The Darkness Knows
- Автор: Indridason Arnaldur
- Серия: Detective Konrad #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Harvill Secker/Penguin Random House UK
- ISBN: 978-1-78730-232-7
- Переводчик: Victoria Cribb
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Darkness Knows». Краткое содержание книги:
The case: impossible to solve. Until now.
A frozen body is discovered in the icy depths of Langjökull glacier, apparently that of a businessman who disappeared thirty years before. At the time, an extensive search and police investigation yielded no results-one of the missing man’s business associates was briefly held in custody, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.
Now the associate is arrested again and Konrád, the retired policeman who originally investigated the disappearance, is called back to reopen the case that has weighed on his mind for decades.
When a woman approaches him with new information that she obtained from her deceased brother, progress can finally be made in solving this long-cold case.
‘He asked me to find the murderer.’
‘He never gave up, did he? What did you say?’
‘I said I’d retired.’
Svanhildur had told him confidentially that Sigurvin’s death was the result of head trauma, as her preliminary findings had suggested. His nails were clean and neatly cut and he had recently visited a barber. His internal organs were thawed before they could be examined but, even so, Svanhildur’s fingers had got so cold during the post-mortem that she’d had to keep a bowl of tepid water beside her to warm them. The stomach contents indicated that Sigurvin had eaten shortly before his death; a burger and chips, probably at a fast-food place. Nothing was found in his pockets except his house keys and wallet. The assumption was that, after leaving work and having the altercation in the car park, he had gone home, changed out of his suit into more comfortable clothes, then got back in his car and gone to buy a meal, before driving up to the hot-water tanks on Öskjuhlíd. When the appeal for information had been at its height after his disappearance, the police had paid particular attention to checking if he’d been seen at a variety of possible locations, including burger bars and petrol station shops, but no sighting had ever been confirmed.
The original investigation into Sigurvin’s background had failed to unearth any bad habits or underworld connections to drug smugglers, debt collectors or thieves, let alone to hardened criminals. He had run his company successfully and employed a sizeable staff, all of whom had spoken well of him as a boss and owner. The reason for Sigurvin’s presence by the hot-water tanks on Öskjuhlíd was unknown. At the time, the tanks, which had formerly supplied geothermal hot water to the city’s homes by the power of gravity, had been taken out of use. Empty and crumbling, they had served as a playground for the local children, who scrawled graffiti over their walls and clambered inside them or were even, in some cases, foolhardy enough to climb up to the top.
‘So,’ Konrád said, ‘Sigurvin must have met a person, or persons, unknown by the old tanks and got a lift with him or them to the glacier — if that’s where he was killed?’
‘Yes, except he wasn’t wearing protective gear. In fact he wasn’t dressed for the outdoors at all,’ Marta pointed out. ‘Which means the person with him would have had to lend him some clothes, then take them off his body afterwards, which seems a bit far-fetched.’
‘OK, so it’s February when Sigurvin vanishes but he isn’t warmly dressed. He’s wearing a shirt and a lightweight jacket. In other words, he’s not expecting to be outdoors for long.’
‘No,’ said Marta. ‘And he’s wearing trainers, which means he can hardly have been intending to get out of the car. Though, having said that, the weather on the evening he was last seen wasn’t that bad here in Reykjavík. It had snowed heavily after New Year, but that was followed by a spell of milder temperatures before it started freezing again. At the time of Sigurvin’s disappearance, the streets were bare of snow, as I’m sure you’ll remember.’
‘Could he have been taken to the glacier by force? He gets into a jeep and next thing he knows he’s being carted off to Langjökull? A struggle ensues, during which he’s hit over the head. Or did he go voluntarily?’
‘The post-mortem indicates that he was taken there after he died. Rigor mortis was setting in and his tissues had begun to show signs of deterioration.’
‘But why the glacier? What’s on Langjökull? Why does he take Sigurvin there?’
‘Hjaltalín? I haven’t a clue.’
