Arnaldur Indriðason - Silence of the Grave

"What we probably need most is to date both skeletons," Erlendur said and looked at the medical officer.

"Yes, dating," the medical officer said thoughtfully. "You know that there's really precious little difference between a male and female skeleton except for the pelvis, which we can't see clearly enough for the little skeleton and the layer of dirt between them. All 206 bones seem to be in place on the big one. The ribs are broken, as we knew. It's fairly large, quite a tall woman. That's my first impression, but actually I'd prefer not to have anything to do with it. Are you in a hurry? Can't you wait for a week? I'm no specialist in autopsies or dating of bodies. I might miss all kinds of details mat a qualified pathologist would notice, weigh up, intuit. If you want a proper job done, you should wait. Is there any rush? Can't it wait?" he repeated.

Erlendur noticed beads of sweat on the medical officer's forehead and recalled someone saying he always tried to avoid too much responsibility.

"Either way," Erlendur said. "There's no rush. I don't think so anyway. Unless the excavation throws up something that we don't know about, some tragedy."

"You mean someone who's kept an eye on the excavation knows what's been going on and sets off a chain of events?"

"We'll see," Erlendur said. "Let's wait for the pathologist. It's not a question of life or death. But see what you can do for us all the same. Take a look in your own good time. You might be able to remove the little skeleton without damaging any evidence."

The district medical officer nodded as if uncertain about his next move.

"I'll see what I can do," he said.

Erlendur decided to talk to Benjamín Knudsen's niece immediately instead of waiting until the next morning, and he went to see her with Sigurdur Óli that evening. Elsa answered the door and invited them into her sitting room. They all sat down. She looked more tired to Erlendur and he feared her reaction to the discovery of two skeletons; he imagined it must be a strain for her to have this old business dragged out again after so many years and find her uncle implicated in a murder.

He told her what the archaeologists had unearthed on the hill: it was probably Benjamín's fiancée. Elsa looked at each detective in turn while Erlendur was finishing his account, and she was unable to suppress her disbelief.

"I don't believe you," she cried. "Are you saying that Benjamín murdered his fiancée?"

"There's a probability…"

"And buried her on the hill by their chalet? I don't believe it. I just don't understand where you're taking all this. There must be some other explanation. There simply has to be. Benjamín was no murderer, I can tell you that. You've been free to roam around this house and rummage in the cellar as you please, but this is going too far. Do you think I would have let you go through the cellar if I, if the family, had anything to hide? No, this is going too far. You ought to leave," she said and stood up. "Now!"

"It's not as if you're involved," Sigurdur Óli said. He and Erlendur sat tight. "It's not as if you knew something and concealed it from us. Or…?"

"What are you implying?" Elsa said. "That I knew something? Are you accusing me of complicity? Are you going to arrest me? Do you want to put me in prison? What a way to conduct yourselves!" She stared at Erlendur.

"Calm down," Erlendur said. "We found a skeleton of a baby with the adult skeleton. It's been disclosed that Benjamín's fiancée was pregnant. The natural conclusion is that it's her. Don't you think so? We're not implying anything. We're just trying to solve the case. You've been exceptionally helpful and we appreciate that. Not everyone would have done all you have. However, the fact remains that your uncle Benjamín is the main suspect now that we've recovered the bones."

Elsa glared down at Erlendur as if he was an intruder in her house. Then she seemed to soften a little. She looked at Sigurdur Óli, back at Erlendur, and sat down again.

"It's a misunderstanding," she said. "And you'd realise that if you'd known Benjamín the way I did. He wouldn't have hurt a fly. Never."

"He found out his fiancée was pregnant," Sigurdur Óli said. "They were going to be married. He was obviously madly in love with her. His future revolved around his love, the family he was going to start, his business, his position in society. He cracked up. Maybe he went too far. Her body was never recovered. She was supposed to have thrown herself into the sea. She disappeared. Maybe we've found her."

"You told Sigurdur Óli that Benjamín didn't know who got his fiancée pregnant," Erlendur said guardedly. He wondered whether they may have jumped the gun and he cursed the pathologist in Spain. Perhaps they should have saved this visit for later. Waited for confirmation.

"That's right," Elsa said. "He didn't know." "We've heard that Sólveig's mother went to see him later and told him the story. When everything had blown over. After Sólveig went missing." Elsa's expression changed to one of surprise. "I didn't know that," she said. "When was that?" "Later," Erlendur said. "I don't know exactly. Sólveig kept quiet about the father of the child. For some reason, she kept quiet. Didn't tell Benjamín what happened. Broke off their engagement and wouldn't say who the father was. Possibly to protect her family. Her own father's good name."

"What do you mean, her father's good name?" "His nephew raped Sólveig when she was visiting his family in Fljót."

Elsa slumped into her seat and instinctively put her hand to her mouth in shock. "I can't believe it," she sighed.

At the same time, at the other end of the city, Elínborg was telling Bára what had been found in the grave and that the most likely hypothesis was that it was the body of Sólveig, Benjamín's fiancée. That Benjamín had probably buried her there. Elínborg stressed that all the police had to go on was that he was the last person to see her alive and a child had been found with the skeleton on the hill. All further analysis of the bones was still pending.

Bára listened to Elínborg's account without blinking. As usual, she was alone in her huge house, surrounded by wealth, and showed no reaction.

"Our father wanted her to have an abortion," she said. "Our mother wanted to take her to the countryside, let her give the baby away and come back as if nothing had happened, then marry Benjamín. My parents talked it over for ages, then called Sólveig in to see them."

Bára stood up.

"Mother told me this later."

She went over to an imposing oak sideboard, opened a drawer and took out a small white handkerchief which she dabbed against her nose.

"They presented the two options to her. The third option was never discussed. Namely, having the baby and making it part of our family. Sólveig tried to persuade them, but they refused to hear a word of it. Didn't want to know about it. Wanted to kill the baby or give it away. No alternatives."

"And Sólveig?"

"I don't know," Bára said. "The poor girl, I don't know. She wanted the child, she wouldn't think of doing anything else. She was just a child herself. She was no more than a child."

Erlendur looked at Elsa.

"Could Benjamín have interpreted it as an act of betrayal?" he asked. "If Sólveig refused to name the father of the child?"

"No one knows what passed between them at their last meeting," Elsa said. "Benjamín told my mother the main points, but it's impossible to know whether he mentioned every important detail. Was she really raped? My Lord!"

Elsa looked at Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli in turn.

"Benjamín may well have taken it as betrayal," she said in a low voice.

"Sorry, what did you say?" Erlendur asked her.

"Benjamín may well have thought she betrayed him," Elsa repeated. "But that doesn't mean he murdered her and buried her body on the hill."