Arnaldur Indridason - The Draining Lake

“No, and nor was the other name.”

“The other name?” Sigurdur Oli said. “Did he have another name?”

“I couldn’t figure out why, but some documents in the wallet had the name he introduced himself by, Leopold, and on others there was a different name.”

“What name?” Erlendur asked.

“Joi was funny,” Haraldur said. “He was always hanging around the spot I buried the hubcap. Sometimes he’d lie on the ground or sit down where he knew it was. But he never dared dig it up. Never dared touch it again. He knew he’d done something wrong. He cried in my arms after that fight. The poor boy.”

“What name was it?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“I can’t remember,” Haraldur said. “I’ve told you all you need to know, so bugger off. Leave me alone.”

Erlendur drove to the abandoned farm just outside Mosfellsbaer. A cold northerly wind was getting up and autumn was descending over the land. He felt chilly when he walked behind the house. He pulled his coat tighter around him. At one time there had been a fence around the yard, but it had broken up long before and the yard was now mostly overgrown with grass. Before they left, Haraldur had given Erlendur a fairly detailed description of where he had buried the hubcap.

He took a shovel from the farmhouse, paced out the distance from the wall and began to dig. The hubcap would not be buried very deep. The digging made him hot, so he took a rest and lit a cigarette. Then he carried on. He dug down about one metre but found no sign of the hubcap. He began widening the hole. He took another break. It was a long time since he had done manual work. He smoked another cigarette.

About ten minutes later there was a chink when he thrust the shovel’s blade down, and he knew he had found the hubcap from the black Falcon.

He dug carefully around it, then got down on his knees and scraped the dirt away with his hands. Soon the entire hubcap was visible and he lifted it carefully from the earth. Although rusty, the hubcap was clearly from a Ford Falcon. Erlendur stood up and knocked it against the wall, and the dirt fell away. The hubcap made a ringing sound when it struck the wall.

Erlendur put it down and peered into the hole. He still had to find the wallet that Haraldur had described. It was not yet visible, so he knelt down again, leaned over the hole and dug away at the earth with his hands.

Everything that Haraldur had told him was true. Erlendur found the wallet in the ground nearby. After carefully extracting it he stood up. It was a regular, long, black leather wallet. The moisture in the ground meant that the wallet had begun to rot and he had to handle it carefully because it was in tatters. When he opened it he saw a cheque book, a few Icelandic banknotes long since withdrawn from circulation, a few scraps of paper and a driving licence in Leopold’s name. The damp had seeped through and the photograph was ruined. In another compartment he found another card. It looked like a foreign driving licence and the photograph on it was not so badly damaged. He peered at it, but did not recognise the man.

As far as Erlendur could tell the licence had been issued in Germany, but it was in such a bad condition that only the odd word was legible. He could see the owner’s name clearly, but not his surname. Erlendur stood holding the wallet and looked up.

He recognised the name on the driving licence.

He recognised the name Emil.

Lothar Weiser shook him, shouted at him and slapped him repeatedly around the face. Gradually he came to his senses and saw how the pool of blood under Emil’s head had spread across the dirty concrete floor. He looked into Lothar’s face.

“I killed Emil,” he said.

“What the hell happened?” Lothar hissed. “Why did you attack him? How much did you know about him? How did you track him down? What are you doing here, Tomas?”

“I followed you,” he said. “I saw you and followed you. And now I’ve killed him. He said something about Ilona.”

“Are you still thinking about her? Aren’t you ever going to forget that?”

Lothar went over to the door and closed it carefully. He looked around the shed as if searching for something. Tomas stood riveted to the spot, watching Lothar as if in a trance. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could now see better inside the shed. It was full of piles of old rubbish: chairs and gardening tools, furniture and mattresses. Scattered across the bench he noticed various pieces of equipment, some of which he did not recognise. There were telescopes, cameras of different sizes and a large tape recorder that seemed to be connected to something resembling a radio transmitter. He also noticed photographs lying around, but could not see clearly what they showed. On the floor by the bench was a large black box with dials and buttons whose function eluded him. Beside it was a brown suitcase that the black box could fit inside. It appeared to be damaged — the dials were smashed and the back had dropped open onto the floor.

He was still mesmerised. In a strange, dreamlike state. What he had done was so unreal and remote that he could not begin to face it. He looked at the body on the floor and at Lothar tending to it.

“I thought I recognised him…”

“Emil could be a real bastard,” Lothar said.

“Was it him? Who told you about Ilona?”

“Yes, he drew our attention to her meetings. He worked for us in Leipzig. At the university. He didn’t care who he betrayed or what secrets he spilled. Even his best friends weren’t safe. Like you,” Lothar said and stood up again.

“I thought we were safe,” he replied. “The Icelanders. I never suspected…” He stopped in mid-sentence. He was coming back to his senses. The haze was lifting. His thoughts were clearer. “You weren’t any better,” he said. “You weren’t any better yourself. You were exactly the same as him, only worse.”

They looked each other in the eye.

“Do I need to be afraid of you?” he asked.

He had no feeling of fear. Not yet, at least. Lothar posed no threat to him. On the contrary, Lothar already appeared to be wondering what to do about Emil lying on the floor in his own blood. Lothar had not attacked him. He had not even taken the spade from him. For some absurd reason he was still holding the spade.

“No,” Lothar said. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

“How can I be sure?”

“I’m telling you.”

“I can’t trust anyone,” he said. “You ought to know that. You taught me that.”

“You must get out of here and try to forget this,” Lothar said as he took hold of the spade’s shaft. “Don’t ask me why. I’ll take care of Emil. Don’t go and do anything stupid like calling the police. Forget it. Like it never happened. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Why? What are you helping me for? I thought—”

“Don’t think anything,” Lothar interrupted him. “Go away and never mention this to anyone. It’s nothing to do with you.”

They stood facing each other. Lothar gripped the spade tighter.

“Of course it’s something to do with me!”

“No,” Lothar said firmly. “Forget it.”

“What did you mean by what you just said?”

“What was that?” Lothar asked.

“How I knew about him. How I tracked him down. Has he been living here long?”

“Here in Iceland? No.”

“What’s going on? What are you doing together? What’s all this equipment in this shed? What are those photographs on the bench?”

Lothar kept hold of the shovel’s shaft, trying to disarm him, but he held on grimly and did not let go.

“What was Emil doing here?” he asked. “I thought he was living abroad. In East Germany. That he had never come back after university.”