The Undesired Page 12

  Ódinn smiled to himself. Rún had little interest in shopping trips. But maybe she’d enjoy them more without him. ‘Sounds good. Let’s do that.’ They said goodbye and Ódinn hung up. He continued to stare out of the window at the weather: it wasn’t every day you could literally see the wind. The whirling snow clothed the gale in white, giving form to an enemy that was usually invisible. Between squalls, he could dimly make out the distant landscape before it was obliterated again.

  Ódinn’s thoughts wandered to the two boys who had died in the car all those years ago, presumably in weather like this. Why hadn’t they got out when they realised the air was filling with poisonous exhaust fumes? Perhaps the weather had been so wild they’d preferred to huddle in the warmth in spite of the fumes, or perhaps they hadn’t even been aware of the danger. He had scoured the newspaper archives, but found nothing except the original reports of the accident. Nor had he managed to get hold of any documents relating to the inquest; they’d probably been destroyed or lost long ago. Tobbi’s parents were dead and so was Einar’s mother. Ódinn hadn’t even tried to track down his father, an American serviceman who had returned home after his tour of duty in Iceland, leaving no forwarding address.

  All Ódinn knew for sure was that exhaust fumes were dangerous to people sitting in a car with a blocked exhaust pipe. While reading up on the subject, he’d come across a tragic story about a baby in Canada. Unaware of the risk, the father had started the engine so his child wouldn’t get cold in its seat while he was digging out the car and scraping the windscreen. By the time he got in himself, it was too late. Ódinn had also read that in some cases people experienced a sense of euphoria before they began suffering from cramps and lost consciousness. Perhaps the boys had died happy.

  A noisy ad break distracted Ódinn’s attention from the window. In his current bad mood he couldn’t bear the jaunty jingle exhorting the audience to buy, buy, buy some junk that anyone could live without. It dawned on him how much he missed his old job; the racket going on behind his brother on the phone had reminded him how he used to love working in that high-energy environment. An environment where things were built, the results of your work were visible and tangible from day to day. And there was never any mention of grief or death.

  ‘What’s for supper?’ Rún emerged yawning from her room.

  ‘Hot dogs. How does that sound?’

  ‘Great. I like everything you cook.’

  Although you couldn’t really dignify his efforts in the kitchen as ‘cooking’, he felt a warm glow inside. Rún followed him to the kitchen. ‘What did Baldur say? Are there builders working here?’

  His happiness gave way to a familiar sense of dread. Rún would be alone at home tomorrow and it was quite possible she would hear the same noises as Dísa – assuming, of course, that the old lady hadn’t been mistaken. ‘He wasn’t sure. Maybe. But you know what? He invited us to dinner on Friday and asked if you’d like to stay over. Go to the shops with Sigga or something fun like that.’

  She made a face at the mention of a shopping trip. ‘I’m up for that. I think. But I don’t want to go to Kringlan. I’ve already got enough of everything.’

  Ódinn was touched. His daughter certainly wasn’t greedy. Her wardrobe resembled a hotel closet in which the contents of one small suitcase had been hung up. Nor did she have a huge pile of toys like those in the few other children’s rooms he’d seen. She had no more possessions now than when she’d first moved in. Several times he’d offered to take her to the toy shop but she’d always declined, with a genuine lack of interest. When left to her own devices she mostly amused herself with her little games console or read books. Afterwards they watched television together or played Snakes and Ladders – a great favourite. He put up with the game, unbelievably boring though he found it, because her pleasure was all that mattered. ‘It’s up to you, sweetheart. If you don’t want to go shopping, nobody’s going to force you.’

