Oblivion (7 page)

She had stayed on in Denmark but travelled a great deal, and over the years she had sent Marion an assortment of little souvenirs from all over the world. But now those days were over and their correspondence had dwindled until in the end she had stopped writing altogether.

Towards midnight Marion finished the port and went to bed feeling a faint sense of misgiving, without knowing why.

KRISTVIN’S SISTER NANNA
could not hide her surprise when Marion Briem and Erlendur turned up early next morning at the nursery school where she worked, asking to speak to her. She was busy dressing the children in their outdoor clothes and after a bit of a tussle she beckoned the two detectives to come out into the playground with her as they were short-staffed due to illness and she had to supervise. Marion asked if she shouldn’t be taking time off; it must be tough coping with her brother’s death, all the more so given the circumstances and the news coverage. Nanna replied that she preferred being at work to moping around at home with nothing to do: she had to keep herself busy. This seemed sensible to Erlendur.

Nanna was Kristvin’s next of kin. The day before, she had asked Erlendur when the post-mortem would be completed so she could start planning the funeral, but he hadn’t been able to inform her. She repeated her question as the three of them stood by a large sandpit, watching the children play, but again received a vague reply. She also wanted to know how the investigation was progressing and was told that naturally it would take time and no results could be expected just yet.

The bitter north wind had dropped, giving way to milder weather. It was still early and the city was dark under an overcast sky. A two-year-old boy started howling, turning a pained gaze on Nanna as a little girl hit him over the head with a pink plastic spade, then shovelled sand over him. Nanna moved the toddler out of harm’s way and comforted him, before putting him down in another, more peaceful sandpit.

‘She’s a little terror, that one,’ Nanna said apologetically as she came back, nodding towards the girl who appeared to Erlendur to be already casting around for a new victim.

‘Yes, she’s quite something,’ said Marion. ‘We’ve talked to your brother’s neighbours. They speak well of him. Say he was quiet. They weren’t aware of many visitors. There was an elderly man living opposite him on the third floor –’

‘Yes, Jóhann,’ said Nanna.

‘You know him?’

‘I’ve seen him about. Kristvin had a lot of time for him.’

‘Jóhann obviously felt the same. He told us your brother was very kind; used to carry his groceries upstairs for him and would always ask if he needed anything when he was going out to the shops himself. He mended the old man’s kitchen sink for him.’

‘They got on well. Kristvin told me Jóhann found it tough at times, living on the third floor.’

‘I take it your brother moved there when he came home from America?’

Nanna nodded. ‘He stayed with me for a while to begin with, but then he found this flat on the top floor of a block without a lift, in the back of beyond. The cheapest place he could find. He took out a mortgage. Owed a lot on his student loan as well.’

‘But he had a good job,’ Erlendur chipped in.

‘Yes, he was on a decent wage once he started work at the airport.’

‘Was he involved in smuggling?’

‘Smuggling?’

Nanna was momentarily flustered, but quickly realised that this was the intention.

‘We found various items in his flat that we have reason to believe came from the naval base,’ said Erlendur. ‘Cigarettes, beer and vodka.

‘Oh, that. I don’t know if any of it was smuggled – yes, probably. It was mostly for his own use but he sometimes gave me some. I asked him to buy me stuff from time to time – gave him the money. You can get it dirt cheap down there compared to the prices at the state off-licence, and of course you can’t get beer here.’

‘And the dope?’ said Marion.

‘Dope?’

‘We found cannabis in his flat. Marijuana.’

‘Oh, the grass,’ said Nanna. ‘Was it in the freezer?’

‘Was he dealing in drugs from his flat?’

‘No, he wasn’t. Not drugs. Occasionally beer and vodka. Jóhann bought some, for example. And one or two other people he knew.’

‘Any idea who they were?’ asked Marion.

‘Is it important?’

‘Could be.’

‘Were you aware he used drugs?’ asked Erlendur.

‘Yes, of course. We both did. Mostly me, though.’

‘You?’

‘Yes.’

‘What …?’

‘It helps with the pain.’

‘What pain?’ asked Erlendur.

Nanna looked at them searchingly.

‘You must have noticed the wig.’

