Outrage

6

Elínborg had to stay the night. She settled into her spacious room in a small guest house on a hill just outside the village, and rang Sigurdur Óli to tell him about her interview with Kristjana — not that it had yielded much. She rang home and spoke to Teddi, who had picked up a takeaway, and to Theodóra who was eager to tell her mother about a planned trip with the Girl Guides to Úlfljótsvatn lake in a fortnight’s time. They had a long talk. The boys were out at the cinema. Elínborg reflected that she would probably be able to read all about it on the Internet before long.

Not far from the guest house was a restaurant that also served as a pub, sports bar, video-rental shop and, apparently, a laundrette. As she entered, she saw a man handing his dirty washing over the bar, commenting that it would be good to have it back on Thursday. The menu included the usuals: sandwiches, burger and chips with pink cocktail-sauce, roast lamb, deep-fried fish. Elínborg opted for the fish. Two of the tables were occupied. At one of them three men were drinking beer and watching football on a flatscreen TV; at the other an elderly couple, outsiders like her, were eating the fried fish.

She was missing Theodóra, not having seen her for two days. Elínborg smiled to herself as she thought of her daughter. She would sometimes make surprising pronouncements about life. Her speech was rather formal and a little bit old-fashioned, and Elínborg worried that Theodóra might be teased at school. But apparently there was no cause for concern. ‘Why’s he so lugubrious?’ she had asked about a miserable newsreader on TV. ‘That’s rather droll,’ she would say when she read something funny in the paper. Elínborg assumed that she must have picked up such words from her extensive reading.

The fish was not bad, and the freshly baked bread served with it was delicious. Elínborg left the chips, which she had never particularly liked. When she had finished her fish she asked if the restaurant served espresso. The bartender, a woman of uncertain age who also cooked, baked, rented out videos and took in washing, conjured up a cup of good espresso in no time. The door opened, and someone came in to look at the videos.

The shawl that had been found in Runólfur’s flat was a puzzle. It did not necessarily mean that a woman had been there at the time of the killing — or that his assailant had been a woman. The shawl could have been lying on the floor where it was found, under the bed, for several days. Yet the inescapable conclusion was that Runólfur might have used the date-rape drug that evening, that he could have brought a woman home with him — a woman who’d accompanied him willingly or otherwise — and that something had happened which had prompted the violent attack. Perhaps the effects of the drug had worn off and when the woman had regained consciousness she had seized the nearest weapon, whether for self-defence or revenge.

The murder weapon, a knife, had not been found in the flat and the murderer had left no trace, except for his or her evident hatred and rage against the dead man. If Runólfur had raped the woman who owned the shawl, and had then been attacked and killed by her, how did that help the police? Where had the shawl been bought? Officers would try to identify the shop that had sold it, but it did not look new and that line of enquiry might yield no result. The woman had worn perfume that lingered in the shawl. The fragrance had not yet been identified but it was only a matter of time before it was, and enquiries would then be made at stores where it was sold. The shawl also smelt of smoke, which might only indicate that the owner had worn it in bars where people were smoking, or alternatively that she was a smoker herself. Runólfur was in his early thirties, and it was possible that he had met a woman of similar age. Dark hairs had been found on the shawl and in Runólfur’s flat. They were not dyed. So the woman was a brunette. She must wear her hair short, as the hairs found were not long.

Perhaps she worked at a restaurant that served tandoori dishes. Elínborg knew something about tandoori cookery, and had even included some tandoori dishes in the cookery book that she had published. She had read up on tandoori cuisine and felt pretty well-informed about it. She owned two different clay tandoori pots. In India they would traditionally be heated in a pit filled with burning charcoal so that the meat was cooked evenly from all sides at a high temperature. Elínborg had occasionally buried a tandoori pot in her back garden in the authentic manner, but usually she put it in the oven or heated it over charcoal on an old barbecue. The crucial factor was the marinade, for which Elínborg used a combination of spices, blending them to taste with plain yoghurt. For a red colour she added ground annatto seed; for yellow, saffron. She generally experimented with a mixture of cayenne pepper, coriander, ginger and garlic, or with a garam masala that she made herself by using roasted or ground cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, garlic and black pepper, with a little nutmeg. She had also been trying out variations using Icelandic herbs such as wild thyme, angelica root, dandelion leaves and lovage. She would rub the marinade into the meat — chicken or pork — and leave it for several hours before it went into the tandoori pot. Sometimes a little of the marinade would splash on to the hot coals, bringing out more strongly the tangy tandoori fragrance that Elínborg had smelt on the shawl. She wondered if the woman they were looking for might have a job in Indian cookery. Or perhaps, like Elínborg, she was simply interested in Indian food, or even specifically in tandoori dishes. She too might have a tandoori pot in her kitchen, along with all the spices that made the dish so mouth-watering.