  ‘I know.’ Rún wrinkled her nose as she entered the kitchen and Ódinn didn’t blame her: there was a rotting smell from the bin that he’d forgotten to empty in the morning rush. He tied up the over-full bag and took it out onto the landing. Amongst all the modern minimalism, the refuse chute was glaringly old-fashioned, but it did its job. Opening it, he was met by a cold blast, redolent of stale rubbish. He pushed the bin bag into the hole and was about to give it a shove when he thought he heard the echo of voices in the chute. He recoiled instinctively, then moved closer, ignoring the stench, to listen. Perhaps he’d misheard; perhaps the sound had been caused by the vacuum that formed when he opened the door. But no, there was the unmistakable sound of voices. Ódinn couldn’t make out the words: it was almost like whispering; probably a bunch of stupid kids who’d sneaked in to smoke or get up to some other mischief. Couldn’t they have found a better place? What were they thinking of, trekking all the way up this desolate cul-de-sac to hide in the bin store? There were plenty of weatherproof construction sites in the area that would be a lot more inviting.

  Ódinn dropped the bag and yelled after it: ‘Hey, you! Get the fuck out of there!’ There was a thud as the bag fell into the dustbin at the bottom, followed by a sudden hush. Ódinn wasn’t entirely satisfied; he would rather have heard the slamming of a door below or some sort of kerfuffle. ‘Get lost!’ he shouted. ‘Or I’ll call the police. This is private property.’ How dreadfully middle-aged and pompous he sounded. If he’d been a teenager on the receiving end, he’d have bust a gut laughing.

  But nobody laughed. There was no sound but a low sucking noise from the chute. ‘Right, I’m going to call them.’

  ‘Why are you shouting, Daddy? What’s the matter?’ Rún was standing in the doorway, regarding him anxiously.

  ‘It’s nothing, love. Just some kids down in the bin store. I was chasing them out. They’re not supposed to be in there.’

  ‘What are they doing there?’ Her worried expression had not entirely disappeared.

  ‘Teenagers can be a bit daft.’ Ódinn was about to add more when he was thrown by the whispering starting up again. He couldn’t stop himself from putting his ear to the chute, though he could see his daughter’s eyes widening and her expression growing even more dismayed. He couldn’t distinguish any words but every now and then there was a giggle. Suddenly he felt certain it was only one person. Whisper, whisper, giggle, giggle. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he heard the voice say: Just you wait, like the threat of a small child, though there had been nothing childish about the way it was uttered. Without waiting to hear more, he slammed the door of the chute, pushed Rún inside the flat and locked the door behind them. The giggling had conveyed no amusement, no: ‘Hee hee, that stupid man’s still there.’ Instead, Ódinn had the impression that the words and suppressed laughter were full of malice, and he didn’t want his daughter to hear. He’d been frightened enough himself.

  Half an hour later he said goodbye to the two policemen. They’d asked if he had by any chance been drinking or smoking or if he was on medication, because the snow in front of the door to the bin store showed beyond a doubt that no one had set foot there. The noises had been purely imaginary. Ódinn wished he could fetch Rún from her room to back up his story, but had no intention of letting her hear about the trackless snow.

  ‘Did the police make the teenagers go home?’ Rún had emerged.

  ‘They’d run away by the time the police finally showed up. Perhaps they heard the sirens.’

  ‘There weren’t any sirens. I saw the car arrive.’

  ‘Well, I warned them I was going to call the police, so they must have done a runner.’

  Rún clearly didn’t believe this, which was hardly surprising given that he didn’t believe it himself. He tried to console himself with the thought that at least whoever had been in the bin store had gone now. But the consolation was short-lived. They were bound to come back. Perhaps it was the same person or people that Dísa had heard. Ódinn eyed the in-adequate lock that was all that separ
ated them from the communal area. Tomorrow he would buy a bolt for the door. And while he was about it he had better call in sick, because there was no way he was leaving Rún alone at home.

  Chapter 13

  Ódinn knew he ought to focus on the visit, but his thoughts kept straying back to the office where Rún was being looked after by Diljá. When it came to it, he hadn’t liked to call in sick, so he had taken his daughter with him to work. And, of course, he hadn’t exactly relished the prospect of spending the day in the flat himself.

  Everything had gone smoothly; Rún had behaved like an angel, playing on the computer at an empty desk nearby. None of his colleagues had remarked on this or asked why his daughter had come to work with him, since they were all familiar with his circumstances. Detecting pity in their faces, he felt annoyed. There was no need to feel sorry for him and Rún; they’d manage, whatever happened.

