The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  This lame reply only made Huldar angrier. ‘Correction. Nobody else is waiting.’ He shifted to the front of the chair, which he had sat down on without waiting for an invitation, and reached out to turn the monitor away so Erla couldn’t pretend to be looking at it. ‘If we don’t get a job to do in the next fifteen minutes, I’m going home. This is a joke. You only sent us out this morning because you assumed it was a time-waster.’ Huldar’s voice was cold, his face unsmiling.

  Erla cleared her throat. ‘That was a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes.’ She said nothing for a moment, just pulled her screen back to face her. ‘A lucky mistake as it turns out. If younger, less experienced uniforms had been sent to the scene, they might have missed the signs. It’s started snowing and the evidence would soon have been covered up. Outdoors, anyway.’ Inside they had found an awful lot of blood, from what Huldar had gathered, and, according to the pathologist, the person who had lost it must have been very seriously wounded. There was a large pool of it on the kitchen floor and splashes halfway up the walls. So far, they’d been unable to ascertain what kind of weapon had been used. If it was still in the house, it must have been cleaned and replaced. But if the killer wasn’t a complete idiot, he’d have taken the weapon away with him.

  ‘You had no way of knowing what would come out of it. You just wanted to waste our time.’ Huldar stood up.

  As he reached for the handle, the door opened to admit Erla’s boss. He was looking uncharacteristically pleased for someone who habitually walked around wearing the morose expression of a man who had last smiled when he’d blown out all the candles in one go on his sixth birthday cake. He was the kind of old-school bastard who gets his way by throwing his weight around, a method that had got him to where he was now. And he couldn’t care less how many people he trampled over on the way, so long as it smoothed his path to his goal. But he wasn’t rising any higher; he was due to be pensioned off soon. Given his massive unpopularity, his leaving party was sure to be packed out with colleagues keen to toast his retirement.

  Acting as if Huldar wasn’t there, he addressed Erla. ‘Good work this morning.’

  Erla’s forehead puckered in a puzzled frown. It wasn’t every day that her boss or any of the other senior officers praised her. ‘Sorry?’

  As usual her boss ploughed on without listening. ‘Plenty of people would have overlooked that phone call from the cleaner. You’re pretty sharp.’

  Erla was silent. She may have wanted to say something but as Huldar wasn’t budging it was hard for her to agree and she was unlikely to tell her boss the truth.

  ‘Anyway, my time’s nearly up and I’ve been asked to nominate possible successors. I have to say I’m pretty underwhelmed by most of the internal candidates but I like your style. Keep it up and I’ll put your name at the top of the list. I just wanted you to know.’ His gaze fell on Huldar and the familiar morose look descended again. ‘The only problem will be finding someone to fill your boots. We’re not exactly drowning in talent.’

  Huldar beamed at him. The jibe didn’t hurt. Didn’t even smart. The last thing he wanted was to do Erla’s job again.

  The man turned back to Erla. ‘Remember – I’ve got my eye on you. We’re under a lot of pressure to get a quick solve. The sooner you find the culprit, the better. The longer it drags on …’ He left the sentence unfinished. ‘Well, best of luck.’

  After he had gone, there was dead silence. Huldar thought it only natural that Erla should be the first to speak about what had just happened but she merely stared at her wonky screen as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Right.’ Huldar gave her a chance to react but she didn’t; didn’t even mutter a grudging thanks for holding his tongue while she received praise she didn’t deserve. He shook his head. ‘OK. Like I said, I’m off home.’ He stalked over to the door, desperate now to get out of there, away from her, into the fresh air. Desperate for a cigarette that he would suck down in four deep drags.

  ‘Huldar.’ This came just as his hand grasped the door-handle. He didn’t turn, doubting he would be able to hide his contempt if all she offered him was an insincere apology. ‘I’ll find something for you two to do,’ she continued. ‘Come back with Gudlaugur in ten minutes.’

  He walked out without a backward glance or a word of thanks. He shouldn’t have to thank her. It was her job to keep him supplied with work.

