The Darkness Knows

26

They were sitting in the same bar as the two friends had been drinking in the evening Villi was killed. It was still run as a sports bar, though it had changed hands three times in the intervening years, but there were no games on at this time of the afternoon in the middle of the week, and the place was quiet, with only a few souls occupying the tables. Soothing music was playing from the speakers on the ceiling. There was a clinking as the barman lined up clean glasses under the counter.

Ingibergur was halfway down his third beer. He had red hair, a ruddy complexion, and a coarse beard that he kept stroking as he talked. He still worked on building sites, he said, having been taken on by a contractor three years previously after a spell of unemployment. He had also done a stint working on the construction of sports facilities in Akureyri for several months, but hadn’t got on with the harsh northern winters.

It was Herdís who had put Konrád in touch with Ingi. She knew the name of the building contractor her brother had worked for; and, although he’d subsequently gone bankrupt, he remembered Villi and Ingibergur well. He’d directed her to another contractor, who said he thought Ingi was in Akureyri, and gave her his unlisted phone number. When Herdís called it, Ingi had answered after three rings. It turned out he was back in Reykjavík.

Ingibergur told Konrád he’d gone over that evening so many times that much of his and Villi’s last trip to the sports bar was indelibly imprinted on his memory. Certain details, like the final score in the match or what they’d been talking about beforehand, were crystal clear, but most of what had happened after his failed attempt to approach the three women was hazy.

‘I should never have gone over to talk to them,’ he muttered into his glass, as if still troubled by guilt at having abandoned his friend.

‘But you didn’t talk to them, did you?’

‘No, I lost my nerve. I took a seat in the corner over there,’ Ingibergur said, pointing. ‘Sat there drinking while Villi was talking to that bloke. I was... pretty wasted, to be honest.’

‘Villi too.’

‘Yes, he was. They did a blood test.’

‘He was pissed out of his mind,’ Konrád said, to ease Ingibergur’s conscience. ‘What can you tell me about the man he was talking to?’

‘Nothing,’ Ingibergur said. ‘I didn’t get a good look at him. He was hunched over the bar. But I do know that I didn’t recognise him and I don’t think Villi did either. It wasn’t someone who worked with us or anything like that. Just some bloke at the bar who Villi got talking to. He was like that, Villi. He could chat to people when he’d had a bit to drink. But I think I’ve already told you that.’

The barman who’d been working that night hadn’t been able to give the police a very detailed description of the man who’d been talking to Villi, though he had noted that he wasn’t a regular, and that he’d been wearing a bulky anorak, like most of the other customers, because of the weather. Some had taken their coats off but he hadn’t. He’d been wearing a baseball cap too, so the barman had never got a proper look at his face. The police had appealed for information about the man, on the basis of the few details Ingibergur and the barman had been able to provide, but no one had come forward.

‘I know you’ve heard these questions many times,’ Konrád said, ‘but do you think they could have left together?’

Ingibergur had often wondered about this over the years, and wished he could recall the evening more clearly, especially towards the end. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know what had happened to his friend. He had been totally unsuspecting, as he was blown home by the blizzard, that Villi was lying in a pool of blood on Lindargata.

Ingibergur shook his head.

‘Did they have an argument?’

‘I don’t know what they were talking about.’

‘Is it possible he was trying to sell Villi something? Dope, for instance?’

‘I don’t know. Villi wasn’t into drugs. So... I hardly... I don’t...’ Ingibergur trailed off.

‘Is it possible they could have fallen out, even if it didn’t turn into a shouting match? Could Villi have pissed him off somehow?’

‘Why do you think the man in the bar knew something? He was just a stranger.’

‘I know, but I’m grasping at straws here,’ Konrád said. ‘That’s the worst part — we’ve got so little to go on. This man might be able to help fill in the picture if only we could track him down. He won’t necessarily know anything, but I think it’s important to talk to him anyway.’

‘Is Villi’s sister still trying to find out what happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘She was very nice to me when she called.’

‘Is there any reason why she wouldn’t have been?’

‘She’s never blamed me for anything,’ Ingibergur said. ‘It was his idea to go to the bar.’ He paused. ‘Then he goes and gets himself killed.’

‘The man he was talking to was wearing an anorak,’ Konrád said. ‘Did you notice any logo on it? Or on his baseball cap?’

He had phoned the bartender and put the same questions to him. But the man had served more customers than he could count that evening, as he had on so many others, and had long ago stopped noticing individuals. As far as he was concerned, they’d just morphed into one seething mass of people who didn’t want to be kept waiting and had to be served as fast as possible. Besides, he’d been playing online poker in the quieter moments, so his attention had been taken up with that.

‘No, no logos,’ Ingibergur said. ‘He was older than us. At least, that’s the feeling I’ve always had. The dour type. I don’t think he had much to say for himself; he just listened to Villi talk.’

‘Why didn’t you go and join those women?’

‘I just changed my mind.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘I...’ Ingibergur hesitated.

‘What?’

‘I recognised one of them,’ he said. ‘She was in my class for the last two years of school. Helga. I recognised her as soon as they came in and I was going to say hello but...’

‘You couldn’t do it?’

‘No. I... I changed my mind.’

Konrád gazed over at the corner where the chicken-hearted Ingibergur had sat that evening seven years ago. ‘Villi must have told you about Öskjuhlíd,’ he said.

‘Loads of times,’ Ingibergur replied. ‘He was always banging on about it. But then of course you used to run into all sorts on Öskjuhlíd in the old days.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Like the gays,’ Ingibergur said. ‘They used to hang out there.’

‘So you remember the talk about the gay men on Öskjuhlíd?’ Konrád prompted. ‘From when you were a boy?’

It had been rumoured that gay men used Öskjuhlíd for their encounters. The police had considered the question of whether Sigurvin might have been cruising there, though he wasn’t known to be homosexual. But his sister had dismissed the idea as absurd, and said there was no way he could have been picking up men on Öskjuhlíd — that was crazy. Konrád had sometimes wondered if there might have been other people hanging around the tanks that night who hadn’t dared come forward because it had been so much tougher in those days to be gay.

Ingibergur drew a deep breath. ‘It might never have happened if I’d been with him,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Did you usually go back to his place after your trips to the bar?’

‘Sometimes,’ Ingibergur said, his voice dropping until Konrád could hardly hear him. ‘Sometimes to mine. We’d listen to music. He was a good mate. I... I was really sad about losing him. Still am.’

‘It’s tough, losing a friend,’ Konrád said. ‘I can hear how much you miss him.’

‘I still think about him all the time,’ Ingibergur said. ‘I miss him like hell.’