The Darkness Knows

‘I’m sure some people would have preferred that. I wondered if it had jogged your memory at all when it turned out that Sigurvin was on Langjökull.’

‘I’d stopped thinking about that business altogether,’ Steinar said, ‘so it gave me a bit of a jolt when I heard on the news that they’d found him.’

‘To be fair, I don’t think anyone had been expecting to find him up there.’

‘No. You cops weren’t clever enough to spot that,’ Steinar said, with a hint of schadenfreude. ‘Are the police investigating the whole thing all over again?’

‘I’ve retired from the force,’ Konrád said. ‘I’m just curious on my own account, so you’re under no obligation to tell me anything unless you want to.’

‘Retired? That old, are you?’

Konrád nodded.

‘Next thing you know, you’ll be moving in here yourself.’

Konrád had sometimes wondered if he would end up in a home and found the idea distinctly off-putting. He noticed that Steinar shared his room with another man. Konrád couldn’t imagine what it would be like having to live out your last years with no privacy. Even the prisoners at Litla-Hraun got cells to themselves.

‘You never know,’ he said with a smile. ‘Look, I’m aware you must be sick of being asked the same old questions, but now this new information has come to light, I thought it would be good to hear what you had to say.’

‘But what’s it got to do with you — if you’re retired?’

‘I worked on the case for a long time,’ Konrád said. ‘Maybe it’s my hobby. I don’t know. What was the first thing that came to mind when you heard about the glacier?’

‘That Hjaltalín had done a bloody good job of hiding him. And that it must have taken some doing.’

‘Do you remember any talk at Sigurvin’s firm about glacier trips? Was there someone who enjoyed travelling in the highlands or on the ice caps? Or who had an off-roader designed for that kind of thing? Or any clients who turned up in that sort of vehicle?’

Steinar thought about it, scratching his head.

‘No, I can’t say I do. But then it’s hardly fair to ask me all these years later. I can’t say I remember any blokes with big jeeps in Sigurvin’s circle, but of course I didn’t really have any contact with him. I got the job through a cousin of mine who knew the foreman. I hadn’t been working there long when it happened.’

‘You weren’t going to report it at first — the row you overheard.’

‘I’m no snitch. What those men did was none of my business. Nothing to do with me.’

Konrád remembered Steinar’s first interview as a witness. It turned out that the anonymous tip-off the police had received about Hjaltalín quarrelling with Sigurvin had come from Steinar’s live-in girlfriend. He had told her what he’d witnessed, adding that he wanted to stay well out of it. His girlfriend had ignored his objections, though she was careful not to betray his name during the phone call, saying only that he worked for Sigurvin’s company. After that, tracking him down was easy. Konrád, knowing Steinar and his shady past, noticed that he was jumpy when he talked to him, as if keen to get the interview over with as soon as possible. Konrád told him that, according to information the police had received, Hjaltalín had been overheard making threats against Sigurvin, and was Steinar aware of this? The police had been tipped off by someone who wanted to remain anonymous. Steinar pretended to know nothing about it but later confessed to another detective, Leó, telling him exactly what he’d heard and seen in the car park.

Since Steinar’s reliability as a witness was in doubt, the police had looked into the possibility that he might be trying to get himself off the hook by lying about Hjaltalín. At one point he was even a suspect, but his girlfriend provided him with an alibi, claiming she was with him on the evening and night that Sigurvin had vanished and, besides, he had no obvious motive to kill his boss or wish him any harm. Nevertheless, he had been the last person, apart from Hjaltalín, to see Sigurvin alive, and had been guilty of withholding important information, which made the police suspicious.

Steinar was grilled repeatedly about why he hadn’t gone to the police immediately after Sigurvin was reported missing. He replied every time that he had wanted to avoid exactly the kind of interrogation he was being subjected to now. Anyway, he’d known that because he had form, they’d suspect him of having an ulterior motive. He was afraid the police wouldn’t believe him and might even think he had harmed Sigurvin himself.

He was made to attend an identity parade and quickly picked out Hjaltalín as the man who had quarrelled with Sigurvin in front of the offices. He seemed confident and stuck to his statement throughout the inquiry. According to Steinar, that evening in the car park had been the first time he’d laid eyes on Hjaltalín.

‘I asked you about Öskjuhlíd at the time,’ Konrád said now, his eyes resting on the walking frame by Steinar’s bed. ‘Maybe it’s unfair to make you try and remember it so many years later. But do you recall anything about the men’s cars?’

Steinar thought. ‘No, I can’t say I do.’