'Don't you find it strange?'
Erlendur was about to reply when he saw that Marion had fallen asleep. He picked up the video case and read the title: The Searchers. A tale of obstinacy, he thought to himself. He looked at Marion, then back at the cover, which showed John Wayne on horseback, brandishing a rifle. He looked over at the television in an alcove in the sitting room, put the cassette in the player, switched on the TV, sat back in the sofa and watched The Searchers while Marion slept a gentle sleep.
16
Sigurdur Óli was on his way out of his office when the telephone rang. He hesitated. He would have liked to slam the door behind him, but instead he sighed and answered the call.
'Am I disturbing you?' the man on the phone said.
'You are actually,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'I'm on my way home. So . . .'
'Sorry,' the man said.
'Stop apologising for everything – and stop phoning me, too. I can't do anything for you.'
'I don't have many people I can talk to,' the man said.
'And I'm not one of them. I'm just someone who turned up at the scene of the accident. That's all. I'm not an agony aunt. Talk to the vicar.'
'Don't you think it's my fault?' the man asked. 'If I hadn't called . . .'
They had already gone back and forth through this conversation innumerable times. Neither believed in an inscrutable god who demanded sacrifices such as the man's wife and daughter. Neither was a fatalist. They did not believe that all things were predetermined and impossible to influence. Both believed in simple coincidences. Both were realists and accepted the fact that had the man not phoned his wife and delayed her, she would not have been at the crossing at the moment that the drunken driver in the Range Rover went through the red light. However, Sigurdur Óli did not blame the man for what happened, and thought his reasoning was absurd.
'The accident was not your fault,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'You know that, so stop tormenting yourself about it. You're not the one on the way to prison for manslaughter, it's the prat in the Range Rover.'
'That doesn't make any difference,' the man sighed.
'What does the psychiatrist say?'
'All she talks about is pills and side effects. If I take these drugs I'll get fat again. If I take those I'll lose my appetite. If I take others I'll vomit all the time.'
'Consider this scenario,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'A group of people have gone camping every year for twenty-five years. One member of the group originally suggested it. Then one year there's a fatal accident. One of the group is killed. Is the person who had the idea in the first place to blame? Of course that's rubbish! How far can you take speculations? Coincidences are coincidences. No one can control them.'
The man did not reply.
'Do you understand what I mean?' Sigurdur Óli said.
'I know what you mean but it doesn't help me.'
'Yes, well, I must be on my way,' Sigurdur Óli said.
'Thank you,' the man said, and rang off.
Erlendur was sitting in his chair at home, reading. He was lit up by lantern with a party of travellers beneath the slopes of Óshlíd at the beginning of the twentieth century. There were seven in the party, travelling past Steinófaera gully on their way from Ísafjördur. On one side was the sheer mountainside, bulging with snow, and on the other the icy sea. They were walking in a tight group to benefit from the single lantern they had with them. Some of them had been to see a play in Ísafjördur that evening, Sheriff Leonard. It was mid-winter and as they crossed Steinófaera, someone mentioned that there was a crack in the snow pack above them, as if a rock had rolled down. They talked about how it might be a sign that the snow farther up the mountainside was moving. They stopped, and at that very instant an avalanche crashed down, sweeping them out to sea. One person survived, badly crippled. All that was found of the others was a package that one of them had been carrying, and the lantern that had lit their way.
The telephone rang and Erlendur looked up from his book. He thought about letting it ring. But it might be Valgerdur, even Eva Lind, though he hardly expected that.
'Were you asleep?' Sigurdur Óli said when he eventually answered.
'What do you want?' Erlendur asked.
'Are you going to bring that woman with you to my barbecue tomorrow? Bergthóra wants to know. She needs to know how many guests to expect.'
'What woman are you talking about?' Erlendur said.
'The one you met at Christmas,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'Aren't you still seeing each other?'
'What business of yours is that?' Erlendur said. 'And what barbecue are you talking about? When did I say I wanted to come to your barbecue?'
There was a knock on the door. Sigurdur Óli had entered into a rigmarole about how Erlendur had said he would go to the barbecue that he and Bergthóra were giving, and how Elínborg was going to do the cooking, when Erlendur hung up on him and answered the door. Valgerdur gave a quick smile when he opened it and asked if she could come in. After a moment's hesitation he said that of course she could, and she walked into the living room and sat down on his battered sofa. He said he would make coffee, but she told him not to bother.
