“No, it wasn’t him. An official from their embassy on Aegisida came to see me. It was really a trade delegation, not a proper embassy, that they ran in those days. Later it all got so much bigger. Actually he met me in Leipzig.”
“Leipzig?”
“Yes, we used to go to annual trade fairs there. They arranged big exhibitions of industrial goods and machinery and a fairly large contingent of us who did business with the East Germans always went.”
“Who was this man who spoke to you?”
“He never introduced himself.”
“Do you recognise the name Lothar? Lothar Weiser. An East German.”
“Never heard the name. Lothar? Never heard of him.”
“Could you describe this embassy official?”
“It’s such a long time ago. He was quite plump. Perfectly nice bloke, I expect, apart from forcing me to hire that salesman.”
“Don’t you think you should have passed on this information to the police at the time? Don’t you think it could have helped?”
Benedikt hesitated. Then he shrugged.
“I tried to act as if it wasn’t any business of mine or my company. And I genuinely didn’t think it was any of my business. The man wasn’t one of my team. Really he wasn’t anything to do with the company. And they threatened me. What was I supposed to do?”
“Do you remember his girlfriend, Leopold’s girlfriend?”
“No,” Benedikt said after some thought. “No, I can’t say I do. Was she…?”
He stopped short, as if he had no idea of what to say about a woman who had lost the man she loved and never received any answers about his fate.
“Yes,” Erlendur said. “She was heartbroken. And still is.”
Miroslav, the former Czech embassy official, lived in the south of France. He was an elderly man but had a good memory. He spoke French, but also good English, and was prepared to talk to Sigurdur Oli over the telephone. Quinn from the US embassy in Reykjavik, who had put them on to the Czech, acted as a go-between. In the past, Miroslav had been found guilty of spying against his own country and had spent several years in prison. He was not considered a prolific or important spy, having spent most of his diplomatic career in Iceland. Nor did he describe himself as a spy. He said he had succumbed to temptation when he was offered money to inform American diplomats about any unusual developments at his embassy or those of the other Iron Curtain countries. He never had anything to say. Nothing ever happened in Iceland.
It was the middle of summer. The skeleton in Kleifarvatn had fallen completely off the radar in the summer holidays. The media had long since stopped mentioning it. Erlendur’s request for a warrant to search for the Falcon man on the brothers” farmland had not yet been answered because the staff were on holiday.
Sigurdur Oli had taken a fortnight in Spain with Bergthora and returned suntanned and content. Elinborg had travelled around Iceland with Teddi and spent two weeks at her sister’s summer chalet in the north. There was still considerable interest in her cookery book and a glossy magazine had quoted her in its
And one day at the end of July Elinborg whispered to Erlendur that Sigurdur Oli and Bergthora had finally succeeded.
“Why are you whispering?” Erlendur asked.
“At last,” Elinborg sighed with delight. “Bergthora just told me. It’s still a secret.”
“What is?” Erlendur said.
“Bergthora’s pregnant!” Elinborg said. “It’s been so difficult for them. They had to go through IVF and now it’s worked at last.”
“Is Sigurdur Oli going to have a baby?” Erlendur said.
“Yes,” Elinborg said. “But don’t talk about it. No one’s supposed to know.”
“The poor kid,” said Erlendur in a loud voice, and Elinborg walked off muttering curses under her breath.
At first Miroslav turned out to be eager to help them. The conversation took place in Sigurdur Oli’s office with both Erlendur and Elinborg present. A tape recorder was connected to the telephone. On the arranged day at the arranged time, Sigurdur Oli picked up the handset and dialled.
After a number of rings a female voice answered and Sigurdur Oli introduced himself and asked for Miroslav. He was asked to hold the line. Sigurdur Oli looked at Erlendur and Elinborg and shrugged as if not knowing what to expect. Eventually a man came to the telephone and said his name was Miroslav. Sigurdur Oli introduced himself again as a detective from Reykjavik and presented his request. Miroslav said at once that he knew what the matter involved. He even spoke some Icelandic, although he asked for the conversation to be conducted in English.
“Is gooder for me,” he said in Icelandic.
“Yes, quite. It was about that official with the East German trade delegation in Reykjavik in the 1960s,” Sigurdur Oli said in English. “Lothar Weiser.”
“I understand you found a body in a lake and think it’s him,” Miroslav said.
“We haven’t come to any conclusions,” Sigurdur Oli said. “It’s only one of several possibilities,” he added after a short pause.
“Do you often find bodies tied to Russian spy equipment?” Miroslav laughed. Quinn had clearly put him in the picture. “No, I understand. I understand you want to play safe and not say too much, and obviously not over the phone. Do I get any money for my information?”
“Unfortunately not,” Sigurdur Oli said. “We don’t have permission to negotiate that kind of thing. We were told you would be cooperative.”
“Cooperative, right,” Miroslav said. “No monies?” he asked in Icelandic.
“No,” Sigurdur Oli said, also in Icelandic. “No money.”
The telephone went silent and they all looked at each other, crammed into Sigurdur Oli’s office. Some time elapsed until they heard the Czech again. He called out something that they thought was in Czech and heard a woman’s voice in the background answer him. The voices were half-smothered as if he were holding his hand over the mouthpiece. More words were exchanged. They could not tell whether it was an argument.
“Lothar Weiser was one of East Germany’s spies in Iceland,” Miroslav said straightforwardly when he returned to the telephone. The words gushed out as if his exchange with the woman had incited him. “Lothar spoke very good Icelandic that he’d learned in Moscow — did you know that?”
“Yes, we did,” Sigurdur Oli said. “What did he do here?”
“He was called a trade attache. They all were.”
“But was he anything else?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“Lothar wasn’t employed by the trade delegation, he worked for the East German secret service,” Miroslav said. “His specialism was enlisting people to work for him. And he was brilliant at it. He used all kinds of tricks and had a knack for exploiting weaknesses. He blackmailed. Set up traps. Used prostitutes. They all did. Took incriminating photographs. You know what I mean? He was incredibly imaginative.”
“Did he have, how should I say, collaborators in Iceland?”
“Not that I know of, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t.”
Erlendur found a pen on the desk and started jotting down an idea that had occurred to him.
“Was he friends with any Icelanders that you remember?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“I don’t know much about his contact with Icelanders. I didn’t get to know him very well.”
“Could you describe Lothar to us in more detail?”
“All that Lothar was interested in was himself,” Miroslav said. “He didn’t care who he betrayed if he could benefit by it. He had a lot of enemies and a lot of people were sure to have wanted him dead. That’s what I heard, at least.”
“Did you know personally about anyone who wanted him dead?”
“No.”
“What about the Russian equipment? Where could it have come from?”
