The Draining Lake

by Arnaldur Indridason

  He had wanted to go to Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union to see the post-war reconstruction for himself. To travel, discover different cultures and learn languages. He wanted to see socialism in action. He had been considering applying to the University of Moscow and had still not made up his mind when he visited the deputy leader. Wiping his spectacles, the deputy leader said that studying in Leipzig was a unique opportunity for him to observe the workings of a communist state and train to serve his own country even better.

  The deputy leader put on his glasses.

  'And serve the cause,' he added. 'You'll like it there. Leipzig's a historical city and has links with Icelandic culture. Halldór Laxness visited his friend the poet Jóhann Jónsson there. And Jón Árnason's collection of folk tales was published by Hinrich Verlag of Leipzig in 1862.'

  He nodded. He had read everything Laxness had written about socialism in Eastern Europe and admired his powers of persuasion.

  The idea that he could go by ship and work his passage occurred to him. His uncle knew someone at the shipping company. Securing the passage was no problem. His family were ecstatic. None of them had been abroad, to say nothing of studying in another country. It would be such an adventure. They wrote to each other and telephoned to discuss the wonderful news. 'He'll turn out to be something,' people said. 'It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up in government!'

  The first port of call was in the Faroe Islands, then Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Hamburg. From there he took the train to Berlin and slept the night at the railway station. The following day, at noon, he boarded a train to Leipzig. He knew that nobody would be there to welcome him. He had an address written on a note in his pocket and asked for directions when he reached his destination.

  Sighing heavily, he stood in front of the school photo-graph, looking at the face of his friend from Leipzig. They had been in the same class at school. If only he had known then what would happen.

  He wondered whether the police would ever discover the truth about the man in the lake. He consoled himself with the thought that it was such a long time ago and that what had happened no longer mattered.

  No one cared about the man in the lake any more.

  4

  Forensics had erected a large tent over the skeleton. Elínborg stood outside it as she watched Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli hurrying across the dry bed of the lake towards her. It was late in the evening and the media had left. Traffic had increased around the lake after the find was reported, but had died down and the area was quiet again.

  'Nice of you to find the time,' Elínborg said as they approached.

  'Sigurdur had to stop for a hamburger on the way,' Erlendur grunted. 'What's going on?'

  'Come with me,' Elínborg said, opening the tent. 'The pathologist is here.'

  Erlendur looked down towards the lake in the evening calm and thought about the fissures in its bed. The sun was still up, so it was completely daylight. Staring up at the white puffs of cloud directly above him, he was still pondering how strange it was that there had once been a lake four metres deep where he was standing.

  The forensics team had unearthed the skeleton, which could now be seen in its entirety. There was not a single piece of flesh or scrap of clothing left on it. A woman aged about forty knelt beside it, picking at the pelvis with a yellow pencil.

  'It's a male,' she said. 'Average height and probably middle-aged, but I need to check that more carefully. I don't know how long he's been in the water, perhaps forty or fifty years. Maybe longer. But that's just a guess. I can be more precise once I get him down to the morgue to study him properly.'

  She stood up and greeted them. Erlendur knew her name was Matthildur and that she had recently been recruited as a pathologist. He longed to ask her what drove her to investigate crimes. Why she didn't just become a doctor like all the others and milk the health service?

  'He's been hit over the head?' Erlendur asked.

  'Looks like it,' Matthildur said. 'But it's difficult to establish what kind of instrument was used. All the marks around the hole have gone.'

  'We're talking about wilful murder?' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'All murders are wilful,' Matthildur said. 'Some are just more stupid than others.'

  'There's no question that it's murder,' said Elínborg, who had been listening.

  She scrambled over the skeleton and pointed down to a large hole that the forensics team had dug. Erlendur went over to her and saw that inside the hole was a bulky black metal box, tied by a rope to the bones. It was still mostly buried in the sand but what appeared to be broken instruments with black dials and black buttons were visible. The box was scratched and dented, it had opened up and there was sand inside.

  'What's that?' Sigurdur Óli asked.

  'God knows,' Elínborg said, 'but it was used to sink him.'

  'Is it some kind of measuring device?' Erlendur said.

  'I've never seen anything like it,' Elínborg said. 'Forensics said it was an old radio transmitter. They went off for something to eat.'

