The Draining Lake

11

The First Secretary at the Russian embassy in Reykjavik was the same age as Erlendur but thinner and considerably healthier-looking. When he received them he seemed to make a special effort to be casual. He was wearing khaki trousers and said, with a smile, that he was on his way to the golf course. He showed Erlendur and Elinborg to their seats in his office, then sat down behind a large desk and smiled broadly. He knew the reason for their visit. The meeting had been arranged well in advance so Erlendur was surprised to hear the golfing excuse. He had the impression that they were supposed to rush through the meeting and then disappear. They spoke English and, although the First Secretary was aware of the reason for the enquiry, Elinborg briefly repeated the need for the meeting. A Russian listening device had been found tied to the skeleton of a man probably murdered and thrown into Lake Kleifarvatn some time after 1961. The discovery of the Russian equipment had still not leaked to the press.

“There have been a number of Soviet and Russian ambassadors in Iceland since 1960,” the Secretary said, smiling self-confidently as if none of what they had related was any of his business. “Those who were here in the 1960s and early 1970s are long since dead. I doubt that they knew anything about Russian equipment in that lake. Any more than I do.”

He smiled. Erlendur smiled back.

“But you spied here in Iceland during the Cold War? Or at least tried to.”

“That was before my time,” the Secretary said. “I couldn’t say.”

“Do you mean you don’t spy any more?”

“Why would we spy? We just go on the Internet like everyone else. Besides, your military base isn’t so important any more. If it matters at all. The conflict zones have shifted. America doesn’t need an aircraft carrier like Iceland any more. No one can understand what they’re doing here with that expensive base. If this were Turkey I could understand.”

“It’s not our military base,” Elinborg said.

“We know that some embassy staff were expelled from Iceland on suspicion of spying,” Erlendur said. “When things were very tense in the Cold War.”

“Then you know more than I do,” the Secretary said. “And of course it is your military base,” he added, looking at Elinborg. “If we did have spies in this embassy then there were certainly twice as many CIA agents at the US embassy. Have you asked them? The description of the skeleton you found suggests to me — how should one put it — a mafia killing. Had that occurred to you? Concrete boots and deep water. It’s almost like an American gangster movie.”

“It was Russian equipment,” Erlendur said. “Tied to the body. The skeleton…”

“That tells us nothing,” the Secretary said. “There were embassies or offices from other Warsaw Pact countries that used Soviet equipment. It need not be connected with our embassy.”

“We have a detailed description of the device with us, and photographs,” Elinborg said, handing them to him. “Can you tell us anything about how it was used? Who used it?”

“I am not familiar with this equipment,” the Secretary said as he looked at the photographs. “Sorry. I will enquire, though. But even if we did recognise it, we can’t help you very much.”

“Couldn’t you give it a try?” Erlendur asked.

The Secretary smiled.

“You’ll just have to believe me. The skeleton in the lake has nothing to do with this embassy or its staff. Neither in the present, nor in the past.”

“We believe it’s a listening device,” Elinborg said. “It is tuned to the old wavelength of the American troops in Keflavik.”

“I can’t comment on that,” the Secretary said, looking at his watch. His round of golf was waiting.

“If you had spied in the old days, which you didn’t,” Erlendur said, “what would you have been interested in?”

The Secretary hesitated for an instant.

“If we had been doing anything then obviously we would have wanted to observe the base, the transportation of military hardware, movements of warships, aircraft, submarines. We would have wanted to know about America’s capability at any time. That’s obvious. We would have wanted to know about what was going on at the base and other military installations in Iceland. They were all over the place. Not just in Keflavik. There were activities all over Iceland. We would also have monitored the activities of other embassies, domestic politics, political parties and that sort of thing.”

“A lot of equipment was found in Lake Kleifarvatn in 1973,” Erlendur said. “Transmitters, microwave equipment, tape recorders, even radios. All from Warsaw Pact countries. Mostly from the Soviet Union.”

“I’m not aware of the incident,” the Secretary said.

“No, of course not,” Erlendur said. “But what reason could there have been for throwing that equipment in the lake? Did you use a particular method for getting rid of old stuff?”

“I’m afraid I cannot assist you with that,” the Secretary said, no longer smiling. “I’ve tried to answer you as best I can but there are some things I simply don’t know. And that’s that.”

