Blackout

by Ragnar Jónasson

He turned around and inspected the apartment that he had just advertised for sale. It was a new place, tastefully if blandly furnished, with items purchased from the same shop without too much thought. The walls were white and mostly blank, as the murderously expensive paintings his parents had owned were in storage or with his sister. The only thing on his walls was the clock, its flat batteries ensuring that the time was always one minute past ten. His shelves were stacked with books, not a single family album among them, and there were no photographs to be seen.

  Visitors had stopped coming. He wasn’t in the phone book and his legal residence was registered elsewhere. The phone had been disconnected and he had acquired an unregistered mobile. Nobody ever rang, and that was just fine. At least he was free of night-time phone calls from overwrought people whose relatives had died.

  Things were simpler, even good, now, despite the fact that his wife had left him and they were childless.

  His parents – his father a Swedish chemist and his mother an Icelandic doctor – were both dead. His upbringing, first in Sweden and then in Iceland, had been almost idyllic. He was encouraged to follow his dreams, to embark upon his medical studies, which eventually led to a hospital post. Life had treated him well, and would have continued to do so if he hadn’t allowed his fondness for a drink to spill over into his working life. There were a few near misses, and then there was that error.

  The one that took a patient’s life.

  The subsequent investigation showed that others, too, had been harmed by his inattention, and two had subsequently died. All due to mistakes that could be traced to the doctor’s love affair with the bottle.

  Inevitably, there had been a scandal. The newspapers wouldn’t leave him in peace. For longer than he chose to remember, he had been public enemy number one, with furious night-time phone calls that only ceased when he had the phone disconnected.

  But that was all in the past – a few years ago, now – and the media had forgotten about him. Struck off, he was the subject of several private prosecutions and was ordered by the courts to pay damages. Not that he had been affected in any serious way. His parents had been very wealthy. But it all meant things had changed. He no longer had any desire to live in Reykjavík, rarely venturing outside and failing even to enjoy the exquisite sea view that stretched outside his windows. His curtains remained tightly drawn, and his life had become a moribund series of routines.

  The radio alarm woke him every morning, but he habitually stayed in bed until midday. He’d have soup for lunch while listening to the news, put on a shirt and a pair of flannel trousers, browse through books in his living room and listen to a story on the radio before taking an afternoon nap with a couple of tablets to ensure he would sleep soundly for an hour or two. Then he would wake in time for the TV news as he made himself dinner; fish four days a week, beef mince on Fridays, chicken on Saturdays and lamb for Sunday. Everything stayed that way, week after week, in endless repetition, both a comfort and a noose. He had stopped drinking, and that had turned out to be easier than he had expected, but there was always a threat lurking in the corners of his mind.

  Unless there was something special – a visit to a doctor or a bank that demanded his presence in town – Ríkhardur left the house only once a week. First he’d go to the fish shop, then the supermarket and finally a bookshop.

  He was accustomed to buying three books a week. Despite his virulent reading habits, he had never visited a library. He had no desire to read books that had been through dozens of other hands before his. All those germs, he thought, sickened at the thought.

  Coming home from his weekly outing, he shut himself away in the tidy apartment that nobody else had entered for two years, and he felt safe, appropriately distanced. Secure.

  He wasn’t an easy man to find, and that was exactly what he wanted.

  He was aware that he would be even more difficult to track down once he had moved to the north, but so much time had passed he knew that he was unlikely to provoke any real interest. Until today.

  It had started just like any other. Newspapers, and then soup for lunch, listening to the midday news.

  A man was found dead today on a building site at Reykjaströnd in Skagafjörður.

  Ríkhardur had sat stock still, the soup spoon in his hand, staring at the radio as if he expected the newsreader to step out of it, to venture into his kitchen and confront him.

