The Darkness Knows

13

Hjaltalín’s ex-girlfriend still worked in retail, but these days she ran her own womenswear shop in partnership with her sister. They had emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, without too many debts, and had rented a sizeable space in the Smáralind shopping centre while prices were low. They had bought the clothing concession from a man who had gone spectacularly bust, which was hardly surprising given his four-hundred-square-metre house, his three SUVs, and his overdue loans for shares he had bought in various banks and businesses that had played a part in Iceland’s overseas expansion.

The ex-girlfriend, whose name was Salóme, must be fifty now, but age had treated her kindly. Although Konrád hadn’t seen her for years, he recognised her immediately, as she stood talking to a customer, by her head of thick, dark, shoulder-length hair. She was dressed in black trousers and a white top, and wore a string of pearls round her neck. Once a ballerina, she still carried herself with a dancer’s grace.

There were two other customers in the shop, waiting to be served. Konrád took his time, examining the merchandise and watching Salóme serve the women, who seemed to be looking for good-quality clothes that weren’t too expensive. They stole sidelong glances at him, probably assuming that he was after something for his wife. Or mistress. Finally, only Konrád was left and Salóme came over. He saw that she had placed him, remembering him only too well from the investigation.

‘Your people have already talked to me,’ she said. ‘What is it now?’

‘You mean the police?’

‘Yes, of course I mean the police, who else?’

‘You remember me, then.’

‘Konrád. Yes, I remember everything. I thought it was all in the past and then they go and find that man on the glacier. It feels as if I’ll never be free of it.’

‘I’ve left the police,’ Konrád told her.

‘Oh,’ Salóme said, ‘then what are you doing here?’

‘Old habits die hard,’ he said, trying for humour. It was met with a stony reception.

‘Excuse me, but if you’ve left, is it any of your business?’

‘Like you said, it feels as if I’ll never be free of it.’

‘I know, believe me, but... the thing is, I’m not actually obliged to talk to you, am I?’

She looked at him, her brows raised in enquiry. It was clear she would rather Sigurvin had never been found and that the case had remained closed. All she wanted was to be able to get on with her life without any further disruption from the events that had shaped it so decisively thirty years earlier.

‘I didn’t even know what they were talking about,’ Salóme continued at last. ‘Are you going to start asking all the same questions again too?’

Konrád shook his head. She had grown in self-confidence over the years and bore little resemblance to the young woman who had sat in his office on Hverfisgata more than three decades ago, fiddling with an elastic hairband and claiming that Hjaltalín had been with her the evening the witness saw him and Sigurvin having a row in the car park.

‘I know you didn’t think much of me as a witness,’ she said, as if reading his mind.

‘You told us you and Hjaltalín had been together all evening.’

‘Yes. And you know what? I can’t be bothered to go into all that again. It was bad enough having to talk to that policewoman.’

A customer came into the shop and Salóme went to serve her. She was a middle-aged woman in search of a coat and possibly trousers. Salóme assisted her without being pushy but the woman couldn’t find anything suitable and left.

‘You also told us you didn’t know anything about the woman Hjaltalín claimed to have been with,’ Konrád said, continuing from where he’d left off. ‘He never revealed her identity and we just took it for granted he was lying to us.’

‘I know nothing about her,’ Salóme said. ‘I always doubted she ever existed. Hjaltalín couldn’t open his mouth without lying. It was one of the first things you learnt about him. The truth was some kind of joke to him; he would just invent stuff to suit himself. Not just about Sigurvin, but all the time. He told me endless lies. It was his nature. Then, next thing I knew, I’d started lying for him too.’

‘You split up after that?’

Salóme gave him a look as if she was considering whether to go on answering. But she hadn’t minded Konrád, not like some of the other detectives who had kept pestering her with the same questions back in the day.

‘It was over as soon as he said he’d been with another woman,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be shot of him and the whole mess — the lies, the police. We hadn’t been together that long when it happened. He was... he wasn’t a total bastard, you know. Far from it. He could be very considerate and kind and loving, in spite of everything. It was just... all that tough-guy posturing got a bit wearing. But I never really believed he’d be capable of hurting anyone.’

‘You told me at the time that he had a short fuse; that he had trouble controlling his temper but that he’d never laid a hand on you.’

‘He never did. He could get incredibly angry, but probably no more than anyone else.’

‘Did he ever get in touch with you later, after it was all over? In the last few years, for instance?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ Salóme said. ‘And I never spoke to him again. I sometimes thought about him and felt a bit sorry for him, but we never had any contact.’

Radio music was playing softly from the small speakers in the ceiling. The shopping centre was fairly busy, with people buying things or just browsing and letting themselves dream.

‘Remind me,’ Konrád said. ‘What kind of car did you have back then?’

Salóme thought. ‘Some crappy Japanese job. It belonged to my mother actually, but I was always driving it.’

Konrád noticed a young woman come into the shop. Salóme didn’t pay her any attention.

‘Since Sigurvin turned up on the glacier,’ he went on, ‘people have supplied the police with a few new details, including the information that Sigurvin may have got into another jeep, not his own — an off-road vehicle.’

Salóme stared at Konrád. ‘And?’

He shrugged. ‘Apparently the driver had long hair and possibly an earring.’

‘Hjaltalín never wore an earring,’ Salóme said flatly.

‘Do you remember anyone else in your circle who owned an off-roader or had access to one?’

‘No,’ Salóme said, without even needing to think.

‘Or any men who wore an earring?’

‘No.’

‘No one at all?’

She shook her head.

‘You said you were at your mother’s the evening Sigurvin vanished; you went round to hers straight after leaving Hjaltalín and stayed over that night.’

‘I was still living at home,’ Salóme said. ‘The police know all this.’

‘I understand your mother’s dead.’

‘Yes, she died three years ago.’

The young woman came over to Salóme. ‘Do you work here?’ she asked bossily.

Salóme looked at her. ‘Yes, just a moment,’ she said. ‘Are we done here?’ she asked Konrád.

‘Yes, we’re done,’ he said, and Salóme turned her back on him and asked the young woman how she could help.