Black Skies (22 page)

He was standing in the middle of the floor when it dawned on him what was missing. The car lift.

Just at that instant he thought he heard a faint scraping sound beneath his feet.

Sigurdur Óli looked down. He was standing on a large, rectangular metal hatch, and the sound seemed to have come from underneath it. He stamped his foot.

‘Thórarinn!’ he called again.

There was no answer. But Sigurdur Óli understood now why there was no car lift in the garage: instead of raising the cars to get at their undersides, the mechanic would climb down into a pit which the vehicle was parked over. Birgir probably could not afford a hoist, but then perhaps he did not have any use for such equipment, nor for the pit, given that it was covered.

Sigurdur Óli soon discovered how to slide the metal hatch off the pit, and when he looked down there was Thórarinn sitting against the wall, staring up at him.

‘How the hell did you find me?’ he asked, unable to conceal his astonishment. He rose to his feet, still staring at Sigurdur Óli, then clambered out and dusted himself down.

‘Are you going to make trouble?’ asked Sigurdur Óli, who had rung for backup as Thórarinn was climbing out.

‘How the hell did you manage it?’

He did not put up any resistance.

‘Maybe I’ll tell you some time,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Have you been here long?’

‘Only just arrived.’

‘So where have you been hiding?’

‘Jesus, I got a shock,’ Thórarinn said, ignoring the question. ‘I
was
eating a burger when I heard you banging on the door. All I could think of was the pit. Was it Höddi? Did you follow him?’ He had started to inch his way unobtrusively towards the door.

‘Stand still,’ ordered Sigurdur Óli. ‘There are cars on their way. You’re not going anywhere.’

‘You’re alone?’ exclaimed Thórarinn.

It was the second time that day Sigurdur Óli had been asked this question.

‘There are two men outside,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for us.’

He hoped his lie sounded plausible enough to give Thórarinn pause, as he had no desire to be involved in another chase. They heard sirens in the distance.

‘And the street is filling with other units, as you can hear.’

‘Who grassed on Höddi?’

‘Just take it easy,’ said Sigurdur Óli, inserting himself between Thórarinn and the door. ‘We’d have found you eventually. Or you’d have given yourself up: you lot always do in the end.’

34

THÓRARINN WAS TAKEN
to the police station on Hverfisgata. By then it was past midnight and they decided his interview could wait until morning, so Sigurdur Óli saw him safely installed in a cell. He had intended to lie about how he had tracked Thórarinn down in order to keep Kristján’s name out of it, but was not sure he would get away with this. It would be better to claim he had received one of those anonymous phone calls saying that Höddi was somehow linked to Thórarinn. The tip-off, he would say, had not seemed particularly credible but he had decided to follow it up anyway, by shadowing Höddi, who he had seen buying a hamburger before heading towards the Ellidavogur inlet area. At that point he had remembered the direction Toggi had taken after Lína’s attack, and thought the matter deserved closer investigation. After Höddi had entered the garage and emerged minus the takeaway, Sigurdur Óli had decided to take immediate action and broke into the workshop, finding Thórarinn inside.

By telling the story this way, he hoped to deflect attention from Kristján and did not feel remotely ashamed of his lie. Kristján may
have
been a bloody fool but there was no need to set two debt collectors on him. In the event, no one questioned his account: what mattered was that Thórarinn had been caught; how it had happened was less important. The police often found themselves having to improvise.

Later that night Höddi and the garage owner, Birgir, together with an employee, were arrested and escorted to Hverfisgata. The baseball bat that Thórarinn had used to batter Lína was found in a skip about two hundred metres from the garage, stained with blood at one end.

As he was leaving the office, Sigurdur Óli bumped into Finnur.

‘You should have called for backup,’ said Finnur, who was still in charge of the investigation. ‘It’s not your own show, even if your friends are mixed up in it.’

