Into Oblivion

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Did he get it from the base?’ asked Marion.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have told us this yesterday?’

  ‘I was going to but then we … we went to the morgue … I thought I’d die before him, you know. Because of the cancer. Then … then I didn’t hear from him and suddenly … suddenly he’s dead. In this horrible way.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be at work,’ said Marion, taking Nanna’s hand. ‘Can’t we drive you home? You really shouldn’t be here. Isn’t there anyone who can come and keep you company?’

  The little girl was still wreaking havoc. This time she destroyed a sandcastle that two other children had taken great pains over, and they burst into tears. Another helper ran over and grabbed the girl by the scruff of her neck when she tried to make off. Nanna went to comfort the castle-builders and help them start again.

  ‘The little pest,’ she said when she came back, and heaved a deep breath. ‘She’ll be a handful one day.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Marion.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Nanna. ‘I’d rather look after the kids than hang around at home. It’s nothing. I’m all right.’

  ‘Who sold him the drugs?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is he got them from the base. He had contacts but he didn’t tell me who they were and I didn’t ask too many questions. He said he was careful. I kept asking him about that and telling him to watch himself, and I know he did. My brother was no fool. He knew what he was doing.’

  But look how he ended up, Erlendur wanted to say, but stopped himself. He had no desire to increase her suffering; she had enough to cope with. He believed Nanna was telling the truth and that she was desperate to find out what had happened to her brother. He didn’t believe for a moment that she could have played any part in his death, though Marion had hinted as much on their way to the nursery school. Marion wanted to pursue this angle because she hadn’t come clean to them about the booze or drugs, but Erlendur thought she’d simply had too much else on her mind at the time. Marion took the view that she was hiding something from the police about the goods. But Erlendur dis-agreed, especially now that Nanna had admitted to using the drugs for medicinal purposes and apparently didn’t regard the fact as a big deal.

  ‘How did he travel to and fro?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘To and fro?’

  ‘Between Reykjavík and Keflavík.’

  ‘Oh, he had a car,’ said Nanna. ‘Haven’t you found it?’

  ‘What sort of car?’ asked Marion. ‘We didn’t find any car registered in his name.’

  ‘That’s because it was mine – it’s still in my name. A Toyota Corolla. I sold it to him. We just hadn’t got round to transferring ownership. And as Kristvin had only paid me half, I still use it quite a bit too, so …’

  ‘You took turns using it?’ finished Erlendur, and wrote down the details: two-door, grey, six years old, constantly breaking down.

  ‘Yes, but he’s been using it for the last few weeks.’

  13

  A spell in custody had done nothing to soften up Ellert and Vignir, or make them any more amenable. They were as insolent and insufferable as the day they had been locked up in Sídumúli Prison, and still stubbornly denied any wrongdoing. They had much in common, although it wasn’t obvious from their appearance that they were brothers. One was stocky and ungainly, with a thick head of hair; the other tall, lanky and almost totally bald. They lived together – always had – and were described as very close. Vignir, the ungainly one, was the elder, and acted as spokesman for them both, as far as the police could gather. Ellert was a more shadowy figure who kept a low profile and stayed in the background. Perhaps that was why he was known as ‘the Old Lady’. But, according to police informants, he was the real mastermind behind the brothers’ business and on the rare occasions he showed his hand you would go far to find another thug as vicious as him. He was aware of his nickname and thin-skinned about it. There was a story doing the rounds that a man who used it to his face had spent the next two months in intensive care; he claimed to have been hit by a car, never fully recovered and left the country after a spell in rehabilitation. Whether it was true or not, nobody could say.

  Towards midday Ellert was conducted to the interview room and took a seat across from Marion and Erlendur, wearing the same sullen expression that hadn’t left his face since he was apprehended. He had made no attempt to resist arrest, any more than his brother, but insisted he hadn’t committed any criminal offence and wished to register a protest about the unlawful way in which he was being treated. The fine phrases had been picked up from the TV cop shows he and Vignir spent their lives glued to.