The elderly couple had finished their meal and gone, and the three football fans left as soon as the match ended. Elínborg sat for some time on her own, then went to the bar to pay. She thanked the bartender for a good meal. They spoke briefly about the bread, which Elínborg had enjoyed. The woman asked what brought her to the village and Elínborg told her.

‘He was at primary school here with my son,’ said the bartender. She was plump and dressed in a sleeveless black top, with sturdy upper arms and a heavy bosom under a voluminous apron. She said she had seen the news on TV. Runólfur was the talk of the village.

‘Did you know him at all?’ Elínborg enquired, looking out the window. It had started to snow again.

‘Everyone knows everyone around here. Runólfur was quite an ordinary lad. A bit rebellious, perhaps. He left as soon as he could — like most of the youngsters. I never had much to do with him. I know Kristjana was rather rough on him — she could lash out if he misbehaved. She’s hard as nails. She used to work in the local fish factory until it closed down.’

‘Are any of his friends still living here?’

The woman folded her hefty arms and thought. ‘They’ve all moved away, so far as I know,’ she said. ‘The population’s half what it was ten years ago.’

‘I see,’ said Elínborg. ‘Well, thank you.’

She was on her way out when she saw a shelf of videotapes and DVDs in a niche by the door. Elínborg did not go in for films much, but she watched sometimes if the males of the family rented something interesting. But crime films had no appeal, and romances left her cold. She preferred comedy. Theodóra had similar tastes, and occasionally the two of them would rent a comedy while Teddi and the boys were glued to some thriller.

Elínborg glanced over the shelf, and recognised one or two films she had already seen. A girl of about twenty was making her choice. She looked over at Elínborg and said hello. ‘Are you the policewoman from Reykjavík?’ she asked.

Elínborg realised that news of her presence had spread through the whole village.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘There’s one person here in the village who knew him,’ the girl said.

‘Him? You mean …?’

‘Runólfur. His name’s Valdimar. He runs the garage.’

‘And who are you?’

‘I was just taking a look at the films,’ replied the girl. Then she slipped past Elínborg and out the door.

Elínborg walked the streets in the heavy snow until she found a small motor workshop at the northern end of the village. Above the half-open sliding door of an old garage building a weak light shone on a weather-beaten sign on which the name of the business was illegible. It looked to Elínborg as if it had been peppered with shotgun pellets. She went through the reception area and into the workshop, where a man of about thirty was working behind a large tractor. He was wearing a tatty baseball cap and overalls that had once been dark blue but were now blackened with dirt. Elínborg introduced herself, and explained that she was from the police. The man twisted an oily rag in his hands as he returned Elínborg’s greeting, uncertain whether he should offer her his greasy hand. He was tall and lanky, awkward-looking. He said his name was Valdimar.

‘I heard you were here,’ he said. ‘Because of Runólfur.’

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ said Elínborg, with a glance at her watch. It was past ten o’clock.

‘No, you’re not,’ Valdimar assured her. ‘I’m just working on the tractor. I’ve got nothing else on. Did you want to talk to me about Runólfur?’

‘I gather you were friends when he lived here. Did you stay in touch?’

‘No, not really — not after he left. I visited him once when I went to Reykjavík.’

‘You don’t know anyone who might have had reason to hate him?’

‘No, not at all — but, as I say, we weren’t in touch. I haven’t been to Reykjavík in donkey’s years. I read that his throat was cut.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘No. We don’t know much yet. I came here to speak to his mother. What was Runólfur like as a boy?’

Valdimar put down his oily rag, opened a thermos of piping hot coffee and poured himself a cup. He glanced over at Elínborg as if to offer her one, but she shook her head.

‘Everyone knows everyone else around here, of course,’ he said. ‘He was older than me so we didn’t play together much as boys. He wasn’t as wild as some of us who were raised here in the village, maybe because he had a strict upbringing.’

‘But were you friends?’

‘No, not really, though we knew each other quite well. He left when he was very young. Things change. Not least in a little community like this.’

‘Did he go away to high school, or …?’

‘No, he just moved to Reykjavík to work. He always wanted to go there. He talked about going as soon as he got the chance. Or even travelling, abroad. He wasn’t about to waste his life in this backwater. He called it a hole. I’ve never thought of it that way — I’ve always been OK here.’

‘Was he interested in action comics, thriller films, do you know?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because we found indications of it at his home,’ answered Elínborg, without describing the posters and collectible figures in Runólfur’s flat in any more detail.

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember anything like that.’

‘I’ve been told his mother was a harsh parent. You mentioned a strict upbringing.’

