Silence of the Grave (4 page)

"This is a completely legitimate establishment."

"That's none of my business. Do you know about Eva Lind?"

"Is she lost?"

"I don't know," Erlendur said. "She's lost to me. She spoke to me earlier and asked me to help her, but I don't know where she is. I was told you knew her."

"I was with her for a while, did she tell you that?"

Erlendur shook his head.

"She's hopeless to be with. A real nutter."

"Can you tell me where she is?"

"It's a long time since I've seen her. She hates you. Did you know that?"

"When you were going out with her, who got her stuff for her?"

"You mean her dealer?"

"Her dealer, yes."

"Are you going to lock him up?"

"I'm not going to lock anyone up. I've got to find Eva Lind. Can you help me or not?"

Baddi weighed up his options. He didn't need to help this man at all, or Eva Lind. She could go to hell for all he cared. But there was an expression on the detective's face that told him it would be better to have him on his side rather than against him.

"I don't know anything about Eva," he said. "Talk to Alli."

"Alli?"

"And don't tell him I sent you."

5

Erlendur drove into the oldest part of town, down by the harbour, thinking about Eva Lind and thinking about Reykjavik. He had been born elsewhere and considered himself an outsider even though he had lived in the city for most of his life and had seen it spread across the bays and hills as the rural communities depopulated. A modern city swollen with people who did not want to live in the countryside or fishing villages any more, or could not live there, and came to the city to build new lives for themselves, but lost their roots and were left with no past and an uncertain future. He had never felt comfortable in the city.

Felt like a stranger.

Alli was about 20, scrawny, gingery and freckled; his front teeth were missing, his face was drawn and wan and he had a nasty cough. He was where Baddi had said he would be, sitting inside Kaffi Austurstraeti, alone at a table with an empty beer glass in front of him. He looked asleep, his head drooping and his arms folded over his chest. He wore a dirty green parka with a fur collar. Baddi had given a good description of him. Erlendur sat down at his table.

"Are you Alli?" he asked, but received no reply. He looked around the bar. It was dark inside and only a handful of people sat at the occasional table. A miserable country singer performed a melancholy song about lost love over a loudspeaker above them. A middle-aged barman sat on a stool behind the bar, reading a dogeared paperback.

Erlendur repeated the question and at length prodded the man's shoulder. He woke up and looked at Erlendur with gormless eyes.

"Another beer?" Erlendur asked, trying his best to smile. A grimace moved across his face.

"Who are you?" Alli asked, his eyes glazed. He made no attempt to conceal his idiotic expression.

"I'm looking for Eva Lind. I'm her father and I'm in a hurry. She phoned me and asked for help."

"Are you the cop?" Alli asked.

"Yes, I'm the cop," Erlendur said.

Alli sat up in his seat and looked around furtively.

"Why are you asking me?"

"I know that you know Eva Lind."

"How?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"You gonna buy me a beer?"

Erlendur looked at him and wondered for an instant whether he was using the right approach, but carried on anyway, he was running out of time. He stood up and walked quickly to the bar. The barman looked up reluctantly from his paperback, put it down with an air of regret and got up from his stool. Erlendur asked for a large beer. He was fumbling for his wallet when he noticed that Alli was gone. He took a quick look around and saw the door closing. Leaving the barman holding the glass of beer, he ran out and saw Alli making for the old houses in Grjótathorp.

Alli did not run very fast and did not last long either. He looked round, saw Erlendur in pursuit and tried to speed up, but had no stamina. Erlendur soon caught up with him and sent him moaning to the ground with a shove. Two bottles of pills rolled out of his pockets and Erlendur picked them up. They looked like Ecstasy. He tore Alli's coat off and heard more bottles rattling. When he had emptied the coat pockets Erlendur was left holding enough to fill an sizeable medicine cabinet.

