Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

Sigurdur Oli did not reply.

“You can find someone else,” Bergthora said, “and have children with her.”

“This is exactly what I mean. You’re not… you can’t discuss it reasonably. Let’s just give it time. It won’t do any harm.”

“Don’t keep telling me what sort of state I’m in,” Bergthora said. “Why do you always have to belittle me?”

“I’m not”

“You always think you’re somehow better than me.”

“I’m not prepared to adopt as matters stand,” he said.

Bergthora stared at him for a long time without saying a word. Then she gave a wan smile.

“Is it because they’re foreign?” she asked. “Coloured? Chinese? Indian? Is that the reason?”

Sigurdur Oli stood up.

“We can’t talk with things as they are,” he said.

“Is that why? You want your children to be Icelandic, do you?”

“Bergthora. Why are you talking like this? Don’t you think I’ve … ?”

“What?”

“Don’t you think I’ve suffered? Don’t you think I was upset when it didn’t work, when we lost the ba-‘ He stopped.

“You never said anything,” Bergthora said.

“What was I supposed to say?” Sigurdur Oli said. “What is it that I’m always supposed to say?”

He started out of his reverie when the man raised his voice.

“Yes, er . . . no, sorry?” Sigurdur Oli said, adrift in his own thoughts.

The owner of the vandalised car glared at him.

“You aren’t even listening to me,” he said in disgust. “It’s always the same story with you cops.”

“I’m sorry, I was just wondering if you saw who did this to your car.”

“I didn’t see anything,” the man said. “I just found it scratched like that.”

“Any idea who could have done it? Someone with a score to settle? Local kids?”

“I have no idea. Isn’t that your job? Isn’t it your job to find the bastard?”

Next Sigurdur Oli had arranged to meet the man’s neighbour, a young woman who studied medicine at the university and rented a small flat in the next-door block. She sat down for a chat, and Sigurdur Oli made an effort to concentrate better than he had when he spoke to the man, who had left in something of a huff.

The woman was about twenty-five and rather fat. Sigurdur Oli had caught a brief glimpse of her kitchen where fast-food packaging predominated.

She told Sigurdur Oli that her car was nothing special but it was still awful to have it scratched like that.

“Why the sudden interest now?” she asked. “Your lot could hardly be bothered to come round when I originally reported the damage.”

“Several other cars have been vandalised,” Sigurdur Oli said. “One belonging to someone from the block of flats next door. We need to put a stop to it.”

“I think I saw them,” the woman said, taking out a packet of cigarettes. The flat stank of smoke.

“Really?” Sigurdur Oli said, watching her light up. He thought of the fast-food packaging in the kitchen and had to remind himself that this woman was studying medicine.

“There were two boys loitering outside,” she said, exhaling smoke. “You see, I was at home when it happened. It was so peculiar. I had to run back inside because I’d forgotten my lunch. I left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition, something you should never do.”

She gave Sigurdur Oli a look, as if she was giving him important advice.

“When I came out, only a few minutes later, there was this terrible scratch on my car.”

“Was it early in the morning?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“Yes, I was on my way to lectures.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A week or so.”

“And you saw who did it?”

“I’m sure it was them,” the woman said, stubbing out her cigarette. There was a small bowl of toffees on the table. She put one in her mouth and proffered the bowl to Sigurdur Oli who declined.

“What did you see?”

“I told the police all this last week but they didn’t seem very interested in the scratch at the time.”

“There have been other incidents,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Yours is not the only car they’ve vandalised. We want to catch them.”

“It was about eight o’clock,” she said. “Still pitch black, of course, but there’s a light by the entrance to the block and as I was on my way upstairs I saw two boys walk past. They can’t have been more than about fifteen, both carrying schoolbags. I told the police all this.”

“Did you notice which way they were going?”

“Towards the chemist’s.”

“The chemist’s?”

“And the school,” the woman said, chewing her toffee. “Where the boy was murdered.”

“Why do you think those boys scratched your car?”

“Because it wasn’t scratched when I ran upstairs and it was when I came back down. They were the only people I saw that morning. I’m sure they were hiding somewhere, laughing at me. What kind of people scratch cars? Tell me that. What kind of bastards are they?”

“Pathetic losers,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Would you recognise them again if you saw them?”

“I’m not a hundred per cent sure it was them.”

“No, I know that.”

“One had long, fair hair. They were wearing anoraks. The other had a woolly hat on. They were both sort of gangling.”

“Could you recognise them from photos?”

“Maybe. You lot didn’t bother to offer me the chance the other day.”

Erlendur shut the door when he got back to his office on Hverfisgata. He sat down at his desk with his hands in his lap and stared into space with unseeing eyes. He had made a mistake. He had broken one of the golden rules that he had always tried to obey. The first rule that Marion Briem had taught him: nothing is as you think it is. He had been over-confident. Arrogant. He had forgotten the caution designed to protect him from blundering when he did not know the terrain. Arrogance had led him astray. He had overlooked other obvious possibilities; something that should not have happened to him.

He tried to remember the phone calls, what the woman had said, what it had been possible to glean from her voice, what time of day she had phoned. He had misinterpreted everything she said. It can’t go on like this, he suddenly remembered her saying in her first phone call. In the most recent call he had refused to listen to her.

He knew that the woman wanted his help. She had something to hide and it was torturing her, so she had turned to him. There was only one possible explanation. If she was not the missing woman, it could only be connected to one case. He was handling the investigation into Elias’s death. The phone calls must have been linked to that. It couldn’t be anything else. This woman had information that might help the investigation into the child’s murder and he had told her to get lost.

Erlendur slammed his clenched fists on the desk as hard as he could, sending papers and forms flying.

He kept going over and over the question of what the woman might have been trying to tell him but simply could not work it out. He could only hope that she would call him again, although that was hardly likely after the way he had treated her the last time.

He heard a knock and Elinborg put her head round the door. She saw the papers on the floor and looked at Erlendur.

“Is everything all right?”

“Did you want something?”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Elinborg said, shutting the door behind her.

“Any news?”

“Sigurdur Oli’s going over photos of the older pupils at the school with some car owner. A couple of them were loitering outside her block of flats when her car was vandalised.”

Elinborg began to pick up the papers from the floor.