The Commandments : A Novel (2021)

by Gudmundsson, Oskar

  ‘We might have to sit here for a few days.’

  ‘That could happen, yes.’

  ‘And I’m starving hungry.’

  ‘Here you go,’ Salka said, reaching for a bag on the back seat and dropping it in Gísli’s lap. ‘Somehow I don’t expect we’ll have long to wait. Rafn went running off as soon as he saw you. If he’s been staying with his sister for a month, there’s a good chance there’s something or other in there that he’ll need. So that’s why we placed the cameras. Either she’ll take something for him, or he’ll come to collect something from her.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘No, I mean a prawn sandwich and a can of malt?’ he said, peering into the bag.

  ‘Is there something wrong with that?’

  ‘It’s just so…’

  ‘Perfect. I suppose you expected a hot dog with red cabbage and chips. A dreadful combination. Everything underneath and the sausage lying there naked on top like the princess and the pea.’

  ‘I'll be nervous about ordering a hot dog after that description,’ Gísli laughed.

  ‘I may be a local, but I never got the hang of all that red cabbage, let alone a burger with chips inside the bun,’ Salka said. ‘Do you have a family?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, glancing at her in surprise. ‘Working on it.’

  ‘Which means what?’

  ‘Early into a new relationship. Doesn’t it always start like that?’ he said, fumbling to open the packaging around the sandwich.

  ‘Yes. Probably. But not for everyone.’

  They sat in silence for a while.

  ‘Why did you choose this as a career?’

  ‘The police? Good question. The classic reasons, I suppose. Wanted to help people. In any case, not for the money,’ he said with a smile. ‘And my foster father was in the police. That had something to do with it,’ he said and caught Salka’s eye. ‘I’m adopted.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘My mother died in childbirth and my father was lost at sea when I was two. Do you want a bite of this?’ he asked, handing the sandwich to Salka. ‘How about you? You’re from here. Do you have much of a group of friends here?’

  ‘My parents live here and I have a few childhood friends. I don’t have much contact with them. I was more of a tomboy,’ she said, handing the sandwich back to him. 'Never had the kind of friends who share confidences and all that stuff, and we never sang into hairbrushes,’ she laughed.

  ‘Someone coming there,’ Gísli said. A couple of cars had parked in front of the block while they had been sitting there, but no residents or visitors had gone in the doorway leading to Rafn’s sister’s apartment. ‘I can’t believe that car’s legal,’ he said, and followed Salka’s example by sinking down in his seat.

  They watched as a beige, rusty Citroën stopped in front of the building. A passenger got out and went into the block.

  ‘Is that him?’

  ‘No. Rafn has dark hair.’

  ‘And the driver?’ Salka asked, handing him binoculars.

  ‘Can’t see him... No. That’s a woman,’ he said, once he had caught sight of the driver.

  ‘He’s going to the flat,’ Salka said, watching the screen of the tablet.

  A girl stood in the open doorway of the apartment and a skinny young man with fair hair went in. A moment later he reappeared with a sports bag in his hands. He came out of the door and got into the car, which drove away.

  Salka waited for the car to be far enough away before moving off. They followed it out onto Thingvallastræti as it went in the Hlíðarfjall direction. It turned into Miðhúsavegur and past the Roads Administration building. Salka slowed as she saw the car turn onto a gravel road, parking in front of a cluster of sheds close by a spinney of larch trees at the top end of the golf course.

  It was almost dark by now. Salka took the binoculars and watched people get out of the car, stepping into the circle of light at the door of one of the sheds before going inside. She drove slowly into the area and brought the car to a halt a little way from the shed.

  ‘He must be in there,’ Gísli murmured.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Salka said, getting out of the car. She walked over to the shed with Gísli following. Windows each side of the door in the middle of the gable wall of the shed stood slightly open. Salka picked up a stub of metal pipe that lay on the ground at the corner of the shed, and went past the end. She peered through the window. It wasn’t easy to see anything for the grime on the glass and the darkness inside. A glimmer of light further inside could just be made out.

  She went to the door and eased it open as gently as she could.

  Inside, there was an overpowering smell of oil. The floor under their feet was slippery with years of filth, oil and grease. An old Toyota and an all-terrain vehicle stood in the middle of the space. The bonnets of both were hooked open. A white canvas sheet had been spread on the floor next to the all-terrain truck, with tools and engine parts laid out on it.

  Voices carried from a room at the inner end of the shed where light streamed out from an open door. It looked to be an office of some kind.

  Salka stepped cautiously towards it. When she was about fifteen metres short of the door, the fair-haired man came out, the sports bag in his hands, and saw Salka.

  ‘Fuck!’ he swore. ‘The cops are here!’ he yelled, and there was immediate turmoil inside the office.

  Salka hurtled towards the man, who did the unexpected, heading straight for her. As she was about to grab hold of him, she slipped on the greasy floor and failed to catch hold of his jacket. She saw him dodge past Gísli, who set off after him. Their efforts to remain upright reminded Salka of people trying to run on a frozen lake. The man jumped over the spread of the all-terrain truck’s engine parts, but landed badly, slipped and fell to the floor. Gísli caught up with him and fumbled for handcuffs.

