Arnaldur Indridason - Silence Of The Grave

"Did he never suspect anything?" Erlendur asked.

"Not until it was too late," Mikkelina said. "He had no faith in doctors. And of course she didn't encourage him to go for a check-up."

"What about when he said they would take care of Dave? Did he ever mention that again?"

"No, never," Mikkelina said. "He was just bluffing really. Saying things to scare her. He knew that she loved Dave."

Erlendur and Elinborg were in Mikkelina's sitting room, listening to her story. They had told her that it was a male skeleton underneath the baby in the grave in Grafarholt. Mikkelina shook her head; she could have told them that before had they not hurried away without saying why.

She wanted to know about the baby skeleton and when Erlendur asked whether she wanted to see it, she said no.

"But I'd like to know when you don't need it any more," she said. "It's about time she was laid to rest in hallowed ground."

"She?" Elinborg said.

"Yes. She," Mikkelina said.

Sigurdur Oli told Elsa what the medical officer had discovered: the body in the grave could not be her uncle Benjamin's fiancee. Elinborg phoned Solveig's sister, Bara, to tell her the same news.

While Erlendur was setting off with Elinborg to see Mikkelina, Ed called on his mobile to let him know that he still had not managed to find out what became of Dave Welch; he did not know whether he was posted away from Iceland, or even when that might have been. He said he would go on searching.

Earlier that morning Erlendur had gone to intensive care to visit his daughter. Her condition was unchanged and Erlendur sat beside her for a good while, and resumed his tale about his brother who had frozen to death on the moors above Eskifjordur when Erlendur was ten. They were rounding up sheep with their father when the storm broke. The brothers lost sight of their father and soon afterwards of each other. Their father made it back to the farm, exhausted. Search parties were mounted.

"They found me by sheer chance," Erlendur said. "I don't know why. I had the presence of mind to dig a shelter for myself in a snowdrift. I was more dead than alive when they poked at the snow and the stick happened to touch my shoulder. We moved away. Couldn't live there any more, knowing about him up on the moor. Tried to start a new life, in Reykjavik. . In vain."

At that moment a doctor looked in. He and Erlendur greeted each other and briefly discussed Eva Lind's condition. Unchanged, the doctor said. No hint of a recovery or that she was regaining consciousness. They fell silent. Said goodbye. The doctor turned at the door.

"Don't expect any miracles,'' he said, and noticed a cold smile on Erlendur's face.

Now Erlendur was sitting opposite Mikkelina, thinking about his daughter in her hospital bed and his brother lying in the snow. Mikkelina's words trickled into his mind.

"My mother wasn't a murderer," she said.

Erlendur looked at her.

"She wasn't a murderer," Mikkelina repeated. "She thought she could save the baby. She feared for her child."

She darted a glance at Elinborg.

"After all, he didn't die," she said. "He didn't die from the poison."

"But you said he didn't suspect anything until it was too late," Elinborg said.

"Yes," Mikkelina said. "It was too late by then."

*

The night that it happened, Grimur seemed more subdued after lying in bed all day racked with pain.

Their mother felt pains in her stomach and towards evening she had gone into labour with very rapid contractions. She knew it was too soon. The baby would be premature. She had the boys bring the mattresses from the beds in their room and from Mikkelina's divan in the kitchen, spread them out on the kitchen floor, and around dinner time she lay down on them.

She told Simon and Mikkelina to have clean sheets and hot water ready to wash the baby. After having three children, she knew the procedures.

It was still winter and dark, but the weather had unexpectedly turned warmer and it had rained during the day; spring would soon arrive. Their mother had been outdoors that day clearing the beds around the redcurrant bushes and pruning dead branches. She said the berries would be good when she made jam that autumn. Simon did not let her out of his sight and went to the bushes with her. She tried to calm him down by saying that everything would be all right.

"Nothing will be all right," Simon said, and repeated it: "Nothing will be all right. You mustn't have that baby. You mustn't. That's what he says, and he'll kill it. He says so. When's the baby due?"

"Don't you worry," his mother said. "When the baby's born I'll take it to town and he'll never see it. He's ill and helpless. He lies in bed all day and can't do anything."

"But when's the baby due?"

"It could be at any time," his mother said soothingly. "Maybe sometime soon, then it's over and done with. Don't be afraid, Simon. You must be strong. For my sake, Simon."

"Why don't you go to hospital? Why don't you leave here to have the baby?"

"He won't let me," she said. "He'd fetch me and order me to give birth at home. He doesn't want anyone to find out. We'll say we found it. Entrust it to the care of good people. That's the way he wants it. Everything will be all right."

"But he says he'll kill it."

"He won't do that."

"I'm so scared," Simon said. "Why does it have to be like this? I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," he repeated, and she could tell he was plagued by anxiety.

Now he stood looking down at his mother, who was lying on the mattresses in the kitchen. Apart from the double bedroom, that was the only place in the house large enough, and she began to strain in absolute silence. Tomas was in Grimur's room. Simon had crept to the door and closed it.

Mikkelina lay by the side of her mother, who tried to make no noise at all. The door to the double bedroom opened, Tomas came out into the passage and went to the kitchen. Grimur was sitting on the edge of the bed, moaning. He had sent Tomas to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of porridge which he had not touched. Told him to help himself to it as well.

When Tomas walked past his mother, Simon and Mikkelina, he noticed that the baby's head had appeared. Their mother pushed with all her might until the shoulders emerged as well.

Tomas took the bowl of porridge and a spoon, and suddenly his mother saw out of the corner of her eye that he was about to take a mouthful.

"Tomas! For God's sake don't touch that porridge!" she shouted in desperation.

A deathly silence descended upon the house and the children stared at their mother, who was sitting with the newborn baby in her arms and staring at Tomas, and he was so surprised that he dropped the bowl to the floor where it smashed to pieces.

The bed creaked.

Grimur came out into the passage and into the kitchen. He looked down at their mother and the newborn baby in her arms, a look of disgust on his face. He looked over to Tomas, then at the porridge on the floor.

"Can it be?" Grimur said in a low, astonished voice, as if he had suddenly found the answer to a riddle that had long been puzzling him. He looked back down at the children's mother.

"Are you poisoning me?" he shouted.

The mother looked up at Grimur. Mikkelina and Simon did not dare look up. Tomas stood motionless over the porridge that had splashed across the floor.

"Didn't I fucking suspect as much! All that lethargy. That pain. Sickness. ."

Grimur looked around the kitchen. Then he jumped at the cupboards and jerked open the drawers. He went berserk. He swept the contents of the cupboards onto the floor. Picked up an old bag of cornmeal and hurled it at the wall. When it burst, he heard a glass jar drop out of it.

"Is this it?" he shouted, picking up the jar. "How long have you been doing this?" he hissed.