'I've left him,' she said.
He sat down on a chair facing her and remembered the telephone call from her husband telling him to leave her alone. She looked at him and saw the concern on his face.
'I should have left long ago,' she said. 'You were right. I should have settled all this way back.'
'Why now?' he asked.
'He told me that he called you,' Valgerdur said. 'I don't want you getting dragged into our business. I don't want him phoning you. This is between me and him. It's not about you.'
Erlendur smiled. Remembering the green Chartreuse in the cupboard, he stood and fetched the bottle and two glasses. He filled them and handed her one.
'I don't mean like that, but you know what I mean,' she said, and they sipped their liqueurs. 'All we have done is talk together. Which is more than he can claim.'
'But you didn't want to leave him until now,' Erlendur said.
'It's difficult after all these years. After all that time. Our boys and . . . it's just very difficult.'
Erlendur said nothing.
'I saw this evening how dead everything is between us,' Valgerdur continued. 'And I suddenly realised that I want it to be dead. I talked to the boys. They have to know exactly what's going on, why I'm leaving him. I'm meeting them tomorrow. I've been trying to spare them too. They adore him.'
'I slammed the phone down on him,' Erlendur said.
'I know, he told me. Suddenly I saw through it all. He no longer has any control over what I do or what I want. None. I don't know who he thinks he is.'
Valgerdur had been reluctant to reveal much about her husband, except that he had been cheating on her for two years with a nurse at the hospital and had had other affairs before. He was a doctor at the National Hospital, where she also worked, and Erlendur had sometimes wondered, when he was thinking about Valgerdur, what it must have been like for her to work at a place where everyone but her knew for a fact that her husband was chasing other women.
'What about work?' he asked.
'I'll get by,' she said.
'Do you want to sleep here tonight?'
'No,' Valgerdur said, 'I've spoken to my sister and I'll stay with her for the time being. She's been very supportive.'
'When you say it's not about me . . . ?'
'I'm not leaving him for your sake – it's for my own good,' Valgerdur said. 'I don't want him controlling my every move any more. And you and my sister are right, I should have left him ages ago. As soon as I found out about that affair.'
She paused and looked at Erlendur.
'He claimed just now that I'd driven him to it,' she said. 'Because I wasn't . . . wasn't . . . didn't find sex exciting enough.'
'They all say that,' Erlendur said. 'It's the first thing they say. You should ignore it.'
'He was quick to blame me,' Valgerd
ur said.
'What else can he say? He's trying to justify it to himself.'
They fell silent and finished their liqueurs.
'You're—' she said, but stopped in mid-sentence. 'I don't know what you are,' she said finally. 'Or who you are. I don't have the vaguest idea.'
'Nor do I,' Erlendur said.
Valgerdur smiled.
'Would you like to come to a barbecue with me tomorrow?' Erlendur suddenly asked. 'My friends are meeting up. Elínborg has just published a cookery book, maybe you've heard about it. She'll do the barbecue. She cooks very well,' Erlendur added, looking at his desk on which sat the wrapper from a packet of microwaveable meatballs.
'I don't want to rush into anything,' she said.
'Neither do I,' Erlendur said.
Plates clattered in the canteen at the old people's home as Erlendur walked down the corridor towards the old farmer's room. The staff were tidying up after breakfast and cleaning the rooms. Most of the doors were open and the sun shone in through the windows. But the door to the farmer's room was shut, so Erlendur knocked.
'Leave me alone,' he heard a strong, hoarse voice say from inside. 'Bloody disturbances all the time!'
Erlendur turned the handle, the door opened and he stepped inside. He knew precious little about the occupant. Only that his name was Haraldur and that he had moved off his land twenty years ago. When he gave up farming, before moving to the old people's home, he had lived in a block of flats in the Hlídar quarter of Reykjavík. Erlendur gleaned some information about him from one member of staff, who told him that Haraldur was a crotchety old troublemaker. He had recently hit another resident with a walking stick and was rude to the staff. Most could not stand him.
'Who are you?' Haraldur asked when he saw Erlendur standing in the doorway. He was eighty-four years old, white-haired and with big hands turned stiff by physical labour. He sat on the edge of his bed in his woollen socks, his back bent and his head sunk deep between his shoulder blades. A scraggy beard covered half his face. The room smelled and Erlendur wondered whether Haraldur took snuff.
He introduced himself, saying that he was from the police. This seemed to fire Haraldur's interest; he straightened up and looked Erlendur in the eye.
