Arnaldur Indriðason - Hypothermia

Karólína had lit the incense, put on some soothing music and wrapped an old shawl around her shoulders. She was relishing the make-believe, had enjoyed making herself up with eyeshadow, pencilling on thick eyebrows, sharpening the lines of her face, adding a slash of scarlet lipstick. She had rehearsed on Baldvin who gave her various items of information that might come in useful during the demonstration of her psychic powers. Various facts from María’s childhood, some from her life with Baldvin, her close bond with her mother, Marcel Proust.

‘I sense you’re not happy,’ Karólína said once they were seated and her show of clairvoyance could begin. ‘You’ve… you’ve suffered, you’ve lost a great deal.’

‘My mother died recently,’ María said. ‘We were very close.’

‘And you miss her.’

‘Unbearably.’

Karólína had prepared herself with professional thoroughness by going to a medium for the first time in her life. She didn’t take much notice of what the medium said but attended carefully to his use of language, how he moved his hands, head and eyes, his breathing. She wondered if she should pretend to fall into a trance in María’s presence or emulate the medium she had visited and simply sit and sense things and ask questions. She had never met Leonóra but had been given a good description of her. Baldvin lent her a photograph that she studied in detail.

Karólína decided to give the trance a miss when it came to the point.

‘I sense a strong presence,’ she began.

As María and Baldvin lay in bed together that night, she reported to him in detail what had happened at the seance. Baldvin lay without speaking for a long time after María had finished her story.

‘Have I ever told you about a guy I knew when I was studying medicine? His name was Tryggvi?’ he asked, turning to look at María.

Baldvin avoided meeting Erlendur’s eye as the detective sat opposite him at the kitchen table, listening to his story. He looked either past Erlendur into the living room or down at the table or up at Erlendur’s shoulder, but never met his eye. His own eyes looked shifty and ashamed.

‘And in the end she pleaded with you to help her cross over,’ Erlendur said, the disgust plain in his voice.

‘She… she took the bait immediately,’ Baldvin said, lowering his gaze to the table top.

‘And so you were able to dispose of her without anyone realising.’

‘That was the idea, I admit it, but I couldn’t go through with it. When it came down to it, I didn’t have it in me.’

‘Didn’t have it in you!’ Erlendur burst out.

‘It’s true – I couldn’t take the final step.’

‘What happened?’

‘I…’

‘What did you do?’

‘She wanted to proceed cautiously. She was afraid of dying.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Erlendur said.

They lay in bed until the early hours, discussing the possibility of stopping María’s heart for long enough to enable her to pass into the next world but not long enough to risk her suffering any harm. Baldvin told her about the experiment that he and his friends in medicine had performed on Tryggvi and how he had died but they had succeeded in bringing him back to life. He hadn’t felt anything, had no memories of his death, had seen no light or human figures. Baldvin said he knew how to manufacture a near-death experience without taking too great a risk. Of course, it wasn’t completely without danger, María should realise that, but she was physically fit and really had nothing to fear.

‘How will you bring me back to life?’ she asked.

‘Well, there are drugs,’ Baldvin said, ‘and then there’s the usual emergency first aid of heart compressions and artificial respiration. Or we could use electric shocks. A defibrillator. I’d have to get hold of one. If we do this we’ll have to be very careful that no one finds out. It’s not exactly legal. I could be struck off.’

‘Would we do it here?’

‘Actually, I was thinking of the holiday cottage,’ Baldvin said. ‘But it’s only a fantasy, anyway. It’s not as if we’re really going to do it.’

María was silent. He listened to her breathing. They were lying in the dark, talking in whispers.

‘I’d like to try it,’ María said.

‘No,’ Baldvin replied. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘But you were just saying it was no big deal.’

‘Yes – but it’s one thing to talk about it, another to do it, actually put it into practice.’

He tried not to sound too off-putting.

‘I want to do it,’ María said in a more determined voice. ‘Why at the cottage?’

‘No, María, stop thinking about it. I… it would be going too far. I don’t trust myself to do it.’

‘Naturally,’ María said. ‘There’s a danger that I might really die and leave you in the lurch.’

‘There’s a real danger,’ Baldvin said. ‘There’s no need to take a risk of that kind.’

‘Would you do it for me anyway?’

‘I… I don’t know, I… we shouldn’t be talking about this.’

‘I want to do it. I want you to do this for me. I know you can do it. I trust you, Baldvin. There’s no one I trust more than you. Will you do it for me? Please?’

‘María…’

‘We can do it. It’ll be all right. I trust you, Baldvin. Let’s do it.’

‘But what if something goes wrong?’

‘I’m prepared to take that risk.’

Four weeks later María and Baldwin drove up to the holiday cottage at Lake Thingvallavatn. Baldvin wanted to be certain that they wouldn’t be disturbed and it had occurred to him that the hot tub on the sun deck would come in useful. They would need a large amount of cold water if they were to use that method of lowering María’s body temperature until her heart stopped. Baldvin mentioned other methods but regarded this as the best and least risky. He said that volunteer searchers and mountain-rescue teams were trained to resuscitate people under similar circumstances. They sometimes came across people lying in snow or water and needed to act quickly if it was not already too late; they needed to raise the body temperature with warm blankets, and if the person’s heart had stopped they needed to get it going again by any means possible.

Husband and wife began by filling the hot tub with cold water and pieces of ice fetched in buckets from the lake. It didn’t take long because it was only a few yards to the water’s edge. The weather was cold and Baldvin told María that she should wear as little as possible outside so as to accustom herself to the cold before immersing herself in the tub. Finally he bashed ice off the rocks on the shore and filled the tub with it. By now María had taken two mild sleeping tablets that he said would help to dull the cold.

María recited a psalm and a short prayer before lowering herself slowly into the tub. The cold was like knives driving into her but she put a good face on it. She entered the water slowly, first up to the knees, then the thighs, hips and stomach. Then she sat down and the water reached above her breasts, shoulders and neck until only her head remained above it.

‘Are you okay?’ Baldvin asked.

‘It’s… so… cold,’ María gasped.

She couldn’t control her shivering. Baldvin said it would stop after a while when her body had given up fighting the cold. It wouldn’t be long before she lost consciousness. She would begin to feel drowsy and she shouldn’t resist it.

‘Normally, the rule is that you’re supposed to fight off drowsiness,’ Baldvin said, smiling. ‘But not in this case. You want to fall asleep. Just let it happen.’

María tried to smile. Before long her shivering ceased. Her body was completely blue with cold.