Petrína took her time considering the question. ‘It’s not exactly the same,’ she concluded finally. ‘He had a sort of clamp here, one that reached up over the knee.’
‘Did you have a clear view of it?’
‘I did.’
‘So it wasn’t an aerial?’ asked Elínborg.
‘Yes, I’m sure it was like an aerial. Is this an old book?’
‘Could it have been a plaster cast on his leg?’
‘No, absolutely not. Plaster cast? Who said so?’
‘Did it look as if he might have a club foot?’
‘Club foot? Nonsense!’
‘Did it look as if he’d had an accident, and the brace had been fitted for that?’
‘That leg was much bigger,’ said Petrína. ‘Definitely bigger. Probably to receive the signals. I heard them.’
‘You heard the signals?’
‘Yes,’ answered Petrína firmly. She took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘You didn’t say anything about that when we talked before.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘None of your business. You think I’m daft.’
‘No, I don’t. I never said that. I don’t think you’re daft at all,’ asserted Elínborg, striving to sound sincere.
‘You never rang the power company. You said you would. You think I’m a silly old woman, talking nonsense about electric waves.’
‘I’ve been polite to you. I wouldn’t dream of being so disrespectful. Many people worry about electromagnetic waves — and microwaves, mobile phones and so on.’
‘Mobile phones will boil your brain. Boil it like an egg, until it’s all hard and useless,’ said Petrína, thumping her skull with a fist. ‘They whisper at you. Whisper all sorts of evil stuff.’
‘Oh, yes, they’re the worst,’ Elínborg agreed hastily. She grabbed Petrína’s hand to stop her banging at her head.
‘I couldn’t hear it properly, because he was in a hurry, although he wasn’t able to walk fast. He walked by here, limping on his aerial like a scalded cat. It was …’
‘Yes?’
‘It was as if he was running for his life, that man.’
‘And what did you hear?’
‘Hear? I couldn’t hear anything he said.’
‘You said you heard some signal from him.’
‘That may well be, but I didn’t hear anything he said on the telephone. I just heard a humming. That was the waves. I didn’t hear anything he said. I couldn’t. He was in such a hurry. Running as fast as he could. I didn’t hear anything.’
Elínborg contemplated the woman, trying to make sense of what she had said.
‘What?’ asked the old lady when Elínborg continued to stare at her in silence. ‘Don’t you believe me? I didn’t hear anything he said.’
‘He had a mobile phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was he talking on the phone?
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know what time this was?’
‘It was night-time.’
‘Can you be any more precise?’
‘What for?’
‘Did he seem agitated when he was talking on his mobile?’ Elínborg asked, weighing every word.
‘Oh, yes, it was obvious. The man was in a tearing hurry. I noticed it clearly, but I’m sure he couldn’t go as fast as he wanted — because of his leg.’
‘Do you know where the crime took place, in the next street down? Do you know which house it was?’
‘Of course I do. It was number 18. I read it in the paper.’
‘Was he heading that way?
‘He was. He certainly was. With his leg, and his mobile phone.’
‘Did you see him get out of a car? Did you see him come back the same way? Did you see him again?’
‘No, no, and no. This book your daughter’s reading — is it good?’
Elínborg did not hear her question. She was thinking about escape routes from number 18. She recalled a path that led into the adjoining garden, then down into the next street. ‘Do you have any idea how old he was?’ she asked.
‘No, no idea. I don’t know the man. Do you think I know him? I don’t know him at all. I don’t know how old he was.’
‘You said he was wearing a woolly hat?’
‘Is it a good story?’ Petrína asked again. She did not answer Elínborg’s question, but handed the book back. She was tired of this. She wanted to talk about something else, do something else.
‘Yes, it’s very good,’ answered Elínborg.
‘Would you mind reading me a bit of it?’ asked Petrína, with an imploring look.
‘Reading?’
‘Would you mind? Just a few pages. It needn’t be much.’
Elínborg hesitated. While her police career had involved countless experiences, she had never been asked a favour more humbly.
‘I’ll read to you,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’
Elínborg opened the book at the first page and started reading about the children’s adventures, and their dealings with the crippled Robert who had a brace on his leg and a terrible secret on his conscience, and tried to destroy them all.
Before Elínborg had been reading for five minutes Petrína was asleep in her chair, apparently at peace and free of all anxieties about electromagnetic waves and massive amounts of uranium.
When Elínborg returned to her car she rang the power company and was put through to a woman who specialised in home appliances and electromagnetic fields. It was not uncommon for her to receive phone calls from customers concerned about electromagnetism in their homes, she remarked. She was familiar with Petrína and her problems; she said she had visited her several times and had suggested rewiring the flat. The expert admitted that, as a matter of fact, the readings she had taken did not indicate high levels of electromagnetic waves in the flat. In her view, Petrína was ‘a sweet dotty old thing’.
When Elínborg contacted Social Services she learned that Petrína was one of many people living alone whom they kept an eye on. A social worker visited her regularly, and although Petrína was eccentric in her ways she was quite lucid and largely able to take care of herself.
Elínborg was about to make a third call, to her home, when the mobile rang in her hand. It was Sigurdur Óli.
‘I don’t like the look of this creep Edvard,’ he said. ‘Have you got time to pop into the station?’
‘What’s this about?’
‘See you in a minute.’
16
It took Elínborg only a few minutes to drive from Thingholt down to police headquarters, where Sigurdur Óli was waiting for her with a colleague from CID, a veteran detective named Finnur. The two men had been chatting in the cafeteria when the murder investigation came up. Sigurdur Óli mentioned Edvard, who claimed to have bought the Rohypnol for his friend Runólfur.
‘So?’ asked Elínborg, as she took a seat at their table. ‘What’s this about Edvard?’
‘If he’s been dealing in Rohypnol, we’re certainly interested,’ said Finnur, ‘whether it was for himself or someone else.’
‘Why? Have you got anything on him?’
‘You knew all about the case — you were with us at the start of the investigation,’ he said, with a look at Elínborg. ‘Erlendur was always interested. Though we never did succeed in finding the girl. She was nineteen, disappeared from her home, out west in Akranes. The local police called us in.’
‘Akranes?’
‘Yes.’
Elínborg glanced at Finnur, then at Sigurdur Óli. ‘Hang on … are you talking about Lilja? That missing-person case in Akranes?’
Finnur nodded.
‘It turns out that Edvard knew her,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘He was teaching at Akranes Comprehensive College at the time she disappeared. Finnur interviewed him. He remembered Edvard as soon as I mentioned his name, but he didn’t know he’d been buying a date-rape drug on the black market.’
‘If he got in touch with Valur he must have done his homework, because Valur keeps a very low profile,’ Finnur observed. ‘He’s very cautious, trusts nobody. The word is he’s not dealing any more, but we reckon he’s fencing stolen goods and still selling all sorts of dope. I don’t see some ordinary bloke walking in off the street and buying dope from Valur — prescription medicine or anything else. There’s more to it than that.’