Black Skies (8 page)

‘Do I need to?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

The man sighed heavily.

‘There’s no need,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I … I have a lady friend on that road. If you need to confirm my story you can talk to her. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’

‘A lady friend?’

The man nodded.

‘You mean a mistress?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were visiting her?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. Did you notice anyone in the area who could have been connected to the attack?’

‘No. Is that it?’

‘Yes, I believe that’s all,’ Sigurdur Óli said.

‘Are you going to speak to my wife?’

‘Can she confirm any of this?’

The man shook his head.

‘Then I’ve no interest in talking to her,’ Sigurdur Óli said. He took the lady friend’s phone number just in case, then got up and left.

Later that day he met a man who was unaware that his car had been parked near Lína’s house, as he had not been driving it himself but had lent it to his son. After the man had made some enquiries it turned out that his son had been round at a nearby house with a friend. They were visiting a classmate from their sixth-form college and had all gone together to a film in the Laugarás cinema which had started at around the time Lína was attacked.

The man gave Sigurdur Óli a considering look.

‘You needn’t bother about the boy,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Scared of his own shadow.’

Finally Sigurdur Óli sat down with a woman of about thirty who worked on the switchboard at a soft-drinks bottling plant. After Sigurdur Óli had introduced himself, she asked someone to cover for her and since he did not want to explain his business where they could be overheard, she went and sat with him in the staff cafeteria.

‘What’s going on exactly?’ the woman asked. She had dark hair and a broad face, a small metal ring in one eyebrow and a tattoo on her forearm. Sigurdur Óli could not see what it was supposed to be; it looked like a cat but could equally have been a snake that wound around her arm. Her name was Sara.

‘I’d like to know what you were doing in the east of town, near the Laugarás cinema, on the evening of the day before yesterday.’

‘The day before yesterday?’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know that?’

‘Your car was parked not far from the street where a brutal attack occurred.’

‘I didn’t attack anyone,’ she said.

‘No,’ Sigurdur Óli agreed. ‘But your car was in the area.’

He explained that the police were checking up on the owners of any vehicle that had been seen in the vicinity that evening. It was
a
serious case of assault and battery, and the police wanted to ask all those who had been in the area whether they had noticed anything that might assist the investigation. It was a long speech and Sigurdur Óli could tell that Sara was bored.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ she said.

‘What were you doing in the area?’

‘Visiting a friend. What actually happened? I saw something on the news about a break-in.’

‘We don’t have any more information as yet,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘I’ll need your friend’s details.’

Sara gave them to him.

‘Did you stay the night?’

‘What? Are you spying on me?’ she asked.

The cafeteria door opened and an employee of the bottling plant nodded to Sara.

‘No. Is there any reason why I should?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

Sara smiled. ‘I very much doubt it.’

Sigurdur Óli was getting into his car outside the plant when his phone rang. He recognised the number immediately. It was Finnur, who informed him brusquely that Sigurlína Thorgrímsdóttir had died a quarter of an hour earlier as a result of the blow to her head.

‘What the hell were you doing at her place, Siggi?’ Finnur whispered and hung up.

13

SIGURDUR ÓLI’S MOTHER
opened the door, her expression indicating that he was late. He did not have his own key because she said she would feel uncomfortable knowing that he could walk in on her whenever he liked. She had invited him for supper but had not waited for him before serving up, and now the food was growing cold on the table. Saemundur was nowhere to be seen.

His mother, known to all as Gagga, was on the wrong side of sixty and lived in a large detached house in the smart satellite town of Gardabaer, surrounded by fellow accountants, doctors, lawyers and other wealthy professionals, the kind of people who owned two to three cars apiece and hired professionals to look after their homes and gardens and put up their Christmas lights. Not that Gagga had always lived this well; she had been hard up when she met Sigurdur Óli’s father and in the period immediately after the divorce, although ‘the plumber’, as she insisted on calling her ex-husband, had offered to assist in any way he could. She had rented at first but was forever falling out with her landlords. Then there was nothing for it but to move on. It made no difference when Sigurdur Óli complained that
he
found it hard to keep changing schools. His mother had a talent for putting people’s backs up, including the teachers and principals of his schools, so in the end his father had to take over all communication about his education.

