Arnaldur Indriðason - Hypothermia

‘I couldn’t think of anyone else. I don’t know any better man for the job.’

‘You know I’ve quit, like I just told you. The only thing I investigate now is engines.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Erlendur said. ‘I would have quit myself if I was trained for anything else.’

‘What was the breakthrough?’ Thorbergur asked.

‘In the case?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve always treated it as two unrelated missing-person cases but there’s a possibility that they were together when they disappeared: a boy in his last year of sixth-form college and a girl, slightly older, who was studying biology at the university. There’s really nothing to link them but we haven’t had any luck finding them separately either. The case had gone completely cold until recently and had been that way for decades. Then yesterday I learnt that the girl, whose name was Gudrún or Dúna, might have been seen at Thingvellir on her way to Lake Sandkluftavatn. I checked the dates this morning. Of course they don’t tally. The girl might have been spotted at Thingvellir in late autumn. She was probably alone that time. The young couple didn’t vanish until several months later. The boy’s disappearance was reported at the end of February 1976. The report about the girl’s disappearance reached us in the middle of March that year. Since then nothing has been heard of either of them, which is unusual in itself; that two incidents occurring a short time apart should leave absolutely no trace. Generally there’s a trail somewhere. But there was none to be found in either of these cases.’

‘It’s unusual for kids in their twenties to get together with teenagers,’ Thorbergur commented. ‘Especially when the girl’s older.’

Erlendur nodded. He could tell that the diver was becoming interested in spite of himself.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘There was nothing to link them.’

They were sitting in Thorbergur’s office at the garage. Three other employees were hard at work repairing cars and occasionally darted glances into the office. It was little more than a glass cage and was easily visible from the workshop floor. The phone rang at regular intervals, interrupting their conversation, but Erlendur didn’t let this put him off his stride.

‘I checked the weather that day too,’ he said. ‘It was unusually cold. Most lakes would have iced over.’

‘I can tell that you’ve already formed a theory.’

‘I have, but it’s incredibly tenuous.’

‘Is no one allowed to know about this?’

‘There’s no point complicating matters,’ Erlendur said. ‘If you find something, give me a call. If not, the case is as dead as ever.’

‘I’ve never actually dived in Sandkluftavatn,’ Thorbergur said. ‘It’s too shallow in summer and doesn’t get much deeper, except in the spring thaw. There are other lakes out there. Litla-Brunnavatn, Reydarvatn, Uxavatn.’

‘Sure.’

‘What were their names? The couple?’

‘Davíd and Gudrún. Or Dúna.’

Thorbergur looked out at the workshop floor. A new customer had arrived and was looking in their direction. He was a regular and Thorbergur nodded to him.

‘Would you be prepared to do this for me?’ Erlendur asked, standing up. ‘I’m rather up against it, timewise. There’s an old man lying at death’s door who’s been waiting for an answer ever since his boy disappeared. It would be good to be able to bring him news of his son before he goes. I know the chances are pretty slim but it’s the only thing I’ve got to go on and I want to give it a stab.’

Thorbergur stared at him.

‘Hang on – are you expecting me to drop everything and go this minute?’

‘Well, maybe not before lunch.’

‘Today?’

‘I… just whenever you can. Do you think you could do this for me?’

‘Do I have any choice?’

‘Thank you,’ Erlendur said. ‘Call me.’

Erlendur had some difficulty locating the holiday cottage and drove past the turning twice before finally catching sight of the sign, which had almost been obscured by low-growing scrub: ‘Sólvangur’. He took the turning, drove down to the lake and parked by the cottage.

This time he knew what he was looking for. He was alone and had told nobody what he was doing. He wouldn’t do so until the case was solved, if it ever was. It was still too vague; he still lacked evidence; he himself was still unsure whether he was doing the right thing.

He had talked to the police pathologist who’d performed the post-mortem on María and had asked if she had taken any sleeping pills shortly before the time of her death. The pathologist said he had found a small amount of a sleeping drug but nowhere near enough to explain her death. Erlendur asked if it was possible to calculate how long before her death María had taken the drug but the answer he received was inconclusive. Possibly the same day.

‘Do you think a crime’s been committed?’ the pathologist asked.

‘Not really,’ Erlendur said.

‘Not really?’

‘Did you find any burn marks on her chest?’ Erlendur asked tentatively.

The pathologist had the post-mortem report open in front of him. They were sitting in his office. He looked up from the document.

‘Burn marks?’

‘Or bruises of any kind,’ Erlendur added hurriedly.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I hardly know.’

‘You’d have been informed if we’d found burn marks,’ the pathologist said dismissively.

Erlendur did not have the keys to the holiday cottage but that didn’t matter; his interest was in the veranda, more specifically in the hot tub and its distance from the water’s edge. The lake was covered by a thin film of ice and the waves clinked against the frosted rocks of the shore. A short distance away a small sandbank extended into the water, intersected by a rivulet that was now frozen. Erlendur took out a sample jar that Valgerdur had lent him and filled it with water from the lake. He paced out the distance from the lakeside to the veranda, five paces, then from the end of the veranda to the hot tub; six paces. The tub had a cover made of aluminium and plexiglas, which was locked with a small, simple padlock. He fetched a tyre iron from the Ford and bashed the padlock until it opened, then lifted the lid, which turned out to be extraordinarily heavy. It was held open by a hook fixed to the wall of the house. Erlendur didn’t know much about hot tubs; he had never sat inside one, nor did he feel the slightest urge to do so. He assumed the tub would not have been used since María killed herself.

Before leaving town he had gone to a builders’ supplier and spoken to an employee who presented himself as something of an expert. Erlendur’s interest was directed at the waste pipe and the technology used to fill hot tubs. Empty and fill, he said. The employee was keen initially, but when he realised that Erlendur was not intending to buy he quickly abandoned his sales patter and became more bearable. He showed Erlendur a model with computer-controlled draining and filling, assuring him that it was very popular these days. Erlendur hemmed and hawed.

‘Is it the best system?’ he asked.

The employee frowned.

‘Lots of people just prefer to control it manually,’ he said. ‘They want to be able to turn on the taps themselves and then turn them off when the tub’s full. Like filling a bath. You control the heat with regular hot and cold taps.’

‘And if it’s not manual?’

‘Then there’s zero-crossing technology.’

‘Zero-crossing technology?’

Erlendur looked the employee up and down. He was barely out of adolescence, with a fine down on his chin.

‘Yes, an electronic remote-control system, usually located in the toilet. You press a button and the tub begins to fill with hot water at the required temperature. Then you press another button and it empties.’