The Commandments : A Novel (2021)

by Gudmundsson, Oskar

  ‘The height of the church symbolises hope. The walls of the church represent the three apostles. Well, what about that?’

  ‘Four,’ Hróbjartur said, his voice a hoarse rasp.

  ‘Good man. It’s all there at your fingertips. Of course there were four of them. You know all this stuff,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘And all this is your guiding light when you are inside God’s house. Noah’s Ark and...’ He got no further, and exploded into laughter. ’My God. All this stuff is fantastic. I’m sorry, I just pictured you in front of me, dressed up in all the ceremonial trappings and preaching to God-fearing people,’ the man said, and wiped tears from his eyes.

  He stood up, went to the end of the bed and picked up a black leather bag that he placed on the bed, before taking out a knife, scissors, pliers and a balled pair of socks.

  Hróbjartur struggled and called out, hoarse cries for help. The man went quickly to him, and stuffed the bundle of socks into his mouth, taping his mouth shut. He squatted between Hróbjartur’s legs, picked up the pliers and examined them. He seemed to be about to make use of them, then paused, as if he had remembered something.

  ‘Ah. There are still a few more items we need to cover. I almost forgot,’ he said with a laugh. He got up, and again sat on the edge of the bed next to Hróbjartur to whisper.

  ‘It goes without saying that you have the ethical rules of the church at your fingertips, don’t you?’

  Hróbjartur’s breathing came in quick gasps and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  ‘Right at the start, they tell you that the rules are there to provide support and guidance in serving God and men. It even states that the fundamental rule of personal relationships is that everything you would want others to do for you, you should do for them. There are twenty of these rules altogether. I’m not going to quote the whole lot right now, but here are a few interesting ones. The seventh, as an example, states that one should never misuse one’s position or jeopardise an individual’s welfare, such as with inappropriate behaviour, with verbal, attitudinal, sexual or any other kind of abuse. The eighth rule is interesting as it reminds us that each individual is unique, so that a touch could be easily misunderstood or could cause discomfort. Do you reckon the boys misunderstood when you touched them? Do you think they misunderstood when you rammed your dick into their arseholes?’

  He was silent for a long time before continuing.

  ‘I have an idea that you’d like the ninth rule, the one that forbids forming inappropriate relationships with members of the flock. Hey! Hróbjartur, did you break that rule? Or maybe this one, number fifteen: being aware that you have a stronger position than the child you are working with, you should under no circumstances misuse your position? Well, you’ve certainly made a mess of things, as granny would have put it.’

  He laughed and looked down at his hands.

  ‘I get it, Hróbjartur. When men go hunting, they use the right equipment, or weapons. And you? You used your garments. You wear the hemp. Remember the Commandments? The tenth tells us that we shouldn’t covet our neighbour’s wife, his servant or maidservant, his ox or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbour’s. Hmm,’ the man said, straightening his back after allowing himself a moment’s thought. ‘What’s missing, of course, is the word child. Although that could be counted among the neighbour’s things that one should not covet. But the word itself is missing. Child. Don’t you think? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s child. Then maybe you’d never have done what you did,’ he said, sighing after a pause. ‘No. You’d have found a way around the rules, all the expectations, to sneak past God’s watchful eye. Past this guy,’ he said, pointing at the cross on the wall.

  The man stood up, went to the end of the bed and sat down.

  He picked up the pliers, then the knife.

  ‘There’s a fruit bowl in your kitchen. It contains twelve apples. That’s it, just think. The same number as the apostles. I noticed that one is spoiled, with a dark brown patch. What would you have done with that apple? Thrown it away? No. You’d have fetched a sharp knife and cut away the bad part. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

  7

  Saturday 23rd August 2014

  Salka stepped out of the shower, reached for a towel and dried her hair. She ran her fingers through it and could feel the grease left by the silica in the water. It wasn’t just in her hair, her whole skin had taken on this fine layer. She examined herself in the mirror. She couldn’t help noticing that the freckles had spread across her face during her stay by the river.

  She pulled on blue pants and a white tank top, opened the bathroom door and glanced along the accommodation block’s corridor, which was deserted. That was understandable at twenty past five in the morning.

  An hour earlier her phone had begun to vibrate on the bedside table. It wasn’t a number she recognised and when she quickly looked it up in the online directory and she found that it belonged to Pétur, she could hardly believe her eyes.

  She decided not to answer, and closed her eyes. All the same, there was no chance of getting back to sleep. She knew he was keen to add her to the police team, but there was something very weird about calling long before the first cock crow.

  So she had got up, and decided that she would take a shower before calling him back. She had just closed the bathroom door behind her when the phone buzzed again.

  ‘Hello?’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Hello, Salka. Pétur here. You remember me?’

  ‘Yes. I know. I imagine you’re aware what time it is?’ she said, with just the right note of sharpness in her voice.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry to wake you so early. Kolla… Kolbrún, I mean, you know her?’

  ‘Yes, your superintendent.’

