Arnaldur Indridason - The Draining Lake

“You started asking about me?”

“Not directly. Not about you. I asked about the old days, about the people who used to live there and the farmers. Your dad was a farmer, wasn’t he? My grandad.”

Erlendur did not answer.

“Some of them remember it well,” Sindri said.

“Remember what?”

“The two boys who went up to the mountains with their father, and the younger boy who died. And the family moved to Reykjavik afterwards.”

“Which people were you talking to?”

“People who live out east.”

“And you were spying on me?” Erlendur said grumpily.

“I wasn’t spying on you at all,” Sindri said. “Eva Lind told me about it and I asked people about what happened.”

Erlendur pushed away his plate.

“So what happened?”

“The weather was crazy. Your dad got home and the rescue team was called out. You were found buried in a snowdrift. Your dad didn’t take part in the search. People said he sank into self-pity and went off the rails afterwards.”

“Went off the rails?” Erlendur said angrily. “Bollocks.”

“Your mum was much tougher,” Sindri went on. “She went out searching every day with the rescue team. And long after that. Until you moved away two years later. She was always going up onto the moors to look for her son. It was an obsession for her.”

“She wanted to be able to bury him,” Erlendur said. “If you call that an obsession.”

“People told me about you too.”

“You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”

“They said the elder brother, the one who was rescued, came back to the area regularly and walked the mountains and moors. There could be years between his visits and he hadn’t been for several years now, but they always expect him there. He comes alone, with a tent, rents some horses and heads off for the mountains. He returns a week or ten days later, maybe a fortnight, then drives away. He never talks to anyone except when he rents the horses, and he doesn’t say much then.”

“Are people out east still talking about that?”

“I don’t think so,” Sindri said. “Not so much. I was just curious and talked to people who remembered it. Remembered you. I talked to the farmer who rents you the horses.”

“Why did you do all this? You’ve never…”

“Eva Lind said she understood you better after you told her about it. She always wants to talk about you. I’ve never bothered thinking about you at all. I can’t figure out what you represent to her. You don’t matter to me in the least. That’s fine with me. I’m glad I don’t need you. Never have. Eva needs you. She always has.”

“I’ve tried to do what I can for Eva,” Erlendur said.

“I know. She’s told me. Sometimes she thinks you’re interfering, but I think she understands what you’re trying to do for her.”

“Human remains can be found a whole generation later,” Erlendur said. “Even hundreds of years. By sheer chance. There are lots of stories of that happening.”

“I’m sure,” Sindri said, looking over at the bookshelves. “Eva said you felt responsible for what happened to him. That you lost hold of him. Is that why you go to the east to look for him?”

“I think…”

Erlendur stopped short.

“Your conscience?” Sindri asked.

“I don’t know whether it’s my conscience,” Erlendur said, with a vague smile.

“But you’ve never found him,” Sindri said.

“No,” Erlendur said.

“That’s why you keep going back.”

“I like going to the east. Change of surroundings. Being by myself a bit.”

“I saw the house you lived in. It was abandoned ages ago.”

“Yes,” Erlendur said. “Way back. It’s half-collapsed. Sometimes I make plans to turn it into a summer house but…”

“It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Erlendur looked at Sindri.

“It’s nice sleeping there,” Erlendur said. “With the ghosts.”

When he lay down to go to sleep that night he thought about his son’s words. Sindri was right. He had been to the east during several summers to look for his brother. He could not say why, apart from the obvious reason: to find his mortal remains and close the matter, even though he knew deep down that finding anything at this stage was a forlorn hope. On the first and last night he always slept in the old abandoned farmhouse. He slept on the living-room floor, looking out through the broken windows at the sky and thinking about the old times when he had sat in that same room with his family and relatives or the locals. He looked at the carefully painted door and saw his mother coming in with a jug of coffee and filling the guests” cups in the soft glow of the living-room lights. His father standing in the doorway, smiling at something that had been said. His brother came up to him, shy because of the guests, and asked if he could have another cruller. Himself, he stood by the window gazing out at the horses. Some riders had stopped by, cheerful and noisy.

Those were his ghosts.

Marion Briem seemed a little livelier when Erlendur called by the next morning. He had managed to dig up a John Wayne western. It was called The Searchers and seemed to cheer up Marion, who asked him to put it in the video player.

“Since when have you watched westerns?” Erlendur asked.

“I’ve always liked westerns,” Marion said. The oxygen mask lay on the table beside the chair in the living room. “The best ones tell simple stories about simple people. I’d have thought you’d enjoy that kind of thing. Western stories. A country bumpkin like you.”

“I never liked the cinema,” Erlendur said.

“Making any headway with Kleifarvatn?” Marion asked.

“What does it tell us when a skeleton, probably dating from the 1960s, is found tied to a Russian listening device?” Erlendur asked.

“Isn’t there only one possibility?” Marion said.

“Espionage?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it might be a genuine Icelandic spy in the lake?”

“Who says he’s Icelandic?”

“Isn’t that a fairly straightforward assumption?”

“There’s nothing to say he’s Icelandic,” Marion said, suddenly bursting into a fit of coughing and gasping for breath. “Hand me the oxygen, I feel better when I’ve got oxygen.”

Erlendur reached for the mask, put it over Marion’s face and turned on the oxygen cylinder. He wondered whether to call a nurse or even a doctor. Marion seemed to read his thoughts.

“Relax. I don’t need any more help. A nurse will be round later.”

“I shouldn’t be tiring you out like this.”

“Don’t go yet. You’re the only visitor I can be bothered to talk to. And the only one who could conceivably give me a cigarette.”

“I’m not going to give you a cigarette.”

There was silence until Marion removed the mask again.

“Did any Icelanders spy during the Cold War?” Erlendur asked.

“I don’t know,” Marion said. “I know that people tried to get them to. I remember one bloke who came to us and said the Russians never left him alone.” Marion’s eyes closed. “It was an exceptionally cheesy spy story, but very Icelandic, of course.”

The Russians had contacted the man to ask if he would help them. They needed information about the Keflavik base and its buildings. The Russians took the matter seriously and wanted to meet the man in an isolated place outside the city. He found them very pushy and could not get rid of them. Although he refused to do what they asked, they would not listen and in the end he gave in. He contacted the police and a simple sting was set up. When the man drove off to meet the Russians by Lake Hafravatn there were two police officers in the car with him, hiding under a blanket. Other policemen had taken up positions nearby. The Russians suspected nothing until the police officers got out of the man’s car and arrested them.