Erlendur turned the handle, the door opened and he stepped inside. He knew precious little about the occupant. Only that his name was Haraldur and that he had moved off his land twenty years ago. When he gave up farming, before moving to the old people’s home, he had lived in a block of flats in the Hlidar quarter of Reykjavik. Erlendur gleaned some information about him from one member of staff, who told him that Haraldur was a crotchety old troublemaker. He had recently hit another resident with a walking stick and was rude to the staff. Most could not stand him.
“Who are you?” Haraldur asked when he saw Erlendur standing in the doorway. He was eighty-four years old, white-haired and with big hands turned stiff by physical labour. He sat on the edge of his bed in his woollen socks, his back bent and his head sunk deep between his shoulder blades. A scraggy beard covered half his face. The room smelled and Erlendur wondered whether Haraldur took snuff.
He introduced himself, saying that he was from the police. This seemed to fire Haraldur’s interest; he straightened up and looked Erlendur in the eye.
“What do the police want from me?” he asked. “Is it because I took a swing at Thordur at dinnertime?”
“Why did you hit Thordur?” Erlendur asked. He was curious.
“Thordur’s a wanker,” Haraldur said. “I don’t have to tell you about that. Get out and shut the door behind you. They’re always staring in at you all day long. Poking their noses into other people’s business.”
“I wasn’t going to talk to you about Thordur,” Erlendur said as he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
“Listen,” Haraldur said, “I don’t care for you strolling in here. What’s this supposed to mean? Get out. Just get out and leave me in peace!”
The old man straightened up, raised his head as far as he could and glared at Erlendur, who calmly sat down opposite him on the bed. It was still made and Erlendur imagined there was no point in offering anyone a room to share with grumpy old Haraldur. There were few personal articles in the room. On the bedside table were two dog-eared books of Einar Benediktsson’s poetry that had clearly been read over and again.
“Aren’t you comfortable here?” Erlendur asked.
“Me? What bloody business of yours is that? What do you want from me? Who are you? Why don’t you get out of here like I’ve been telling you?”
“You were connected with an old case of a missing person,” Erlendur said, and started to describe the man who sold farm machinery and diggers and owned a black Ford Falcon. Haraldur listened in silence to his account, without interrupting. Erlendur could not be sure whether Haraldur remembered what he was talking about. He mentioned how the police had asked Haraldur whether the man had been at the farm and he had flatly denied having met him.
“Do you remember this?” Erlendur asked.
Haraldur did not answer. Erlendur repeated the question.
“Uhhh,” Haraldur groaned. “He never came, the bugger. It was more than thirty years ago. I don’t remember any of it any more.”
“But you remember that he didn’t come?”
“Yes, what the hell, didn’t I just say that? Come on, piss off out! I don’t like having people in my room.”
“Did you keep sheep?” Erlendur asked.
“Sheep? When I was a farmer? Yes, I had a few sheep and horses, and about ten cows. Happy now?”
“You got a good price for the land,” Erlendur went on. “So close to the city.”
“Are you from the tax office?” Haraldur snarled. He looked down at the floor. Bent by manual labour and old age, it was an effort to lift his head.
“No, I’m from the police,” Erlendur said.
“They’re getting lots more for it now,” Haraldur said. “Those gangsters. Now the city extends right up to it, or as good as. They were bloody sharks who got the land off me. Bloody sharks. Get out of here!” he added angrily, raising his voice. “You ought to talk to those bloody sharks!”
“What sharks?” Erlendur asked.
“Those sharks,” Haraldur said. “They took my land for shit and sixpence.”
“What were you going to buy from him? The salesman who drove that black car?”
“Buy from him? A tractor. I needed a good tractor. I went to Reykjavik to check out their tractors and liked the look of them. I met that bloke there. He took my phone number and was always pestering me. They’re all the same, salesmen. Once they can tell you’re interested they never leave you alone. I told him I’d hear him out if he could be bothered to come out to see me. He said he had a few brochures. So I waited for him like an idiot but he never arrived. The next thing I knew, some clown like you phoned me to ask if I’d seen him. I told him what I’m telling you now. And that’s all I know, so you can bugger off.”
“He had a brand new Ford Falcon,” Erlendur said. “The man who was going to sell you the tractor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The funny thing is, that car’s still around and it’s even up for sale if they can find a buyer,” Erlendur said. “When the car was originally found, one of the hubcaps was missing. Do you know what could have happened to that hubcap?”
“What are you going on about?” Haraldur said, his head darting up to glare at Erlendur. “I don’t know a thing about him. And what are you going on about that car for? Where do I come into the picture?”
“I’m hoping that it can help us,” Erlendur said. “Cars like that can preserve evidence almost for ever. For instance, if this man did come to your farm and walked around the yard and inside the farmhouse, he might have carried away something on his shoes which is now in the car. After all those years. It might be something trivial. A grain of sand is enough if it’s the same type as in your farm. You understand what I’m saying?”
The old man looked silently at the floor.
“Is the farm still there?” Erlendur asked.
“Shut up,” Haraldur said.
Erlendur inspected the room. He knew virtually nothing about the man sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him, except that he was nasty and foul-mouthed and that his room smelled. He read Einar Benediktsson but Erlendur thought to himself that, unlike the poet, he had probably never in his lifetime “turned darkness into the light of day’.
“Did you live alone out there on the farm?”
“Get out, I said!”
“Did you have a housekeeper?”
“We were two brothers. Joi’s dead. Now leave me alone.”
“Joi?” Erlendur did not recall any mention of anyone other than Haraldur in the police reports. “Who was he?” he asked.
“My brother,” Haraldur said. “He died twenty years ago. Now get out. For God’s sake, bugger off out of here and leave me alone!”
17
He opened the box of letters and removed them one by one, read some of the envelopes and put them to one side, opened others and slowly read them through. He had not looked at the letters for years. They had come from Iceland, from his parents and sister and comrades in the party’s youth movement who wanted to know about life in Leipzig. He remembered the letters he wrote in reply describing the city, the reconstruction and the morale there, and how it had all been in positive terms. He wrote about the collective spirit of the proletariat and socialist solidarity, all that dead, cliche?ridden rhetoric. He wrote nothing about the doubts that were beginning to stir within him. He never wrote about Hannes.
He delved deeper into the pile. There was a letter from Rut and beneath it the message from Hannes.
And there, at the bottom of the pile, were the letters from Ilona’s parents.
He hardly thought about anything other than Ilona during the first weeks and months that they were together. Having little money, he lived frugally and tried to please her with small presents. One day, when his birthday was approaching, he received a package from Iceland, including a pocket edition of Jonas Hallgrimsson’s poems. He gave the volume to her and told her that it was by the poet who had written the most beautiful words in the Icelandic language. She said she looked forward to learning Icelandic from him so that she could read them. She said she had nothing to give him in return. He smiled and shook his head. He had not told her it was his birthday.