Arnaldur Indridason - Black Skies

‘They’re threatening to post them on the Internet if we don’t pay up.’

‘Súsanna’s sister is in politics, isn’t she?’ Sigurdur Óli asked Patrekur.

‘Do you think you could talk to them?’ Hermann said.

‘Isn’t she an assistant to one of the cabinet ministers?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

Patrekur nodded. ‘It’s a nightmare for them,’ he said. ‘Hermann was wondering if you could talk some sense into these people, get the pictures off them, scare them into coming clean and handing over everything they’ve got.’

‘What exactly have they got?’

‘A short video,’ Hermann said.

‘Of you having sex?’

Hermann nodded.

‘You mean you didn’t know you were being filmed? How could you fail to notice?’

‘I can’t really remember — it was two years ago,’ Hermann said. ‘They sent us a photo. It looks as if they had a camera installed in their flat that we didn’t spot. Actually, I do remember seeing a camera of some kind — a very small one — on a bookshelf in the sitting room where we were at the time, but it didn’t occur to me that it was switched on.’

‘It wouldn’t require a particularly sophisticated set-up,’ Patrekur pointed out.

‘Were you at their place?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of people are they?’

‘We don’t know them at all and haven’t seen them since. I expect they recognised my wife because she sometimes appears in the media, so they decided to try a little coercion.’

‘With considerable success,’ Patrekur put in, his eyes on Sigurdur Óli.

‘What do they want?’

‘Money,’ said Hermann. ‘Far more than we’ve got available. It was the woman who made contact with us. She told us to take out a loan and said we mustn’t talk to the police.’

‘Do you have any proof of their claim to have pictures of you?’

Hermann looked at Patrekur.

‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’

Hermann glanced around the cafe, then reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a photo which he slid across to Sigurdur Óli. The quality was poor as it had apparently been run off on a home printer, but it showed a group of people having sex, two of them women whom Sigurdur Óli did not recognise from the grainy image, and Hermann, who was instantly identifiable. At the moment the photo was taken the party seemed to have reached its climax, so to speak …

‘And you want me to sort these people out?’ Sigurdur Óli asked, looking at his friend.

‘Before things turn nasty,’ Patrekur said. ‘You’re the only person we know who could possibly deal with scumbags like these.’

He had stalked the bastard for several months before finally taking action. Had stood outside and spied on the dump in Grettisgata, whatever the weather, at all hours of the day and night, taking care to remain at a discreet distance and keep a low profile. It was risky to loiter too long in the same place in case he attracted the attention of passers-by or residents. They might call the police and that was the last thing he wanted. It would not be the first time he had been in trouble with the law.

The houses in this neighbourhood were all much of a muchness. Here and there new houses had sprung up, built according to the prevailing fashion at the time, while others blended in better with the original appearance of the street: humble, low-rise, wooden buildings, clad in corrugated iron, and standing one or two storeys high, on raised concrete basements. Some had been lovingly restored, others neglected and allowed to go to seed, like the dump where the old man lived. The roof was in a dilapidated state, there were no gutters on the side facing the street, the light blue colour the house had originally been painted was almost worn away and large patches of rust marred the roof and walls. As far as he could tell, the floor above the basement was unoccupied; there were curtains drawn across all the windows and he had never seen anyone set foot inside.

The years had not been kind to the old man; he must be well into his seventies by now, stiff-legged and stooped, with grey hair straggling from under his woollen hat, an old anorak, and an air of threadbare neglect. There was little about him to remind one of the past. His routine was more or less fixed: every other day he went to the old swimming pool early in the morning, so early that he sometimes had to wait for it to open. It was possible that he had been awake all night, because he would go straight home afterwards and not stir again until evening, when he would re-emerge to visit the local shop and buy milk, bread and a few other groceries. Occasionally he would drop by the off-licence. He never spoke to anyone on these journeys, never greeted anyone and only ever stopped briefly, just long enough to do what was strictly necessary before continuing on his way. He never received any visitors either, except the postman now and then. His evenings were spent at home, apart from two occasions when he had walked down to the sea by the coast road, continuing along the shore as far as the fishing docks, then home again through the western part of town and the old Thingholt district.

On the second occasion it had started to rain in the middle of his walk and the old man had crept under cover of darkness into the garden of a two-storey period house, where he had peered through the ground-floor windows at the family with several children who lived there. For more than an hour he had lurked behind a clump of trees in the cold rain, at a safe distance from the house, watching the family get ready for bed. Long after all the lights had been turned out, he stole over to the window of one of the children’s rooms and gazed inside for a long time before resuming his journey home to Grettisgata.

All that night, ignoring the lashing rain, he himself had stood outside, his eyes fixed on the basement door of the house on Grettisgata, feeling as if he had to stand guard over all Reykjavík’s innocent little children.

It was evening, and peace had descended over the city with the coming of dusk, when Sigurdur Óli rang the doorbell of Sigurlína Thorgrímsdóttir, also known as Lína, alleged blackmailer. He was keen to get his conversation with her over as soon as possible. She lived in a terraced house in the leafy eastern suburbs, not far from the Laugarás cinema, with her husband Ebeneser, nicknamed Ebbi. Sigurdur Óli looked over at the illuminated frontage of the cinema and remembered watching some great films there back in his teens when he used to be a keen moviegoer. Not that he could call any of them to mind just now — he had always been quick to forget films — but he knew that the cinema itself would always occupy a special place in his heart thanks to a memorable date there when he was in the sixth form. He had gone there with a girl who had subsequently got away, but he could still remember the long kiss they had exchanged afterwards outside her house in his car.

He did not have a clue how he was supposed to help Hermann and his wife but thought he might as well read the riot act to Lína and Ebbi, threaten them with police involvement, and see if that did the trick. Judging from what Hermann had said, they were not very experienced blackmailers, but then it was not exactly a common occupation.

On the way to Lína’s house he had been thinking about the phone call that had interrupted him the night before, when he was lying comfortably ensconced on the sofa at home, watching an American sports channel. As a student in the US he had started following two all-American sports that had previously been a closed book to him — American football and baseball, becoming a major supporter of the Dallas Cowboys and Boston Red Sox respectively. After returning home, he invested in a satellite dish in order to watch the big games live, which he did with great dedication, though the time difference meant that some games took place in the middle of the night in Iceland. Sigurdur Óli had never needed much sleep, however, and rarely missed his morning session at the gym, in spite of his sports obsession. On the other hand, Icelandic sports like football and handball left him cold; the standard of play seemed embarrassingly low in comparison to top international leagues and he regarded domestic competitions as unworthy of being televised.