“What happened?” Erlendur asked. “The day before yesterday?”
“Maybe you should talk to the other boy.”
“Is it a boy in his class?”
“The children were talking about it this morning,” Edda said. “This particular boy comes from a difficult home and he’s been getting into trouble in the playground. He and some of the others had it in for Niran and his friends. Talk to him, find out what he says, he never tells me anything. His name’s Gudmundur, Gummi for short.”
Edda went back into the classroom and came out soon afterwards with a boy whom she made to stand in front of Erlendur. Erlendur was impressed by her firmness. She wasted no time on idle chatter, was on the ball and knew how best to assist.
“You told me I’d get my mobile back,” the boy moaned, looking at Erlendur.
“It’s the only thing these kids understand,” Edda Bra told Erlendur. “I didn’t want to blare out in front of the whole class that he had to talk to the police. All hell would have broken loose in the present situation. Let me know if you need anything else,” she added, then went back into the classroom.
“Gummi?” Erlendur said.
The boy looked up at him. His upper lip was slightly swollen and his nose was scratched. He was big for his age, fair-haired, and his eyes radiated deep suspicion.
“Are you a cop?” he asked.
Erlendur nodded and showed the boy behind a screen that served to partition off several computers on a long desk. Erlendur propped himself on the edge of the desk and the boy sat down on a chair in front of him.
“Have you got a cop’s badge?” Gummi asked. “Can I see it?”
“I don’t have a badge,” Erlendur said. “I expect you’re talking about what the cops carry in films. Of course they’re not real cops. They’re just Hollywood wimps.”
Gummi stared at Erlendur as if his hearing had failed for a moment.
“What happened between you and Niran the day before yesterday?” Erlendur asked.
“What business of yours-‘ Gummi began, his voice full of the same suspicion that shone from his eyes.
“I’m just curious,” Erlendur interrupted him. “It’s nothing serious. Don’t worry about it.”
Gummi continued to prevaricate.
“He just attacked me,” he said eventually.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he attack anyone else?”
“I don’t know. He just suddenly went for me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Gummi repeated.
Erlendur pondered. He stood up and peered over the partition. Then he sat back down. He did not want to be detained by Gummi for too long.
“Do you know what happens to kids who lie to the cops?” he said.
“I’m not lying,” Gummi said, his eyes growing to twice the size.
“We call their parents in straight away and explain to them that their child has been lying to the police, then we ask the parents to take the child down to the police station to give a statement, and we decide where to go from there. So if you’re free after school we can fetch you and your mum and dad and—”
“He just went berserk when I called him that.”
“Called him what?”
Gummi still prevaricated. Then he seemed to steel himself.
“I called him shit face. He’s called me far worse names,” he added quickly.
Erlendur grimaced.
“And are you surprised he went for you?”
“He’s a twat!”
“And you’re not?”
“They never leave you alone.”
“They who?”
“His Thai and Filipino friends. They hang around behind the chemist’s.”
Erlendur recalled Elinborg mentioning a group of boys by the chemist’s shop when she was going over the details of the case in his car the previous evening.
“Is it a gang?”
Gummi hesitated. Erlendur waited. He knew that Gummi was pondering whether to tell things the way they were and get Erlendur on his side, or to pretend to know nothing, just say no and hope the police officer would leave it at that.
“It wasn’t like that,” Gummi said in the end. “They started it”
“Started what?”
“Dissing us.”
“Dissing you?”
“They think they’re better than us. More important. More important than us Icelanders. Because they come from Thailand and the Philippines and Vietnam. They say everything’s much better there, it’s superior.”
And did you fight?”
Instead of replying, Gummi stared down at the floor.
“Do you know what happened to Elias, Niran’s brother?” Erlendur asked.
“No,” Gummi said, his head still bowed. “He wasn’t with them.”
“How did you explain to your parents about the injuries to your face?”
Gummi looked up.
“They don’t give a shit.”
Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg appeared in the corridor and Erlendur signalled to Gummi that he could go. They watched him close the classroom door behind him.
“Getting anywhere?” Erlendur asked.
“Nowhere,” Elinborg said. “Though one of the boys did say that Kjartan, that Icelandic teacher, was “a bastard headcase”. I had the impression he was always causing trouble but I didn’t find out exactly how.”
“Everything’s just hunky dory with me,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Hunky dory?” Erlendur growled. “Do you always have to talk like an idiot?”
“What… ?”
“There’s nothing hunky dory about any of this!”
The medical equipment bleeped at regular intervals in one of the wards but it was quiet in the room where Marion Briem lay on the brink of death. Erlendur stood at the foot of the bed, looking at the patient. Marion seemed to be asleep. Face nothing but bones, eyes sunken, skin pale and withered. On top of the duvet lay hands with long, slender fingers and long nails, untrimmed. The fingers were yellow from smoking and the nails black. No one had come to visit Marion, who had been lying in the terminal ward for several days. Erlendur had particularly asked about that. Probably no one will come to the funeral either, he thought. Marion lived alone, always had, and never wanted it otherwise. Sometimes when Erlendur saw Marion his thoughts turned to his own future of loneliness and solitude.
For a long time Marion seemed to adopt the role of Erlendur’s conscience, never tiring of asking about his private life, especially the divorce and his relationship with the two children he had left behind and took no care of. Erlendur, who bore a certain respect for Marion, was annoyed by this prying and their dealings had often ended with big words and raised voices. Marion laid claim to a part of Erlendur, claimed to have shaped him after he joined the Reykjavik CID. Marion was Erlendur’s boss and had given him a tough schooling during his first years.
“Aren’t you going to do anything about your children?” Marion had asked once in a moralising tone.
They were standing in a dark basement flat. Three fishermen on a week-long bender had got into a fight. One had pulled out a knife and stabbed his companion three times after the latter had made disparaging remarks about his girlfriend. The man was rushed to hospital but died of his wounds. His two companions were taken into custody. The scene of the crime was awash with blood. The man had virtually bled to death while the other two carried on drinking. A woman delivering newspapers had seen a man lying in his own blood through the basement window and called the police. The two other men had both passed out drunk by then and had no idea what had happened when they were woken up.
“I’m working on it,” Erlendur had said, looking at the pool of blood on the floor. “Don’t you worry yourself about it.”
“Someone has to,” Marion said. “You can’t feel too good, the way things are at the moment.”