Jar City

by Arnaldur Indridason

  It was a small black-and-white photograph, showing a grave in a cemetery in wintertime. He didn’t recognise the cemetery. There was a headstone on the grave and most of the inscription on it was fairly clear. A woman’s name was carved there. AUDUR. No second name. Erlendur couldn’t see the dates very clearly. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for his glasses, put them on and held the photograph up to his nose. 1964–1968. He could vaguely make out an epitaph, but the letters were small and he could not read it. Carefully he blew the dust off the photo.

  The girl was only four when she died.

  Erlendur looked up as the autumn rain thrashed against the windows. It was the middle of the day but the sky was a gloomy black.

  6

  The big lorry rocked in the storm like a prehistoric beast and the rain pounded against it. It had taken the police some time to locate as it wasn’t parked where Holberg lived in Nordurmýri, but in a car park west of Snorrabraut, by the Domus Medica health centre, several minutes’ walk from Holberg’s home. In the end they had made a radio announcement asking for information about the lorry’s whereabouts. A police patrol had found it at about the same time that Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli left Holberg’s flat with the photograph. A forensic team was called out to comb the vehicle for clues. It was an MAN model with a red cab. All that a quick search revealed was a collection of hardcore pornographic magazines. It was decided to move the lorry to CID headquarters for further investigation.

  While this was going on, forensics got to work on the photograph. It transpired that it was printed on Ilford photographic paper, which was used a lot in the 1960s but had long since been discontinued. Probably the photograph had been developed by the photographer himself or by an amateur; it had begun to fade as if the job had not been done very carefully. There was nothing written on the back and there were no landmarks by which to determine the cemetery in which it had been taken. It could be anywhere in the country.

  The photographer had stood about three metres from the headstone. The shot was taken more or less directly in front of it; the photographer must have had to bend his knees unless he was very short. Even from that distance the angle was quite narrow. There was nothing growing near the grave. A powdery snow lay on the ground. No other grave could be seen. Behind the headstone, all that was visible was a white haze.

  Forensics concentrated on the epitaph which was largely indistinguishable because the photographer had stood so far away. Numerous reproductions were made of the photograph and the epitaph was enlarged until every single letter had been printed out on A5 paper, numbered and arranged in the same sequence as on the headstone. They were coarse-grained pictures, hardly more than alternating black-and-white dots that created nuances of light and shade, but once scanned into a computer the shadowing and resolution could be processed. Some letters were clearer than others, which left the forensic team to fill in the gaps. The letters M, F and O were clearly discernible. Others were more difficult.

  Erlendur phoned the home of a department manager from the National Statistics Office who agreed, cursing and swearing, to meet him at the offices on Skuggasund. Erlendur knew all the death certificates issued since 1916 were housed there. No-one was in the building, all the staff having left work some time before. The department manager pulled up in his car outside the Statistics Office half an hour later and shook Erlendur’s hand curtly. He entered a PIN in the security system and let them into the building with a card. Erlendur outlined the matter to him, telling him only the bare essentials.

  They looked at all death certificates issued in 1968 and found two in the name of Audur. One was in her fourth year. She had died in the February. A doctor had signed the death certificate and they soon found his name in the national registry. He lived in Reykjavík. The girl’s mother was named on the certificate. They found her without any problems. Her name was Kolbrún. She had last been domiciled in Keflavík in the early 1970s. They then checked again among the death certificates. Kolbrún had died in 1971, three years after her daughter.

  The girl had died from a malignant tumour on the brain.

  The mother had committed suicide.

  7

  The bridegroom welcomed Erlendur into his office. He was a quality and marketing manager for a wholesaling company that imported breakfast cereal from America and Erlendur, who had never tasted American breakfast cereal in his life, pondered as he sat down in the office what a quality and marketing manager at a wholesaling company actually did. He couldn’t be bothered to ask. The bridegroom was wearing a well-ironed white shirt and thick braces and he had rolled up his sleeves as if managing quality issues required every ounce of his strength. Average height, a little chubby and with a ring of beard around his thick-lipped mouth. Viggó was his name.

  “I haven’t heard from Dísa,” Viggó said quickly and sat down facing Erlendur.

  “Was it something you said to her that…”

  “That’s what everyone thinks,” Viggó said. “Everyone assumes it’s my fault. That’s the worst thing. The worst part of the whole business. I can’t stand it.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about her before she ran away? Anything that might have upset her?”

  “Everyone was just having fun. You know, a wedding, you know what I mean.”

  “No.”

  “Surely you’ve been to a wedding?”

  “Once. A long time ago.”

  “It was time for the first dance. The speeches were over and Dísa’s girlfriends had organised some entertainment, the accordionist had arrived and we were supposed to dance. I was sitting at our table and everyone started looking for Dísa, but she was gone.”

  “Where did you last see her?”

  “She was sitting with me and said she needed to go to the toilet.”

  “And did you say anything that could have made her sulk?”

