Black Skies Read online

  He drifted off again.

  ‘Röggi was a fucking bastard. I despise him, he disgusts me. He’s repulsive!’

  He was staring into the distance, at what infinitely remote scenes no one could say, whispering words inaudible to Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘But I disgust myself most of all.’

  At that moment Sigurdur Óli’s phone rang, shattering the peace in the graveyard. Hastily, he fumbled for it in his coat pocket and saw that it was Patrekur calling. He dithered, glancing from Andrés to the phone, then decided to answer.

  ‘I need to see you,’ he said before Patrekur could utter a word.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You lied to me,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think it’s OK to lie to me, do you? You think it’s OK to get me into trouble and lie to me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Patrekur. ‘Calm down.’

  ‘You said you’d never met Lína in your life.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you’re sticking to that story, are you?’

  ‘Sticking to what? What are you getting at?’

  ‘I’m talking about you, Patrekur. And me.’

  ‘Don’t get all worked up. Just explain what you’re on about.’

  ‘You went on a glacier trip with her, you jerk!’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘With a bunch of other pricks. Remember now? A glacier trip, last year. Does that refresh your memory?’

  There was a lengthy silence at the other end.

  ‘We need to meet,’ Patrekur said at last.

  ‘You bet we do,’ snapped Sigurdur Óli.

  He had turned away from Andrés during the conversation to gain a modicum of privacy, but when he turned back Andrés had vanished.

  He reacted instantly, breaking off the call and sprinting up the hill through the graveyard, scanning the surroundings for Andrés, but he was nowhere to be seen. Reaching the gate, he ran out into the street, which was deserted, so he raced back into the graveyard and across it, looking all around him in vain. He had allowed Andrés to slip through his fingers again.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ he shouted, coming to a halt. Andrés had been quick to make himself scarce and could have left by any gate while Sigurdur Óli was occupied.

  He walked back to where he had parked, got into his car and wasted some considerable time combing the nearby streets in the hope of catching sight of Andrés, but to no avail.

  The man had vanished into thin air and Sigurdur Óli did not have the first idea where he might be hiding or whether he had found Rögnvaldur and, if so, what might have become of him.

  He tried to recall their conversation but did not get very far. Andrés had talked about his mother, and towards the end had begun rambling about a spike that had looked like a krona piece, and the revulsion he felt for Rögnvaldur, and that Sigurdur Óli must know that whatever happened, it was not all his fault.

  For some reason it mattered to him that the police should understand this.

  31

  PATREKUR LOOKED UP, shamefaced, as Sigurdur Óli entered the cafe and sat down opposite him. It was the same place as they had met before but now it was busier and the hubbub of conversation and other noise made it hard for them to talk without raising their voices. Realising how unsuitable the venue was, they agreed to go elsewhere and, since they were in the town centre, they started to drift slowly in the direction of the docks, past the old Icelandic Steam Ship Company headquarters, across the coast road and over towards the eastern harbour, the intended site for a giant concert hall and conference centre. They had been walking in silence but now started to talk in a desultory way about the plans.

  ‘We’re doing the groundwork,’ Patrekur offered, stopping to survey the site. ‘I’m not sure people realise the scale of this thing – just how massive it’s going to be.’

  ‘All this, when there are barely a thousand music lovers bothered enough to turn up to concerts in Reykjavík?’ exclaimed Sigurdur Óli disapprovingly, though he could hardly even spell the word ‘symphony’.

  ‘Search me.’

  They had not yet touched on the subject of Patrekur’s lie. Sigurdur Óli wanted to wait and see what Patrekur said, but guessed that he was almost certainly thinking the same thing.

  Work had started on demolishing the old buildings to make way for the new concert hall. Sigurdur Óli remembered reading a critical newspaper article by an economist who expressed dismay at the project’s vulgarity and said the building was the dream child of a nouveau-riche country desperate to raise a monument to Icelandic greed. Across the road, fortress-like, loomed the Central Bank headquarters, clad with heavy, pitch-black gabbro from the East Fjords.

  Patrekur agreed with the economist, dismissing the concert hall as a typical white elephant, born of small-country syndrome. The man who had abandoned neoconservatism for radicalism during his school years still lurked not far beneath the surface.

  ‘I think our financiers are losing the plot,’ he added.

  ‘That’s rich coming from you,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Haven’t you lost the plot yourself?’

  The silence stretched out between them.

  ‘Have you heard from Hermann at all?’ asked Sigurdur Óli eventually.

  ‘No,’ replied Patrekur.

  Sigurdur Óli had glanced over the transcripts of their interviews and noted that both had adhered to the story they had first told him. There was every chance that Finnur would call them back for further questioning. Patrekur had categorically denied knowing Lína or having any sort of relationship with her. Both had disclaimed all knowledge of a van driver called Thórarinn and denied any responsibility for the attack on Lína.

  ‘How did you come to know Lína?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘I thought you could just make this disappear,’ said Patrekur. ‘I was going to tell you the truth when it was all over. You may not believe me, but that was my intention.’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Didn’t I go over all this with you? Don’t avoid the issue.’