  As Salka went into the narrow office, she glimpsed a foot disappearing through the open window.

  A young woman stood frozen by the window, staring as Salka went up to her. She flinched, as if expecting Salka to harm her. Fear shone from her eyes. She had been crying, and the make-up around her eyes had run down her cheeks. She was thin and hollow-cheeked. The dark shadows under her eyes were the colour of mussel shells.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Gísli asked from the doorway.

  ‘Give me the torch,’ Salka said, climbing out of the window,

  She jogged towards the larches behind the shed, stopped and listened. She stepped quickly into the wood, but it was difficult to see anything. She switched on the torch, shining it around her. She picked out a path and set off.

  She flashed the torch from side to side as she ran, then stopped and listened. There was something there. She left the path and went among the trees. She could feel her heart race, the adrenaline kicking in.

  She heard a faint click away to one side. She shone the torch in the direction and cautiously went towards it, then paused to listen.

  The silence was complete.

  She was about to continue when the shadow of a figure slipped between the trees.

  Salka took off in pursuit.

  She glanced to one side as she heard something pass through the branches of the trees beside her. She felt that her heart was ready to burst from her chest as she saw another figure running away.

  Salka stopped, trying to figure out this unexpected situation.

  She set off again, and saw both figures take to their heels as the beam of the torch picked them out.

  Salka could feel the burn in her throat and the heat in her legs; she realised that she was out of condition.

  Nevertheless, she was sure she was gaining on them, until one of them suddenly changed direction. There was no choice but to take a spur-of-the-moment decision and stay on the trail of the man, who carried straight on. Salka was gaining on him when she heard a piercing cry from among the trees to one side. She stopped, listened and shone the torch around, but saw n
othing. Training the beam again ahead of her, she found the man she had been chasing was nowhere to be seen.

  She cursed to herself, stepped off the path and into the wood. After a few steps she came to a clearing in the larches. She looked around and felt uneasy when she realised that she had lost her bearings.

  Setting off towards the sound, she suddenly found herself standing by the sheds, and saw the red lights of a car driving away.

  Salka swore and went into the shed where the skinny man sat on the floor, his hands cuffed. In the office the woman sat in a shabby armchair, the same expression as before on her face, and her wrists handcuffed together.

  ‘Where’s Gísli?’ Salka demanded.

  ‘Gísli? The guy who was with you? He went out,’ the woman said, jerking her head towards the window.

  23

  Salka handed a glass of water to the woman perched on a chair in the corner of the interview room. She sat at the desk and started the sound and video recording.

  ‘The date is Sunday the twenty-fourth of August and the time is 2215. I am Salka Steinsdóttir and with me is Marta Einarsdóttir.’

  She stood up from the desk and sat in a chair next to Marta. She placed the glass on a small circular table between them.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Marta gave an almost imperceptible nod and sipped water. She smoothed back her dark hair and pulled a lock of it behind one ear. That was probably because she saw the red camera light go on.

  ‘Do you want a cigarette?’

  Not long before, Salka had taken the fair-haired man to have his details recorded before he was locked in a cell. Salka scanned his blank face, his eyes and the dead expression. She shut her eyes for a second, not looking forward to interviewing him, as she suspected his answers would all be along the same lines. His answers would reflect the expression on his face. As if I give a shit.

  Gísli had appeared at the shed just after Salka.

  ‘Where the hell did you get to?’ she asked in a low, firm voice.

  ‘I went after you.’

  ‘And left these two here? Unsupervised?’ she said, jerking her head in their direction.

  ‘I had secured them and ran after you. I didn’t want you to be alone out there. What can I say? I was worried about you.’

  ‘And did you see anything? I mean, it’s dark.’

  ‘No, not a lot. I found the path once I got used to the darkness and then I heard some shouts.’

  Salka shook her head.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Suddenly two people running for it. And I don’t quite see what you… Ach, let’s leave it. We’ll take these two to the station.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t want a cigarette?’

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ Marta said, looking into the glass.

  Salka wasn’t convinced. The smell of smoke must have clung to her clothes. She recalled that Marta's car had reeked of stale smoke when she looked through it outside the shed. The first thing she had seen was the furry dice. She had seen these in large sizes before, the kind that usually hang in the rear window. But this one broke all records. The car was a mess of dog hair, empty cigarette packets, empty bottles, fast food wrappers of all kinds, and unopened envelopes, some of them bearing the logo of the County Sheriff’s office. In the boot were tools of all sorts and sizes. Salka’s guess was that these were used for any number of purposes that weren’t mentioned in the manufacturers’ instructions.

  ‘Do you own the car you were travelling in?’

  ‘No. It’s Valur’s. I don’t really know. It might be stolen or something.’

  Salka watched Marta, who lay back in the chair with her legs stretched out from under her long sweater. She wore tight black jeans and her legs were reminiscent of cylindrical table legs. She was thirty-three years old, and had a long record of offences and police cautions.

