Outrage

5

The flight was short, and the humming of the propellers was soothing. Elínborg sat in a window seat as she invariably did on domestic flights. She enjoyed seeing something of the country but this afternoon the weather was cloudy and she caught only glimpses of mountain or valley, or a river meandering across the snowy landscape. As she grew older, she was becoming increasingly afraid of air travel, although she could not explain her phobia. In the past she had never seen a flight as any more risky than a drive. But over the years she had developed a fear of flying which she attributed to having children and acquiring responsibilities in life. Generally she found it easier to cope with a short domestic flight than an international journey, although there were exceptions to the rule. She remembered one hazardous midwinter flight in stormy weather, swooping between the mountains and down into the narrow fjord of Ísafjördur: she had felt as if she were in a horror film that would culminate in a terrifying crash. She thought her time had come and clenched her eyes shut, praying until the undercarriage wheels touched down safely on the icy runway. Complete strangers had hugged each other in relief. On long international flights Elínborg took care to choose an aisle seat and tried not to worry about exactly how the heavy aircraft managed to take to the air and stay aloft, laden with passengers and their luggage.

The local police met her at the little airport and drove to the village where Runólfur’s mother lived. A dusting of snow highlighted the rich autumnal hues of the vegetation. Elínborg sat silently in the police car’s back seat, unable to focus on the beautiful natural scenery around her. She was thinking about her son Valthór. A month ago she had discovered by chance that he was blogging on the Internet, and now she had a guilty conscience about the boy. She did not know what to do.

Elínborg had been picking up clothes from the floor of his room when she saw on the computer screen that he had been writing about himself and his family. She jumped when she heard him approach and when they met in the doorway she pretended nothing was wrong. But she had made a mental note of the Internet thread, and after a slight tussle with her conscience she had keyed it into the family computer in the TV den. It felt like reading her son’s private correspondence, until she realised that the content of the blog was open to be read by anyone. When she saw how freely he wrote about himself she broke out into a cold sweat. He had never mentioned to her or to Teddi anything that she read in the blog, or said anything about it at home at all. There were links to other blogs. Elínborg looked through some of them, and saw that Valthór’s candid style was far from unusual. People had no inhibitions about writing about themselves, their family, their deeds, desires, emotions, opinions — anything that came into their minds as they sat at the computer, and with no self-censorship. Anything and everything went up. Elínborg had never taken any particular interest in blogs, except in the context of her work, and she had not imagined that her own children might be involved.

Since first coming across Valthór’s blog, Elínborg had stealthily accessed the site from time to time, read about the music her son listened to, films he had seen, and what he was doing with his friends, about school and what he thought of it and of individual teachers. Everything that Elínborg and he never talked about. He reported her own remarks on a sensitive issue under debate in society; he wrote about his gifted sister and how difficult it was to cater for her — because all the special-needs teaching was directed at the needs of dunces, Valthór stated, quoting his mother.

When she read her own words repeated on the Internet for all to see, Elínborg was furious: the boy had no right to go gossiping about her opinions. Valthór occasionally quoted his father too, but that was mostly on the subject of cars in which they shared an interest. The boy also posted some of his father’s very politically incorrect jokes.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Elínborg sighed.

But what really caught her attention was another aspect of his shameless behaviour: the blog indicated unmistakably that Valthór was something of a ladies’ man. It was clearly no coincidence that Elínborg had found a condom in his trouser pocket. He was forever mentioning girls he knew and writing about his social life with them: dances, trips to the cinema, none of which Elínborg knew anything about. Under the heading Say what you think, readers were invited to post their responses. It seemed to Elínborg that two, if not three, of her son’s girlfriends were competing for his affections.

As the car sped through the glorious autumn woodland, under her breath Elínborg cursed the very idea of Valthór and his blog.

‘Pardon?’ said the policeman who was driving. The other sat in the front passenger seat, apparently asleep. They had given her some information about Runólfur’s mother and the village, but otherwise had not spoken.

‘Nothing. Sorry, I’ve got a bit of a cold,’ said Elínborg, digging a tissue out of her bag. ‘Do you have a police station in the village?’

