Oblivion (14 page)

It had been Erlendur’s idea that Marion should go alone to the meeting with Caroline. He believed Marion would get on better with her. Besides, there was no need for them both to go; that would only put her on her guard. Grudgingly Marion conceded to this logic and drove south through the early-winter darkness to Midnesheidi. Caroline had given directions to the bowling alley, and after driving through the gate and taking several wrong turns, Marion finally located the place. According to Caroline, the alley was closed for refurbishment. Marion parked some distance away, as she had suggested, found the unlocked back door and wondered how Caroline came to have access to the building when it was closed. She was there already, in ordinary clothes this time: jeans, a college sweatshirt, a thin leather jacket and sneakers.

‘I don’t like this one bit,’ she said as Marion entered. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Don’t know why I agreed to meet with you here.’

‘Thanks for going to all this trouble,’ said Marion, surveying the empty lanes, the balls in their racks, the beer adverts on the walls. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t be doing it unless you were the tiniest bit curious.’

‘I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be curious about,’ said Caroline. ‘Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me.’

‘Of course. There are two things we thought you might be able to help us with –’

‘Why me? You don’t even know me. You know nothing about me.’

‘It’s simple,’ said Marion. ‘We’re just regular police officers, you and I. So we ought to understand what needs doing without making things overcomplicated. What we need is access to the police here on the base, but we don’t want it to blow up into some major diplomatic incident involving senior military commanders and politicians from the Right and Left, and all the associated hassle. We don’t want the press getting in on the act, or the anti-NATO protesters or … You see, we had a good feeling about you right from the start, so we wanted to ask if you would help us.’

‘I’m not sure what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about simplifying matters rather than complicating them. I’m talking about keeping things on a personal level.’

‘What are the two things you need to know?’

‘The Icelander whose body we found had fallen from a considerable height. Such a great height, in fact, that there aren’t many places to choose from around here …’

‘Did it happen on the base?’

‘We believe so.’

‘From a great height? Are you talking about one of the hangars?’

‘Hangar 885, to be precise,’ said Marion. ‘The Icelander had a reason to be in the hangar because he was a flight mechanic and used to service aircraft there. His company has permission to use the hangar at busy times. We believe it’s possible he may have witnessed something in there that cost him his life. We’ve no idea what it was but there’s a chance it’s linked to the airline we asked you about the other day—’

‘Northern Cargo Transport.’

‘That’s right. They seem to be involved in some kind of arms shipments, according to a source in Reykjavík, and we wondered if you could check up on that for us. Find out what this company is. What connection it has to the army. And whether it transports weapons. Because if it’s a civilian operator, that would be highly irregular.’

‘No, that doesn’t sound right,’ said Caroline thoughtfully.

‘Our guess is that if we start making inquiries about this airline through the usual, official channels, doors will be slammed in our faces. Of course, we’ll have to go down that road sooner or later, but we’d like to gather information by other means first, if we possibly can.’

‘I don’t know how … what to believe. I don’t know who you are. Don’t even know what you do, though you claim to be a detective. This is all kind of … What’s the other thing you want me to look into?’

‘We heard that the Icelander, this Kristvin we were asking the residents about, known as Krissi –’

‘Chrissy? Isn’t that a girl’s name?’

‘It’s short for Kristvin. Krissi with a “K”.’

‘It’s kind of weird the way you use first names when you talk about strangers. It takes some getting used to.’

‘It’s an old custom here in Iceland,’ said Marion.

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Perhaps you’re also aware that Icelandic women don’t take their husband’s name when they marry?’

‘Yes,’ said Caroline. ‘Not such a bad idea.’

‘No, not bad at all,’ said Marion, smiling. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I call you Caroline?’

‘No, that’s fine.’

‘The thing is, Kristvin had a girlfriend – or lover – on the base. According to our informant, she’s married to a serviceman.’

‘An American?’ said Caroline in surprise. ‘Usually it’s the other way around – American men get involved with Icelandic women.’

‘Yes. Anyway, we think that’s why his car was here. He’d been visiting her.’

