Bakkasel was once a tenant croft near the head of the Eskifjordur valley, on the old mountain path to Fljotsdalsherad. It is now abandoned, but in the middle of the century Sveinn Erlendsson farmed there with his wife Aslaug Bergsdottir and their two sons, of eight and ten years old. Sveinn kept a few sheep . . .
Erlendur stopped reading.
“Marion?” he whispered.
A deep silence spread over the ward. The early darkness of winter had descended upon the city, which was transforming into a glittering sea of lights. Erlendur saw his own reflection in the window overlooking the hospital garden. The large pane of glass was like a muted painting, a still-life portraying them at the final moment. He stared into the window until he confronted his own face, and the image became like the closing lines of a poem that crept into his mind.
. . . Am I the one, who lives on, or the other, who died?
Erlendur returned to his senses when the little mirror fell to the floor and broke. He clasped the limp hand and checked the pulse. Marion had departed from this world.
15
Erlendur drove the Ford Falcon into a parking space in front of the block of flats where he lived. He left the engine running for a while before switching it off. Although old, the car ran like clockwork and purred cosily in low gear. Erlendur was very fond of his Ford and sometimes, when he had nothing else to do, he would go for a drive outside the city. He had never done that before. Once he had invited Marion out for a drive, to Lake Kleifarvatn. Erlendur drove Marion down to the lakeside and told him about the conclusion to a case he had been investigating. A skeleton had been discovered on the bed of the lake and was linked to a group of Icelanders who had studied in the former East Germany in the 1960s. Marion took a particular interest in that. Erlendur wanted to do something for Marion in his ex-boss’s illness. He knew that when the moment of death drew near, there was no one else that the cancer victim could depend upon.
Pulling a face at the recollection, he stroked the thin, ivory-coloured steering wheel. He would never see Marion again. All that remained were memories, fairly mixed ones at that. He thought about his own time on this earth, how brief it was before new generations took over, to be swept even further into the future. His time had gone by without his noticing it, lacking as he did all contact with anything but work. Before he knew it he would be lying in a ward like Marion Briem, staring death in the face.
Erlendur was not aware of any claims to the body. Marion had once asked him to handle the funeral arrangements. He had discussed the next steps with a nurse.
On his way home from the hospital Erlendur had called on Sunee. Her brother was with her, and the interpreter Gudny, who was leaving when Erlendur arrived. He accepted her offer to stay.
“Is it anything special?” Gudny asked. “Any news?”
“No, not yet,” Erlendur said, and Gudny conveyed the fact to Sunee.
“Does she want to tell me where Niran is?” he asked.
Gudny spoke to Sunee who shook her head, staring obstinately at Erlendur.
“She thinks he’s better off where he is. She wants to know when she can have Elias’s body.”
“Very soon,” Erlendur said. “This case is top priority and his earthly remains will only be kept while the investigation is on-going.”
Erlendur sat in an armchair beneath the yellow dragon. The atmosphere in the flat was calmer than before. The brother and sister sat side by side on the sofa. They both smoked. Erlendur had not seen Sunee smoke before. She did not look well, with bags under her eyes, at once grief-stricken and anxious.
“How have you liked living in this neighbourhood?” Erlendur asked.
“It’s a good place to live,” Sunee said through Gudny. “It’s a very quiet area.”
“Have you got to know your neighbours, in the other flats?”
“A little.”
“Have you run into trouble with anyone because you’re from Thailand? Been aware of any racial prejudice or hostility?”
“A tiny bit if I go out to a bar.”
“What about your boys?”
“Elias never complained. But there was one teacher he didn’t like.”
“Kjartan?”
“Yes.”
“Why not?”
“He liked school but didn’t like the Icelandic lessons when Kjartan taught him.”
And what about Niran?”
“He wants to go home.”
“Home to Thailand?”
“Yes. I want him with me. It was difficult for him to come here but I want him with me.”
“Odinn wasn’t pleased to find out about Niran so long after you had got married.”
“No.”
“Was that the reason for your divorce?”
Sunee listened to Gudny translate the question. Then she looked at Erlendur.
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe that was one reason. They never got on together.”
“I’d like to find out about your boyfriend,” Erlendur said. “What can you tell me about him? Did he come between you and Odinn?”
“No,” Sunee said. “It was all over between Odinn and me when he entered the picture.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s my good friend.”
“Why won’t you tell us anything about him?”
Sunee did not reply.
“Is it because he doesn’t want you to?”
Sunee said nothing.
“Is he shy about this relationship in some way?”
Sunee looked at him. She seemed poised to answer him, then stopped.
“Is Niran with him?”
“Don’t ask about him,” she said. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”
“It’s important for us to talk to Niran,” Erlendur said. “Not because we think he did anything wrong, but because he might know something useful to us. Will you think about it until tomorrow?”
Gudny passed on this request but Sunee did not reply.
“Do you ever miss Thailand?” Erlendur asked.
“I’ve been there twice since Elias was born,” Sunee said. “My family will come over for the funeral. It will be nice to see them again but I don’t miss Thailand.”
“Are you going to have Elias buried here?”
“Of course.”
Sunee went quiet.
“I just want to live here in peace,” she said after a long pause. “I came here in hope of a better life. I thought I’d found it. I knew nothing about Iceland before I came here. I didn’t even know it existed. It was the country of my dreams. Then this happens, this horrible thing. Maybe I will go back. Niran and I. Maybe we don’t belong here.”
“We’ve heard from a very unreliable source, so we’re not attaching much importance to it, that Niran goes around with boys who are involved with drugs.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Do you know what a debt collector is?”
Sunee nodded.
“Has Niran been in any trouble with them?”
“No,” Gudny said after Sunee had spoken. “Niran never goes near drugs. Whoever said that is lying.”
Erlendur switched off the car engine outside the block of flats where he lived and stepped out into the chill winter. He pulled his overcoat tightly around him and walked slowly over to the block. Inside the dark flat, he turned on a lamp. Now there was no moon riding past the window, the sky was overcast and the wind howled past the walls of the building.
He did not know how long he had been sitting thinking about Marion when he heard a tap at his door. He thought he had fallen asleep, but could not be sure. He stood up and opened the door. A figure stepped quietly out of the shadowy corridor and greeted him. It was Eva Lind.