‘She had a rather short fuse,’ said Valdimar, sipping his coffee carefully. He took a biscuit from his pocket and dunked it in the cup. ‘She had her own approach to parenting. I never saw her hit him, but he said she did. He only spoke of it once, so far as I know. He was embarrassed — I think he was ashamed. They were never close.’

‘What about his father?’

‘The old man was a bit of a wimp. Never said a word.’

‘He died in an accident, didn’t he?’

‘That was just a few years ago, after Runólfur had moved to Reykjavík.’

‘So have you any idea why Runólfur was murdered?’

‘No, I’ve no idea at all. It’s tragic, quite tragic, that things like that happen.’

‘Did you know anything about women in his life?’

‘Women?’

‘Yes.’

‘In Reykjavík?’

‘Yes. Or in general.’

‘I knew nothing about that. Is this to do with women?’

‘No,’ said Elínborg. ‘Or, at least, we don’t know. We don’t know what happened.’

Valdimar put down his coffee cup and took a spanner from a toolbox.

He worked calmly, his movements unhurried. He searched for a bolt in another box, feeling around with a finger until he found one that was the right size.

Elínborg looked at the tractor. There was apparently no pressure of work at this garage, yet here Valdimar was, working late into the evening.

‘My husband’s a mechanic,’ volunteered Elínborg without thinking. She was not in the habit of telling strangers anything about herself, but it was warm in the garage and the man was friendly. He came across as reliable and likeable. Outside, the storm was rising. She knew no one in this place and she felt a long way from her husband and children.

‘Oh?’ replied Valdimar. ‘So I suppose his hands are always black?’

‘I won’t allow it,’ said Elínborg, with a smile. ‘He must have been one of the first mechanics in Iceland, or maybe in the world, who started wearing gloves for work.’

Valdimar looked down at his own filthy hands. Elínborg saw old scars on their backs and on his fingers which she recognised, after her years with Teddi, as being the result of struggling with engine parts. Teddi had not always been careful: sometimes he got carried away, or his tools were faulty.

‘A woman’s touch,’ Valdimar said.

‘And I get a special hand-cleaning cream for him, which works wonders,’ added Elínborg. ‘Didn’t you ever want to move away, like the others?’

She saw that Valdimar was trying not to smile.

‘I can’t think what that’s got to do with anything,’ he said.

‘No, it was just a thought,’ said Elínborg, a little embarrassed. The man had that effect upon her; he seemed frank and at peace with himself.

‘I’ve always lived here, and never wanted to leave,’ he said. ‘I’m not one for change. I’ve been to Reykjavík a few times and I didn’t like what I saw. All that chasing after empty things — conspicuous consumption, bigger houses, more expensive cars. They hardly even speak proper Icelandic any more. They hang around in junk-food joints, getting fatter and fatter. I don’t think it’s the Icelandic way. We’re all drowning in bad foreign habits.’

‘I have a friend who thinks rather like you.’

‘Good for him.’

‘And of course you have family here,’ added Elínborg.

‘I’m not a family man,’ Valdimar said, disappearing under the tractor. ‘I never have been, and I can’t imagine I ever will be now.’

‘You never know,’ Elínborg ventured.

The man looked up from beneath the tractor. ‘Was there anything else?’ he asked.

Elínborg smiled and shook her head, apologised for disturbing him and then set off, back out into the storm.

When she reached the guest house she met the woman who had served her at the restaurant. She was still wearing her apron, with a name badge on it: Lauga. She was on her way out, and it occurred to Elínborg that perhaps she was involved in the guest-house operation too. That’s multitasking for you, she thought.

‘I heard that you talked to Valdi,’ said Lauga, holding the door open for Elínborg. ‘Did you get anything out of it?’

‘Not a lot,’ answered Elínborg, surprised again at the speed with which news spread round here.

‘No, he’s not much of a talker, but he’s a good lad.’

‘He seems to work hard. He was still working when I left.’

‘There’s not much else to do,’ observed Lauga. ‘He likes it, always has. Was it the tractor?’

‘Yes, he was working on a tractor.’

‘I should think he’s been fiddling around with it for ten years now. I’ve never seen such care and attention as he lavishes on that tractor. It’s like his pet. They gave him a nickname — Valdi Ferguson.’

‘Well,’ said Elínborg. ‘I have to get back to town early in the morning, so …’

‘Sorry. I wasn’t meaning to keep you up all night.’

Elínborg smiled and looked out at the forlorn village that was gradually disappearing in the blizzard. ‘I don’t suppose you have much crime here?’

Lauga was closing the door. ‘No, that’s for sure,’ she replied with a smile. ‘Nothing ever happens here.’

But for a niggling question at the back of her mind Elínborg would have dropped off as soon as her head touched the pillow; it might mean anything, or nothing. It was the girl she had bumped into at the video rack: she had spoken in whispers, as if she had not wanted anyone to overhear their conversation.