‘We went round every single dorm in the neighbourhood,’ pointed out Caroline.

‘Well, we wanted to ask if you could go back. Alone this time. Put your ear to the ground. See what you can pick up. One of the residents might let slip some detail that could come in useful. I don’t care how trivial. Everything matters.’

‘You’re not asking much.’

‘I know,’ said Marion. ‘We’ve been over and over this, my colleague and I, and our conclusion was to approach you for help at this stage, then see what comes out of it. Kristvin was also smuggling marijuana off base, so his business at the barracks might have been related to that. We just don’t know.’

‘I don’t think I told you,’ said Caroline, ‘but residents are assigned housing according to rank. The dorms where the car was found are enlisted quarters, for the lowest ranks and the least educated. But that doesn’t mean they’re all murderers, drug dealers or adulterers.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Marion.

‘Not all the personnel are in a hurry to leave,’ said Caroline. ‘Lots of Icelandics work here and we’re on good terms with them. There are good schools, good stores. Maybe the weather could be a little better at times but, hey, you can’t have everything.’

‘True.’

‘I think I’m going to have to turn you down,’ said Caroline after a pause.

‘Are you absolutely positive? You might want a bit longer to consider.’

‘No, I can’t do it.’

‘All right,’ said Marion. ‘I don’t mean to –’

‘I can’t work against the interests of the military. Surely you understand that? Regardless of what you guys claim happened. You’ll just have to find some other way. It’s … I can’t believe I’m even discussing this.’

‘Fine, no problem. All I was going to say is that if an Icelandic civilian has lost his life because of corruption in the army, it’ll be easy for you lot to stonewall us and then we’ll never solve the crime. We have no say over what the Defense Force does, and besides there are influential politicians and businessmen in our country who are only too willing to grovel to the US. And on the other side there are factions who are implacably opposed to it. So the only sensible way to investigate the incident is through people like us. Ordinary people like us.’

Caroline stared at Marion, the worry plain on her face.

‘I can’t help you,’ she said decisively. ‘I won’t report our meeting but that’s all I can do for you. Do you understand?’

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

‘Well, thank you for at least agreeing to meet me,’ said Marion. ‘I hope you understand my position – why I’m asking this. I’d be grateful if you could keep it to yourself.’

‘I’ve already promised that. But why the secrecy? Why don’t you trust the military?’

‘In this instance?’

‘In general.’

‘I think that question could equally be turned on its head,’ said Marion. ‘Why doesn’t the military trust us?’

‘That doesn’t answer
my
question,’ said Caroline.

‘Fleet Air Command has no interest in answering questions about Hangar 885 and we can’t put any pressure on them unless we know exactly what to ask. We sent a request for access to the area and cooperation with the inquiry into Kristvin’s death. They responded that the matter had nothing to do with them. It looks as if they’re going to be deliberately obstructive when it comes to anything involving US nationals on the base.’

‘Is that so surprising?’

‘No,’ said Marion, ‘maybe not. But we feel they’re being unreasonable. They’ve reached a decision without being prepared to discuss the matter at all. Which makes it look as if they’ve got something to hide.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, for example, if you could –’

‘Oh no, I’m not getting mixed up in any of this,’ said Caroline. ‘No way.’

‘If, for example, you could find out who was in Hangar 885 the evening Kristvin died,’ persevered Marion. ‘I mean, who does have access to it, in general?’

‘As far as I know there’s not much work going on in there at the moment because they’re installing a fire-extinguisher system. So in the evenings it would be mainly security guards.’

‘If you could find out who they were …’

‘Like I said, you’re putting me in an impossible position. I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere. Sorry.’

Caroline glanced at her watch and said she had to run. Their meeting was over.

‘I’ve never been bowling,’ remarked Marion, looking around the alley one last time before leaving again by the back door.

‘You should try it sometime,’ said Caroline, smiling in spite of her anxiety. ‘It’s fun.’