  Every now and then he looked up from his work and, as if he’d spoken, she looked up too and they exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Sometimes it was as if they were sharing the same thought: It’ll be all right. But when midday came and he had to go out briefly, the false sense of security quickly evaporated and he wanted more than anything to take Rún along. There was no question of cancelling the interview now that he’d finally managed to arrange it. The man was the first person who’d agreed to discuss his time at Krókur, and Ódinn didn’t want him to change his mind. So far all the others had refused, and although the list was far from exhausted, it wasn’t a promising start.

  Ódinn was expecting the visit to be over quickly, so Rún could theoretically have waited out in the car. But it was such a cold day, he would have had to leave the engine running, and it would have been impossible to relax, thinking of her alone in the car in the drifting snow, worrying that it might block the exhaust. It was the lesser of two evils to leave her in Diljá’s company.

  Trying to push these thoughts aside, Ódinn knocked on the weathered door. There was plastic tape stuck over the bell to show it was broken. The wood was so solid that Ódinn might have been knocking on stone. He rapped again, so hard that his cold knuckles ached.

  The door was opened by a woman of indeterminate age. Her rough, colourless hair looked as if it had been hacked short with nail scissors. She was wearing a baggy, frayed man’s jumper that had once sported a brightly patterned yoke. Her grey-tinged face was cross-hatched with deep wrinkles, apart from the smooth skin round her mouth, which suggested that life had seldom given her reason to smile. Looking at her lips, Ódinn expected the worst, but his fear proved unjustified; her teeth were unusually fine and white.

  ‘Are you Ódinn?’ Her voice was predictably gruff and hoarse.

  ‘Yes, hello.’ He felt the calluses on her palm during the firm handshake. ‘Are you Kegga?’ There was no way of guessing the woman’s real name. Social Services, who had assisted him in arranging the interview, had only supplied her nickname. ‘I assume you know why I’m here?’

  The woman nodded indifferently. Only those who had reached the end of the road sought refuge here, so as warden of the halfway house, she must have received plenty of visits odder than this one. ‘He’s in his room and awake. You did want to see Pytti, didn’t you?’

  ‘Er, I only know his full name, Kolfinnur Jónsson. Is that Pytti?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman opened the door. The house stood on Snorrabraut and from the outside there was nothing to indicate that it didn’t contain ordinary flats. Inside, however, he was met by that unmistakable institutional smell, a combination of industrial cleaning fluid, stewed coffee and the wet anoraks hanging from the sagging coat-rail in the small lobby. ‘No need to take off your shoes unless you want to.’

  Ódinn decided to keep them on but took care to wipe his feet thoroughly. In spite of the smell of cleaning fluid, the floor looked decidedly grimy. ‘How many people live here?’ Judging by the anoraks, there must be around eight residents.

  ‘Five at the moment. There’s quite a quick turnover. Not everyone lasts the course. It’s hard for them to keep to the house rules, and breaking them leads to immediate expulsion.’ The three remaining anoraks must have been left behind when their owners were shown the door. He hoped it had been summer at the time. It was hard to imagine how anyone could survive on the streets in the depths of the Icelandic winter without a coat. Even in warm weather, it seemed a bit heartless to throw out the homeless. The woman apparently read his mind. ‘You can’t run a place like this if people are allowed to behave as if they’re still on the streets or in some crack house. It’s not fair on those who are genuinely trying to turn over a new leaf.’ She showed Ódinn into an open-plan seating area off the lobby. ‘It doesn’t take much to make someone lose heart in the early stages of recovery. As I know to my cost.’

  Ódinn had no idea how to respond. Surely the woman didn’t expect him to start questioning her about her battle with addiction? ‘Has Kolfinnur … I mean, Pytti, been here long?’

  ‘No. About three months. He came here from the Hladgerdarkot treatment centre. He’d been there for seven or eight months, I think.’ The woman opened a door into the bedroom wing. ‘Agga from the ministry told me about your inquiry.’ No one connected to this place seemed to go by their given name and Ódinn toyed with the idea of introducing himself as Oggi when he met Pytti.

