Hypothermia

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘There is no one else,’ his cousin said. ‘You’re the perfect person. You’re young and strong. There’s no heart disease of any kind in our family. Dagmar’s going to be in on it, and Baddi, another guy I know who’s studying medicine. I’ve talked to them already. It’s watertight. Nothing can happen. I mean, you’ve often wondered about it – you know, life after death.’

  Tryggvi knew who Dagmar was. He had noticed her as soon as he started medicine.

  ‘Dagmar?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ his cousin answered, ‘and she’s no fool.’

  Tryggvi knew that. She was his cousin’s friend and had once talked to him, at the first and only medical faculty party he had attended. She knew they were cousins. He had met her several times since and they had chatted. He thought she was lovely but he didn’t have the courage to take the next step.

  ‘Does she want to be in on this?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course,’ his cousin said.

  Tryggvi shook his head.

  ‘And naturally I’ll pay you,’ his cousin added.

  In the end Tryggvi gave in. He didn’t know exactly why he let them persuade him. He was always broke, he yearned to be with Dagmar. His cousin was extremely overbearing and moreover he had reawakened Tryggvi’s fascination with life after death. He knew about Tryggvi’s interest from when they were younger and used to discuss the existence of God, heaven and hell. They both came from deeply religious families who used to pack them off to Sunday school, were regular churchgoers and did good works in the parish. But the cousins were not particularly devout themselves when they grew up and began to have their doubts about various aspects of doctrine, such as the resurrection and eternal life and the existence of heaven. Tryggvi thought his decision to embark on a theology degree had stemmed from this. From his doubts, combined with the urgent questions that had pursued him all his life: what if? What if God existed? What if eternal life was true?

  ‘We’ve discussed it so often,’ his cousin said.

  ‘It’s one thing to talk about it . . .’

  ‘We’ve got this one minute. You’ll have one minute to go over to the other side.’

  ‘But I . . .’

  ‘You went into theology in search of answers to these questions,’ his cousin pointed out.

  ‘What about you?’ Tryggvi asked. ‘What do you want to prove by this?’

  His cousin smiled.

  ‘Nothing ever happens around here and no one ever does anything,’ he said. ‘At least, not like this. It would be exciting to test those stories about the bright light and the tunnel, because we can do it without taking too great a risk. We can do it.’

  ‘Why don’t you do it yourself? Why don’t we put you to sleep?’

  ‘Because we need a good doctor and with all due respect, coz, I’m a better doctor than you are.’

  Tryggvi read about the trial of the French medical students. They had successfully resuscitated their friend who had made a full recovery and by his own account had suffered no ill effects afterwards.

  The evening they put their plan into action was his cousin’s twenty-seventh birthday. They all met up at his place: the cousins, Dagmar and Baddi, and from there headed down to the hospital. Tryggvi’s cousin had prepared an empty room with a bathtub and brought in a cardiograph and defibrillator. Tryggvi lay down in the bath. It was filled with a constant flow of cold water and they had procured large bags of ice which they added to the tub.

  Gradually Tryggvi’s heartbeat slowed and he lost consciousness.

  ‘All I remember is coming round,’ Tryggvi said, watching an empty coach pulling up to the terminal. It had started to rain and the sky was overcast in the south. Rainwater streamed down the windows.

  ‘What happened?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Tryggvi said. ‘Nothing happened. I felt nothing, saw nothing. No tunnel, no light. No nothing. I fell asleep and woke up again. That was it.’

  ‘The experiment worked, then – they managed to . . . managed to put you to death?’

  ‘That’s what my cousin said.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He went to do postgraduate study in the States and has lived there ever since.’

  ‘And Dagmar?’

  ‘I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since . . . since then. I quit medicine. Quit university. Went to sea. I felt happier there.’

  ‘Were you unhappy?’

  Tryggvi didn’t answer.

  ‘Did they ever try it again?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Did you make a full recovery?’

  ‘There was nothing to recover from,’ Tryggvi said.

  ‘And no God?’

  ‘No God. No heaven. No hell. Nothing. My cousin was very disappointed in me.’

  ‘Were you expecting some answers?’

  ‘Maybe. We were all a bit high on the excitement.’

  ‘But nothing happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And there’s no more to tell?’

  ‘No. No more to tell.’

  ‘Are you sure? You’re not hiding something?’

  ‘No,’ Tryggvi said.

  They sat without talking for a while. The cafeteria was beginning to fill up with customers. They sat down with their trays or cups of coffee at the empty tables and picked up a paper to look at before going on their way. From time to time announcements were made over the tannoy.

  ‘Since then it’s been downhill all the way,’ Erlendur commented.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your life,’ Erlendur said. ‘It hasn’t exactly been easy.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with the stupid experiment, if that’s what you’re implying.’

  Erlendur shrugged.

  ‘You’ve been coming here for years, I gather. Sitting here by the window.’

  Tryggvi looked silently out through the glass and rain at something beyond the fading outline of the Reykjanes peninsula and Mount Keilir on the horizon.