  ‘I feel bad about lying to you.’

  ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘I went on that glacier trip a year ago,’ Patrekur explained. ‘With some foreign clients. There were several groups: one from our firm, another from Lína’s firm and some bankers. Ebbi took care of all the preparations and organisation. It was your typical boozy excursion to entertain the foreigners by showing them the scenery, the glaciers. We drove up on to the Vatnajökull ice cap and held a barbecue there. Then – it was a weekend trip – we spent the second night out east in Höfn.’

  ‘Did Hermann go along?’

  ‘I invited him but in the end he could only make it for one of the days. He introduced me to Lína. She came over and he seemed oddly flustered. Now I know why he couldn’t stay for the whole trip – he already knew her, of course.’

  Patrekur hesitated.

  ‘And?’ prompted Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘And I slept with Lína.’

  Patrekur looked mortified as he met Sigurdur Óli’s eye.

  ‘You slept with Lína?’

  Patrekur nodded. ‘Ebbi wasn’t there. He stayed somewhere else and she … we … anyway, we ended up in bed together.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Sigurdur Óli was completely thrown.

  ‘I should have told you at once.’

  ‘Do you make a habit of cheating on Súsanna?’

  ‘I’ve done it once before,’ said Patrekur. ‘Two years ago. Similar circumstances, different woman. When I was out east on the big dam project. I wasn’t exactly sober but of course that’s no excuse. Lína was a lot of fun and very forward, and naturally I was up for it in the end.’

  ‘Naturally?’ said Sigurdur Óli.

  ‘What can I say? It happened. I have no excuse, it just happened.’

  ‘Did she tell you how she knew Hermann? That she was planning to blackmail him?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘So she
didn’t want to take pictures of you?’

  ‘Give me a break.’

  Sigurdur Óli shrugged.

  ‘You can’t imagine how shocked I was when Hermann and my sister-in-law came round the other day and started asking about my mate in the police,’ said Patrekur. ‘When he explained what it was all about and who was involved, I nearly lost it. My biggest fear was that he would let the cat out of the bag about me and Lína – that she might have told him. I couldn’t think about anything but myself.’

  ‘You haven’t got the nerve for it,’ said Sigurdur Óli, who was having difficulty feeling any sympathy for his friend, though Patrekur did sound genuinely repentant.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

  ‘What about all Hermann’s talk of swingers’ parties? His claim that they met purely by chance?’

  ‘I believe all that,’ replied Patrekur. ‘I don’t think Hermann’s lying. We didn’t have a clue that they went in for wife-swapping. Súsanna was speechless – she can’t understand that game, but then she doesn’t understand about lies and infidelity and all that stuff either. We wanted to help them. After all, it’s Súsanna’s sister, as I keep telling you. To react any other way would have been out of the question. So I agreed to talk to you and ask you to put pressure on Lína and Ebbi, to put an end to it all before it got out of hand. Of course, I should have told you the whole story. It was cowardly and selfish of me not to. To deceive you. I do realise that. I was involving you. But the whole mess was just so embarrassing. Then she was attacked and suddenly it was deadly serious and I just clammed up even more, and – I’m being completely honest – I’m so shit-scared I can hardly breathe.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you to have a word with Lína yourself, seeing as you knew her?’

  ‘I hadn’t had any contact with her since that night in Höfn and there was no way I was going to talk to her.’

  ‘Do you think she might have got the idea from you? About blackmail?’

  ‘Christ, no, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did you tell her Hermann’s wife was an up-and-coming politician?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, I really can’t remember.’

  ‘So why on earth did you have to drag me into this?’

  ‘It was never meant to become official,’ Patrekur said. ‘You were supposed to deal with it, to make the problem disappear. They were threatening God knows what: the tabloids, the Internet. Hermann had clearly got mixed up with a couple of nutters. I didn’t want to get embroiled; it didn’t occur to me to approach them myself. I just assumed that you were the right person to cut them down to size and make them see sense, threaten them with the law, like we discussed. I know you would have pulled it off. They were unbelievably brazen but I was convinced that it wouldn’t take much to talk them out of such a crazy plan.’

  ‘Were they heavily in debt? Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Hermann reckons they must have been, and that’s why they went so far. And I’m not necessarily talking about bank loans. They’ll be blacklisted for those. They were both into drugs. Hermann’s convinced they’re in debt to a bunch of dealers and that that’s why she was attacked.’

  ‘Are you sure? About the drugs?’

  ‘Hermann told me they offered him something, Es or speed, probably. He didn’t even know what it was called, but they had plenty of it.’

  ‘Did he know where they got it?’

  ‘No, he didn’t ask,’ Patrekur said.

  ‘So you didn’t meet Lína again after what happened?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, she did call me once. Rang me at work and asked how things were. We chatted for a bit, then I asked her not to contact me any more; it had been a mistake and I didn’t want to see her again.’

  ‘Did she want to see you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you said no?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Does Ebbi know you slept together?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Patrekur. ‘At least I assume not, though given the sort of life they lived, I suppose she could have told him. But if so I’m not aware of it.’

