“What was the woman called?”
“Sigurveig. The child’s name was Andres. I’m trying to cut corners; it would be tricky and time-consuming to trace the man through the system.”
“I remember her,” the man said, looking up. “Sigurveig, that’s right. But hang on a minute, that boy wasn’t too young to remember the man who lived with them.”
Helgi gave Erlendur a long speculative look.
“Maybe you’re not telling me the whole truth?” he said.
“No,” Erlendur said. “I’m not.”
A faint smile touched Helgi’s lips.
“He’s a ruddy menace, that chap downstairs,” he said.
“You never know, it might just be possible to do something about that,” Erlendur said.
“That man you’re asking about lived with the woman for several years,” Helgi said. “I hardly got to know him at all, he seemed to be away a lot. Was he at sea?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Erlendur said. “He could well have been. Can you remember his name?”
“Not for the life of me, I’m afraid,” Helgi said. “I’d forgotten Sigurveig’s name too, and it only came to me just now that the boy was called Andres. It all goes in one ear and out the other, and seldom stops for long in between.”
“And of course a lot of people have come and gone since then,” Erlendur added.
“You can’t imagine,” Helgi said, now more or less recovered from the shrill interruption of his afternoon rest and pleased that someone had come round to talk to him and, what’s more, seemed to take a greater interest in what he had to say than anyone else had for years. “But I’m afraid I can’t remember much about those people,” he added. “Hardly a thing, to be honest”
“It’s a general rule in my profession that everything helps, however trivial,” Erlendur said. He had once heard a cop say this on TV and thought it might come in handy.
“Is he supposed to have done something wrong? This man?”
“No,” Erlendur said. Andres approached us. We shouldn’t really be wasting our time on this but…”
Erlendur shrugged. He saw that Helgi was smiling. By now they were almost bosom buddies.
“If I remember correctly, that fellow came from somewhere in the countryside,” Helgi said. “He came along with her to a house meeting once, in the days when they still had house meetings. Now you just get a bill, if anyone can be bothered to do anything, which is once in a blue moon. It was one of the few occasions that I met him.”
“Can you describe him to me?”
“Not really. Quite tall. Strongly built. Made a good impression. Quite pleasant, if I remember correctly. He moved out, as far as I can recall. They split up, didn’t they? I don’t know why. You should talk to Emma. She used to live opposite them.”
“Emma?”
“Wonderful person, Emma. Moved out about twenty years ago but still keeps in touch, sends Christmas cards and so on. She lives in Kopavogur now. She’s sure to remember more than me. Talk to her. I just can’t remember those people well enough.”
“Do you remember anything in particular about the boy?”
“The boy? No … except…” Helgi paused.
“Yes?” Erlendur said.
“I seem to recall that he was always rather hangdog, poor little wretch. A sad little chap, a bit scruffy, as if no one took proper care of him. The few times I tried to talk to him I got the feeling he wanted to avoid me.”
Andres was standing out in the cold, a short distance from a corrugated-iron-clad house on Grettisgata, his eyes fixed on a basement window. He could not see inside and did not dare to risk going any closer. About six months ago he had trailed the man he had mentioned to the police to this house and seen him disappear into the basement flat. He had followed him, keeping a little way behind, from the block of flats and onto a bus. The man did not notice him. They had got out at the Hlemmur bus station and Andres had followed him to this house.
Now he was standing at a safe distance, trying to protect himself from the bitter north wind. He had walked the short way from Hlemmur several times since then and ascertained that the man had a second home on Grettisgata.
Andres dug his hands into his pockets.
He sniffed, his eyes wet from the cold, and stamped his feet before walking away.
18
Kjartan was not at home but the detectives said that they would wait. The woman regarded them in astonishment.
“Out here?” she asked, her features stretching in surprise.
Erlendur shrugged.
“Why do you keep wanting to talk to Kjartan?” she asked.
“It’s in connection with the incident at the school,” Elinborg said. “Routine procedure. We’re interviewing teachers and pupils.”
“I thought you’d already talked to him.”
“We need to talk to him again,” Elinborg said.
The woman looked from one of them to the other and they sensed that she would have preferred to shut the door in their faces and never see them again.
“Wouldn’t you rather come in?” she asked after an awkward pause.
“Thank you,” Erlendur said and ushered Elinborg inside before him. Two children, a boy and a girl, watched them enter the living room and take a seat. Erlendur would rather have talked to Kjartan down at the station or at the school but he had been avoiding them. He failed to turn up for a meeting at the station and when they went to pick him up from the school he was not there. As he was not answering his phone either, Elinborg suggested they pay him a visit at home and Erlendur had agreed.
“He took the car to the garage to get it looked at,” the woman said.
“I see,” Erlendur said.
It was evening and the woman had been making supper in the kitchen when they knocked on the door. She did not elaborate on the business with the car. She said she had heard from Kjartan that afternoon but not since then. Sensing her apprehension at the visit from the police, Erlendur tried to reassure her, repeating Elinborg’s words about routine procedure.
The woman was not entirely convinced, however, and when she went back into the kitchen she took her mobile with her. The two children followed, turning round in the kitchen doorway to stare wide-eyed at the detectives. Elinborg smiled at them. The woman’s voice carried into the living room. They heard her voice rise sharply at one point, then fall silent. Some time passed before she emerged. By then she was calmer.
“Kjartan’s been slightly held up,” she said, trying to smile. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”
“Thank you,” Elinborg said.
“Can I offer you anything?” the woman asked.
“Coffee, please, if there’s any in the pot,” Erlendur said.
The woman disappeared back into the kitchen. The children were still standing in the doorway, staring at them.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Elinborg murmured to Erlendur after a long silence. She didn’t take her eyes off the children.
“It was your idea,” Erlendur said.
“I know, but isn’t it a bit OTT?”
“OTT?”
“We could make up some lie about a call-out. I had no idea it would be so awkward. If he comes, we could nab him outside.”
“Maybe you should never have quit geology,” Erlendur said.
“Geology?”
“Bits of rock don’t give you this sort of bother,” Erlendur said.
“Oh, ha ha!” Elinborg replied.
She had managed to irritate him in the car on the way over. Started quizzing him about Valgerdur and their future plans, and Erlendur had instantly retreated into silence. Elinborg was not daunted, however, even when he told her not to keep asking those infernal bloody questions. She asked if Valgerdur was still involved in some way with her former husband, a question that Erlendur would have had to answer in the affirmative, if he had answered at all, and if she ever intended to move in with him, a matter that he had still not confronted himself. Elinborg’s tendency to pry into his private life got on his nerves at times; questions about Eva Lind and Sindri Snaer, about himself. She seemed incapable of leaving well alone.