Erlendur and Elinborg stood up. There was a smugness about the man that Erlendur disliked. Your base! What did he know about military bases in Iceland?

“Was the equipment obsolete, so there was no point in sending it home in a diplomatic bag?” he asked. “Couldn’t you throw it away like any other rubbish? These devices clearly demonstrate that spying went on in Iceland. When the world was much simpler and the lines were clearly drawn.”

“You can say what you like about it,” the Secretary said, standing up. “I have to be somewhere else.”

“The man whose body was found in Kleifarvatn, could he have been at the embassy?”

“I think that’s out of the question.”

“Or from another Eastern bloc embassy?”

“I don’t think there’s the slightest chance. And now I must ask you to—”

“Are there any persons missing from this period?”

“No.”

“You just know that? You don’t need to look it up?”

“I have looked it up. No one is missing.”

“No one who disappeared and you don’t know what became of them?”

“Goodbye,” the Secretary said, with a smile. He had opened the door.

“Definitely no one who disappeared?” Erlendur said as he walked out into the corridor.

“No one,” the Secretary said, and closed the door in their faces.

Sigurdur Oli was refused a meeting with the US ambassador or his staff. Instead he received a message from the embassy marked “confidential” which stated that no US citizen in Iceland had been reported missing during the period in question. Sigurdur Oli wanted to take the matter further and insist on a meeting, but his request was denied by the top CID officials. The police would need something tangible to link the body in the lake to the US embassy, the base or American citizens in Iceland.

Sigurdur Oli telephoned a friend of his, a head of section at the Defence Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to ask whether he could locate any past employee to tell the police about foreign embassy officials in the 1960s and 1970s. He tried to give away as little as possible about the investigation, just enough to arouse his interest, and his friend promised to get back to him.

Erlendur stood awkwardly, a glass of white wine in his hand, scouring the crowd at Elinborg’s book launch. He had found it quite difficult to make up his mind whether to put in an appearance, but in the end he had decided to go. Gatherings annoyed him, the few that came his way. He sipped the wine and grimaced. It was sour. He thought ruefully of his bottle of Chartreuse back home.

He smiled at Elinborg, who was standing in the crowd and waved to him. She was talking to the press. The fact that a woman from the Reykjavik CID had written a cookery book had prompted quite a lot of publicity and Erlendur was pleased to see Elinborg basking in the attention. She had once invited him, Sigurdur Oli and his wife Bergthora for dinner to test a new Indian chicken dish that she had said would be in the book. It was a particularly spicy and tasty meal and they had praised Elinborg until she blushed.

Erlendur did not recognise many people apart from the police officers and was relieved to see Sigurdur Oli and Bergthora walk over in his direction.

“Do try to smile for once when you see us,” Bergthora said, kissing him on the cheek. He drank a toast of white wine, then they toasted Elinborg specially afterwards.

“When do we get to meet this woman you’re seeing?” Bergthora asked, and Erlendur noticed Sigurdur Oli tensing beside her. Erlendur’s relationship with a woman was the talk of the CID, but few dared pry into the matter.

“One day, perhaps,” Erlendur said. “On your eightieth birthday.”

“Can’t wait,” Bergthora said.

Erlendur smiled.

“Who are all these people?” Bergthora said, looking around the gathering.

“I only know the officers,” Sigurdur Oli said. “And I think all those fatsos over there are with Elinborg.”

“There’s Teddi,” Bergthora said, with a wave at Elinborg’s husband.

Someone tapped a spoon against a glass and the murmuring stopped. In a far corner of the room a man began talking and they could not hear a word, but everyone laughed. They saw Elinborg push her way over to him and take out the speech that she had written. They inched closer to hear her and managed to catch her closing thanks to her family and colleagues in the force for their patience and support. A round of applause followed.

“Are you going to stay long?” Erlendur asked, sounding ready to leave.

“Don’t be so uptight,” Bergthora said. “Relax. Enjoy yourself a bit. Get drunk.”

She snatched a glass of white wine from the nearest tray.

“Get this inside you!”