  He placed the spoon carefully in bowl, his hands trembling slightly, and went to the office where there was a desktop computer, an old machine that he seldom used. Several months had passed since its last outing, but it finally whirred and rattled into life. After several failed attempts, he eventually found his way to a news website that showed him photographs of the murder site.

  Over the years, his mood had rarely changed. He’d become devoid of emotion, and nothing touched or affected him.

  But now he stood up so sharply that the chair toppled behind him onto the floor.

  ‘What the hell?’ he shouted, his heart pounding, every ounce of his being tense with affront.

  16

  The man who answered the door could only be Jökull, Logi’s brother.

  ‘Good morning,’ he drawled, taking stock of Ari Thór through the lenses of his round glasses. There was a frostiness about him, but the family resemblance was unmistakeable. Like fire and ice, Ari Thór thought. Jökull was smaller than Logi, more lithe, but there was no doubt that they were brothers.

  ‘My name’s Ari Thór. I need a few words with you concerning the death of Elías Freysson,’ he said with as much authority as he could invest in his voice, waiting to be asked to come inside.

  But Jökull apparently had no desire to receive guests. ‘Well … yes,’ he said lazily. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Where was your brother last night?’ Ari Thór asked, deciding to get straight to the point.

  ‘What? You don’t think Logi did the man in, do you?’ Jökull asked, in a slow, deep voice.

  It had occurred to Ari Thór to soften the blow, reassuring Jökull that his brother wasn’t under suspicion. But they did need to be sure of the deceased’s workmates’ whereabouts, so as to eliminate them from the investigation. And this cold, laconic man was giving him no reason to handle him with any delicacy.

  ‘Who knows? Perhaps he’s under suspicion…’

  This elicited an immediate response from Jökull, who looked animated for the first time.

  ‘Yeah, well. He was here at home all night,’ he answered quickly.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘We, that’s me and Móna, my wife, we were awake pretty much all night. She’s pregnant and hasn’t been having a great time of it,’ he said, re-arranging his glasses on his nose.

  ‘Could he have left the house without you noticing?’ Ari Thór asked, his voice brusque.

  ‘Well, not unless he jumped out of an upstairs window,’ he said. ‘Look, I know he was home all night. He came downstairs and watched half a movie with us, Seven. Shift work does that to you, makes you end up sleeping at all kinds of strange times.’

  ‘You do shift work as well?’

  He seemed surprised at the question. ‘No. I’m not one for heavy lifting. I’m better off in front of a computer screen. I work at the Savings Bank.’ It was as if he expected Ari Thór to know who worked for the town’s main service companies.

  ‘I need a word with your wife as well,’ Ari Thór said.

  ‘What? My wife? I think she’s asleep.’

  Ari Thór stood on the steps, unsmiling, waiting for time to do its work for him.

  ‘I’ll fetch her,’ Jökull said at last, with a sigh, and vanished into the house.

  Ari Thór took a few steps back, and looked the yellow-painted house up and down while he waited. A small spider clambered up the wall. He guessed the house dated back to the sixties or seventies, and it looked like it had been recently painted.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice was tired. Ari Thór looked around
and saw a heavily pregnant woman in the doorway. ‘I’m Móna. You wanted to talk to me about something?’ She leaned against the doorframe. ‘You’re Ari Thór, aren’t you? Tómas is my cousin. He told me about you.’

  ‘Hello. Just one quick question. Do you know where your brother-in-law, Logi, was last night?’

  ‘Yes. He was here at home,’ she said, clearly exhausted. ‘We kept him awake.’

  She patted her swelling belly and tried to squeeze out a smile.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ari Thór said. ‘That tells me what I needed to know.’

  Walking back to the squad car, his eyes were drawn to the mountains where there was still a bit of snow to be seen.

  The shadow of winter and the heavy snow that would engulf the town as the long days turned into long nights was never far away in Siglufjörður.

