Voices de-5

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Erlendur shook his head.

  “When he left, I was the one who mattered. Not him. Never again him. And in some strange way I was pleased, pleased that he never became the great child star he was supposed to become. I expect I envied him the whole time, much more than I realised, for all the attention he got and the voice he had. It was divine. It was as if he’d been blessed with all those talents but I had none; I thumped away at the piano like a horse. That was what Dad called it when he tried to teach me. Said I was totally devoid of talent. Yet I worshipped him because I thought he was always right. Usually he was kind to me and when he became unable to look after himself my talent became looking after him. I was indispensable to him then. And the years went by without anything changing. Gulli left home, Dad was in a wheelchair and I took care of him. Never thought about myself at all, what it was that I wanted. The years can pass like that without you doing anything except living in the rut you create for yourself. Year after year after year.”

  She paused and watched the snow.

  “When you begin to perceive that that is all you have, you start to hate it and try to find the culprit, and I felt my brother was to blame for everything. Over time I began to despise him and the perversion that ruined our lives”

  Erlendur was about to add something, but she went on.

  “I don’t know if I can describe this better. How you lock yourself up inside your own monotonous life because of something that, decades later, turns out to be so unimportant. Actually turns out to be unimportant and harmless.”

  “We understand that he thought he had been robbed of his childhood,” Erlendur said. “That he wasn’t allowed to be what he wanted to be, but was forced to be something completely different, a singer, a child star, and he paid the price when he was bullied at school. Then it all came to nothing and those “unnatural urges”, as you call them, compound the picture. I don’t think he can have been very happy. Maybe he didn’t want all that attention you clearly longed for.”

  “Robbed of his childhood,” Stefania said. “Could well be.”

  “Did your brother ever try to discuss his homosexuality with your father or you?” Erlendur asked.

  “No, but we might have seen it coming. I don’t know if he even realised what was happening to him. I have no idea about it. I don’t think he knew why he wore Mum’s dresses. I don’t know how or when those people discover they’re different.”

  “But he was fond of the nickname in some perverse way,” Erlendur said. “He’s got this poster and we know that…” Erlendur stopped mid-sentence. He didn’t know whether to tell her that Gudlaugur had asked his lover to call him Little Princess.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Stefania said. “He could have been tormenting himself with the memory of what happened. Maybe there was something inside him that we’ll never understand.”

  “How did you get to know Henry Wapshott?”

  “He came to our house one day and wanted to talk about Gudlaugur’s records. He wanted to know whether we had any copies. It was last Christmas. He had obtained information about Gudlaugur and his family through some collector and told me that his records were incredibly valuable abroad. He had talked to my brother, who refused to sell him any, but that changed somehow and he was prepared to let Wapshott have what he wanted.”

  “And you wanted your share of the profits.”

  “We didn’t think that was unreasonable. It didn’t belong to him any more or less than to my father. At least, that was how we saw it. Our father paid for the recordings out of his own pocket.”

  “Was a substantial sum involved? That Wapshott offered for the records?”

  Stefania nodded. “Millions.”

  “That corresponds with what we know.”

  “He has plenty of money, that Wapshott man. I believe he wanted to avoid the records going into the collectors” market. If I understood him correctly, he wanted to acquire all the existing copies of the records and prevent them from flooding the market. He was very straightforward about it and was prepared to pay an incredible sum. I think he finally talked Gudlaugur round just before this Christmas. Something must have changed for him to attack him like that.”

  “Attack him like that? What do you mean?”

  “Well, haven’t you got him in custody?”

  “Yes,” Erlendur said, “but we have no proof that he attacked your brother. What do you mean by “something must have changed”?”

  “Wapshott visited us in Hafnarfjordur and said he had persuaded Gudlaugur to sell him all the copies, and I expect he was making sure that there were no others around. We told him there weren’t, Gudlaugur had taken them all when he left home.”

  “That’s why you went to the hotel to meet him,” Erlendur said. “To get your cut of the sale.”

  “He was wearing his doorman’s uniform,” Stefania said. “He was in the lobby carrying suitcases out to a car for some tourists. I watched him for a while and then he saw me. I said I had to talk to him about the records. He asked about Dad…”

  “Did your father send you to see Gudlaugur?”

  “No, he would never have done that. After the accident he never wanted to hear his name mentioned.”

  “But he was the first thing Gudlaugur asked about when he saw you at the hotel.”

  “Yes. We went down to his room and I asked where the records were.”

  * * *

  “They’re in a safe place,” Gudlaugur said, smiling at his sister. “Henry told me he’d talked to you.”

  “He told us you were planning to sell him the records. Dad said half of them are his and we want half of the proceeds.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Gudlaugur said. “I’m not going to sell them.”

  “What did Wapshott say to that?”

  “He wasn’t pleased.”

  “He’s offering a very good price for them.”

