HELGI HAD THE radio tuned to a classical station. As a young man he’d preferred prog rock, but as his hair gradually fell out, he felt the call of the old-fashioned music that his father liked to listen to in the cowshed, claiming that it helped the milk yield. Helgi had even toyed with the idea of getting his old accordion out, but the look on Halla’s face on the rare occasions he had mentioned it had been enough to make him think again. Although they got on well, the difference in their ages was a source of occasional discomfort for him.
When Halla’s forty, I’ll be past fifty, he mused, sitting in the dark and watching the house where Eygló Grímsdóttir, mother of Long Omar Magnússon’s girlfriend Selma, lived with her cherished BMW on display in the drive. The area was one of the better parts of the city’s suburbs, a quiet few rows of newish houses flanked on both sides by empty developments that were likely to stay empty now that the property market had come to a crashing halt. Halla had even taken Helgi to view one of these brand-new terraced houses and they liked both the area and the price. But with as much chance of selling their flat in a faded 1970s block as of a winning lottery ticket, there was little choice but to stay put.
Helgi reflected that if Eygló were to decide to go for a drive, his Skoda would struggle to keep up. The clock in the dashboard had stopped months ago, so he tapped the keypad of his mobile phone to light the screen and saw that the time was later than he’d thought.
Ten minutes more, then I’m going home, he decided, peering through the dark at the lights of the long living-room window. He had always been a patient man, something he had learned in his teens waiting on the moors with a shotgun cradled in his arms for migrating geese to pass within range.
He could see people moving in the living room and guessed that there were at least three present: Eygló, Selma and a third person, a man, he guessed, judging by the silhouettes. He turned down the radio and eased the window open, listening to the night and the music coming from the house. The germ of an idea came to him and he picked up his communicator from the passenger seat.
“Control, zero-two-sixty. Is there a patrol car at a loose end anywhere near Vesturmóar?”
“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Just coming up to Hamraborg. Need us for something exciting, do you?”
“Just a quick look at something. Meet me in the bus stop at the top of Vesturmóar. I’m in a green Skoda.”
“We all know what your old rattletrap looks like, Helgi. See you in a minute.”
The squad car pulled up behind him and Helgi got out to talk to the officers sitting in it, a burly youngish man and a young woman new to the force. He quickly explained what he wanted them to do and set off on foot down the slope towards the row of houses that backed on to Vesturmóar, cursing the mud at the side of the road where the new streets still had no proper pavements. When he felt he had a good view of the back of Eygló Grímsdóttir’s house, he clicked his communicator.
“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty. In position.”
“OK,” came the laconic reply.
Helgi peered through the clear night air and watched. He could see the lights of Eygló’s kitchen window and guessed where the back door was.
“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Silla’s knocking on the front door now.”
“Got you.”
“Door’s opening.”
As the words crackled into his earpiece, the back door swung open and a figure stepped out of the house and into the night.
“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty, that’s great. Stick around for ten minutes just in case, then you can wrap up.”
Helgi jogged along the road, keeping the dark figure in sight as it flitted from the glare of one street light to the next. Suddenly it disappeared, and Helgi set off down the slope, trying not to let his footfalls crunch too much on the rubble underfoot. He caught a glimpse of the bulky figure turning a corner ahead of him and realized that he would hardly be able to keep up without making more noise and risking alerting the man to his presence, when the sound of a door clicking shut stopped him in his tracks. He concentrated on the direction the sound came from and pointed himself towards it, emerging into the next street of empty houses made up of terraces of six. Every one was dark and empty, the first street of a new development.
Feeling uncomfortably conspicuous, he walked along the street as if he had a perfect right to and was simply taking a short cut. At the far end of the second set of six blank-eyed houses, a narrow ribbon of light glimmered faintly past one edge of a badly fitted garage door.
So, Ommi. That’s where you’re keeping yourself, he congratulated himself. I think you might be getting a visit in the morning.
JÓN STUMBLED AND leaned against the wall. His head was swimming. He had always been a thirsty man, but his love of a good drink was something he had easily suppressed during the years when he had worked hard and had a happy home life.
That had all changed now, and he felt his thirst clawing at him more often, whispering to him that a drink would help and that the day would pass more easily with a sharpener. With no more contract work to be had, he found himself relying on word-of-mouth jobs paid in cash to keep himself in funds. Friends of friends kept his phone number pinned to a board somewhere, just in case the dishwasher developed a leak or something went wrong with the heating.
He was enjoying it in some ways. For years he had meticulously kept records and rarely did black work other than for friends. Now, with the taxman and the child support people all chasing him, he had found a pleasurable release in ignoring them all. In any case, with no home to go to any more, it would take a while before their letters started reaching him again.
Slumped against a shop front, Jón lifted the half-bottle from his pocket and spun the cap, which flew off and tinkled as it hit the pavement. He cursed briefly and decided that as the bottle now didn’t have a cap, he’d just have to drink it all.
“All right, are you?”
He turned to see a pair of police officers in uniform looking down at him.
“Yeah. I’m doing OK.”
“On your way home, are you, mate?” the youngish policewoman asked kindly, handing him the bottle cap while her older, larger, male colleague surveyed a party of revellers clattering along on the other side of the street.
Jón nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to get my head down now,” he slurred. “Far to go, is it?”
“S’just up there.”
He waved a hand vaguely uphill and tried manfully to get to his feet.
The male police officer frowned down at him, still keeping an eye on the other side of the street.
“Where do you live?” the policewoman asked, squatting on her haunches to talk to him.
“Dunno,” Jón admitted. “It’s up there, big green house in Sölvagata. Top floor. It’s my little brother’s place. He’s a poof,” he added, and then wondered why he’d said it.
“All right, mate. Look, if you can stand up and walk as far as the next corner without falling over, I haven’t seen anything. All right?” the policewoman said in the same friendly tone, extending a hand to help him up.
Tears came unbidden to Jón’s eyes and coursed silently down the red stubble on his cheeks as he pulled hard on the woman’s hand and found himself upright.
“G’bless you, darling,” he muttered, weaving from one side of the pavement to the other as he made his way uphill.
“Job done,” the policeman said appreciatively to his colleague. “And no paperwork.”