Blackout (9 page)

‘Posh, aren’t we?’ Hlynur said, watching as Ari Thór opened a tin decorated with a Christmas tree motif, took a few tea leaves and put them in hot water to infuse.

‘You don’t know a good thing when you see it,’ Ari Thór retorted. ‘You just swill that muck you call coffee all day long.’

‘So Christmas has come early for you, has it?’

Ari Thór smiled, declining to reply, then took his tea and left the room.

Hlynur stayed where he was, irritated by the superior smile he had seen on Ari Thór’s face.

He could feel the jealousy growing inside him; outright anger even. Although perhaps that anger ought to be directed more at Tómas. After all, it was Tómas who had asked Ari Thór to handle the investigation, leaving Hlynur to deal with all the piddling little cases. Was he preparing Ari Thór to take on even bigger assignments? Or grooming him to be the next inspector at the Siglufjörður station? As the older man with more experience, Hlynur felt that he deserved priority.

Nothing ever went right for him. And he couldn’t stop thinking about those emails – found it difficult to think of anything else. And now Tómas had put someone else on this big case, the most serious investigation of the last few years. That person being Ari Thór only served to magnify his misery.

He knew that he desperately needed to escape from this vicious circle of regret and self-pity, but it was easier said than done.

Would his career simply wither away? Would he be doomed to be a failure? Would he ever be able to haul himself back from the edge
and make something of himself, putting the misery of his childhood and misdeeds behind him?

Once Hlynur had grown up and realised the pain he had caused all those years ago at school, he had been in touch with every one of those people whose lives he had made a misery and had asked for their forgiveness. Some took it well, others didn’t. Gauti was the only one whom he hadn’t been able to reach. He had finally tracked him down through the newspapers. But where he found him was on the obituary pages.

There was no doubt: Gauti had taken his own life. Hlynur was convinced that this could be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the bullying he had suffered at school. So in all likelihood it was Hlynur who was responsible for the suicide of one of his schoolmates – he’d bullied him to death. And he had left others deeply damaged, too.

Next time I’ll teach you how to die.

Sometimes Hlynur was angry or bewildered when he read this spine-chilling message that appeared on his computer.

Who would dare send him this kind of thing? Someone he knew? Maybe someone in Siglufjörður? Was the sender out there watching him, following him to work and back? Some days he found himself consumed with the suspicion that he was being watched, that someone close at hand was following his every move. He constantly glanced over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.

Yet he still hadn’t made any real effort to find out who could be sending him the emails. Could it be someone from Gauti’s family, or one of his friends? Whoever it was, the messages continued to arrive, and they were undoubtedly real.

Maybe he did need to learn how to die.

His girlfriend in Sauðárkrókur had called that morning. He knew exactly what she wanted to talk about: the next step in their relationship. He definitely liked the girl, and under normal circumstances he would have been excited by the prospect – would have welcomed such a discussion.

But he didn’t return her call.

Ari Thór sipped his Christmas tea. It tasted the same as any other tea, with no particular Christmas flavour to it. He wasn’t even sure what flavour Christmas ought to have; had never even thought about it. He did recall that his late mother had occasionally mentioned that she associated the smell of apples with Christmas, probably because apples used to be difficult to come by in Iceland when his parents were growing up.

He turned instead to the case. He was pleased with his progress so far and was determined to do well.

After the news had been leaked that the owner of the house where the body had been found was none other than the notorious doctor Ríkhardur Lindgren, something had been nagging at the back of his mind. Could the killer have in fact set out to murder Lindgren?

Ari Thór had searched out information on the three people whose lives had been lost due to the doctor’s mistakes. An elderly widow in a Reykjavík suburb had died during an operation, leaving behind a daughter, who lived in the same district, along with her children. A retired woman in Kópavogur had also died, but not before a painful struggle with the after-effects of Lindgren’s errors. She had left a husband, who now lived in Akureyri, and several children. An elderly man in Hafnarfjörður had also died following an operation. This man had one son who now lived in Norway.