  ‘Why do you sit here?’ Erlendur asked, so quietly as to be barely audible.

  Tryggvi looked at him.

  ‘Do you want to know what I felt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Peace. I felt at peace. Sometimes I feel as if I should never have come back.’

  There was a crash as someone dropped a glass over by the counter and fragments scattered all over the floor.

  ‘I experienced a strange sense of peace that I can’t describe, not to you or anyone else. Not even to myself. After that nothing mattered any more; not other people, not my studies, not my surroundings. Somehow life stopped mattering. I didn’t feel connected to it any longer.’

  Tryggvi paused. Erlendur listened to the rain mercilessly lashing the window.

  ‘And since that peace . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Erlendur said.

  ‘To tell the truth I haven’t experienced a moment’s peace since,’ Tryggvi said, watching the Keflavík bus pulling out of the forecourt. ‘I feel this constant need to be on the move, as if I’m waiting for something or someone’s waiting for me but I don’t know where and I don’t know who it is and I don’t know where I’m going.’

  ‘Who do you think you’re waiting for?’

  ‘I don’t know. You think I’m mad. People think I’m weird.’

  ‘I’ve met weirder people,’ Erlendur said.

  Tryggvi continued to watch the Keflavík bus.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asked again.

  ‘No,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘It’s a strange feeling, watching people leave,’ Tryggvi continued after a lengthy silence. ‘Watching them climb on to the buses and the buses driving away. People leaving, all day long.’

  ‘Do you never want to take a trip on them?’

  ‘No, I’d never go anywhere,’ Tryggvi said. ‘Not in a million years. I’d never go anywhere. I wouldn’t let myself be taken anywhere by bus. Where are those people going? Tell me th
at. Where are all those people going?’

  Afraid that Tryggvi was losing the plot, Erlendur tried to keep him on track a little longer. He looked at the dirty hands and elongated face and it occurred to him that this was probably the closest he would ever come to meeting a ghost.

  ‘So it was your cousin who now lives in America, a girl called Dagmar and another bloke you called Baddi. Who was he?’

  ‘I didn’t know him,’ Tryggvi said. ‘He was a friend of my cousin’s. I don’t even remember his proper name. He studied drama before he took up medicine. He was known as Baddi.’

  ‘Might his name have been Baldvin?’

  ‘Yes, that was it,’ Tryggvi said. ‘That was the name.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Tryggvi nodded, an unlit cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘And he’d been at drama school before?’

  Tryggvi nodded again.

  ‘He was a friend of my cousin’s,’ he said. ‘He was a real actor type. I trusted him least of the lot.’

  19

  The woman looked surprised when she opened the door to Erlendur. A gale had blown up, blasting cold, dry air from the north. Erlendur hugged his coat more tightly around him as he stood on the doorstep. He had not called ahead and the woman, whose name was Kristín, stood blocking the doorway, wearing an obstinate expression as if she had no intention of accepting this unannounced visit. Erlendur explained that he was trying to find some information about what had happened when María’s father had died. Kristín said she couldn’t help at all in that case.

  ‘Why are the police digging this up now?’ she asked.

  ‘Because of the suicide,’ Erlendur said. ‘We’re taking part in a joint Nordic study on the causes of suicide.’

  The woman stood in the doorway without speaking further. María’s father Magnús had been her brother. His friend Ingvar had suggested that Erlendur talk to her, since he thought it not unlikely that Leonóra might have told her something about Magnús’s fatal accident on Lake Thingvallavatn. Kristín lived alone. Ingvar said she had never married, had always lived alone and probably wasn’t that keen on visitors.

  ‘If I could just come in for a moment,’ Erlendur said, stamping his feet. He was cold. ‘It won’t take long,’ he added.

  After an awkward pause Kristín finally gave in. She closed the door behind them, with a shiver.

  ‘It’s unusually cold today,’ she remarked.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Erlendur replied.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re digging it up after all this time,’ she said again, seeming far from happy as she took a seat with him in the sitting room.

  ‘I’ve been talking to people who knew María well and some information has emerged that I wanted to run past you.’

  ‘Why are the police investigating María? Is it usual in cases like this?’

  ‘We’re not investigating her,’ Erlendur said. ‘We’re merely processing the information we’ve received. The incident at Lake Thingvallavatn was investigated at the time and the series of events is perfectly clear. I’m not going to look into that any further. The verdict of accidental death will stand unchanged.’

  ‘What are you after, then?’

  ‘Let me emphasise what I said: the verdict will not be changed.’

  Kristín still did not cotton on. She was in her sixties, pretty and rather fragile, with short, wavy hair. She stared at Erlendur with a suspicious gaze that indicated she was on her guard.

  ‘Then what do you want from me?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing you say to me now or later will change the verdict that your brother’s death was accidental. I hope you understand that.’

  Kristín took a deep breath. Perhaps she had begun to grasp what Erlendur was hinting at, but she didn’t show it.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not insinuating anything,’ Erlendur said. ‘I have no interest in reopening a case that has been dormant all this time. If Leonóra told you something we don’t know, it won’t change anything. You got on well, I gather.’

