Arctic Chill

by Arnaldur Indridason

  'You can do that later,' the man said.

  He stared at Elínborg. His wife stood beside the table and said nothing. The children wolfed down their food. Biggi looked at Elínborg as he sucked up a piece of spaghetti. He had tomato sauce all round his mouth.

  'Do you know whether Elías was on his own when he went home from school today?' Elínborg asked.

  Biggi shook his head, his mouth full of spaghetti.

  The man looked at his wife.

  'I don't think that has anything to do with Biggi,' he said.

  'He was really sweet, that boy, polite and well brought-up,' the woman said. 'He was the only one who thanked us for inviting him to the birthday party and he wasn't noisy like the other kids.'

  As she said this she looked at her husband, as if justifying having invited Elías to their son's birthday party. Elínborg looked at the parents in turn and then at the children, who had stopped eating and were watching the adults apprehensively. They sensed that an argument was brewing.

  'When was this birthday party?' Elínborg asked, looking at the mother.

  'Three weeks ago.'

  'Around Christmas? And everything went well?'

  'Yes, very well. Don't you think so, Biggi?' she asked with a glance at her son. She avoided looking at her husband.

  Biggi nodded. He looked at his father, uncertain whether he ought to say what he wanted to say.

  'Will you please leave us in peace now?' the man said, standing up. 'We'd like to eat.'

  'Did you see Elías when he came to the birthday party?'

  'I work eighteen hours a day,' the man said.

  'He's never home,' the woman said. 'There's no need to be so rude to her,' she added, darting a look at her husband.

  'Do immigrants get on your nerves?' Elínborg asked.

  'I've got nothing against those people,' the man said. 'Biggi doesn't know that kid in the slightest. They weren't friends. We can't help you with anything. Now will you please leave us alone!'

  'Of course,' Elínborg said, looking down at the plates of spaghetti. She pondered for a moment, then gave up and left.

  'It was a very ordinary day at school,' Agnes, Elías's form teacher, told Sigurdur Óli. 'I think I can say that. Except that I moved the boy to a different seat in the classroom. I'd been meaning to for some time and I finally did it this morning.'

  They were sitting in the study at Agnes's house. She had produced a cigarette from a drawer. Sigurdur Óli watched her cast a surreptitious glance at the door, then sit down by the window, light the cigarette and blow the smoke outside. He could not understand people who wanted to kill themselves by smoking. He was convinced that smoking caused more harm than any other single factor in the world, and sometimes lectured on the subject at work. Erlendur, a smoker, paid no heed and once answered that he was convinced that what caused more harm than any other single factor in the world was dyed-in-the-wool killjoys like Sigurdur Óli.

  'Elías was a bit late,' Agnes continued. 'He wasn't usually, although he used to dawdle a bit. He was often the last to leave the class, the last to get his books out and that sort of thing. He would be thinking about something completely different. He was a sort of "flight attendant".' Agnes made a sign for quotation marks with her fingers.

  'Flight attendant?'

  'Vilhjálmur calls them that, the sports teacher. He's from the Westman Islands.'

  Sigurdur Óli gave her a blank look.

  'The children who are last to leave after gym.'

  'You moved him to a different seat?' Sigurdur Óli said, at a complete loss about flight attendants and the Westman Islands.

  'It's not uncommon,' Agnes said. 'We do it for various reasons. I only did it indirectly because of him. Elías was good at maths. He was way ahead of his classmates, even of the rest of his year, but the boy who sat beside him, poor old Birgir – or Biggi, as he's known – has trouble puzzling out how two and two could possibly make four.'

  Agnes looked Sigurdur Óli in the eye.

  'I know I shouldn't say things like that,' she said sheepishly. Anyway, Biggi's mother came to see me and told me how he was always complaining about being stupid, and when she wheedled out of him what it was all about he said that Elías was much better than him at everything. His mother was really quite embarrassed about it. It's not uncommon and there's often a simple solution. I made Elías sit somewhere else. I put him next to a lovely girl who's another excellent pupil'

  Agnes inhaled the smoke, then blew it out of the window.

  'What about Elías? Didn't he have any problems?'

  'Yes,' Agnes said. 'He found Icelandic quite difficult. He and his brother used to speak Thai to each other. It's what they spoke at home. Kids can get confused by that.'

  She stubbed out her cigarette.

  'So Elías was a bit late this morning?' Sigurdur Óli said.

  Holding the cigarette butt between her fingers, Agnes nodded.

