Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

They had contacted the woodwork teacher Egill about the discovery. He was shown the knife and judged that it could well have come from the carpentry knife store. He pointed out, however, that similar knives could probably be found in every school workshop in the country.

Erlendur went to question the young employee who had found the knife and soon established that he was telling the truth. He asked Erlendur if he could sell his story to the papers; did Erlendur know whether the tabloids would pay for it and, if so, how much. He had been carrying the knife and using it, you see, ever since he found it.

Prat, Erlendur thought.

He came home some time later. It was late and he had stopped off at a twenty-four-hour convenience store to buy a ready-meal of Icelandic stew. He stuck it in the microwave and set the timer to three minutes. Valgerdur phoned and they talked; he told her the latest on the investigation without divulging too much. She asked if he had been in touch with Eva Lind. Valgerdur told him she had to take an extra shift and would not be able to see him tonight after all, so they decided to meet the following evening when she was free.

“Come over to mine,” she insisted.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll come. I maybe late though.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

They rang off.

He took the stew out of the microwave, fetched a spoon and sat peacefully slurping it out of the plastic tray at the kitchen table. He tried not to brood on the cases he was handling, but his thoughts kept slipping back to Elias in the garden behind the block of flats. He wondered about the men who brought as many as three or four women like Sunee into the country, married them, then dumped them when the fun was over or when the women walked out on them because they were only really interested in acquiring residency and a work permit. How did such things happen? He thought about Niran whom Sunee had summoned after many years” separation, but who could not find his feet in the new country, so ended up an outsider, seeking out the company of kids with the same kind of background and experience, kids who could not come to terms with their fate, could not understand the country or its language and history, and anyway had little interest in understanding any of it. He sympathised with them.

He thought about Sunee and her grief.

When his mobile started ringing he assumed it must be Sigurdur Oli calling so late but the voice was a woman’s, whispering as if she was using the phone in secret. Erlendur could not hear what she was saying.

“What?” he said. “Sorry… ?”

“… and take… But he won’t. He absolutely refuses. I’ve tried to talk to him. It’s hopeless.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Erlendur said when he realised who it was. He decided to try a new approach with this woman who he had been searching for since before Christmas. “Either come and see me or forget it. I can’t be doing with this sort of nonsense!”

“I’m telling you, he won’t—”

“I think…,” Erlendur said.

“I just need more time.”

“I think you should stop messing me about like this.”

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “It’s just so hard. I don’t want it to be like this.”

“What’s the point of all this?” Erlendur asked. “What are you both up to? What nonsense is this?”

The woman did not answer.

“Come and talk to me.”

“I keep trying to make him. But he won’t”

“Stop being so silly,” Erlendur said. “You should go home to him and stop bothering me. It’s getting ridiculous!”

There was silence on the other end.

“I went and saw your husband,” Erlendur said.

Still the woman said nothing.

“Yes, I went and saw him. I don’t know what you’re both plotting and it’s nothing to do with me. Just stop making these calls. Stop bothering me with this stupid nonsense.”

There was a long silence.

Then the woman hung up.

Erlendur stared at the phone in his hand. He had no idea what he had done. He half expected the woman to call straight back but when nothing happened he put the phone down on the kitchen table and stood up. Taking the book he had read aloud to Marion Briem at the hospital, he settled down in his armchair. It contained stories of travellers” ordeals and fatal accidents in the East Fjords. He weighed the book in his hands as he had done so often before and opened it at the account he knew so well, but which contained only a fragment of the true story.

He began to read it for the umpteenth time but was soon interrupted by a quiet tap on the door. Putting down the book, he got up and went to answer it. Eva Lind stood out on the landing. Sindri Snaer was with her.

“Do you two never sleep?” he asked as he let them in.

“No more than you,” Eva said, slipping past him. “Were you eating stew?” she asked, sniffing the air.

“From the microwave,” Erlendur said. “Can’t really call it food.”

“I’m sure you could cook yourself a proper meal if you could be arsed,” Eva said and sat down on the sofa in the living room. “What are you reading?” she asked when she saw the open book on the desk by his chair. Sindri sat down beside her. It was a year and a day since they had last visited him together.

“Travel stories,” Erlendur said. “What are you two up to?”

“Oh, you know, we just felt like seeing how it’s hanging with you.”

“How it’s hanging?”

“Are they about people lost in the wilderness?” Sindri asked.

“Yes.”

“You told me once that there was a story like that about your brother,” Eva said.

“That’s right, there is.”

“But you won’t show it to me?”

He didn’t know why he didn’t hand Eva Lind the book. It lay open on the desk between them and although it didn’t contain the whole truth, it would be enough to give her and Sindri a reasonably good idea of what happened. Erlendur had only told them the bare facts about the brothers” ordeal. The account did not really add much more. He no longer knew what it was that he was clinging on to so stubbornly. If he ever had known. Sindri had heard about the events when he was living out east; it wasn’t as if they were a secret.

“I dreamed about him,” Eva said. “I told you. I’m sure it was your brother.”

“You’re not going to start on about that again? I don’t know what tales you’ve been filling her head with, Sindri.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Sindri said, taking out a packet of cigarettes.

“It’s only a dream. Why are you so afraid of dreams? I can’t imagine you taking them seriously.”

“I don’t, I just find it hard to rake up the memory of what happened.”

“Yeah, right,” Eva Lind said, nodding towards the book on the table. “You’re forever reading about it or stuff like it. It’s not like you’ve just forgotten about it!”

“I don’t want to rake up the memories with other people,” Erlendur corrected.

“Ah,” Eva said. “So you want to keep it all to yourself. Is that it?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t want anyone to take it away from you?”

“I don’t think even you know what you’re talking about,” Erlendur said.

“I just want to tell you my dream. I never had a dream like it before. I don’t know why you refuse to hear it. Anyway, it was hardly even a dream. More like waking up with a picture in my head.”

“How do you know it was my brother?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone else,” Eva said.

“Dreams don’t mean anything, you know that,” Sindri said.

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell him,” Eva said.