“You told Sigurdur Oli that Benjamin didn’t know who got his fiancee pregnant,” Erlendur said guardedly. He wondered whether they may have jumped the gun and he cursed the pathologist in Spain. Perhaps they should have saved this visit for later. Waited for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Elsa said. “He didn’t know.” “We’ve heard that Solveig’s mother went to see him later and told him the story. When everything had blown over. After Solveig went missing.” Elsa’s expression changed to one of surprise. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “When was that?” “Later,” Erlendur said. “I don’t know exactly. Solveig kept quiet about the father of the child. For some reason, she kept quiet. Didn’t tell Benjamin what happened. Broke off their engagement and wouldn’t say who the father was. Possibly to protect her family. Her own father’s good name.”
“What do you mean, her father’s good name?” “His nephew raped Solveig when she was visiting his family in Fljot.”
Elsa slumped into her seat and instinctively put her hand to her mouth in shock. “I can’t believe it,” she sighed.
At the same time, at the other end of the city, Elinborg was telling Bara what had been found in the grave and that the most likely hypothesis was that it was the body of Solveig, Benjamin’s fiancee. That Benjamin had probably buried her there. Elinborg stressed that all the police had to go on was that he was the last person to see her alive and a child had been found with the skeleton on the hill. All further analysis of the bones was still pending.
Bara listened to Elinborg’s account without blinking. As usual, she was alone in her huge house, surrounded by wealth, and showed no reaction.
“Our father wanted her to have an abortion,” she said. “Our mother wanted to take her to the countryside, let her give the baby away and come back as if nothing had happened, then marry Benjamin. My parents talked it over for ages, then called Solveig in to see them.”
Bara stood up.
“Mother told me this later.”
She went over to an imposing oak sideboard, opened a drawer and took out a small white handkerchief which she dabbed against her nose.
“They presented the two options to her. The third option was never discussed. Namely, having the baby and making it part of our family. Solveig tried to persuade them, but they refused to hear a word of it. Didn’t want to know about it. Wanted to kill the baby or give it away. No alternatives.”
“And Solveig?”
“I don’t know,” Bara said. “The poor girl, I don’t know. She wanted the child, she wouldn’t think of doing anything else. She was just a child herself. She was no more than a child.”
Erlendur looked at Elsa.
“Could Benjamin have interpreted it as an act of betrayal?” he asked. “If Solveig refused to name the father of the child?”
“No one knows what passed between them at their last meeting,” Elsa said. “Benjamin told my mother the main points, but it’s impossible to know whether he mentioned every important detail. Was she really raped? My Lord!”
Elsa looked at Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli in turn.
“Benjamin may well have taken it as betrayal,” she said in a low voice.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Erlendur asked her.
“Benjamin may well have thought she betrayed him,” Elsa repeated. “But that doesn’t mean he murdered her and buried her body on the hill.”
“Because she kept quiet,” Erlendur said.
“Yes, because she kept quiet,” Elsa said. “Refused to name the father. He didn’t know about the rape. I think that’s quite certain.”
“Could he have had an accomplice?” Erlendur asked. “Maybe got someone to do the job for him?”
“I don’t follow.”
“He rented his chalet in Grafarholt to a wife-beater and a thief. That tells us nothing in itself, but it’s a fact all the same.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Wife-beater?”
“No, that’s probably plenty for now. Maybe we’re jumping to conclusions, Elsa. It’s probably best to wait for the pathologist’s report. Please excuse us if we…”
“No, by no means, no, thank you for keeping me informed. I appreciate that.”
“We’ll let you know how the case proceeds,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“And you have the lock of hair,” Elsa said. “For identification.”
Elinborg stood up. It had been a long day and she wanted to go home. She thanked Bara and apologised for disturbing her so late in the evening. Bara told her not to worry. She followed Elinborg to the door and closed it behind her. A moment later the bell rang and Bara opened it again.
“Was she tall?” Elinborg asked.
“Who?” Bara said.
“Your sister,” Elinborg said. “Was she unusually tall, average height or short? What kind of build did she have?”
“No, she wasn’t tall,” Bara said with a hint of a smile. “Far from it. She was strikingly short. Exceptionally petite. A wisp of a thing, our mother used to say. And it was funny seeing her and Benjamin walking along holding hands, because he was so tall that he towered over her.”
The district medical officer phoned Erlendur, who was sitting by his daughter’s bedside at the hospital just before midnight.
“I’m at the morgue,” the medical officer said, “and I’ve separated the skeletons. I hope I haven’t damaged anything. I’m no pathologist. There’s earth all over the tables and the floor, a filthy mess really.”
“And?” Erlendur said.
“Yes, sorry, well, we have the skeleton of the foetus, which was at least seven months old.”
“Yes,” Erlendur said impatiently.
“And there’s nothing odd about that. Except…”
“Go on.”
“It could well have been already born when it died. Or maybe stillborn. That’s impossible to tell. But it’s not the mother lying underneath it.”
“Hang on… What makes you say that?”
“It can’t be the mother lying under the child or buried with it, however you want to put it.”
“Not the mother? What do you mean? Who is it then?”
“There’s no doubt,” the medical officer said. “You can tell from the pelvis.”
“The pelvis?”
“The adult skeleton is a male. It was a man who was buried under the baby.”
27
The winter on the hill was long and tough.
The children’s mother kept on working at the Gufunes dairy and the boys took the school bus every morning. Grimur went back to delivering coal. After the racket was discovered, the army did not want to give him his old job again. The depot was closed and the barracks were moved en bloc down to Halogaland. Only the fencing and fence posts remained, and the concreted yard that had been in front of the barracks. The cannon was removed from the bunker. People said the war was nearing its end. The Germans were retreating in Russia and a major counter-offensive was said to be pending on the western front.
Grimur more or less ignored the children’s mother that winter. Hardly uttered a word, except to hurl abuse at her. They no longer shared a bed. The mother slept in Simon’s room, while Grimur wanted Tomas to stay in his. Everyone except Tomas noticed how her stomach slowly swelled during the winter until it protruded like a bitter-sweet memory of the events of the summer, and a terrifying reminder of what would happen if Grimur stuck to his threats.
She played down her condition as best she could. Grimur threatened her regularly. Said he would not let her keep the baby. He would kill it at birth. Said it would be a retard like Mikkelina and the best thing would be to kill it straight away. “Yank-fucker,” he said. But he did not physically assault her that winter. He kept a low profile, sneaking silently around her like a beast preparing to pounce on its prey.