‘It’s a pity to have to say it …’ Elínborg said.
Theodóra, who had heard these words many times before, finished the sentence for her: ‘… because the majority of strangers are perfectly good people, but there are always a handful who can’t be trusted. And that’s why you must never get into a car with strangers. Even if they say they’re police officers.’
‘That’s my girl, Theodóra,’ Elínborg said.
‘Are you investigating a case like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered Elínborg. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Did someone accept a lift?’
‘I don’t want to tell you about what I’m doing at present,’ said Elínborg. ‘Sometimes it’s no fun to talk about work when you get home.’
‘I read in the paper that two people are being held — a man and his daughter.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you find them?’
‘I followed my nose,’ said Elínborg smiling and pointing at her nose. ‘I think it was my sense of smell that broke the case. The daughter likes tandoori cookery, like me.’
‘So is there a spicy smell in her house, like here?’
‘Yes, much the same.’
‘Were you in danger?’
‘No, sweetheart, I wasn’t in any danger. They’re not that kind of people. I’ve told you, police officers are rarely at any risk.’
‘But the police are often attacked. On the streets.’
‘Those assailants are just hoodlums, the dregs of society,’ said Elínborg. ‘Don’t you worry about low life like that.’
Theodóra gave that some thought. Her mum had been in the police all of Theodóra’s life, but she had very little sense of her job because Elínborg did not want her to know too much about it while she was so young. Theodóra’s friends generally had some sense of what their parents did at work, but not Theodóra. She had occasionally been to police headquarters, when Elínborg had no option but to take her along. She would sit in a small office, waiting for her mother as she hurriedly finished some task. Men and women, some in uniform, others in plain clothes, would look around the door and say hello, smiling and expressing amazement at how big she was getting. All except one man, wearing an overcoat, who frowned at her and asked Elínborg brusquely what she thought she was doing with a child in a place like this. Theodóra never forgot the words the man had used: a place like this. She asked her mum who he was, but Elínborg shook her head and told her daughter to forget it — the man had his problems.
‘What is your job, Mum?’ asked Theodóra.
‘It’s just like an ordinary office job, darling,’ her mum replied. ‘Nearly finished!’
But Theodóra knew perfectly well that it was no ordinary office. She knew about some of the things police officers did in their work, and she was well aware that her mum was a police officer. Just as Elínborg finished speaking, a great commotion broke out in the corridor, where a man, handcuffed between two policemen, had gone berserk. Punching and kicking in all directions, he headbutted one of the policemen, who collapsed with blood pouring down his face. Elínborg shepherded Theodóra back into the little office and shut the door.
‘Maniacs,’ she hissed under her breath, with an apologetic smile at her daughter.
Theodóra remembered what Valthór had said, late one evening when their mum was still at work. He said she was dealing with some of the worst criminals in the country. It was one of very few occasions when Theodóra sensed that her older brother was proud of their mother.
As Theodóra lay in bed with her mother beside her, she asked the question again:
‘What is your job, Mum?’
Elínborg did not know how to respond. Theodóra had always been interested in what she did at work: curious about the details, what Elínborg was doing, what kind of people she had to deal with, who her colleagues were. Elínborg had done her best to answer Theodóra’s questions without touching on murder and rape, violence against women and children, brutal assaults. She had witnessed so much that she would have preferred not to see, and it was impossible to tell a child about it.
‘We help people,’ she said finally. ‘People who need our help. We try to make sure they can live their lives in peace.’ Elínborg stood up and smoothed the quilt over her daughter. ‘Was I not kind enough to Birkir?’ she asked.
‘Yes, you were.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘Birkir never thought of you as his mother,’ said Theodóra. ‘He told Valthór, but you mustn’t say I told you.’
‘Valthór tells you all sorts of odd things.’
‘He said Birkir had had enough of us, his foster family.’
‘Could we have done anything differently?’ asked Elínborg.
‘No, I’m sure we couldn’t.’
Elínborg kissed her daughter’s forehead. ‘Goodnight, sweetheart.’
The questioning of Konrád and Nína continued after Elínborg left. They were asked repeatedly about their movements on the night of the attack, and their story remained unchanged. Their accounts were very consistent but, as Elínborg pointed out, they had had plenty of time to agree on a story. The witness who had reported seeing a woman in the passenger seat of a car in Thingholt when he was walking home that night was brought in to identify Konrád’s wife. He was sure that she was the woman he had seen.
The next afternoon Elínborg entered the interview room where Konrád was being held. Konrád was clearly worn down by being locked up and bombarded with questions, and by his anxiety about his family, especially Nína. He asked Elínborg how his daughter was, and she assured him that Nína was managing as well as could be expected. Everybody wanted this process to be over. ‘Wouldn’t you expect to find blood on my daughter’s clothes, or on her hands?’ demanded Konrád in response to a barrage of questions about Nína’s part in Runólfur’s death. ‘I didn’t see any bloodstains on her — not on her clothes, not on her hands. There was no blood.’
‘You said you didn’t notice.’
‘I remember now.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘No, I can’t prove it. I know I should have called the police right away, got them to come, let them see the evidence, and shown them that Nína could not have killed him. And I was wrong not to take Nína to the rape-trauma centre and arrange counselling. We should have done all those things, I realise that. We shouldn’t have run away. It was wrong, and it’s rebounded on us. But you must believe me. Nína could never have done it. Never.’
Elínborg looked at the police officers who were conducting the interview. They beckoned her to join them.
‘I think your daughter is ready to confess,’ she said. ‘Nína has all but told me she killed Runólfur. Her only regret is that she doesn’t remember cutting his throat.’
‘He raped her,’ said Konrád. ‘That bloody bastard raped her.’
Elínborg had not heard Konrád swear before. ‘That gives us all the more reason to believe that when she came round she slipped him the same drug that he had used on her, overpowered him, and then slit his throat. Perhaps she tricked him — spiked his drink, then washed the glass. A lot of evidence points to that.’
‘This makes me sick,’ countered Konrád.
‘Unless it was you?’ said Elínborg.
‘Who was this Runólfur?’ asked Konrád. ‘What kind of a man was he?’
‘I don’t know how to answer that,’ replied Elínborg. ‘We never had any dealings with him while he was alive. You must appreciate our problem. Although your daughter says she was raped, we have no evidence. Why should we believe her? Why should we believe you?’