  'A transmitter?' Erlendur said. 'What kind of transmitter?'

  'They didn't know. They've still got to dig it up.'

  Erlendur looked at the rope tied around the skeleton and at the black box used to sink the body. He imagined men lugging the corpse out of a car, tying it to the transmitter, rowing out onto the lake with it and throwing the whole lot overboard.

  'So he was sunk?' he said.

  'He hardly did it himself,' Sigurdur Óli blurted out. 'He wouldn't really go out onto the lake, tie himself to a radio transmitter, pick it up, fall over on his head and still take care to end up in the lake so he'd be sure to disappear. That would be the most ridiculous suicide in history.'

  'Do you suppose the transmitter's heavy?' Erlendur asked, trying to contain his irritation with Sigurdur Óli.

  'It looks really heavy to me,' Matthildur said.

  'Is there any point in combing the bottom of the lake for a murder weapon?' Elínborg asked. 'With a metal detector, if it was a hammer or the like? It might have been thrown in with the body.'

  'Forensics will handle that,' Erlendur said, kneeling down by the black box. He rubbed away the sand from it.

  'Maybe he was a radio ham,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Are you coming?' Elínborg asked. 'To my book launch?'

  'Don't we have to?' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'I'm not going to force you.'

  'What's the book called?' Erlendur asked.

  'More Than Just Desserts,' Elínborg said. 'It's a pun. Justice – get it – and desserts, and it's not just desserts . . .'

  'Very droll,' Erlendur said, casting a look of astonishment at Sigurdur Óli, who was trying to smother his laughter.

  Eva Lind sat facing him, wearing a white dressing gown with her legs curled up under her on the seat, twiddling her hair around her index finger, circle after circle as if hypnotised. As a rule in-patients were not allowed to receive guests but the staff knew Erlendur well and made no objection when he asked to see her. They sat in silence for a good while. They were in the in-patients' lounge and there were posters on the walls warning against alcohol and drug abuse.

  'You still seeing that old bag?' Eva said, fiddling with her hair.

  'Stop calling her an old bag,' Erlendur said. 'Valgerdur's two years younger than me.'

  'Right, an old bag. You still seeing her?'

  'Yes.'

  'And . . . does she come round to yours, this Valgerdur woman?'

  'She has done, once.'

  'And then you meet at hotels.'

  'Something like that. How are you doing? Sigurdur Óli sends his regards. He says his shoulder's getting better.'

  'I missed. I wanted to hit him over the head.'

  'You really can be a bloody idiot sometimes,' Erlendur said.

  'Has she left her bloke? She's still married, isn't she, that Valgerdur?'

  'It's none of your business.'

  'So she's cheating on him? Which means y
ou're shagging a married woman. How do you feel about that?'

  'We haven't slept together. Not that it's any of your business. And cut out that filthy language!'

  'Like hell you haven't slept together!'

  'Aren't you supposed to get medication here? To cure your temper?'

  He stood up. She looked up at him.

  'I didn't ask you to put me in here,' she said. 'I didn't ask you to interfere in my life. I want you to leave me alone. Completely alone.'

  He walked out of the lounge without saying goodbye.

  'Say hello to the old bag from me,' Eva Lind called out after him, twiddling her hair as collected as ever. 'Say hello to that fucking old bag,' she added under her breath.

  Erlendur parked outside his block of flats and entered the stairwell. When he reached his floor he noticed a lanky young long-haired man loitering by the door, smoking. The upper part of his body was in the shadows and Erlendur could not make out his face. At first he thought it was a criminal who had unfinished business with him. Sometimes they called him when they were drunk and threatened him for encroaching in some way or other upon their miserable lives. The occasional one turned up at his door to argue. He was expecting something like that in the corridor.

  The young man stood up straight when he saw Erlendur approach.

  'Can I stay with you?' he asked, having trouble deciding what to do with his cigarette butt. Erlendur noticed two dog-ends on the carpet.

  'Who are . . .?'

  'Sindri,' the man said, stepping from the shadows. 'Your son. Don't you recognise me?'

  'Sindri?' Erlendur said in surprise.

  'I've moved back into town,' Sindri said. 'I thought I'd look you up.'