  ‘I won’t force him if he doesn’t want to talk to me. I gathered he was willing, but I understand that raking up the past can be difficult.’

  ‘He’s quite laid-back about it.’ She stopped and turned. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think but I’ll say it anyway.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ódinn took an involuntary step backwards as the woman was suddenly standing uncomfortably close. ‘Are you unhappy about me talking to him?’

  ‘I’m not sure. What bothers me is the risk that you’ll put two ideas in his head that could have a negative effect on his sobriety.’ With sudden vehemence she held up her index finger and said: ‘Blame.’ Then raised a second finger and added: ‘The prospect of money.’ She held her fingers in the air, so close she could have pinched Ódinn’s nose.

  ‘What do you mean by blame?’

  The woman lowered her hand. ‘One of the most important things for a recovering addict is to take responsibility for his own life. Not to be eaten up with self-pity and constantly brooding over who or what’s to blame. Do you follow?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ It would have been easy to pretend he did, but Ódinn was afraid she’d question him and expose him as a fraud. ‘If someone’s suffered an injustice, surely he has a right to compensation? Regardless of the path he’s chosen in life. At least, that’s my opinion.’

  Her nostrils flared as she drew a sharp breath. ‘I’m not denying that. What I mean is that when addicts are trying to get their act together, they need to look to the future and into their own hearts. Everyone’s got a sob story. There’s always someone worse off than us. As you can imagine, not in our wildest dreams do we want to end up like this. But if you start looking for excuses for your problem, you’ll find either that you were born an addict or that life’s been cruel to you from the word go. Or both. Then you’ll be so depressed by the injustice of it all that you’ll end up wallowing in self-pity. You have every right to, I’m not denying that, but it won’t change anything. You’ll be just as fucked as ever.’

  ‘I’m not intending to encourage that sort of reaction. Not deliberately, anyway.’ Ódinn wondered if he himself could achieve the level of stoicism she advocated. Probably not. ‘Nothing’s emerged so far to suggest that the boys were badly treated at Krókur. I’m actually hoping Pytti’ll confirm that. I’m planning to talk to other old boys too, but the number will rather depend on what they say.’

  The woman emitted a sharp rattle, apparently of laughter. ‘Not badly treated, you say. You’re optimistic.’

  ‘You mean Breidavík and places like that? I’m hoping they were the exception, not the rule.’

  ‘Hope away. It doesn’t alter the fact
that if you want to look after children properly you have to love them. And people seem incapable of that when it comes to other people’s kids. Especially if they’re naughty or difficult or unusually vulnerable. You might manage it with young children, but older kids and teenagers never have and never will have a chance with strangers. It’s as simple as that.’

  He didn’t like to remind her of the countless adoptions that had brought happiness to children all over the world, since she was no doubt referring to cases where children were placed with non-family members for shorter periods. Besides, she had a point. Behaviour that you can put up with from your own offspring can be hard to tolerate from other people’s. If Rún had been a guest in his home he’d almost certainly have lost his temper with her at times over her frequent mood swings and terrible untidiness.

  The woman turned on her heel, stomped down the corridor and knocked, quite loudly, on a door. The reply was indistinct but apparently intelligible to Kegga, who opened the door. ‘There you go. I’ll be out front if you need me.’ She left without introducing the two men or putting her head round the door to check if Pytti was in a fit state to receive visitors.

  ‘Come in.’ It was a male version of Kegga’s rasp. A man was sitting on a narrow divan which looked as if it had been bought at the bargain bed warehouse. The rose-patterned pillowcase clashed with the striped duvet and pink sheet, and the rest of the furniture was a similarly mismatched assortment from the Good Shepherd charity shop: dressing table, chair, small desk and a fitted cupboard hardly large enough to accommodate an ordinary person’s socks and underwear but probably more than adequate for the few rags that were all the room’s occupant owned. On the cupboard door hung a small picture of Salome receiving the head of John the Baptist on a golden dish. The message was clear: ‘And you think your life’s shit’.