"They'll . . . kill . . . me," Alli panted as he clambered to his feet. There were few people around. An elderly couple on the other side of the street, who had watched the action, hurried away when they saw Erlendur picking up one bottle of pills after another.

"I don't care," Erlendur said.

"Don't take that from me. You don't know how they . . ."

"Who?"

Alli huddled up against the wall of a house and started to cry.

"It's my last chance," he said, snot running from his nose.

"I don't give a shit what chance it is. When was the last time you saw Eva Lind?"

Alli snuffled, suddenly glared at Erlendur, as if eying a way out.

"Okay."

"What?"

"If I tell you about Eva, will you give those back to me?" he asked.

Erlendur thought it over.

"If you know about Eva I'll let you have it. If you're lying I'll come back and use you as a trampoline."

"Okay, okay. Eva came to see me today. If you see her, she owes me a bunch of money. I refused to give her any more. I don't deal to pregnant chicks."

"No," Erlendur said. "A man of principle, I suppose."

"She came round with her belly stuck out in the air and whined at me and started getting heavy when I wouldn't give her anything, then she left."

"Do you know where she went?"

"No idea."

"Where does she live?"

"A chick with no money. I need money, see. Or they'll kill me."

"Do you know where she lives?"

"Lives? Nowhere. She just crashes where she can. Scrounges. Reckons she can get it for nothing." Alli snorted disdainfully. "Like you could just give it away. Like it's just for free."

The gap where his teeth were missing gave his speech a soft lisp and he suddenly looked like a big child in his dirty parka, trying to put on a brave act.

Snot started dripping from his nose again.

"Where could she have gone?" Erlendur asked.

Alli looked at him and sniffed.

"Will you let me have that back?"

"Where is she?"

"Do I get it back if I tell you?"

"If you're not lying. Where is she?"

"There was a girl with her."

"Who? What's her name?"

"I know where she lives."

Erlendur took a step closer.

"You'll get it all back," he said. "Who was this girl?"

"Ragga. She lives just round the corner. On Tryggva-gata. At the top of the big building overlooking the dock." Alli hesitantly stretched out his hand. "Okay? You promised. Give it back to me. You promised."

"There's no way I could give it back to you, you idiot," Erlendur said. "If I had the time I'd take you down to the station and throw you in a cell. So you've come off the better for it."

"No, they'll kill me! Don't! Let me have it, please. Let me have it!"

Ignoring him, Erlendur left Alli snivelling up against the building, where he cursed himself and banged his head against the wall in feeble rage. Erlendur could hear the curses a long way off, but to his surprise Alli directed them not at him, but at himself.

"Fucking jerk, you're a fucking jerk . . ."

He looked round and saw Alli slapping himself in the face.

A little boy, possibly four years old, wearing pyjama bottoms, barefoot, his hair filthy, opened the door and looked up at Erlendur, who stooped down to him. When Erlendur put out his hand to stroke the boy's cheek he jerked his head back. Erlendur asked if his mother was home, but the boy just gave him a questioning look and made no reply.

"Is Eva Lind with you, sonny?" he asked.

Erlendur had the feeling time was running out. It was two hours since Eva Lind had phoned. He tried to dispel the thought that he was already too late to help her. Tried to imagine what kind of quandary she was in, but soon stopped torturing himself that way and concentrated on finding her. Now he knew who she was with when she left Alli that evening. He could sense he was getting closer to her.

Without answering, the boy darted back into the flat and disappeared. Erlendur followed, but could not see where he went. The flat was pitch dark and Erlendur fumbled to find a light switch on the walls. After trying several that did not work, he groped his way into a small room. At last a solitary light bulb, hanging from the ceiling, flickered on. There was nothing on the floor, only cold concrete. Dirty mattresses were spread all around the flat and on one of them lay a girl, slightly younger than Eva Lind, in tattered jeans and a red T-shirt. A metal box containing two hypodermic needles was open beside her. A thin plastic tube lay curled on the floor. Two men were sleeping on mattresses on either side of her.