  17

  When Ísrún heard on the radio news that Ríkhardur Lindgren was the owner of the house in which the murder had taken place, she drove straight to the office. She could still taste the polluted air in her mouth. The ash cloud over the city had grown thicker and heavier as the day passed. The sun was blotted out by the heavy haze, its presence behind the grey miasma hidden but still felt as the temperature continued to climb.

  That damned volcano … Normally she delighted in hot summer days, but now she would have welcomed a cold northerly gale.

  She remembered the Ríkhardur Lindgren case clearly. He had been in the news before she left to study for her master’s degree, while she was still working on the news desk. Three people had lost their lives due to the doctor’s drinking habit. But in the those days they’d had an unusually cautious news editor, who’d decided not to identify the doctor by name and played down the tragedy as it unfolded.

  According to the national registry, Ríkhardur Lindgren’s legal residence was now in Sweden. Ísrún had a friend, Elín, who had worked at a newspaper when the story was at its hottest and had written some pieces about it. She had since left journalism and moved to a job as a press secretary for a bank. Maybe she would remember something about Ríkhardur – some interesting angle on the story? This might be a chance to score a few points off Ívar, and still be able to leave town to travel to the north in good time.

  ‘Hi,’ she said when the phone was answered, ‘it’s Ísrún.’

  ‘Ísrún! It’s ages since I heard from you,’ Elín replied pleasantly.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been a bit busy.’ That was an understatement. Life had been a roller coaster for the last two years, and with more downs than ups. ‘How are things in the world of PR? I presume you’re managing to spoon-feed your former colleagues with regular good-news stories?’

  ‘It happens from time to time,’ Elín laughed.

  Ísrún decided to plunge straight in while she had Elín in a good mood: ‘Do you mind if I pick your brains for a moment?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You remember Ríkhardur Lindgren?’

  ‘Do I ever?’ Elín replied, her tone sharp. ‘That drunken arsehole.’

  ‘Did you keep tabs on him?’

  ‘Yes I did. After all, I wrote about him a few times, especially when the private prosecutions for damages were going on.’

  ‘Does he live here or did he move to Sweden?’

  ‘The last I heard he was living in a very high-end apartment his sister owns – in the harbour district, if I recall correctly,’ Elín said with satisfaction in her voice; it was clear that she enjoyed helping out a colleague from her days in journalism.

  Half an hour later Ísrún was standing in the entrance lobby of a newish apartment block on Vatnsstígur, a very expensive part of town.

  The sister’s name was nowhere to be seen. However, there was a single unmarked button; a flat on the sixth floor. It had to be the right one.

  She pressed the button, but kept her face turned away from the camera lens next to it. No answer.

  She buzzed a second time and waited.

  The speaker crackled and a hoarse male voice said ‘Hello?’ in an abrupt tone.

  ‘Ríkhardur? I’m from the city police… I need a word with you about your place on the north coast.’

  He muttered something she couldn’t understand and buzzed her into the building.

  She took the lift to the sixth floor. A few years before she would have jogged up the stairs, but she didn’t think she was fit enough for that anymore.

  Finding the right door she pressed another buzzer.

  As the man opened the door, she quickly put a foot inside, smiling as she squeezed herself through the narrow gap.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said in a confused voice. ‘Don’t I know you? That … that scar.’ People didn’t usually mention it, thought Ísrún. ‘I’ve seen you on the television.’ His voice was gaining volume now. ‘You’re no damned copper. You’re a bloody reporter! Get out of here!’

  ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ she said calmly. ‘I have no interest in you and your wretched affairs. But I am interested in finding out about Elías Freysson. If you answer a few questions for me, I promise I won’t mention you in my report. If, on the other hand, you decide to keep quiet…’ she paused. She’d never been so coolly ruthless in the old days. The last two years had changed her. ‘… you can bank on the media being camped outside your door.’

  He gulped.

  ‘I have a cameraman waiting in the car,’ she lied. ‘I can give him a shout. There’s no way you’ll get out of the building without being filmed.’

