At first it was merely an exciting digression from the routine, according to the husband. It was easy for them to meet. She was in the habit of travelling and he could always make up excuses, such as playing golf, which his wife was not interested in. Occasionally he even bought a cup and had it engraved with an inscription such as “Borgarholt Tournament, 3rd prize’, to show to his wife. He found it amusingly ironic. He played golf a lot but rarely won anything.
Erlendur stubbed out his cigarette. He remembered the trophies at the man’s house. He had not thrown them away, and Erlendur wondered why not. They had only been the props for a lie and as such were now superfluous. Unless he kept on lying and told willing listeners that he had won them. Perhaps he kept them as mementos of a successful affair. If he was capable of lying to his wife and having an imaginary triumph engraved on a prize cup, could there be any limit to his lies?
This was the question Erlendur had been wrestling with ever since the man telephoned to report his wife missing. What had begun as a kind of yearning for adventure or change, or even blind love, had ended in tragedy.
Erlendur was startled from his speculations by a knock on the car window. He could not see who was there for the condensation that had built up on the glass, so he opened the door. It was Elinborg.
“I must be getting home,” she said.
“Just get in for a minute,” Erlendur said.
“Mad bugger,” she groaned as she walked round the front of the car and got into the passenger seat.
“What are you doing alone out here in your car?” she asked after a silence.
“I was thinking about the woman who went missing,” Erlendur said.
“You know she committed suicide,” Elinborg said. “We only have to find the body. It’ll be discovered on the beach in Reykjanes next spring. She’s been missing for more than three weeks. No one knows where she is. No one’s hiding her. She hasn’t been in touch with anyone. She had no money on her and we can’t see any card transactions anywhere. She definitely didn’t leave the country. The only trail leads down to the sea.”
Elinborg paused.
“Unless you think her new husband killed her.”
“He had fake trophies made,” Erlendur said. “He knew his ex-wife wasn’t interested in golf, never read about any kind of sports and never talked about golf to anyone. She told me so. And he didn’t show the cups to anyone but her, because he needed to make up an alibi. Not until afterwards. Once he was divorced he started showing them off. If that isn’t being amoral…”
“Are you concentrating on him now?”
“We always come back to the same thing,” Erlendur said.
“Missing persons and crimes,” said Elinborg, who had often heard Erlendur describe disappearances as a “distinctively Icelandic crime’. His theory was that Icelanders were indifferent about people who went missing. In the great majority of cases they believed there were “natural” explanations, in a country with a fairly high suicide rate. Erlendur went further and linked the nonchalance about disappearances to a certain popular understanding, extending back for centuries, about conditions in Iceland, the harsh climate in which people died of exposure and vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up. Nobody was better acquainted than Erlendur with stories of people who had frozen to death in bad weather. His theory was that crimes were easy to commit under the cover of this indifference. At his meetings with Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli and other detectives he had tried to fit the woman’s disappearance to his theory, but his words fell on deaf ears.
“Get yourself home,” Erlendur said. “Take care of your little girl. Has Sunee come back?”
“Yes, they’ve just got here,” Elinborg said. “Odinn was with them but I think he’s left again. Niran is still missing. Oh God, I hope nothing has happened to him.”
“I think he’ll turn up,” Erlendur said.
“You and your missing persons,” Elinborg said, opening the door. “Are you in contact with your daughter these days?”
“Get yourself home,” Erlendur said.
“I was talking to Gudny, the interpreter. She says Sunee emphasised that her boys should be brought up, as she was, to show respect for older people. That’s one of the fundamentals in the Thai upbringing and remains part of them all their lives. Responsibility is another point. The old people, the grandparents and great-grandparents, are the heads of the extended family. Older people pass on their experience to the younger ones, who are supposed to ensure their security in old age. It’s not an obligation but something they take for granted. And the children are …” Elinborg sighed heavily as she thought of Elias.
“She says that in Thailand, grown-ups stand up for children on buses and give them their seats.”
They were silent.
“This is all so new to us. Immigrants, racial issues… we know so little about it,” Erlendur said eventually.
“That’s true. But I do think we’re trying our best”
“Doubtless. Now get yourself home.”
“See you tomorrow,” Elinborg said, then stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind her.
Erlendur wished he had another cigarette. He dreaded having to go back to see Sunee. He thought about his daughter, Eva Lind. She had dropped in at Christmas but he had not seen her since. The man she was with had been sent to prison just before the Christmas holidays and she thought Erlendur could do something about it. Her partner supplied her with dope. He was given three years for smuggling cocaine and ecstasy into the country and Eva foresaw hard times while he was in confinement.
Eva and Erlendur’s relationship had gone from bad to worse recently. Erlendur could not really see why. For a long time, Eva had shown no willingness to cut back on her drug habit and had distanced herself from him. She had been in rehab, but not of her own accord, and when that was over she immediately slipped back into her old ways. Sindri, her brother, tried to help her, but to no avail. The siblings” relationship had always been close. But it was up and down between Erlendur and Eva, generally depending on Eva’s mood. Sometimes she was fine, talked to her father and let him know how she was coping. At other times she had no contact and did not want anything to do with him.
Erlendur locked the Ford and looked up to the top of the six-storey block of flats that towered menacingly into the darkness. He made a mental note to talk to the landlord in case he could shed any light on Sunee and the boys” circumstances. Yet again he delayed going up to her, and instead walked round to the back of the block and into the garden. The search of the crime scene had been completed. Forensics had packed up their equipment and everything was as before, as if nothing had ever happened at the site.
He walked out to the swings. The frost bit his face and he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stood motionless for a long time. Earlier that day he had heard that his old boss from the Reykjavik CID, Marion Briem, had been admitted to the terminal ward of the National Hospital. It was many years since Marion had retired, and now the life was slowly ebbing from his old colleague. Their relationship could hardly be described as friendship. Erlendur had always been rather irritated by Marion, probably because Marion was almost the only person in his life who did not tire of asking questions and forcing Erlendur to justify himself. Marion was also one of the most inquisitive creatures ever to walk the earth, a living database of Icelandic crime, and had often proved useful to Erlendur, even in retirement. Marion had no relatives. Erlendur came closest to being at once friend, colleague and family.
A freezing wind pierced Erlendur’s clothes as he stood by the swings where Elias had died, and his mind roamed over the mountains and moors to another child who had once slipped from his grasp and now followed him through life like a sad shadow.