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.
‘You’re referring to the incident in which Vilmar Hákonarson was killed after being hit by a car? In the winter of 2009?’
‘That’s right,’ Konrád said.
‘It wasn’t your case. You were on leave, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘The state of you back then.’
‘I know.’
‘If I remember right, the accident occurred on Lindargata in the early hours of the morning, during a snowstorm,’ Olga said, and he was relieved that she didn’t go into the reasons for his being on leave at the time.
‘That’s right,’ Konrád repeated.
‘Vilmar was on his way home alone after a night out. He was blind drunk. Judging by the amount of alcohol in his bloodstream it’s surprising he was even capable of walking out of that bar. He died from a head trauma and internal bleeding. Have I got that right?’
Konrád nodded.
‘They calculated directions and distances and Vilmar’s weight. There was a whiteout that night, which made it impossible to measure any braking marks or make a cast of the tyre tracks, since they were buried immediately. In addition to that, the area had been trampled all over by people gathering at the site of the accident. There were no witnesses. The man was believed to have been lying on the pavement for some time before he was discovered — if memory serves.’
‘Was there any indication that he had been deliberately knocked down?’
‘Deliberately?’ Olga frowned and pondered this idea for what felt like a long time. Then she shot Konrád a look, but there was no gleam of pleasure in her eyes now. ‘You’ve got me curious,’ she said. ‘As far as I can remember, they did consider that possibility but nothing came of it.’
‘It would be interesting to know.’
‘Wait here,’ she said, and went and fetched the files.
There were two folders, and before she knew it she was poring over their contents with Konrád, going through the post-mortem report, sketches of the scene, calculations of the vehicle speed, speculation about its model and total mass, information about Vilmar’s weight and general physical condition, including his blood alcohol level, as well as the weather report for the Reykjavík area that night, precise details of the conditions at the scene of the accident, level of visibility, and finally the names of witnesses interviewed by the police, including those from the bar where Villi had gone on his final bender.
‘According to their calculations, it was a large, heavy vehicle,’ Olga said. ‘Not your average family car.’
‘Hang on,’ Konrád said, leafing through the post-mortem report. ‘The vehicle caught him fairly high up, on his hip and abdomen, and the impact was pretty violent. His pelvis and four ribs were broken — they believe as a result of being struck by the car. Then he received a severe blow to the head when he hit the ground.’
‘Like I said, they tried to measure the brake marks,’ Olga replied, reading from another report. ‘But the conditions made it impossible. They couldn’t see any sign that the driver had stopped and got out to see if Vilmar was OK, but then the scene had been trampled all over in the interim. The driver must have carried on, and there’s some speculation that the poor visibility might have prevented him from seeing the victim.’
‘He can hardly have failed to feel the impact, though,’ Konrád said. ‘He must have known what had happened.’
‘Especially as they say it must have been a large vehicle,’ Olga said.
‘Like a four-by-four? Or a van?’
‘I assume so,’ she replied.
‘Did the police talk to anyone who had been with him that evening?’ Konrád asked. ‘Anyone who was drinking with him at the bar, for example?’
Olga turned the pages. ‘Here’s the name of a friend of his, Ingibergur. He said he was out with him that evening.’ She carried on turning the pages. ‘It doesn’t look as if they got much information out of him, though,’ she said. ‘I expect he was pissed out of his skull as well.’
25
His name was Ingibergur, known to all as Ingi, and he was the last member of Villi’s circle of friends to have seen him alive. They had become good mates while working together on building sites. It was crazy how busy they were in those days, Ingibergur said, reminiscing. Whole new suburbs of houses, terraces and blocks of flats had appeared in a matter of months. Retail outlets had sprung up everywhere, many of them in vast hangars on the outskirts of the city. The housing developer they worked for hadn’t been able to keep up with all the invitations to tender for new projects, large and small, and was permanently short of labour. He’d been forced to deal with an agency that provided him with foreign workers, and at one point Ingi and Villi’s crew had spoken four different languages, which had led to problems at times. They had been the only ones who spoke Icelandic.
Ingi and Villi were both single, around the same age, and shared an interest in sport. Ingi, who had grown up in one of the more easterly suburbs, supported Fram, the arch-rival of Villi’s team, Valur, and their friendship had got off to an unpromising start when Ingi joined the crew and immediately started bad-mouthing Valur. The team had performed disappointingly the previous summer and had dropped to the first division. But as Fram weren’t on particularly good form either, Villi had no problem answering back. He was forever referring to the history of the clubs and claiming that Valur had a far more impressive record than Fram. Ingi rejected this claim as absurd and started listing examples of Fram’s glorious past. This had caused friction between them at first, but they soon began to see the funny side of their rivalry and discovered a common enemy in the KR club from the west of the city, which they never tired of trashing. Before long, they were going to games together, or to sports bars to watch live match broadcasts and down lager and schnapps until the early hours. That was another thing they had in common: their ability to put away booze.
The alcohol affected them differently, though, making Ingi silent and withdrawn, reluctant to talk to anyone, while Villi, in contrast, became very chatty, overcoming his natural shyness to strike up conversations with other customers in the bar. He knew all the regulars and would greet newcomers like old friends. As the evening wore on Ingi would tag along, silent and unsmiling, not speaking unless directly addressed, and even then not saying much. Once, when someone asked Villi what was up with his companion, he had joked that Ingi was his ‘silent partner’.
One evening late in November, he and Ingi had gone to the sports bar as usual, to watch a Spanish-league game. They had arrived early to secure a good table and had it to themselves until the place began to fill up and they were joined by three other fans. Soon the bar was packed and the game began. It was a lively, entertaining match, which generated a happy buzz in the bar. The two friends got chatting to the men sitting next to them, and all agreed that Barcelona had the edge on Real Madrid.
Once the game was over, people started drinking up and going home — calling out goodbye and thanks to the barman, zipping up their jackets and bracing themselves to face the Arctic conditions outside. The wind had picked up during the evening and was now gusting hard, driving thick curtains of snow across the city. But Villi and Ingi weren’t bothered, since they weren’t going anywhere. Before long they were alone at their table and Ingi had reached the morose stage.
Customers were still drifting off home, and Villi, who had drowned his shyness, started scanning the emptying seats. A handful of women had come to watch the football and a couple were still sitting at the bar. Since they were the same sort of age as the two friends, Villi started giving them the eye and nudging Ingi. But Ingi merely glanced over and shrugged. Just as Villi rose to go and talk to the women, they got up, one kissed the barman goodbye, and they plunged into the storm outside.