Erlendur accepted the offer. She fetched two shot glasses, placed them on the table and filled them to the brim with the aquavit. She downed the first shot in one while Erlendur was still raising his to his mouth. Then she refilled her glass and promptly downed half of it.
‘Of course they’re both dead now,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘So perhaps it won’t change anything.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I know nothing about any propeller,’ Kristin said. She sat in silence for a moment, then asked:
‘Why did Maria do it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Erlendur said.
‘Poor girl,’ Kristin said with a sigh. ‘I remember her so well before Magnus died. She was their little ray of sunshine. They didn’t have any more children and she grew up with boundless parental love. Then when my brother died on Lake Thingvallavatn it was as if the ground had been snatched from under her feet. From under both of them, both Maria and Leonora. Leonora was terribly in love with Magnus; he meant the world to her. And the girl was very attached to him too. That’s why I can’t understand it. I can’t understand what he was thinking of.’
‘He? You mean Magnus?’
‘After the accident they were inseparable. Leonora was so protective of Maria that I felt she went too far. I felt she became overprotective. Hardly anyone else was allowed near Maria, least of all us, Magnus’s family. Our relationship with them gradually dwindled to nothing. In fact, Leonora broke off all contact with us, the girl’s father’s family, after what happened at Thingvellir. I always found it very strange. But then I didn’t learn the truth until shortly before Leonora died. She summoned me to meet her before she passed away; she was in the last stages by then, bed-bound and very weak, and knew that she had only a few days left to live. We hadn’t been in touch for… for quite a long time. She was in her room and asked me to shut the door and sit down beside her. She said she had something to tell me before she died. I didn’t know what to think. Then she started talking about Magnus.’
‘Did she tell you what happened at the lake?’
‘No, but she was angry with Magnus.’
Kristin charged her glass with another shot of aquavit. Erlendur declined. She tipped the drink down her throat, before replacing the glass calmly on the table.
‘Now they’ve both gone, mother and daughter,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Erlendur replied.
‘They were almost like one person.’
‘What did Leonora tell you?’
‘She told me that Magnus was going to leave her. He’d met another woman. I knew already. Magnus had told me at the time. That was why Leonora summoned me. It was as if I had taken part in a conspiracy against her. She didn’t say it straight out but she made sure I felt it.’
Erlendur hesitated.
‘So he was having an affair?’
Kristin nodded.
‘It started a few months before he died. He confided in me. I don’t think he told anyone else and I haven’t told anyone either. It’s nobody else’s business. Magnus told Leonora that he wanted to end the marriage. It came as a terrible shock to her, from what she told me. She’d had absolutely no idea. She had loved my brother and given him everything…’
‘So he told her about it, at Thingvellir?’
‘Yes. Magnus died and I never mentioned the affair. To Leonora or anyone else. Magnus was dead and I didn’t think it was anyone else’s business.’
Kristin took a deep breath.
‘Leonora blamed me for not having told her about the affair as soon as I found out. Magnus must have told her that I knew. But I thought it was right for her to hear it from him. She was very stubborn and prone to holding grudges. It was as if she felt I had betrayed her, even after all these years. When she died… I simply couldn’t bring myself to go to the funeral. I regret it now. For Maria’s sake.’
‘Did you ever talk to Maria about the accident?’
‘No.’
‘Can you tell me the identity of the woman that Magnus was involved with?’
Kristin took a sip of aquavit.
‘Does it matter?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Erlendur said.
‘I think that was one reason why Magnus was so hesitant. Because of who she was.’
‘Why?’
‘The woman Magnus was involved with was a good friend of Leonora’s.’
‘I see.’
‘They never spoke again after that.’
‘Have you ever connected this with the accident?’
Kristin looked at Erlendur gravely.
‘No. What do you mean?’
‘I…’
‘Why are you investigating the accident now?’
‘I heard about the incident at-’
‘Did any of this come out in connection with Maria’s death?’
‘No,’ Erlendur said.
‘But Maria told some friend of hers that maybe Magnus was meant to die?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve always considered what happened at the lake as a ghastly accident. It never occurred to me that it could have been anything else.’
‘But…?’
‘No, no buts. It’s too late to change it now.’
The taxi company was located downtown in a low-rise building that had seen better days. It had once been a community centre, in the days when young men wore their hair in Brylcreemed quiffs and their girlfriends sported perms and they used to go crazy on the dance floor to the new American rock ’n’ roll, before they eventually vanished into oblivion. One half of the building had been converted into the premises of a taxi company where peace and quiet now reigned. Two older men were playing rummy. The yellow lino on the floor was full of holes, the shiny white paint on the walls had long ago succumbed to the grime, and the air freshener had not yet been invented that could overcome the stench of mould rising from the floor and wooden walls. It was like stepping back fifty years in time. Erlendur savoured the sensation. He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, breathing in its history.
The woman operating the radio looked up and, when she saw that the rummy players weren’t about to stir, asked if he needed a cab. Erlendur went over and enquired about a driver with the company who was called Elmar.
‘Elmar on 32?’ the woman said. She had been in her prime at about the same time as the building.
‘Yes, probably,’ Erlendur replied.
‘He’s on his way in. Would you like to wait for him? He won’t be long. He always eats here in the evenings.’
‘Yes, so I gather,’ Erlendur said.
He thanked her and sat down at a table. One of the rummy players glanced up in his direction. Erlendur nodded but received no response. It was as if the pair’s existence was completely defined by the card game.
Erlendur was leafing through an old magazine when a taxi driver appeared at the door.
‘He was asking for you,’ the woman operating the radio called, pointing at Erlendur who stood up and greeted him. The man shook his hand, introducing himself as Elmar. He was the brother of David, the young man who had
