It was well past noon and Erlendur was starving, but instead of eating in the dining room he went upstairs and had room service send up some lunch. He still had several tapes to go through, so he put one in the player and let it roll while he waited for his food.
He soon lost his concentration, his mind wandered from the screen and he started mulling over Stefania’s words. Why had Gudlaugur crept into their house at night? He had told his sister that he wanted to go home. Sometimes I just want to come home. What did those words imply? Did his sister know? What was home in Gudlaugur’s mind? What did he miss? He was no longer part of the family and the person who had been closest to him, his mother, had died long before. He did not disturb his father and sister when he visited them. He did not come by day as normal people would do — if there was such a thing as normal people — to settle scores, to tackle differences and the anger and even hatred that had formed between him and his family. He came by cover of night, taking care not to disturb anyone, and sneaked back out unnoticed. Instead of reconciliation or forgiveness, he seemed to be looking for something perhaps more important to him, something that only he could understand and which was beyond explanation, enshrined in that single word.
Home.
What was that?
Perhaps a feeling for the childhood he spent in his parents” house before life’s incomprehensible complexities and destinies descended upon him. When he had run around that house in the knowledge that his father, mother and sister were his companions and loved ones. He must have gone to the house to gather memories that he did not want to lose and from which he drew nourishment when life weighed him down.
Perhaps he went to the house to come to terms with what fate had meted out to him. The unyielding demands that his father made, the bullying that went with being considered different, the motherly love that was more precious to him than all other things, and the big sister who protected him too; the shock when he returned home after the concert at Hafnarfjordur cinema, his world in ruins and his father’s hopes dashed. What could be worse for a boy like him than to fail to live up to his father’s expectations? After all the effort he had expended, all the effort his father had made, all the effort his family had made. He had sacrificed his childhood for something too large for him then to comprehend or control — and which then failed to materialise. His father had played a game with his childhood, and in effect deprived him of it.
Erlendur sighed.
Who doesn’t want to come home sometimes?
He was flat out on his bed when suddenly he heard a noise in the room. At first he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He thought the turntable had started up and the needle had missed the record.
Sitting up, he looked at the record player and saw that it was switched off. He heard the same noise again and looked all around. It was dark and he couldn’t see very clearly. A vague light emanated from the lamp post on the other side of the road. He was about to switch on the bedside lamp when he heard the noise again, louder than before. He didn’t dare move. Then he remembered where he had heard the noise before.
He sat up in bed and looked towards the door. In the weak glow he saw a small figure, blue with cold, huddled up in the alcove by the door, staring at him, shaking and shivering so that its head bobbed, sniffling.
The sniffling was the noise that Erlendur recognised.
He stared at the figure and it stared back at him, trying to smile but unable to do so for the cold.
“Is that you?” Erlendur gasped.
In that instant the figure disappeared from the alcove and Erlendur started from his sleep, half out of bed, and stared at the door.
“Was that you?” he groaned, seeing snatches of the dream, the woollen mittens, the cap, the winter jacket and scarf. The clothing they were wearing when they left their house.
The clothing of his brother.
Who sat shivering in the cold room.
26
For a long time he stood in silence at the window, watching the snow fall.
Eventually he sat down to continue watching the tapes. Gudlaugur’s sister didn’t reappear, nor anyone he knew apart from some employees he recognised from the hotel, hurrying to or from work.
The hotel telephone rang and Erlendur answered.
“I reckon Wapshott’s telling the truth,” Elinborg said. “They know him well at the collectors” shops and the flea market.”
“Was he down there at the time he claimed?”
“I showed them photos of him and asked about the times, and they were pretty close. Close enough to stop us putting him at the hotel when Gudlaugur was attacked.”
“He doesn’t give the impression of being a murderer either.”
“He’s a paedophile, but maybe not a murderer. What are you going to do with him?”
“I suppose we’ll send him to the UK.”
The conversation ended and Erlendur sat pondering Gudlaugur’s murder, without reaching any conclusion. He thought about Elinborg and his mind soon returned to the case of the boy whose father abused him and whom Elinborg hated for it.
“You’re not the only one,” Elinborg had said to the father. She wasn’t trying to console him. Her tone was accusatory, as if she wanted him to know he was only one of many sadists who maltreated their children. She wanted to let him hear what he was a part of. The statistics that applied to him.
She had studied the statistics. Well over three hundred children had been examined at the Children’s Hospital in connection with suspected maltreatment over the period 1980-99. Of these, 232 cases involved suspected sexual abuse and 43 suspected physical abuse or violence. Including toxic poisoning. Elinborg repeated the words for emphasis. Including toxic poisoning and wilful neglect. She read from a sheet of paper, calm and collected: head injuries, broken bones, burns, cuts, bites. She reread the list and stared into the father’s eyes.
“It is suspected that two children died from physical violence over that twenty-year period,” she said. “Neither case went to court.”
The experts, she told him, considered that this was an underlying problem, which in plain language meant there were probably many more cases.
“In the UK,” she said, “four children die every week from maltreatment. Four children,” she reiterated. “Every week.
“Do you want to know what reasons are given?” she continued. Erlendur sat in the interrogation room but kept a low profile. He was only there to help Elinborg if necessary, but she did not appear to need any assistance.
The father stared into his lap. He looked at the tape recorder. It wasn’t switched on. It wasn’t a proper interrogation. His lawyer had not been notified but the father had not objected nor complained, yet.
“I shall name some,” Elinborg said, and began listing the reasons that parents are violent to their children: “Stress,” she said. “Financial problems, sickness, unemployment, isolation, poor partner support and momentary insanity.”
Elinborg looked at the father.
“Do you think any of this applies to you? Momentary insanity?”
He didn’t answer.
“Some people lose control of themselves, and there are documented cases of parents who are so disturbed by a guilty conscience that they want to be caught. Does that sound familiar?”
He said nothing.
“They take the child to the doctor, maybe their GP, because it has, let’s say, a persistent cold. But it’s not the cold that motivates them; they want the doctor to notice the wounds on the child, the bruises. They want to get caught. You know why?”
He still sat in silence.