‘No, we don’t have the funding. It all costs money. But nothing ever happens there. Nothing that matters, anyway.’

‘Is it much further?’

‘Half an hour,’ answered the policeman. They did not speak for the rest of the journey.

Runólfur’s mother, Kristjana, lived in a fairly small modern townhouse and was expecting the police. She met Elínborg at the door. Looking tired and withdrawn, she left the door open and went back inside without speaking. Elínborg stepped inside and closed the door on her local colleagues. She wanted to speak to the woman in private.

It was late afternoon. The weather forecast was for snow showers, but bright rays of sunshine broke briefly through the thick cloud cover, illuminating the room before vanishing again. It grew dark suddenly. Kristjana had taken a seat facing the television. Elínborg sat on the sofa.

‘I don’t want to hear any details,’ said Kristjana. ‘The vicar told me some of it, but I’ve stopped watching the news. I heard something about a brutal attack with a knife. I don’t want to know any more.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Elínborg.

‘Thank you.’

‘It must have a been a terrible shock.’

‘I don’t know what to say about how I feel,’ said Kristjana. ‘It was incomprehensible when my husband died, but this … this is …’

‘Is there someone who could come and be with you?’ Elínborg asked when Kristjana stopped in mid-sentence.

‘We had him rather late,’ said Kristjana, as if she had not heard. ‘I was nearly forty. My husband, Baldur, was four years older than me. We weren’t young when we met. I’d been living with someone for a few years. Baldur had lost his wife. Neither of us had children. So Runólfur was … We didn’t have any more.’

‘I know the local police asked you about this when they informed you of Runólfur’s death, but I want to ask you again: do you know of anyone who might have had a grudge against him?’

‘No. I told them, I can’t imagine that. I simply can’t conceive how someone would want to do such a thing. I think Runólfur was a chance victim, like in a car crash. That’s how Baldur went. They told me he probably fell asleep at the wheel — that poor man driving the lorry said he thought he had seen Baldur nodding off. I didn’t feel sorry for myself, although I was left alone. Self-pity’s no use.’

Kristjana fell silent. There was a box of tissues on the table. She took one and wound it in her fingers. ‘You shouldn’t be feeling sorry for yourself all the time,’ she repeated.

Elínborg watched the wrinkled hands twisting the tissue, the hair in a ponytail, the bright eyes. She knew that Kristjana was seventy and had lived in this remote community all her life. The policemen who had driven Elínborg had told her that Kristjana was well known in the village for never having been to Reykjavík. She said there was nothing to take her there — even though her son had been in the city for more than a decade. Enquiries had revealed that he rarely visited his mother. Scarcely ever, in fact. Over recent decades many people had left the area, as Kristjana’s son had done, and Elínborg’s impression was that the woman had been abandoned, marooned in a vanished era. Her world had remained unchanged while Iceland had undergone a transformation. In that sense Kristjana reminded Elínborg of Erlendur, who could never shake off his past, nor wished to; his mindset and manners were old-fashioned, and he clung fast to values which, without anyone particularly noticing or caring, were rapidly disappearing. How could she tell this woman that her son had carried a date-rape drug in his pocket?

‘When did you last hear from him?’ asked Elínborg.

Kristjana hesitated, as if this simple question required careful thought. ‘Probably a bit over a year ago,’ she said.

‘Over a year?’ Elínborg repeated.

‘He didn’t have much contact with me,’ Kristjana said.

‘Yes, but hadn’t you heard from him for over a year?’

‘No.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘He last came here three years ago. Didn’t stay long, probably about an hour. He didn’t speak to anyone but me. He said he was passing through, in a hurry. I don’t know where he was going. I didn’t ask.’

‘Were you estranged?’

‘No, not as such, but he didn’t feel any need to be in touch,’ said Kristjana.

‘But what about you? Didn’t you ring him?’

‘He was always changing his phone number, so eventually I gave up trying. And, since he wasn’t interested, I didn’t want to impose. I left him alone.’

Neither woman spoke for a while.

