Arnaldur Indridason - Oblivion

‘Didn’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Attack her?’

‘I didn’t touch her! I’m trying to explain. The only thing I did wrong was not coming clean. Not telling people that we’d been planning to meet but she never showed up.’

‘Because you were afraid you’d be blamed for her disappearance?’

‘Yes, that they’d pin it on me. Can’t you understand that?’

‘You didn’t dare take the risk?’

‘No, I didn’t want to take the rap. It was nothing to do with me. I wasn’t involved. All I regret is that I didn’t speak up when she went missing. I deeply regret that. Regret it every day.’

‘You’ve had plenty of opportunity over the years.’

‘I know,’ whispered Mensalder, his voice cracking. ‘Do you think I’m not aware of that? That I haven’t thought about it? I justified it to myself that it didn’t make any difference that I’d arranged to meet her. It didn’t change anything. I had no more idea than anyone else about where she’d gone.’

‘Why should the police believe you now? You’ve made your behaviour appear ten times more suspicious by your silence. Your long silence.’

‘I know! None of this is new to me. It was a vicious circle I could see no way out of. I was desperate. Didn’t know what to do. People would have pointed the finger at me for the rest of my life. I’d always be the murder suspect. What do you think that would’ve been like? I couldn’t bear the stigma. Couldn’t bear it. You may think I was a gutless coward but that’s how I felt.’

‘But if you weren’t responsible for her disappearance and she never came to meet you, something must have happened to her before she got here.’

‘It just doesn’t make sense,’ said Mensalder. ‘At one point I thought she must have done it deliberately. Taken her own life for some inexplicable reason. It was... I...’

Mensalder’s brow furrowed.

‘Or someone stopped us from meeting,’ he said at last.

‘Did anyone else know about it?’

‘No. No one. As far as I’m aware. I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not even Rósanna?’

‘No.’

‘You definitely didn’t tell anyone you were planning to meet?’

‘No. Or it would have come out during the search.’

‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ said Erlendur thoughtfully. ‘So if you’re not lying and she didn’t change her plans, something must have happened to her in the short distance between her house and here.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. It must have done.’

‘It’s not...’

‘What?’

‘No, it’s not far,’ said Erlendur, preoccupied, watching the steam brushing along the surface of the water, then mounting into the air and assuming a variety of strange shapes before dispersing and fading from view. And suddenly an image flashed into his mind, as it had so often during the last few days, of a garden suffering from years of neglect and a pair of furtive, protuberant eyes, peering from the shadows at the girl next door.

Marion had no idea what was happening. Roberts went outside again and the man who appeared to be in charge moved closer to them.

‘Don’t you feel you’re betraying your country?’ he asked Caroline.

‘We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we, Gates?’ she said. ‘If that’s your real name.’

‘My name is Oliver Gates, I’m a colonel in the 57th Fighter Squadron,’ the man said, smiling. ‘It’s my real name. I take care of security on the base.’

The door opened again and Roberts reappeared, this time pushing a soldier ahead of him, so roughly that the man fell on the floor. He got up slowly, a lanky young man with long arms and the regulation crew cut, nervously taking in his surroundings.

‘Come here, Private. No need to be afraid,’ said Colonel Gates. He turned to Caroline. ‘This is Private Matthew Pratt, a security guard on Hangar 885. I hear you’ve been asking questions about him. Private Pratt has confessed to his part in the affair. Two of his buddies, also guards on the hangar, were involved as well. We’ve already arrested one of them here on the base and have him in custody: Private Thomas Le Roy, twenty-five years old. We’re expecting the third man to enter the country shortly. He was responsible for killing the Icelander, according to his accomplices. It was his idea to abduct and murder the victim. We see no reason to doubt their testimony. They confirm what you already seem to know.’

The soldier stood awkwardly in the middle of the hangar floor.

‘Tell us who it was,’ ordered Colonel Gates, rounding on the soldier, who flinched. ‘Tell them what you told us, Private.’

The young man’s gaze flickered from Colonel Gates to Marion. Then he looked behind him to where Roberts was blocking the exit. Finally he fixed his eyes on Caroline and mumbled something, so indistinctly they couldn’t hear. Then he coughed and said loudly and clearly:

‘It was Jones, sir. Earl Jones.’

‘Go on,’ said Gates.

Coughing again, the soldier began to tell them about his friend, Earl Jones, who had been supplying the Icelander with drugs. The Icelander owed him big time and it didn’t help that Joan, Earl’s wife, turned out to be screwing him. Earl had heard rumours that she was receiving visits while he was away and that the man in question was an Icelander. He confronted his wife and forced her to confess to cheating on him, then ordered her to call the guy and get him to come round to see her the evening Earl was due to fly out to Greenland. The Icelander had turned up at her place but only stayed a short time, like he suspected something was up. Earl and Pratt were lying in wait. They had slashed the tyres of his car and caught up with him in a quiet spot as he was running for the gate. Then they drove him to the hangar. The third man, Le Roy, let them in. They thought Earl was just going to knock the guy around a bit to give him a fright. The Icelander broke free but they cornered him by the scaffolding. Then he fled up the ladder to the top with them hot on his heels, and realised he was trapped. They grabbed him and a scuffle ensued which ended when Earl struck the Icelander on the head with a metal pipe he had found. The man was knocked out cold and there was an odd hush for a moment, then Earl dropped the piping and before Pratt and Le Roy knew what was happening he had heaved the man over the rail and thrown him off the platform.

Pratt paused. He showed no sign of having been subjected to violence. He was wearing his uniform and black, lace-up army boots, but rubbed his wrists as he spoke, as if he had been tightly handcuffed.

‘We didn’t know what to do and after panicking a bit we decided to cover our tracks, clean the floor where the guy fell and smuggle his body off base in Earl’s pickup. We didn’t want him found in the area. Earl made me and Tommy dispose of the body. He had to catch a flight to Greenland. We saw all this steam coming from the lava field and that’s when we hit on the idea of sinking the body in the hot pool nearby. We didn’t expect it to be found. We thought... we thought it was a good place for...’

‘Do you have anything to add?’ asked Colonel Gates, after a moment’s silence.

Pratt shook his head.

‘I can’t hear you, Private.’

‘No, sir, I have nothing to add,’ replied Pratt, his eyes on the floor.

‘What put you on their trail, sir?’ Caroline asked Gates.

‘We launched our own inquiry,’ he said. ‘The base is a very small community. Kind of like Iceland, I guess,’ he said to Marion. ‘We heard you were interested in the hangar and checked the duty roster for that week. One of the guards was Jones. We learned that his wife had been friendly with an Icelander. We called one of Jones’s comrades in for questioning and he quickly broke down. That was our friend Pratt here. Jones was in Greenland at the time, but we arrested the other guard. Their statements are quite convincing and consistent as regards the main details. I’m inclined to accept them. The three men all work in Hangar 885 and I have a hard time believing they’d be stupid enough to deliberately murder this Icelander in their workplace. They’re dumb, but not that dumb. They must have intended to shake him up a bit but Jones lost control of the situation and went berserk, according to his comrades. Apparently he’s a mean customer.’