‘I don’t know of anyone he had a steady or long-term relationship with. He’d never lived with anyone.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I spoke to him before the weekend. We were thinking of meeting up. I asked if he had anything special planned but he said he was going to stay in.’
‘And you phoned him on the Saturday?’
The police had examined Runólfur’s phone records for several weeks before his death, both landline and mobile phones, and Elínborg had received the list earlier that day. Runólfur did not receive many phone calls. Most of them concerned his work, but there was a handful of numbers that the police intended to investigate further. Edvard’s name cropped up more often than any other.
‘I was going to suggest we watched the English football at the Sports Bar. We sometimes go – sometimes went there on Saturdays. He said there was something he had to do. He didn’t say what.’
‘Did he sound cheerful?’
‘Just the same as usual,’ Edvard replied.
‘Did you ever go to the gym together?’
‘I went with him now and then. I just had a coffee – I don’t work out.’
‘Did he ever mention his parents?’ Elínborg went on.
‘No. Never.’
‘Anything about his childhood, the village where he grew up?’
‘No.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Football … and all that. Films. The usual stuff. Nothing important.’
‘Women?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Did you know what he thought of women, in a general way?’
‘Nothing unusual or abnormal. He didn’t hate women – his attitude was quite ordinary. If he saw an attractive girl or something like that, he’d mention it. As we do. All of us.’
‘He was interested in films?’
‘Yes. American action movies.’
‘Superheroes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He just enjoyed them. Me too. It was one of the things we had in common.’
‘Do you have pictures of them on your walls?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t they all live a double life?’
‘Who?’
‘Those superheroes.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Aren’t they usually ordinary blokes who change into someone else? In a phone box, or whatever? I’m no expert.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Did your friend live a double life?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
10
Indian restaurants in Reykjavík were few and far between, and Elínborg was familiar with all of them. She did the rounds in the hope of tracing the owner of the shawl, which she took with her and showed to the restaurant workers. The pungent aroma had faded now and nobody said they had seen the shawl before. Elínborg could rule the restaurant staff out easily: they were few in number, and most worked in family businesses; they had no difficulty providing alibis for where they’d been at the time of the crime.
The restaurants had a number of regular customers; the police gathered information about them and investigated them, again without result. The same applied to the very few Indians who lived in Iceland. Within a short time the police were able to conclude that none of them was involved in the case.
Elínborg knew of only one place in Reykjavík that sold tandoori pots, along with other equipment – supplies, spices, oils and so on – for Indian cuisine. She shopped there herself and was acquainted with the owner, who was also the only employee. Jóhanna was about Elínborg’s age, an Icelander who had once lived in India. She was a very frank woman, ready to tell anyone and everyone all about herself, so Elínborg knew that Jóhanna had travelled widely in the east when she’d been young, and that for her India was a promised land. She had spent two years there before returning to Iceland and opening a shop selling Asian imports.
‘I don’t sell a lot of tandoori pots,’ said Jóhanna. ‘One or two a year, I’d say. And some people don’t want them for cooking, but as ornaments.’
She knew that Elínborg was a police officer; she was familiar with her interest in cookery and had commented favourably on Elínborg’s cookbook. Elínborg had explained that she was looking for a young woman of around thirty, who might be interested in Indian cuisine. She said no more and did not mention the case in which the girl was involved, but Jóhanna was far too inquisitive and talkative to settle for such meagre information.
‘What do you want with her?’ Jóhanna asked.
‘It concerns a drugs case,’ Elínborg replied. She did not feel she was straying too far from the truth. ‘I’m not necessarily thinking of tandoori pots as such, but the spices in general: the saffron, coriander, annatto, garam masala, nutmeg. Do you have a customer who buys them regularly – maybe someone with dark hair, maybe about thirty?’
‘A drugs case?’
Elínborg smiled.
‘So I won’t get any more out of you?’
‘It’s just a routine enquiry,’ answered Elínborg.
‘It’s not that murder in Thingholt, is it? Aren’t you working on that case?’
‘Does anyone come to mind?’ asked Elínborg, avoiding Jóhanna’s question.
‘Business isn’t all that good at the minute,’ said Jóhanna. ‘People can buy a lot of these supplies online, or in the better supermarkets. I don’t have many good, dependable customers like you. Not that I’m complaining.’
Elínborg waited patiently. Jóhanna saw that she was not interested in hearing about the challenges of running a small business.
‘I can’t think of anyone in particular,’ she said. ‘All sorts of people come here, as you know. Including women of about thirty. A lot of dark-haired ones.’
‘This one might have been in a few times. She’s probably interested in Asian cookery, Indian food, tandoori dishes. You might have talked to her about it.’
Jóhanna did not speak for a long time. Then she shook her head.
Elínborg took the shawl out of her bag and unfolded it on the counter. All the necessary tests had now been completed. ‘Can you remember a young woman coming into the shop wearing this shawl?’
