Outrage

4

The neighbours were on the whole eager to help. The police conducted systematic interviews with everyone living within a certain radius of the crime scene, whether or not they believed they had anything to contribute. The police would determine what was important and what was irrelevant. In the lower Thingholt district, most of the inhabitants said they had been asleep that night and so had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. None of them knew the victim. Nobody had observed anyone near the house or seen anything unusual in the days before the crime. Residents nearby were interviewed first, then the area of enquiry was gradually widened. Elínborg spoke to the investigating officers to review what had been revealed, and paused when she saw the statement of one woman who lived at the periphery of the area under investigation. Although the information provided seemed meagre, she decided to call on the woman herself.

‘I don’t know if it’s worth it,’ said the policeman who had questioned her.

‘Oh?’

‘She’s a bit odd.’

‘Odd? How?’

‘She kept going on about electromagnetic waves. She said they gave her a constant headache.’

‘Electromagnetic waves?’

‘She said she’s measured them, using some rods she has. The waves come mainly from her walls.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I don’t know if you’ll get anything useful out of her.’

The woman lived on the upper floor of a two-storey building in the street up the hill from Runólfur’s home but some distance away, so whatever she thought she had seen might well be irrelevant. Yet Elínborg was curious. And since the police had little to go on as yet, she reckoned that she might as well check the woman out and see if she remembered anything more.

Petrína was in her late sixties. She opened the door to Elínborg, wearing a dressing gown and worn felt slippers. Her hair was a mess, her face pale and wrinkled, her eyes bloodshot. In one hand she held a cigarette. As she welcomed Elínborg in she said she was pleased that someone was taking an interest at last.

‘It’s about time,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you. They’re massive waves, I tell you.’

Petrína vanished into the flat, leaving Elínborg to follow her. Elínborg found herself in a stifling cigarette fug; all the curtains were drawn and the rooms were dark. She managed to work out that it would be possible to see down into the street from the living-room window. The woman had gone into her bedroom, and now called out to her. Elínborg went through the living room, past the kitchen and into the bedroom where she saw Petrína beneath a solitary light bulb that hung unadorned from the ceiling. A bed and bedside table stood in the centre of the room.

‘I’d like to tear the walls down,’ said Petrína. ‘I can’t afford to have all the electrical wiring insulated. I must just be especially sensitive. Look here.’

Elínborg gazed in astonishment at the two longer walls of the room, which were covered from floor to ceiling in aluminium cooking foil.

‘It gives me such a headache,’ said Petrína.

‘Did you do all this yourself?’ asked Elínborg.

‘Me? Myself? Of course I did. The foil helps, but I don’t think it’s enough. You’ll have to take a look.’ Petrína picked up two metal rods and held them loosely in her hands with the ends towards Elínborg, who stood motionless in the doorway. Then the rods turned gradually until they pointed at one of the walls.

‘It’s the electrical wiring,’ said Petrína.

‘Oh?’ said Elínborg.

‘You can see that the foil helps. Come on.’

She shoved past Elínborg, her wild hair sticking out and the metal rods in her hands, looking like a caricature of a mad scientist. She went into the living room and switched on the TV. The test card appeared.

‘Roll up your sleeve,’ Petrína told Elínborg, who did so without a word. ‘Hold your arm near the screen, but don’t touch it.’

Elínborg brought her arm close to the screen. The hairs on her forearm bristled, and she felt the magnetic field. She had often noticed the effect at home if she stood close to the TV.

‘That’s what the walls of my room were like,’ said Petrína. ‘Just like that. They made my hair stand on end. It was like sleeping up against a television screen all night. Alterations were made to the flat, you see — they installed wooden partition walls, plywood, all full of electrical wiring.’

As she rolled down her sleeve Elínborg asked cautiously: ‘Who do you think I am?’

‘You?’ asked Petrína. ‘Aren’t you from the power company? They were going to send someone. Isn’t it you?’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Elínborg. ‘I’m not from the power company.’

‘You were going to take readings here,’ said Petrína. ‘You were supposed to come today. I can’t go on like this.’

‘I’m from the police,’ said Elínborg. ‘A serious crime was committed in the next street, and I believe you saw someone outside here, in front of the building.’

‘But I spoke to a policeman this morning,’ said Petrína. ‘Why have you come back? And where’s the man from the power company?’

‘I don’t know, but I can ring them if you like.’

‘He should have been here ages ago.’

‘Perhaps he’ll come later today. May I ask what you saw?’

‘What I saw? What am I supposed to have seen?’

‘According to your statement this morning, you saw a man in the street on Saturday night. Is that right?’

