The Draining Lake

“No,” Erlendur said.

“That’s why you keep going back.”

“I like going to the east. Change of surroundings. Being by myself a bit.”

“I saw the house you lived in. It was abandoned ages ago.”

“Yes,” Erlendur said. “Way back. It’s half-collapsed. Sometimes I make plans to turn it into a summer house but…”

“It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Erlendur looked at Sindri.

“It’s nice sleeping there,” Erlendur said. “With the ghosts.”

When he lay down to go to sleep that night he thought about his son’s words. Sindri was right. He had been to the east during several summers to look for his brother. He could not say why, apart from the obvious reason: to find his mortal remains and close the matter, even though he knew deep down that finding anything at this stage was a forlorn hope. On the first and last night he always slept in the old abandoned farmhouse. He slept on the living-room floor, looking out through the broken windows at the sky and thinking about the old times when he had sat in that same room with his family and relatives or the locals. He looked at the carefully painted door and saw his mother coming in with a jug of coffee and filling the guests” cups in the soft glow of the living-room lights. His father standing in the doorway, smiling at something that had been said. His brother came up to him, shy because of the guests, and asked if he could have another cruller. Himself, he stood by the window gazing out at the horses. Some riders had stopped by, cheerful and noisy.

Those were his ghosts.

10

Marion Briem seemed a little livelier when Erlendur called by the next morning. He had managed to dig up a John Wayne western. It was called The Searchers and seemed to cheer up Marion, who asked him to put it in the video player.

“Since when have you watched westerns?” Erlendur asked.

“I’ve always liked westerns,” Marion said. The oxygen mask lay on the table beside the chair in the living room. “The best ones tell simple stories about simple people. I’d have thought you’d enjoy that kind of thing. Western stories. A country bumpkin like you.”

“I never liked the cinema,” Erlendur said.

“Making any headway with Kleifarvatn?” Marion asked.

“What does it tell us when a skeleton, probably dating from the 1960s, is found tied to a Russian listening device?” Erlendur asked.

“Isn’t there only one possibility?” Marion said.

“Espionage?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it might be a genuine Icelandic spy in the lake?”

“Who says he’s Icelandic?”

“Isn’t that a fairly straightforward assumption?”

“There’s nothing to say he’s Icelandic,” Marion said, suddenly bursting into a fit of coughing and gasping for breath. “Hand me the oxygen, I feel better when I’ve got oxygen.”

Erlendur reached for the mask, put it over Marion’s face and turned on the oxygen cylinder. He wondered whether to call a nurse or even a doctor. Marion seemed to read his thoughts.

“Relax. I don’t need any more help. A nurse will be round later.”

“I shouldn’t be tiring you out like this.”

“Don’t go yet. You’re the only visitor I can be bothered to talk to. And the only one who could conceivably give me a cigarette.”

“I’m not going to give you a cigarette.”

There was silence until Marion removed the mask again.

“Did any Icelanders spy during the Cold War?” Erlendur asked.

“I don’t know,” Marion said. “I know that people tried to get them to. I remember one bloke who came to us and said the Russians never left him alone.” Marion’s eyes closed. “It was an exceptionally cheesy spy story, but very Icelandic, of course.”

The Russians had contacted the man to ask if he would help them. They needed information about the Keflavik base and its buildings. The Russians took the matter seriously and wanted to meet the man in an isolated place outside the city. He found them very pushy and could not get rid of them. Although he refused to do what they asked, they would not listen and in the end he gave in. He contacted the police and a simple sting was set up. When the man drove off to meet the Russians by Lake Hafravatn there were two police officers in the car with him, hiding under a blanket. Other policemen had taken up positions nearby. The Russians suspected nothing until the police officers got out of the man’s car and arrested them.

“They were expelled,” Marion said, with a pained smile at the thought of the Russians” amateurish attempts at spying. “I always remember their names: Kisilev and Dimitriev.”

“I wanted to see if you remembered someone from Reykjavik who went missing in the 1960s,” Erlendur said. “A man who sold farm machinery and diggers. He failed to turn up for a meeting with a farmer just outside town and he’s never been heard of since.”

“I remember that well. Niels handled that case. The lazy bastard.”

“Yes, quite,” said Erlendur, who knew Niels. “The man owned a Ford Falcon that was found outside the coach station. One hubcap had been removed.”

“Didn’t he just want to give his old girl the slip? As far as I recall that was our conclusion. That he killed himself.”

“Could be,” Erlendur said.

Marion’s eyes closed again. Erlendur sat on the sofa in silence for a while, watching the film while Marion slept. The video-box blurb described how John Wayne played a Confederate Civil War veteran hunting down the Indians who had killed his brother and sister-in-law and kidnapped their daughter. The soldier spent years searching for the girl and when he found her at last she had forgotten where she came from and become an Indian herself.

After twenty minutes Erlendur stood up and said goodbye to Marion, who was still sleeping under the mask.

When he arrived at the police station, Erlendur sat down with Elinborg, who was writing her speech for the book launch. Sigurdur Oli was in her office too. He said he had traced the sales history of the Falcon right up to the most recent owner.

“He sold the car to a spare-parts dealer in Kopavogur some time before 1980,” Sigurdur Oli said. “The company’s still in business. They just won’t answer the phone. Maybe they’re on holiday.”

“Anything new from forensics about the listening device?” Erlendur asked, and he noticed that Elinborg was moving her lips while she stared at the computer screen, as if she was trying out how the speech sounded.

“Elinborg!” he barked.

She lifted a finger to tell him to wait.

“…And I hope that this book of mine,” she read out loud from the screen, “will bring you endless pleasure in the kitchen and broaden your horizons. I have tried to keep it plain and simple, tried to emphasise the household spirit, because cookery and the kitchen are the focal point…”

“Very good,” Erlendur said.

“Wait,” Elinborg said. “…The focal point of every good household where the family gathers every day to relax and enjoy happy times together.”

“Elinborg,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Is it too sentimental?” Elinborg asked, pulling a face.