Ari Thór and Tómas were being kept up to date on the investigation’s progress by the Akureyri police. But some journalist from down south had called the Siglufjörður station directly to ask if Elías had been involved in trafficking narcotics, declining to say, however, who the source of the tip-off might be. They had explored this new avenue of inquiry, but so far without any success. It was also apparent that Elías had recently spent a few days in Denmark, returning earlier that week. He hadn’t booked any connecting flights with a local airline, but a search was in progress to find out if he had taken another flight on from Denmark with a foreign airline.

Ari Thór had been in touch with Elías’s third colleague, Páll Reynisson, referred to by Tómas as ‘Páll the Cop’, since he had once been a summer relief officer at the Siglufjörður station. Páll was travelling north from Reykjavík and had promised to call in at the station as soon as he arrived.

Next, Ari Thór intended to track down the artist who called himself Jói. Hákon, the foreman at the tunnel, hadn’t been impressed by him, and, if Hákon was to be believed, there had been some enmity between Jói and Elías in connection with Household Rescue, the charitable initiative to support those who had been left stranded by the far-reaching effects of the financial crash.

If it was true, this little fact could be promising.

The artist’s house was on Hlíðarvegur. It was an old detached bungalow, painted white, its entire front festooned with climbing plants. A row of scarlet Russian dolls, picked out in yellow, occupied the sill of the window above the door, the largest on the left, descending in order to the smallest on the right.

There was no visible doorbell, so Ari Thór tapped on the glass, or rather the glass sculpture that occupied the centre of the front door.

A middle-aged man appeared around the corner of the building.

‘Come round this way, will you? I’m working in the garden,’ he said. He had a grey beard, full and thick, which reminded Ari Thór of Father Christmas. ‘Tómas said I should expect a visit from you.’

Following the man behind the house, the first thing Ari Thór saw was a sheet of canvas, which occupied the middle of a lawn surrounded by currant bushes and shrubs. The canvas was decorated with footprints, and it was then that Ari Thór noticed that the man was barefoot, and that his feet were covered in paint.

While Ari Thór watched, the man dipped his right foot in a bucket, which appeared to be full of blue paint, and then hopped on one leg towards the canvas.

‘You’re painting?’ Ari Thór asked, realising as he said it just how asinine the question was.

‘You could say that,’ Jói answered cheerfully.

‘I hear you’re a performance artist.’

‘That’s what I’m known as, but it’s not easy to sell a performance, you know? So now I paint as well, just to keep myself afloat. And
now and again I sing and play for money too. I’ve already sold this piece to a collector in Holland. I’m something of a name there, in fact. It’s not bad, being able to sell overseas these days, now that you get a decent handful of krónur for every euro. And it’s cheap enough to live here, especially as I don’t need all that much.’

Wary of getting paint on his shoes, Ari Thór took care to move as little as possible.

‘Have you lived here long?’

‘When does anyone genuinely
live
anywhere?’ Jói asked without looking up. ‘I’m a citizen of the world, but I’ve stayed here in Siglufjörður more or less since birth. Others will have to decide whether or not that was a good thing.’

‘What was?’ Ari Thór asked, impatient.

‘Birth,’ Jói replied thoughtfully.

‘Speaking of life and death,’ Ari Thór said in a more formal tone, ‘I understand you knew Elías Freysson, the man who was murdered the other night.’

Jói laughed mirthlessly.

‘Yes. I knew him; a proper scoundrel, he was.’ As if to match Ari Thór, his voice took on a harder, more serious tone.

‘A real angel…’ Ari Thór said, almost without thinking.

‘What?’

‘An angel of a man, or that’s what people have told me.’

‘He certainly knew how to make an impression, but I saw through him. I normally do. It’s part of being an artist,’ said Jói, hopping on the canvas on one foot.

‘You had a disagreement?’ Ari Thór asked bluntly. He was finding the artist’s behaviour difficult to deal with.

‘During the protests? No, I wouldn’t say that,’ Jói said, stepping off the canvas and dipping his left foot in yellow paint before continuing, now using both feet.

‘What protests are you talking about?’ Ari Thór asked, struggling to contain his bemusement.

‘You didn’t know about them?’ Jói asked hesitatingly.

‘I do hope I’m not interrupting your work,’ Ari Thór said, irritated at not having the man’s full attention.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jói replied lightly. ‘I like to work under pressure.’

