Hypothermia

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Thorbergur stared at him.

  ‘Hang on – are you expecting me to drop everything and go this minute?’

  ‘Well, maybe not before lunch.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘I . . . just whenever you can. Do you think you could do this for me?’

  ‘Do I have any choice?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Erlendur said. ‘Call me.’

  Erlendur had some difficulty locating the holiday cottage and drove past the turning twice before finally catching sight of the sign, which had almost been obscured by low-growing scrub: ‘Sólvangur’. He took the turning, drove down to the lake and parked by the cottage.

  This time he knew what he was looking for. He was alone and had told nobody what he was doing. He wouldn’t do so until the case was solved, if it ever was. It was still too vague; he still lacked evidence; he himself was still unsure whether he was doing the right thing.

  He had talked to the police pathologist who’d performed the post-mortem on María and had asked if she had taken any sleeping pills shortly before the time of her death. The pathologist said he had found a small amount of a sleeping drug but nowhere near enough to explain her death. Erlendur asked if it was possible to calculate how long before her death María had taken the drug but the answer he received was inconclusive. Possibly the same day.

  ‘Do you think a crime’s been committed?’ the pathologist asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Not really?’

  ‘Did you find any burn marks on her chest?’ Erlendur asked tentatively.

  The pathologist had the post-mortem report open in front of him. They were sitting in his office. He looked up from the document.

  ‘Burn marks?’

  ‘Or bruises of any kind,’ Erlendur added hurriedly.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘I hardly know.’

  ‘You’d have been informed if we’d found burn marks,’ the pathologist said dismissively.

  Erlendur did not have the keys to the holiday cottage but that didn’t matter; his interest was in the veranda, more specifically in the hot tub and its distance from the water’s edge. The lake was covered by a thin film of ice and the waves clinked against the frosted rocks of the shore. A short distance away a small sandbank extended into the water, intersected by a rivulet that was now frozen. Erlendur took out a sample jar that Valgerdur had lent him and filled it with water from the lake. He paced out the distance from the lakeside to the veranda, five paces, then from the end of the veranda to the hot tub; six paces. The tub had a cover made of aluminium and plexiglas, which was locked with a small, simple padlock. He fetched a tyre iron from the Ford and bashed the padlock until it opened, then lifted the lid, which turned out to be extraordinarily heavy. It was held open by a hook fixed to the wall of the house. Erlendur didn’t know much about hot tubs; he had never sat inside one, nor did he feel the slightest urge to do so. He assumed the tub would not have been used since María killed herself.

  Before leaving town he had gone to a builders’ supplier and spoken to an employee who presented himself as something of an expert. Erlendur’s interest was directed at the waste pipe and the technology used to fill hot tubs. Empty and fill, he said. The employee was keen initially, but when he realised that Erlendur was not intending to buy he quickly abandoned his sales patter and became more bearable. He showed Erlendur a model with computer-controlled draining and filling, assuring him that it was very popular these days. Erlendur hemmed and hawed.

  ‘Is it the best system?’ he asked.

  The employee frowned.

  ‘Lots of people just prefer to control it manually,’ he said. ‘They want to be able to turn on the taps themselves and then turn them off when the tub’s full. Like filling a bath. You control the heat with regular hot and cold taps.’

  ‘And if it’s not manual?’

  ‘Then there’s zero-crossing technology.’

  ‘Zero-crossing technology?’

  Erlendur looked the employee up and down. He was barely out of adolescence, with a fine down on his chin.

  ‘Yes, an electronic remote-control system, usually located in the toilet. You press a button and the tub begins to fill with hot water at the required temperature. Then you press another button and it empties.’

  ‘Are the inlet and outlet separate?’

  ‘No, it’s the same pipe. The water is sucked out through a filter in the bottom, and when you want to fill it the water flows up the same way.’

  ‘Hardly the same water, surely?’

  ‘No, of course not. Fresh water is piped up through the filter but some people see this as a bit of a fault in the system. I wouldn’t buy one like that.’

  ‘Why not? What’s the problem?’

  ‘The pipe is supposed to be self-cleaning but sometimes small particles of grit get left behind from the last time it was emptied. You know, something that’s been lying in the pipe. That’s why people prefer to do it manually. Though it may be nonsense, of course. Some people swear by this system.’

  After talking to the salesman, Erlendur had a short conversation with a forensic technician with the CID who had been in charge of the operation at the holiday cottage. He thought he remembered seeing a little control panel in the lavatory for filling and emptying the hot tub.

  ‘So the tub is electronically controlled?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘From what I could tell,’ the forensic technician answered. ‘But I’d probably have to take another look.’

  ‘What’s the advantage of an electronically controlled system?’

  ‘Well, it employs zero-crossing technology,’ the technician explained and was a little startled when Erlendur hung up on him with a heavy sigh.