  'I'd started taking the register when Elías finally showed up. The whole class watched him sit down. His hair was ruffled and he was sleepy, as if he hadn't fully woken up yet. I asked him if he was all right and he just nodded. But he was very dreamy. He sat there with his bag on the desk, looking out of the window at the playground, and seemed to be in a world of his own. He didn't hear me when I started teaching. Just sat staring out of the window. I went over and asked what he was thinking about.

  ' "About the bird," he said. "What bird?" "The one I dreamed about," he said. "The bird that died."'

  Agnes put the cigarette butt in her pocket and shut the window. It was cold indoors by now and she shivered when she stood up. A storm was forecast for that evening and night.

  'I didn't ask him any more about it,' she said. 'Children often say things like that. I didn't see him again until lunchtime. In the break and at mealtime. I didn't notice him in particular. They had an art lesson that morning, maybe you should talk to Brynhildur too. Then they had a double period with me after lunch. The last lesson was gym with Vilhjálmur. He was Elías's last teacher today.'

  'He's next on the list,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'Can you tell me anything about.. .' He browsed through his notebook looking for the name that the principal had given him. 'Kjartan, the Icelandic teacher?'

  'Kjartan's not exactly a barrel of laughs,' Agnes said, 'as you'll soon discover for yourself. He doesn't keep his views to himself. Quite a pain in the neck really. A former sports star. He used to play handball, then something happened to him. I don't know exactly what. He's not stupid though. He mainly teaches the older children.'

  With a nod, Sigurdur Óli put his notebook in his jacket and then said goodbye to Agnes. On his way out to the car, his mobile rang. It was his wife Bergthóra. She had seen the news on television and knew he would be late home.

  'It's awful,' she said. 'Was he really stabbed?'

  'Yes,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'I have a lot to do and we don't know where to begin. Don't wait up for me.'

  'Do you have any idea who did it?'

  'No. His brother's gone missing. His elder brother. He might know something. Erlendur thinks so anyway.'

  'That he did it?'

  'No, but—'

  'Isn't it more likely that he's been attacked too? Has Erlendur considered that?'

  'I'll pass that on to him,' Sigurdur Óli said drily. Sometimes Bergthóra inadvertently revealed that she had more faith in Erlendur than in her husband when it came to criminal investigations. Sigurdur Óli knew that she meant well, but it got on his nerves.

  He grimaced. A response like that risked provoking Bergthóra's wrath but he was tired and peevish and knew that she wanted him to come home as soon as possible. They had to talk things over. Bergthóra's suggestion. A few days before she had proposed that they should look into the possibility of adopting a child from abroad. They could not have children together. Sigurdur Óli had been unenthusiastic about the idea. Hesitantly, he suggested that they put up with the status quo for the time being. Their attempts to have a b
aby had put a strain on their relationship. Sigurdur Óli wanted them to have a year free of worries about children or adoption. Bergthóra was more impatient. She yearned to have a baby.

  'Oh, of course I shouldn't go sticking my nose in,' she said over the phone.

  'It's perfectly feasible that his brother was attacked too,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'We're examining all the possibilities.'

  There was silence on the line.

  'Has Erlendur found that woman?' Bergthóra eventually asked.

  'No. She's still missing.'

  'Do you know any more about that case?'

  'Not really.'

  'If I'm asleep, will you wake me up when you get home?'

  'I'll do that,' Sigurdur Óli said, and they rang off.

  8

  The boys were playing indoor football with great zeal. They fought over every single ball and did not flinch from playing dirty. Sigurdur Óli saw one of them go in for a sliding tackle that could have broken his opponent's leg. When the victim crashed to the floor he yelled at the top of his voice and clutched his ankle.

  'Watch out, lads!' the coach shouted into the pitch. 'None of that, Geiri! Come on, Raggi,' he called to the boy who was climbing to his feet after the tackle.

  He sent on a substitute for Raggi and the game continued just as violently as before. There were far more boys at football practice than could play at once, so the coach made frequent substitutions. Sigurdur Óli watched from the sidelines. The coach was Vilhjálmur, Elías's sports teacher. He had an extra part-time job as a boys' football trainer, as his wife had told Sigurdur Óli when he stood on their doorstep. She had directed him to the sports hall.

  The practice was coming to an end. Vilhjálmur blew the whistle that hung around his neck and a boy who seemed unhappy with the result gave the ball an almighty kick, hitting one of his teammates on the back of the head. After some commotion, Vilhjálmur blew his whistle again and called out to the boys to stop that nonsense and get along to the showers. The two boys stopped their brawling.

  'Isn't that a bit rough?' Sigurdur Óli asked as he walked over to Vilhjálmur. The boys stared at the policeman. They had never seen such a well-dressed man in the hall before.

