“Wasn’t his disappearance ever investigated as a criminal matter?” Elinborg said.
“No,” Kristin said.
“Tell me something else: was your husband a radio ham?” Erlendur asked.
“A radio ham? What’s that?”
“To tell the truth I’m not quite sure myself,” Erlendur said, looking to Elinborg for help. She sat and said nothing. “They’re in radio contact with people all around the world,” Erlendur continued. “You need, or used to need, a quite powerful transmitter to broadcast your signal. Did he have any equipment like that?”
“No,” the woman said. “A radio ham?”
“Was he involved in telecommunications?” Elinborg asked. “Did he own a radio transmitter or…?”
Kristin looked at her.
“What did you find in that lake?” she asked with a look of astonishment. “He never owned a radio transmitter. What kind of transmitter, anyway?”
“Did he ever go fishing in Kleifarvatn?” Elinborg continued without answering her. “Or know anything about it?”
“No, never. He wasn’t interested in angling. My brother’s a keen salmon fisherman and tried to get him to go along, but he never would. He was like me in that. We never wanted to kill anything for sport or fun. We never went to Kleifarvatn.”
Erlendur noticed a beautifully framed photograph on a shelf in the living room. It showed Kristin with a young boy, whom he took to be her fatherless son, and he started thinking about his own son, Sindri. He had not realised at once why he had dropped by. Sindri had always avoided his father, unlike Eva Lind who wanted to make him feel guilty for ignoring her and her brother in their childhood. Erlendur had divorced their mother after a short marriage and as the years wore on he increasingly regretted having had any contact with his children.
They shook hands embarrassedly on the landing like two strangers; he let Sindri in and made coffee. Sindri said he was looking for a flat or a room. Erlendur said he didn’t know of any vacant places but promised to tell him if he heard of anything.
“Maybe I could stay here for the time being,” Sindri said, looking at the bookcase in the living room.
“Here?” Erlendur said in surprise, appearing in the kitchen doorway. The purpose behind Sindri’s visit dawned on him.
“Eva said you had a spare room that’s just full of old junk.”
Erlendur looked at his son. There was indeed a spare room in his flat. The old junk Eva had mentioned was his parents” effects, which he kept because he could not bring himself to throw it out. Items from his childhood home. A chest full of letters written by his parents and forebears, a carved shelf, piles of magazines, books, fishing rods and a heavy old shotgun that his grand-father had owned, broken.
“What about your mother?” Erlendur said. “Can’t you stay with her?”
“Of course,” Sindri said. “I’ll just do that, then.”
They fell silent.
“No, there’s no space in that room,” Erlendur said eventually. “So… I don’t know…”
“Eva’s stayed here,” Sindri said.
His words were followed by a deep silence.
“She said you’ve changed,” Sindri said in the end.
“What about you?” Erlendur asked. “Have you changed?”
“I haven’t touched a drop for months,” Sindri said. “If that’s what you mean.”
Erlendur snapped out of his thoughts and sipped his coffee. He looked away from the photograph on the shelf and over at Kristin. He wanted a cigarette.
“So the boy never knew his father,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Elinborg glaring at him, but pretended not to notice. He was well aware that he was prying into the private life of a woman whose husband’s mysterious disappearance more than thirty years before had never been satisfactorily resolved. Erlendur’s question was irrelevant to the police investigation.
“His stepfather has treated him well and he has a very good relationship with his brothers,” she said. “I can’t see what that has to do with my husband’s disappearance.”
“No, sorry,” Erlendur said.
“I don’t think there’s anything else, then,” Elinborg said.
“Do you think it’s him?” Kristin asked, standing up.
“I don’t think it’s very likely,” Elinborg said. “But we need to look into it more closely.”
They stood still for an instant as if something remained to be said. As if something was in the air that needed to be put into words before their meeting would be over.
“A year after he went missing,” Kristin said, “a body was washed ashore on Snaefellsnes. They thought it was him but it turned out not to be.”
She clasped her hands.
“Sometimes, even today, I think he might be alive. That he didn’t die at all. Sometimes I think he left us and moved to the countryside — or abroad — without telling us, and started a new family. I’ve even caught glimpses of him here in Reykjavik. About five years ago I thought I saw him. I followed this man around like an imbecile. It was in the shopping centre. Spied on him until I saw that of course it wasn’t him.”
She looked at Erlendur.
“He went away, but all the same… he’ll never go away,” she said with a sad smile playing across her lips.
“I know,” Erlendur said. “I know what you mean.”
When they got into the car Elinborg scolded Erlendur for his callous question about Kristin’s son. Erlendur told her not to be so sensitive.
His mobile rang. It was Valgerdur. He’d been expecting her to get in touch. They had met the previous Christmas when Erlendur had been investigating a murder at a hotel in Reykjavik. She was a biotechnician and they had been in a very on-off relationship since then. Her husband had admitted to having an affair but when it came to the crunch he did not want to end their marriage; instead he had humbly asked her to forgive him and promised to mend his ways. She maintained that she was going to leave him, but it had not happened yet.
“How’s your daughter doing?” she asked, and Erlendur told her briefly about his visit to Eva Lind.
“Don’t you think it’s helping her, though?” Valgerdur asked. “That therapy?”
“I hope so, but I really don’t know what will help her,” Erlendur said. “She’s back in exactly the same frame of mind as just before her miscarriage.”
“Shouldn’t we try to meet up tomorrow?” Valgerdur asked him.
“Yes, let’s meet up then,” Erlendur agreed, and they said goodbye.
“Was that her?” Elinborg asked, aware that Erlendur was in some kind of relationship with a woman.
“If you mean Valgerdur, yes, it was her,” Erlendur said.
“Is she worried about Eva Lind?”
“What did forensics say about that transmitter?” Erlendur asked, to change the subject.
“They don’t know much,” Elinborg said. “But they do think it’s Russian. The name and serial number were filed off but they can make out the outline of the odd letter and think it’s Cyrillic.”
“Russian?”
“Yes, Russian.”
There were a couple of houses at the southern end of Kleifarvatn and Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli gathered information about their owners. They telephoned them and asked in general terms about missing persons who could be linked to the lake. It was fruitless.
Sigurdur Oli mentioned that Elinborg was busy preparing for the publication of her book of recipes.
“I think it’ll make her famous,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Does she want to be?” Erlendur asked.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Cobblers,” Erlendur said.
6
Sigurdur Oli read the letter, the last testimony of a young man who had walked out of his parents” house in 1970 and had never come back.