  “Not at all! I gave her a kiss and told her to be quick.”

  “How much time passed from when she left until you started looking for her?”

  “I don’t know. I sat down with my friends and then went outside for a smoke – all the smokers had to go outside – I talked to some people there and on the way out and back, sat down again and the accordionist came over and talked to me about the dance and music. I talked to some other people, I guess it must have been half an hour, I don’t know.”

  “And you never saw her during that time?”

  “No. When we realised she was gone it was a total disaster. Everyone stared at me as though it was my fault.”

  “What do you think has happened to her?”

  “I’ve looked everywhere. Spoken to all her friends and relatives but no-one knows a thing, or that’s what they say anyway.”

  “Do you think someone’s lying?”

  “Well, she must be somewhere.”

  “Did you know she left a message?”

  “No. What message? What do you mean?”

  “She hung a card on the message tree thing. ‘He’s a monster, what have I done?’ it said. Do you know what she means by that?”

  “He’s a monster,” Viggó repeated. “Who was she talking about?”

  “I had thought it might be you.”

  “Me?” said Viggó, becoming agitated. “I haven’t done a thing to her, not a thing. Never. It’s not me. It can’t be me.”

  “The car she took was found on Gardastraeti. Does that tell you anything?”

  “She doesn’t know anyone there. Are you going to report her missing?”

  “I think her parents want to give her time to come back.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll see.” Erlendur hesitated. “I would have thought she’d have contacted you. To tell you everything’s all right.”

  “Wait a minute, are you suggesting it was my fault and she won’t talk to me because I did something to her? Jesus, what a bloody horror story. Do you know what it was like coming to work on Monday? All my colleagues were at the party. My boss was
at the party! Do you think it’s my fault? Fuck it! Everyone thinks it’s my fault.”

  “Women,” Erlendur said as he stood up. “They’re difficult to quality control.”

  Erlendur had just arrived at his office when the phone rang. He recognised the voice immediately although he had not heard it for a long time. It was still clear and strong and firm despite its advanced age. Erlendur had known Marion Briem for almost 30 years and it hadn’t always been plain sailing.

  “I’ve just come from the chalet”, the voice said, “and I didn’t hear the news until I reached town just now.”

  “Are you talking about Holberg?” Erlendur asked.

  “Have you looked at the reports on him?”

  “I know Sigurdur Óli was checking the computer records but I haven’t heard from him. What reports?”

  “The question is whether they’re actually on file in the computers. Maybe they’ve been thrown out. Is there any law about when reports become obsolete? Are they destroyed?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Turns out Holberg was no model citizen,” Marion Briem said.

  “In what way?”

  “The chances are that he was a rapist.”

  “Chances are?”

  “He was charged with rape, but never convicted. It was in 1963. You ought to take a look at your reports.”

  “Who accused him?”

  “A woman by the name of Kolbrún. She lived in…”

  “Keflavík?”

  “Yes, how did you know that?”

  “We found a photograph in Holberg’s desk. It was as if it had been hidden there. It was a photograph of the gravestone of a girl called Audur, in a cemetery we still haven’t identified. I woke up one of the living dead from the National Statistics Office and found Kolbrún’s name on the death certificate. She was the little girl’s mother. Audur’s mother. She’s dead too.”

  Marion said nothing.

  “Marion?” Erlendur said.

  “And what does that tell you?” the voice replied.

  Erlendur thought.

  “Well, if Holberg raped the mother he may well be the father of the girl and that’s why the photo was in his desk. The girl was only 4 years old when she died, born in 1964.”

  “Holberg was never convicted,” Marion Briem said. “The case was dropped due to insufficient evidence.”

  “Do you think she made it up?”

  “It would be unlikely in those days, but nothing could be proved. Of course it’s never easy for women to press charges for that kind of violence. You can’t imagine what she would have gone through almost 40 years ago. It’s difficult enough for women to come forward these days, but it was much more difficult then. She could hardly have done it for fun. Maybe the photo’s some kind of proof of paternity. Why should Holberg have kept it in his desk? The rape took place in 1963. You say Kolbrún had her daughter the following year. Four years later the daughter dies. Kolbrún has her buried. Holberg is implicated somehow. Maybe he took the photo himself. Why, I don’t know. Maybe that’s irrelevant.”

  “He certainly wouldn’t have been at the funeral, but he could have gone to the grave later and taken a photograph. Do you mean something like that?”

  “There’s another possibility too.”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe Kolbrún took the photo herself and sent it to Holberg.”

  Erlendur thought for a moment.

  “But why? If he raped her, why send him a photograph of the little girl’s grave?”

  “Good question.”

  “Did the death certificate say what Audur died of?” Marion Briem asked “Was it an accident?”

  “She died of a brain tumour. Do you think that could be important?”

  “Did they perform an autopsy?”

  “Definitely. The doctor’s name is on the death certificate.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Died suddenly at her home.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve stopped calling in to see me,” Marion Briem said after a short silence.