  He turned away and seemed to be thinking for a moment. ‘What do you want to know about Elías?’ he snarled as he faced her again.

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘Not at all really. He was doing some work for me. I was told he was a skilled workman, and we agreed a fair price for a job.’

  ‘Who put you in touch with him?’ Ísrún persisted.

  ‘A friend of mine in Dalvík. His name’s Svavar. He and Elías were close friends; they’d worked together for years.’

  ‘I want this Svavar’s details – a phone number or an address.’

  He nodded, seemingly defeated.

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered and went into the next room. He returned a moment later with a piece of paper, with something scrawled on it in almost illegible handwriting.

  ‘There you go,’ he said in a harsh voice, handing her the note. ‘And now be off with you.’

  ‘What else do you know about Elías?’ asked Ísrún, without moving. ‘Anything that could be useful?’

  ‘Hell and damnation; I didn’t know the man at all,’ Ríkhardur snapped. ‘The bloody fool, getting himself murdered on my property.’

  Ísrún stood her ground, watching Ríkhardur fume as he tried to think of a way to get rid of her.

  ‘The only other thing I know is that he was involved in charity work, some concert in Akureyri. That’s it. Now get out of here before I call the police.’

  ‘Thanks for being so helpful,’ she said with a smile and made her way out of the apartment. The door slammed shut at her heels.

  She took the lift down and, getting into her car, headed for the road northwards.

  Svavar’s place in Dalvík was going to be her first port of call.

  18

  ‘Posh, aren’t we?’ Hlynur said, watching as Ari Thór opened a tin decorated with a Christmas tree motif, took a few tea leaves and put them in hot water to infuse.

  ‘You don’t know a good thing when you see it,’ Ari Thór retorted. ‘You just swill that muck you call coffee all day long.’

  ‘So Christmas has come early for you, has it?’

  Ari Thór smiled, declining to reply, then took his tea and left the room.

  Hlynur stayed where he was, irritated by the superior smile he had seen on Ari Thór’s face.

  He could feel the jealousy growing inside him; outright anger even. Although perhaps that anger ought to be directed more at Tómas. After all, it was Tómas who had asked Ari Thór to handle the investigation, leaving Hly
nur to deal with all the piddling little cases. Was he preparing Ari Thór to take on even bigger assignments? Or grooming him to be the next inspector at the Siglufjörður station? As the older man with more experience, Hlynur felt that he deserved priority.

  Nothing ever went right for him. And he couldn’t stop thinking about those emails – found it difficult to think of anything else. And now Tómas had put someone else on this big case, the most serious investigation of the last few years. That person being Ari Thór only served to magnify his misery.

  He knew that he desperately needed to escape from this vicious circle of regret and self-pity, but it was easier said than done.

  Would his career simply wither away? Would he be doomed to be a failure? Would he ever be able to haul himself back from the edge and make something of himself, putting the misery of his childhood and misdeeds behind him?

  Once Hlynur had grown up and realised the pain he had caused all those years ago at school, he had been in touch with every one of those people whose lives he had made a misery and had asked for their forgiveness. Some took it well, others didn’t. Gauti was the only one whom he hadn’t been able to reach. He had finally tracked him down through the newspapers. But where he found him was on the obituary pages.

  There was no doubt: Gauti had taken his own life. Hlynur was convinced that this could be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the bullying he had suffered at school. So in all likelihood it was Hlynur who was responsible for the suicide of one of his schoolmates – he’d bullied him to death. And he had left others deeply damaged, too.

  Next time I’ll teach you how to die.

  Sometimes Hlynur was angry or bewildered when he read this spine-chilling message that appeared on his computer.

  Who would dare send him this kind of thing? Someone he knew? Maybe someone in Siglufjörður? Was the sender out there watching him, following him to work and back? Some days he found himself consumed with the suspicion that he was being watched, that someone close at hand was following his every move. He constantly glanced over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.