‘Do you know who did it?’ Kristjana finally asked.

‘We have no idea,’ Elínborg replied. ‘The investigation’s in its early stages, so …’

‘It could take a long time?’

‘Possibly. So you didn’t know much about his private life — friends, women in his life, or …’

‘No, I didn’t know anything about that. Did he live with a woman? The last I knew, he didn’t. That was one of the things I talked to him about, whether he was going to settle down, start a family and that. He didn’t give me much of an answer. He probably thought I was nagging.’

‘We believe he lived alone,’ said Elínborg. ‘His landlord had that impression. Did he have any friends here in the village?’

‘They’ve all moved away. The young people all leave, that’s nothing new. They’re talking about closing down the school, bussing the children over to the next fjord every day. This place has had the kiss of death. Maybe I should have left, too, gone to your wonderful Reykjavík. I’ve never been, and I never shall. People didn’t travel much in the old days, and somehow I never had reason to go to the capital. I don’t care, though. There’s never been anything for me there. Nothing. Did you grow up there?’

‘Yes,’ said Elínborg. ‘I like the city, and I quite understand those who want to move and settle there. So, your son: was he not in contact with anyone here in the village?’

‘No,’ answered Kristjana firmly. ‘Not so far as I know.’

‘Did he ever get into trouble here? Anything illegal? Did he make any enemies?’

‘Here? No. Absolutely not. I don’t know much about him after he left here. As I said, I wasn’t aware of his circumstances, so I can’t answer questions like that. I’m sorry I can’t help. It’s just the way he was.’ She gazed at Elínborg. ‘You can’t tell what will become of your children. Do you have kids of your own?’

Elínborg nodded.

‘What do you know about what they’re up to?’ said Kristjana. Elínborg thought of Valthór. ‘How do you know what they may do?’ Kristjana asked. ‘I realise it’s not an acceptable thing to say, but I didn’t know my son well: I didn’t know what he did from day to day, or what he was thinking. In many ways he was a stranger to me, and a mystery. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Your children go away, and they gradually become strangers to you, except …’ Kristjana had shredded her tissue into tiny pieces. ‘You just have to grit your teeth,’ she said. ‘I soon learned that when I was young. Not to be sorry for myself. So now I’ll just grit my teeth, as usual.’

Elínborg’s mind went to the Rohypnol. If it was found in the pocket of a young man who had gone out for the evening and brought a woman home, the inference was fairly obvious.

‘When Runólfur lived here,’ Elínborg asked cautiously, ‘was he involved with any women?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Kristjana answered. ‘Why are you asking about that? Women? I don’t know about any women!’

‘Well, could you tell me if there’s anyone in the village who knew him, who I could speak to?’ Elínborg asked calmly.

‘Answer me! Why are you asking about women?’

‘We know nothing about him. But …’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s possible that his conduct was unusual,’ said Elínborg. ‘With women.’

‘His conduct? Unusual?’

‘Maybe even involving drugs.’

‘What do you mean? What drugs?’

‘They’re sometimes called date-rape drugs,’ Elínborg replied.

Kristjana was staring at her.

‘It’s also possible that he was only selling the drugs, but we aren’t excluding the other possibility. We could be wrong. At this point we haven’t got much to go on. We don’t know why he had the drugs in his pocket when he was found dead.’

‘A date-rape drug?’

‘It’s called Rohypnol. It’s a sedative, which puts you to sleep and causes memory loss. We felt you should know. It’s the kind of detail that the media may get hold of.’

Suddenly the storm battered against the wall of the house. A blizzard masked the view from the windows, and the room grew darker still.

For a long time Kristjana sat without uttering a word. ‘I can’t imagine why he would carry such a thing,’ she said at last.

‘No, of course not.’

‘As if I hadn’t heard enough.’

‘I understand that this must be hard for you.’

‘Now I hardly know which is worse.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Kristjana gazed out of the window into the snowstorm. ‘That he was murdered, or that he was a rapist.’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ said Elínborg.

Kristjana met her gaze. ‘No, you lot never know anything.’