Oblivion

3

The woman who had found the body was aged about thirty and immediately volunteered the information that she suffered from psoriasis. To prove it, she showed them the dry patches of skin up one arm and particularly around her elbow. She was about to show them her scalp as well but Marion had seen enough and stopped her. The woman was insistent that her skin disease should be mentioned as it explained why she had chanced on the body in this unlikely, out-of-the-way spot.

‘I’m usually alone here,’ she said, looking at Marion, ‘although I know other people visit the lagoon too, even if I’ve never seen any of them. There are no facilities or anything. But the water’s lovely. It’s the perfect temperature and lying in it makes you feel so much better.’

At this point she was sitting in a police car, describing to Marion and Erlendur how she had come across the body. Marion was beside her in the back seat, Erlendur behind the wheel. Around them were other patrol cars, an ambulance, a forensics team and two press photographers — word about the discovery had already reached the news desks. There was no road to the lagoon, which had formed three years earlier as an outflow from the Sudurnes District Heating Utility at Svartsengi. The geothermal power station was visible a little way off, lights ablaze in the winter darkness. The woman had been bathing in the western end of the lagoon, having hiked to it over the lava field from the Grindavík road. The water was shallow there and she had wallowed in it for an hour or so, before deciding to head home. The days were short at this time of year; dusk was falling and she hadn’t wanted to stumble through the winter gloom again like last time when she’d had real difficulty finding her car.

‘I stood up and... it’s always struck me as an incredibly beautiful place but a bit creepy too. The steam rising from the water, being all alone out here in the lava, you know... So you can imagine what a dreadful shock it was when I saw... I waded further out than I’ve ever been before and suddenly I saw a shoe. The heel was sticking up out of the water. At first I thought it was just a shoe — that someone had lost it or chucked it in the pool. But when I went to pick it up it was stuck and... stupidly I tugged harder and then I realised it was... it was attached to...’

The woman faltered. Marion, aware that she was badly shaken by her grisly discovery, was taking the interview slowly. When they had carried the body up to the road the woman had tried to avoid looking at it. She was close to breaking down as she related what had happened. Erlendur attempted some words of comfort.

‘You’ve coped extremely well in difficult circumstances.’

‘God, it was a shock,’ she said. ‘You... you can’t imagine what a horrible shock it was. All alone out there in the pool.’

Half an hour earlier Erlendur had pulled on a pair of chest waders and splashed out to the body, accompanied by two members of the forensics team. Marion had watched from the shore, smoking. Fortunately, the Grindavík police, who had been first on the scene, had had the sense not to touch anything until the detectives from CID arrived. The technicians took photos of the body and its position, their camera flashes illuminating the surroundings. A diver had been called out to comb the lagoon bed. Erlendur bent over the body, up to his waist in water, trying to work out how it had been transported to this spot. Once forensics had seen enough, they lifted the body out and carried it ashore, discovering something odd about it as they did so. The limbs appeared to have sustained multiple fractures, the ribcage had collapsed into the spine and the spine itself was broken. The corpse hung like a rag doll from their arms.

It was evening by now and pitch dark but floodlights, powered by a diesel generator, had been set up around the site and in their harsh glare the battered state of the corpse became even more evident. The face was crushed and the shattered skull gaped open. From the clothes, they guessed it was male. He had no ID in his pockets and it was difficult to guess how long he’d been lying in the water. Clouds of hot vapour formed continually above the wide surface of the lagoon, enhancing the eeriness of the scene. It was too dark to conduct a proper search for tracks now; that would have to be postponed until first light tomorrow.

The corpse was covered up and carried by stretcher over the lava field to the Grindavík road. From there it would be conveyed to the National Hospital morgue on Barónsstígur in Reykjavík, where they would wash off the mud and conduct a post-mortem.

‘And that’s when you notified the police?’ Marion prompted, as the three of them sat in the car. The heater was on and condensation had formed inside the windows. Outside, beams of light played over them, there was a sound of voices and shadowy figures flitted past.

‘I ran across the lava to the car and drove straight to the police station in Grindavík. Then I brought them back here and showed them the place. Then more police cars turned up. And then you two. I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to sleep for a long time.’

‘That’s only natural. It’s no fun at all experiencing something like this,’ said Marion. ‘You should ask a friend or relative to keep you company. Talk about what happened.’

‘So you didn’t notice any other people near the lagoon when you came here today?’ asked Erlendur.

‘No, no one. Like I said, I’ve never seen anyone else out here.’

‘And you don’t know of anyone who comes to bathe in the lagoon like you?’ asked Marion.

‘No. What can have happened to the man? Did you see the way he...? God, I couldn’t bear to look.’

‘No, that’s understandable,’ said Marion.

‘This skin disease, psoriasis — does it cause a lot of irritation?’ asked Erlendur.

Marion shot him a look.

‘They keep developing new drugs to suppress it,’ said the woman. ‘But it’s not comfortable. Though the itching’s not the worst part. The worst part’s the blemishes.’

‘And the lagoon helps?’

‘I think it does. It hasn’t been scientifically proven, but I think so.’

She smiled weakly at Erlendur. Marion asked the woman a few additional questions about the discovery, then let her go. They all got out of the car and the woman hurried off. Erlendur turned his back to the north wind.

‘Isn’t it obvious why his face and body are mashed up like that?’ he asked Marion.

‘Are you implying he was beaten up?’

‘Wasn’t he?’

‘All I know is he’s a mess. Perhaps that was the intention. So you’re thinking he met someone out here, they came to blows and he was supposed to disappear permanently in the lagoon?’

‘Something along those lines.’

‘It might look like that,’ said Marion, who had examined the body before it was taken away, ‘but I’m not convinced the man died as the result of a beating. No ordinary beating, anyway.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’ve seen bodies smashed by a fall from a great height, and I have to say this reminds me of that. Or a serious car crash. But we haven’t been informed of any.’

‘If it was a fall, it must have been a pretty big one,’ said Erlendur, peering around, then up into the blackness overhead. ‘Unless he came from up there. Dropped out of the sky.’

‘Into the lagoon?’

‘Is that so absurd?’

‘I wonder,’ said Marion.

‘It doesn’t help that he’s clearly been in the water some time.’

‘True.’

‘So he can’t have been beaten to death on the scene,’ said Erlendur. ‘If it was a fall, as you say. Someone must have brought him out here so he wouldn’t be found straight away. His body must have been deliberately sunk in the pool. In this strange white mud.’

‘Not a bad hiding place,’ said Marion.

‘Especially if he’d sunk properly. Nobody comes out here. Except the odd psoriasis sufferer.’

‘Did you have to interrogate her about her condition?’ asked Marion, watching the woman’s car speeding away. ‘You’ve got to stop prying into people’s personal lives.’

‘She was upset. You saw that. I was trying to distract her.’

‘You’re a policeman, not a priest.’

‘The body would probably never have been found if it weren’t for that woman’s psoriasis,’ said Erlendur. ‘Don’t you find that... a bit...?’

‘Of a strange coincidence?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve known stranger. Bloody hell, it’s cold,’ said Marion, opening the car door.

‘What’s this place called, by the way? Do you know?’ asked Erlendur, surveying the power station with its billows of steam rising to the sky and dispersing into the night. The answer came back instantly.

‘Illahraun,’ said Marion, the know-all, getting into the car. ‘Formed during the eruption of 1226.’

‘Evil Lava?’ said Erlendur, opening the driver’s door. ‘That’s all we need.’