  Erlendur stared into the tub for a long time, then peered round in search of the taps but couldn’t spot any. The sales employee had told him that they might be anywhere near the tub but were usually located under the veranda. Erlendur couldn’t find any trapdoor in the veranda that could conceal the taps, so he assumed that the technician had been right about its being electronically controlled. Clambering down into the tub, he bent over the filter in the bottom and managed to prise it loose. Dusk was falling but he had a torch and shone it down the drain. A little water had frozen in the waste pipe. Erlendur took out another sample jar, snapped off a piece of ice from inside the pipe, and placed it in the jar.

  He closed the tub again with the heavy plexiglas cover and replaced the broken padlock.

  After that he walked round the cottage until he encountered a shed behind it which he assumed was the boathouse. Pressing his face against a small window he made out a boat inside. He wondered if it was the same boat that Magnús and Leonóra had been in on that fateful day long ago. There were low piles of logs stacked against the shed.

  The boathouse was locked with a small padlock that Erlendur smashed with the same ease as he had the other. He shone his torch inside. The boat was old and crumbling as if it had not been used for a long time. There were work tables on either side of it and shelves against the far wall, reaching from floor to ceiling. On one of them, down by the floor, he noticed an old Husqvarna outboard motor.

  Erlendur carefully shone his torch beam over the shelves and floor. The boathouse contained various objects that one would expect to find at a holiday cottage: gardening tools such as a wheelbarrow and spades, a gas container and barbecue, cans of paint and wood varnish, and a collection of other tools. Erlendur didn’t know exactly what he was looking for and had been standing in the shed for nearly quarter of an hour, lighting up every nook and cranny, before it dawned on him.

  It was neatly stowed. Not as if anyone had been trying to hide the machine, quite the reverse, but neither was it in any way obvious. It was part of the furnishings, part of the mess, yet it drew his attention once he realised what he was looking for. He flashed his torch over it: a square box like a large, thick briefcase. Despite its unobtrusiveness, the machine awakened in Er
lendur a strange old sense of dread, dating back to the time when he had almost frozen to death on the moors out east.

  Leonóra had always said that the accident was their secret and that no one must ever know what had really happened, Otherwise they might be forcibly separated, It would be best if they didn’t talk about the terrible event, Accidents happened which were nobody’s fault and this was one of them, Nothing could be changed now, nothing would be achieved by explaining exactly what had happened on board the boat, María listened to her mother, placing all her trust in her, It was not until much later that the long-term consequences of the lie began to emerge, María’s life could never be the same, however much her mother wanted it to be, It could never be made whole again.

  As time passed, María recovered from the hallucinations and depression that had afflicted her after her father’s death and even her anxiety diminished, but the guilt was always there inside her and hardly a day passed for the rest of her life when she did not think of the incident on Lake Thingvallavatn, It could happen at any time of the day or night, She had learnt to smother these thoughts at their birth but they were unrelenting and the pain of not being allowed to tell anyone what had happened, not being allowed to lighten her burden by talking about the incident was so unbearable that she sometimes thought of taking her own life, of putting an end to her suffering and anguish, Nothing was worse than the oppressive silence that clamoured for her attention every day, sometimes many times a day.

  She had never been allowed to mourn her father in the normal way, never been allowed to say goodbye to him, never had the opportunity of missing him, That was the most painful aspect of all, because she had always been deeply attached to him and he had always been good to his little girl, Nor did she indulge in any memories of him from before the incident, She wouldn’t allow herself that luxury.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Leonóra whispered.

  María was sitting by her mother’s bedside as usual, They both knew there was not much time left.

  ‘For what?’ she asked.

  ‘It . . . was wrong, All of it, from the beginning. I . . . Forgive me . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ María said.

  ‘No . . . It’s not all right. I thought . . . I was thinking of you. I did it for you, You . . . you must understand that. I didn’t want anything . . . anything to happen to you.’

  ‘I know,’ María said.

  ‘But . . . I . . . I shouldn’t have kept quiet about the accident.’

  ‘You wanted the best for me,’ María said.

  ‘Yes . . . but it was selfish of me, too . . .’

  ‘No,’ María said.

  ‘Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Don’t worry about this now.’

  ‘Can you?’

  María was silent.

  ‘Are you going to tell people what happened once I’m dead?’

  María didn’t answer.

  ‘Tell . . . people,’ Leonóra groaned, ‘Please . . . for your own sake . . . Tell people . . . Tell them the whole thing.’

  31

  Erlendur spent the next two days gathering further information about what he suspected might have happened at the cottage the evening María was found dead. He was not yet ready to present his hypothesis and wondered if it would be better to interview Baldvin and Karólína separately or together. He hadn’t discussed his investigation with anyone else. Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg were aware that he was extremely busy, though they didn’t have a clue with what, and even Valgerdur had heard from him less often than usual. The case occupied all his thoughts. He was also waiting for a phone call from Lake Sandkluftavatn that still hadn’t come.

  Over the past few days the desire that sometimes seized him to go east to the derelict farm and on to the moors had been growing in him.