  “Too busy,” Erlendur said. “Too damned busy.”

  8

  Next morning it was still raining and on the road to Keflavík the water collected in deep tyre tracks that the cars tried to avoid. The rain was so torrential Erlendur could hardly see out of the car windows, which were veiled in spray and rattled in the unrelenting south-easterly storm. The wipers couldn’t clear the water from the windscreen fast enough and Erlendur gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He could vaguely make out the red rear lights of the car in front and tried to follow them as best he could.

  He was travelling alone. Thought this was best after a difficult telephone conversation with Kolbrún’s sister earlier that morning. She was listed as next of kin on the death certificate. The sister was not cooperative. She refused to meet him. The papers had printed a photograph of the dead man, along with his name. Erlendur asked whether she’d seen it and was about to ask whether she remembered him when she hung up. He decided to test what she would do if he appeared on her doorstep. He preferred not to have the police bring her in to him.

  Erlendur had slept badly that night. He was worried about Eva Lind and feared she would do something stupid. She had a mobile phone, but every time he called a mechanical voice answered saying that the number could not be reached. Erlendur rarely remembered his dreams. It made him uncomfortable when he awoke to snatches of a bad dream passing through his mind before finally vanishing from him completely.

  The police had precious little information about Kolbrún. She was born in 1934 and brought changes of rape against Holberg on November 23, 1963. Before Erlendur set off to Keflavík, Sigurdur Óli had outlined the rape charge to him, including a description of the incident taken from a police file he’d found in the archives – after a tip-off from Marion Briem.

  Kolbrún was 30 when she gave birth to her daughter, Audur. Nine months after the rape. According to Kolbrún’s witnesses, she’d met Holberg at the Cross dancehall between Keflavík and Njardvík. It was a Saturday night. Kolbrún didn’t know him and had never seen him before. She was with two girlfriends and Holberg and two other men had been with them at the dance that evening. When it finished they all went to a party at the house of one of Kolbrún’s girlfriends. Quite late into the night Kolbrún had got ready to go home. Holberg offered to accompany her, for safety’s sake. She didn’t object. Neither of them was under the influence of alcohol. Kolbrún stated that she’d had two single vodka and Cokes at the dance and nothing after she left. Holberg drank nothing that evening. He said, in Kolbrún’s hearing, that he was taking penicillin for an ear infection. A doctor’s certificate, included with the charge sheet, confirmed this.

  Holberg asked if he could phone a taxi to take him to Reykjavík. She hesitated for a moment then told him where the phone was. He went into the sitting room to make this call while she took off her coat in the hallway and then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She did not hear him finish his telephone conversation, if indeed there was one. She sensed that he was suddenly behind her as she stood at the kitchen sink.

  She was so startled that she dropped her glass, spilling water over the kitchen table. She shouted out when his hands grabbed her breasts, and backed away from him into a corner.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t we have a bit of fun?” he said and stood in front of her, muscularly built with strong hands and thick fingers.

  “I want you to leave,” she said firmly. “Now! Will you please get out of here.”

  “Shouldn’t we have a bit of fun?” he repeated. He took a step closer to her and she held out her arms as if in self-defence.

  “Keep off!” she shouted. “I’ll phone the police!” Suddenly she could feel how alone and defenceless she was facing this stranger whom she had let into her home and who by now had moved up close to her, had tw
isted her arms behind her back and was trying to kiss her.

  She fought back, but it was useless. She tried to talk to him, talk him out of it, but all she could feel was her own vulnerability.

  Erlendur snapped out of his thoughts when a gigantic lorry sounded its horn and overtook him with a mighty rumbling that sent waves of rainwater washing over his car. He tugged at the steering wheel and the car danced on the water for a moment. The rear of the car slid around and, for a second, Erlendur thought he was going to lose control and be thrown out into the lava field. He ground almost to a halt and managed to keep himself on the road, then hurled abuse at the lorry driver who by now had vanished from his sight in the spray of rain.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled up outside a small corrugated iron-clad house in the oldest part of Keflavík. It was painted white with a little white fence around it and a garden that was kept almost too fastidiously. The sister’s name was Elín. She was several years older than Kolbrún and now retired. She was standing in the hallway, wearing her coat and on her way out, when Erlendur rang the doorbell. She looked at him in astonishment, a short, slim woman with a tough expression on her face, piercing eyes, high cheekbones and wrinkles around her mouth.

  “I thought I told you on the phone I didn’t want anything to do with you or the police,” she said angrily when Erlendur had introduced himself.

  “I know,” Erlendur said, “but…”

  “I’m asking you to leave me alone,” she said. “You shouldn’t have wasted your time coming all the way out here.”

  She stepped out onto the doorstep, closed the door behind her, went down the three steps leading to the garden and opened the little gate in the fence, leaving it open as a sign that she wanted Erlendur to leave. She didn’t look at him. Erlendur stood on the steps, watching her walk away.