“Yes, me and other people. All of us, I think.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“No. We know very little.”
“It’s … it’s horrific”
“Yes.”
Eva paused.
“You all right?” Erlendur said after a while.
“I want to see you.”
“Do. Come home.”
Eva paused again.
“Isn’t she always there?”
“Who?”
“That woman you’re with.”
“Valgerdur? No. Sometimes.”
“I don’t want to interrupt anything.”
“You won’t.
“Are you together?”
“We’re good friends.”
“Is she all right?”
“Valgerdur is very . . .” Erlendur hesitated. “What do you mean, “all right”?”
“Not as bad as Mum?”
“I think…”
“She can’t be as bad as Mum or you wouldn’t bother to be with her. And definitely not as bad as me.”
“She’s no better than anyone else,” Erlendur said. “I’m not comparing you. You shouldn’t either.”
“Isn’t she the first woman you’ve been with since you left us? She must have something.”
“You ought to meet her.”
“I want to see you.”
“Do, then.”
“Bye.”
Eva rang off and Erlendur put his mobile in his pocket.
He had seen Valgerdur two days before. She came round to his flat in the evening when her shift was over and he gave her a glass of Chartreuse. She told him she had applied formally for a divorce from her husband, the doctor, and had appointed a lawyer.
Valgerdur was a biotechnician at the National Hospital. Erlendur had met her by chance during a murder investigation and found out that she was having problems in her private life. She was married but her husband had repeatedly cheated on her and she had eventually left him. She and Erlendur decided to take things slowly. They did not live together. Valgerdur wanted to live by herself for a while after her long marriage and Erlendur had not lived with a woman for decades. Nor was there any hurry. Erlendur liked being alone. Sometimes she telephoned him, wanting to visit. Sometimes they went out for a meal together. Once she had succeeded in dragging him along to the theatre, to see Ibsen. He had nodded off fifteen minutes into the play. In vain she tried to nudge him awake but he slept most of the time until the interval when they decided to go home. “All that artificial drama,” he had said by way of an apology, “it does nothing for me.”
“Theatre is reality too,” she’d protested.
“Not like this,” he’d said, handing her volume two of Stories of Rural Postmen.
Erlendur had lent her some of his books that described ordeals in the wilderness and how people had frozen to death outdoors in Iceland in the old days, and others about death and destruction caused by avalanches. Although apprehensive at first, the more accounts she read, the more her interest had become aroused. Erlendur’s interest in the topic was unquenchable.
“The lawyer thinks we can divide everything up more or less equally,” she said, sipping her liqueur.
“That’s good,” Erlendur said. He knew they had lived in a large detached house close to the old children’s hospital and wondered which of them would get the house. He asked whether it was important to her.
“No,” she said. “He was always much fonder of the house. Apparently he’s found himself a new woman.”
“Really?”
“Someone from the hospital. A young nurse.”
“Do you think anyone can create a good relationship when both parties have been unfaithful?” he asked, thinking about a missing-person case he was investigating. “Do you think anyone can create a good, solid relationship if they’ve both cheated before?”
“I didn’t,” Valgerdur said. “He repeatedly cheated on me with any woman who would stand still long enough.”
“I’m not talking about you, but about a case I’m dealing with.”
“The missing woman?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think they both cheated before they got together?”
Erlendur nodded. He rarely discussed the cases he was handling with anyone else. Valgerdur was an exception. So was Eva.
“I don’t know,” Valgerdur said. “Obviously it can be difficult if both parties have left their spouses under circumstances like that. There are bound to be repercussions.”
“Why shouldn’t it happen again?” Erlendur asked.
“You shouldn’t forget about love though.”
“Love?”
“You shouldn’t underestimate love. Sometimes two people are prepared to sacrifice everything for a new relationship. Maybe that’s true love.”
“Yes, but what if one of them finds this true love at regular intervals?” Erlendur said.
“Did she leave on account of his cheating? Had he started again?”
“I don’t know,” Erlendur said.
“Were you cheating when you got divorced?”
Surprised at the question, he smiled.
“No,” he said. “I have no idea how to go about that sort of thing. In Icelandic, we talk about practising adultery. Like a hobby or a sport.”
“So you’re wondering whether the man betrayed this woman’s trust?”
Erlendur shrugged.
“Why did she disappear?”
“That’s the question.”
“You don’t know any more than that?”
“Not really.”
Valgerdur paused.
“How can you drink this Chartreuse?” she asked with a grimace.
“I happen to like it,” Erlendur smiled.
When Erlendur went back to Sunee’s flat her ex-mother-in-law had arrived, a fairly slim, intense woman aged about sixty. She had rushed up the stairs and hugged Sunee, who was waiting for her on the landing. Sunee seemed relieved to have Elias’s grandmother with her. Erlendur sensed that their relationship was warm. They had not yet been able to contact Elias’s father. He was not at home and his mobile was switched off. Sunee thought he had recently changed jobs and did not know the name of the company he worked for.
The grandmother talked to Sunee in half-whispers. Her brother and the interpreter stood a little way off, to give them space. Erlendur looked up at the red lampshade with the yellow dragon on it. The dragon seemed to be curled around a little dog, but he could not work out whether it was to protect or to curse the dog.
“Such a terrible tragedy!” The woman sighed and looked at the interpreter, whom she seemed to recognise. “Who could have done such a thing?”
Sunee said something to her brother and they went into the kitchen with Gudny.
The grandmother looked over and noticed Erlendur.
“And who are you?” she asked.
Erlendur explained his involvement in the case. The woman introduced herself as Sigridur. She asked Erlendur to tell her exactly what had happened, what the police were doing, what hypotheses were being put forward and whether any clues had been found. Erlendur answered her as best he could, but he had very little concrete information. This seemed to irritate her, as if he were withholding details. She told him as much. He assured her that this was not the case, the investigation was just beginning and they did not have much to go on as yet.
“Not much to go on! A ten-year-old boy is stabbed and you claim you don’t have much to go on?”
“My condolences about the boy,” Erlendur said. “Of course we’re doing everything in our power to work out what happened and find the culprit.”
He had been in this position before, standing in the homes of people who were paralysed by grief over something incomprehensible and unbearable. He knew the denial and anger. The incident was so overwhelming that it was impossible to face up to and the mind seized on anything to ease the pain, as if the situation could still somehow be put right.