Arnaldur Indriðason: Silence of the Grave

The children meant everything to her. In effect they became the friends and soul mates she lived for, especially Mikkelína, but also Símon when he grew older and the younger boy, who was given the name Tómas. She chose the names for the children herself. The only attention he paid to them was when he complained about them. How much food they ate. The noise they made at night. The children suffered for the violence he inflicted on her and brought her precious comfort in times of need.

He knocked out of her what little self-respect she had. Reticent and unassuming by nature, she was eager to please everyone, kind, helpful, even submissive. Smiled awkwardly when spoken to and had to steel herself not to look shy. Such feebleness filled him with an energy that drove him to abuse her until she had nothing left of her own self. Her entire existence revolved around him. His whims. Serving him. She stopped taking care of herself the way she once had. She stopped washing regularly. Stopped thinking about her appearance. Rings appeared under her eyes, her face went flabby and a greyness descended upon her, she developed a stoop, her head down on her chest as if she did not dare to look up properly. Her thick, pretty hair grew lifeless and dull and stuck to her head, filthy. She cut it herself using kitchen scissors when she felt it was too long.

Or when he felt it was too long.

Ugly old bag.

The archaeologists continued excavating in the morning after the bones were found. The policemen who had patrolled the area that night showed them where Erlendur had exposed the hand and Skarphédinn was furious when he saw how Erlendur had picked away at the soil. Bloody amateurs, he was heard muttering into his beard well past noon. To him, an excavation was a sacred ritual in which the soil was peeled back, one stratum after another, until the history of all that lay beneath came to light and the secrets were revealed. Every detail mattered, every handful of dirt might contain vital evidence and charlatans could destroy important data.

He preached all this to Elínborg and Sigurdur Óli, who had done nothing wrong, in between giving orders to his team. Work progressed very slowly by these painstaking archaeological methods. Ropes were stretched across the length and breadth of the area, marking out zones according to a specific system. The crucial consideration was to leave the position of the skeleton unmoved during the excavation; they made sure that the hand did not budge even when they brushed the dirt away from it, and scrutinised every grain of soil.

"Why is the hand sticking up out of the ground?" Elínborg asked Skarphédinn, stopping him as he hurried busily past.

"Impossible to say," Skarphédinn said. "In a worstcase scenario the person lying there could have been alive when he was covered with the earth and tried to put up some resistance. Tried to dig his way out."

"Alive!" Elínborg groaned. "Digging his way out?"

"That's not necessarily the case. We can't rule out that the hand ended up in that position when the body was put in the ground. It's too soon to say anything about that."

Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg were surprised that Erlendur had not turned up for the excavation. Eccentric and unpredictable as he was, they also knew of his great fascination with missing persons, past and present, and the buried skeleton could well be the key to an old disappearance that Erlendur would delight in unearthing from parched documents. When it was past midday Elínborg tried to phone him at home and on his mobile, but to no avail.

Around two o'clock, Elínborg's mobile rang.

"Are you up there?" a deep voice said over the phone, and she recognised it at once.

"Where are you?"

"I got delayed. Are you at the excavation?"

"Yes."

"Can you see the bushes? I think they're redcurrant. About 30 metres east of the foundations, standing almost in a straight line, going south."

"Redcurrant bushes?" Elínborg squinted and scoured around for some bushes. "Yes," she said, "I can see them."

"They were planted a long time ago."

"Yes."

"Check why. Whether anyone lived there. Whether there was a house there in the old days. Go down to the City Planning Office and get some maps of the area, even aerial photos if they have any. You might need to look up documents from the beginning of the century until 1960 at least. Maybe even later."

"Do you think there was a house on the hill here?" Elínborg said, looking all around. She made no attempt to conceal her disbelief.

"I think we ought to check it out. What's Sigurdur Óli doing?"

"He's browsing through the files of missing persons since World War II, to start with. He was waiting for you. Said you enjoyed that sort of thing."

"I spoke to Skarphédinn just now and he said he remembered a camp there, on the other side, the south slope of Grafarholt, in wartime. Where the golf course is now."

"A camp?"

"A British or American camp. Military. Barracks. He couldn't remember the name. You ought to check that too. Check whether the British reported anyone missing from the camp. Or the Americans who took it over from them."

"British? Americans? In the war? Wait a minute, where do I find that out?" Elínborg asked in surprise. "When did the Americans take over from them?"

"1941. Could have been a supply depot. Anyway that's what Skarphédinn thought. Then there's the question of the chalets on the hill and around it. Whether there could be a missing person connected with them. Even just stories or suspicions. We need to talk to the local chalet owners."

"That's a lot of work for some old bones," Elínborg said peevishly, kicking at the gravel around the foundation where she stood. "What are you doing?" she then asked, almost accusingly.

"Never you mind," Erlendur said and rang off.

He walked back into intensive care wearing a thin green paper smock with a gauze over his mouth. Eva Lind lay in a big bed in a single room on the ward. She was connected to all kinds of equipment and devices that Erlendur had never even seen before and an oxygen mask covered her mouth and nose. He stood by the bed head, looking down at his daughter. She was in a coma. Had not yet regained consciousness. Over what he could see of her face, an air of peace reigned which Erlendur had not seen before. A calmness unfamiliar to him. When she lay like that her features became stronger, her brows sharper, her cheeks stretching the skin and her eyes sunk into their sockets.

He had called emergency services when he could not manage to bring Eva Lind back to consciousness where she lay in front of the old maternity home. He felt a weak pulse and laid his coat over her, trying to tend to her as best he could, but not daring to move her. The next thing he knew, the same ambulance turned up that had come to Tryggvagata, with the same doctor in it. Eva Lind was gently lifted onto a stretcher and slid inside the ambulance, which sped off the short distance remaining to Accident and Emergency.

She was sent straight into surgery that lasted almost the rest of the night. Erlendur paced the little waiting room by the operating theatre, wondering whether he ought to let Halldóra know. He baulked at phoning her. In the end he found some kind of solution. He woke up Sindri Snaer, told him about his sister and asked him to contact Halldóra so that she could visit the hospital. They exchanged a few words. Sindri was not planning to come to the city anytime soon. Saw no reason to make a journey just for Eva Lind's sake. Their conversation faded out.

Erlendur chain smoked beneath a sign that said smoking was strictly prohibited – until a surgeon wearing a gauze mask walked past and gave him a dressing-down for infringing the ban. Erlendur's mobile rang when the doctor had gone. It was Sindri with a message from Halldóra: "It would do Erlendur good to take on some of the responsibility for once."