When they were outside the embassy they discussed whether there might have been Icelandic students in Leipzig who became acquainted with Lothar Weiser. Sigurdur Oli said he would look into it.

“Weren’t you a bit rude to her?” he asked.

“That arsehole-of-the-world stuff gets on my nerves,” Erlendur said and lit a long-awaited cigarette.

24

When Erlendur got home from the office that evening, Sindri Snaer was waiting for him in his flat. He was sleeping on the sofa but when Erlendur came in he woke up.

“Where have you been hiding?” Erlendur asked.

“Around,” Sindri Snaer said, sitting up.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“No, it’s okay.”

Erlendur took out some rye bread, lamb pate and butter, and made coffee. Sindri said he was not hungry but Erlendur noticed how he wolfed down the pate and bread. He put some cheese on the table and that vanished too.

“Do you know anything about Eva Lind?” Erlendur asked over a cup of coffee when Sindri Snaer’s hunger seemed to have been satisfied.

“Yes,” he said, “I spoke to her.”

“Is she all right?”

“Sort of,” Sindri said and produced a packet of cigarettes. Erlendur did likewise. Sindri lit his father’s cigarette with a cheap lighter. “I think it’s been a long time since Eva was all right,” he said.

They sat smoking and not speaking over their black coffee.

“Why is it so dark in here?” Sindri asked, looking into the living room where the thick curtains kept the evening sun at bay.

“It’s too bright outside,” Erlendur said. “In the evenings and at night,” he added, after a short pause. He did not go into the matter any further. He did not tell Sindri that he much preferred short days and pitch darkness to perpetual sunshine and the endless light it radiated. He did not know himself the reason for it. Did not know why he felt better in dark winters than during bright summers.

“Where did you dredge her up?” he asked. “Where did you find Eva?”

“She texted me. I phoned her. We’ve always kept in touch, even when I was away from the city. We’ve always got on well.”

He stopped talking and looked at his father.

“Eva’s a good soul,” he said.

“Yes,” Erlendur said.

“Seriously,” Sindri said. “If you’d known her when she was…”

“You don’t have to tell me anything about it,” Erlendur said, not realising how curt he sounded. “I know all about that.”

Sindri sat in silence, watching his father. Then he stubbed out his cigarette. Erlendur did the same. Sindri stood up.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he said.

“Are you leaving?” Erlendur said, standing up too and following Sindri out of the kitchen. “Where are you going?”

Sindri did not answer. He took his scruffy denim jacket from the chair and put it on. Erlendur watched him. He did not want Sindri to leave in a temper.

“I didn’t mean to…” he began. “It’s just that… Eva’s so… I know you’re good friends.”

“What do you think you know about Eva?” Sindri asked. “Why do you reckon you know anything about Eva?”

“Don’t make a martyr out of her,” Erlendur said. “She doesn’t deserve it. And she wouldn’t want you to either.”

“I’m not,” Sindri said, “but don’t kid yourself that you know Eva. Don’t think that. And what do you know about what she deserves?”

“I know she’s a bloody junkie,” Erlendur snarled. “Is there anything else I need to know? She does nothing about sorting herself out. You know she had a miscarriage. The doctors said it was a mercy after all the dope she took during her pregnancy. Don’t get on a high horse about your sister. That idiot’s lost the plot yet again and I can’t be bothered to go through all that crap any more.”

Sindri had opened the door and was halfway out onto the landing. He paused and looked back at Erlendur. Then he turned round, went back into the flat and closed the door. He walked over to him.

“Put myself on a high horse about my sister?” he said.

“You have to be realistic,” Erlendur said. “That’s all I’m saying. For as long as she doesn’t want to do anything to help herself, there’s bugger all we can do.”

“I remember Eva well when she wasn’t on drugs,” Sindri said. “Do you remember her?”

He had gone right up close to his father and Erlendur could see the anger in his movements, his face, his eyes.

“Do you remember Eva when she wasn’t doing drugs?” he repeated.

“No,” Erlendur said. “I don’t. You know that perfectly well.”

“Yes, I know that perfectly well,” Sindri said.

“Don’t start preaching any bollocks to me,” Erlendur said. “She’s done plenty of that.”

“Bollocks?” Sindri said. “Are we just bollocks?”

“Jesus Christ,” Erlendur groaned. “Stop it. I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t want to argue with her and I certainly don’t want to argue about her.”

“You don’t know anything, do you?” Sindri said. “I saw Eva. The day before yesterday. She’s with a bloke called Eddi who’s ten, fifteen years older than her. He was out of his head. He was going to stab me because he thought I was a thug. Thought I’d come to collect a debt. They both deal but they do a lot of stuff too, then they need more and the heavies come round for the money. People are after them now. Maybe you know this Eddi, since you’re a cop. Eva didn’t want to tell me where she’s crashing — she’s scared shitless. They’re in some den near the city centre. Eddi supplies her with dope and she loves him. I’ve never seen such true love. Get it? He’s her dealer. She was dirty — no, she was filthy. And you know what she wanted to know?”

Erlendur shook his head.

“She wanted to know if I’d seen you,” Sindri said. “Don’t you think that’s weird? The only thing she wanted to know was if I’d seen you. Why do you think that is? Why do you think she’s worried about that? Amongst all that squalor and misery? Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “I stopped trying to work Eva out long ago.”

He could have mentioned that he and Eva had been through thick and thin together. That although their relationship was difficult and fragile and by no means free from friction, it was a relationship nevertheless. Sometimes it was even a very good one. He thought back to Christmas when she was so depressed about the baby she had lost that he thought she might attempt something stupid. She spent the Christmas and New Year with him and they discussed the baby and the guilt about it that tormented her. Then, one morning in the New Year, she was gone.

Sindri stared at him.

“She was worried about how you were getting on. How you were getting on!”

Erlendur said nothing.

“If only you’d known her the way she used to be,” Sindri said. “Before she got into dope, if you’d known her like I did, you’d have been shocked. I hadn’t met her for a long time and when I saw her, the way she looked… I… wanted to…”

“I think I did all I could to help her,” Erlendur said. “There are limits to what can be done. And when you feel there’s no real desire to do anything in return…”

His words faded away.

“She had ginger hair,” Sindri said. “When we were kids. Thick ginger hair that Mum said she must have got from your side of the family.”

“I remember the ginger,” Erlendur said.

“When she was twelve she had it cropped and dyed black,” Sindri said.

“Why did she do that?”

“Her relationship with Mum was tough a lot of the time,” Sindri said. “Mum never treated me the way she did Eva. Perhaps because she was older and reminded her too much of you. Maybe because Eva was always up to something. She was definitely hyperactive. Ginger-haired and hyperactive. She got on the wrong side of her teachers. Mum sent her to another school but that really just made things worse. She was teased for being the new kid, so she pulled all sorts of pranks to get attention. And she bullied others because she thought that would help her fit in. Mum went to millions of meetings at school about her.”