The Quiet Mother

20

Marta switched off her e-cigarette in the corridor and opened the door to the interrogation room. The man’s name was Hallur and he sat up in his chair when he saw her. It was the day after he was arrested in his cousin’s flat, and now he was more collected, almost clear-headed. He’d slept off his intoxication in a prison cell the night before, after attacking the police officers who’d come to pick him up. He’d appeared to be completely out of it and had managed to injure the hand of one of them by swinging a wheel wrench around before he was knocked to the floor, handcuffed and brought down to the station.

He was no stranger there at the station, although several years had passed since his last dealings with the police. Until now, when he’d been spotted in an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time.

‘Glóey says hello,’ Marta said, just to stir him up a bit.

‘Why were you talking to her?’ the man asked nervously. ‘Can’t you just leave her alone?’

‘She asks about you constantly,’ Marta replied. ‘When you’ll be free. What you were doing at her sister’s place.’

‘Fuck,’ said Hallur.

Sitting beside him was his lawyer, who looked at Marta as if he didn’t understand the purpose of this conversation with his client. Then he suggested that they get to the point, glanced at his expensive watch and seemed to be in a hurry to get to other, more important business. But he willingly took on cases such as these, especially if there was a chance they would be prominent in the media.

Marta looked through the papers she’d brought with her. Found in Hallur’s possession were shoes that had traces of grass and dirt on them, similar to the soil behind Valborg’s block of flats, where it was thought the assailant had come in. Hallur had already been asked about this, and he answered that he’d smoked a cigarette once or twice in his sister-in-law’s back garden. He may have kicked at the grass a bit. Unfortunately, no one had seen him doing so, neither any of the building’s residents nor any others in the neighbourhood. Quite a few cigarette butts were, however, found in the garden. It also appeared that residents smoked on their balconies and let the butts fall onto the grass. Dirt had been found in the stairwell and inside Valborg’s flat, without any actual shoeprints being distinguishable, though.

Hallur was in considerable financial trouble. Glóey had been helpful with that part of the investigation, although she’d hardly been able to control her temper. She said that he was a serious addict and did business with certain individuals she didn’t want to name and had started to owe them incredible sums of money that she had no idea how he was going to pay. He was constantly being threatened by them, but had told her that he’d found a way to solve this problem in one go. She blurted all this out before realising she may have said too much, let the cat out of the bag, got them into even more trouble. After that, hardly a word could be got out of her and she began contradicting various things she’d already let slip.

‘Have you been in your sister-in-law’s place often lately?’ Marta asked after warming up with some general questions.

‘Often? No.’

‘Once a week? Twice?’

‘Maybe,’ Hallur said, scratching his upper arm. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and his arms were heavily tattooed, with pictures and symbols that Marta couldn’t make out distinctly. One tattoo appeared to be the name Glóey, with a small red heart in place of the ‘ó’ in her name.

‘Did you ever run into the woman who lived on the floor above your sister-in-law?’

‘No.’

‘Did you never see her on these trips of yours to the building?’

‘No. I never saw her. I have no idea who she was and wouldn’t have recognised her.’

‘What about your sister-in-law? Did she ever say anything about her?’

‘No. Nothing.’

‘Nothing about money she kept in her flat?’

‘No.’

‘Am I correct in saying that you’re in considerable trouble financially? That you owe a lot of money?’

‘No, not at all,’ said Hallur. ‘I don’t owe anyone anything.’

‘And you’ve found a way to fix that problem?’

‘No. I have no idea what you’re talking about. These are just some bullshit lies. I did nothing to that old lady. Nothing.’

‘We have a witness who said you left your sister-in-law’s flat around the same time the woman upstairs was attacked. The witness didn’t see you leave the building.’

‘You think you can take such a pervert seriously?’ asked Hallur. His sister-in-law slash lover had told him about the peeping Tom. ‘I just went home. I don’t know what that loser saw or didn’t see.’

‘So you left your sister-in-law’s place, went down the stairs and out the front door of the building?’

‘Absolutely. My car was parked on the street because there were no spaces free in the building’s car park. I got into it and drove away.’

‘Did someone see you, do you think?’

‘No. But I did notice a woman in one of the windows. In one of the flats there.’

‘What was she doing?’

‘Nothing. She was just sitting by the window. Still, I felt... I had the feeling she wasn’t well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. That’s just what I felt.’

‘OK,’ said Marta. ‘Let’s go back to the building. When you left your sister-in-law’s and stepped out onto the landing, did you notice anything unusual, a sound, even a smell? Did you notice anything that seemed out of place?’

‘Are you starting to believe me?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Marta. ‘Should I believe you?’

‘I didn’t do anything to that woman,’ said Hallur. ‘I came out onto the landing and ran down those few steps and it seemed... to me like...’

‘Yes?’

‘Like, yes, there was an odour in the hallway.’

‘An odour?’

‘You know... as if someone had forgotten a garbage bag,’ said Hallur. ‘A kind of... smell of garbage or... I don’t know how to describe it. An odour.’

Marta gave him a long look.

‘I can’t describe it any better,’ said Hallur apologetically. ‘That was what I smelled. And then I left.’

In all of her tribulations, Glóey had found time to varnish her toenails. She’d finally got hold of her sister, that immoral whore, and given her an earful, and got nothing but insults in return. They’d torn into each other over the phone and called each other awful names. Old frictions reaching all the way back to childhood had been kicked up, including, among other things, how Glóey had never wanted to take her little sister along to anything she did.

She sipped on a gin and tonic and lit a cigarette, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out of her nose while listening to American pop music on her phone. Then she dipped the little brush into the fiery red nail varnish. Her cast made things difficult, but not enough to keep her from varnishing her nails.

She had no interest in talking to her husband and was glad he had to rot in custody for a while because of the old lady in that building. She was adamant about never speaking to him again and had already decided that he would never again step through the door of her house. She’d had enough of his deceit and tricks. Fucking shitbags, both of them.

There was a knock on the door and she looked up from her nails. She wasn’t expecting any visitors.

She opened the door. Standing there were two men she’d never seen before. Without warning, one of them hit her in the face with his clenched fist, before they both pushed their way in and shut the door behind them.