  The coffee tasted much better now that Huldar had a purpose again. The assignment they’d been given wasn’t exactly thrilling but at least it was connected to the inquiry and didn’t involve pets. Erla had even brought them up to speed on the investigation, so he was no longer burning with questions – questions he couldn’t ask his colleagues without risking mockery and the usual crap from those who believed they had the upper hand. There had been a complete turnaround in his fortunes. Now he had a hold over Erla, which meant no one else in the department could touch him. He was going to milk what he could from the current situation. As soon as she started thinking straight she’d realise that Huldar would never report her or correct the misunderstanding, no matter how angry he was. And then they would be back to square one.

  ‘Would you like a tissue?’ Gudlaugur drew a small packet from his jacket pocket and handed it to Egill’s sister, Ásdís. Huldar admired his thoughtfulness. His own pockets contained cigarettes and lighter, coins, house keys and an empty packet of Ópal liquorice that he hadn’t got round to replacing. Nothing he could offer this young woman. Perhaps this difference between them could be traced to the fact that Gudlaugur had been a boy scout, whereas Huldar had gone in for glíma – traditional Icelandic wrestling – as a means of self-defence against his sisters, and built makeshift dens, neither of which had prepared him for the present circumstances.

  Ásdís extracted a tissue, dried her tears and blew her nose. Not that it did much good. She’d no sooner put it down than she needed another one. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think I had any tears left.’ She regarded them with swollen red eyes. ‘Do I have to stay here? Tonight, I mean?’ She lifted up the small dog that was lying in her lap and kissed its rough fur. There were still traces of blood on its paws but she didn’t seem to have noticed and they weren’t about to draw her attention to them.

  ‘Yes. They think it could help. You see, there’s still a chance the blood might not have been your brother’s, though we’re having trouble tracking him down. If he rings home, we need someone he knows to answer the phone.’ Huldar placed his hands on the arms of his leather-upholstered chair. Gudlaugur was sitting in a matching chair beside him. Between them was a small glass table of the kind he’d seen in the pictures of celebrity homes in glossy magazines. He wouldn’t be surprised if this three-piece suite hadn’t featured as well. These were the kind of furnishings that usually appeared under headings like ‘Designer Paradise’. ‘It’s also just possible that the person who abducted your brother – if he was abducted – might call. In that case it would be better for you to answer than one of us.’

  ‘But what am I supposed to say?’ The young woman’s red-rimmed eyes widened with fear.

  ‘Just answer the questions he puts to you. And listen to what he says. It’s highly unlikely that anyone will ring, but if they do, there’ll be two female officers here to assist you. You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Ásdís’s gaze swept round the living room, which showed clear signs of a visit by Forensics. ‘My brother wasn’t safe here.’

  ‘No. But he was alone. You’ll have two police officers with you.’ Huldar watched her pull out another tissue to staunch the tears that had started pouring down her cheeks again. ‘With any luck your parents will manage to catch a plane this evening and be home by midnight. They’ll need you here.’ Huldar watched as the dog closed its eyes, content to be in its owner’s arms again. It appeared indifferent to the upheaval but hadn’t left Ásdís’s side for a moment since Huldar and Gudlaugur had arrived. ‘Let me stress that it’s not certain your brother has been
the victim of an attack. There may be another reason for his absence.’ The police were also looking into the possibility that it was Egill himself who had beaten someone to a pulp in the kitchen, then removed the body. But there was no need to tell his sister that. No Snaps had been sent from the boy’s phone, but then it still hadn’t been found and couldn’t be traced. If it hadn’t been for the message on the sheet of paper in the window, there would have been no reason to connect his case to Stella’s.

  ‘Do you think Egill’s OK?’

  ‘We don’t know. But of course we’re all hoping he is,’ Huldar lied smoothly. Few, if any, of them believed the boy would be found alive, though of course it wasn’t impossible. He turned to the questions they’d been ordered to put to her while waiting for the female officers to arrive. Ásdís had already been interviewed once but she had been too distressed to provide any coherent answers. She had got the news when she came out of a lecture, switched on her phone and found a message to ring the police immediately. Afterwards, they had gone to collect her from the university where she was still standing outside the lecture room, leaning against the wall, rigid with horror.

