‘Kids are often shy when it comes to talking about that sort of thing.’
‘That may well be true; it must have been a very new relationship. I don’t remember him ever having a girlfriend. Not once.’
‘Do you think his brother would have known?’
‘Elmar? No. He would have told us. He wouldn’t have forgotten something important like that.’
The old man began to cough, an ugly, rattling noise that grew steadily worse until he couldn’t stop. Blood spurted from his nostrils and he collapsed on the sofa in the lounge. Erlendur rushed out and called for help, then tried to tend to him until it arrived.
‘I haven’t got as long as they thought,’ the old man groaned.
The nurses shooed Erlendur away and he watched them move the old man back to the ward. They closed the door and he walked away down the corridor, not knowing if he would ever see him again.
Erlendur lay awake that night, thinking about his mother. His thoughts often strayed to her at this time of year. He pictured her as she’d been when they had lived out east, standing in the yard, gazing at Mount Hardskafi, then looking back at him encouragingly. They would find him. All hope was not yet lost. He no longer knew whether the image of her in the yard was a memory or a dream. Perhaps it didn’t matter.
She died three days after being admitted to hospital. He sat at her bedside throughout. The staff offered him the chance to rest in an empty room if he wanted but he declined politely, unable to bring himself to leave his mother. The doctors said she could go at any minute. Although she regained consciousness from time to time, she was delirious and did not know him. He tried to talk to her but it was useless.
So the hours passed, one by one, as his mother slowly drew near the end. His mind was flooded with memories of his childhood when she had seemed to be everywhere in a strangely circumscribed world; a watchful protector, a gentle teacher and a good friend.
In the end she appeared to regain her senses slightly. She smiled at him.
‘Erlendur,’ she whispered.
He held her hand.
‘I’m here with you,’ he said.
‘Erlendur?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you found your brother?’
It was shortly before curtain-up when Erlendur parked at the stage door. He knew he was late but he wanted to finish what he had set out to do before calling it a day. A friendly caretaker showed him the way to the dressing rooms but was anxious on his behalf, warning him he would have very little time. Erlendur sought to reassure him by explaining that he had called ahead and Orri was expecting him. It shouldn’t take long.
Pandemonium reigned behind the scenes. Actors were pacing the corridors in full costume. Others were still being made up. Stagehands were dashing about. Out in the audience a few scattered figures were beginning to take their seats. A disembodied voice announced that it was half an hour till the performance began. Erlendur knew that the play was
Othello
. According to Valgerdur the critics had described the production as ambitious and original in its way, but incoherent.
Orri Fjeldsted was alone in his dressing room, going over his lines, when Erlendur eventually tracked him down. He was playing Iago in a 1940s-style suit, because the director, a young go-getter recently returned from his studies in Italy, according to Valgerdur, had decided to set the production in Reykjavík during the Second World War. Othello was black, a colonel in the occupying American army; Desdemona was a Reykjavík girl involved with the GIs. The colonel had just returned from a mission to Europe when he met Desdemona. Meanwhile, Iago was plotting his downfall.
‘Are you the policeman?’ Orri asked when he opened the door to Erlendur. ‘Couldn’t you have found a better time?’
‘I’m sorry, I meant to get here ages ago – it won’t take a moment,’ Erlendur said.
‘At least you’re not a bloody critic!’ the actor exclaimed. He was small and scrawny, almost wizened, with thick greasepaint on his face, an unconvincing Clark Gable moustache glued to his upper lip and his hair slicked back from his forehead. He reminded Erlendur of a gangster in an American movie.
‘Do you read the reviews?’ Orri Fjeldsted asked. He had a powerful voice despite his diminutive size.
‘Never,’ Erlendur said.
‘They’ve really gone to town with their bullshit on this one,’ Orri said, and Erlendur remembered that Valgerdur had quoted the critics as saying that Orri Fjeldsted appeared lost in the role of Iago.
‘I haven’t followed them,’ Erlendur said.
‘You haven’t seen the production?’
‘I don’t go to the theatre much.’
‘Bunch of bloody charlatans! Scum! Do you think we do this for fun?’
‘Er, no, it . . . they’re . . .’
‘Year in, year out, the same crowd with the same pig-ignorant bullshit! What was it you wanted?’
‘It’s about Baldvin . . .’
‘Oh yes, you mentioned that on the phone. I heard he’d lost his wife. All very sudden. We don’t keep in touch any longer. Haven’t for years.’
‘You were at drama school together, if I’ve understood correctly.’
‘That’s right. He was a very promising actor. Then he went into medicine. Wise move. At least he’s free of the bloody critics! And makes a sight more money, of course. What’s the point of being a famous actor if you don’t have two pence to rub together? Actors are paid a pittance in this country – almost as little as teachers!’
‘I think he’s doing all right,’ Erlendur said, trying his best to pacify the actor.
‘He was forever having money troubles. I do remember that. Used to tap us for cash and so on and took his time paying it back. You really had to chase him and sometimes he didn’t pay up at all. Apart from that he was a good bloke.’
‘There was a group of you at the drama school?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Orri said, stroking a finger over his thin moustache to make sure it was firmly attached. ‘A bloody good gang.’
‘Fifteen minutes to curtain-up,’ a voice announced over the tannoy.
‘He met his wife when he had just given up his drama studies,’ Erlendur said.
‘Yes, I remember it well, a sweet girl from the university. Tell me, why are the police asking questions about Baldvin?’
Erlendur chose his words with care, mindful of what Valgerdur had said about actors being dreadful gossips.
