“Do you know if the boy has been in any trouble recently?”
“I haven’t had any real contact with him,” Odinn said.
“Did Niran have any reason to be hostile towards you?” Erlendur said. He did not know how to express the question any better.
Odinn looked from one of them to the other.
“He wasn’t hostile to me,” he said. “Things were okay between us. He had nothing to do with me and I had nothing to do with him.”
“Do you think he’s gone into hiding because of you?” Erlendur asked. “Because of something he thought you might do?”
“No, I can’t imagine that,” Odinn said. “Of course, it came as a bit of a shock when she told me about him. I stayed out of it when she sent for him.”
“Why did you get divorced?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“It was over.”
“Was it because of anything in particular?”
“Maybe. This and that. Like in any normal marriage. People break up and start again. That’s how it goes. Sunee’s an independent woman. She knows what she wants. We quarrelled about the boys sometimes, especially Elias. She wanted him to speak Thai but I said it would only confuse him. It was more important for him to speak Icelandic”
“You weren’t afraid of not being able to understand them? Of losing control of the home? Being left out?”
Odinn shook his head.
“She likes living in Iceland, except perhaps the weather sometimes. It gives her a chance to support her family in Thailand, and she stays in close contact with them. She wants to keep in touch with her roots.”
“Don’t we all?” Erlendur said.
No one spoke.
“You don’t think that Niran could be hiding because of you?” Erlendur repeated.
“Definitely not,” Odinn said. “I’ve never done anything to him.”
The mobile rang in Erlendur’s pocket. It took him a little while to work out who the man on the phone was. He said his name was Egill and that they had spoken together in his car the other day; the woodwork teacher.
“Oh yes, hello,” Erlendur said, when he finally clicked who it was.
“It, you see, the thing is, it’s always happening,” Egill said, and Erlendur pictured him with his beard, sitting in his car, smoking. “So I don’t know if it’s significant at all,” Egill continued. “But I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
“What is it?” Erlendur asked. “What’s always happening?”
“Those knives are always being stolen,” Egill said.
“What knives?”
“Er, the wood-carving knives,” Egill said. “So I don’t know if it’ll help you at all.”
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“But I keep a close eye on them,” Egill continued, as if he had not heard the question. “I always try to keep a close eye on the knives. They’re not cheap. I counted them the other day, maybe two weeks ago, but just now I noticed that one of them is missing. One of the carving knives has gone from the box. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I haven’t found the thief or anything. I just wanted to inform you that there’s a knife missing. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Of course,” Erlendur said, “thank you for telling me. Who steals these knives?”
“Oh, the pupils probably.”
“Yes, but do you know which ones in particular? Have you caught anyone? Is it the same pupils again and again or…?
“Why don’t you just come and take a look for yourself?” Egill asked. “I’ll be here all day.”
Twenty minutes later Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli parked in front of the school. Teaching was under way and there was not a soul to be seen in the playground.
Egill was in the woodwork room. Nine teenage kids were busy with assignments at the carpentry tables, armed with chisels and small saws, but stopped what they were doing when the two detectives entered the classroom. Egill looked at his watch and informed the kids that they could finish ten minutes early. They gazed at him in astonishment as if such an offer from him was unthinkable, then jumped into action and started tidying away. The workshop emptied in a matter of minutes.
Egill closed the door behind the kids. He took a good long look at Sigurdur Oli.
“Didn’t I teach you once?” he asked, then walked over to a cupboard in the corner, bent down, took out a wooden box and laid it on the table.
“I was at school here years ago,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I remember you all right,” Egill said. “You were mixed up in those riots in “seventy-nine.”
Sigurdur Oli darted a glance at Erlendur who pretended to be oblivious.
“I keep the carving knives here,” Egill said, taking them out of the box one at a time and laying them on the table. “There should be thirteen of them. It didn’t occur to me to check them after the attack.”
“Nor us,” Erlendur said, with a glance at Sigurdur Oli.
“It isn’t necessarily significant,” Sigurdur Oli said, as if to excuse himself. “Even if something is missing.”
“Then this morning,” Egill continued, “when we needed to use them, one of the pupils came to me and said he didn’t have a knife to work with. There were thirteen of them in the group and I knew there should be exactly the right number of knives. I counted them. There were twelve. So I collected them, put them back in the box in the cupboard, double-checked the workshop, then called you. I know there were thirteen about two weeks ago, no longer.”
“Is this cupboard kept locked?” Erlendur asked.
“No, that is, not during lessons. But apart from that, yes, these cupboards are kept locked.”
“And all the pupils have access to them?”
“Yes, in reality. We haven’t regarded woodwork knives as potential murder weapons until now.”
“But people steal them?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“That’s nothing new,” Egill said, stroking his beard. “Things go missing. Chisels. Screwdrivers. Even saws. Always something every year.”
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to lock the cupboards then?” Erlendur said. “Hand out the tools under some sort of supervision?”
Egill glared at him.
“Is that any of your business?” he asked.
“They’re knives,” Erlendur said. “Carving knives, what’s more.”
“The classroom is kept locked, isn’t it?” Sigurdur Oli said hurriedly.
“Wood-carving knives are only a weapon in the hands of morons,” Egill said, ignoring Sigurdur Oli. “Why should the rest of us always have to suffer because of a few morons?”
“What about-‘ Sigurdur Oli began, but got no further.
“In addition to which,” Egill persisted, “the kids use these tools in here and can stab themselves or slip them into their schoolbags whenever they like. It’s difficult to keep them under constant supervision.”
“And presumably all the kids in the school will have attended woodwork lessons since you last counted the knives,” Erlendur pointed out.
“Yes,” Egill said, his face flushing an angry red. “The workshop is locked between classes. I don’t leave until the last kid has gone, for safety reasons. I always lock up after myself and I’m the one who opens the door when I arrive in the morning and after all the breaks. No one else. Ever.”
“What about the cleaners?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“Oh, and them, of course,” Egill said. “But I haven’t been aware that any of the cupboards have been broken into.”
“So in your view the most likely scenario is that the knife was taken during a lesson?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Don’t start blaming me for that!” Egill almost shouted, beside himself with indignation. “I can’t possibly be expected to keep an eye on everything that goes on here! If some stupid kids want to steal from the workshop it wouldn’t exactly be difficult. And, yes, I reckon it must have been during a lesson. I can’t see how else it could have happened.”
Erlendur picked up one of the knives and tried to recall what the pathologist had said about the instrument used to stab Elias. A broad but not very long blade, he remembered. The carving knife had a very sharp point, a short blade and a broad reverse by the wooden handle. It was razor sharp. Erlendur imagined that it would not require much force to push it deep into someone’s flesh. It struck him that it would also be possible to produce satisfying scratches on cars with a tool like a carving knife.