THE HOUSE STOOD
strangely dark and silent in the chilly evening air as Erlendur walked up to the door and unlocked it. The last owners had moved out some time ago and put it on the market, and Erlendur had received permission from the estate agent to view it on his own. The agent had told him he couldn’t work out why there was so little interest in the property. Admittedly the house was small by today’s standards and required some modernisation, but it was a solidly built pre-war concrete structure with plenty of scope for a family and a good-sized garden, he said, as if Erlendur were a potential buyer. Erlendur explained that he wanted to view the house for purely personal reasons; that it held memories for him – which was not a complete lie. The estate agent nodded, familiar with such requests. With people who saw their childhood home on the market and went to look round to indulge in a little nostalgia. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to take Erlendur there himself as it was late and he had to get off home, but Erlendur was welcome to borrow the keys and return them tomorrow. Erlendur had casually mentioned that he was a policeman.

He felt an odd frisson as he stepped into the narrow entrance hall. There was a rail for coats and a wide shelf above it for hats, scarves and gloves. He detected a faint smell of damp and suspected the roof had once leaked. A frosted-glass door led through to a small passage with a kitchen to the right, a sitting room straight ahead and a staircase up to the attic floor where the bedrooms were. He stood for a while in the quiet house, taking in his surroundings by the dim glow of the street lights: the worn carpet, the walls with the lighter rectangles where pictures had been taken down, the curtainless windows.

The kitchen faced the street and had a ‘For Sale’ sign with the estate agent’s telephone number in the window. The fittings, heavy wooden cupboards with worn handles, appeared to be original. There was a small table under the window. He tried to recapture the smells of the past, the echo of voices from the days when all had been brightness and colour in here. Dagbjört’s parents had moved out shortly after her disappearance and the house had undergone two changes of owner since then. Now it stood like a derelict farm in the heart of the city, lifeless and dead. It put Erlendur in mind of his parents’ croft in the East Fjords, which stood exposed to the rain and wind. It gave him the same sense of transience, and he lamented that nothing could halt the passing of time.

The sitting room, which faced the back, had two large windows and a door from which three steps led down to the garden. Erlendur went over to one of the windows and looked out at the trees and shrubs in their winter sleep, the frosty lawn, the rose beds and currant bushes. The garden had been well cared for, the grass cut and neatly edged, the branches pruned.

Dagbjört had been learning the piano. When describing the house to him, her aunt had said that her parents had bought her an old upright that used to stand in the sitting room. Erlendur pictured it against one wall, the three-piece suite in the middle by the windows, and the dining table at the far end. He assumed the piece of furniture that housed the gramophone had also been kept in here. In his imagination he heard the excited chatter of the schoolgirls as they gathered for Dagbjört’s birthday; the strains of ‘Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee’.

He walked slowly up the stairs. They emitted a friendly creaking like a polite reminder to treat the empty house with respect. The landing was carpeted and Erlendur found himself in another narrow passage with three doors leading off it. The one nearest him stood ajar and pushing it open he entered the master bedroom. He didn’t want to turn on the light; it felt somehow like trespassing. There was a faint illumination from the street and now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom he could see quite well. The ceiling was high next to the landing but sloped down under the eaves on the other side of the room. A dormer window looked out over the street. There was a built-in wardrobe which was full height by the door but slanted down with the incline of the roof.

Next to the master bedroom was a small bathroom with a sink and bathtub and a mirror fixed to a medicine cabinet. Opposite this was Dagbjört’s room which overlooked the neighbour’s garden. After a brief hesitation, Erlendur stepped inside. For years he had been wondering about the girl who used to live here, about her life and fate, and now here he was, standing in her room, and although families had come and gone through the house since then, he felt he had never been closer to her than at this moment.

The first thing he noticed was that the view from the window was partly obscured by a stand of tall fir trees belonging to the next-door garden. Walking over, he looked out and saw that the plot on that side had long been neglected, the trees and shrubs allowed to grow wild and unchecked. The firs would have been considerably smaller a quarter of a century ago, so Dagbjört would have had a good view of her neighbour’s house. Erlendur wondered if the same people still lived there. He could just glimpse the upstairs windows but couldn’t see any lights.