Arnaldur Indriðason - Hypothermia

Erlendur smiled privately. A member of the underclass, Sigurdur Óli would have said. It was one of those terms he had picked up in America. To Sigurdur Óli’s mind it applied not only to criminals and drug addicts, whom he described as total losers, but also to anyone else he disliked for whatever reason: uneducated employees, shop assistants, labourers, even tradesmen, all of whom drove him up the wall. He had once flown to Paris for a weekend break with Bergthóra. They had taken a charter flight and he had been disgusted when most of the other passengers, who were on their annual work outing, became rowdy and drunk and, to cap it all, broke into applause when the plane landed safely in Paris. ‘Plebs,’ he’d sniffed to Bergthóra, full of disdain at the behaviour of the underclass.

Erlendur eased the conversation round to María and her husband and before Thorgerdur knew it she was telling him all about the history course that she had dropped out of and about her friend María who had met the future doctor at a student disco.

‘I’m going to miss María,’ she said. ‘I can still hardly believe that she went like that. The poor thing, she can’t have been in a good way.’

‘You got to know one another at the university, you say?’ Erlendur prompted.

‘Yes, María was absolutely fascinated by history,’ Thorgerdur said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Fascinated by the past. I was bored out of my skull. She used to sit at home, typing up her notes. I didn’t know anyone else who bothered. And she was a good student, which you certainly couldn’t say about all of us who did history.’

‘Did you know Baldvin?’

‘Well, only after he and María got together. Baldvin was a great guy. He was studying drama but had more or less given up by the time they started going out. Didn’t really have what it took to be an actor, apparently.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, or so I heard – that he was better off opting for medicine. They were a terrific gang, the drama students, always having a laugh. People like Orri Fjeldsted, who’s obviously one of the big names today. Lilja and Saebjörn – they got married. Einar Vífill. They all became stars. Anyway, Baldvin switched to medicine and carried on acting alongside his studies for a while, but eventually gave up.’

‘Did he regret it, do you know?’

‘No, not that I’ve heard. Though he’s still very interested in the theatre. They went to a lot of plays and knew loads of people in showbiz, had friends at all the theatres.’

‘Do you know what sort of relationship Baldvin and Leonóra had?’

‘Well, of course he moved in with María, and Leonóra, who was a very strong character, was living there too. María sometimes said her mother tried to boss them around and it got on Baldvin’s nerves.’

‘What about María, what period of history was she interested in?’

‘She only had eyes for the Middle Ages, the stuff I found deadliest of all. She studied incest and bastardy and the laws and punishments associated with them. Her final dissertation was about drownings at Thingvellir. It was very informative. I got to proofread it for her.’

‘Drownings?’

‘Yes,’ Thorgerdur said. ‘The execution of adulteresses in the Drowning Pool and so on.’

Erlendur was silent. They had found a seat in the lounge at the hospital where Thorgerdur worked. An old lady inched past them on a Zimmer frame. An assistant nurse in white clogs hurried along the corridor. A group of medical students stood nearby, comparing notes.

‘Of course, it fits,’ Thorgerdur remarked.

‘What fits?’ Erlendur asked.

‘Well, I heard she’d… I heard she’d hanged herself. At her holiday cottage at Thingvellir.’

Erlendur looked at her without answering.

‘But of course it has nothing to do with me,’ Thorgerdur said awkwardly on receiving no reaction.

‘Do you know if she had any particular interest in the supernatural?’ Erlendur asked.

‘No, but she was terrified of the dark. Always had been, ever since I first knew her. She could never go home from the cinema alone, for instance. You always had to go with her. Yet she went to see all the scariest horror movies.’

‘Do you know why she was so frightened of the dark? Did she ever talk about it?’

‘I…’

Thorgerdur hesitated. She glanced out into the corridor as if to make sure that no one was listening. The old lady with the Zimmer frame had reached the end of the corridor and was standing there as if she didn’t know what to do next, as if the purpose of her trip had eluded her somewhere during her painfully slow progress up the corridor. In the distance an old favourite was playing on the radio: He loved the sea, did old Thórdur…

‘What was that?’ Erlendur asked, leaning forward.

‘I have the feeling she didn’t… there was something about what happened at Lake Thingvallavatn,’ Thorgerdur said. ‘When her father died.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a feeling I had, that I’ve had for a long time about what happened on Lake Thingvallavatn when she was a little girl. María could be very subdued at times and in very high spirits at others. She never mentioned that she was taking any medication but her exaggerated mood swings didn’t seem normal to me sometimes. Once, a long time ago when she was very depressed, I was sitting with her at her house in Grafarvogur when she started talking about Lake Thingvallavatn. It was the first I’d heard about it; she’d never raised the subject before in my hearing, and I immediately got the sense that she was crippled with guilt about what had happened.’

‘Why should she have felt guilty?’

‘I tried to discuss it with her later but she never opened up again like she did that first time. I felt she was always on guard because of what had happened but I’m absolutely convinced that there was something gnawing away at her, something she couldn’t tell anyone.’

‘Naturally, it was a terrible thing to happen,’ Erlendur said. ‘She watched her father drown.’

‘Of course.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said that they should never have gone to the holiday cottage.’

‘Was that all?’

‘And…’

‘Yes?’

‘That perhaps he was meant to die.’

‘Her father?’

‘Yes, her father.’

The audience exploded with laughter, Valgerdur among them. Erlendur raised his eyebrows. The husband had appeared unexpectedly at the third door and let out a peculiar bark on spotting his wife in the arms of the butler. His wife thrust the butler away, crying that he had tried to have his wicked way with her. The butler gave the audience a look as if to say, ‘In your dreams!’ Cue more gales of laughter from the audience. Valgerdur, beaming from ear to ear, glanced at Erlendur, only to sense his boredom. She stroked his arm and he smiled at her.

After the show they went to a café. He ordered a chartreuse with his coffee. She ordered chocolate cake served hot with ice cream, and a sweet liqueur. They discussed the play. She had enjoyed it but he was unimpressed, merely pointing out inconsistencies in the plot.

‘Oh, Erlendur, it was only a farce. You’re not supposed to take it so seriously,’ Valgerdur said. ‘You’re supposed to laugh and forget yourself. I thought it was hilarious.’

‘Yes, people certainly laughed a lot,’ Erlendur said. ‘I’m not used to going to the theatre. Are you familiar with an actor called Orri Fjeldsted?’

He remembered what Thorgerdur had said about Baldvin’s actor friends. He himself knew next to nothing about the celebrity world.

‘Of course I do,’ Valgerdur said. ‘You saw him in The Wild Duck.’

‘The Wild Duck?’

‘Yes, he was the husband. A bit old for the role, perhaps, but… a very good actor.’