Konrád shrugged, defeated. He recalled the moment they found Sigurvin’s car. Shortly after it had been advertised as missing, a report had been received of a red Jeep Cherokee parked on Öskjuhlíd. Konrád often thought about that jeep because he’d had a hankering for one himself; it was the perfect size and he admired the design, the interior and the fact it had gears on the steering wheel. He’d never have gone for a red one, though, had he been able to afford it; definitely a white.
In those days the tanks had been approached by a gravel track, and the jeep had been found abandoned at the end of this. The police had conducted an exhaustive search for Sigurvin on the wooded slopes of the hill and in the surrounding area, with the help of dogs, but to no avail. There had been countless wheel marks on the gravel track and in the vicinity of the tanks, and casts had been made of some of the marks closest to the jeep. But there had been no signs of a struggle near the vehicle, and the gravel had been too hard for any footprints. The police’s job hadn’t been helped by the fact the area was popular with kids, as well as a much-visited viewpoint offering a 360-degree panorama over the city, from the distant Snæfellsjökull glacier, rising out of the sea to the west, to the mountain ranges of Hellisheidi and Bláfjöll to the east, the looming bulk of Esja to the north and the Reykjanes Peninsula far away to the south.
‘Did you send anyone to see Hjaltalín in hospital?’ Konrád asked. He finished his coffee, reflecting that it hadn’t improved much since his day.
‘No,’ Marta said. ‘His health underwent a rapid deterioration in custody and he was admitted to hospital almost immediately after his release. His doctor hadn’t expected things to progress that fast.’
‘He must have got a nasty surprise when Sigurvin turned up after all these years,’ Konrád remarked.
‘Yes, you’d think so.’
‘Still, you wouldn’t have known it when I met him. He just lay there in bed, looking calm and stoical. Mind you, I suppose he had other, more serious things on his mind, given the state of his health.’
‘He didn’t have anything new to say, then?’
‘No, he just kept banging on about being innocent.’
‘Are you going to do anything about it?’
‘I can’t “do anything about it”,’ Konrád protested. ‘I don’t have the authority.’
‘He asked you to help him.’
‘True.’
‘And?’
‘There’s no “and”. You tried to talk to him yourself, didn’t you? Did you ask him about Sigurvin’s car keys?’
‘He said he didn’t know anything about them,’ Marta said. ‘Did you ask him?’
‘I didn’t know they were missing. Svanhildur was still examining the body when I went to see him. Sigurvin had his house keys and wallet in his pocket but not the keys to his jeep. Don’t you find that strange? Who had his car keys?’
Marta shrugged as if it was pointless asking her.
‘The whole thing’s so sloppy,’ Konrád said. ‘Like the job was only half finished.’
‘I’ve never in my life come across a more obstinate bastard than Hjaltalín,’ Marta said, after a moment. ‘He knew what was going to happen when we let him go; he knew he was dying.’
‘He still denied having laid a finger on Sigurvin,’ Konrád said, ‘though he had nothing to lose any more.’
‘Flatly denied it to the very last,’ Marta said, crumpling up her coffee cup and chucking it in the bin.
9
Konrád’s son Húgó, an orthopaedic consultant at the National Hospital, was forever jetting off to international conferences, accompanied by his wife, who had a shop in the Kringlan centre. Konrád and Erna would often babysit their two lively grandsons, who had always been devoted to them. The twins were twelve now, and although they said they were perfectly capable of looking after themselves, there was no way they could actually be trusted to do so. In their parents’ absence, Konrád had brought them to stay with him for a few days, promising them a trip to the cinema. They chose the film, an abysmally bad thriller that Konrád hadn’t even heard of, in which some glitzy Hollywood star mowed down a host of enemies.
Having the boys to stay was a pleasant change from the usual monotony of his life and he did his best to treat them, though he suspected their parents already spoilt them rotten. The last thing he wanted to do was interfere in his grandchildren’s upbringing, but he couldn’t help raising his eyebrows over the demands made on the poor kids, whose week seemed to be booked solid with extra sports coaching, music lessons, art courses and countless other extracurricular activities.