‘Yes, the T-shirt, too.’
‘We’ll have to speak to the boys,’ said Konrád. ‘Before anything happens. Before the media get hold of it.’
‘You can call them from the station if you like,’ Elínborg told him.
Nína and her parents followed Elínborg’s car to police headquarters. When they arrived Nína was shown into an interview room, while her parents waited in Elínborg’s office.
Word spread fast that the police had a suspect in the Thingholt Murder, as the media were calling it, and soon reporters started ringing to ask for details. A request for remand in custody had been sent down to the District Court. Konrád had found a lawyer. He had looked into the matter in advance and knew who to contact. The lawyer he engaged, well known as a successful criminal defence counsel, had put his other cases aside and was present, as was the prosecutor, when the custody request was submitted to the judge. The younger of Nína’s brothers met his parents in Elínborg’s office, thunderstruck by what his mother had told him on the phone. Disbelief and astonishment soon gave way to anger, directed initially at his parents for not confiding in him and then at Runólfur.
Elínborg felt heartily sorry for Nína who sat hunched in the interview room, awaiting her fate. She did not look like a coldhearted killer but a bewildered victim who had been through a horrifying experience only to face another ordeal.
She was eager to speak, now that the truth about her encounter with Runólfur was out and it was known that she was the woman who had been with him when he died. She seemed glad to be able to tell the truth at last and get the story off her chest, so that she could embark on her long journey towards understanding and closure.
‘Did you know Runólfur before you met him on the night in question?’ asked Elínborg, once all the formalities had been completed and the interview could begin.
‘No,’ said Nína.
‘But he’d been to your home two months before, hadn’t he?’
‘Yes, but I still didn’t know him.’
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘Nothing. Nothing happened.’
‘You had called in an engineer, hadn’t you?’
Nína nodded.
Nína wanted to move the TV into the bedroom, so she needed the aerial cable extended through the wall. She had also switched to a different telephone company and was having some problems with her Wi-Fi connection. She wanted to be able to use her laptop anywhere in the flat. When she rang the helpline she was put through to customer services, and later that day an engineer turned up. That had been on a Monday.
The engineer was friendly and engaging, maybe two or three years older than Nína. He got straight to work and she did not pay much attention to what he was doing. She heard the noise of an electric drill coming from the bedroom, and he had to pull out a skirting board. She did not have the impression that he spent an excessive amount of time in the bedroom. It did not even cross her mind until later, after the event.
He helped her get online and then wrote out an invoice, which she paid on the spot, using a card. He talked to her about this and that — superficial chat between strangers — then left.
The following day the engineer came back to complete the job and later on he reappeared at her door, asking if she had seen the drill bit that he had used when he drilled the hole through the bedroom wall. She had not noticed it.
‘Do you mind if I come in and have a look?’ he asked. ‘I’m on my way home. I thought I might have left it here. I can’t find it anywhere. It’s a nuisance, because I use it all the time.’
Nína accompanied him into the bedroom and helped him search. The cable passed through a wardrobe, which she opened. He checked the windowsill and looked under the bed before giving up.
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience,’ he said. ‘I’m always mislaying things.’
‘I’ll get in touch if it turns up,’ she replied.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I had a bit of a heavy weekend. Spent too long at Kaffi Victor on Saturday night.’
‘I know the place,’ she said smiling.
‘Do you ever go there?’
‘No, we mostly go to Kráin.’
‘We?’
‘My friends and I.’
‘So you’ll let me know if you find the drill bit?’ the engineer said as he was leaving. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again some time.’
Nína was known as a good cook, and she liked inviting her girlfriends over to try out new recipes. She had become interested in Indian cuisine after working at an Indian restaurant in Reykjavík, where she had got to know the chefs well, learning from them and gradually assembling her own collection of herbs and spices, and recipes using pork and chicken. Like Elínborg, she experimented with substituting Icelandic lamb for other meats in Indian dishes. On the evening when she met Runólfur she had cooked lamb for her friends, using the tandoori pot that her father had given her for her birthday. It was nearly midnight when they all left her flat to go into town. They had soon split up, and Nína was thinking of going home when she ran into Runólfur.
As she had not had much to drink, she was mystified to have so little memory of that night until she read that Rohypnol had been found in Runólfur’s flat. She had had a Martini with her friends before dinner, and red wine with the Indian lamb dish, followed by some beer, as the spicy dish had made her thirsty.
She was unable to say much about what happened after she had met Runólfur in the bar. She remembered him coming over to her and talking about San Francisco. She had told him that she had visited her brother there. She finished her drink, and Runólfur offered her another — by way of compensation for the ridiculously expensive bill the other day, he said. She accepted, and while he was ordering the drinks she glanced at her watch. She did not intend to stay long.
Her recollection of their walk back to his flat in Thingholt was fragmentary. She seemed to be blind drunk: she was uncoordinated and completely helpless.
Nína regained consciousness gradually. It was the middle of the night. On the wall above her she saw Spider-Man, ready to pounce.
Initially confused, she thought she was at home. Then she realised that could not be right, and thought she must have fallen asleep at the bar.
But that made no sense either. Slowly she understood that she was lying in an unfamiliar bed, in a room that she had never seen before. She felt sick, dazed and weary. She did not know how she came to be there. When she had been lying there for some time she realised that she was stark naked. She looked down at her body and found the situation absurd. She did not even think to cover herself. Spider-Man was watching her. She imagined he might come and help her. She smiled at the idea. Her, and Spider-Man!
When Nína woke up again she felt cold. She jerked awake, trembling. She was naked, in a strange bed.
‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, seizing the bedspread from the floor and wrapping it around her. The room was unfamiliar. She called out ‘Hello?’ but heard only an empty silence. She inched her way out of the bedroom into the living room, and felt for the light switch. A man was lying on his back on the floor, and she thought that she had seen him somewhere before. But could not place where.
Then she saw the blood.
And the gash across the throat.
Nína gagged. She saw the man’s deadly-white face, and the gaping red wound. His eyes were half-open and she felt that he was looking at her, accusing her of something.
‘I found my phone, and rang home,’ said Nína. The tape recorder hummed in the quiet of the interview room. Elínborg watched her. Her account, though patchy towards the end, was credible. She did not appear defensive — until she had to describe waking up in a strange place and finding Runólfur’s body.