Arnaldur Indridason - Arctic Chill

Erlendur saw the flashing blue lights of the police cars through the blizzard. They were turning into Kjartan’s road. He glanced at Virote who was sitting beside him. In the rear-view mirror he could see Johann’s anxious face.

“Who are you?” Kjartan repeated.

The figure did not answer. He could not see its face. The sirens grew louder and Kjartan turned his head in their direction. In that very instant the figure lunged, and Kjartan felt a piercing pain as he looked back at his assailant. In the glow of the streetlights he saw that the figure was wearing a basketball cap on its head and had a scarf over its face.

He fell to his knees, aware of something hot flowing from his belly, and saw the snow at his feet turn dark with blood.

Raising a hand, he reached out for his attacker, grabbed hold of the scarf and snatched it from its face.

The two police cars skidded in the snow as they stopped in front of the house. Four officers piled out and ran over to Kjartan as he sank slowly onto his side, still clutching the scarf in his cramped fist. Erlendur’s car drew up and he leaped out with Virote and Johann. Virote ran past the police officers who were cautiously picking their way towards the figure in the shadows.

“Niran!” Virote yelled.

Niran looked up when he heard his name.

Virote saw Kjartan lying in a pool of blood.

He shouted something in Thai at Niran who stood as if turned to stone over Kjartan’s body and dropped his knife into the snow.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang at the house where Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg were sitting with Agust and his parents. An awkward silence had prevailed for a good while now. Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli had tried to fill the time until Erlendur’s arrival with questions and remarks but the conversation had gradually petered out. When it came to a complete standstill, they announced that they were expecting another detective who wanted to speak to the family, although they could not say what he wanted to talk about. The atmosphere in the living room grew increasingly tense. When the doorbell finally rang, they all jumped out of their skins.

The father went to let Erlendur in and they entered the living room together. The mother who was sitting beside her son on the sofa had become very uneasy and rose to her feet when she saw Erlendur. Smiling apologetically, she said she would make some more coffee. She was on her way to the kitchen when Erlendur asked her to wait a moment.

He walked over to her and she retreated a couple of steps.

“It’s all right. It’s nearly over,” Erlendur said.

“What? Over?” the woman said, looking to her husband for help. He stood very still and did not say a word.

Agust got up from the sofa.

“I recognised your voice immediately,” Erlendur said. “You’ve been phoning me over the last few days and I can understand why. It’s no joke finding yourself in a situation like this.”

“In a situation like this?” the woman prevaricated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”

Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg exchanged glances.

“I thought you were someone else at first,” Erlendur said. “I’m glad I’ve found you.”

“Mum?” Agust said, staring at his mother.

“I think I understand now what you meant when you said that you couldn’t live like this,” Erlendur said. “What I don’t understand is how you ever dreamed you could get away with pretending nothing had happened.”

The woman’s eyes were fixed on Erlendur.

“You wanted help,” he said. “That’s why you called. Well, that help is here. So you can start behaving like a decent human being. You can do what you wanted to do all along.”

The woman looked at her husband who had still not moved a muscle. Then she looked at Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli who had no idea what was going on. Finally she looked at her son who had started to cry. When she saw this, her own eyes filled with tears.

“It was never a good idea,” Erlendur said.

Tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks.

“Mum!” her son whispered.

“We did it for them,” she said in a low voice. “For our boys. What they did could never be undone, disgusting and horrible though it was. We had to think of the future. We had to think of their future.”

“But there was no future, was there?” Erlendur said. “Only this dreadful crime.”

The woman looked back at her son.

“They didn’t mean to do it,” she said. “They were just messing about”

“I want to speak to a lawyer,” her husband said. “Don’t say another word.”

“They behaved like bloody fools,” the woman groaned, hiding her face in her hands.

All of a sudden the tension seemed to leave her, as if everything she had had to bottle up inside her for all those long days since the murder of Elias could at last be released.

“Why?” she yelled, taking a step towards her son. “Why do you always have to behave like bloody fools? Just look what you’ve done!”

Her husband ran to her and tried to calm her down. “Look what you’ve done!” she yelled at her son. She fell into her husband’s arms. “God help us!” she moaned and slumped in a heap on the floor.

Hallur and Agust were taken straight in for questioning and later that night committed to the care of the Reykjavik Child Welfare Agency. The police interviewed both sets of parents as well and ordered that they be detained in custody. They blamed each other for the idea of covering up the boys” crime and both they and their sons gave conflicting accounts as to who had actually wielded the knife. After three days of interrogation Hallur finally confessed and the detectives were gradually able to piece together a picture of how Elias died.

The boys had all lied to the police. Hallur saw Anton with the knife that Doddi had stolen and offered to swap a recent computer game for it. All four met at Anton’s house, where he tried out the computer game Hallur had brought along. They discussed doing a swap but nothing came of it. Thorvaldur and Anton admitted that they had scratched Kjartan’s car on the morning of the day Elias was attacked and afterwards decided to get rid of the knife. Meeting Hallur in the school playground, they decided to hand it over to him.

Hallur had arranged to meet Agust straight after school. They were in the mood for trouble and went into a supermarket where they shoplifted some CDs and sweets. It was something they did from time to time, although they received plenty of pocket money from their parents. This was different. “For the kicks,” Agust said, and could not give any better explanation. They were a bit high on adrenalin when they came out of the supermarket and saw Elias ahead of them with the large schoolbag on his back and the anorak askew on his little shoulders.

Perhaps he caught their attention because he was dark-skinned. Perhaps that was irrelevant. Agust said during questioning that of course they would have done the same if he had been a white boy. Hallur shrugged and could not answer the same question. He could not really explain what sort of state they were in. They were buzzing, he said. Excited after the shoplifting. Up for anything. They didn’t know the boy who caught their eye. Didn’t know his name was Elias. Hallur couldn’t remember seeing him before, even though he attended the same school. They had no score to settle with him. Elias had never crossed their path before. He had never done anything to them.

They were buzzing.

They caught up with Elias where the path was at its narrowest and the concealing bushes rose highest. Dusk was falling and it was cold but they were feverish with excitement. They asked his name and if he had any money and what he was doing in Iceland anyway.