“I don’t know anything about any Elias,” Andres said. Are you going to charge me? What are you going to charge me with? I haven’t done a thing. Why are you picking on me?”
“Don’t worry,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“What Elias are you talking about?” Andres said, looking at Erlendur.
“Do you remember where you were yesterday afternoon?”
At home,” Andres said. “I was at home. I was home all day, all yesterday I mean. What boy are you talking about?”
A ten-year-old boy was stabbed to death two blocks away from you,” Erlendur said. “Was anyone with you yesterday? Can anyone confirm your alibi?”
A boy killed?” Andres said, shocked. “Who … ? Stabbed?”
“Do you even know what day it is today?” Erlendur asked.
Andres shook his head.
“Please speak into the tape recorder,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“I don’t know. I didn’t attack any boy. I don’t know about any attack. I don’t know anything. I haven’t done anything wrong. Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Do you know the boy?” Erlendur asked.
Andres shook his head. Sigurdur Oli pointed a finger at the tape recorder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”
“He has a brother, five years older,” Erlendur said. “They moved into the neighbourhood last spring. You’ve lived there for more than five years. You must notice the locals. You must keep up with what’s going on. Don’t turn this into a pantomime.”
“A pantomime? I haven’t done anything.”
“Do you know this boy?” Erlendur asked, taking a photograph of Elias from his coat pocket and handing it to Andres.
He pored over the child’s face.
“I don’t know him,” he said.
“You’ve never bumped into him?” Erlendur asked.
Before Erlendur entered the interview room he had been told that a detailed search of the man’s flat had not provided any indication of whether Elias or Niran had ever been there. However, Andres had behaved very strangely when the police finally managed to break into his flat. He had not answered when they knocked on the door. When the police broke it down they were greeted by wretched squalor and an appalling stench. The door was double-locked and Andres was found hiding under his bed. He screamed for help as he was dragged out. He thrashed around, apparently unaware that he was in the hands of the police but under the impression he was wrestling with an imaginary adversary to whom he repeatedly pleaded for mercy.
“I might have seen him in the neighbourhood some time but I don’t know him,” Andres said. “I haven’t done anything to him.”
His eyes darted back and forth, as if he had to make a decision but was hesitant. Perhaps he thought that he needed to bargain to get off. Sigurdur Oli was poised to speak, but Erlendur tugged at him and gestured to him to keep quiet. Andres seemed to approve of that.
“Would you leave me alone then?” he eventually said.
“If what?” Erlendur said.
“Would you let me go home then?”
“Your flat was crammed with child pornography,” Sigurdur Oli said, not concealing the disgust in his voice. Erlendur had urged him to try not to show disrespect to criminals, as Sigurdur Oli had a tendency of doing. Nothing annoyed him more than middle-aged repeat offenders who were always in the same mess.
“If what?” Erlendur repeated.
“If I tell you.”
“I told you not to turn this into a bloody pantomime,” Erlendur said. “Say what you want to tell us. Stop beating about the bush.”
“I guess it’s a year since he moved into the area,” Andres said.
“Elias moved in the spring, like I said.”
“I’m not talking about that boy,” Andres said and looked at each of them in turn.
“Who then?”
“He’s showing his age, the old git. That was the first thing I noticed.”
“What are you talking about?” Sigurdur Oli snapped.
A man I reckon has more porn in his possession than I do,” Andres said.
Sigurdur Oli and Erlendur exchanged glances.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres said. “You know that. You have to believe me, Erlendur. I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Don’t try and turn me into your confidant,” Erlendur said.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres repeated.
Erlendur watched him in silence.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres said yet again.
“You kill everything you touch,” Erlendur said.
“What man are you talking about?” Sigurdur Oli asked. “What man moved to the area?”
Instead of answering him, Andres focused his glare on Erlendur.
“What man is this, Andres?” Erlendur asked.
Andres leaned forward over the table and inclined his head slightly, like an elderly aunt giving a kindly greeting to a little child.
“He’s the nightmare I can never shake off.”
12
Elinborg was waiting to meet Elias’s teacher at the school the boy and his brother had attended before they moved from Snorrabraut. Having been told that a meeting was just finishing, she sat outside the closed classroom and thought about her youngest child, a daughter, who was still at home with gastric flu. Her husband, a car mechanic, would spend the first part of the day with her, then Elinborg would take over.
The classroom door opened and a middle-aged woman greeted her. During the meeting, she had been passed a note that the police wanted to talk to her. Elinborg shook the woman’s hand, introduced herself and said she needed to talk to her in connection with Elias’s murder, which she had doubtless heard about. The woman gave a sad nod.
“We were talking about that at the meeting,” she said in a low voice. “Words can’t describe that, that sort of… outrage. Who would do something like that? Who on earth would be capable of attacking a child?”
“We intend to find out,” Elinborg said, looking all around in search of a place where they could talk together without being disturbed.
The woman, whose name was Emilia, was petite with long, dark hair in a ponytail, just beginning to turn grey. She said that they could sit inside the classroom: the children were at a music lesson and it was empty. Elinborg followed her. Pupils” drawings were pinned up on all the walls and displayed different stages of maturity, from matchstick men to proper portraits. Elinborg noticed a few traditional pictures: Icelandic farmhouses, at the foot of a mountain with a bright blue sky, wisps of cloud and a brilliant sun. She remembered that classic theme from her own schooldays and was silently surprised at its longevity.
“This one’s by Elias,” Emilia said, taking out a picture from a drawer in the teacher’s desk. “They never came to fetch his artwork when he left this school and I didn’t want to throw this one away. It shows how genuinely talented he was at drawing, at such a young age.”
Elinborg took the picture. The teacher was right, it showed that Elias had an exceptional command of drawing. He had drawn a female face with unnaturally large brown eyes, dark hair and a broad smile, bathed in bright colours.
“It’s supposed to be his mother,” Emilia smiled. “Those poor people, having to go through all this.”
“Did you teach him from the time he started school?” Elinborg asked.
“Yes, from the age of six, I guess, only four years back. He was such a nice, sweet boy. A bit of a dreamer. Sometimes he had trouble concentrating on his schoolwork and it took some effort on my part to get him to apply himself. He could stare into space for hours on end and be off in a world of his own.”
Emilia stopped talking and turned pensive.
“It must be difficult for Sunee,” she said.
“Yes, of course, really difficult,” Elinborg said.
“She always showed the boys such love,” the teacher said, pointing at the drawing. “I taught them both, Elias’s brother Niran too. He didn’t speak Icelandic well at all. I’m told they mainly spoke Thai at home and I discussed the fact with Sunee, how it could cause them problems. Her Icelandic was so-so and she preferred to have an interpreter with her at parents” meetings.”