Gagga had studied business at college and was working as a bookkeeper when Sigurdur Óli was born, but subsequently improved her qualifications at university and gradually worked her way up to a good position in an accountancy firm that was eventually taken over by a large international corporation. She now occupied a managerial position at the company.

‘Where’s Saemundur?’ Sigurdur Óli asked, slipping off the winter coat he had bought the year before; bloody expensive it had been too, from one of the most exclusive clothing stores in the country. Bergthóra had shaken her head when he brought the coat home and accused him of being the worst label snob she knew. He recalled the way she used to say ‘you mean gaga’, whenever his mother came up in conversation.

‘He’s in London,’ Gagga said. ‘One of those bright young entrepreneurs who’s hit the big time abroad is opening an office there with the president in attendance and all that razzmatazz. Everything flown out by corporate jet; nothing less will do.’

‘They’ve done bloody well for themselves.’

‘It’s all on credit, you know. All they really own is debts which somebody will have to pay off in the end.’

‘Well, I think they’re doing a fantastic job,’ objected Sigurdur Óli, who had been taking a close interest in the success of Icelandic businessmen at home and abroad. He was impressed by their drive and enterprise, especially when it came to buying up household-name companies in Britain and Denmark.

They sat down at the table. His mother had made tuna lasagne, an old favourite of his.

‘Would you like me to heat it up for you?’ she asked, taking
his
plate and putting it in the microwave before he could reply. The oven pinged and Gagga passed the plate back to her son. He was still disturbed by his short conversation with Finnur about Lína’s death. Finnur had sounded quite worked up, angry even, and that anger had been directed at him. ‘What the hell were you doing at her place, Siggi?’ Finnur had asked. He loathed being called Siggi.

‘Have you heard from Bergthóra at all?’ asked his mother.

‘Saw her yesterday.’

‘Oh? And what’s she got to say for herself?’

‘She said you never liked her.’

Gagga was silent. She had not taken any food, despite having laid a place for herself, but now she picked up a spoon, helped herself to some lasagne, then got up and put it in the microwave. Sigurdur Óli was still feeling resentful about all the time he had wasted watching postboxes for her, and by the fact that she had interrupted the American football with her phone call the night before, but most of all because of what Bergthóra had said.

‘Why does she say that?’ his mother asked as she stood by the oven, waiting for the bell.

‘She’s adamant that it’s true.’

‘So she blames me for everything, does she? For what happened to your relationship?’

‘I don’t seem to remember you being particularly sad about it.’

‘Of course I was,’ his mother said, but did not sound very convincing.

‘Bergthóra’s never mentioned this before. But when I started thinking back, it occurred to me that you never used to come round and see us, and you had very little contact with her. Were you trying to avoid her?’

‘Of course not.’

‘She talked a lot about you yesterday. She was very honest, but
then
we don’t have anything to hide from each other any more. She said you didn’t think she was good enough for me and that you blamed her for the fact we couldn’t have children.’

‘What nonsense!’ Gagga exclaimed.

‘Is it?’

‘It’s ridiculous,’ his mother declared and sat down with her steaming plate, but did not touch her food. ‘She can’t say things like that, the silly girl. What utter nonsense.’

‘Did you blame her for not being able to have children?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it
is
her fault! I didn’t need to blame her.’

Sigurdur Óli put down his fork.

‘And that was all the support she got from you,’ he said.

‘Support? I didn’t get any support when your father and I divorced.’

‘Oh, you generally manage to get your own way. And what do you mean by support? It was you who left him.’

‘Well, anyway, what now? What’s going to happen to you two now?’

