Arnaldur Indriðason: Silence of the Grave

Elínborg located a geologist at the university who was more than willing to assist the police, dropped everything and turned up at the foundation just half an hour after they had spoken. He was middle-aged, black-haired and slim with an exceptionally deep voice, and had a doctorate from Paris. Elínborg led him over to the wall of earth. The police had put a tent over the wall to obscure it from passers-by, and she gestured to the geologist to go in under the flap.

The tent was illuminated by a large fluorescent light, which cast gloomy shadows over to where the skeleton lay. The geologist did not rush anything. He examined the soil, took a handful from the wall and clenched his fist to crumble it. He compared the strata beside the skeleton with those above and below it, and examined the density of the soil around the bones. Proudly he told her how he had once been called in to help with an investigation, to analyse a clump of earth found at the scene of a crime, which made a useful contribution. Then he went on to discuss academic works on criminology and the earth sciences, a kind of forensic geology, if Elínborg understood him correctly.

She listened to him rambling away until she lost her patience.

"How long has he been in there?" she asked.

"Difficult to say," the geologist said in his deep voice, assuming an academic pose. "It needn't be long."

"How long is that, geologically speaking?" Elínborg asked. "A thousand years? Ten?"

The geologist looked at her.

"Difficult to say," he repeated.

"How accurate an answer can you give?" Elínborg asked. "Measured in years."

"Difficult to say."

"In other words, it's difficult to say anything?"

The geologist looked at Elínborg and smiled.

"Sorry, I was thinking. What do you want to know?"

"How long?"

"What?"

"He's been lying here," Elínborg groaned.

"I'd guess somewhere between 50 and 70 years. I still have to do some more detailed tests, but that's what I'd imagine. From the density of the soil, it's out of the question that it's a Viking or a heathen burial mound."

"We know that," Elínborg said, "there are shreds of clothing…"

"This green line here," the geologist said and pointed to a stratum in the lowest part of the wall. "This is ice-age clay. These lines at regular intervals here," he continued, pointing further up, "these are volcanic tuff. The uppermost one is from the end of the fifteenth century. It's the thickest layer of tuff in the Reykjavik area since the country was settled. These are older layers from eruptions in Hekla and Katla. Now we're thousands of years back in time. It's not far down to the bedrock as you can see here," he pointed to a large layer in the foundation. "This is the Reykjavík dolerite that covers the whole area around the city."

He looked at Elínborg.

"Relative to all that history, the grave was only dug a millionth of a second ago."

The archaeologists stopped work around 9.30 and Skarphédinn told Erlendur they would be back early the next morning. They had not found anything of note in the soil and had barely started stripping the vegetation above it. Erlendur asked whether they could not speed up the work a little, but Skarphédinn looked at him disdainfully and asked him if he wanted to destroy the evidence. They agreed that there was still no rush to dig down to the skeleton.

The fluorescent light in the tent was switched off. All the reporters had left. The discovery of the skeleton was the main story on the evening news. There were pictures of Erlendur and his team down in the foundation and one station showed its reporter trying to interview Erlendur, who waved his hands in his face and walked away.

Calm had descended upon the estate once more. The banging hammers had fallen silent. Everyone who had been working on their half-built houses had left. Those who had already moved in were going to bed. No children could be heard shouting any more. Two policeman in a patrol car were appointed to watch over the area during the night. Elínborg and Sigurdur Óli had gone home. The forensic squad, who had been helping the archaeologist, had gone home as well by now. Erlendur had spoken to Tóti and his mother about the bone that the boy found. Tóti was elated by all the attention he received. "What a turn up for the books," his mother sighed. Her son finding a human skeleton just lying around. "This is the best birthday I've had," Tóti told Erlendur. "Ever."

The medical student had gone back home, taking his little brother with him. Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli had spoken briefly to him. He described how he had been watching the baby without noticing at first the bone it was gnawing. When he examined it more closely it turned out to be a human rib.

"How could you tell at once that it was a human rib?" Erlendur asked. "It could have been from a sheep, for instance."

"Yes, wasn't it more likely to have been from a sheep?" asked Sigurdur Óli, a city boy who knew nothing about Icelandic farm animals.

"There was no mistaking it," the student said. "I've done autopsy work and there was no question."

"Can you tell us how long you'd estimate that the bones have been buried there?" Erlendur asked. He knew he would eventually be given the findings of the geologist Elínborg had called out, the archaeologist and the forensic pathologist, but he did not mind hearing the student's opinion.

"I took a look at the soil and, based on the rate of decay, we're maybe talking about 70 years. Not much more than that. But I'm no expert."

"No, quite," Erlendur said. "The archaeologist thought the same and he's no expert either."

He turned to Sigurdur Óli.

"We need to check out the records of people who went missing from that time, around 1930 or 1940. Maybe even earlier. See what we can find."

Erlendur stood beside the foundation, in the evening sun, and looked north towards the town of Mosfellsbaer, to Kollafjördur and Mount Esja, and he could see the houses across the bay on Kjalarnes. He could see the cars on the West Road skirt the foot of Úlfarsfell on their way to Reykjavík. He heard a car drive up to the foundation and a man stepped out of it, about the same age as Erlendur, fat, wearing a blue windcheater and a peaked cap. He slammed the door and looked at Erlendur and the police car, the disturbed ground by the foundation and the tent covering the skeleton.

"Are you from the taxman?" he asked brashly, walking over to Erlendur.

"Taxman?" Erlendur said.

"Never a bloody moment's peace from you," the man said. "Have you got a writ or…?"

"Is this your land?" Erlendur asked.

"Who are you? What's this tent? What's going on here?"

Erlendur explained to the man, who said his name was Jon, what had happened. It turned out that he was a building contractor and owned the building plot; he was on the verge of bankruptcy and plagued by debt collectors. No work had been done on the foundation for some time, but he said he came regularly to check whether the formwork had been vandalised; those bloody kids in these new suburbs who play silly buggers in the houses. He had not heard about the discovery of the skeleton and looked down into the foundation in disbelief while Erlendur explained to him what the police and archaeologists were doing.

"I didn't know about it, and the carpenters certainly wouldn't have seen those bones. Is it an ancient grave then?" Jon asked.

"We don't know yet," Erlendur said, unwilling to give any further information. "Do you know anything about that land over there to the east?" he asked, pointing towards the redcurrant bushes.

"All I know is that it's good building land," Jon said. "I didn't think I'd live to see the day that Reykjavik would spread all the way out here."

"Maybe the city's grown out of all proportion," Erlendur said. "Do redcurrants grow wild in Iceland, would you happen to know?"