They didn’t react.

‘This here.’ She pointed to her head. ‘Do you think I wear it for fun?’

They still didn’t say anything.

‘I have cancer,’ said Nanna. ‘It’s not long since I finished the second lot of chemotherapy and they say it went well but they can’t promise anything. Just like the first time. Kristvin’s grass helped – it made me feel less sick during the treatment. When he was in America he’d read that marijuana can help cancer patients, so he thought it was worth giving it a try.’

‘Did he get it from the base?’ asked Marion.

‘Yes.’

‘Shouldn’t you have told us this yesterday?’

‘I was going to but then we … we went to the morgue … I thought I’d die before him, you know. Because of the cancer. Then … then I didn’t hear from him and suddenly … suddenly he’s dead. In this horrible way.’

‘You shouldn’t be at work,’ said Marion, taking Nanna’s hand. ‘Can’t we drive you home? You really shouldn’t be here. Isn’t there anyone who can come and keep you company?’

The little girl was still wreaking havoc. This time she destroyed a sandcastle that two other children had taken great pains over, and they burst into tears. Another helper ran over and grabbed the girl by the scruff of her neck when she tried to make off. Nanna went to comfort the castle-builders and help them start again.

‘The little pest,’ she said when she came back, and heaved a deep breath. ‘She’ll be a handful one day.’

‘Are you all right?’ asked Marion.

‘I’m fine,’ said Nanna. ‘I’d rather look after the kids than hang around at home. It’s nothing. I’m all right.’

‘Who sold him the drugs?’ asked Erlendur.

‘I don’t know. All I know is he got them from the base. He had contacts but he didn’t tell me who they were and I didn’t ask too many questions. He said he was careful. I kept asking him about that and telling him to watch himself, and I know he did. My brother was no fool. He knew what he was doing.’

But look how he ended up, Erlendur wanted to say, but stopped himself. He had no desire to increase her suffering; she had enough to cope with. He believed Nanna was telling the truth and that she was desperate to find out what had happened to her brother. He didn’t believe for a moment that she could have played any part in his death, though Marion had hinted as much on their way to the nursery school. Marion wanted to pursue this angle because she hadn’t come clean to them about the booze or drugs, but Erlendur thought she’d simply had too much else on her mind at the time. Marion took the view that she was hiding something from the police about the goods. But Erlendur dis-agreed, especially now that Nanna had admitted to using the drugs for medicinal purposes and apparently didn’t regard the fact as a big deal.

‘How did he travel to and fro?’ asked Erlendur.

‘To and fro?’

‘Between Reykjavík and Keflavík.’

‘Oh, he had a car,’ said Nanna. ‘Haven’t you found it?’

‘What sort of car?’ asked Marion. ‘We didn’t find any car registered in his name.’

‘That’s because it was mine – it’s still in my name. A Toyota Corolla. I sold it to him. We just hadn’t got round to transferring ownership. And as Kristvin had only paid me half, I still use it quite a bit too, so …’

‘You took turns using it?’ finished Erlendur, and wrote down the details: two-door, grey, six years old, constantly breaking down.

‘Yes, but he’s been using it for the last few weeks.’

A SPELL IN
custody had done nothing to soften up Ellert and Vignir, or make them any more amenable. They were as insolent and insufferable as the day they had been locked up in Sídumúli Prison, and still stubbornly denied any wrongdoing. They had much in common, although it wasn’t obvious from their appearance that they were brothers. One was stocky and ungainly, with a thick head of hair; the other tall, lanky and almost totally bald. They lived together – always had – and were described as very close. Vignir, the ungainly one, was the elder, and acted as spokesman for them both, as far as the police could gather. Ellert was a more shadowy figure who kept a low profile and stayed in the background. Perhaps that was why he was known as ‘the Old Lady’. But, according to police informants, he was the real mastermind behind the brothers’ business and on the rare occasions he showed his hand you would go far to find another thug as vicious as him. He was aware of his nickname and thin-skinned about it. There was a story doing the rounds that a man who used it to his face had spent the next two months in intensive care; he claimed to have been hit by a car, never fully recovered and left the country after a spell in rehabilitation. Whether it was true or not, nobody could say.

