Arnaldur Indridason - Voices

Outlining all this to Elinborg in the lobby, he noticed her irritation at having it all spelled out. She knew what the case involved and was quite capable of setting targets for herself.

“And you can buy yourself an ice cream on the way he added to tease her even more. With a few muttered curses about male chauvinist pigs, she went out of the door.

“How do I recognise this tourist?” said a voice behind him, and when he turned round he saw Valgerdur standing there, sampling kit in hand.

“Wapshott? You met him last night. He’s the haggard old Brit with stained teeth who collects choirboys,” Erlendur said.

She smiled.

“Stained teeth?” she said. “And collects choirboys?”

“It’s a long, long story that I’ll tell you some time. Any news about all those samples?”

He was strangely pleased to see her again. His heart almost skipped a beat when he heard her behind him. The gloom lifted from him for a moment and his voice became animated. He felt slightly breathless.

“I don’t know how it’s going,” she said. “There’s an incredible amount of samples”

“I, er …” Erlendur groped for an excuse for what had happened the previous night “I really seized up last night. Deaths and fatalities. I didn’t quite tell you the truth when you asked about my interest in people dying in the wilds”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said.

“Yes, I definitely do need to tell you,” Erlendur said. “Is there any chance we could do that again?”

“Don’t…” She paused. “Don’t make an issue of it. It was great. Let’s forget it. OK?”

“OK, if that’s the way you want it,” Erlendur said, much against his wishes.

“Where is this Wapshott guy?”

Erlendur accompanied her to reception where she was given the number of his room. They shook hands and she walked over to the lift. He watched her. She waited for the lift without looking back. He wondered whether to pounce and was on the verge of doing so when the door opened and she stepped inside. She glanced at him the moment that the door closed, smiling an almost imperceptible smile.

Erlendur stood still for a moment and watched the number of the lift as it stopped on Wapshott’s floor. Then he pressed the button and ordered it back. He could smell Valgerdur’s perfume on the way up to his floor.

He put a recording of choirboy Gudlaugur Egilsson on the turntable and made sure the speed was set to 45 rpm. Then he stretched out on the bed. The record was brand new. It sounded as though it had never been played. Not a scratch or speck of dust on it. After a slight crackle at the beginning came the prelude, and finally a pure and celestial boy soprano started to sing “Ave Marial

He stood alone in the passageway, carefully opened the door to his father’s room and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space in silent anguish. His father did not take part in the search. He had battled his way home to the farm after losing sight of his two sons on the moor in the storm that broke without warning. He had roamed around in the blizzard calling to them, unable to see a thing with the howling of the storm smothering his shouts. His desperation defied description. He had taken the boys along to help round up the sheep and bring them back to the folds. Winter had arrived but it seemed to be a fine day when they set off. But it was only a forecast and only an outlook. The storm came unannounced.

Erlendur approached his father and stopped by his side. He could not understand why he was sitting on the bed instead of joining the search party up on the moor. His brother had still not been found. He might be alive, though it was unlikely. Erlendur read the hopelessness in the faces of the exhausted men returning home to rest and eat before setting out again. They came from the villages and farms all around, everyone who was up to the task, bringing dogs and long sticks that they plunged into the snow. That was how they had found Erlendur. That was how they were going to find his brother.

They went up to the moor in teams of eight to ten, stabbing their sticks into the snow and shouting his brother’s name. Two days had passed since they had found Erlendur and three days since the storm had split up the three travellers. The brothers had stayed together for a long time. They shouted into the blizzard and listened for their father’s voice. Two years the elder, Erlendur led his brother by the hand, but their hands were numbed by the frost and Erlendur did not feel when he lost his grip. He thought he was still holding his brothers hand when he turned round and could not see him any longer. Much later he thought he remembered the hand slipping away from his, but that was an invention. He never actually felt it happen.

He was convinced that he would die at the age of ten in a seemingly incessant blizzard. It attacked him from all directions, tore him and cut him and blinded his sight, cold and harsh and merciless. In the end he fell down into the snow and tried to bury himself. Lay there thinking about his brother who was also dying on the moor.

A sharp jab in his shoulder woke him and suddenly a face he did not recognise appeared. He could not hear what the man said. He wanted to go on sleeping. He was heaved out of the snow and the men took turns carrying him down from the moor, although he remembered little of the journey home. He heard voices. He heard his mother nursing him. A doctor examined him. Frostbite on his feet and legs, but not very severe. He saw inside his father’s room. Saw him sitting alone on the edge of the bed as if nothing that had happened had affected him.

Two days later, Erlendur was up and about again. He stood beside his father, helpless and afraid. Strange pangs of conscience had haunted him when he began to recover and regain his strength. Why him? Why him and not his brother? And if they had not found him, would they possibly have found his brother instead? He wanted to ask his father about this and wanted to ask why he was not taking part in the search. But he asked nothing. Just watched him, the deep lines etched into his face, his stubble, his eyes black with sorrow.

A long time elapsed and his father ignored him. Erlendur put his hand on his father’s and asked whether it was his fault. That his brother was missing. Because he had not held him tightly enough, should have taken better care of him, should have had him by his side when he himself was found. He asked in a soft and hesitant voice but lost control of himself and began whimpering. His father bowed his head. Tears welled up in his eyes, he hugged Erlendur and started to weep as well, until his huge body shook and trembled in his son’s arms.

All this passed through Erlendur’s mind until the record began crackling again. He had not allowed himself these contemplations for a long time, but suddenly the memories unfolded within him and he once again felt the heavy sorrow that he knew would never be completely buried or forgotten.

Such was the power of the choirboy.

The telephone on the bedside table rang. He sat up, lifted the needle from the record and switched off the player. Valgerdur was calling. She told him that Henry Wapshott was not in his room. When she had the hotel staff call his room and look for him, he was nowhere to be found.

“He was going to wait around for the sample,” Erlendur said. “Has he checked out of the hotel? I understand he had a flight booked for tonight.”

“I haven’t asked about that,” Valgerdur said. “I can’t wait here much longer and …”

“No, of course not, sorry” Erlendur said. “I’ll send him to you when I find him. Sorry about that”

“OK then, I’m off?

Erlendur hesitated. Although he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t want to let her go immediately. The silence became prolonged and suddenly there was a knock on his door. He thought Eva Lind had come to visit him.