Elinborg appeared from the crowd, greeted them all with a kiss and asked if they were bored. She looked at Erlendur, who took a swig of the sour white wine. She and Bergthora started talking about a female television celebrity who was there and who was having an affair with some businessman. Sigurdur Oli shook the hand of someone whom Erlendur did not recognise and he was about to sneak out when he bumped into an old colleague. He was nearing retirement, something that Erlendur knew he feared.

“You’ve heard about Marion,” the man said, sipping his white wine. “Buggered lungs, I’m told. Just sits at home suffering.”

“That’s right,” Erlendur said. “And watches westerns.”

“Were you making enquiries about the Falcon?” the man asked, emptied his glass and grabbed another from a tray as it glided past them.

“The Falcon?”

“They were talking about it at the station. You were looking into missing persons in connection with the Kleifarvatn skeleton.”

“Do you remember anything about the Falcon?” Erlendur asked.

“No, not exactly. We found it outside the coach station. Niels was in charge of the investigation. I saw him here just now. Nifty book that girl’s written,” he added. “I was just looking at it. Good photos.”

“I think the girl’s in her forties,” Erlendur said. “And yes, it’s a really good book.”

He scouted around for Niels and found him sitting on a wide windowsill. Erlendur sat down beside him and recalled how he had once envied him. Niels had a long police career behind him and a family that anyone would be proud of. His wife was a well-known painter, they had four promising children, all university graduates and now providing them with a succession of grandchildren. The couple owned a large house in the suburb of Grafarvogur, splendidly designed by the artist, and two cars, and had nothing to cast a shadow on their eternal happiness. Erlendur sometimes wondered whether a happier and more successful life was possible. They were not the best of friends. Erlendur had always found Niels lazy and absolutely unsuited for detective work. Nor did his personal success diminish the antipathy Erlendur felt towards him.

“Marion’s really ill, I hear,” Niels said when Erlendur sat down beside him.

“I’m sure there’s a while left yet,” Erlendur said against his better judgement. “How are you doing?”

He asked simply out of politeness. He always knew how Niels was doing.

“I’ve given up trying to figure it out,” Niels said. “We arrested the same man for burglary five times in one weekend. Every time he confesses and is released because the case is solved. He breaks in somewhere again, gets arrested, is released, burgles somewhere else. It’s brainless. Why don’t they set up a system here for sending idiots like that straight to prison? They clock up twenty or so crimes before they’re given the minimum custodial sentence, then the minute they’re out on probation you’re arresting the same buggers again. What’s the point of such madness? Why aren’t these bastards given a proper sentence?”

“You won’t find a more hopeless set-up than the Icelandic judicial system,” Erlendur said.

“Those scum make fools of the judges,” Niels said. “And then those paedophiles! And the psychos!”

They fell silent. The debate on leniency struck a nerve among police officers, who brought criminals, rapists and paedophiles into custody only to hear later that they had been given light sentences or even suspended ones.

“There’s another thing,” Erlendur said. “Do you remember the man who sold agricultural machinery? He owned a Ford Falcon. Vanished without a trace.”

“You mean the car outside the coach station?”

“Yes.”

“He had a nice girlfriend, that bloke. What do you reckon happened to her?”

“She’s still waiting,” Erlendur said. “One of the hubcaps was missing from the car. Do you remember that?”

“We assumed it must have been stolen from outside the coach station. There was nothing about the case to suggest criminal activity — apart from that hubcap being stolen, perhaps. If it was stolen. He could have hit the kerb. Anyway, it was never found. No more than its owner was.”

“Why should he have killed himself?” Erlendur said. “He had everything going for him. A pretty girlfriend. Bright future. He’d bought a Ford Falcon.”

“You know how none of that counts when people commit suicide,” Niels said.

“Do you think he caught a coach somewhere?”

“We thought that it was likely, if I recall correctly. We talked to the drivers but they didn’t remember him. Still, that doesn’t mean he didn’t take a coach out of town.”

“You think he killed himself.”

“Yes,” said Niels. “But…”

Niels hesitated.

“What?” Erlendur said.

“He was playing some kind of a game, that bloke,” Niels said.

“How so?”

“She said his name was Leopold but we couldn’t find anyone by that name of the age she said he was; there was no one on our files or in the national register. No birth certificate. No driving licence. There was no Leopold who could have been that man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either all the records about him had gone missing or…”

“Or he was deceiving her?”

“He couldn’t have been called Leopold, at least,” Niels said.