  ‘When are you going to let us go?’ asked Ellert, lounging in his chair. ‘It’s ridiculous banging us up like this. We haven’t done anything.’

  It was the same refrain his brother opened his interviews with, intended to demonstrate that neither was going to betray the slightest hint of weakness or help the police in any way with their inquiries. Ignoring this, Erlendur and Marion began instead to grill him about the goods he and his brother imported, about their associates, smuggling routes, expenses and profit margin, and what they did with the profits. And further, about the identity of their customers and how the deals were organised. Ellert either didn’t answer at all or gave deliberately fatuous replies, repeatedly protesting his innocence and claiming he didn’t even understand half the questions. The interrogation ground on like this for three-quarters of an hour until Marion began to nudge the conversation round towards the naval base at Keflavík. The gallon bottles of vodka and cigarette cartons in Kristvin’s fridge had been American, from the same producers and in the same kind of packaging as those the police had confiscated during the raid on the brothers’ premises, and although there was nothing to indicate any link between the brothers and Kristvin, Marion didn’t want to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

  ‘Have you got contacts on the base?’ asked Marion.

  ‘On the base?’ echoed Ellert.

  ‘At Keflavík? On the naval base? Do you have any business out there?’

  Ellert sat up in his chair, looking at them both in turn.

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Do any of your goods come from there?’

  ‘From the base?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘In the first place I’m not aware of any goods,’ said Ellert, ‘and in the second place I don’t know what you’re on about. Why are you asking about the bloody naval base?’

  ‘Who do you buy from down there?’ asked Marion.

  ‘We don’t buy anything there,’ said Ellert. ‘Weren’t you listening? We don’t buy anything full stop. The stuff you found isn’t ours. None of it belongs to us!’

  ‘Is it the quartermasters who supply you?’ Marion persisted doggedly. ‘Or the guys who run the clubs? Or the stores? The air crews? Marines?’

  Ellert didn’t answer.

  ‘How’s it smuggled off base?’ asked Erlendur. ‘By the soldiers? Or is it the contractors? Do you use Icelandic workers as go-betweens?’

  ‘Does the name Kristvin mean anything to you?’ asked Marion when Ellert remained obstinately mute.

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Ellert. He received little news of the outside world in his cell.

  ‘A customer of yours,’ said Marion.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ said Ellert. ‘And we don’t have any customers. Why are you asking me about this bloke? Who is he?’

  ‘We found the same kind of goods at his place as you two deal in. It occurred to us that he might have bought them from you.’

  ‘Unless he was smuggling for you and your brother?’ suggested Erlendur. ‘Is that it? Was he working for you?’

  ‘Why don’t you cut the crap? I don’t know the guy.’

  During the drive to the prison Marion had been reflecting on the fact that it was only a decade since the police first started arresting people in Iceland for
drugs-related offences. The incidents frequently had some connection to the military installation and international airport at Keflavík. Passengers were caught carrying cannabis or LSD, and the proximity of the naval base made it easy for Icelanders to get hold of narcotics imported by members of the Defense Force. The Americans were also a good source of hard currency for purchasing drugs abroad, which was otherwise difficult to come by in Iceland due to the currency restrictions. It had all begun on a small scale, mostly for recreational use at parties, but over time the number of users had grown and some people had spotted an opening for making money by importing drugs themselves. People like Ellert and Vignir.

  Vignir was as intransigent as his brother. He denied everything and professed himself as surprised as Ellert when the questions began to touch on the Defense Force and naval base. He tried to fish for more information from the detectives, with little success.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ he asked. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘It occurred to us that he might have been a rival of yours,’ said Erlendur. ‘If he was selling the same kind of goods maybe you and your brother didn’t like the competition.’

  ‘What … why … did something happen to him?’

  ‘Or that he was a customer of yours,’ continued Marion, ‘and was planning to snitch on you.’

  ‘Then there’s a third possibility – that he was smuggling stuff on your behalf and helped himself to some of it,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Who the fuck is this guy? What’s his name?’