  ‘We did,’ Kristín said.

  ‘Did she ever talk to you about what happened?’

  Erlendur knew he was taking a risk. All he had to go on was a faint suspicion, a tiny inconsistency between what Ingvar had said and a badly written report, and a bond between mother and daughter that was deeper and more powerful than any he had ever encountered before. Kristín might conceivably know more if she had been Leonóra’s confidante. In the unlikely event that she had been keeping quiet about something all these years, she might, under certain circumstances, reveal it. She came across as an honest and scrupulous woman, a witness who might have done the only right thing in a difficult situation.

  A silence fell in the room.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Kristín asked at last.

  ‘Anything you can tell me,’ Erlendur said.

  Kristín stared at him.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, but her voice did not carry the same conviction.

  ‘I was told that your brother Magnús had never gone near an engine in his life and didn’t have the first clue about them. But the police report states that he had been tinkering with the motor the day before the accident. Is that correct?’

  Kristín did not answer.

  ‘His friend Ingvar – actually, he was the one who suggested I talk to you – said Magnús didn’t know a thing about engines and had never touched one in his life.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Leonóra told the police he had been repairing the outboard motor.’

  Kristín shrugged.

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘I spoke to an old friend of María’s who says she always had the feeling that something happened up at the lake that never came out, that Magnús’s death was not just a simple accident,’ Erlendur said. ‘She doesn’t have much to base her hunch on, only María’s comment that perhaps he was meant to die.’

  ‘Meant to die?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what María said. About her own father.’

  ‘What did she mean by that?’ Kristín asked.

  ‘Her friend didn’t know but perhaps she meant it was his fate to die that day. Though there’s another possible interpretation.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Perhaps he deserved to die.’

  Erlendur studied Kristín. She closed her eyes and her shoulders drooped.

  ‘Can you tell me something we don’t know about what happened at the lake?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘When you say that the verdict won’t be changed now . . .’

  ‘You can tell me whatever you like, it won’t change the original verdict.’

  ‘I’ve never spoken of this,’ Kristín said, so quietly that Erlendur could barely hear her. ‘Except when Leonóra was on her deathbed.’

  Erlendur could tell that she was finding this very difficult. She thought for a long time and he tried to put himself in her shoes. She hadn’t been expecting this visit, let alone the offer with which Erlendur had confronted her. But apparently she didn’t see any reason to distrust him.

  ‘I think I’ve got a little Aalborg left in the cupboard,’ she said at last, rising to her feet. ‘Would you like some?’

  Erlendur accepted the offer. She fetched two shot glasses, placed them on the table and filled them to the brim with the aquavit. She downed the first shot in one while Erlendur was still raising his to his mouth. Then she refilled her glass and promptly downed half of it.

  ‘Of course they’re both dead now,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So perhaps it won’t change anything.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I know nothing about any propeller,’ Kristín said. She sat in silence for a moment, then asked:

  ‘Why did María do it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Erlendur said.

&nbs
p; ‘Poor girl,’ Kristín said with a sigh. ‘I remember her so well before Magnús died. She was their little ray of sunshine. They didn’t have any more children and she grew up with boundless parental love. Then when my brother died on Lake Thingvallavatn it was as if the ground had been snatched from under her feet. From under both of them, both María and Leonóra. Leonóra was terribly in love with Magnús; he meant the world to her. And the girl was very attached to him too. That’s why I can’t understand it. I can’t understand what he was thinking of.’

  ‘He? You mean Magnús?’

  ‘After the accident they were inseparable. Leonóra was so protective of María that I felt she went too far. I felt she became overprotective. Hardly anyone else was allowed near María, least of all us, Magnús’s family. Our relationship with them gradually dwindled to nothing. In fact, Leonóra broke off all contact with us, the girl’s father’s family, after what happened at Thingvellir. I always found it very strange. But then I didn’t learn the truth until shortly before Leonóra died. She summoned me to meet her before she passed away; she was in the last stages by then, bed-bound and very weak, and knew that she had only a few days left to live. We hadn’t been in touch for . . . for quite a long time. She was in her room and asked me to shut the door and sit down beside her. She said she had something to tell me before she died. I didn’t know what to think. Then she started talking about Magnús.’

  ‘Did she tell you what happened at the lake?’

  ‘No, but she was angry with Magnús.’

  Kristín charged her glass with another shot of aquavit. Erlendur declined. She tipped the drink down her throat, before replacing the glass calmly on the table.

  ‘Now they’ve both gone, mother and daughter,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Erlendur replied.

  ‘They were almost like one person.’

  ‘What did Leonóra tell you?’

  ‘She told me that Magnús was going to leave her. He’d met another woman. I knew already. Magnús had told me at the time. That was why Leonóra summoned me. It was as if I had taken part in a conspiracy against her. She didn’t say it straight out but she made sure I felt it.’

  Erlendur hesitated.

  ‘So he was having an affair?’

  Kristín nodded.