Jóhanna examined the shawl carefully. ‘Isn’t this cashmere?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s beautiful. It’s an Indian design. Where was it made?’ She looked for a laundry label, but found none. ‘I don’t recall ever seeing it before,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ answered Elínborg. ‘Thank you.’ She folded the shawl up and returned it to her bag.
‘Are you looking for its owner?’ asked Jóhanna.
Elínborg nodded.
‘I can give you a few names,’ said Jóhanna after a lot of thought. ‘I … there are names on credit-card receipts, and so on.’
‘That would be a great help,’ said Elínborg.
‘You mustn’t say where you got the information,’ said Jóhanna. ‘I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘I understand.’
‘I don’t want my customers finding out that I’ve told the police about my dealings with them.’
‘Of course. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.’
‘Do you want to go back a long way?’
‘Just start with the last six months, if you don’t mind.’
Of the people Runólfur had met through his work, the majority described a polite and personable engineer who came and dealt with their problems with their telephone, broadband or TV. Whether he had visited them at home or at a place of work, they all spoke well of him. The list of his call-outs over the past two months was quite extensive. Runólfur had been sent on such house calls once or twice a day throughout that period; in some cases he had returned to the same place twice, or even three times. His reputation was excellent. People found him helpful and easy to talk to; he was efficient, made a good impr
ession and was unfailingly courteous. When a job took an unusually long time he had sometimes accepted a cup of coffee. Elsewhere his visits had been much briefer; if there was no major repair, he just dashed in and out again.
Police questions about whether there had been anything odd in the engineer’s conduct yielded no results – until Elínborg called on a single mother named Lóa in her second-floor flat in Kópavogur. In her early thirties, Lóa was divorced and had a twelve-year-old son. At the time of Runólfur’s death she had been away for the weekend with three friends.
‘Yes, I remember it clearly. I got broadband for Kiddi,’ she said when Elínborg asked her if she remembered Runólfur’s visit.
They sat down in the living room. The flat was small, a riot of clean laundry and dirty clothes, unwashed dishes, a CD player, a hi-fi, two video-game handsets, a large TV, free newspapers and junk mail. Lóa apologised for the mess. She said she worked a lot, and the boy couldn’t be bothered to do anything around the place. ‘He just sits at the computer all day long,’ she said wearily. Elínborg nodded, thinking of Valthór.
Lóa was not particularly surprised that the police wanted to talk to her when she heard that the enquiry was connected with Runólfur’s death. She had seen the news reports and remembered meeting Runólfur when he’d installed the broadband connection; she found it hard to believe that he had met such a violent end. ‘How can you slit someone’s throat?’ she murmured.
Elínborg shrugged. She took to Lóa at once. There was absolutely no pretence in her, and everything she said came straight from the heart. It was clear that she had been through trials and tribulations but she also gave an impression of resilience. She smiled charmingly, with her eyes as well as her lips: Elínborg found her both likeable and interesting.
‘That poor man,’ said Lóa.
‘This Kiddi, is that …?’
‘My son. He’d been asking for broadband for a whole year – some wireless Internet thing. So I eventually agreed, and I don’t regret it. It’s such an improvement, having a fast connection. Kiddi said he could set it up himself but it all went wrong, so I rang up and they sent that man.’
‘I see,’ said Elínborg.
‘So what’s this got to do with me, anyway?’ Lóa asked. ‘Why are you asking me about him? Have I …?’
‘We’re trying to get information from people who had any kind of contact with him,’ answered Elínborg. ‘We don’t know much about Runólfur, or how he came to be killed. We have to try to get an idea of the events. He was from a small village and he didn’t have many friends here in Reykjavík, other than colleagues at work. There’s hardly anyone else.’
‘But, I mean, I didn’t know the guy at all. He just came and installed the broadband.’
‘Yes, I know. What did you make of him?’
‘He was fine. He came after five, when I’d got home from work, just like you. He just got on with it, connected us to the Internet. It didn’t take long. Then he left.’
‘And he came just that once?’
‘No, actually he called back the following day, or the day after, because he’d left something behind – a screwdriver, I think. He wasn’t in so much of a hurry that time.’
‘So you chatted, did you, or …?’
‘A bit. He was very pleasant. Nice enough. He told me he went to a gym.’
‘Do you work out too? Did he recognise you from there?’
‘No, he didn’t know me. I can’t be bothered with gyms and I told him so. I bought a year’s gym membership once. Highly optimistic. But I stopped going after a few weeks. He said he was never tempted to give up.’
‘Did you get the impression he was coming on to you?’ asked Elínborg. ‘Did he say anything like that?’
‘No, nothing like that. He was just pleasant.’
‘That’s what everybody says. That he was a good guy.’ Elínborg smiled briefly, and thought to herself that this interview had given her nothing. She was about to go when Lóa took her by surprise.
‘Then, later, I bumped into him in town,’ she said.
‘You did?’
‘I was out for the evening and there he was, all at once. He started talking to me like we were old friends. He was very friendly, wanted to buy me a drink and all that. Really nice.’
‘So you met by chance?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Did he know you’d be there?’