Sigurdur Óli pushed away his plate and looked around him; at the spacious sitting room that opened off the kitchen, decorated in his mother’s impersonal style: white walls, heated floors covered in large black tiles, expensive new blocky furniture, and art that was pricey without necessarily being in good taste.

‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s over.’

Ebeneser had been weeping. He was still at the hospital when Sigurdur Óli went over later that evening to express his condolences. Ebeneser had been gone briefly that afternoon and by the time he returned Lína was dead. Now he was alone in the visitors’ lounge in a state of bewilderment, as if he did not know whether to go or stay. He had watched as they took her body away for an urgent post-mortem to establish the precise cause of death.

‘I wasn’t there,’ Ebeneser said after Sigurdur Óli had been sitting with him for a little while. ‘When she died, I mean.’

‘So I gather. I’m sorry,’ Sigurdur Óli said. He had been itching to talk to Ebeneser but had thought it best to give him some space to recover, though no longer than the time it took for him to visit Gagga.

‘She never woke up,’ Ebeneser continued. ‘Never opened her eyes. I didn’t realise it was that serious. When I came back she was gone. Dead. How … how the hell did this happen?’

‘We mean to find out,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘But you have to help us.’

‘Help you? How?’

‘Why was she attacked?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know who did it.’

‘Who knew she’d be alone at home?’

‘Knew …? I don’t know.’

‘Have you had any trouble before with violent types – debt collectors, for example?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, of course I’m sure.’

‘I don’t believe the man who attacked Lína was necessarily a burglar. It seems much more likely, judging from what I saw, that he was a debt collector, but we can’t be certain that he was acting on his own behalf. Do you follow me?’

‘No.’

‘It’s just as likely that he was working for someone else who sent him round to your place with the express intention of using violence against you, or against Lína. That’s why I’m asking: who knew that you would be out of town that day? And that Lína would be alone?’

‘I really have no idea. Look, do we have to discuss this now?’

They were facing one another; the hospital was silent all around
them
and the hands of the large clock over the door crawled round. Sigurdur Óli leaned forward and whispered: ‘Ebeneser, I know you and your wife were trying to blackmail people with photos.’

Ebeneser said nothing.

‘That sort of thing can be risky,’ Sigurdur Óli continued. ‘I know you did it because I know the people involved. Are you aware of who I’m talking about?’

Ebeneser shook his head.

‘All right,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘Have it your way. I don’t believe the people I know would have set that animal on you. In fact, I find the idea highly unlikely because I know them and it would have required a lot more initiative than I credit them with. I’d gone round to see Lína myself when she was attacked.’

‘You were there?’

‘Yes. My acquaintances asked me to persuade her, to persuade both of you, to abandon your attempt at blackmail and give me the photos.’

‘What … Can you …?’ Ebeneser did not know what to say.

‘Do you know who I’m talking about?’

Ebeneser shook his head again.

‘Please, can we talk about this another time?’ he asked, his voice so low that it was barely audible. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lína just died.’

‘I have reason to believe,’ Sigurdur Óli ploughed on, ‘that her attacker may have been at your house on the same errand as me. Do you follow?’

Ebeneser did not answer.

‘He must have been there for exactly the same reason; to try and dissuade Lína from persisting with the stupid course of action that you were both set on. Could I be right?’

‘I don’t know what motive he could have had,’ Ebeneser said.

‘Have you tried to blackmail anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Who knew that Lína would be alone at home?’

‘No one, everyone, I don’t know. Anyone. I haven’t a clue, I don’t keep a list.’

‘Don’t you want to try to solve this?’

‘Of course I do! What’s the matter with you? Of course I want this solved.’

‘Then who’s been threatening you – threatening to attack you and beat the hell out of you?’

‘No one. This is just some bullshit you’ve dreamt up.’

‘I’m almost certain that Lína’s death was an accident,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘A tragic accident. A mistake by someone who went too far. Don’t you want to help us find him?’

‘Of course, but could you please give me a break? I’ve got to go home. I’ve got to see Lína’s parents. I’ve got to …’