Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

“Are he and Sunee close?”

“Yes. Very. They’re great friends.”

“What can you tell me about Sunee?”

“She came to Iceland about ten years ago,” Gudny said. “She really likes it here.”

Sunee had once told her she could hardly believe how desolate and chilly the country was when she took the shuttle from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik. It was rainy and overcast and all she could see through the coach window was flat lava fields and distant blue mountains. There was nothing growing anywhere, no trees and not even a blue sky. When she disembarked from the plane and walked down the gangway she felt the Arctic air hit her, like walking into a cold wall. She got goose-flesh. The temperature was three degrees Celsius. It was the middle of October. It had been thirty degrees Celsius at home when she left.

She had married the Icelander she met in Bangkok. He had courted her, repeatedly invited her out and acted courteously, and told her about Iceland in English, which she hardly spoke and did not understand particularly well. He seemed to have plenty of money and bought little things for her, clothes and trinkets.

He went back to Iceland after they met but they decided to stay in touch. Her friend, who had a better command of English, wrote him a few lines. He returned to Thailand six months later and spent three weeks there. They were together the whole time. She was impressed by him and everything he told her about Iceland. Even though it was small, remote and cold, with a tiny population, it was one of the wealthiest nations in the world. He told her about the wages, which were astronomical compared to the norm in Bangkok. If she moved there and worked hard she could easily support her family back home in Thailand.

He carried her over the threshold of their home, a one-bedroom flat that he owned on Snorrabraut. They had walked there from the shuttle terminal at Hotel Loftleidir. They crossed a busy road, which she later found out was called Miklabraut, and walked down Snorrabraut against the icy north wind. She was wearing Thai summer clothes, thin silk trousers that he had bought for her, a pretty blouse and a light summer jacket. On her feet she wore plastic sandals. Her new husband had not prepared her in any way for her arrival in Iceland.

The flat was fine once she had put it in order. She got a job at a chocolate factory. Their relationship went well at first, but eventually it transpired that they had lied to each other.

“How?” Erlendur asked the interpreter. “What had they lied about?”

“He’d done it before,” Gudny said. “Once.”

“Done what before?”

“Been to Thailand to get himself a wife.”

“He’d done that before?”

“Some men have done it several times.”

“And is it… is it legal?”

“There’s nothing to stop it”

“But what about Sunee? What lies had she told him?”

“After they’d been together for some time she sent for her son.”

Erlendur stared at the interpreter.

“It turned out that she had a son in Thailand who she’d never told him about.”

“Is that Niran?”

“Yes, Niran. He has an Icelandic name too but calls himself Niran and so does everyone else.”

“So he’s …”

“Elias’s half-brother. He’s a Thai through and through and has had trouble finding his feet in Iceland, like some other kids in the same position.”

“What about her husband?”

“They got divorced in the end,” Gudny said.

“Niran,” Erlendur said to himself, as if to hear how the name sounded. “Does that mean anything in particular?”

“It means eternal,” the interpreter said.

“Eternal?”

“Thai names have literal meanings, just like Icelandic ones.”

“And Sunee? What does that mean?”

“Something good,” Gudny said. “A good thing.”

“Did Elias have a Thai name?”

“Yes: Aran. I’m not sure exactly what that means. I must ask Sunee.”

“Is there any tradition behind such names?”

“Thais use nicknames to confuse evil spirits. It’s one of their superstitions. Children are baptised with their real names, but the nicknames are used to lead astray evil spirits that could harm the children. They mustn’t find out the real name.”

Music came from the sitting room and Erlendur and the interpreter went back in there from the bedroom. Sunee’s brother had put some gentle Thai music on the CD player. Sunee was huddled up on the sofa and now started talking to herself in whispers.

Erlendur looked at the interpreter.

“She’s talking about her other son. Niran.”

“We’re looking for him,” Erlendur said. “We’ll find him. Tell her that. We’ll find him.”

Sunee shook her head and stared into space.

“She thinks he’s dead too,” the interpreter said.

Sigurdur Oli hurried towards the school. Three other policemen had accompanied him and now spread out across the school grounds and vicinity in search of the murder weapon. Teaching was over and the building was gloomy and lifeless in the winter darkness. Lights were on in the occasional window, but the main entrance was locked. Sigurdur Oli knocked on the door. It was a grey, three-storey monstrosity, with annexes housing a small indoor swimming pool and carpentry workshop. Memories of cold winter mornings came into Sigurdur Oli’s mind: children standing in double rows in the yard, quarrelling and teasing, sometimes fights that the teachers broke up. Rain and snow and darkness for most of the autumn and all winter until spring came, the days grew lighter, the weather improved and the sun started shining. Sigurdur Oli looked across the asphalt playground, the basketball court and football pitch, and could almost hear the old shouts of the kids.

He started kicking at the door and eventually the caretaker appeared, a woman of about fifty who opened up and asked what all the row was about. Sigurdur Oli introduced himself and asked if the form teacher of 5D was still in the school.

“What’s going on?” the woman asked.

“Nothing,” Sigurdur Oli said. “The teacher? Do you know if he’s still here?”

“5D? That’s room 304. It’s on the second floor. I don’t know if Agnes has left yet, I’ll check.”

Sigurdur Oli had already set off. He knew where the stairs were and took them several steps at a time. The fifth form had been on the second floor in the old days as well, if he remembered correctly. Perhaps the same system was in operation as when he had been a pupil there at the end of the 1970s. In the last century. He felt ten heavy years older when that damn phrase went through his mind. Last century.

All the classrooms on the floor were locked and he bounded back down the stairs. In the meantime, the caretaker had been to the staff room and was waiting in the corridor to tell him that 5D’s teacher had gone home.

“Agnes? Is that her name?”

“Yes,” the woman said.

“Is the principal in?”

“Yes. He’s in his office.”

Sigurdur Oli almost barged the caretaker out of his way when he strode past her towards the staff room. In his day it had led to the principal’s office, he remembered that much. The door was open and he went straight in. He was in a tearing hurry. He noticed that his old principal was still at the school. He was getting ready to go home, knotting a scarf around his neck, when Sigurdur Oli disturbed him.

“What do you want?” the principal asked, startled by the intrusion.

Sigurdur Oli hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether the principal recognised him.

“Can I help you at all?” the principal asked.

“It’s about 5D,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Oh yes?”

“Something’s happened.”