‘What is it with you and the past?’
Erlendur shrugged.
‘What are you trying to get at, old chap?’
‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said, controlling his impatience.
‘What exactly do you need to know?’ Niels asked.
‘How did they react, the wife and daughter? Can you remember?’
‘There was nothing unnatural about their reactions. It was a tragic accident. Everyone could see that. The woman almost had a breakdown.’
‘The propeller was never found.’
‘No.’
‘And there was no way of establishing exactly how it had come loose?’
‘No. The man was alone in the boat and probably started tinkering with the engine, fell overboard and drowned. His wife didn’t see what happened, nor did the girl. The wife suddenly noticed that the boat was empty. Then she heard the man cry out briefly but by then it was too late.’
‘Do you remember…?’
‘We talked to the retailer,’ Niels said. ‘Or Gudfinnur did. Talked to someone at the company that sold the outboard motors.’
‘Yes, it’s in the report.’
‘He said the propeller wouldn’t come off that easily. It required some effort.’
‘Could it have gone aground?’
‘There was no evidence of that. But the wife told us that her husband had been messing around with the engine the day before. She didn’t ask him about it and didn’t know what he was doing. He might have loosened the propeller accidentally.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Yes.’
Erlendur recalled Ingvar telling him that Magnus did not have the first clue about engines.
‘Do you remember the girl’s reaction when you arrived on the scene?’ he asked.
‘Wasn’t she only about ten or so?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, of course she was like any child who suffers a shock. She clung to her mother. Never left her side.’
‘I can’t see from the reports that you spoke to her at all.’
‘No, we didn’t, or at least not to any extent. We didn’t see any reason to. Children aren’t the most reliable witnesses.’
Erlendur was on the point of objecting when he was interrupted by two uniformed officers entering the cafeteria and hailing Niels.
‘Where are you going with this?’ Niels asked. ‘What’s it all about?’
‘Fear of the dark,’ Erlendur replied. ‘Simple fear of the dark.’
14
Maria’s friend Karen met Erlendur at the door of her home, a spacious flat in a block situated in the west end of Reykjavik. She had been expecting him and invited him inside. When he had called her after their meeting at the police station she had given him a list of names of people connected with Maria, as well as discussing their friendship that had begun when they were eleven and had shared a desk at their new school. Leonora had recently moved Maria to a different school due to her dissatisfaction with the governors and teachers at her previous one where she had been subjected to minor bullying. Given little say in the matter, Maria was trying her best to find her feet among the unfamiliar faces at her new school. Karen meanwhile had just moved to the neighbourhood and knew no one. Leonora used to drive Maria to school every morning and fetch her in the afternoons, and once Maria asked if Karen would like to come home with her. Leonora welcomed Karen as her daughter’s new friend, and from then on their friendship quickly blossomed under her protection.
‘Actually her mother was a bit overbearing,’ Karen told Erlendur. ‘She enrolled us for ballet, which neither of us could stand, took us to the cinema, arranged for me to come for sleep-overs with them in Grafarvogur, though my mum never let me go for sleepovers with any other friends. She organised cinema tickets, made popcorn for us when we were watching TV. We hardly had a moment to play by ourselves. Leonora was very kind, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you’d just had enough of her. She wrapped Maria in cotton wool. But although she was spoilt to death in my opinion, Maria never lorded it over other people: she was always polite and dutiful and good – it was her nature.’
Karen and Maria’s friendship grew closer by the year. They graduated from sixth-form college together, Karen embarked on a teaching degree and Maria read history, they travelled abroad together, formed a sewing circle that eventually fizzled out, took holidays together, spent weekends in the country and went out on the town together.
Erlendur now had a better appreciation of why Karen had come to see him at the police station after her close friend’s suicide and had claimed that there must have been something more to it than bottomless despair.
‘What did you think of the seance?’ Karen asked.
‘Did you know about her going to this seance?’ he asked, evading the question.
‘I drove her there,’ Karen said. ‘The medium’s called Andersen.’
‘Apparently Leonora was going to let Maria know if she found herself in some sort of afterlife,’ Erlendur said.
‘I don’t see anything odd about that,’ Karen said. ‘We often discussed it, Maria and I. She told me about Proust. How do you explain something like that?’
‘Well, there are a number of possible explanations,’ Erlendur said.
‘You don’t believe in that sort of thing, do you?’ Karen said.
‘No,’ Erlendur replied. ‘But I understand Maria. I can well understand why she chose to speak to a medium.’
‘A lot of people do believe in life after death.’
‘Yes,’ Erlendur said, ‘but I’m not one of them. What people on the point of death describe as a bright light and tunnel are to my mind nothing more than the brain sending out its final messages before shutting down.’
‘Maria thought differently.’
‘Did she tell anyone else apart from you about the Proust business?’
‘I don’t know.’
Karen sat staring at Erlendur as if wondering whether he was the right man to talk to, whether she had made a mistake. Erlendur met her gaze. The light in the room was fading.
‘There’s probably no point telling you what Maria told me only a short while ago.’
‘You needn’t tell me anything unless you want to. The fact of the matter is that your friend took her own life. You may find it hard to face up to – but then, a lot of things happen in this world that we find it hard to reconcile ourselves to.’
‘I’m perfectly well aware of that and I know how Maria felt after Leonora died but I still find it a bit odd.’
‘What?’
‘Maria said she’d seen her mother.’
‘You mean after Leonora died?’
‘Yes.’
‘Saw her at a seance?’
‘No.’
‘I gather Maria used to see a lot of things and was petrified of the dark.’
‘I know all that,’ Karen said. ‘This was slightly different.’
‘How?’
‘Maria woke up one night several weeks ago to find Leonora standing at the bedroom door, dressed in