‘No, not at all. It was quite random.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Happened? Nothing did. We just chatted and … nothing.’
‘Were you alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘No one was with you?’
‘No.’
‘When you were chatting here, did you tell him where you like to go for an evening out? What your favourite places were, or anything?’
Lóa thought back. ‘We mentioned it, but only in passing. I never thought … Hang on, are you connecting this to …?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Elínborg.
‘He was talking about nightlife. He said he lived downtown and he asked me what it was like here in the suburbs, in Kópavogur. So we talked a bit about that when he came back that time, for his screwdriver or whatever. So far as I remember, it was something like that.’
‘And did you mention anywhere?’
Lóa thought again.
‘There’s one place I always go.’
‘Which one?’
‘Thorvaldsen.’
‘Is that where you met him?’
‘Yes.’
‘By chance?’
‘It is a bit odd, when you put it like that.’
‘What’s odd?’
‘I had the feeling, somehow, that he’d been waiting for me. I don’t quite know what it was but there was something fake about the way he was so pleased to see me, and surprised to meet me there, and all that. What a pleasant coincidence it was, and so on. He … I don’t know. Anyway, nothing happened. All of a sudden he seemed to lose interest, and then he went off.’
‘You say he offered you a drink?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you accepted?’ asked Elínborg.
‘No. Well, yes, but not an alcoholic one.’
‘Yes? What?’ Elínborg was trying not to push her but she failed abjectly.
‘I’ve given up drinking,’ said Lóa. ‘I can’t. Not a drop.’
‘I understand.’
‘My husband left me, you see, and everything was such a mess, and I thought they were going to take Kiddi away from me, but I managed to stop. I go to meetings, and everything. It’s saved my life.’
‘So Runólfur suddenly lost interest?’ asked Elínborg.
‘Yes.’
‘Because you didn’t want a drink?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He offered you a drink, but you didn’t accept, because you don’t drink, and he lost interest.’
‘I had a ginger ale. He bought it for me.’
‘It’s not the same,’ said Elínborg.
‘The same as what?’
‘Alcohol. When he was here, did you tell him you don’t drink?’
‘No, it was none of his business. What are you getting at?’
Elínborg said nothing.
‘So will I never meet anyone ever again, because I don’t drink?’
Elínborg smiled at her reasoning. ‘It’s possible that Runólfur was rather unusual in that respect,’ she said. ‘I can’t say any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you seen the news?’
‘Sort of.’
‘There have been reports that a particular drug was found in Runólfur’s home. A date-rape drug.’
Lóa gazed at her. ‘That he used?’ she asked.
‘Possibly.’
‘Don’t they put it into alcoholic drinks?’
‘Yes. The alcohol intensifies the effect – it affects the memory as well. It’s more likely to cause amnesia
if it’s taken with alcohol.’
Lóa started connecting the dots: the telecoms engineer who came twice to her home, whom she then ran into by chance at a bar in town; the reports of date-rape drugs slipped into women’s drinks; the alcoholism with which she had battled for many years; the soft drinks she always ordered when she went out; how Runólfur suddenly lost interest; his violent death. All at once she saw herself in a bizarre, chilly, terrifying place. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she sighed, looking at Elínborg in astonishment. ‘Are you kidding me?’
Elínborg did not say a word.
‘Was he planning to rape me?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Elínborg.
‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Lóa in a sudden fury. ‘He didn’t find the screwdriver when he came back here. He said he’d left one behind. Looked everywhere. Talked to me as if we were old friends. Maybe there was no screwdriver. Was he having me on?’
Elínborg shrugged.
‘What a bastard!’ said Lóa, staring at Elínborg. ‘I would have killed him, that bloody shit. I would so have fucking killed him! What on earth is wrong with these men?’
‘They’re crazy,’ said Elínborg.
Binna Geirs was short for a far more sonorous name: Brynhildur Geirhardsdóttir. Elínborg thought it suited her: she was tall and heavily built, almost like a trollwife from a book of fairy tales, with long hair cascading down her back like thickets of vegetation. She had a large-featured face with a red nose, a powerful jaw and neck, and long arms. Her legs were like tree trunks. Next to her Fridbert seemed almost elflike: small and puny, with a completely bald head, big protruding ears, and small eyes under furry brows.
Solla had been right; Berti, sometimes known as Shorty for obvious reasons, had moved in with Binna. They were living in a small wooden house – which Binna had inherited from her parents – on Njálsgata near the city centre. She had somehow contrived not to lose it through the many vicissitudes of her life. The once-elegant little house with its traditional corrugated-iron cladding was now dilapidated, with a leaky roof, draughty windows and creeping rust. Looking after her possessions was not one of Binna’s talents.
Binna and Berti were both at home the second time Elínborg called round. The first time she had knocked at the door there had been no answer, and she had seen no sign of life when she peeked in at the window. On the second occasion the door was flung open and Brynhildur Geirhardsdóttir herself stood in the doorway, displeased at the interruption. She was wearing an old woollen sweater and faded jeans, and in one hand she held a wooden spoon.
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