The Darkness Knows

15

The succession of autumn depressions relented, the sun came out and Konrád tried to make the most of the mild days by going for long walks in the Ellidaár Valley. He wasn’t as agile as he used to be and seemed to be stiff all over these days, with aches and pains in his joints, legs and back. Apart from that, though, he was in rude health and rarely suffered from any ailments. He took one pill a day for his high cholesterol but that was it.

On one of these walks he phoned Svanhildur.

‘Do you have any more information about the blunt instrument used on Sigurvin?’ he asked. ‘Have you any idea what it could have been?’

‘A length of piping or a bar, maybe; something heavy — possibly a small crowbar. Something that would rust, anyway. We found particles in the wound along with other trace elements and dirt which we’re still analysing. He was struck twice; it wasn’t an accident. He didn’t trip over anything. Someone hit him over the head with the intent to do damage. Haven’t you asked Marta about this?’

‘No,’ Konrád said. ‘The blows were both to the back of his head, you say?’

‘Yes. It’s easy to imagine the attack taking him by surprise. Someone must have crept up behind him. I didn’t find any signs that he’d tried to defend himself, and there were no other wounds on his body. He seems to have been very healthy, as you’d expect of a young man.’

‘Any explanation for why he was taken up to the glacier? I mean, what would someone gain from that?’

‘Is it a worse hiding place than any other?’

‘Well, we certainly missed it.’

‘Are you going to keep avoiding me forever?’ Svanhildur asked, as Konrád was on the point of hanging up.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’re talking now, aren’t we?’

‘Not about what matters.’

‘I don’t think I’m avoiding you.’

‘You’ve been doing that ever since she got ill,’ Svanhildur said. ‘Don’t you think it’s gone on long enough?’

‘I should have told her about us.’

‘How would she have been better off?’

‘I don’t know, but I’d feel better,’ Konrád said. ‘I should have told her about us but I didn’t. I didn’t and then it was too late.’

Their conversation ended there and Konrád carried on walking through the green oasis of fir and birch woods between the rocky courses of the two rivers. Earlier that day he’d had an errand to run in the city centre and had stopped off at the National Hospital, where he’d spoken briefly to the hospital chaplain, the last man Hjaltalín had talked to before he died. Konrád knew and liked the chaplain, who had comforted him and Erna when Erna had taken a turn for the worse. He knew all about Konrád’s involvement with Hjaltalín too, and said he’d been half expecting him to drop by.

‘How are you, by the way?’ the chaplain asked as they took a seat in the hospital corridor.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Konrád said. ‘Trying to stop myself getting too bored, you know how it is.’

‘That’s good,’ the chaplain said. He was fiftyish, with a serene manner and a low, soothing voice that he never saw any reason to raise. ‘You probably want to know something about Hjaltalín. Or am I jumping to conclusions? You haven’t suddenly developed an interest in God, have you?’

Konrád smiled. They had once had a rather one-sided discussion about religion. Konrád, an atheist who knew his Bible, regarded God as an utterly absurd concept and had said that he didn’t believe in the Creation and found the Holy Trinity of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible at best. ‘Who is this Holy Spirit anyway?’ he’d asked. ‘Wasn’t he invented at some synod? By a conference, basically! Hold up your hand all those who want the Holy Trinity!’ Konrád had been angry at the time. The short, stocky chaplain, whose name was Pétur, hadn’t tried to argue with him.

‘He never confessed,’ Konrád said now, after a brief silence. ‘But I wondered if he’d said anything at the end. I went to see him in prison, you know, a couple of weeks before he died.’

‘So he told me.’

‘He didn’t look well.’

‘No, he went downhill very fast. But he didn’t blame the police for that. Hjaltalín was touched that you’d looked in on him, by the way. He mentioned that.’

‘I asked if he wouldn’t like to tell us the truth, in the circumstances. Pointed out that he had nothing to lose. But it didn’t work.’

‘Naturally, I’m sworn to silence about what passed between me and Hjaltalín,’ the chaplain said, ‘but if that’s what you’re after, I can tell you that he didn’t budge from what he’d said before.’

‘Did he bring up the case at all?’

The chaplain thought for a moment. ‘He wasn’t particularly preoccupied with that, to be honest. We talked about other things.’

‘Nothing about the glacier? The married woman? Öskjuhlíd?’

The chaplain shook his head.

‘Did he have many visitors?’ Konrád asked.

‘No. His parents are dead and his sister lives abroad. She couldn’t get here in time, sadly. She came to the funeral, though, then went back home. I wasn’t aware of any circle of friends. In fact, he gave the impression of being rather alone in the world, as if he’d been abandoned. I don’t know if people had turned their backs on him because of the business with Sigurvin.’

‘It’s possible,’ Konrád said.

‘The evening — or night — before he died... it had completely slipped my mind...’

‘What?’

‘... I was going to look in on him but there was a woman I hadn’t seen before sitting by his bed. I didn’t actually get more than a glimpse of her. She had her back to me and seemed reluctant to attract any attention. She didn’t say hello and Hjaltalín gave me a sign to show he wanted to be alone with her. When I went past shortly afterwards, she’d gone. I asked if she was his sister but he didn’t want to discuss it.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘I couldn’t really see. As I said, she had her back to me and was trying to be inconspicuous. But I do know it wasn’t his sister because she arrived shortly after Hjaltalín died and was upset that she hadn’t been in time to see him while he was alive. I admit I was a little curious about the woman who’d visited him — we priests are only human, after all — so I asked the nursing staff responsible for Hjaltalín, but it turned out they hadn’t noticed her. It was very late in the evening when I saw her but I asked around the next day and that’s what they told me. No one had seen her. She can’t have stayed long.’

‘Was she Hjaltalín’s sort of age?’

‘I simply can’t say. Like I explained, I only caught a glimpse of her.’

‘Wealthy-looking? Poor?’

‘Neither. Just a very ordinary woman. Quite small, with a dark coat, I think, and dark hair under the kind of headscarf women used to wear years ago. I didn’t like to stare, and Hjaltalín clearly wanted to be left in peace, so I made myself scarce.’

‘You were the last person to see Hjaltalín alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he didn’t confess?’

‘No. He closed his eyes and died. He was very stoical towards the end. Of course it must have come as a bad shock when he learnt about his cancer, but I think he’d become resigned to it. From what I could tell, anyway. He didn’t express any regrets or repentance for anything he’d done, if that provides you with a clue.’

‘Was he religious?’

‘In comparison to you, yes.’

Konrád returned to the present and the Ellidaár Valley, pausing to survey his surroundings. There was a fine view over the city and the mountains to the north, and he stood there for a while in the autumn sunshine, drinking it in. Nearer at hand, he could see a steady stream of traffic on the Breidholt road. As a true Reykjavík boy, Konrád couldn’t think of anywhere better to be when the sun was shining.

His thoughts drifted back to the hospital and his conversation with the chaplain.

‘Do the police know why he was taken to the glacier?’ the chaplain had asked as they were saying goodbye.

‘No. I don’t work for them any more — I don’t know what they’re thinking.’

‘But you haven’t quite put the case behind you?’ the chaplain said.

‘I have.’

‘Then why are you asking me all these questions?’

‘I... Hjaltalín’s been on my mind a bit,’ Konrád said. ‘I wanted to know if he’d said anything. This was only meant to be a chat — I didn’t mean to interrogate you. I hope it didn’t come across like that?’

‘Hjaltalín didn’t absolve you,’ the chaplain said, ‘if that’s what you’re after.’

‘No,’ Konrád said, ‘I didn’t expect him to.’