  ‘Are you close? You and Egill?’

  ‘Yes.’ The girl focused on the dog, as if to avoid looking at Huldar and Gudlaugur.

  ‘Was your brother a friend of yours on Snapchat?’

  ‘Er … yes, I think so.’ She reached for her phone, which was lying on the coffee table, and fiddled with it briefly. ‘Yes. He’s there.’ The implications of this question didn’t seem to have struck her.

  ‘You’re five years older than him, aren’t you?’

  ‘Four and a half.’

  ‘So you don’t share the same friends?’

  ‘No.’ Ásdís raised her eyes. ‘Why would we? He’s my little brother. You don’t think one of his friends did this, do you?’

  Huldar didn’t answer. He was the one asking the questions. ‘Can you think of anyone who had it in for your brother? Anyone his age he didn’t get on with, or an adult, even?’

  Ásdís appeared to give this some thought. ‘No one I can think of. Of course, I know less about what’s going on in his life now I’ve left home, but before that there was nothing wrong, as far as I know. He’s gone around with the same group of friends since he was six. They don’t fight much. I’d be surprised if that had changed.’

  No one spoke for a few moments as Huldar tried to think of a tactful way of asking whether her brother had ever bullied anyone. The question wasn’t on the list he’d been provided with but he felt it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Maybe it would be best to get straight to the point. ‘Do you know if Egill ever took part in bullying?’

  ‘Bullying?’ Ásdís looked perplexed, as if she’d never heard the word before. Perhaps problems of that kind were not part of her world, since in spite of her bloodshot eyes and puffy face, it was clear that this young woman had everything going for her in life. She was clever, pretty, in good shape, and her clothes, phone, bag and the car parked outside were all well beyond the budget of your average university student. Judging by the constant buzzing of her phone, she had plenty of friends too. Her demeanour was that of someone who’d never had to struggle in life. Her phone buzzed yet again, as if to emphasise the fact. Every time it made a noise, her eyes automatically darted to the screen, even when she was in floods of tears.

  At first Huldar and Gudlaugur had reacted the same way. Every new alert could be a notification that she’d received a Snap. And every new Snap could be what all those working on the investigation were dreading: a photo or video sent from Egill’s phone. Now that she’d confirmed she was on his list of contacts, they automatically glanced at the phone again. They hadn’t seen any reason to take it from her yet. In the unlikely event that Egill rang her in tears, she’d need it to hand. But they’d confiscated the phones of Egill’s closest friends so they could take screenshots of any Snaps that might be sent. The pressure on the police switchboard had been greatly reduced since they’d returned the phones to Stella’s friends, but it would soon be jammed again by another set of teenagers begging to have their phones back, and their grateful parents calling to beg the police to keep them.

  ‘Yes, bullying. Has your brother been mixed up in anything like that?’

  ‘Er … no. Not that I’m aware of. I find it very … unlikely.’ Her hesitation told a different story. ‘Egill’s been in trouble at school but that was for slacking. He’s bright but lazy. If he’s not at football practice, he’s on his computer. School’s always bottom of his list. But as far as I know, the complaints have been to do with his laziness.’

  Huldar’s phone rang. ‘Excuse me.’ Seeing that it was Erla, he waved at Gudlaugur to take over the interview.

  Erla didn’t beat about the bush. ‘Take the girl’s phone. Now. She mustn’t see what’s just come through.’

  It seemed no phone call could be expected from Egill after all. Not today, not this evening or ever again. Huldar did as he was told.

  Chapter 19

  The last video ended. Huldar looked away from the screen to avoid seeing the frozen final frame. It wasn’t only the consequences of violence he abhorred; witnessing the deed itself was just as horrific.