‘So tell me about these protests.’

‘You could hardly call them protests. More a coffee-house movement. That’s how we hold a protest out here in the country. We got together, maybe a dozen of us, and set up a protest camp at the new tunnel.’

‘I thought people in Siglufjörður were in favour of the tunnel?’

‘Not me. We wanted to protest at the environmental damage being done by cracking open the mountain with explosives. Then there’s the fact that Héðinsfjörður, one of the most remote places in Iceland, will now be right on the main road. The place is a jewel of nature. It’s a bloody scandal,’ he grumbled.

‘Was there any response?’

‘You can see for yourself there wasn’t,’ he said shortly. ‘The tunnel opens this winter, or so I’m told.’

‘Were they all peaceful, the protests?’

‘Pretty much,’ he muttered.

‘And what does that mean?’ Ari Thór asked.

‘Elías got uptight about it all. He had just moved up here. Started swearing at us. I was the only one who answered him back properly. We weren’t far from a fight.’ Jói paused. ‘In fact, he knocked me over … Well, he gave me a push. I didn’t respond. It was just in the heat of the moment. But I saw him differently after that, didn’t like the man.’

He looked up and smiled awkwardly.

‘Had you known each other before?’

‘No, not at all. Although Elías had spent time in the country here, back when he was child – with a couple on a farm in Skagafjörður. For a few years it was a sort of summer camp for Reykjavík kids. But it’s been abandoned since.’

‘Maybe I ought to have a word with this couple,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Do you know where they live now?’

‘You’d have to use some unconventional methods if you want to talk to them; they’re both dead. But one of their children moved here after they died. That’s Jónatan, lives next to the old churchyard.’

‘I’ll look him up when I get a chance,’ Ari Thór said, deciding to try a new angle. ‘Tell me about the charity concert you were organising. Weren’t you supposed to appear there?’

‘Yes, and I’m still planning to,’ Jói said. ‘It’ll take place even though Elías is dead. In fact, there’s a better chance of it going ahead now he’s gone. I had been thinking of withdrawing from it completely, but there’s no need for that anymore.’

‘Why were you going to withdraw?’

‘I was involved in organising the thing, along with Elías and Nóra, but she completely adored him. I guess she was the one who described him as an angel, right?’ He grinned, but didn’t wait for a reply. ‘There was something fishy about the whole thing; Elías’s part in it, I mean. He insisted on taking care of the financial side of things, and didn’t want us involved in that at all. Nóra didn’t mind, but I did. So I did my best to get a look at the paperwork – to get an idea of what was going on. Turns out I was right to be suspicious: there was a sky-high invoice from Elías and some company for costs that I didn’t even recognise. My guess is that he was using the concert to get some kind of dirty cash into circulation.’

‘Money laundering?’

‘I guess that’s the right expression. He must have been relying on nobody looking too closely, it being all for charity. But I just didn’t trust the man, and that’s the way it was.’

‘I don’t suppose you were in the area last night – when he was murdered?’ Ari Thór asked, dropping the question in to make it sound like a casual aside.

‘Good one,’ Jói said with a smile. ‘I was in Akureyri last night. Stayed on a campsite. I was drawing, not over in Skagafjörður doing someone in.’

‘It’s no great distance,’ Ari Thór muttered.

‘It’s not that many kilometres, but there’s a world of difference
between drawing a landscape and murdering a man, isn’t there?’ Jói asked, looking up from the now colourful canvas.

‘Could be,’ Ari Thór said, as he turned to leave.

Ari Thór walked along Hlíðarvegur, down the steep slope of Brekkugata and towards the Town Hall Square, all the while lost in thought about the case.

As he entered the square he saw
her
.

Ugla. The girl who had destroyed his relationship with Kristín. No, that was wrong. She hadn’t destroyed it – he had to bear his share of the blame.

It had been a few months since he’d last seen Ugla; and a year and a half had passed since they had last spoken.

She had entered the square from the opposite direction. So he could hardly turn around or step off the pavement and on to the grass without appearing to be avoiding her.

She looked up as their paths met but didn’t return the smile he offered her.

He had once been captivated by this woman, but that emotion had gone.

Now he just missed Kristín.