“How many kids do you think we’re talking about?” he asked. “If we assume that the knife was stolen during a lesson?”
Egill considered.
“Most of the kids in the school, I expect,” he said.
“We’ll have to get a photo of one of these knives and circulate it,” Erlendur said.
“Is this the boy you were asking me about in the car?” Egill asked Erlendur, his eyes fixed on Sigurdur Oli.
A faint smile twisted Erlendur’s lips. He had riled the woodwork teacher and now Egill was after revenge.
“We should get moving,” Erlendur said to Sigurdur Oli.
“Has he told you what happened here in “seventy-nine?” Egill continued. “About the riot?”
They had reached the door. Sigurdur Oli opened it and stepped out into the corridor.
“Thanks for your help,” Erlendur said, half turning back to Egill. “This knife business could be very important. You never know what may come out of it”
Erlendur looked at Sigurdur Oli, who didn’t seem to know what was happening, then closed the door in Egill’s face.
“The old bugger,” he said as they walked down the corridor. “What’s this riot he was referring to?”
“It was nothing,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, it was just a stupid prank.”
They had emerged into the open air and were heading towards the car.
“I find it hard to imagine you involved in a stupid prank,” Erlendur said. “You weren’t at this school very long. Did you get into some sort of trouble?”
Sigurdur Oli sighed heavily. He opened the car door and got behind the wheel. Erlendur took the passenger seat.
“Me and three others,” Sigurdur Oli said. “We refused to go outside during the break. It was all very innocent. The weather was terrible and we said we weren’t going outside.”
“Bloody silly of you,” Erlendur said.
“We chose the wrong teacher,” Sigurdur Oli continued in a serious tone. “He was a temporary supply teacher and we didn’t know him but he managed to get on our nerves. That was probably how it started. Some of the boys had tried to disrupt his lessons by taking the piss out of him and so on. Things got out of hand. He started hurling abuse at us and we answered him back insolently. He got angrier and angrier, and starting trying to drag us outside but we fought back. Then some other teachers and pupils joined in and it ended up in a massive brawl throughout the building. People were injured. It was like everyone was venting their rage at once, pupils on teachers and teachers on pupils. When all attempts to calm the situation failed, someone called the police. It ended up in the papers.”
“And it was all your fault,” Erlendur said.
“I was involved and got suspended for two weeks,” Sigurdur Oli said. “All four of us were suspended, along with some others who’d got a bit carried away in the fight. My father went ballistic”
Erlendur had never heard Sigurdur Oli talk about his father before, never heard him so much as mention his name, and wondered if he should take the opportunity to find out more. The whole thing was completely novel to him. He couldn’t imagine Sigurdur Oli being suspended from school.
“It… I…” Sigurdur Oli wanted to say more but floundered in his attempt to find the words. “It wasn’t like me at all. I’d never been mixed up in anything like that before and I’ve never lost control of myself since.”
Erlendur said nothing.
“I injured the teacher really badly,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“What happened?”
“That’s why everyone remembers it. He was taken to hospital.”
“Why?”
“He fell and cracked his head on the floor,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I knocked him down and he landed on his head. At first I didn’t think he was going to pull through.”
“You can’t have been very happy with that on your conscience.”
“I … I wasn’t very happy at the time. There were various things that…”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“They got divorced,” Sigurdur Oli said. “My parents. That summer.”
Ah,” Erlendur said.
“I moved out with my mother. We’d only been here two years.”
“It’s always rough on the kids. When their parents split up.”
“Were you discussing me with that woodwork teacher?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“No, he recognised you,” Erlendur said. “Remembered the riot”
“Did he mention my dad at all?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“He may have done,” Erlendur said guardedly.
“Dad was always working. I don’t think he ever realised why she left him.”
“Had it been on the cards for a long time?” Erlendur asked, amazed that Sigurdur Oli was willing to discuss this with him.
“I didn’t know the background. Still don’t really know what happened. My mother didn’t much like talking about it.”
“You’re an only child, aren’t you?”
Erlendur recalled that Sigurdur Oli had once alluded to the fact.
“I spent a lot of time alone at home,” Sigurdur Oli said, nodding. “Especially after the divorce, when we moved house. Then we moved again. After that we were always moving.”
Neither of them spoke.
“It’s weird coming back here after all this time,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Small world, this town.”
“What did he say about Dad?”
“Nothing.”
“Dad was a plumber. He was known as Permaflush.”
“Really?” Erlendur said, feigning ignorance.
“Egill remembered me clearly. I could tell at once. I remember him too. We were all a bit scared of him.”
“Well, he’s not exactly Mr Nice Guy,” Erlendur said.
“I know people used to call Dad that, he was the type. You could make fun of him. Some people are like that. He didn’t mind but I couldn’t stand it.”
Sigurdur Oli looked at Erlendur.
“I’ve tried to be everything he wasn’t.”
She greeted Erlendur at the door with a smile, a small woman in her sixties with thick, brown, shoulder-length hair and friendly eyes that radiated complete ignorance about the purpose of his visit. Erlendur was alone. He had popped over at lunchtime on the off-chance that he would find her at home. The woman lived in Kopavogur and was called Emma, that was all he knew.
He introduced himself and when she heard that he was a detective she invited him into an overheated sitting room. He hastily removed his coat and unbuttoned his jacket. It was minus nine outside. They sat down. Everywhere there were signs that she lived alone. She had an aura of extraordinary calm, a serenity that suggested a solitary existence.
“Have you always lived alone?” he asked to break the ice and help her relax, only realising too late what a personal question it was. She seemed to think so too.
“Is that something the police need to know?” she asked, her manner so deadpan that he wasn’t sure if she was teasing him.
“No,” Erlendur said sheepishly. “Of course not.”
“What do the police want with me?” the woman asked.
“We’re looking for a man,” he said. “He was once a neighbour of yours. You lived in the flat opposite him. It’s rather a long time ago, so I don’t know if you’ll remember him, but I thought it was worth a try.”
“Does it have something to do with that terrible case in the news, with that boy?”
“No,” Erlendur said, telling himself that this was not strictly a lie. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for or why he was intruding on this woman.
“It’s dreadful knowing that something like that can happen,” the woman said. “That a child should be attacked like that, it’s quite incomprehensible, an incomprehensible outrage.”