  The conversation lapsed. Eventually, Patrekur sighed and added, ‘I should have told you immediately. About me and Lína, I mean. I was shit-scared all along that you’d find out somehow. But I didn’t want to destroy our friendship. And I really hope I haven’t.’

  Sigurdur Óli did not reply and they stood watching what was happening on the dockside. Sigurdur Óli’s thoughts ranged from Ebbi and Lína, to threats, blackmail, debt collectors, glacier trips and accountants; his colleague Finnur and the wretched youth Pétur who had been beaten up behind the police station; Súsanna who was ignorant of her husband’s infidelity; Hermann and his wife who wanted to make it in politics; Bergthóra and their last conversation, and his father in hospital.

  ‘Are you going to tell Súsanna?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I already have,’ said Patrekur. ‘I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I told her everything.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s thinking it over. She was angry, of course. Completely lost it, more like. She reckons everyone’s gone crazy, at it like rabbits all over the place.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s all this money,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

  He studied his friend.

  ‘You didn’t do anything to her, Patrekur? To Lína?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘You didn’t want to shut her up?’

  ‘No. By killing her, you mean? Are you mad? I haven’t been within a million miles of this. For Christ’s sake, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘What about Hermann?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so – definitely not. But you’d have to ask him. I’ve told you what I know.’

  ‘All right. Who else was on this trip with you? I didn’t recognise any of the names.’

  ‘Foreigners,’ Patrekur replied, ‘engineers like me, bankers. I don’t know them very well. They were Americans, here to learn about geothermal energy, renewable energy. I was sent with them because I did my postgrad degree in the States and we’ve been doing a lot of research into alternative energy sources. Then …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, one of them died in an accident not long afterwards, one of the Icelandic bankers; I don’t remember his name. He was on a trip with some of the others and went missing. He wasn’t found until last spring. What was left of him, that is.’

  32

  HÖDDI LIVED IN an old, rather run-down terraced house in the unsmart Breidholt district. There were two snowmobiles under covers parked on a small paved area in front of the garage, and a large, new-looking SUV and trailer in the street outside the house, in addition to a motorbike. Höddi’s repair shop must be doing well if he could afford toys like these. Sigurdur Óli had watched him finish work, go to the gym, then return home. But he had not seen anyone else around the house and had no idea if Höddi was a family man. Apart from one arrest three years ago for assault, for which the charges were dropped, he had no police record.

  Sigurdur Óli was cold. He was sitting in his car a short distance from the house, trying to look inconspicuous and unsure how long he intended to stay or why exactly he was keeping tabs on Höddi. Other officers were keeping Thórarinn’s house under surveillance in case he came back, and his home phone was being monitored in case he made contact with his wife, since there was no mobile phone registered to her either.

  Sigurdur Óli had not heard any more from Andrés and hardly knew where to begin when it came to tracking him down, or even if there was any value in doing so. As he sat in his chilly car he wondered why Andrés kept seeking him out. It was evident that he had something on his mind that was linked to the events of his childhood, events which were clearly unresolved from his point of view, however long ago they had happened. He was filled with bitterness, rage and unmitigated hatred towards those responsible. His silence about his mother was symptomatic. Everything he had said about Rögn
valdur had dripped with loathing. Sigurdur Óli wondered if Andrés had gone to see him and, if so, how the encounter had ended. How could anyone face a monster like that, who had inflicted such suffering over so long a period? Andrés had not given the impression that there would be any question of forgiveness.

  Sigurdur Óli had wanted to bring Andrés back to the station with him, so Andrés could receive the help he needed and they could establish what exactly he wanted. It was impossible to guess from what he said, some of which had been incomprehensible. He was far gone with drink and neglect, had clearly not been looking after himself and was being tortured by his memories. Drink was his way of anaesthetising the pain. Sigurdur Óli had issued a notice to the state off-licences in the capital, asking them to alert the police if Andrés showed his face.

  He had been touched by the boy in the film clip. It was a new experience, as he rarely felt any sympathy for the luckless individuals he came across in the line of duty, but there was something about the boy’s wretchedness, his anguish and defencelessness, that had moved him. His usual attitude was that these people were responsible for their own plight. He did his job and once he had left the office for the day it was over – he had done his duty and there was no need to think about work again until he returned to the station. Some of the other officers who worked on difficult cases let it get to them, especially new recruits and old-timers, but he regarded emotional involvement as an obstacle to performing one’s role. He had often been criticised for his cynicism and detachment but this meant nothing to him.

  Apart from the obvious fact that a child had been abused, Andrés’s plight was having an inexplicably strong impact on him. The police were forever having to deal with cases like this but it was not often that Sigurdur Óli was presented with such clear evidence of the consequences of chronic abuse. Andrés straightforwardly blamed his past for what had become of him today. He had certainly experienced little joy in his life and was still consumed by grief and anger.

  The car windows were misting up so he cracked one open to let in some fresh air. He did not know how long he should stay watching Höddi’s house. It was already past 10 p.m. and he had not seen any movement.