“I was just on my way to see you,” Erlendur lied; he had intended to let Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg talk to Gudlaugur’s family. He could not remember whether he had actually asked them to do so.
“We’d prefer not to have the police inside our house,” the woman said. “That has never happened. A lady phoned us, presumably your colleague, I think she said her name was Elinborg. I asked who was in charge of the investigation and she told me you were one of them. I was hoping we could get this over with and that you would then leave us in peace.”
There was no hint of sorrow in their demeanour. No mourning for a loved one. Only cold nastiness. They felt they had certain duties to dispatch, felt obliged to give a report to the police, but clearly had a repulsion against doing so and did not mind showing it. It didn’t seem as if the corpse found in the hotel basement was any concern of theirs in the slightest. As if they were above that.
“You know the circumstances in which Gudlaugur was found,” Erlendur said.
“We know he was killed,” the old man said. “We know he was stabbed.”
“Do you know who could have done it?”
“We don’t have the faintest idea,” the woman said. “We had no contact with him. We don’t know who he associated with. Don’t know his friends, nor his enemies if he had any”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Elinborg walked into the bar. She approached them and sat down beside Erlendur. He introduced her to them but they showed no reaction, both equally determined to allow none of this to ruffle them.
“I suppose he must have been about twenty then,” the woman said. “The last time we saw him.”
“Twenty?” Erlendur thought he must have misheard.
“As I said, there was no contact.”
“Why not?” Elinborg asked.
The woman did not even look at her.
“Isn’t it enough for us to talk to you?” she asked Erlendur. “Does this woman have to be here too?”
Erlendur looked at Elinborg. He seemed to cheer up slightly.
“You don’t seem to be mourning his fate very much,” he said without answering her. “Gudlaugur. Your brother” he said, and looked at the woman again. “Your son,” he said, and looked at the old man. “Why? Why haven’t you seen him for thirty years? And as I told you, her name is Elinborg,” he added. “If you have any more comments to make we’ll take you down to the police station and continue there, and you can lodge a formal complaint. We’ve got a police car outside.”
The eagle’s beak rose, offended. The haddock’s eyes narrowed.
“He lived his own life,” she said. “We lived ours. There’s not much more to say about it. There was no contact. That’s the way it was. We were happy with that. So was he.”
“Are you telling me that you last saw him in the mid-seventies?” Erlendur said.
“There was no contact,” she repeated.
“Not once in all that time? Not one phone call? Nothing?”
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“That’s a family matter,” the old man said. “Nothing to do with this. Not a bit. Over and done with. What more do you want to know?”
“Did you know he was working at this hotel?”
“We heard about him every so often,” the woman said. “We knew he was a doorman here. Put on some stupid uniform and held the door open for the hotel guests. And I understand he used to play Santa Claus at Christmas parties.”
Erlendur’s eyes were riveted to her. She said this as if Gudlaugur could not have humiliated his family more, except by being found murdered, half naked, in a hotel basement
“We don’t know much about him,” Erlendur said. “He doesn’t seem to have had many friends. He lived in a little room at this hotel. He seems to have been liked. People thought he was good with children. As you say, he played Santa at the hotel’s Christmas parties. However, we’ve just heard that he was a promising singer. A young boy who made gramophone recordings, two of them I think, but of course you know more about that. I saw on a record sleeve that he was going to tour Scandinavia, and it sounded as if he had the world at his feet. Then somehow that came to an end, apparently. No one knows that boy today apart from a few nutters who collect old records. What happened?”
The eagle’s beak had lowered and the haddock’s eyes dimmed while Erlendur was talking. The old man looked away from him and down at the table, and the woman, who still tried to retain her air of authority and pride, no longer appeared quite so self-assured.
“What happened?” Erlendur repeated, suddenly remembering that he had Gudlaugur’s singles up in his room.
“Nothing happened,” the old man said. “He lost his voice. He matured early and lost his voice at the age of twelve and that was the end of that”
“Couldn’t he sing afterwards?” Elinborg asked.
“His voice turned bad,” the old man said irritatedly. “You couldn’t teach him anything. And you couldn’t do anything for him. He turned against singing. Rebellion and anger took hold of him and he opposed everything. Opposed me. Opposed his sister who tried to do her best for him. He attacked me and blamed me for it all.”
“If there isn’t anything else,” the woman said with a look at Erlendur. “Haven’t we said enough? Haven’t you had enough?”
“We didn’t find much in Gudlaugur’s room,” Erlendur said, pretending not to have heard her. “We found some of his records and we found two keys.”
He had asked forensics to return the keys when they had been examined. Taking them out of his pocket, he placed them on the table. They dangled from a key ring with a miniature penknife. It was set in pink plastic and on one side was a picture of a pirate with a wooden leg, cutlass and patch over one eye, with the word PIRATE written in English underneath it.
After a quick glance at the keys the woman said she did not recognise them. The old man adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked at the keys, then shook his head.
“One is probably a front door key,” Erlendur said. “The other looks like the key to a cupboard or locker of some kind.” He watched them but received no response, so he put the keys back in his pocket.
“Did you find his records?” the woman asked.
“Two,” Erlendur said. “Did he make any more?”
“No, there weren’t any more,” the old man said, glaring at Erlendur for an instant but quickly averting his gaze.
“Could we have the records?” the woman asked.
“I assume you’ll inherit everything he left,” Erlendur replied. “When we consider the investigation to be over you’ll get everything he owned. He had no other family, did he? No children? We haven’t been able to locate anything of that kind.”
“The last time I knew he was single,” the woman said. “Can we help you any further?” she then asked, as if they had made a major contribution to the investigation by taking the trouble to call at the hotel.
“It wasn’t his fault that he matured and lost his voice,” Erlendur said. He could stand their indifference and haughtiness no longer. A son had lost his life. A brother had been murdered. Yet it was as if nothing had happened. As if it was nothing to do with them. As if his life had long ago ceased to be part of their lives, because of something that was being kept from Erlendur.
The woman looked at Erlendur.
“If there wasn’t anything else,” she said again, and released the brake on the wheelchair.
“We’ll see,” Erlendur said.
“You don’t think we show enough sympathy, do you?” she suddenly said.
“I don’t think you show any sympathy,” Erlendur said. “But that’s no business of mine.”