Towards midday Ellert was conducted to the interview room and took a seat across from Marion and Erlendur, wearing the same sullen expression that hadn’t left his face since he was apprehended. He had made no attempt to resist arrest, any more than his brother, but insisted he hadn’t committed any criminal offence and wished to register a protest about the unlawful way in which he was being treated. The fine phrases had been picked up from the TV cop shows he and Vignir spent their lives glued to.

‘When are you going to let us go?’ asked Ellert, lounging in his chair. ‘It’s ridiculous banging us up like this. We haven’t done anything.’

It was the same refrain his brother opened his interviews with, intended to demonstrate that neither was going to betray the slightest hint of weakness or help the police in any way with their inquiries. Ignoring this, Erlendur and Marion began instead to grill him about the goods he and his brother imported, about their associates, smuggling routes, expenses and profit margin, and what they did with the profits. And further, about the identity of their customers and how the deals were organised. Ellert either didn’t answer at all or gave deliberately fatuous replies, repeatedly protesting his innocence and claiming he didn’t even understand half the questions. The interrogation ground on like this for three-quarters of an hour until Marion began to nudge the conversation round towards the naval base at Keflavík. The gallon bottles of vodka and cigarette cartons in Kristvin’s fridge had been American, from the same producers and in the same kind of packaging as those the police had confiscated during the raid on the brothers’ premises, and although there was nothing to indicate any link between the brothers and Kristvin, Marion didn’t want to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

‘Have you got contacts on the base?’ asked Marion.

‘On the base?’ echoed Ellert.

‘At Keflavík? On the naval base? Do you have any business out there?’

Ellert sat up in his chair, looking at them both in turn.

‘What kind of business?’

‘Do any of your goods come from there?’

‘From the base?’

‘You heard me.’

‘In the first place I’m not aware of any goods,’ said Ellert, ‘and in the second place I don’t know what you’re on about. Why are you asking about the bloody naval base?’

‘Who do you buy from down there?’ asked Marion.

‘We don’t buy anything there,’ said Ellert. ‘Weren’t you listening? We don’t buy anything full stop. The stuff you found isn’t ours. None of it belongs to us!’

‘Is it the quartermasters who supply you?’ Marion persisted doggedly. ‘Or the guys who run the clubs? Or the stores? The air crews? Marines?’

Ellert didn’t answer.

‘How’s it smuggled off base?’ asked Erlendur. ‘By the soldiers? Or is it the contractors? Do you use Icelandic workers as go-betweens?’

‘Does the name Kristvin mean anything to you?’ asked Marion when Ellert remained obstinately mute.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Ellert. He received little news of the outside world in his cell.

‘A customer of yours,’ said Marion.

‘Never heard of him,’ said Ellert. ‘And we don’t have any customers. Why are you asking me about this bloke? Who is he?’

‘We found the same kind of goods at his place as you two deal in. It occurred to us that he might have bought them from you.’

‘Unless he was smuggling for you and your brother?’ suggested Erlendur. ‘Is that it? Was he working for you?’

‘Why don’t you cut the crap? I don’t know the guy.’

During the drive to the prison Marion had been reflecting on the fact that it was only a decade since the police first started arresting people in Iceland for drugs-related offences. The incidents frequently had some connection to the military installation and international airport at Keflavík. Passengers were caught carrying cannabis or LSD, and the proximity of the naval base made it easy for Icelanders to get hold of narcotics imported by members of the Defense Force. The Americans were also a good source of hard currency for purchasing drugs abroad, which was otherwise difficult to come by in Iceland due to the currency restrictions. It had all begun on a small scale, mostly for recreational use at parties, but over time the number of users had grown and some people had spotted an opening for making money by importing drugs themselves. People like Ellert and Vignir.

Vignir was as intransigent as his brother. He denied everything and professed himself as surprised as Ellert when the questions began to touch on the Defense Force and naval base. He tried to fish for more information from the detectives, with little success.

‘Who is this guy?’ he asked. ‘What did he do?’

‘It occurred to us that he might have been a rival of yours,’ said Erlendur. ‘If he was selling the same kind of goods maybe you and your brother didn’t like the competition.’