‘We’re collaborating in a Swedish study . . .’
Orri Fjeldsted’s interest seemed to cool abruptly.
‘They were a resourceful bunch, those kids,’ he said, ‘I’ll give them that. I gather a friend of his drove some guy called Tryggvi round the bend with his experiments.’
‘Acting experiments?’
‘Acting . . . ? No, this was when Baldvin was studying medicine. Was there anything else? I’ve got to go; it’s only five minutes till I’m due on stage. Was there anyone in the audience? They’ve completely destroyed this production. The critics. Ruined it. They haven’t a fucking clue about the theatre. Not a fucking clue! That people even listen to those imbeciles! The public have been calling the theatre and cancelling their tickets in droves.’
Orri opened the door.
‘What about this Tryggvi?’ Erlendur asked.
‘Tryggvi? I think that was his name. They described him as a burn-out. You must have heard of the type. An outstanding student who lost the plot. Quit his studies. I’ve no idea where he is today.’
‘Was Baldvin involved?’
‘That’s what they always said: him and his friend the medic. I have a feeling the medic might have been Tryggvi’s cousin; they were related somehow. They used to be great mates.’
‘What happened?’
‘You haven’t heard?’
‘No.’
‘Tryggvi’s supposed to have asked his cousin to—’
Othello came storming down the corridor with Desdemona on his heels. He was dressed as an American colonel, she in a light blue summer suit and bouffant blonde wig. Othello’s head was shaven and sweat was already breaking out on his scalp.
‘Let’s get this bloody nightmare over,’ Othello boomed, dragging Iago off towards the stage. Desdemona smiled sweetly at Erlendur.
‘What did Tryggvi ask him to do?’ Erlendur called after them.
Orri stopped and looked back at Erlendur.
‘I don’t know if there’s any truth in it but it’s what I heard years ago.’
‘What? What did you hear?’
‘Tryggvi asked him to kill him.’
‘Kill him? Is he dead?’
‘No, full of beans but weird in the head.’
‘What are you trying to tell me? I don’t under—’
‘It was an experiment that the cousin carried out on Tryggvi.’
‘What kind of experiment?’
‘The way I heard it, he stopped Tryggvi’s heart for several minutes before resuscitating him. They said Tryggvi was never the same again.’
And with that the trio stormed on stage.
Next day, Erlendur dug up the old reports in the police archives about the incident on Lake Thingvallavatn. He read the statement by María’s mother Leonóra, as well as the expert witness’s verdict on the boat and outboard motor. He found a postmortem report in the files indicating that Magnús had drowned in the cold water. Apparently, no statement had been taken from the little girl. The case was treated as an accident. Erlendur checked who had led the investigation. It was an officer called Níels. He sighed. He had never had any time for Níels. They had been working for the CID for an equal length of time but, unlike Erlendur, Níels was dilatory; his cases had a tendency to become drawn out to the point of invalidation, and were almost invariably sloppily handled.
Níels was on his coffee break. He was joking with the women in the cafeteria when Erlendur asked if he could have a word.
‘What was it you wanted, Erlendur old chap?’ Níels asked, with his habitual air of empty condescension. ‘Friend’ and ‘chap’, ‘chum’ and ‘my old mate’ were words he appended to every sentence, insignificant in themselves but deeply meaningful in the mouth of Níels who had full confidence in his own superiority, despite the lack of any foundation for this.
Erlendur drew him aside and sat down with him in the cafeteria before asking if he remembered the accident on Lake Thingvallavatn, and Leonóra and her daughter María.
‘It was an open-and-shut case, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, I expect so. You don’t happen to remember anything unusual about the circumstances: the people involved or the accident itself?’
Níels adopted an expression intended to convey the idea that he was racking his brains in an effort to recall the events at Lake Thingvallavatn.
‘You’re not trying to uncover a crime after all these years?’ he asked.
‘No, far from it. The little girl you saw at the scene with her mother died the other day. It was her father who drowned.’
‘I don’t recall anything unusual in connection with that investigation,’ Níels said.
‘How did the propeller come loose from the engine?’
‘Well, naturally I don’t have the exact details on the tip of my tongue,’ Níels answered warily. He regarded Erlendur with suspicion. Not everyone at the police station appreciated it when Erlendur started digging up old cases.
‘Do you remember what forensics said?’
‘Wear and tear, wasn’t it?’ Níels asked.
‘Something like that,’ Erlendur replied. ‘Not that that explains much. The engine was old and clapped out and hadn’t received any particular maintenance. What did they tell you that didn’t go in the report?’
‘Gudfinnur was in charge of the examination. But he’s dead now.’
‘So we can’t ask him. You know that not everything goes into the reports.’
‘What is it with you and the past?’
Erlendur shrugged.
‘What are you trying to get at, old chap?’
‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said, controlling his impatience.
‘What exactly do you need to know?’ Níels asked.
‘How did they react, the wife and daughter? Can you remember?’
‘There was nothing unnatural about their reactions. It was a tragic accident. Everyone could see that. The woman almost had a breakdown.’
‘The propeller was never found.’
‘No.’
‘And there was no way of establishing exactly how it had come loose?’
‘No. The man was alone in the boat and probably started tinkering with the engine, fell overboard and drowned. His wife didn’t see what happened, nor did the girl. The wife suddenly noticed that the boat was empty. Then she heard the man cry out briefly but by then it was too late.’
‘Do you remember . . .?’
‘We talked to the retailer,’ Níels said. ‘Or Gudfinnur did. Talked to someone at the company that sold the outboard motors.’