  ‘She asked me to get in touch with you. She’s out of the country herself at the moment and in any case, I had meant to get in touch with you at a more reasonable time of day to see if there’s a chance of you coming to work with us.’

  Salka said nothing, just waited for him to continue.

  ‘Well, Kolla suggested I call you right away. We’re in crisis here right now. We’re short-staffed and overworked… I can tell you we’re drowning in workload in every single department and our people are bogged down.’

  Salka still said nothing.

  ‘You’re still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve just had a report of a man murdered in a church.’

  ‘Church?’ Salka asked, astonished.

  ‘That’s right. The victim is the local priest and I was going to ask you if you could go out there and take a look?’

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘Ach. I’m sorry. I’ve only just been woken up. It’s at Grenivík, not far from where you are. Ideally as soon as possible.’

  Silence.

  ‘That’s… Assuming you’re ready to start work with zero notice.’

  ‘Pétur, I don’t quite get this. To start with, Grenivík is closer to Akureyri than here. I’m on a break and hadn’t expected to go back to work right away, and certainly hadn’t decided what to do, whether with the police or something else completely.’

  ‘Yeah, I understand perfectly,’ he said, and there was another long pause. ‘Kolbrún has been pressuring me to tempt you back, and in all honesty, I’m supposed to pull out all the stops to make it happen.’

  ‘Then you’ve a long way to go still,’ she said and smiled. ‘I understand about being short of manpower and endless cases needing attention. But I can’t believe that it’s not possible to pull in a team for a case that should get top priority.’

  ‘Well, yes. That’s true,’ Pétur said, and Salka sensed the tension in his voice. ‘The thing is, you’ve investigated this man before. This priest.’

  ‘Really? What do you mean?’

  ‘2010. It was a case you worked on before you went to London. The abuse case that involved several priests. He was investigated, along with a few others, when charges were brought
against them. You must remember it?’

  ‘Of course. There were three… no, four women and two men who made accusations against these priests, and all of the cases were dismissed.’

  ‘That sounds about right. After you went abroad there were a few more linked cases that cropped up, but it was never possible to prove anything, what with statutes of limitations, one man’s word against another’s, and… well, you know all that. According to the records I’ve been looking through, you questioned this man, the one found murdered.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Hróbjartur.’

  There was a long silence. Salka remembered the man clearly: devious and difficult to pin down. She recalled the man’s pomposity and the smile that seemed to be a permanent feature of his face. She even remembered his huge hands.

  ‘And why do you want me working on this?’

  ‘You know him. You’ve investigated him before. According to the report from the officer on the scene, it’s brutal. And Kolla knew him pretty well.’

  ‘Understood.’

  She could feel her resistance ebbing away. That would make Kolla happy.

  ‘I’ve been in touch with forensics down south and they’re ready to go, but there’s a thick fog over Akureyri right now so there are no flights. Hopefully, it’ll burn off before long.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fog. Hoping it’ll lift when the sun’s higher in the sky.’

  ‘All right, Pétur. I understand. I’ll leave right away.’

  Salka quietly shut the bedroom door behind her. The morning brightness made its way into the room around the edges of the blinds that were supposed to darken it. The chalet was showing its age. It was in fact a six hundred square metre prefab block that had previously been used as accommodation at the Blandá hydro-electric plant. The walls were paper-thin and full-throated snores came from both of the neighbouring rooms. It would have been easy to let herself be irritated by this, but she couldn’t help smiling as she wondered if Magnús was one of the snorers.

  After their encounter by the river, they had each gone their own way. After a day’s fishing and dinner in the evening, she had gone to her room. She had been about to go to sleep when Magnús had knocked, asking if she would care to share the bottle of red wine he had been given. They sat in the common room where other fishermen had gathered, and talked over the day’s events. One of those present seemed to have at his command some kind of supernatural wisdom and deep knowledge of fishing that left his companions speechless. Salka wondered if this was down to sincere admiration, or good manners and a reluctance to call out the other man’s tall stories.

  Salka and Magnús sat and talked, and at two in the morning they left the common room and went together along the accommodation block’s corridor. The words formed on her lips. She even opened her mouth, ready to invite him into her room, when he said good night and disappeared into his own room.

  Salka dressed and left the room, having packed her things and fishing gear. In the dining room she scowled as she pressed the button on the coffee pot and found that it was empty.

  It was bright daylight outside and she took a deep breath of the fresh morning air. She glanced up at the flagpole next to the chalet, where the fishing club’s flag hung limp.

  A field mouse scurried over the grey gravel and disappeared under the wooden steps to the fly-tying room.

  Salka sat behind the wheel of the white Volvo XC90, set off and took a right turn at the junction with the main road to head for Akureyri. An hour later she was driving past Víkurskarð’s pitted cliff face, from where she could see the fog cloaking Eyjafjörður below. The fog bank stretched out along the fjord, denser towards the town. They would have to wait a while for forensics to turn up, she thought.

  On the flat ground by the coast, she took the sharp right turn for the road to Grenivík.