  'They get quite boisterous sometimes,' Vilhjálmur said, shaking Sigurdur Óli's hand. A short, chubby man aged about thirty, he gathered up the goalpost cones and balls and threw them into a storeroom that he then locked. 'These kids need toughening up. They come here fat and lazy from pizza and computer games and I get them to take some exercise. Are you here about Elías?' he said.

  'You were his last teacher today, I understand,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  Vilhjálmur had heard about the murder and said he could hardly believe the news.

  'You feel completely thrown by something like this,' he said. 'Elías was a great kid – dedicated to sport. I think he really enjoyed playing football. I don't know what to say.'

  'Did you notice anything special or unusual about him today?'

  'It was just a normal day. I made them run a bit and vault over the box, then we split them up into teams. They enjoy football most. Handball too.'

  'Did Elías go straight home from school, do you think?'

  'I have no idea where he went,' Vilhjálmur said.

  'Was he the last to leave?'

  'Elías was always the last to leave,' Vilhjálmur said.

  'Was he a "flight attendant"?'

  Are you from the Westman Islands too?'

  'No. Not exactly. You're ... ?'

  'We moved here when I was twelve.'

  'Was Elías hanging around then, or ... ?'

  'That's just the way he was,' Vilhjálmur said. 'He took a long time to leave. He was slow at changing his clothes. He sort of dithered about and you had to chivvy him along.'

  'What was he doing then?'

  'Just preoccupied, in a world of his own.'

  'Today too?'

  'Probably, though I didn't particularly notice. I had to rush off to a meeting.'

  'Did you see anyone waiting for him outside? Notice if he met anyone? Did he seem afraid to go home? Could you sense anything like that about him?'

  'No, nothing. I didn't see anything unusual outside. The kids were heading off home. I don't think anyone was waiting for him. But then, I wasn't thinking along those lines. You don't think about that sort of thing.'

  'Not until afterwards,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Yes, of course. But as I say, I didn't notice anything unusual. He displayed no signs of fear during the lesson. Didn't say anything to me. He was just the same as always. After all, nothing of that kind has ever happened here before. Never. I can't understand anyone wanting to attack Elías, simply can't understand it. It's horrific'

  'Do you know the Icelandic teacher at the school, a man by the name of Kjartan?'

  'Yes.'

  'Apparently he has certain views about immigrants.'

  'That's putting it mildly'

  'Do you agree with him?'

  'Me? No, he strikes me as a nutjob. He ...'

  'He what?'

  'He's rather bitter,' Vilhjálmur said. 'Have you met him?'

  'No.'

  'He's an old sporting hero,' Vilhjálmur said. 'I remember him well from handball. Damn good player. Then something happened, he was badly injured and had to quit. Just as he was turning professional. He'd been signed up by a Spanish club. I think that festers. He's not a likeable sort of character.'

  Shouts and cries came from the boys' changing rooms along the corridor. Vilhjálmur set off in that direction to calm the boys down.

  'Do you know what happened?' he said over his shoulder.

  'Not yet,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Hope you catch the bastard. Was it racially motivated?'

  'We don't know anything.'

  Kjartan's wife was in her early thirties, slightly younger than the Icelandic teacher himself, and rather scruffily dressed in jogging pants that detracted unnecessarily from her looks. Two children stood behind her. Sigurdur Óli cast a glance inside the dim flat. The couple did not appear particularly house-proud. Instinctively, he thought about his own flat where everything was spick and span. The thought sent a warm feeling through him as he stood outside in the cold, pierced by the bitter wind. This flat was one of four in the building, on the ground floor.

  The woman called her husband and he came to the door, also wearing jogging pants and a vest that looked two sizes too small and emphasised its owner's expanding paunch. He seemed to make do with shaving once a week and there was a bad-tempered look on his face that Sigurdur Óli could not quite fathom, something about his eyes that expressed antipathy and anger. He remembered having seen that expression before, that face, and recalled Vilhjálmur's words about the fallen sports star.

  A face from the past, Erlendur would have said. He sometimes made remarks that Sigurdur Óli disliked because he did not understand them, snatches from those old tales that were Erlendur's only apparent interest in life. The two men were poles apart in their thinking. While Erlendur sat at home reading old Icelandic folklore or fiction, Sigurdur Óli would sit in front of the television watching American cop shows with a bowl of popcorn in his lap and a bottle of Coke on the table. When he joined the police force he modelled himself on such programmes. He was not alone in thinking that a job with the police could sharpen one's image. Recruits still occasionally turned up for work dressed like American TV cops, in jeans and back-to-front baseball cap.