'What do the police want from me?' he asked. 'Is it because I took a swing at Thórdur at dinnertime?'
'Why did you hit Thórdur?' Erlendur asked. He was curious.
'Thórdur's a wanker,' Haraldur said. 'I don't have to tell you about that. Get out and shut the door behind you. They're always staring in at you all day long. Poking their noses into other people's business.'
'I wasn't going to talk to you about Thórdur,' Erlendur said as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
'Listen,' Haraldur said, 'I don't care for you strolling in here. What's this supposed to mean? Get out. Just get out and leave me in peace!'
The old man straightened up, raised his head as far as he could and glared at Erlendur, who calmly sat down opposite him on the bed. It was still made and Erlendur imagined there was no point in offering anyone a room to share with grumpy old Haraldur. There were few personal articles in the room. On the bedside table were two dog-eared books of Einar Benediktsson's poetry that had clearly been read over and again.
'Aren't you comfortable here?' Erlendur asked.
'Me? What bloody business of yours is that? What do you want from me? Who are you? Why don't you get out of here like I've been telling you?'
'You were connected with an old case of a missing person,' Erlendur said, and started to describe the man who sold farm machinery and diggers and owned a black Ford Falcon. Haraldur listened in silence to his account, without interrupting. Erlendur could not be sure whether Haraldur remembered what he was talking about. He mentioned how the police had asked Haraldur whether the man had been at the farm and he had flatly denied having met him.
'Do you remember this?' Erlendur asked.
Haraldur did not answer. Erlendur repeated the question.
'Uhhh,' Haraldur groaned. 'He never came, the bugger. It was more than thirty years ago. I don't remember any of it any more.'
'But you remember that he didn't come?'
'Yes, what the hell, didn't I just say that? Come on, piss off out! I don't like having people in my room.'
'Did you keep sheep?' Erlendur asked.
'Sheep? When I was a farmer? Yes, I had a few sheep and horses, and about ten cows. Happy now?'
'You got a good price for the land,' Erlendur went on. 'So close to the city.'
'Are you from the tax office?' Haraldur snarled. He looked down at the floor. Bent by manual labour and old age, it was an effort to lift his head.
'No, I'm from the police,' Erlendur said.
'They're getting lots more for it now,' Haraldur said. 'Those gangsters. Now the city extends right up to it, or as good as. They were bloody sharks who got the land off me. Bloody sharks. Get out of here!' he added angrily, raising his voice. 'You ought to talk to those bloody sharks!'
'What sharks?' Erlendur asked.
'Those sharks,' Haraldur said. 'They took my land for shit and sixpence.'
'What were you going to buy from him? The salesman who drove that black car?'
'Buy from him? A tractor. I needed a good tractor. I went to Reykjavík to check out their tractors and liked the look of them. I met that bloke there. He took my phone number and was always pestering me. They're all the same, salesmen. Once they can tell you're interested they never leave you alone. I told him I'd hear him out if he could be bothered to come out to see me. He said he had a few brochures. So I waited for him like an idiot but he never arrived. The next thing I knew, some clown like you phoned me to ask if I'd seen him. I told him what I'm telling you now. And that's all I know, so you can bugger off.'
'He had a brand new Ford Falcon,' Erlendur said. 'The man who was going to sell you the tractor.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'The funny thing is, that car's still around and it's even up for sale if they can find a buyer,' Erlendur said. 'When the car was originally found, one of the hubcaps was missing. Do you know what could have happened to that hubcap?'
'What are you going on about?' Haraldur said, his head darting up to glare at Erlendur. 'I don't know a thing about him. And what are you going on about that car for? Where do I come into the picture?'
'I'm hoping that it can help us,' Erlendur said. 'Cars like that can preserve evidence almost for ever. For instance, if this man did come to your farm and walked around the yard and inside the farmhouse, he might have carried away something on his shoes which is now in the car. After all those years. It might be something trivial. A grain of sand is enough if it's the same type as in your farm. You understand what I'm saying?'
The old man looked silently at the floor.
'Is the farm still there?' Erlendur asked.
'Shut up,' Haraldur said.
Erlendur inspected the room. He knew virtually nothing about the man sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him, except that he was nasty and foul-mouthed and that his room smelled. He read Einar Benediktsson but Erlendur thought to himself that, unlike the poet, he had probably never in his lifetime 'turned darkness into the light of day'.
The Draining Lake Page 14