  8

  Her first sight of the fishing village of Grenivík, the most northerly settlement on the eastern side of Eyjafjörður, reminded Salka of the approach to Blönduós, with green pastures speckled with bales of hay and grazing livestock. She drove past grassy fields and meadows on both sides until the village appeared as if from nowhere, nestling at the side of the fjord between Thengilshöfði and Kaldbakur.

  During the hour’s drive, Salka had seen only two other cars. It was just seven in the morning when the car’s wheels crunched over the gravel drive leading to the yard outside Grenivík’s church. An empty police car stood in the car park in front of the church.

  The smell of seaweed carried on the breeze as she got out of the car. She slipped a band from her wrist to tie back her hair, and took in the sight of the white-walled church with its roof of red steel sheets. Within the walls of the churchyard there were graves that ranged from recent to ancient. She used her phone to snap a couple of pictures of the church and its surroundings.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky from where she stood with a view over the village, part of which was clustered below the church, straggling towards the sea. The place looked to be made up of mainly conventionally bland detached and semi-detached houses. The silence was practically tangible – there was nobody to be seen anywhere. The only sound that broke the tranquillity was when a snipe dived from a height like a wartime Spitfire, its tail feathers humming as the air flowed over them.

  Salka went to the lychgate in the churchyard wall. She swung it open and paused, standing still as the gate marked where consecrated ground began. She wasn’t sure who had told her… Yes, it was her father who had said it, on the way to church when she had been a girl, that when you stop at the centre of a lychgate, you’re neither in the world of the living, nor of the dead. She had asked him if you became immortal in such a place.

  ‘Good morning,’ called a young man who was standing in front of the open church doors. ‘Good to see you. I’m Gísli. Akureyri police force,’ he said as Salka made her way towards him. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said with a smile. ‘But not quite this early.’

  She climbed a couple of steps up to the church doors. He was of average height, with short fair hair, combed to one side. Some people would have described it as golden, courtesy of the unusually long spell of summer sunshine Iceland had been enjoying. It looked as though he hadn’t had time – or allowed himself time – to take a shower or comb his hair properly before his shift, as the hair at the back of his head was tousled. It seemed that he noticed Salka’s look, as he quickly patted down his hair with his left hand.

  ‘Have you checked the scene?’ Salka asked.

  ‘Yes, a quick look. It doesn’t look good. But I’ve not been here long. It was one of the council staff who found him,’ he said, one foot sweeping fresh glass clippings from the path.

  ‘Council staff?’

  ‘That’s right. Skúli. He works for the council and keeps things maintained around the village. He’s something of a lost soul.’

  ‘And what do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, you know… ’ he said and glanced at Salka, who smiled back. ‘You’ll see when you meet him.’

  ‘What time was it when he got here?’

  ‘It was…’ he checked his notebook. ‘Around half past two in the morning. Maybe a little earlier. He called in to raise the alarm. He’ll be here shortly.’

  ‘Why isn’t he here now?’

  ‘He has a bitch at home that’s about to pup.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else who can look after the dog? By rights he should have waited here.’

  ‘He’ll be here before long. I know him pretty well.’

  ‘What was he doing here in the middle of the night?’ she asked, looking at the walls of the church, which could have done with a coat of paint.

  ‘He was walking the dog, said she’d been restless. Shall we take a look inside?’ he said, opening the church door.

  Salka followed Gísli into the narrow, bare lobby that was furnished with nothing more than a couple of coat hooks on each wall. Gísli opened the d
oor to the nave where flecks of dust danced in the shafts of sunlight creeping through the windows. Banks of pews, upholstered in red, flanked a dull carpet.

  ‘There he is,’ Gísli said in a low voice, pointing towards the altar.

  Salka’s gaze travelled along the church floor and she didn’t appear to hear Gísli’s voice behind her. She didn’t feel comfortable in the church, or in churches in general. It wasn’t that the church had taken anything from her, but more what it stood for: the House of the Lord. He was precisely the one she felt had failed her.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’ Salka whispered, glancing at Gísli.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking back at her in surprise.

  She knew perfectly well why. You never speak loudly in church. Unless you’re singing, you whisper. But churchgoers don’t always lower their voices. She recalled clearly attending a service as a girl with her parents. She joined enthusiastically in with ‘Jesus is my friend’, singing with such gusto that she distracted both the congregation and the priest, and her father had tapped her on the back of the head. Shhh, he had said, and she saw the shadow of a smile on his face. The recollection always brought a smile to her face as she knew what her intention had been – to drown out the priest’s dreadfully out-of-tune singing voice.

  Salka took slow steps towards the altar, looking up at the light blue dome of the roof above, speckled with golden stars, before she stopped at the altar rail. The gate in the rail stood open. Above the altar was an image of the risen Christ with outstretched arms. The altar measured no more than a few square feet and there – inside the altar rail – slumped the priest. She took a long look at him. His back was against the altar itself, while his legs, straight and slightly apart, extended beyond the gate. His arms lay at his sides, clenched fists with the knuckles uppermost. His head lolled slightly forwards. His face was swollen and badly beaten, but there was no blood to be seen, as if it had been carefully washed.