Arnaldur Indridason - Voices

They fell silent.

Erlendur tried to find a topic of conversation but he had no idea how to approach women. The ones he associated with could not prepare him for what might be called a romantic evening like this. He and Elinborg were good friends and colleagues, and there was a fondness between them that had been formed by years of collaboration and shared experience. Eva Lind was his child and a constant source of worry. Halldora was the woman he married a whole generation before, then divorced and whose hatred he earned for doing so. These were the only women in his life apart from the occasional one-night stands that never brought anything more than disappointment and awkwardness.

“What about you?” he asked. “Why did you change your mind?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t had an invitation like that for ages. What made you think to ask me out?”

“No idea. It slipped out over the buffet. I haven’t done this for a long time either.”

They both smiled.

He told her about Eva Lind and his son, Sindri Snaer, and she told him she had two sons, also both grown up. He had the feeling that she didn’t want to talk too much about herself and her circumstances, and he liked that. He didn’t want to poke his nose into her life.

“Are you getting anywhere with the man who was murdered?”

“No, not really. The man I was talking to in the lobby…”

“Did I interrupt you? I didn’t know he was connected with the investigation.”

“That’s all right,” Erlendur said. “He collects records, vinyl that is, and it turns out that the man in the basement was a child star. Years ago.”

“A child star?”

“He made records.”

“I can imagine that’s difficult, being a child star,” Valgerdur said. “Just a kid with all kinds of dreams and expectations that rarely come to anything. What do you think happens after that?”

“You shut yourself up in a basement room and hope no one remembers you.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know. Someone might remember him.”

“Do you think that’s connected with his murder?”

“What?”

“Being a child star.”

Erlendur tried to say as little as possible about the investigation without appearing standoffish. He hadn’t had time to ponder this question and didn’t know whether it made any difference.

“We don’t know yet,” he said. “But we’ll find out”

They stopped talking.

“So you weren’t a child star,” Valgerdur then said.

“No,” Erlendur said. “Devoid of talent in all fields.”

“Same here,” Valgerdur said. “I still draw like a three-year-old.”

“What do you do when you’re not at work?” she asked after a short silence.

Unprepared for this question, Erlendur dithered until she began to smile.

“I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” she said when he gave no answer.

“No, it’s… I’m not accustomed to talking about myself? Erlendur said.

He could not claim to play golf or any other sport. At one time he had been interested in boxing, but that had waned. He never went to the cinema and rarely watched television. Travelled alone around Iceland in the summer, but had done less of that in recent years. What did he do when he wasn’t at work? He didn’t know the answer himself. Most of the time he was just on his own.

“I read a lot,” he said suddenly.

“And what do you read?” she asked.

Once more he hesitated, and she smiled again.

“Is it that difficult?” she said.

“About deaths and ordeals,” he said. “Death in the mountains. People who freeze to death outdoors. There are whole series of books about that. Used to be popular, once.”

“Deaths and ordeals?” she said.

“And plenty of other things, of course. I read a lot. History. Local history. Chronicles.”

“Everything that’s old and gone,” she said.

He nodded.

“But why deaths? People who freeze to death? Isn’t that awful to read?”

Erlendur smiled to himself.

“You ought to be in the police force,” he said.

In that short part of an evening she had penetrated a place in his mind that was carefully fenced off, even to himself. He did not want to talk about it. Eva Lind knew about it but was not entirely familiar with it and did not link it in particular with his interest in accounts of deaths. He sat in silence for a long time.

“It comes with age,” he said finally, regretting the lie immediately. “What about you? What do you do when you’ve finished sticking cotton wool buds in people’s mouths?”

He tried to rewind and make a joke but the bond between them had been tarnished and it was his fault.

“I really haven’t had time for anything other than work,” she said, realising that she had unwittingly struck a nerve. She became awkward and he sensed that.

“I think we ought to do this again soon,” he said to wind things up. The lie was too much for him.

“Definitely,” she said. “To tell you the truth I was very hesitant but I don’t regret it. I want you to know that.”

“Nor do I,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Thanks for the Drambuie,” she added as she finished her liqueur. He had also ordered a Drambuie for himself to keep her company, but hadn’t touched it.

Erlendur lay stretched out on the bed in his hotel room looking up at the ceiling. It was still cold in the room and he was wearing his clothes. Outside, it was snowing. It was a soft, warm and pretty snow that fell gently to the ground and melted instantaneously. Not cold, hard and merciless like the snow that caused death and destruction.

“What are those stains?” Elinborg asked the father.

“Stains?” he said. “What stains?”

“On the carpet,” Erlendur said. He and Elinborg had just returned from seeing the boy in hospital. The winter sun lit up the stair carpet that led to the floor where the boy’s room was.

“I don’t see any stains,” the father said, bending down to scrutinise the carpet.

“They’re quite clear in this light,” Elinborg said as she looked at the sun through the lounge window. The sun was low and pierced the eyes. To her, the creamy marble tiles on the floor looked as if they were aflame. Close by the stairway stood a beautiful drinks cabinet. It contained spirits, expensive liqueurs, red and white wines rested forward onto their necks in racks. There were two glass windows in the cabinet and Erlendur noticed a smudge on one of them. On the side of the cabinet facing the staircase, a little drip had been spilt, measuring roughly a centimetre and a half. Elinborg put her finger on the drip and it was sticky.

“Did anything happen by this cabinet?” Erlendur asked.

The father looked at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s like something’s been splashed on it. You’ve cleaned it recently.”

“No,” the father said. “Not recently.”

“Those marks on the staircase,” Elinborg said. “They look like a child’s footprints to me.”

“I can’t see any footprints on the staircase,” the father said. “Just now you were talking about stains. Now they’re footprints. What are you implying?”

“Were you at home when your son was assaulted?”

The father said nothing.

“The attack took place at the school,” Elinborg went on. “School was over for the day but he was playing football and when he set off home they attacked him. That’s what we think happened. He hasn’t been able to talk to you, nor to us. I don’t think he wants to. Doesn’t dare. Maybe because the boys said they would kill him if he told the police. Maybe because someone else said they would kill him if he talked to us.”