Arnaldur Indridason - Oblivion

‘Work’s been suspended for the most part because of the construction, but the hangar’s guarded twenty-four/seven. I discovered that one of the security guards is called Matthew Pratt. A private. Young. Only twenty-two. A friend of mine who works on the airport gate knows him but he didn’t recognise the names of the other guards. There are several, apparently, and they patrol it in shifts.’

‘Have you spoken to him? This Pratt?’

‘That’s the strange part.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t trace him,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s not at home. His neighbours haven’t seen him for forty-eight hours. He hasn’t been on duty and I’m told he reported in sick several days ago. He hasn’t left the base, to the best of my knowledge, but he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.’

Erlendur couldn’t persuade Caroline to change her mind about returning to the base, so he left her in the car park by the Keflavík football ground. She gave him the phone number of some people she was going to take refuge with and said she would be in touch soon.

‘Be careful,’ Erlendur said in parting. ‘The fewer people you tell, the better. Are you sure you can trust them?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Caroline. ‘They’re the kind of friends who’ll help without asking any questions.’ She pulled up the hood of her jacket and got out of the car.

As Erlendur drove back along the Keflavík road he looked over at the billows of steam rising from Svartsengi and felt as if many weeks had passed since he saw Kristvin’s body floating in the lagoon. Since then the inquiry into his death had almost entirely focused on the naval air station on Midnesheidi, and now both the CIA and Military Intelligence had become tangled up in it. Erlendur found it highly unlikely that a nobody like Kristvin could have constituted a serious thorn in the side for a powerful nation like the US, but then again Caroline was clearly rattled, and maybe Kristvin had as much chance as anyone else on the base of stumbling on classified information. He had access to the largest hangar on the site, after all, so he could have witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to.

As Erlendur wrestled with this question on the drive back to Reykjavík, he reflected on what he had told Caroline about the difference in scale between their two nations. From there, his thoughts wandered back to Dagbjört and what the old woman, Baldvina, had told him about Camp Knox. Erlendur had made casual enquiries about where he might find her son Vilhelm these days. All he had learned was that the tramp was still alive and occasionally showed his face at the shelter for alcoholics and homeless men on Thingholt.

When Erlendur got back to the office he found Marion sitting at the desk, apparently sufficiently recovered to return to work. Erlendur gave a detailed account of his meeting with Caroline out at Gardskagi and how her investigations had put her on the trail of Wilbur Cain, who scared her.

‘But she insisted on going back to the base in spite of that?’ said Marion, once Erlendur had finished.

‘She said she was going to stay with friends and would be in touch when she had more information. Let’s just hope she knows what she’s doing. I told her we’re a bunch of clueless bloody amateurs when it comes to the world she moves in.’

‘Maybe not such a bad thing to be, in the circumstances,’ said Marion.

‘No, true.’

‘What can we do at this end to help her?’ asked Marion. ‘Anything practical?’

‘She said she didn’t trust the Icelandic government any more than the military authorities. One option would be for us to issue a warrant for Wilbur Cain’s arrest, but we can’t produce any evidence to back it up. Caroline said they could whisk him away at a moment’s notice and claim ignorance of his existence.’

‘What are the chances he killed Kristvin — realistically?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Erlendur. ‘Caroline thinks it’s possible Wilbur knew him and was with him at that club or bar or whatever it is, the Animal Locker. We have Joan’s word for that. She referred to Kristvin’s companion as “W”. Admittedly it’s not definitely “Wilbur”, but it was enough to spur Caroline to talk to her contact in Washington, who told her to watch out for this Cain character.’

‘I hope we’re not going to live to regret the fact we persuaded her to help us,’ said Marion.

‘She can look after herself.’

Erlendur announced that he had a brief errand to run. Marion promised to stay by the phone in the meantime in case Caroline rang. Saying he would call in regularly to check if there were any developments, Erlendur left and drove down to the homeless shelter on Thingholt. He spoke to the warden who knew Vilhelm well and said he had spent the previous night there, but he didn’t know whether to expect him back that evening.

‘The poor bloke’s in pretty bad shape,’ said the warden.

‘Well, it’s a dog’s life.’

‘You could try the centre of town — they sometimes gather in Austurvöllur Square in spite of the cold. Or up on Arnarhóll. Or by the bus station at Hlemmur.’

Erlendur drove through the centre of town without seeing Vilhelm. During his years on the beat he had become acquainted with the desperate lives led by the city’s homeless and knew the names of many of the men and women who roamed the streets, in varying states of intoxication. Among their number was a woman called Thurí and he spotted her now, standing on the corner by the post office, wearing a thick anorak, two scarves tightly knotted round her neck and a torn hat on her head, the ear flaps fluttering in the wind. She recognised him immediately when he drew up beside her. They were old friends.

‘Fancy seeing you, mate,’ she said.

‘I’m looking for Vilhelm. Seen him around?’

‘No,’ said Thurí. ‘Why are you looking for him?’

‘Any idea where he might be?’

‘Has he been a bad boy?’

‘No, I just need a word with him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘He hangs out in the Central Bus Station sometimes, but I don’t know if he’s there now.’

‘I’ll check. How are you, by the way?’

‘Ah, you know,’ said Thurí, ‘same old shit.’

He didn’t see Vilhelm at the bus station. Two coaches were waiting out on the tarmac behind the building, one marked ‘Akureyri’, the other ‘Höfn in Hornafjördur’. Passengers were handing their bags to the driver to stow in the baggage compartment. A third coach drew up and the passengers climbed out, stretched their limbs, then went to retrieve their luggage. Erlendur hung around, watching people going in and out of the station building. He had searched the gents, the cafe and the waiting area, and done a circuit of the building, but Vilhelm was nowhere to be seen.

Finding a payphone, he rang Marion, who hadn’t heard from Caroline and was growing increasingly anxious.

Erlendur was back in his car, pulling away from the bus station, when he caught sight of a figure loitering by the dustbins at the eastern end of the building. The man lifted the lid of a bin, examined its contents and rooted around inside, then replaced the lid and moved on to the next. Having drawn a blank, he was turning to leave when Erlendur walked up to him.

‘Hello, Vilhelm,’ he said, recognising the tramp at once by the glasses perched on his nose, the thick, domed lenses making his eyes look huge. The frames were broken, stuck together in two places with Sellotape.

‘Who are you?’ asked Vilhelm, instantly wary.

‘I’m Erlendur.’

‘I lost my gloves,’ said Vilhelm, as if compelled to explain why he had been rummaging in the dustbins. ‘Thought maybe they’d fallen in the rubbish.’