‘I’ve tried and tried to get them to come here and look inside the walls, but they don’t listen to a word I say.’

‘Do you always keep the curtains closed?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Petrína, absently scratching her head.

Elínborg’s eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom of Petrína’s home and now she could see the shabby flat more clearly, with its ragged furniture, framed pictures on the walls and family photographs on tables. On one table were photographs of young people and children, presumably young descendants or relatives of Petrína. The ashtrays were all overflowing with cigarette stubs, and Elínborg noticed scorch marks here and there on the pale carpet.

Petrína stuck the cigarette she had just finished into the pile in one of the ashtrays. Looking at a burn in the carpet, Elínborg thought that the old lady probably dropped a smouldering stub on the floor from time to time. She wondered if she should contact Social Services; Petrína could be a danger to herself and others.

‘If you always have the curtains drawn, how can you see down into the street?’ asked Elínborg.

‘I open them, of course,’ said Petrína, looking at Elínborg as if there were something odd about her. ‘What did you say you were doing here?’

‘I’m from the police,’ Elínborg reiterated patiently. ‘I’d like to ask you about a man you said you saw outside the house last Saturday night. Do you remember that?’

‘I don’t sleep much — because of the waves, you see. So I wander around, and wait for them. See my eyes? See them?’ Petrína craned her head forward to show Elínborg her bloodshot eyes. ‘It’s the waves. That’s what they do to my eyes. Those bloody waves. And I have a headache all the time.’

‘Don’t you think that might be the cigarettes?’ Elínborg asked politely.

‘So I sat by the window here, and waited for them,’ said Petrína, ignoring Elínborg’s comment. ‘I sat and waited all night, and all day Sunday, and I’m still waiting.’

‘For?’

‘For the men from the power company! I thought that was who you were.’

‘So you sat here at the window, watching the street. Did you think they would come at night?’

‘How should I know when they’ll come? And then I saw that man I told you about this morning. I thought maybe he was from them, but he walked straight past. I thought of shouting out to him.’

‘Had you ever seen him around here before?’

‘No, never.’

‘Could you tell me a bit more about him?’

‘There’s nothing to tell. Why are you asking about him?’

‘A crime was committed near here, and I may have to trace him.’

‘You can’t,’ asserted Petrína.

‘Why not?’

‘You don’t know who he is,’ observed Petrína, amazed that Elínborg could be so dense.

‘No, and that’s why I’m asking you to help me. You said this morning he was wearing a dark jacket and a cap. Was it a leather jacket?’

‘I’ve no idea. But he had a hat on. A knitted woolly hat.’

‘Did you notice his trousers?’

‘Nothing special. They were those ones for running, with the legs torn up to the knee. There was nothing special about them.’

‘Was he driving a car?’

‘No. I didn’t see a car.’

‘Was he alone?’

‘Yes, he was alone. I only saw him for a moment because he moved fast, despite being lame.’

‘Lame?’ asked Elínborg. She did not recall hearing anything about this from the officer who had interviewed Petrína.

‘Yes, lame. Poor man. He had an aerial thing around his leg.’

‘Did he seem to be in a hurry?’

‘Oh, yes, but everybody hurries past here. It’s the waves. He wouldn’t want to let the waves get into his leg.’

‘What kind of aerial was it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did he limp heavily?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he didn’t want the waves in his leg? What do you mean?’

‘That was why he limped. The waves were massive. Really massive waves in his leg.’

‘Could you feel the waves?’

Petrína nodded. ‘Who did you say you were?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t you from the power company? Do you know what I think it is? Do you want to know? It’s all because of this uranium. Massive uranium, that comes down with the rain.’

Elínborg smiled. She should have listened to the policemen who had said it probably wasn’t worth talking to this witness again. She thanked Petrína, and promised to telephone the power company to remind them about the electromagnetic waves which were making her life so difficult — though she doubted whether they would be the right people to help the poor lady with her headaches.

There were no other witnesses to speak of. One middle-aged man came forward, who had been walking through Thingholt that Saturday night to his home on Njardargata. Though in the throes of a severe hangover, he wanted to state, while it was still fresh in his memory, that on the way home he had seen a woman sitting alone in a parked car. She was in the passenger seat, and it seemed to him that she had been trying to avoid attracting attention. He had no further explanation to offer. He gave them the name of the street where he had seen the car, which was some distance from the crime scene, but could give no proper description of the woman who he thought was probably about sixty and had been wearing a coat. He had no more to tell them. He remembered nothing about the car: neither its colour nor its make. He did not know much about cars, he explained.