Erlendur refilled it.
‘Is it true?’
‘What about it? What are you planning to do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said.
‘Are you a cop?’ the man asked, sipping from the glass.
‘Yes. Are you the right Tryggvi?’
‘My name’s Tryggvi,’ the man said, looking round. ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘Nothing happened. Nothing. Nothing at all. Why are you asking about this now? What’s it got to do with you? What’s it got to do with anyone?’
Erlendur didn’t want to scare him off. He could have told him, filthy down-and-out stinking of the gutter that he was, that it was none of his business. But then he wouldn’t get to hear what he wanted to know. He tried to be conciliatory instead, addressing Tryggvi as an equal, refilling the shot glass and lighting his cigarette for him. He made some general chit-chat about the place where they were sitting, which still sold singed sheep’s head with mashed swede like in the old days when the boys used to cruise around the block with their girlfriends and drop into the bus station for its speciality dish. The schnapps worked its magic too. Tryggvi fairly knocked it back, one shot after another, and his tongue began to loosen. Slowly but surely Erlendur manipulated the conversation back to what had happened when Tryggvi had been at university and some of his fellow students had wanted to conduct an unusual experiment.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Erlendur asked once they had got chatting.
‘I thought I could be a vicar,’ Tryggvi said, waving his hand to indicate that food would not agree with him. He seized the bottle instead and took a long swig, then wiped his lips on his sleeve. ‘But theology was boring,’ he continued. ‘So I tried medicine. Most of my friends went in for that. I…’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t seen them for years,’ Tryggvi said. ‘I expect they’re all doctors by now. Specialists in this and that. Rich and fat.’
‘Was it their idea?’
Tryggvi gave Erlendur a look as if he was getting ahead of himself. This was his story and if Erlendur didn’t like it he could always leave.
‘I still don’t know why you’re digging this up,’ he said.
Erlendur sighed heavily.
‘It may be relevant to a case I’m investigating, that’s all I can really say.’
Tryggvi shrugged.
‘As you like.’
He took another swig from the bottle. Erlendur waited patiently.
‘I heard it was you who asked them to do it,’ he said finally.
‘That’s a bloody lie,’ Tryggvi said. ‘I didn’t ask for any of it. They approached me. It was them who came to me.’
Erlendur was silent.
‘I should never have listened to that prick,’ Tryggvi said.
‘What prick?’
‘My cousin. Stupid bloody prick!’
Another silence fell but Erlendur did not dare to break it. He didn’t want to drop any hints but hoped that the tramp would feel an urge to tell his story, to open up about what had happened, even if only to a stranger at the Central Bus Station.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ Tryggvi asked, pulling his jacket more tightly around himself.
‘No, it’s not cold in here.’
‘I’m always cold.’
‘What about your cousin?’
‘I don’t really remember much about it,’ Tryggvi said.
Looking at him, Erlendur had the feeling that, on the contrary, he remembered every last detail of what had happened.
‘It was some crazy idea we had during a piss-up that went too far. They needed a guinea pig. “Let’s use the theology student,” they said. “Let’s send him to hell.” You see, one of them was… he was my cousin, a rich bugger with some stupid bloody fixation with death. I was a bit that way myself and he knew it. He knew it so he paid me what was a whole month’s wages back then. And there was a girl in the group too who I… who I was a little in love with. Maybe I did it for her. I can’t say I didn’t. They were senior to me; my cousin was in his final year and so was she. The girl.’
18
Tryggvi had downed half the bottle and was staring blearily out at the bus stands. His account was meandering and repetitive and strangely convoluted, and sometimes he stopped and sat in silence for a long time. But Erlendur didn’t dare to interrupt him. Then he lowered his head and stared down at the table as if he were alone in the world, alone with his thoughts, alone in life. Erlendur sensed that Tryggvi had spoken little of these events since they occurred and that they involved various unresolved issues that he had never managed to shake off, that had continued to haunt him ever since.
It had been his cousin’s idea. His cousin had been in his final year of medicine and was intending to go on to do postgraduate study in the States in the autumn. He worked in what used to be known as the City Hospital, was top of his year, the life and soul of the party, played the guitar, told amusing stories, organised weekend trips to the mountains. He was at the centre of everything, his self-confidence was unshakeable; he was energetic, domineering and determined. Once, bumping into Tryggvi at a family get-together, he asked him if he had read about the French medical students who had recently conducted an interesting, but of course totally illegal, experiment.
‘What experiment?’ Tryggvi asked. He was his cousin’s opposite in every way: shy and retiring, and liked to keep himself to himself. He never spoke up in company, refused to go on trips to the mountains with the rowdy medical students and was already beginning to have problems with alcohol.
‘It was unbelievable,’ his cousin said. ‘They induced a cardiac arrest in one of their fellow students and kept him dead for three minutes until they resuscitated him. The justice system hasn’t a clue what to do with them. They killed him, but they didn’t, if you see what I mean.’
Tryggvi’s cousin seemed obsessed with this piece of news. For weeks afterwards he talked of nothing but the French medical students, followed their trial in the news, and started whispering to Tryggvi that he would be interested in doing something similar. He had been contemplating the idea for ages and now this news had brought his enthusiasm to a pitch he couldn’t control.
‘You studied theology, you must at least be curious,’ he said one day when they were sitting in the medical faculty cafeteria.
‘I’m not letting anyone kill me,’ Tryggvi said. ‘Find someone else.’
‘There is no one else,’ his cousin said. ‘You’re the perfect person. You’re young and strong. There’s no heart disease of any kind in our family. Dagmar’s going to be in on it, and Baddi, another guy I know who’s studying medicine. I’ve talked to them already. It’s watertight. Nothing can happen. I mean, you’ve often wondered about it – you know, life after death.’
Tryggvi knew who Dagmar was. He had noticed her as soon as he started medicine.
‘Dagmar?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ his cousin answered, ‘and she’s no fool.’
Tryggvi knew that. She was his cousin’s friend and had once talked to him, at the first and only medical faculty party he had attended. She knew they were cousins. He had met her several times since and they had chatted. He thought she was lovely but he didn’t have the courage to take the next step.
