“Gretar was nuts,” Ellidi said, interrupting Erlendur.
“What were you doing in Kefiavik when…”
“… he raped that pussy?” Ellidi cut in.
“What did you say?” Erlendur asked.
“Is that what you came here for? To ask about that pussy from Keflavik?”
“So you remember it?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I never said…”
“Holberg liked talking about it. Boasted. Got away with it. He did her twice, did you know that?” Ellidi said this bluntly and looked at them in turn.
“Are you talking about the rape in Keflavik?”
“What colour panties are you wearing, sweetie?” Ellidi turned on Sigurdur Oli, staring at him again. Erlendur looked at his colleague, whose eyes remained fixed on Ellidi.
“You watch your bloody mouth,” Erlendur said.
“He asked her. Holberg. Asked about her panties. He was even madder than me.” Ellidi giggled. “And they send me to the nick!”
“Who did he ask about the panties?”
“The chick from Keflavik.”
“Did he tell you about it?”
“All the details,” Ellidi said. “He was always talking about it. Anyway, what are you asking about Keflavik for? What’s Keflavik got to do with it? And why are you asking about Gritar now? I don’t get it.”
“Just our boring routine work,” Erlendur said.
“Right, so what do I get out of it?”
“You’ve got everything you want. We’re sitting alone here with you and your handcuffs are off. We have to listen to your filth. There’s nothing else we can do for you. Either you answer the question now or we leave.”
He couldn’t resist the temptation. Reaching across the table he grabbed Ellidi’s face in his strong hands and turned him towards him.
“Didn’t your father ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” he said. Sigurdur Oli looked at Erlendur.
“I can handle him. It’s okay,” he said.
Erlendur released his grip on Ellidi’s face.
“How did you know Holberg?” he asked. Ellidi rubbed his jaw. He knew he’d just scored a minor victory. And he wasn’t stopping there.
“Don’t think I don’t remember you,” he said to Erlendur. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are. Don’t think I don’t know Eva.”
Erlendur stared at the prisoner, thunderstruck. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard this kind of thing from criminals, but he was never any less ill-prepared for it. He didn’t know exactly who Eva Lind associated with but some of them were convicts, drug dealers, burglars, prostitutes, heavies. It was a long list. She’d been in trouble with the law herself. Once she was arrested after a tip-off from a parent for selling drugs at a school. She could easily know a man like Ellidi. A man like Ellidi could easily know her.
“How did you know Holberg?” Erlendur repeated.
“Eva’s all right,” Ellidi said. Erlendur could read countless meanings into his words.
“If you mention her again, we’re gone,” he said. “And then you won’t have anyone to play with.”
“Cigarettes, a telly in the cell, no fucking slavery and no more fucking solitary. Is that asking too much? Can’t two supercops set that up? And it’d be nice to get a tart in here once a month or so. His chick for example,” he said, pointing at Sigurdur Oli.
Erlendur stood up and Sigurdur Oli slowly rose to his feet. Ellidi started to laugh. A hoarse laugh that seethed inside him, progressed to a loud gurgling and culminated in him coughing up some yellow phlegm which he spat on the floor. They turned away from him and walked towards the door.
“He talked to me a lot about that rape in Keflavik!” he shouted after them. “Told me all about her. How that pussy squealed like a stuck pig and what he whispered in her ear while he waited to get it back up. Do you want to hear what that was? Do you want to hear what he said to her?! Fucking wankers! Do you want to hear what it was?!”
Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli stopped. They turned to see Ellidi shaking his head at them, foaming at the mouth and shrieking curses and oaths. He was on his feet, his hands on the table, leaning over it, stretching his big head in their direction and bellowing at them like a raging bull.
The hall door opened and the two warders stepped inside.
“He told her about the other one!” Ellidi screamed. “He told her what he did to the other fucking pussy he raped!”
14
When Ellidi saw the warders he went berserk. He leapt over the table, ran at the four men, screaming, and threw himself at them. He landed on top of Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli and they were both slammed to the ground before they could do a thing. He headbutted Sigurdur Oli, the blood spurted from both men’s noses and his fist was raised to punch Erlendur’s defenceless face when one of the warders took out a little black device and gave him an electric shock in his side. This slowed Ellidi down, but it didn’t stop him. He raised his arm again. It was only when the other warder gave him a second electric shock that he slumped down and fell on top of Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli.
They crawled out from underneath him. Sigurdur Oli held a handkerchief to his nose to try to stop the bleeding. Ellidi was given a third electric shock and was finally still. The warders handcuffed him and, with great difficulty, lifted him up. They were going to take him out but Erlendur asked them to wait a moment. He went up to Ellidi.
“Which other one?” he asked.
Ellidi showed no reaction.
“Which other one that he raped?” Erlendur repeated.
Ellidi tried to smile, dazed by the electric shock, and a grimace moved across his face. Blood had run from his nose down into his mouth and his false teeth were bloody. Erlendur tried to conceal the eagerness in his voice, as if he couldn’t care less what Ellidi knew. He tried not to make himself vulnerable. Tried not to show any expression. He knew that the slightest weakness made the heart of men like Ellidi pound, turned them into real men, gave them a purpose in their pitiful illusion of life. The slightest deviation would be enough. An eager tone in his voice, a sign in his eyes, a movement of his hands, a hint of impatience. Ellidi had managed to throw him off balance when he mentioned Eva Lind. Erlendur wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of grovelling now.
They looked each other in the eye.
“Take him out,” Erlendur said and turned away from Ellidi. The warders were about to lead the prisoner away but he stiffened and wouldn’t budge when they tried to move him. He took a good, long look at Erlendur as if mulling something over, but eventually he gave in and allowed himself to be led from the room. Sigurdur Oli was still trying to stop the bleeding. His nose was swollen and his handkerchief was dripping with blood.
“That’s a nasty nosebleed,” Erlendur said and examined Sigurdur Oli’s nose. “Nothing else though, nothing serious. There are no cuts and your nose isn’t broken.” He pinched it tight and Sigurdur Oli let out a shriek of pain.
“Oh, maybe it is broken, I’m no doctor,” Erlendur said.
“That fucking bastard,” Sigurdur Oli said. “That fucking bastard.”
“Is he playing around with us or does he really know about another woman?” Erlendur said as they left the hall. “If there was one more perhaps there were others that Holberg raped who never came forward.”
“There’s no way to talk sense to that man,” Sigurdur Oli said. “He was doing it for his own amusement, winding us up. He was playing with us. You can’t trust a word he says. That jerk. That fucking jerk.”
They went to the governor’s office and gave him a brief report of what had happened. In their opinion, they said, the only place for Ellidi was a padded cell at a psychiatric ward. The governor agreed wearily, but said the only recourse available to the authorities was to keep him at Litla-Hraun. This wasn’t the first time Ellidi had been confined to solitary for violence in the prison and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.