Erlendur remembered the man from reception denying that there were prostitutes at the hotel, and thought to himself that he was probably the only member of the management who tried to safeguard the hotel’s reputation.
“But you’re trying to eliminate these conflicts, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Does he get in your way?”
Rosant did not answer.
“It was you who set that whore on him, wasn’t it? A little warning in case he was planning to say anything. You were out on the town, saw him and set one of your whores on him.”
Rosant stalled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated.
“No, I bet you don’t.”
“He’s just so awfully honest,” Rosant said, his moustache lifting alarmingly. “He refuses to understand that it’s better for us to run this ourselves.”
Valgerdur was waiting for Erlendur at the bar. As at their previous meeting, she was wearing light make-up that accentuated her features, with a white silk blouse under a leather coat. They shook hands and she gave a faltering smile. He wondered whether this meeting would be like a fresh start to their acquaintance. He couldn’t work out what she wanted from him, after apparently saying the final word about their friendship the time they met in the lobby. With a smile, she asked him if she could buy him a drink from the bar, or was he perhaps on duty?
“In films, cops aren’t supposed to drink if they’re on duty,” she said.
“I don’t watch films” Erlendur smiled.
“No,” she said. “You read books about pain and death.”
They took a seat in one corner of the bar and sat in silence, watching the people milling around. As Christmas drew closer, Erlendur felt that the guests were growing noisier, there were endless carols playing over the sound system, the tourists brought in gaudy parcels and drank beer as if unaware that it was the most expensive in Europe, if not the world.
“You managed to get a sample from Wapshott,” he said.
“What kind of guy is he anyway? They had to knock him to the floor and force his mouth open. It was awesome to see the way he acted, the way he fought them off inside his cell.”
“I can’t work him out really,” Erlendur said. “I don’t know exactly what he’s doing here and I don’t know exactly what he’s hiding.”
He didn’t want to go into details about Wapshott, nor talk about the child pornography and the sentences he had received in the UK for sex crimes. He didn’t feel that was an appropriate topic of conversation with Valgerdur, besides which Wapshott had the right, in spite of everything, that Erlendur did not go blathering about his private life to everyone he met.
“I expect you’re much more accustomed to this than I am,” Valgerdur said.
“I’ve never taken a saliva sample from a man who has been knocked to the floor and lies there screaming and shouting.”
Valgerdur laughed.
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t sat down by myself with a man other than my husband for — I guess it must be thirty years. So you have to excuse me if I act … sheepish.”
“I’m just as clumsy,” Erlendur said. “I don’t have much experience either. It’s almost a quarter of a century since I divorced my wife. You can count the women in my life on three fingers”
“I think I’m divorcing him,” Valgerdur said gloomily, looking at Erlendur.
“What do you mean? Divorcing your husband?”
“I think it’s over between us and I wanted to apologise to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes, you,” Valgerdur said. “I’m such an idiot,” she groaned. “I was going to use you to take revenge.”
“I don’t follow,” Erlendur said.
“I hardly know myself. It’s been awful ever since I found out.”
“What?”
“He’s having an affair.”
She said this just like any other fact she had to live with and Erlendur couldn’t discern how she felt, sensed only the emptiness behind her words.
“I don’t know when it started or why,” she went on.
Then she stopped talking and Erlendur, at a loss for something to say, kept silent as well.
“Did you cheat on your wife?” she suddenly asked.
“No,” Erlendur said. “It wasn’t like that. We were young and we weren’t compatible.”
“Compatible,” Valgerdur repeated after him, vacantly. “What’s that?”
“And you’re going to divorce him?”
“I’m trying to get my bearings,” she said. “It may depend on what he does.”
“What kind of an affair is it?”
“What kind? Is there any difference between affairs?”
“Has it been going on for years or has he just started? Has he had more than one maybe?”
“He says he’s been with the same woman for two years. I haven’t had the guts to ask him about the past, whether there were any others. That I never knew about. You never know anything. You trust your people, your husband, and the next thing you know is one day he starts talking about the marriage, then that he knows this woman and he’s known her for two years, and you’re like a total idiot. Don’t realise what he’s talking about. Then it turns out they’ve been meeting at hotels like this one …”
Valgerdur stopped.
“Is she married, this woman?”
“Divorced. She’s five years younger than him.”
“Has he given any explanation for the affair? Why he-?”
“Do you mean whether it’s my fault?” Valgerdur interjected.
“No, I didn’t mean …”
“Maybe it is my fault,” she said. “I don’t know. There have been no explanations. Just anger and incomprehension, I think.”
“And your two sons?”
“We haven’t told them. They’ve both left home. Not enough time for ourselves while they were there, too much time when they’d moved out. Maybe we didn’t know each other any longer. Two strangers after all those years.”
They fell silent.
“You don’t have to apologise to me for anything,” Erlendur said eventually, looking at her. “Far from it. I’m the one who should apologise for not being straight with you. For lying to you.”
“Lying to me?”
“You asked why I was interested in deaths in the mountains, in storms and up on the moors, and I didn’t tell you the truth. It’s because I’ve hardly ever talked about it and find it difficult, I suppose. I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business. Not my children’s business either. My daughter had a near-fatal experience and I thought she was going to die — it was only then that I felt the need to talk about it to her. To tell her about it”
“Talk about what?” Valgerdur asked. “Was it something that happened?”
“My brother froze to death,” Erlendur said. “When he was eight. He was never found and still hasn’t been found.”
He had told a complete stranger, a woman at a hotel bar, what had been weighing down his heart for almost as long as he could remember. Maybe it was a long-awaited dream. Maybe he did not want to wage that war any longer.
“There’s a story about us in one of those books on. tragedies that I’m always reading,” he said. “The story of what happened when my brother died, the search and the gloom and grief that engulfed our home. A remarkably accurate account actually, related by one of the leaders of the search party, which a friend of my father’s wrote down. All our names are given, it describes our household and my father’s reaction, which was considered strange because he was overwhelmed by total hopelessness and self-recrimination, and sat in his room rigid and staring into space while everyone else was searching for all they were worth. We weren’t asked permission when the account was published and my parents were extremely upset by it. I can show it to you some time if you want.”