When it was all over, the house seemed eerily silent.
Their mother sat at the kitchen table, still soaking from the downpour, staring into space with her dirty hands on the table and paying no attention to her children. Mikkelina sat beside her, stroking her hands. Tomas was still in the bedroom and did not come out. Simon stood in the kitchen and looked out at the rain, tears running down his cheeks. He looked at his mother and Mikkelina and back out of the window where the outlines of the redcurrant bushes could be seen. Then he went out.
He was wet, cold and shivering from the rain when he walked over to the bushes, stopped by them and stroked the bare branches. He looked up into the sky, his face towards the rain. The sky was black and rolls of thunder rumbled in the distance.
'I know,' Simon said. 'There was nothing else to be done.' He paused and bowed his head, the rain pounding down on him. 'It's been so hard. It's been so hard and so bad for so long. I don't know why he was like that. I don't know why I had to kill him.'
'Who are you talking to, Simon?' his mother asked. She had followed him outside, and she put her arm around him.
'I'm a murderer,' Simon said. 'I killed him.'
'Not in my eyes, Simon. You can never be a murderer in my eyes. Any more than I am. Maybe it was a fate he brought upon himself. The worst thing that can happen is if you suffer because of what he was like, now that he's dead.'
'I killed him, Mum.'
'Because there was nothing else you could do. You must understand that, Simon.'
'But I feel so terrible.'
'I know, Simon. I know.'
'I don't feel well. I never have, Mum.'
She looked at the bushes.
'There'll be berries on the bushes in the autumn and everything will be okay then. You hear that, Simon. Everything will be okay then.'
29
They looked over to the front door of the home when it opened and a man came in, aged about 70, stooping, with thin white hair and a friendly, smiling face, wearing a smart thick pullover and grey trousers. One of the helpers with him was told that the resident had visitors. Simon was pointed in the direction of the sitting room.
Erlendur and Elinborg stood up. Mikkelina walked over to the man and hugged him, and he smiled at her, his face beaming like a child's.
'Mikkelina,' the man said in an astonishingly youthful voice.
'Hello, Simon,' she said. 'I've brought some people with me who wanted to meet you. This is Elinborg and this man's name is Erlendur.'
'My name's Simon,' the man said, shaking them by the hand. 'Mikkelina's my sister.'
Erlendur and Elinborg nodded.
'Simon is very happy,' Mikkelina said. 'Even if the rest of us never have been, Simon is happy and that's all that matters.'
Simon sat down with them, took hold of Mikkelina's hand, smiled at her and stroked her face, and he smiled at Erlendur and Elinborg too.
'Who are these people?' he asked.
'They're my friends,' Mikkelina said.
'Do you feel good here?' Erlendur asked.
'What's your name?' Simon asked.
'My name's Erlendur.'
Simon smiled.
'I'm Mikkelina's brother.'
Mikkelina stroked his arm.
'They're detectives, Simon.'
Simon looked at Erlendur and Elinborg in turn.
'They know what happened,' Mikkelina said.
'Mum's dead,' Simon said.
'Yes, Mum's dead,' Mikkelina said.
'You do the talking,' Simon said imploringly. 'You talk to them.' He looked at his sister and avoided Erlendur and Elinborg.
'All right, Simon,' Mikkelina said. 'I'll come and see you afterwards.'
Simon smiled and stood up, went into the hallway and shuffled away down a passage.
'Hebephrenia,' Mikkelina said.
'Hebephrenia?' Erlendur said.
'We didn't know what it was,' Mikkelina said. 'Somehow he just stopped growing up. He was the same good, kind boy, but his emotions didn't mature with his body. Hebephrenia is a variant of schizophrenia. Simon's like Peter Pan. Sometimes it's connected with puberty. Perhaps he was already ill. He had always been sensitive and when those terrible incidents took place he seemed to lose his grip. He'd always lived in fear and felt the burden of responsibility. He thought it was up to him to protect our mother, simply because there was no one else who could. He was the biggest and strongest of us, even if he turned out to be the smallest and weakest.'
'And he's been in institutions since his youth?' Elinborg asked.
'No, he lived with my mother and me until she died. She died, what, 26 years ago. People like Simon are very manageable patients, usually gentle and easy to be with, but they need a lot of steady care and Mum provided him with that for as long as she lived. He worked for the council when he could. As a dustman or picking up litter with a stick. Walked the length and breadth of Reykjavik counting the pieces of rubbish that he put in his bag.'
They sat in silence for a while.
'David Welch never got in contact again?' Elinborg asked eventually.
Mikkelina looked at her.
'Mum waited for him until her dying day,' she said. 'He never came back.'
She paused for a while.
'She phoned him from the dairy that morning when my stepfather came back,' she said eventually. 'And she talked to him.'
'But,' Erlendur said, 'why didn't he go over to the hill?'
Mikkelina smiled.
'They had said goodbye to each other,' she said. 'He was going to the continent. His ship was sailing that morning and she didn't phone him to tell him about the danger, but to say goodbye to him and tell him everything was all right. He said he'd come back. Probably he was killed in action. She never heard any news of him, but when he didn't come back after the war…'
'But why…'
'She thought Grimur would kill him. That's why she went back to the hill by herself. Didn't want him to help her. It was her business to sort out.'
'He must have known that your stepfather was due for release, and word got around about Dave and your mother,' Erlendur said. 'Your stepfather knew about it, he'd heard something.'
'They had no way of telling how he knew. It was a very secret romance. We don't know how my stepfather found out.'
'And the child…?'
