Oblivion

37

Erlendur heard the phone ringing in the office. He had stepped out to fetch a coffee and, hurrying back inside, snatched up the receiver.

‘Caroline?’

‘Er, no...? Who’s this, please? Is Erlendur there?’

He recognised Silja’s voice.

‘Yes, sorry, hello again, this is Erlendur speaking. I was expecting another call.’

‘I found out who had the cousin with the records. Would you like her number?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Erlendur, grabbing a pen and paper. ‘That’d be great.’

‘It’s Rósanna,’ said Silja and reeled off her number. ‘Just give her a call, she’s expecting to hear from you. She was astonished to be asked about the records, as you can imagine. Of course all I could tell her was that you were trying to get to the bottom of the case. Are you making any progress?’

‘Not really,’ said Erlendur, sipping his coffee. He didn’t think Rasmus’s peeping Tom activities were worth reporting at this point.

‘Well, let me know if I can be of any more help.’

‘Thank you.’

Silja hung up and Erlendur phoned Svava, Dagbjört’s aunt, and asked if she remembered her brother’s next-door neighbours: a Danish woman and her son — name of Rasmus. Half Danish. His father was Icelandic but didn’t live with them.

‘Do you remember them at all?’ asked Erlendur. ‘The mother died years ago but the son still lives there.’

‘Not really,’ said Svava. ‘As far as I know, they kept themselves to themselves, the mother and son, and my brother didn’t have much to do with them.’

‘You never heard him complain about them?’

‘Not that I can remember off the top of my head.’

‘Not about the man, Rasmus?’

‘No — or only that my brother thought they didn’t look after the garden properly,’ said Svava, ‘didn’t take care of it at all, just let it go to seed. The mother may’ve been a bit odd. Not that I want to judge anyone. But now you come to mention it...’

‘Yes?’

‘My brother once fell out with her because she claimed he’d killed her cat. Which was absolute rubbish, of course. My brother would never have hurt a fly. He couldn’t bear to see anything suffer. The woman obviously doted on the animal because she actually rang the police and sent them round to my brother’s. He had a terrible time with the old bat.’

‘What happened to the cat? Did it ever turn up?’

‘Yes, it did. My brother said it probably just needed a break from her. Why are you asking about them?’

‘No real reason,’ said Erlendur, to deflect suspicion from Rasmus. ‘I was checking who lived next door at the time and wondered about those two, that’s all. Do you recall the other neighbours at all?’

‘No, no one in particular. It was a good area. There was nothing wrong with it. As far as I know they were decent types, the people who lived there.’

They quickly wrapped up their conversation after that, then Erlendur dialled the number Silja had given him. After several rings the phone was answered, by a teenage boy, Erlendur thought. He introduced himself and asked to speak to the boy’s mother, Rósanna. Erlendur heard him call her and she picked up the phone almost immediately. He introduced himself again and Silja was right, she had been expecting to hear from him.

‘This is about Dagbjört, isn’t it?’ she said, the wonder apparent in her voice.

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘Are they still investigating her case?’

‘No, there’s no real investigation, I’m just taking a look at it for Dagbjört’s aunt.’

‘It must be twenty-five, twenty-six years ago?’

‘Yes. I hear you have — or had — a cousin who used to work on the base in those days and could supply this and that — records, for example.’

‘What about him?’

‘Is it right that he used to help out with that sort of thing?’

‘Well... I... I’m a bit uncomfortable discussing this over the phone,’ said Rósanna. ‘You couldn’t pop round, could you? It’s not that late.’

‘I’m afraid I’m rather tied up,’ said Erlendur, thinking of Caroline. He needed to stay by the phone in case she or Marion called.

‘Well, what about tomorrow, then?’ said Rósanna. ‘No, come to think of it, I’m quite busy tomorrow, and after that it’s my son’s birthday...’

‘Maybe I will come over, if that’s all right,’ said Erlendur, unwilling to lose this chance. ‘It won’t take long.’

‘Right, good,’ said Rósanna, and gave him the address. ‘See you soon, then.’

Acting quickly, Erlendur told reception that he was expecting a phone call and wanted it forwarded to the place where he was going. It was absolutely vital. Then he ran down the stairs, drawn to this encounter with the past, a past that had got its hooks into him so tightly that everything else had to take second place.