  The phones taken from Egill’s friends had all received the same series of messages, sent at short intervals on Snapchat. Some showed several versions of the same scene: Egill begging for forgiveness for some unspecified transgression. Exactly like Stella. But the police still hadn’t managed to find any links between the two teenagers. They were born in different years, lived in different areas, weren’t related, weren’t friends on social media and had never met, as far as could be established. So the thing they were apologising for could hardly be something they had plotted together. Nevertheless, Egill bore an uncanny resemblance to Stella: the tears, snot, despair and incomprehension had stripped their faces of their maturity, making them appear much younger, like the children they had been until so recently.

  The videos were filmed in the kitchen at Egill’s house. Before being screened in the meeting room, they had been arranged in chronological order. In the first, Egill was on his knees, clutching a bloody hand to his chest. In later clips he was huddled against the kitchen unit, as if seeking refuge. He kept repeating the word ‘Sorry’, just like Stella, until in the end, like her, he didn’t seem to know what he was saying any more, and the word came out increasingly garbled. Now and then a wooden club appeared in the frame, either jabbing hard at the boy or striking him. Although the weapon was never visible in its entirety, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was a baseball bat. But they couldn’t get a proper look at the handle to see how the attacker was holding it. In Huldar’s opinion, there was little to be gained from watching the sequence since there was nothing to see or hear that could possibly help them find out who had done it.

  He found it particularly hard to understand what the last clip was intended to achieve, apart from hardening their resolve to catch the man. It showed Egill’s last moments as his head was repeatedly battered with the club. The boy fell to the floor at the first blow and after that Huldar found it almost impossible to watch any more, regardless of all the fights he’d been involved in himself or the countless occasions when he’d had to overpower members of the public in the line of duty. Those tussles had been quite different. They hadn’t involved weapons and the violence had ceased as soon as the subject had been subdued. You didn’t hit a man when he was down. Let alone a child, an adolescent or anyone else weaker than you.

  He couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Egill’s family and friends to have to watch this. The Snaps had been sent to a long list of people, mostly teenagers, and, according to Erla, there was no sign of the notifications drying up. The police were powerless to stop it: an officer had been given the task of fielding the phone calls, writing down the callers’ names and their connection to Egill, offering them trauma counselling, asking them not to talk to the media and not to open any further me
ssages from Egill. In the case of minors, their parents were alerted, with the warning that more Snaps might be sent.

  The worst phone call, though, was to Egill’s parents, who were still abroad, waiting for their flight home. When the Snaps started arriving, it was a few minutes before it occurred to anyone that the boy’s parents might be among his Snapchat contacts. The officer who drew the short straw and called to notify them realised immediately that it was too late. Although it was Egill’s father’s number he had rung, it might as well have been his mother on the line, so loud were her screams. She had received the videos. It was impossible to establish whether she’d watched them all but the officer advised her husband to snatch her phone away, and in the end he threw it on the floor of the air terminal and stamped on it. While all this was going on, the police officer had been listening at the other end. He was still pale and silent, and could probably have done with a bit of counselling himself.

  The police had scoured the area where the phone had popped up on the network but found nothing; apparently it had been switched off and the battery removed as soon as the Snaps had been sent. At the time, it had been located on Smidjuvegur, in a retail park on the way to Kópavogur, the town immediately to the south of Reykjavík. But none of the people working in the nearby businesses had noticed anything untoward and there were no CCTV cameras in the area. The tracker dogs failed to find any trace of Egill either. They just circled round their handlers, hoping to be rewarded with biscuits. The only positive element was that no body had turned up, so they could still cherish the hope, faint as it was, that Egill might be found alive.

  ‘The parents have got a flight.’ Erla broke the silence that had descended after they’d watched the videos. No doubt she could read the minds of the assembled detectives, who were all male. The only other female officers in the department were both at Egill’s house, keeping his sister company. The powerful odour of competing aftershaves was already getting to Huldar. ‘They’re due to land just after midnight. I’d like a couple of you to pick them up from the airport. We’ve spoken to Customs and their luggage will be taken aside as we can’t expect them to hang about by the bloody baggage carousel. The staff also offered to collect them from the gate and speed them through the arrivals hall, so whoever volunteers will need to turn up at Leifsstöd well ahead of time in case the plane’s early. Any takers?’