Erlendur now had a better appreciation of why Karen had come to see him at the police station after her close friend’s suicide and had claimed that there must have been something more to it than bottomless despair.
‘What did you think of the seance?’ Karen asked.
‘Did you know about her going to this seance?’ he asked, evading the question.
‘I drove her there,’ Karen said. ‘The medium’s called Andersen.’
‘Apparently Leonóra was going to let María know if she found herself in some sort of afterlife,’ Erlendur said.
‘I don’t see anything odd about that,’ Karen said. ‘We often discussed it, María and I. She told me about Proust. How do you explain something like that?’
‘Well, there are a number of possible explanations,’ Erlendur said.
‘You don’t believe in that sort of thing, do you?’ Karen said.
‘No,’ Erlendur replied. ‘But I understand María. I can well understand why she chose to speak to a medium.’
‘A lot of people do believe in life after death.’
‘Yes,’ Erlendur said, ‘but I’m not one of them. What people on the point of death describe as a bright light and tunnel are to my mind nothing more than the brain sending out its final messages before shutting down.’
‘María thought differently.’
‘Did she tell anyone else apart from you about the Proust business?’
‘I don’t know.’
Karen sat staring at Erlendur as if wondering whether he was the right man to talk to, whether she had made a mistake. Erlendur met her gaze. The light in the room was fading.
‘There’s probably no point telling you what María told me only a short while ago.’
‘You needn’t tell me anything unless you want to. The fact of the matter is that your friend took her own life. You may find it hard to face up to – but then, a lot of things happen in this world that we find it hard to reconcile ourselves to.’
‘I’m perfectly well aware of that and I know how María felt after Leonóra died but I still find it a bit odd.’
‘What?’
‘María said she’d seen her mother.’
‘You mean after Leonóra died?’
‘Yes.’
‘Saw her at a seance?’
‘No.’
‘I gather María used to see a lot of things and was petrified of the dark.’
‘I know all that,’ Karen said. ‘This was slightly different.’
‘How?’
‘María woke up one night several weeks ago to find Leonóra standing at the bedroom door, dressed in summer clothes with a ribbon in her hair and wearing a yellow jumper. She beckoned her to follow her out of the room. Then she vanished round the doorpost and when María came out she was nowhere to be seen.’
‘You can see what a strain the poor woman was under,’ Erlendur commented.
‘I would be wary of judging her,’ Karen said. ‘You heard on the tape how Leonóra meant to make contact?’
‘Yes,’ Erlendur said.
‘And?’
‘And nothing. The book must have fallen on the floor. It happens.’
‘Precisely that book?’
‘Perhaps she had taken it out herself and forgotten. Perhaps she told Baldvin about the book and he took it out and then forgot. Perhaps she told some visitor and they fiddled with the book. She told you about it.’
‘Yes, but I would never have dropped the book on the floor and left it there,’ Karen pointed out.
‘I believe in coincidence,’ Erlendur said. ‘Anyway, Leonóra’s apparition seems to have been prowling round the house, large as life. I’d have thought that would have been more than sufficient as proof of life after death. María’s old boyfriend said she was forever seeing things in some kind of dream state; people she knew and so on.’
There was a long silence.
‘Anyway, so you know the identity of the medium on the tape?’ Erlendur said at last.
‘Yes. He’s not very well known. I directed María to him. I heard about him from another friend of mine who went to see him.’
‘How did the recording end up with you?’
‘María lent it to me the other day. I was curious to listen to a seance because I’ve never been to a medium myself.’
‘Do you know if she went to see any other psychics?’
‘Apart from this one, there was another whom she saw very recently. Just before she died.’
‘Who was that?’
‘María said the medium knew everything about her. Literally everything. She said it was unbelievable. It was one of my last conversations with her. I knew she wasn’t in a good way but I didn’t know she was that far gone.’
‘Do you know who the psychic was?’
‘No, she didn’t tell me but I got the impression that María liked and trusted her.’
‘So it was a woman?’
‘Yes.’
Karen sat in silence, staring out of the large sitting-room window into the dusk.
‘Have you heard what happened at Lake Thingvallavatn?’ she asked out of the blue.
‘Yes, I’ve heard.’
‘I’ve always had the feeling that something went on at the lake that has never come to light,’ Karen said.
‘Such as?’ Erlendur asked.
‘María never referred to it explicitly but she was haunted by something. Something from her past that she would never talk about, connected to that terrible accident.’
‘Do you know Thorgerdur who studied history with her?’
‘Yes, I know who she is.’
‘She spoke along similar lines and thinks it might have been linked to María’s father. As if he was meant to die. Does that sound familiar?’
‘No. “As if he was meant to die”?’
‘It was something that María let slip; it could mean anything.’
‘As if his time had come?’
‘Possibly. In the sense that it was his fate to die that day and that nothing could have changed it.’
‘I never heard her say anything like that.’
‘One could also put another construction on her words,’ Erlendur said.
‘You mean… as if he had deserved it?’
‘Possibly, but why?’ Erlendur asked.
‘That it wasn’t an accident? That…’
Karen stared at Erlendur.
‘That it wasn’t an accident?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ Erlendur answered. ‘The case was investigated at the time. We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Then years later someone quotes this remark of María’s. Did she ever say anything of the sort in your hearing?’
‘No, never,’ Karen said.
‘There’s a voice that comes through on the recording of the seance,’ Erlendur went on.
‘Yes?’
‘A deep masculine voice that tells María to be careful, that she doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she have any explanation for that?’
‘The voice reminded her of her father.’
‘Yes, that’s clear on the tape.’
‘All I know is that something happened at the lake. I sensed it so often from her behaviour. Something connected to her father Magnús – that she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone.’
‘Tell me something else: have you ever heard of a man called Tryggvi who studied medicine at the same time as Baldvin?’
Karen thought, then shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know of any Tryggvi.’
‘Did María never mention the name?’
‘I don’t think so. Who is he?’
‘All I know is that he was at university with Baldvin,’ Erlendur said, deciding not to reveal what Orri Fjeldsted had told him about Tryggvi.
Erlendur left shortly afterwards. Karen watched him get into his car, an old black model with round rear lights in the parking lot. She didn’t recognise the make. But instead of starting the engine and driving away, he sat tight. Before long cigarette smoke began to curl out of the driver’s window. It was forty minutes before the round lights finally came on and the car moved slowly away.