  He was sitting at home over a bowl of porridge and pickled liver sausage when he heard a knock at the door. He went out and opened the door to Valgerdur who kissed him on the cheek and slipped inside past him. She took off her coat, laid it on a chair and sat down in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t hear from you any more,’ she said, helping herself to a bowl of porridge. Erlendur cut her a slice of liver sausage. It wasn’t nearly sour enough for his taste, although he had insisted that it should be taken straight from the pickling vat while he waited at the meat counter in the shop. The teenage boy who served him obeyed with a look of disdain, and obviously took no pleasure in plunging his hand into the sour whey. On the same shopping trip Erlendur had also bought some sour-lamb rolls, fatty breast meat on the bone and a portion of sheep’s head in jelly that he kept in a tub of pickling whey out on his balcony.

  ‘I’ve been busy at work,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Valgerdur asked.

  ‘The same case.’

  ‘Ghosts and apparitions?’

  ‘Yes, something like that. Would you like some coffee?’

  Valgerdur nodded and Erlendur got to his feet to turn on the machine. She remarked that he looked tired and asked if he had any leave saved up. He said that he had plenty of holiday owed to him but so far hadn’t found any use for it.

  ‘How did the meeting go the other day? The meeting with Halldóra?’

  ‘Not too well,’ Erlendur said. ‘I don’t know if it was a good idea to see her. There are so many things we’ll never see eye to eye on.’

  ‘Like what?’ Valgerdur asked warily.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Lots of things.’

  ‘Nothing you want to talk about?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point. She feels I wasn’t honest with her.’

  ‘And weren’t you?’

  Erlendur grimaced. Valgerdur turned to face him as he stood by the coffee-maker.

  ‘That probably depends on how you look at it,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  Erlendur heaved a sigh.

  ‘She went into the relationship wholeheartedly. I didn’t. That’s the great betrayal. The fact that I didn’t enter wholeheartedly into the relationship.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to hear about that, Erlendur,’ Valgerdur said. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. It was a long time ago and has nothing to do with us. With our relationship.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But . . . perhaps I understand her better now. She’s been brooding over it ever since, for all these years. I think that’s where her anger stems from.’

  ‘From unrequited love?’

  ‘What she says is true. Halldóra was honest in what she did. I wasn’t.’

  Erlendur poured two cups of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.

  ‘ “The greatest pain is to love, but love in vain,” ’ Valgerdur quoted.

  Erlendur raised his eyes to her.

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s true,’ he said, then changed the subject. ‘I’m investigating another relationship and I don’t really know what to do about it. Something that happened years ago. A woman called Sólveig started having an affair with her best friend’s husband. The relationship ended in disaster.’

  ‘Dare I ask what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know if we’ll ever uncover the full story,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘I’m sorry – of course you can’t discuss it with every Tom, Dick and Harry.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. The man died; drowned in Lake Thingvallavatn. The question is how far his wife was implicated in his death. And to what extent their little daughter blamed herself.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It might have been a great deal,’ Erlendur continued. ‘The little girl got mixed up in her parents’ quarrel.’

  ‘Do you have to do anything about it?’ Valgerdur asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’ll achieve anything.’

  Erlendur fell silent.

  ‘What about all your leave, don’t you want to do something with that?’ Valgerdur asked.

  ‘I should try and use it.’

  ‘What have you got in mind?’

  ‘I could try to los
e myself for a few days.’

  ‘Lose yourself?’ Valgerdur asked. ‘I was thinking maybe the Canary Islands or something like that.’

  ‘Mm, I’ve no experience of that sort of thing.’

  ‘What? You mean you’ve never left Iceland? Never been abroad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you want to go?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Empire State Building, the Vatican, the pyramids . . . ?’

  ‘I’ve sometimes felt a curiosity to see the cathedral in Cologne.’

  ‘Why don’t you go, then?’

  ‘My interest doesn’t amount to any more than that.’

  ‘What do you mean when you talk about losing yourself?’

  ‘I want to go out east,’ Erlendur said. ‘Vanish for a few days. It’s something I do from time to time. Mount Hardskafi . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That’s my Eiffel Tower.’

  Karólína did not seem surprised to see Erlendur on her doorstep in Kópavogur again and she invited him in straight away. He had been keeping her under casual observation for several days and had established that she lived a fairly monotonous existence, going to work at nine and coming home around six, stopping off on the way at the local corner shop to buy her supper. Her evenings were spent at home, watching television or reading. One evening a woman friend came round. Karólína drew the curtains. Erlendur sat tight in his car and saw the woman leave shortly before midnight. She walked down the road in her long red coat and disappeared round the corner.

  ‘Still snooping for information about Baldvin’s wife?’ Karólína asked bluntly as she showed Erlendur into the sitting room. The question was posed without any apparent interest in an answer. Karólína seemed determined to behave as if she wasn’t unnerved by receiving two visits in short succession from the police. Erlendur couldn’t tell if she was acting.