She addressed her words to Kjartan, who hesitated. He looked at the three of them in turn and they all waited for him to speak. At last he nodded.
“I have a study down in the basement,” he said reluctantly. “We can go in there. Is that all right?” he asked his wife.
“Take the coffee with you,” she said.
Kjartan smiled.
“Thanks, love, I’ll be up as soon as they’ve gone.”
Picking up his younger child he kissed her, then stroked the elder child’s hair.
“Daddy’ll be right back,” he said. “He just needs to talk to these people, then he’ll be back.”
Kjartan showed them down to the basement. He had set up a study for himself in a little storeroom with a desk, computer and printer, books and papers. There was only one chair, which he occupied himself. The two detectives stood by the door. Kjartan had led them down to the basement in silence but now his anger seemed to erupt.
“What do you mean by persecuting me in my own home like this?” he snarled. “In front of my family! Did you see the look on my children’s faces? Do you really think this is an acceptable way to behave?”
Erlendur did not respond. Elinborg was poised to speak but Kjartan pre-empted her.
“Am I some sort of criminal? What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment?”
“We’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” Erlendur said again. “You haven’t been answering your phone. We decided to check if you were at home. Your wife was kind enough to invite us in and make coffee. Then you turned up. Is that any reason to get excited? We only came round to try to catch you at home. Luckily, we did. Do you want to make a complaint?”
Kjartan looked at them in turn.
“What do you want with me?” he asked.
“Perhaps we could begin with something that calls or called itself “Fathers of Iceland”,” Erlendur said.
Kjartan smirked. “And with that you think you’ve solved the case, do you?”
“I don’t think anything,” Erlendur said.
“I was eighteen years old,” Kjartan said. “It was kids” stuff. You can imagine. Fathers of Iceland! Only kids come up with that sort of crap. Teenagers trying to sound big.”
“I know plenty of eighteen year olds who couldn’t even spell Weimar Republic”
“Look, we were a bunch of college boys,” Kjartan said. “It was a joke. It was fifteen years ago. I can’t believe you’re going to try and smear me as some kind of racist because of what happened to that boy.”
Kjartan said this sneeringly, as if any connection to the case was so far-fetched that it was a joke, and Elinborg and Erlendur were jokes as well; dumb cops barking up the wrong tree. There was something inexpressibly arrogant about the way he lounged in his chair, legs splayed, grinning at their stupidity. As if he pitied them for not having the same watertight view of life as him. Elias’s fate did not seem to have touched him in the slightest.
“What did you mean when you said that an attack like the one on Elias was only a matter of time?” Elinborg asked.
“I think it’s self-explanatory. What do people expect when they let those people in? Everything’s supposed to be just fine, is it? We aren’t prepared for it. People pour into this country from all over the world to do menial jobs and we turn a blind eye. We’re all supposed to be one big, happy family. Well, it doesn’t work like that and it never will. The Asian lot create their own little ghetto, cling to their customs and traditions and make sure they don’t marry outside their own community. They don’t bother to learn the language, so of course they underachieve at school — how many of them make it to university? Most drop out of education once they’ve finished compulsory schooling, grateful not to have to waste any more time on crappy Icelandic history, the crappy Icelandic language!”
“I see you haven’t entirely given up on Fathers of Iceland,” Erlendur remarked drily.
“Yeah, right, the moment anyone says anything they’re branded a bloody racist. No one’s allowed to open their mouth. Everyone has to be so diplomatic. A positive addition to Icelandic culture and all that crap. Fucking bollocks!”
“Do you think Elias’s attacker was of Asian origin?”
“Of course you lot have ruled that out entirely, haven’t you?” Kjartan said contemptuously.
“Do you talk like that to your pupils?” Elinborg asked. “Do you talk about immigrants like that to your pupils?”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with you,” Kjartan retorted.
“Do you stir up trouble between the kids at school?” Elinborg continued.
Kjartan looked from one of them to the other.
“Who have you been talking to? Where did you get hold of that stuff about Fathers of Iceland? What have you been digging up?”
“Answer the question,” Erlendur said.
“I haven’t done anything of the sort,” Kjartan said. “If anyone says I have, they’re lying.”
“It’s what we’ve been told,” Elinborg said.
“Well, it’s a lie. I haven’t been inciting anyone to do anything. Who says I have?”
The detectives did not answer.
“Don’t I have a right to know?” Kjartan asked.
Erlendur stared at him without saying a word. He had looked Kjartan up in the police records and found nothing but a speeding fine. He had never been in any trouble with the law. Kjartan was a respectable citizen, an upstanding family man and a good father, from what Erlendur could tell.
“How did you arrive at the conclusion that you’re somehow better than other people?”
“I’m not saying I am.”
“It seems blindingly obvious from everything you say and do.”
“Is that any of your business?”
Erlendur looked at him.
“No, none at all”
Ragnar, nicknamed Raggi at school, sat face to face with Sigurdur Oli at home in his living room. His mother sat beside him, looking anxious. She was divorced; Ragnar was the eldest of her three children and she struggled to make ends meet as the sole breadwinner. She’d had a chat with Sigurdur Oli before Raggi came home. “It’s not easy to provide for three children,” she’d said, as if excusing herself in advance. Yet Sigurdur Oli had done nothing but trot out the usual cliche about routine inquiries due to the incident at the school; the police were speaking to a number of pupils from different forms. The woman listened with apparent understanding, but since the police had come round to the little basement flat she rented for an extortionate amount from the rich old lady upstairs, who owned the whole house and at least three fur coats, it seemed a good opportunity to pour out her troubles. The mother was very overweight and short of breath; she smoked almost incessantly. The air in the flat was stifling. Sigurdur Oli never saw the other two children during his visit. The flat was littered with dirty laundry, junk mail and newspapers. The mother stubbed out her cigarette and he gave a despairing thought to his clothes. They would reek of smoke for days.
Raggi was initially alarmed to see a police officer in his home but quickly recovered. He was tall for his age with a shock of jet-black hair and acne, especially round his mouth. He seemed on edge. Sigurdur Oli began by asking him general questions about the school, the atmosphere there, the teachers and older kids, before gradually bringing the conversation round to immigrants and Niran. Raggi answered mainly in monosyllables. He was polite. His mother stayed out of the conversation and just sat there lighting one cigarette from another and drinking coffee. She had only just come home from work when Sigurdur Oli rang the doorbell. The coffee she made was good and strong, and he waited for her to offer him another cup. He used to be a tea drinker but Bergthora had taught him to appreciate coffee through her connoisseurship of different types of beans and roasts.