Erlendur knelt down by the girl and prodded her, but got no response. He lifted her head, sat her up and patted her cheek. She mumbled. He stood up, lifted her to her feet and tried to make her walk around, and soon she seemed to come to her senses. She opened her eyes. Erlendur noticed a kitchen chair in the darkness and made her sit down. She looked at him and her head slumped to her chest. He slapped her face lightly and she came to again.

"Where's Eva Lind?" Erlendur asked.

"Eva," the girl mumbled.

"You were with her today. Where did she go?"

"Eva . . ."

Her head slumped again. Erlendur saw the little boy standing in the doorway. He was holding a doll in one hand and in the other he had an empty feeding bottle which he held out towards Erlendur. Then he put the bottle in his mouth and Erlendur heard him sucking in the air. He watched the boy and gnashed his teeth before taking out his mobile to call for help.

A doctor arrived with the ambulance, as Erlendur had insisted.

"I have to ask you to give her a shot," Erlendur said.

"A shot?" said the doctor.

"I think it's heroin. Have you got any naloxone or narcanti? In your bag?"

"Yes, I . . ."

"I have to talk to her. Immediately. My daughter's in danger. This girl knows where she is."

The doctor looked at the girl, then back at Erlendur. He nodded.

Erlendur had laid the girl back on the mattress and it took her a while to come round. The paramedics stood over her, holding the stretcher between them. The little boy was hiding in the room. The two men lay knocked out on their mattresses.

Erlendur crouched by the girl, who was slowly regaining consciousness. She looked at Erlendur and up to the doctor and the paramedics.

"What's going on?" she asked in a low voice, as if talking to herself.

"Do you know about Eva Lind?" Erlendur asked.

"Eva?"

"She was with you tonight. I think she might be in danger. Do you know where she went?"

"Isn't Eva okay?" she asked, then looked around. "Where's Kiddi?"

"There's a little boy in the room over there," Erlendur said. "He's waiting for you. Tell me where I can find Eva Lind."

"Who are you?"

"Her father."

"The cop?"

"Yes."

"She can't stand you."

"I know. Do you know where she is?"

"She started getting pains. I told her to go to the hospital. She was going to walk there."

"Pains?"

"Her gut was killing her."

"Where did she set off from? From here?"

"We were at the bus station."

"The bus station?"

"She was going to the National Hospital. Isn't she there?"

Erlendur stood up and the doctor told him the hospital switchboard number. He phoned, only to hear that no one by the name of Eva Lind had been admitted in the past few hours. No woman of her age had been there. He was put through to the maternity ward and tried to describe his daughter as well as he could, but the duty midwife didn't think she'd seen her.

He ran out of the flat, got into his car and raced to the bus station. There was not a soul around. The bus station closed at midnight. He left his car and hurried along Snorrabraut, broke into a run up the street past the houses in Nordurmýri and scanned the gardens for his daughter. He started calling her name as he drew closer to the hospital, but no one answered.

At last he found her lying in a pool of blood on a lawn sheltered by trees, about 50 metres from the old maternity home. But he was too late. The grass beneath her was stained with blood and so were her jeans.

Erlendur knelt beside his daughter, looked up at the maternity home and saw himself going through the door with Halldóra all those years ago when Eva Lind herself was born. Was she going to die at the very same place?

Erlendur stroked Eva's forehead, unsure about whether he dared moved her.

He thought she was seven months pregnant.

*

She had tried running away from him, but had given up long ago.

She had left him twice. Both times while they were still living in the basement flat on Lindargata. A whole year elapsed from the first time he beat her up until he lost control of himself again. That was what he called it. When he still talked about the violence he had inflicted on her. She never regarded it as losing control of himself. To her it seemed he never had more self-control than when he was beating the living daylights out of her and showering her with abuse. Even at the height of his frenzy he was cold and collected and sure of what he was doing. Always.