Meanwhile, Erlendur had ample time to absorb himself in his pet topic, the Falcon man. He realised full well that he had almost nothing to go on if he wanted a warrant to mount a full-scale search for a body on the brothers” land near Mosfellsbaer.
He decided to drop in on Marion Briem, whose condition was improving slightly. The oxygen tank was still at the ready but the patient looked better, talking about new drugs that worked better than the old ones and cursing the doctor for “not knowing his arse from his elbow’. Erlendur thought Marion Briem was getting back on form.
“What are you doing sniffing around here all the time?” Marion asked, sitting down in the chair. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Plenty,” Erlendur said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not having any luck dying,” Marion said. “I thought I might have died last night. Funny. Of course that can happen when you’re lying around with nothing to do but wait for death. I was certain it was all over.”
Marion sipped from a glass of water with parched lips.
“I suppose it’s what they call astral projection,” Marion said. “You know I don’t believe in that crap. It was a delirium while I dozed. No doubt brought on by those new drugs. But I was hovering up there,” Marion said, staring up at the ceiling, “and looked down on my wretched self. I thought I was going and was completely reconciled to it in my heart. But of course I wasn’t dying at all. It was just a funny dream. I went for a check-up this morning and the doctor said I was a bit brighter. My blood’s better than it’s been for weeks. But he didn’t give me any hope for the future.”
“What do doctors know?” Erlendur said.
“What do you want from me anyway? Is it the Ford Falcon? Why are you snooping around on that case?”
“Do you remember if the farmer he was going to visit near Mosfellsbaer had a brother?” Erlendur asked on the off chance. He did not want to tire Marion, but he also knew that his old boss enjoyed all things mysterious and strange.
Eyes closed, Marion pondered.
“That lazy bugger Niels talked about the brother being a bit funny.”
“He says he was a halfwit, but I don’t know what that means, exactly.”
“He was backward, if I remember correctly. Big and strong but with the mind of a child. I don’t think he could really speak. Just babbled nonsense.”
“Why wasn’t this investigation pursued, Marion?” Erlendur asked. “Why was it allowed to peter out? It would have been possible to do so much more.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The brothers” land should have been combed. Everyone took it for granted that the salesman never went there. No doubts were ever raised. It was all cut and dried; they decided the man committed suicide or left the city and would come back when it suited him. But he never did come back and I’m not certain that he killed himself.”
“You think the brothers killed him?”
“I’d like to look into that. The backward one’s dead but the elder brother’s at an old people’s home here in Reykjavik and I reckon he’d have been capable of attacking someone on the slightest pretext.”
“And what would that be?” Marion asked. “You know you have no motive. He was going to sell them a tractor. They had no reason to kill him.”
“I know,” Erlendur said. “If they did, it was because something happened out there when he called on them. A chain of events was set in motion, perhaps by sheer coincidence, which led to the man’s death.”
“Erlendur, you know better than that,” Marion said. “These are fantasies. Stop this nonsense.”
“I know I have no motive and no body and it was years ago, but there’s something that doesn’t fit and I’d like to find out what it is.”
“There’s always something that doesn’t gel, Erlendur. You can never balance all the columns. Life’s more complicated than that, as you of all people ought to know. Where was the farmer supposed to have got the Russian spying equipment to sink the body in Kleifarvatn?”
“Yes, I know, but that might be another, unrelated case.”
Marion looked at Erlendur. There was nothing new about detectives becoming absorbed in cases that they were investigating and then getting completely obsessed by them. It had often happened to Marion, who knew that Erlendur tended to take the most serious cases to heart. He had a rare sensitivity, which was both his blessing and his curse.
“You were talking about John Wayne the other day,” Erlendur said. “When we watched the western.”
“Have you dug that up?” Marion said.
Erlendur nodded. He had asked Sigurdur Oli, who knew about all things American and was a mine of information about celebrities.
“His name was Marion too,” Erlendur said. “Wasn’t it? You are namesakes.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Marion said. “Because of the way I am.”
26
Benedikt Jonsson, the retired agricultural-machinery importer, greeted Erlendur at the door and invited him in. Erlendur’s visit had been delayed. Benedikt had been to see his daughter who lived outside Copenhagen. He had just returned home and gave the impression he would have liked to stay longer. He said he felt very much at home in Denmark.
Erlendur nodded intermittently while Benedikt rambled on about Denmark. A widower, he appeared to live well. He was fairly short with small, fat fingers and a ruddy, harmless-looking face. He lived alone in a small, neat house. Erlendur noticed a new Mercedes jeep outside the garage. He thought to himself that the old businessman had probably been shrewd and saved up for his old age.
“I knew I’d end up answering questions about that man eventually,” Benedikt said when at last he got to the point.
“Yes, I wanted to talk about Leopold,” Erlendur said.
“It was all very mysterious. Someone was bound to start wondering in the end. I should probably have told you the truth at the time but…”
“The truth?”
“Yes,” Benedikt said. “May I ask why you’re enquiring about this man now? My son said you’d questioned him too and when I spoke to you on the phone you were rather cagey. Why the sudden interest? I thought you investigated the case and cleared it up back then. Actually, I was hoping you had.”
Erlendur told him about the skeleton found in Lake Kleifarvatn and that Leopold was one of several missing persons being investigated in connection with it.
“Did you know him personally?” Erlendur asked.
“Personally? No, I can hardly say that. And he didn’t sell much either, in the short time he worked for us. If I remember correctly he made a lot of trips outside the city. All my salesmen did regional work — we sold agricultural machinery and earth-moving equipment — but none travelled as much as Leopold and none was a worse salesman.”
“So he didn’t make you any money?” Erlendur said.
“I didn’t want to take him on in the first place,” Benedikt said.
“Really?”
“Yes, no, that’s not what I mean. They forced me to, really. I had to sack a damn good man to make room for him. It was never a big company.”
“Wait a minute, say that again. Who forced you to hire him?”
“They told me I mustn’t tell anyone so… I don’t know if I should be blabbing about it. I felt quite bad about all that plotting. I’m not one for doing things behind people’s backs.”
“This was decades ago,” Erlendur said. “It can hardly do any harm now.”
“No, I guess not. They threatened to move their franchise elsewhere. If I didn’t hire that bloke. It was like I’d got caught up in the Mafia.”
“Who forced you to take on Leopold?”