‘I’ll remember that next time,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

Early next morning he took part in the interrogation of the three suspects. Birgir claimed complete ignorance that his workshop was being used as a safe house for criminals and flatly denied any complicity. It transpired that Höddi owned a share in the business and had his own key. Neither Birgir nor his employee had been aware of Toggi’s presence during opening hours, so he must have hidden himself unbelievably well if he had been there during the day. The workshop was small and in the course of a normal day’s work they were in and out of every corner, so it was more likely that he had hidden there at night. Since neither Birgir nor the man who worked for him had a police record, their statements were taken on trust and there was deemed to be no reason to keep them in custody.

‘Who’s going to pay for the broken glass?’ asked Birgir despondently when he heard about the damage to the garage door. He had mentioned that business was slack and that they could not afford any setbacks.

‘You can send us the bill,’ Sigurdur Óli said, not sounding particularly encouraging.

Höddi proved a tougher nut to crack. He was in a sullen, obstructive mood after a night in the cells and took exception to everything he was asked.

‘How do you know Thórarinn?’ asked Sigurdur Óli for the third time.

‘Shut your face,’ said Höddi. ‘You’d better watch your back when I get out of here.’

‘Why, are you going to kneecap me?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Are you threatening me, you prick?’

Höddi stared at Sigurdur Óli, who smiled back.

‘Shut your face,’ he said again.

‘How do you know Thórarinn?’

‘We both fucked your mother.’

Höddi was escorted back to the cells.

Thórarinn did not appear remotely intimidated when he was brought up for questioning. In the interview room he took a seat next to his lawyer, facing Sigurdur Óli, and lounged with his legs spread, drumming one foot rhythmically on the floor. Finnur joined in the questioning. They asked Thórarinn first where he had been hiding for the last few days and the answer came promptly: when he shook off the police that evening, he had run to Birgir’s repair shop and hidden outside, before later fleeing to Höddi’s place. Höddi had initially hidden him in his own house but after receiving a visit from the police he had told him to go down to the garage and wait for him there. They had met after closing time and Höddi had let him in, then come back later with food. Next, Thórarinn had been planning to move to Höddi’s summer cottage in Borgarfjördur, in the west of the country, where he would hide out for a few days while considering his options.

‘Didn’t it occur to you to give yourself up?’ asked Finnur.

‘I didn’t kill her,’ said Thórarinn. ‘She was alive when this bloke turned up.’ He pointed at Sigurdur Óli. ‘He must have finished her off. I knew you’d try to frame me for what he did; that’s why I legged it.’

Sigurdur Óli turned to Thórarinn’s lawyer in astonishment.

‘And you believe this?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t you done any homework at all?’

The lawyer shrugged. ‘That’s his statement,’ he said.

‘Sure, she was alive when I found you both,’ said Sigurdur Óli, ‘and she was still alive when the ambulance men took her to hospital, where she died the next day. But the post-mortem revealed that she died from a blow to the head – a blow administered using the implement we found two hundred metres from your hiding place. I didn’t run there carrying it. You must have hired the worst lawyer in Iceland, Toggi. A four-year-old could have told you that. Then you wouldn’t have been left looking like an idiot right from the off.’

Thórarinn glanced at his lawyer.

‘We want to know what you were doing at the scene,’ retorted the lawyer, in an attempt to save face. ‘What was your business with Sigurlína? I think my client has a right to know that.’

‘On the contrary, it’s none of your business,’ corrected Sigurdur Óli. ‘Thórarinn is a drug dealer and a debt collector. I found him at Lína’s house where she was lying on the floor, more dead than alive, and bleeding from a head wound. My visit was connected with the investigation of a completely unrelated matter. Thórarinn attacked me, then fled from a large number of police officers – made off in a hell of a hurry. Not exactly the behaviour of an innocent man, was it?’

‘What were you doing at Sigurlína’s place, Thórarinn?’ asked Finnur, who had been silent.

Sigurdur Óli had been trying to calculate what was on Finnur’s
mind
and how he would react to the ludicrous defence put forward by Thórarinn and his lawyer. There was no possible way they could know Sigurdur Óli’s business with Lína; they were merely trying to complicate the matter and cast doubt on him. He was not sure whether the reason for his presence at Lína’s would ever need to come out officially, since so much about the sequence of events still remained obscure. But there was little he could do to influence the course of the investigation, so he could only hope for the best. In fact, what happened next was pretty much up to Finnur.

