“I might have seen him in the neighbourhood some time but I don’t know him,” Andres said. “I haven’t done anything to him.”

His eyes darted back and forth, as if he had to make a decision but was hesitant. Perhaps he thought that he needed to bargain to get off. Sigurdur Oli was poised to speak, but Erlendur tugged at him and gestured to him to keep quiet. Andres seemed to approve of that.

“Would you leave me alone then?” he eventually said.

“If what?” Erlendur said.

“Would you let me go home then?”

“Your flat was crammed with child pornography,” Sigurdur Oli said, not concealing the disgust in his voice. Erlendur had urged him to try not to show disrespect to criminals, as Sigurdur Oli had a tendency of doing. Nothing annoyed him more than middle-aged repeat offenders who were always in the same mess.

“If what?” Erlendur repeated.

“If I tell you.”

“I told you not to turn this into a bloody pantomime,” Erlendur said. “Say what you want to tell us. Stop beating about the bush.”

“I guess it’s a year since he moved into the area,” Andres said.

“Elias moved in the spring, like I said.”

“I’m not talking about that boy,” Andres said and looked at each of them in turn.

“Who then?”

“He’s showing his age, the old git. That was the first thing I noticed.”

“What are you talking about?” Sigurdur Oli snapped.

A man I reckon has more porn in his possession than I do,” Andres said.

Sigurdur Oli and Erlendur exchanged glances.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres said. “You know that. You have to believe me, Erlendur. I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Don’t try and turn me into your confidant,” Erlendur said.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres repeated.

Erlendur watched him in silence.

“I’ve never killed anyone,” Andres said yet again.

“You kill everything you touch,” Erlendur said.

“What man are you talking about?” Sigurdur Oli asked. “What man moved to the area?”

Instead of answering him, Andres focused his glare on Erlendur.

“What man is this, Andres?” Erlendur asked.

Andres leaned forward over the table and inclined his head slightly, like an elderly aunt giving a kindly greeting to a little child.

“He’s the nightmare I can never shake off.”

12

Elinborg was waiting to meet Elias’s teacher at the school the boy and his brother had attended before they moved from Snorrabraut. Having been told that a meeting was just finishing, she sat outside the closed classroom and thought about her youngest child, a daughter, who was still at home with gastric flu. Her husband, a car mechanic, would spend the first part of the day with her, then Elinborg would take over.

The classroom door opened and a middle-aged woman greeted her. During the meeting, she had been passed a note that the police wanted to talk to her. Elinborg shook the woman’s hand, introduced herself and said she needed to talk to her in connection with Elias’s murder, which she had doubtless heard about. The woman gave a sad nod.

“We were talking about that at the meeting,” she said in a low voice. “Words can’t describe that, that sort of… outrage. Who would do something like that? Who on earth would be capable of attacking a child?”

“We intend to find out,” Elinborg said, looking all around in search of a place where they could talk together without being disturbed.

The woman, whose name was Emilia, was petite with long, dark hair in a ponytail, just beginning to turn grey. She said that they could sit inside the classroom: the children were at a music lesson and it was empty. Elinborg followed her. Pupils” drawings were pinned up on all the walls and displayed different stages of maturity, from matchstick men to proper portraits. Elinborg noticed a few traditional pictures: Icelandic farmhouses, at the foot of a mountain with a bright blue sky, wisps of cloud and a brilliant sun. She remembered that classic theme from her own schooldays and was silently surprised at its longevity.

“This one’s by Elias,” Emilia said, taking out a picture from a drawer in the teacher’s desk. “They never came to fetch his artwork when he left this school and I didn’t want to throw this one away. It shows how genuinely talented he was at drawing, at such a young age.”

Elinborg took the picture. The teacher was right, it showed that Elias had an exceptional command of drawing. He had drawn a female face with unnaturally large brown eyes, dark hair and a broad smile, bathed in bright colours.

“It’s supposed to be his mother,” Emilia smiled. “Those poor people, having to go through all this.”

“Did you teach him from the time he started school?” Elinborg asked.

“Yes, from the age of six, I guess, only four years back. He was such a nice, sweet boy. A bit of a dreamer. Sometimes he had trouble concentrating on his schoolwork and it took some effort on my part to get him to apply himself. He could stare into space for hours on end and be off in a world of his own.”

Emilia stopped talking and turned pensive.

“It must be difficult for Sunee,” she said.

“Yes, of course, really difficult,” Elinborg said.

“She always showed the boys such love,” the teacher said, pointing at the drawing. “I taught them both, Elias’s brother Niran too. He didn’t speak Icelandic well at all. I’m told they mainly spoke Thai at home and I discussed the fact with Sunee, how it could cause them problems. Her Icelandic was so-so and she preferred to have an interpreter with her at parents” meetings.”

“What about the father? Did you get to know him?” Elinborg asked.

“No, not at all. He never attended any events here, not the Christmas party or anything of that sort. Never came to parents” meetings, for example. She always came by herself.”

“Moving to a new part of town and a new school might have been tough for Elias,” Elinborg said. “It’s not certain that he adapted to the new school. He hadn’t made any friends and he spent a lot of time alone.”

“I can believe that,” Emilia said. “I remember what he was like when he started at this school. I thought he would never let go of his mother. It took me and the class welfare officer ages to get him to relax and realise that everything would be fine even if Sunee went.”

“What about Niran?”

“The brothers are so different,” Emilia said. “Niran is tough. He’d survive anywhere. There’s not a hint of the whiner about him.”

“Did they get on well together, the brothers?”

“As far as I could see, Niran took very good care of his brother and I know Elias worshipped him. He made a lot of drawings of Niran. The difference between them was that Elias wanted to fit in, to be part of the class. Niran was more of a rebel, against the class, the teachers, the school authorities, the older pupils. There was a group of immigrant kids here, five or six boys that Niran went around with a lot. They kept themselves to themselves and did little schoolwork, because they had absolutely no interest in Icelandic history or anything like that. Once they fought with some Icelanders. This was outside school hours. It was in the evening and the gangs fought with sticks and broke windows. You hear about that sort of thing sometimes. You must be familiar with it”

“Yes, we are,” Elinborg said. “Generally it’s to do with girls.”

“The two ringleaders moved away from this part of town in the last school year and it died down. It only takes a tiny minority. Then Elias and Niran changed schools. I haven’t seen either of them since. And then you hear this on the news and can’t understand what’s going on.”

Emilia spoke quickly, almost gabbling. Elinborg refused to be drawn and dodged all her questions about how the boys had been doing since they left the area and about Sunee’s personal circumstances. Emilia was an inquisitive woman and not afraid to show it. Elinborg liked her but did not want to reveal any details of the case. She merely said that it was at a very early stage. Emilia’s curiosity was understandable. Elias’s murder dominated the media. The police had probably talked to almost a hundred people in the neighbourhood, the surrounding blocks of flats, the school and nearby shops. Photographs of Elias were being circulated and attempts made to trace his precise movements on the fateful day. Witnesses who might have seen him on his way back from school were asked to come forward. Nothing concrete had come out of it yet. The only solid evidence the police had was that Elias had left school alone and was going home when he was stopped on the way.