‘Who’s “she”? What do you mean you’d met someone else? You’ll have to be clearer.’
‘A girl from Keflavík,’ said Mensalder. ‘I went out with her for a bit and she stole some dollars from me. I... she was a real bitch. This was a few months earlier. She worked on the base and used to go with the GIs. She was a real handful, kept getting into screaming matches with me and once it actually came to blows. After that she threatened to go to the police and say I’d attacked her — that I’d beaten her up and raped her. I was afraid she’d come forward if my name was linked to Dagbjört. So...’
‘What happened that morning?’ asked Erlendur. ‘What really happened?’
‘It was my idea to give her a lift to school,’ said Mensalder. ‘We were figuring out how and where to meet and I suggested I pick her up and drive her to school so she could collect the records and pay me at the same time. I was on my way out to Keflavík anyway. I could have let Rósanna take care of it and I’ve often thought since how much easier things would have been if only I’d done that. How my life might have turned out. But I... wanted to get to know Dagbjört. She was so... there was something so beautiful about her. So lovely. She was warm. A warm person. And I sensed she was interested in me too. There was... it was what she said, the way she said it. The way she smiled at me. I only met her that one time when I fetched the records from her house, and spoke to her once after that on the phone, but I immediately sensed there was some spark between us. Some connection. She was like that. She was giving. Kind. Took an interest in you.’
‘But you couldn’t just pick her up at her house?’
‘No, she was quite willing to accept a lift to school but insisted I meet her here. Perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with a black marketeer. I could understand that. And she’d have had a lot of explaining to do to her parents about who that man was waiting for her in the car outside her house first thing in the morning. We laughed about that.’
‘So it was all your idea from the beginning?’ said Erlendur. ‘To get in touch with her? To persuade her to meet you in secret? You prepared it well. You pretended you were going to drive her to school but took her somewhere else instead. Where? What happened? For God’s sake, what did you do to her?’
‘But that’s the whole point, I didn’t do anything!’ exclaimed Mensalder. ‘Not a thing! Haven’t you been listening to a word I said? The reason why I’ve never come clean about it?’
‘You said it was your idea to give her a lift. I assume you lured her into your car.’
‘This is just what I was afraid of,’ said Mensalder, extremely worked up by now. ‘Nobody’ll believe me. That’s why I’ve never dared tell. Because everyone would instantly come to the same conclusion as you. That I’d seduced her. That she owed me money for the goods and I wanted payment in kind. That I hit her, like that bitch in Keflavík accused me of. That I raped her. And killed her. All that rubbish.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Attack her?’
‘I didn’t touch her! I’m trying to explain. The only thing I did wrong was not coming clean. Not telling people that we’d been planning to meet but she never showed up.’
‘Because you were afraid you’d be blamed for her disappearance?’
‘Yes, that they’d pin it on me. Can’t you understand that?’
‘You didn’t dare take the risk?’
‘No, I didn’t want to take the rap. It was nothing to do with me. I wasn’t involved. All I regret is that I didn’t speak up when she went missing. I deeply regret that. Regret it every day.’
‘You’ve had plenty of opportunity over the years.’
‘I know,’ whispered Mensalder, his voice cracking. ‘Do you think I’m not aware of that? That I haven’t thought about it? I justified it to myself that it didn’t make any difference that I’d arranged to meet her. It didn’t change anything. I had no more idea than anyone else about where she’d gone.’
‘Why should the police believe you now? You’ve made your behaviour appear ten times more suspicious by your silence. Your long silence.’
‘I know! None of this is new to me. It was a vicious circle I could see no way out of. I was desperate. Didn’t know what to do. People would have pointed the finger at me for the rest of my life. I’d always be the murder suspect. What do you think that would’ve been like? I couldn’t bear the stigma. Couldn’t bear it. You may think I was a gutless coward but that’s how I felt.’
‘But if you weren’t responsible for her disappearance and she never came to meet you, something must have happened to her before she got here.’
‘It just doesn’t make sense,’ said Mensalder. ‘At one point I thought she must have done it deliberately. Taken her own life for some inexplicable reason. It was... I...’
Mensalder’s brow furrowed.
‘Or someone stopped us from meeting,’ he said at last.
‘Did anyone else know about it?’
‘No. No one. As far as I’m aware. I didn’t tell anyone.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not even Rósanna?’
‘No.’
‘You definitely didn’t tell anyone you were planning to meet?’
‘No. Or it would have come out during the search.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would,’ said Erlendur thoughtfully. ‘So if you’re not lying and she didn’t change her plans, something must have happened to her in the short distance between her house and here.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. It must have done.’
‘It’s not...’
‘What?’
‘No, it’s not far,’ said Erlendur, preoccupied, watching the steam brushing along the surface of the water, then mounting into the air and assuming a variety of strange shapes before dispersing and fading from view. And suddenly an image flashed into his mind, as it had so often during the last few days, of a garden suffering from years of neglect and a pair of furtive, protuberant eyes, peering from the shadows at the girl next door.
49
Marion had no idea what was happening. Roberts went outside again and the man who appeared to be in charge moved closer to them.
‘Don’t you feel you’re betraying your country?’ he asked Caroline.
‘We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we, Gates?’ she said. ‘If that’s your real name.’
‘My name is Oliver Gates, I’m a colonel in the 57th Fighter Squadron,’ the man said, smiling. ‘It’s my real name. I take care of security on the base.’
The door opened again and Roberts reappeared, this time pushing a soldier ahead of him, so roughly that the man fell on the floor. He got up slowly, a lanky young man with long arms and the regulation crew cut, nervously taking in his surroundings.
‘Come here, Private. No need to be afraid,’ said Colonel Gates. He turned to Caroline. ‘This is Private Matthew Pratt, a security guard on Hangar 885. I hear you’ve been asking questions about him. Private Pratt has confessed to his part in the affair. Two of his buddies, also guards on the hangar, were involved as well. We’ve already arrested one of them here on the base and have him in custody: Private Thomas Le Roy, twenty-five years old. We’re expecting the third man to enter the country shortly. He was responsible for killing the Icelander, according to his accomplices. It was his idea to abduct and murder the victim. We see no reason to doubt their testimony. They confirm what you already seem to know.’
The soldier stood awkwardly in the middle of the hangar floor.
‘Tell us who it was,’ ordered Colonel Gates, rounding on the soldier, who flinched. ‘Tell them what you told us, Private.’