  Sigurdur Óli was in bed beside Bergthóra when the telephone rang. He looked at the caller ID. Realising who it was, he decided not to answer. On the sixth ring, Bergthóra gave him a nudge.

  'Answer it,' she said. 'It'll do him good to talk to you. He thinks you help him.'

  'I'm not going to let him think he can call me at home in the middle of the night,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Come on,' Bergthóra said, reaching over from her side of the bed for the telephone.

  'Yes, he's here,' she said. 'Just a minute.'

  She handed Sigurdur Óli the telephone.

  'It's for you,' she said, smiling.

  'Were you asleep?' a voice said at the other end of the line.

  'Yes,' Sigurdur Óli lied. 'I've asked you not to call me at home. I don't want you to.'

  'Sorry,' the voice said. 'I can't sleep. I'm taking medication and tranquillisers and sleeping tablets but none of them work.'

  'You can't just call whenever you please,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Sorry,' the man said. 'I don't feel too good.'

  'Okay,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'It was a year ago,' the man said. 'To the day.'

  'Yes,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'I know.'

  'A whole year of hell,' the man said.

  'Try to stop thinking about it,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'It's time you stopped tormenting yourself like this. It doesn't help.'

  'That's easy enough to say,' the man on the telephone said.

  'I know,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'But just try.'

  'What was I thinking of with those bloody strawberries?'

  'We've been through this a thousand times,' Sigurdur Óli said, shaking his head as he glanced at Bergthóra. 'It wasn't your fault. Stop torturing yourself.'

  'Of course it was,' the man said. 'Of course it was my fault. It was all my fault.'

  Then he rang off.

  5

  The woman looked at them in turn, gave a weak smile and invited them in. Elínborg went first and Erlendur closed the door behind them. They had telephoned in advance and the woman had placed crullers and soda cake on the table. The aroma of coffee wafted in from the kitchen. This was a town house in Breidholt suburb. Elínborg had spoken to the woman on the telephone. She had remarried. Her son from the previous marriage was doing a doctorate in medicine in the States. She had had two children with her second husband. Surprised by Elínborg's call, she had taken the afternoon off work to meet her and Erlendur at home.

  'Is it him?' the woman asked as she offered them a seat. Her name was Kristín, she was past sixty and had put on weight with age. She had heard on the news about the skeleton that had been found in Lake Kleifarvatn.

  'We don't know,' Erlendur said. 'We know it's a male but we're waiting for a more precise age on it.'

  A few days had passed since the skeleton had been found. Some bones had been sent for carbon analysis but the pathologist had also used a different method, which she thought could speed up the results.

  'Speed up the results how?' Erlendur had asked Elínborg.

  'She uses the aluminium smelter in Straumsvík.'

  'The smelter?'

  'She's studying the history of pollution from it. It involves sulphur dioxide and fluoride and that sort of gunge. Have you heard about it?'

  'No.'

  'A certain amount of sulphur dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere and falls onto the land and the sea; it's found in lakes near the smelter, such as Kleifarvatn. They've reduced the quantity now with improved pollution control. She said she found a trace in the bones and at a very provisional estimate says the body was put in the lake before 1970.'

  'Give or take?'

  'Five years either way.'

  At this stage the investigation into the skeleton from Kleifarvatn focused on males who had gone missing between 1960 and 1975. There were eight cases in the whole of Iceland. Five had lived in or around Reykjavík.

  Kristín's first husband had been one of them. The detectives had read the files. She had reported his disappearance herself. One day he had not come home from work. She'd had his dinner ready for him. Their son was playing on the floor. She bathed the boy, put him to bed and tidied up in the kitchen. Then sat down and waited. She would have watched television, but in those days there were no broadcasts on Thursdays.

  This was the autumn of 1969. They lived in a small flat they had recently bought. He was an estate agent and had been given a good deal on it. She had just finished Commercial College when they met. A year later they were married with due ceremony and a year after that their son was born. Her husband worshipped him.

  'That's why I couldn't understand it,' Kristín said, her gaze flicking between them.

  Erlendur had a feeling that she was still waiting for the husband who had so suddenly and inexplicably vanished from her life. He visualised her waiting alone in the autumn gloom. Calling people who knew him and their friends, telephoning the family, who would quietly gather in the flat over the following days to give her strength and support her in her grief.