“What did she say to that? What did his girlfriend say when you asked her about it?”

“We had the feeling he’d been pulling a fast one on her,” Niels said eventually. “We felt sorry for her. She didn’t even have a photograph of him. What does that tell you? She didn’t know a thing about that man.”

“So?”

“We didn’t tell her.”

“You didn’t tell her what?”

“That we had no files about this Leopold of hers,” Niels said. “It looked cut and dried to us. He lied to her, then walked out on her.”

Erlendur sat in silence while he tried to work out the implications of what Niels had told him.

“Out of consideration for her,” Niels said.

“And she still doesn’t know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why did you keep it a secret?”

“Probably for the sake of kindness.”

“She’s still sitting waiting for him,” Erlendur said. “They were going to get married.”

“That was what he convinced her of before he left.”

“What if he was murdered?”

“We considered it very unlikely. It’s a rare scenario, but admittedly not unknown: men lie their way into women’s lives, get… how should I put it, comfortable, then disappear. I think she knew deep down. We didn’t need to tell her.”

“What about the car?”

“It was in her name. The loan for it was in her name. She owned the car.”

“You should have told her.”

“Perhaps. But would she have been any better off? She would have learned that the man she loved was a confidence trickster. He told her nothing about his family. She knew nothing about him. He had no friends. Forever on sales trips all over the countryside. What does that tell you?”

“She knew that she loved him,” Erlendur said.

“And that’s how he paid her back.”

“What did the farmer say, the one he was going to meet?”

“That’s all in the files,” Niels said, with a nod and a smile at Elinborg, who was deep in conversation with her publisher. Elinborg had once mentioned that his name was Anton.

“Come on, not everything goes into the files.”

“He never met the farmer,” Niels said, and Erlendur could see how he was trying to recall the details of the case. They all remembered the big cases, the murders or disappearances, every single major arrest, every single assault and rape.

“Couldn’t you tell from the Falcon whether or not he met the farmer?”

“We didn’t find anything in the car to indicate that he’d been to the farm.”

“Did you take samples from the floor by the front seats? Under the pedals?”

“It’s in the files.”

“I didn’t see it. You could have established whether he visited the farmer. He would have picked stuff up on his shoes.”

“It wasn’t a complicated case, Erlendur. Nobody wanted to turn it into one. The man made himself vanish. Maybe he bumped himself off. We don’t always find the bodies. You know that. Even if we had found something under the pedals, it could have been from anywhere. He travelled around the country a lot. Selling agricultural machinery.”

“What did they say at his work?”

Niels thought about the question.

“It was such a long time ago, Erlendur.”

“Try to remember.”

“He wasn’t on the payroll, I remember that much, which was rare in those days. He was on commission and worked on a freelance basis.”

“Which means he would have had to pay his taxes himself.”

“As I said, there was no mention of him in the records under the name Leopold. Not a thing.”

“So you reckon he kept that woman when he was in Reykjavik but, what, lived somewhere else?”

“Or even had a family,” Niels said. “There are blokes like that.”

Erlendur sipped his wine and looked at the perfect tie knot under Niels’s shirt collar. He was not a good detective. To him, no case was ever complicated.

“You should have told her the truth.”

“That may well be, but she had happy memories of him. We concluded that it wasn’t a criminal matter. The disappearance was never investigated as a murder because no clues were found to warrant it.”

They stopped talking. The guests” murmuring had become a solid wall of noise.

“You’re still into these missing persons,” Niels said. “Why this interest? What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said.

“It was a routine disappearance,” Niels said. “Something else was needed to turn it into a murder investigation. No clues ever emerged to give grounds for that.”

“No, probably not.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of all this?” Niels asked.

“Sometimes.”

“And your daughter, she’s always involved in the same old shit,” said Niels, with his four educated children who had all started beautiful families and lived perfect, impeccable lives, just like him.

Erlendur knew that the whole force was aware of Eva Lind’s arrest and how she had attacked Sigurdur Oli. She sometimes ended up in police custody and received no special treatment for being his daughter. Niels had clearly heard about Eva. Erlendur looked at him, his tasteful clothing and his manicured nails, and wondered whether a happy life made people even more boring than they were to start with.

“Yes,” Erlendur said. “She’s as screwed up as ever.”