  During such interrogations, Salka liked to step back in time, trying to work out how life had been for these people before everything collapsed around them. At some point this young woman had been the apple of her parents’ eye. Somewhere behind the taut features hid a pleasant woman with happy eyes. But now they were completely blank.

  ‘What were you doing there, Marta?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Valur asked me to drive him. He doesn’t have a licence.’

  ‘But you must have known what was going on there?’

  ‘No. All I know is that Valur said he had to meet Rafn.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Salka said. ‘Marta, I know you’d like to be out of here as soon as possible. It’s not the pleasantest place to spend time. So how about you tell me what went on? I have a feeling that your friend Valur isn’t going to say much.’

  ‘He’s no friend of mine.’

  ‘You were in his company. What are the links? Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘No. I don’t know anything and I told you that we went there to meet Rafn. End of.’

  ‘What were you doing in the shed?’

  ‘Seriously? You just asked me that,’ Marta said, looking at Salka.

  Salka gazed back impassively, saying nothing.

  ‘Valur said that he had to meet Rafn. That’s all I know. I was just with him. I went there with him. There’s nothing complicated about it.’

  ‘You must know what took Valur to the shed, why he needed to meet Rafn.’

  ‘No,’ she retorted, irritated.

  ‘What about the bag you had with you?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that bag. I drove Valur when he fetched the bag from Rafn’s sister, and then he just told me where to drive. That was up to the sheds. Then you turned up.’

  ‘And you have no idea what’s in this bag?’

  ‘No,’ Marta said firmly. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, and sniffed.

  ‘All right,’ Salka said, ready to get to her feet. ‘You’ll be staying with us a little longer.’

  ‘I know there was some of Rafn’s stuff in the bag. There must have been some gear in there. He’s been dealing.’

  ‘What sort of substances?’

  ‘You must know that. You must have been through what was in there.’

  ‘That’s right. There were some substances in the bag. It’s being checked out now. And there was a stack of money. What do you know about that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Valur collects the bag from Rafn’s sister and you go up to the shed to meet him. What happened when you got there?’

  ‘Nothing much. We went into that smelly office.’

  ‘What happened in the office?’

  ‘They talked for a while.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, Rafn and Valur.’

  ‘Was there anyone else there with you?’

  ‘Anyone else? Nah.’ She sounded offended. ‘I fucking hate this,’ she said, loudly and lifting her hands as she spoke.

  ‘What is it that you hate, Marta?’

  ‘Just, everything. Everything about this fucking life. And you.’

  Salka stayed silent. She didn’t take Marta’s professed hatred personally. She knew that she was simply a symbol for the police as a whole, for authority. She allowed Marta to stare out of the window, and up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes again.

  ‘Listen to me. Tell me everything and this can all work out a lot better than you think,’ Salka said finally.

  ‘You listen to me. If I tell you everything I know, then I’m dead meat,’ Marta retorted, glaring at her.

  ‘We can protect you…’

  ‘Protect me?’ she said and laughed. ‘You’ve no idea how often I’ve heard that. It means just as much as it does in politics. Sorry. Although politics isn’t something I know much about. But there are all kinds of people who have said they’ll protect me. I’ve been betrayed by every one of them. And most of all by you.’

  ‘Come on. Let’s go and have a smoke.’

  Marta looked doubtful.

  ‘It
’s no problem. Nobody can see us from the street,’ Salka said when she realised where Marta’s doubts lay.

  ‘You know Rafn well?’ Salka asked as they stood by the wall, in the shelter of the waste containers on the south side of the police station.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said after a long silence, opening the can of Coke Salka had picked up on the way. ‘We’ve known each other a long time.’

  ‘When did you get to know each other?’

  ’This is the point where I’m supposed to open right up? You act friendly and I give you everything on a silver platter? Forget it.’

  ‘When did you get to know Rafn?’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Marta laughed, blowing smoke into the still air. ‘I don’t remember exactly. We were teenagers. Problem teenagers,’ she said with an introspective smile. ‘We were together back then, but these days we’re just friends.’

  ‘What about Valur?’

  ‘He’s a waste of space. I’ve known him for a long time and don’t want anything to do with him. Trouble follows him around. Just like now. Another fucking mess,’ she said, tapping ash from her cigarette. She watched it fall to the ground, until a draught that sneaked around the corner of the building whipped it away. ‘Is your name Salka?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is that your real hair colour, or is it dyed?’

  ‘It’s real,' she said, laughing at the unexpected question.

  ‘I’d have liked to have had red hair. Are your kids redheads as well? You do have children, don’t you?’

  ‘My daughter has red hair,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘And your husband? Does he have red hair as well?’ she asked, as seriously as if she were collecting data for a thesis on genetics.

  ‘He has fair hair. Tell me about Rafn.’

  ‘Hey, you like to change the subject fast. Rafn, yeah,’ Marta said and paused for thought. ‘I reckon he had a bright future ahead of him. He’s amazingly talented. He could play all sorts of instruments and he was a fantastic actor.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. We were both in the Dynheimar theatre group. We took part in a few performances,’ she said and fell silent. She seemed to withdraw into memories of the past, standing motionless and staring into space.