‘Yes. American action movies.’
‘Superheroes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He just enjoyed them. Me too. It was one of the things we had in common.’
‘Do you have pictures of them on your walls?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t they all live a double life?’
‘Who?’
‘Those superheroes.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Aren’t they usually ordinary blokes who change into someone else? In a phone box, or whatever? I’m no expert.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Did your friend live a double life?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
10
Indian restaurants in Reykjavík were few and far between, and Elínborg was familiar with all of them. She did the rounds in the hope of tracing the owner of the shawl, which she took with her and showed to the restaurant workers. The pungent aroma had faded now and nobody said they had seen the shawl before. Elínborg could rule the restaurant staff out easily: they were few in number, and most worked in family businesses; they had no difficulty providing alibis for where they’d been at the time of the crime.
The restaurants had a number of regular customers; the police gathered information about them and investigated them, again without result. The same applied to the very few Indians who lived in Iceland. Within a short time the police were able to conclude that none of them was involved in the case.
Elínborg knew of only one place in Reykjavík that sold tandoori pots, along with other equipment — supplies, spices, oils and so on — for Indian cuisine. She shopped there herself and was acquainted with the owner, who was also the only employee. Jóhanna was about Elínborg’s age, an Icelander who had once lived in India. She was a very frank woman, ready to tell anyone and everyone all about herself, so Elínborg knew that Jóhanna had travelled widely in the east when she’d been young, and that for her India was a promised land. She had spent two years there before returning to Iceland and opening a shop selling Asian imports.
‘I don’t sell a lot of tandoori pots,’ said Jóhanna. ‘One or two a year, I’d say. And some people don’t want them for cooking, but as ornaments.’
She knew that Elínborg was a police officer; she was familiar with her interest in cookery and had commented favourably on Elínborg’s cookbook. Elínborg had explained that she was looking for a young woman of around thirty, who might be interested in Indian cuisine. She said no more and did not mention the case in which the girl was involved, but Jóhanna was far too inquisitive and talkative to settle for such meagre information.
‘What do you want with her?’ Jóhanna asked.
‘It concerns a drugs case,’ Elínborg replied. She did not feel she was straying too far from the truth. ‘I’m not necessarily thinking of tandoori pots as such, but the spices in generaclass="underline" the saffron, coriander, annatto, garam masala, nutmeg. Do you have a customer who buys them regularly — maybe someone with dark hair, maybe about thirty?’
‘A drugs case?’
Elínborg smiled.
‘So I won’t get any more out of you?’
‘It’s just a routine enquiry,’ answered Elínborg.
‘It’s not that murder in Thingholt, is it? Aren’t you working on that case?’
‘Does anyone come to mind?’ asked Elínborg, avoiding Jóhanna’s question.
‘Business isn’t all that good at the minute,’ said Jóhanna. ‘People can buy a lot of these supplies online, or in the better supermarkets. I don’t have many good, dependable customers like you. Not that I’m complaining.’
Elínborg waited patiently. Jóhanna saw that she was not interested in hearing about the challenges of running a small business.
‘I can’t think of anyone in particular,’ she said. ‘All sorts of people come here, as you know. Including women of about thirty. A lot of dark-haired ones.’
‘This one might have been in a few times. She’s probably interested in Asian cookery, Indian food, tandoori dishes. You might have talked to her about it.’
Jóhanna did not speak for a long time. Then she shook her head.
Elínborg took the shawl out of her bag and unfolded it on the counter. All the necessary tests had now been completed. ‘Can you remember a young woman coming into the shop wearing this shawl?’
Jóhanna examined the shawl carefully. ‘Isn’t this cashmere?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s beautiful. It’s an Indian design. Where was it made?’ She looked for a laundry label, but found none. ‘I don’t recall ever seeing it before,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ answered Elínborg. ‘Thank you.’ She folded the shawl up and returned it to her bag.
‘Are you looking for its owner?’ asked Jóhanna.
Elínborg nodded.
‘I can give you a few names,’ said Jóhanna after a lot of thought. ‘I … there are names on credit-card receipts, and so on.’
‘That would be a great help,’ said Elínborg.
‘You mustn’t say where you got the information,’ said Jóhanna. ‘I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘I understand.’
‘I don’t want my customers finding out that I’ve told the police about my dealings with them.’
‘Of course. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.’
‘Do you want to go back a long way?’
‘Just start with the last six months, if you don’t mind.’
Of the people Runólfur had met through his work, the majority described a polite and personable engineer who came and dealt with their problems with their telephone, broadband or TV. Whether he had visited them at home or at a place of work, they all spoke well of him. The list of his call-outs over the past two months was quite extensive. Runólfur had been sent on such house calls once or twice a day throughout that period; in some cases he had returned to the same place twice, or even three times. His reputation was excellent. People found him helpful and easy to talk to; he was efficient, made a good impression and was unfailingly courteous. When a job took an unusually long time he had sometimes accepted a cup of coffee. Elsewhere his visits had been much briefer; if there was no major repair, he just dashed in and out again.
Police questions about whether there had been anything odd in the engineer’s conduct yielded no results — until Elínborg called on a single mother named Lóa in her second-floor flat in Kópavogur. In her early thirties, Lóa was divorced and had a twelve-year-old son. At the time of Runólfur’s death she had been away for the weekend with three friends.
‘Yes, I remember it clearly. I got broadband for Kiddi,’ she said when Elínborg asked her if she remembered Runólfur’s visit.
They sat down in the living room. The flat was small, a riot of clean laundry and dirty clothes, unwashed dishes, a CD player, a hi-fi, two video-game handsets, a large TV, free newspapers and junk mail. Lóa apologised for the mess. She said she worked a lot, and the boy couldn’t be bothered to do anything around the place. ‘He just sits at the computer all day long,’ she said wearily. Elínborg nodded, thinking of Valthór.
Lóa was not particularly surprised that the police wanted to talk to her when she heard that the enquiry was connected with Runólfur’s death. She had seen the news reports and remembered meeting Runólfur when he’d installed the broadband connection; she found it hard to believe that he had met such a violent end. ‘How can you slit someone’s throat?’ she murmured.
Elínborg shrugged. She took to Lóa at once. There was absolutely no pretence in her, and everything she said came straight from the heart. It was clear that she had been through trials and tribulations but she also gave an impression of resilience. She smiled charmingly, with her eyes as well as her lips: Elínborg found her both likeable and interesting.