Shortly after 1950 a man became interested in the story of the housewife from Reykjavík and the crying child, and started researching the history of the house. A number of families had lived there since the Danish merchant sold it, including three families simultaneously in one period, but there was never any mention of a child crying behind the sitting-room panelling. On delving further back into the early history of the house in search of any link to a child, the man discovered that the Danish merchant who built it had had three daughters who all lived to a ripe old age. The merchant’s servants had no children. But when finally he turned to the story of the house’s construction he found out that there had been two head carpenters, one of whom had taken over the job from the other. The former, who resigned from the job, had had a two-year-old daughter who was killed in an accident on the site where the sitting room was later built. A pile of timber had fallen on her from a height, killing her instantly.
Erlendur had heard the story of the haunted house in his youth. His mother had it first-hand from the man who had dug up the tale of the carpenter’s daughter. He completely ruled out the possibility that the housewife from Reykjavík could have known anything about the building of the house. Erlendur didn’t know what to make of the story. Nor did his mother.
What did it tell one about life and death?
Was the woman from Reykjavík more receptive to supernatural influences than other people or had she heard the story of the carpenter’s daughter and responded as she had because she suffered from an overactive imagination?
And if she was more receptive than other people, what on earth was it that had lurked behind the panelling?
The woman remembered clearly the period when María and Baldvin had started dating. Her name was Thorgerdur and she was tall and big-boned, with a mane of dark hair. She had studied history with María at university but had given up after two years and switched to a degree in nursing. She had kept in close touch with María ever since their student days and was chatty and not at all shy about talking to a police officer like Erlendur. She even volunteered the information that she had once witnessed a crime; she had been at the chemist’s when a hooded man had burst in with a knife and threatened the sales lady.
‘He was pathetic, really,’ Thorgerdur explained. ‘A druggie. They caught him immediately and we bystanders had to identify him. It was easy. He was still wearing the same shabby clothes. Needn’t have bothered with the hood. A stunning-looking boy.’
Erlendur smiled privately. A member of the underclass, Sigurdur Óli would have said. It was one of those terms he had picked up in America. To Sigurdur Óli’s mind it applied not only to criminals and drug addicts, whom he described as total losers, but also to anyone else he disliked for whatever reason: uneducated employees, shop assistants, labourers, even tradesmen, all of whom drove him up the wall. He had once flown to Paris for a weekend break with Bergthóra. They had taken a charter flight and he had been disgusted when most of the other passengers, who were on their annual work outing, became rowdy and drunk and, to cap it all, broke into applause when the plane landed safely in Paris. ‘Plebs,’ he’d sniffed to Bergthóra, full of disdain at the behaviour of the underclass.
Erlendur eased the conversation round to María and her husband and before Thorgerdur knew it she was telling him all about the history course that she had dropped out of and about her friend María who had met the future doctor at a student disco.
‘I’m going to miss María,’ she said. ‘I can still hardly believe that she went like that. The poor thing, she can’t have been in a good way.’
‘You got to know one another at the university, you say?’ Erlendur prompted.
‘Yes, María was absolutely fascinated by history,’ Thorgerdur said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Fascinated by the past. I was bored out of my skull. She used to sit at home, typing up her notes. I didn’t know anyone else who bothered. And she was a good student, which you certainly couldn’t say about all of us who did history.’
‘Did you know Baldvin?’
‘Well, only after he and María got together. Baldvin was a great guy. He was studying drama but had more or less given up by the time they started going out. Didn’t really have what it took to be an actor, apparently.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, or so I heard – that he was better off opting for medicine. They were a terrific gang, the drama students, always having a laugh. People like Orri Fjeldsted, who’s obviously one of the big names today. Lilja and Saebjörn – they got married. Einar Vífill. They all became stars. Anyway, Baldvin switched to medicine and carried on acting alongside his studies for a while, but eventually gave up.’
‘Did he regret it, do you know?’
‘No, not that I’ve heard. Though he’s still very interested in the theatre. They went to a lot of plays and knew loads of people in showbiz, had friends at all the theatres.’
‘Do you know what sort of relationship Baldvin and Leonóra had?’
‘Well, of course he moved in with María, and Leonóra, who was a very strong character, was living there too. María sometimes said her mother tried to boss them around and it got on Baldvin’s nerves.’
‘What about María, what period of history was she interested in?’
‘She only had eyes for the Middle Ages, the stuff I found deadliest of all. She studied incest and bastardy and the laws and punishments associated with them. Her final dissertation was about drownings at Thingvellir. It was very informative. I got to proofread it for her.’
‘Drownings?’
‘Yes,’ Thorgerdur said. ‘The execution of adulteresses in the Drowning Pool and so on.’
Erlendur was silent. They had found a seat in the lounge at the hospital where Thorgerdur worked. An old lady inched past them on a Zimmer frame. An assistant nurse in white clogs hurried along the corridor. A group of medical students stood nearby, comparing notes.
‘Of course, it fits,’ Thorgerdur remarked.
‘What fits?’ Erlendur asked.
‘Well, I heard she’d . . . I heard she’d hanged herself. At her holiday cottage at Thingvellir.’
Erlendur looked at her without answering.
‘But of course it has nothing to do with me,’ Thorgerdur said awkwardly on receiving no reaction.
‘Do you know if she had any particular interest in the supernatural?’ Erlendur asked.
‘No, but she was terrified of the dark. Always had been, ever since I first knew her. She could never go home from the cinema alone, for instance. You always had to go with her. Yet she went to see all the scariest horror movies.’
‘Do you know why she was so frightened of the dark? Did she ever talk about it?’
‘I . . .’