Thórarinn caught the eye of his lawyer, who nodded.

‘A drugs debt,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I sometimes sell a little dope and she owed me money. There was some aggro; I acted in self-defence and hit her. Never intended to do any damage, mind. It was accidental. Then I panicked when that prick appeared.’ Thórarinn gestured at Sigurdur Óli again.

‘Is that your defence?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

‘It was an accident. It all happened by mistake,’ said Thórarinn. ‘She went for me. I defended myself. End of.’

‘She went for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You forced your way into her home with a baseball bat, smashed the place up and she went for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That will be all for now,’ announced Finnur.

‘Can I go then?’ said Thórarinn with a grin. ‘I haven’t got time for this, you know. I have a family. Us van drivers don’t get paid like bank managers.’

‘I reckon it’ll be a while before you go anywhere except on the odd little prison outing,’ replied Finnur.

‘What car were you driving when you went to her house?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

Thórarinn paused.

‘Car?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘If you didn’t mean to do her any harm and the whole thing was an accident, why did you need to borrow a car to go to her place?’

‘How is that relevant?’ asked the lawyer.

‘It shows premeditation –
mens rea
is probably the phrase you’d use. He didn’t want to be spotted near the house.’

‘Was it Kiddi?’ said Thórarinn, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Of course, you’ve spoken to Kiddi. The stupid twat! I’ll fucking –’

‘Kiddi who?’ asked Finnur, looking at Sigurdur Óli.

‘Just answer the question,’ said Sigurdur Óli, aware that he had said too much, too soon.

‘Was it Kristján who squealed? Was it him who told you about Höddi? The stupid little fucker.’

‘Kristján who?’ asked Finnur again.

‘Search me,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

35

IT TOOK HIM
forever to wake up and when he did, he had no idea whether it was day or night. He lay motionless while he was getting his bearings and gradually it came back to him: the conversation in the graveyard, the greyness, the cold, the twisted trees and tumble-down gravestones. The peace.

His memory of what had passed between him and the policeman was hazy, though he recalled meeting him, recalled sitting and talking to him for a while. But then something had happened and he could remember no more. Exactly what had happened, how they had left each other or how much he had revealed, he did not know. He had meant to tell him everything. When he rang the policeman, he had been determined to tell him the lot, about Grettisgata and Röggi and his mother, about what had happened to him when he was a boy, how he had been mistreated. He had meant to take the policeman back to Grettisgata, show him the old man and tell him the whole story. But for some reason he had not done so. Had he run away? All he remembered was waking up just now on the floor of the basement flat.

Sitting up with difficulty, he groped for the plastic bag. He had finished one of the bottles but the other was still half full, so he took a deep draught, thinking that he would have to go straight back to the off-licence. A sudden memory returned, of climbing over the graveyard wall into the road where a car had almost knocked him down. Yes, it came back to him now; the policeman had been on the phone.

He could not make up his mind whether he should ring the man again and try to arrange another meeting. He was almost certain that he had sent him a short strip of one of the films he had found in the old man’s flat. As far as he could remember, there had been two reels, but he had not found any more, despite turning the flat upside down, smashing holes in the walls and tearing up the floorboards.

Hours after discovering the films he had attempted to watch them but the experience proved too overwhelming. Having threaded one into the projector, he turned it on, the film began to roll and an image suddenly appeared on the white wall of a boy – himself. Then all the circumstances of the shoot flooded back. Ironically, although he had trouble remembering the last twenty-four hours, he had absolutely no difficulty recalling the events of more than thirty years ago. In frantic haste he switched off the projector, pulled out the film, and finding a pair of scissors in the chaos, snipped off a short section and put it in a plastic bag lying on the floor.

He did not want anyone to watch the films; they were his secret, so he put them in the kitchen sink and set fire to them. The burning reels emitted a great cloud of foul-smelling smoke, as was only to be expected of such filth, so he opened the window in the kitchen and another in the living room to air the flat. Once he had made sure that every last frame had been reduced to ashes, he washed the remains down the sink.