“I sold it. I needed the money. I’ve never had much money.”
She remembered the licence plate and mechanically repeated the number to them. Sigurdur Oli wrote it down. Erlendur gestured to him, they stood up and thanked her for her time. The woman stayed put in her chair. He thought she was bitterly lonely.
“Where did all the machinery he sold come from?” Erlendur asked, for the sake of saying something.
“The farm machinery? It came from Russia and East Germany. He said it wasn’t as good as the American stuff, but much cheaper.”
Erlendur could not imagine what Sindri Snaer wanted from him. His son was completely different from his sister Eva, who felt Erlendur had not pressed hard enough for the right to see his children. They would never have known he existed if their mother had not been forever bad-mouthing him. When Eva grew up she tracked down her father and vented her anger mercilessly. Sindri Snaer did not seem to have the same agenda. He neither grilled Erlendur about destroying their family nor condemned him for taking no interest in him and Eva when they were just children who believed their father was bad for walking out on them.
When Erlendur got home Sindri was boiling spaghetti. He had tidied up the kitchen, which meant he had thrown away a few microwave-meal packets, washed a couple of forks and cleaned inside and around the coffee machine. Erlendur went into the living room and watched the television news. The skeleton from Lake Kleifarvatn was the fifth item. The police had taken care not to mention the Soviet equipment.
They sat in silence, eating the spaghetti. Erlendur chopped it up with his fork and spread it with butter while Sindri pursed his lips and sucked it up with tomato ketchup. Erlendur asked how his mother was doing and Sindri said he had not heard from her since he’d come to the city. A chat show was starting on the television. A pop star was recounting his triumphs in life.
“Eva told me at New Year that you had a brother who died,” Sindri said suddenly, wiping his mouth with a piece of kitchen roll.
“That’s right,” Erlendur said after some thought. He had not been expecting this.
“Eva said it had a big effect on you.”
“That’s right.”
“And explains a bit what you’re like.”
“Explains what I’m like?” Erlendur said. “I don’t know what I’m like. Nor does Eva!”
They went on eating, Sindri sucking up spaghetti and Erlendur struggling to balance the strands on his fork. He thought to himself that he would buy some porridge and pickled haggis the next time he happened to pass a shop.
“It’s not my fault,” Sindri said.
“What?”
“That I hardly know who you are.”
“No,” Erlendur said. “It’s not your fault.”
They ate in silence. Sindri put down his fork and wiped his mouth with kitchen roll again. He stood up, took a coffee mug, filled it with water from the tap and sat back down at the table.
“She said he was never found.”
“Yes, that’s right, he was never found,” Erlendur said.
“So he’s still up there?”
Erlendur stopped eating and put down his fork.
“I expect so, yes,” he said, looking into his son’s eyes. “Where’s this all leading?”
“Do you sometimes look for him?”
“Look for him?”
“Are you still searching for him?”
“What do you want from me, Sindri?” Erlendur said.
“I was working out in the east. In Eskifjordur. They didn’t know we…” Sindri groped for the right word… “knew each other, but after Eva told me about that business with your brother I started asking the locals, older people, who were working in the fish factory with me.”
“You started asking about me?”
“Not directly. Not about you. I asked about the old days, about the people who used to live there and the farmers. Your dad was a farmer, wasn’t he? My grandad.”
Erlendur did not answer.
“Some of them remember it well,” Sindri said.
“Remember what?”
“The two boys who went up to the mountains with their father, and the younger boy who died. And the family moved to Reykjavik afterwards.”
“Which people were you talking to?”
“People who live out east.”
“And you were spying on me?” Erlendur said grumpily.
“I wasn’t spying on you at all,” Sindri said. “Eva Lind told me about it and I asked people about what happened.”
Erlendur pushed away his plate.
“So what happened?”
“The weather was crazy. Your dad got home and the rescue team was called out. You were found buried in a snowdrift. Your dad didn’t take part in the search. People said he sank into self-pity and went off the rails afterwards.”
“Went off the rails?” Erlendur said angrily. “Bollocks.”
“Your mum was much tougher,” Sindri went on. “She went out searching every day with the rescue team. And long after that. Until you moved away two years later. She was always going up onto the moors to look for her son. It was an obsession for her.”
“She wanted to be able to bury him,” Erlendur said. “If you call that an obsession.”
“People told me about you too.”
“You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”
“They said the elder brother, the one who was rescued, came back to the area regularly and walked the mountains and moors. There could be years between his visits and he hadn’t been for several years now, but they always expect him there. He comes alone, with a tent, rents some horses and heads off for the mountains. He returns a week or ten days later, maybe a fortnight, then drives away. He never talks to anyone except when he rents the horses, and he doesn’t say much then.”
“Are people out east still talking about that?”
“I don’t think so,” Sindri said. “Not so much. I was just curious and talked to people who remembered it. Remembered you. I talked to the farmer who rents you the horses.”
“Why did you do all this? You’ve never…”
“Eva Lind said she understood you better after you told her about it. She always wants to talk about you. I’ve never bothered thinking about you at all. I can’t figure out what you represent to her. You don’t matter to me in the least. That’s fine with me. I’m glad I don’t need you. Never have. Eva needs you. She always has.”
“I’ve tried to do what I can for Eva,” Erlendur said.
“I know. She’s told me. Sometimes she thinks you’re interfering, but I think she understands what you’re trying to do for her.”
“Human remains can be found a whole generation later,” Erlendur said. “Even hundreds of years. By sheer chance. There are lots of stories of that happening.”
“I’m sure,” Sindri said, looking over at the bookshelves. “Eva said you felt responsible for what happened to him. That you lost hold of him. Is that why you go to the east to look for him?”
“I think…”
Erlendur stopped short.
“Your conscience?” Sindri asked.
“I don’t know whether it’s my conscience,” Erlendur said, with a vague smile.
“But you’ve never found him,” Sindri said.