  “I can get more for them if I sell them myself, one at a time. Collectors are very interested in them. I think Wapshott’s going to do the same even if he told me he wants to buy them to keep them out of circulation. I expect he’s lying. He’s planning to sell them and make money out of me. Everyone was going to make money out of me in the old days, especially Dad, and that hasn’t changed. Not in the least.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Come home and talk to Dad,” she said. “He doesn’t have much time left.”

  “Did Wapshott talk to him?”

  “No, he wasn’t there when Wapshott came. I told Dad about him.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Nothing. Only that he wanted his share.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Why have you never left him? Why haven’t you got married and had a family of your own? It’s not your life that you’re living, it’s his life. Where’s your life?”

  “I suppose it’s in the wheelchair you put him in,” Stefania snorted, “and don’t you dare ask about my life.”

  “He has the same power over you that he had over me in the old days.”

  Stefania exploded with rage.

  “Someone had to look after him! His favourite, his star, turned into a voiceless queer who pushed him down the stairs and hasn’t dared talk to him since. Prefers sitting in his house at night and creeping out before he wakes up. What power does he have over you? You think you got rid of him for once and for all, but just look at you! Look at yourself! What are you? Tell me that! You’re nothing. You’re scum.”

  She stopped.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Does he ask about me?”

  “No.”

  “He never talks about me?”

  “No, never.”

  “He hates the way I live. He hates the way I am. He hates me. After all these years.”

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Erlendur sai
d. “Why this game of hide-and-seek?”

  “Hide-and-seek? Well, you can imagine. I didn’t want to talk about family matters. I thought I could protect us, our privacy.”

  “Was this the last time you saw your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Yes.” Stefania looked at him. “What are you implying?”

  “Didn’t you catch him with a young man just as your father did, and throw a fit? That recalled the root of the unhappiness in your life and so you decided to put an end to it.”

  “No, what…?”

  “We have a witness.”

  “A witness?”

  “The lad who was with him. A young man who did your brother favours for money. You caught them in the basement, the lad ran away and you attacked your brother. Saw a knife on his desk and attacked him.”

  “That’s all wrong!” Stefania said, sensing that Erlendur meant what he was saying, sensing the noose genuinely closing on her. She stared at Erlendur, unable to believe her own ears.

  “There’s a witness—” Erlendur began, but didn’t manage to finish the sentence.

  “What witness? What witness are you talking about?”

  “Do you deny having caused your brothers death?”

  The hotel telephone began ringing and before Erlendur could answer his mobile began ringing in his jacket pocket as well. He cast an apologetic look at Stefania, who glared back at him.

  “I must take this call,” Erlendur said.

  Stefania backed off and he saw her take one of Gudlaugur’s records, which was on the desk, out of its cover. When Erlendur answered the hotel telephone she was scrutinising the record. It was Sigurdur Oli. Erlendur answered his mobile and asked the caller there to hold.

  “A man got in touch with me just now about the murder at the hotel and I gave him your mobile number,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Has he called you?”

  “There’s someone on the other line right now,” Erlendur said.

  “It looks as though we’ve solved this case. Talk to him and call me. I sent three cars over. Elinborg’s with them.”

  Erlendur put the receiver down and picked up his mobile again. He didn’t recognise the voice, but the man introduced himself and started his account. He had barely begun before Erlendur’s suspicions were confirmed and he figured it all out. They had a long talk and at the end of the conversation Erlendur asked the caller to go down to the police station and give a statement to Sigurdur Oli. He called Elinborg and gave her instructions. Then he put his mobile away and turned to Stefania, who had put Gudlaugur’s record on the turntable and switched it on.

  “Sometimes, in the old days,” she said, “when records like this were being made, there was all kinds of background noise that got onto the recordings, maybe because people didn’t take much care about making them, the technology was primitive and the recording facilities were poor too. You can even hear passing traffic on them. Did you know that?”

  “No,” Erlendur said, not grasping the point.

  “You can hear it on this song, for example, if you listen carefully. I don’t think anyone would notice unless they knew it was there.”

  She turned up the volume. Erlendur pricked up his ears and noticed a background sound in the middle of the song.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “It’s Dad,” Stefania said.

  She played the part of the song again and Erlendur could hear it clearly, although he couldn’t make out what was being said.

  “That’s your father?” Erlendur said.

  “He’s telling him he’s wonderful,” Stefania said remotely. “He was standing near the microphone and couldn’t contain himself:

  She looked at Erlendur.

  “My father died yesterday,” she said. “He lay down on the sofa after dinner and fell asleep as he sometimes did, and never woke up again. As soon as I entered the room I could tell he was gone. I sensed it before I touched him. The doctor said he had had a heart attack. That’s why I came to the hotel to see you, to make a clean sweep. It doesn’t matter any more. Not for him and not for me either. None of this matters any more.”