Thorgerdur hesitated. She glanced out into the corridor as if to make sure that no one was listening. The old lady with the Zimmer frame had reached the end of the corridor and was standing there as if she didn’t know what to do next, as if the purpose of her trip had eluded her somewhere during her painfully slow progress up the corridor. In the distance an old favourite was playing on the radio:
He loved the sea, did old Thórdur
. . .
‘What was that?’ Erlendur asked, leaning forward.
‘I have the feeling she didn’t . . . there was something about what happened at Lake Thingvallavatn,’ Thorgerdur said. ‘When her father died.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a feeling I had, that I’ve had for a long time about what happened on Lake Thingvallavatn when she was a little girl. María could be very subdued at times and in very high spirits at others. She never mentioned that she was taking any medication but her exaggerated mood swings didn’t seem normal to me sometimes. Once, a long time ago when she was very depressed, I was sitting with her at her house in Grafarvogur when she started talking about Lake Thingvallavatn. It was the first I’d heard about it; she’d never raised the subject before in my hearing, and I immediately got the sense that she was crippled with guilt about what had happened.’
‘Why should she have felt guilty?’
‘I tried to discuss it with her later but she never opened up again like she did that first time. I felt she was always on guard because of what had happened but I’m absolutely convinced that there was something gnawing away at her, something she couldn’t tell anyone.’
‘Naturally, it was a terrible thing to happen,’ Erlendur said. ‘She watched her father drown.’
‘Of course.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said that they should never have gone to the holiday cottage.’
‘Was that all?’
‘And . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘That perhaps he was meant to die.’
‘Her father?’
‘Yes, her father.’
The audience exploded with laughter, Valgerdur among them. Erlendur raised his eyebrows. The husband had appeared unexpectedly at the third door and let out a peculiar bark on spotting his wife in the arms of the butler. His wife thrust the butler away, crying that he had tried to have his wicked way with her. The butler gave the audience a look as if to say, ‘In your dreams!’ Cue more gales of laughter from the audience. Valgerdur, beaming from ear to ear, glanced at Erlendur, only to sense his boredom. She stroked his arm and he smiled at her.
After the show they went to a café. He ordered a chartreuse with his coffee. She ordered chocolate cake served hot with ice cream, and a sweet liqueur. They discussed the play. She had enjoyed it but he was unimpressed, merely pointing out inconsistencies in the plot.
‘Oh, Erlendur, it was only a farce. You’re not supposed to take it so seriously,’ Valgerdur said. ‘You’re supposed to laugh and forget yourself. I thought it was hilarious.’
‘Yes, people certainly laughed a lot,’ Erlendur said. ‘I’m not used to going to the theatre. Are you familiar with an actor called Orri Fjeldsted?’
He remembered what Thorgerdur had said about Baldvin’s actor friends. He himself knew next to nothing about the celebrity world.
‘Of course I do,’ Valgerdur said. ‘You saw him in
The Wild Duck
.’
‘
The Wild Duck
?’
‘Yes, he was the husband. A bit old for the role, perhaps, but . . . a very good actor.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Erlendur said.
A keen theatregoer, Valgerdur had managed to drag Erlendur along with her on a handful of occasions. She chose weighty plays, Ibsen and Strindberg, in the hope that they would appeal to him, but discovered that he was bored. He fell asleep during
The Wild Duck
. She tried comedies. They were beyond the pale, in his opinion. However, he did enjoy a dreary production of
Death of a Salesman, which did not come as a particular surprise to Valgerdur.
The café was fairly empty. Easy-listening music was playing from somewhere above their heads. It sounded like Sinatra to Erlendur: ‘Moon River’. He had a record of Sinatra singing it. He had once seen a film in the cinema – he had forgotten the name – in which the song was sung by a beautiful actress. There were few people out in the chilly autumn weather. The odd figure darted past their window, bundled up in a down jacket or winter coat; faceless, nameless people who had business in town at this late hour.
‘Eva wants me and Halldóra to meet,’ Erlendur announced, sipping his liqueur.
‘Oh,’ Valgerdur said.
‘She wants us to try to improve our relationship.’
‘That makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Valgerdur said. She always took Eva Lind’s side when her name came up in conversation. ‘You have two children together. It’s natural for you to have some sort of contact. Is she prepared to meet you?’
‘So Eva says.’
‘Why haven’t you been in contact for all these years?’
Erlendur paused for thought.
‘Neither of us wanted it,’ he answered.
‘It must have been difficult for them. For Sindri and Eva.’
Erlendur did not reply.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ Valgerdur asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s become so remote, somehow. Our relationship. The way we were. A whole lifetime has passed since we lived together. What would we talk about? Why rake it all up?’
‘Maybe time has healed the wounds.’
‘It didn’t seem like that when I bumped into her a few years ago. She hadn’t forgotten anything.’
‘But now she wants to meet you?’
‘Apparently, yes.’
‘Maybe it’s a sign that she’s willing for there to be a reconciliation.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And it’s important to Eva.’
‘That’s the point. She’s pushing pretty hard for it but . . .’
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said. ‘Except . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I couldn’t bear any sort of score-settling.’
The foreman called down to Gilbert who was standing at the bottom of a vast, cavernous foundation pit. He was dressed in blue overalls and smoking a cigarette. The foreman informed Erlendur that they were building an eight-storey block of flats with a basement car park, which was why the foundations had to be so wide and deep. He didn’t ask why Erlendur wanted to speak to Gilbert, who stood for a long time looking up at them on the edge of the pit before flicking away his cigarette and starting to climb a large wooden ladder that rose from the depths. It took him quite some time. The foreman made himself scarce. The site was up by Lake Ellidavatn. Yellow cranes reared into the gloomy grey afternoon sky as far as the eye could see, like giant square brackets thrust into the ground by the gods of industry. There was a roar from an unseen dumper truck. From somewhere else came the electronic beeping of a reversing lorry.