again, calling Andrés’s name, then waited.

Pressing his ear to the door, he heard a faint noise inside. He called out to Andrés again, and after knocking loudly for the third time without receiving any answer, he decided to try to force his way in. The lock was old and rattled when Sigurdur Óli took hold of the handle, and gave way easily beneath the weight of his shoulder. He stopped in the open doorway and called Andrés’s name again before moving further into the flat.

The stench hit him like a wall, causing him to gasp and stagger back outside onto the steps.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaimed.

He was wearing a scarf round his neck and, using this to cover his nose and mouth, he made a second attempt. He found himself in a small hall and located a light switch which did not work, so he assumed the electricity supply had been cut off. He called Andrés’s name again but to no avail. From what he could see, the flat had been completely trashed. Holes had been smashed in the walls and here and there the floorboards had been torn up, forcing him to clamber over broken planks and furniture, aware all the time, in spite of his scarf, that the smell was intensifying the further he went. He stood still while adjusting to the gloom, repeatedly calling Andrés. Either he was hiding somewhere in the flat or he had escaped through a back door or window. Once Sigurdur Óli’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he saw that he was standing in what was probably a living room, with thick curtains drawn across the window. He ripped them apart to let the light flood in.

The daylight revealed a scene of devastation: tables, chairs and cupboards lay strewn all over the place like matchwood, as if someone had driven a bulldozer right through the flat. Sigurdur Óli picked his way gingerly through the wreckage, and seeing in one corner a blanket, leftovers of food and empty brennivín bottles, assumed that this was where Andrés had been holed up. Returning to the hallway, he cautiously opened a door which turned out to lead to the kitchen. The scene was no less chaotic here and he observed that Andrés had probably made his escape by crawling out of the large window into the back garden.

He had lost him.

Sigurdur Óli threaded his way back into the living room, hardly able to endure the suffocating stench any longer, and was about to back out when he trod on something he thought was alive. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

Looking down, he saw that he had bumped into a foot belonging to a man who was lying on the floor covered by a dirty blanket, with only his legs protruding. Bending down, Sigurdur Óli slowly drew the blanket off the man and at last understood where the horrific smell was emanating from.

He pressed the scarf tight over his nose. The man was lying on his back, tied to a chair, as if he had fallen over backwards. His dead eyes, half open, stared up at him. In the middle of his forehead was an object that looked like a coin. A dirty piece of leather with straps hanging from it lay on the floor beside the body.

Sigurdur Óli remembered Andrés muttering about a krona piece and, curiosity overcoming all his professional instincts, he reached down to the coin, intending to pick it up, only to discover that it was fixed.

Moving closer, he realised that it was not a coin: the surface was smooth. Slowly it dawned on him that the metallic disc on the man’s forehead was the end of a spike that had been driven deep into his head.

The body was badly decomposed.

He reckoned the man had been dead for at least three months.