  She played the snatch of song a third time and on this occasion Erlendur thought he could make out what was said. A single word attached to the song like a footnote.

  Wonderful.

  “I went down to Gudlaugur’s room the day he was murdered to tell him that Dad wanted a reconciliation. By then I’d told Dad that Gudlaugur kept a key to the house and had sneaked inside, sat in the living room and crept back out without our noticing. I didn’t know how Gudlaugur would react, whether he wanted to see Dad again or whether it was hopeless to try to reconcile them, but I wanted to try. The door to his room was open…”

  Her voice quavered.

  “… and there he lay in his own blood…”

  She paused.

  “ … in that costume … with his trousers down … covered in blood …”

  Erlendur went over to her.

  “My God,” she groaned. “I’d never in my life … it was too appalling for words. I don’t know what I thought. I was terrified. I think my only thought was to get out and try to forget it. Like all the rest. I convinced myself it was none of my business. That it didn’t matter whether I was there or not, it was over and done with and was none of my business. I pushed it away, acted like a child. I didn’t want to know about it and I didn’t tell my father what I saw. Didn’t tell a soul.”

  She looked at Erlendur.

  “I should have called for help. Of course I should have called the police … but … it … it was so disgusting, so unnatural … that I ran away. That was the only thing I thought of. Getting away. To escape from that terrible place and not let a single person see me.”

  She paused.

  “I think I’ve always been fleeing him. Somehow I’ve always been running away from him. All the time. And there…”

  She sobbed gently.

  “We should have tried to patch things up much earlier. I should have arranged that long before. That’s my crime. Dad wanted that too, in the end. Before he died.”

  They fell silent and Erlendur looked out of the window, and noticed that it was snowing less.

  “The most terrifying thing was …”

  She stopped, as if the thought was unbearable.

  “He wasn’t dead, was he?”

  She shook her head.

  “He said one word, then he died. He saw me in the doorway and groaned my name. That he used to call me. When we were little. He always called me Steffi.”

  And they heard him say your name before he died. Steffi.”

  She looked at him in surprise.

  “They who?”

  Suddenly Eva Lind was standing in the open doorway. She stared at Stefania and at Erlendur, then at Stefania again and shook her head.

  “How many women have you got on the go anyway?” she said, with an accusatory look at her father.

  33

  He couldn’t discern any change in Osp. Erlendur stood watching her working, wondering if she would ever show remorse or guilt for what she had done.

  “Have you found her, that Steffi?” she asked when she saw him in the corridor. She dumped a pile of towels into the laundry bin, took some fresh ones and put them in the room. Erlendur walked closer and stopped in the doorway, his thoughts elsewhere.

  He was thinking about his daughter. He had managed to convince her who Stefania actually was, and when Stefania left he asked Eva Lind to wait for him. Eva sat down on the bed and he could tell at once that she was altered, she was back to her old ways. She launched into a tirade against him for everything that had gone wrong in her life and he stood and listened without saying a word, without objecting or enraging her even further. He knew why she was angry. She was not angry with him but with herself, because she had crashed. She could control herself no longer.

  He didn’t know what drug she was using. He looked at his watch.
<
br />   “Are you in a hurry to go somewhere?” she said. “Rushing off to save the world?”

  “Can you wait for me here?” he said.

  “Piss off she said, her voice hoarse and ugly.

  “Why do you do this to yourself?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Will you wait for me? I wont be long and then we’ll go home. Would you like that?”

  She didn’t answer. Sat with bowed head, looking out of the window at nothing.

  “I won’t be a minute,” he said.

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded, her voice less harsh now. “Where are you going?”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What’s wrong!” she barked. “Everything’s wrong. Everything! This fucking bloody life. That’s what’s wrong, life. Everything’s wrong in this life! I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know why we live it. Why! Why??”

  “Eva, it’ll be—”

  “God, how I regret not having her,” she groaned.

  He put his arm around her.

  “Every day. When I wake up in the morning and when I fall asleep at night. I think about her every single day and what I did to her.”

  “That’s good,” Erlendur said. “You ought to think about her every day”

  “But it’s so hard and you never break out of it. Never. What am I supposed to do? What can I do?”

  “Don’t forget her. Think about her. Always. She helps you that way”

  “How I wish I’d had her. What kind of a person am I? What kind of person does something like that? To her own child.”

  “Eva.” He put his arm around her, she huddled up to him and they sat like that on the edge of the bed while the snow quietly settled over the city.

  When they had been sitting for some time Erlendur whispered to her to wait for him in the room. He was going to take her home and celebrate Christmas with her. They looked at each other. Calmer now, she gave a nod.

  But now he was standing at the door of a room on the floor below watching Osp at work. He couldn’t stop thinking about Eva. He knew he had to hurry back to her, take her home, be with her and spend Christmas with her.