Arnaldur Indridason - Voices

“Where’s all this leading?”

“Why did you come home early from work that day? You came home around noon. He crawled home and up to his room, and shortly afterwards you arrived and called the police and an ambulance.”

Elinborg had already been wondering what the father was doing at home in the middle of a weekday, but had not asked him until now.

“No one saw him on his way home from school,” Erlendur said.

“You’re not implying that I attacked … that I attacked my own boy like that? Surely you’re not implying that?”

“Do you mind if we take a sample from the carpet?”

“I think you ought to get out of here,” the father said.

“I’m not implying anything,” Erlendur said. “Eventually the boy will say what happened. Maybe not now and maybe not after a week or a month, maybe not after one year, but he will in the end.”

“Out,” the father said, enraged and indignant by now. “Don’t you dare … don’t you dare start… You leave. Get out. Out!”

Elinborg went straight to the hospital and into the children’s ward. The boy was asleep in his bed with his arm suspended from the hook. She sat down beside him and waited for him to wake up. After she had stayed by the bedside for fifteen minutes the boy stirred and noticed the tired-looking policewoman, but the sad-eyed man in the woollen cardigan who had been with her earlier that day was nowhere to be seen now. Their eyes met and Elinborg did her utmost to smile.

“Was it your dad?”

She went back to the father’s house when night had fallen, with a search warrant and forensics experts. They examined the marks on the carpet. They examined the marble floor and the drinks cabinet. They took samples. They swept up tiny grains from the marble. They plucked at the spilt drop on the cabinet. They went upstairs to the boy’s room and took samples from the head of his bed. They went to the laundry room and looked at the cloths and towels. They examined the dirty laundry. They opened the vacuum cleaner. They took samples from the broom. They went out to the dustbin and rummaged around in the rubbish. They found a pair of the boy’s socks in the bin.

The father was standing in the kitchen. He dialled a lawyer, his friend, as soon as the forensics team appeared. The lawyer came round promptly and looked at the warrant from the magistrate. He advised his client not to talk to the police.

Erlendur and Elinborg watched the forensics team at work. Elinborg glared at the father, who shook his head and looked away.

“I don’t understand what you want,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

The boy had not said it was his father. When Elinborg asked him, his only response was that his eyes filled with tears.

The head of forensics phoned two days later.

“It’s about the stains on the stair carpet,” he said.

“Yes,” Elinborg said.

“Drambuie.”

“Drambuie? The liqueur?”

“There are traces of it all over the sitting room and a trail on the carpet up to the boy’s room.

Erlendur was still staring at the ceiling when he heard a knock on the door. He got to his feet, opened the door and Eva Lind darted into his room. Erlendur looked along the corridor, then closed the door behind her.

“No one saw me,” Eva said. “It would make things easier if you could be arsed to go home. I can’t suss out what you’re playing at.”

“I’ll get myself home,” Erlendur said. “Don’t worry about that. What are you doing here? Do you need anything?”

“Do I need a special reason to want to see you?” Eva said. She sat down at the desk and took out a packet of cigarettes. She threw a plastic bag onto the floor and nodded towards it. “I brought you some clothes,” she said. “If you plan to hang around at this hotel you’ll need to change.”

“Thank you,” Erlendur said. He sat down on the bed facing her and borrowed a cigarette from her. Eva lit them both.

“It’s nice to see you,” he said, exhaling.

“How’s it going with Santa?”

“Bit by bit. What’s new with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Have you seen your mother?”

“Yes. Same as usual. Nothing happens in her life. Work and television and sleep. Work, television, sleep. Work, television, sleep. Is that it? All that awaits you? Am I staying clean so I can slave away until I croak? And just look at you! Hanging round in a hotel room like a dickhead instead of getting your arse back home!”

Erlendur inhaled the smoke and blew it out through his nose.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“No, I know,” Eva interrupted him.

“Are you giving in?” he said. “When you came yesterday …”

“I don’t know if I can stand it.”

“Stand what?”

“This fucking life!”

They sat smoking, and the minutes passed.

“Do you sometimes think about the baby?” Erlendur asked at last. Eva was seven months” pregnant when she miscarried, and sank into a deep depression when she moved in with him after leaving hospital. Erlendur knew that she had nowhere near shaken it off. She blamed herself for the baby’s death. The night that it happened she called him for help and he found her lying in her own blood outside the National Hospital after collapsing on her way to the maternity ward. She came within a hair’s breadth of losing her life.

“This fucking life!” she said again, and stubbed out her cigarette on the desktop.

The telephone on the bedside table rang when Eva Lind had left and Erlendur had gone to bed. It was Marion Briem.

“Do you know what time it is?” Erlendur asked, looking at his watch. It was past midnight.

“No,” Marion said. “I was thinking about the saliva.”

“The saliva on the condom?” Erlendur said, too lethargic to lose his temper.

“Of course they’ll find it out for themselves, but it might not do any harm to mention Cortisol.”

“I’ve still got to talk to forensics, they’ll surely tell us something about the Cortisol.”

“You can work a few things out from that. See what was going on in that basement room.”

“I know, Marion. Anything else?”

“I just wanted to remind you about the Cortisol.”

“Goodnight, Marion.”

“Goodnight.”

Erlendur, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg held a meeting early the following morning. They sat at a little round table to one side of the dining room and had breakfast from the buffet. It had snowed during the night, then turned warmer and the streets were clear. The weathermen were forecasting a green Christmas. Long queues of cars built up at every junction and the city swarmed with people.

“This Wapshott,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Who is he?”

Much ado about nothing, Erlendur thought to himself as he sipped his coffee and looked out of the window. Odd places, hotels. He found staying at a hotel a welcome change but it was accompanied by the strange experience of having someone go into his room when he was not in it to tidy everything up. In the morning he left his room and the next time he returned someone had been in and restored it to normal: made the bed, changed the towels, put fresh soap on the sink. He was aware of the presence of the person who put his room back in order but saw no one, did not know who tidied up his life.

When he went downstairs in the morning he asked reception not to have his room cleaned any more.

Wapshott was going to meet him again later that morning and tell him more about his record collecting and Gudlaugur Egilsson’s singing career. They had shaken hands on parting when Valgerdur interrupted them the previous evening. Wapshott had stood to attention, waiting for Erlendur to introduce him to the woman, but when nothing of the sort happened he had held out his hand, introduced himself and bowed. Then he’d asked to be excused; he was tired and hungry and was going up to his room to deal with some business before dining and going to bed.