  ‘Kristvin,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Kristvin? I’ve never heard of any Kristvin. Who is he? Why are you asking about this bloke? Are you implying we did something to him?’

  ‘Tell me about the cannabis you and Ellert deal in: does any of that come from the base?’ asked Erlendur, leaving Vignir’s question unanswered.

  ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

  ‘Where do you get the currency to import your goods?’ asked Erlendur.

  Vignir shook his head.

  ‘From the Yanks?’ asked Marion. ‘We know you’ve been dealing in currency on the base.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Vignir. ‘Not a clue. As usual.’

  A little later, as Marion and Erlendur were leaving, a prison officer came running after them.

  ‘They’ve found some car you’re trying to trace … a Corolla,’ he said, reading from a scrap of paper on which he had taken down the message. ‘It’s out at Keflavík. Parked by one of the barracks on the base and …’ The prison officer tried to decipher his own scribble. ‘… and, oh yes, the tyres have been slashed.’

  14

  The two police officers who came across the grey Toyota Corolla had been summoned to the military zone when a fight broke out at one of the dormitory huts belonging to the Icelandic contractors. The men had clashed over a card game during their break. The three huts, in which the workers were put up two to a room, stood in a row not far from the contractors’ large canteen. The culprits lived on the same corridor and had been spoiling for a fight for some time. They were both keen poker players and had been betting money on the game. The atmosphere had soured when, not for the first time, the loser refused to pay up. A row broke out, threats were exchanged, and in the end they flew at one another and rolled around the corridor of the hut, before falling, still grappling, out of the door onto the ground outside. At that point two other men became drawn in and it was thought advisable to call the police, who duly arrived to break it up. By then the men were exhausted; one was lying on the ground covered in blood, the other was leaning against the wall, panting and bleeding from the nose and one ear where he had been bitten. The police saw no reason to take anyone to hospital as they all denied they needed to see a doctor, but they were separated and moved to different huts.

  The officers’ attention was distracted by a grey Toyota Corolla with flat tyres, parked by the end of one of the barracks, not far from the contractors’ huts. A description of the missing car had been circulated to police stations around the country and, as far as they could tell, this was it. They had the sense not to touch it and reported their discovery immediately. The military police, notified at the same time, sent a car to the scene. Naval Air Station Keflavík came under the jurisdiction of the US Navy. Whenever the military police were required to deal with Icelandic nationals, they would summon the local police from Keflavík to handle the matter. Similarly, the Icelandic police gave notice if they needed to operate on the base, as in the affair of the brawling poker players.

  The Corolla was not much to look at, especially with all the air let out of the tyres. One wing was crumpled from a collision and there was an old dent in the passenger door. The back seat was littered with rubbish, newspapers, fast-food containers and empty beer and soft-drink cans which could only be obtained from the base. The boot contained two Icelandic wool blankets, a half-empty gallon bottle of American vodka and three packets of cigarettes. The spare tyre was lying untouched in its place. The registration papers were in the glove compartment. It appeared the car hadn’t been for an MOT for two years.

  It was impossible to guess how long or indeed why it had been parked there. The simplest explanation was that Kristvin had stopped off for a snack since many of the barracks had vending machines that sold items like cigarettes, canned drinks and chocolate. While he was inside, someone must have slashed his tyres and left him stranded. An alternative, less straightforward, explanation was that Kristvin had been visiting someone in this or a neighbouring barracks, in other words that he had an acquaintance here or had some business with a resident that involved not chocolate but vodka and cannabis.

  After leaving the prison, Marion and Erlendur had headed straight out to Keflavík, discussing the various scenarios as they drove and complaining about how utterly fed up they were of interrogating the brothers.

  ‘I suppose it’s hardly surprising the car should turn up here,’ said Erlendur, surveying the barracks. ‘It’s where Kristvin worked, after all.’

  Marion walked round the car and bent down to examine the gash in one of the front tyres. It was two centimetres long, made by the blade of a knife, possibly a penknife.

  ‘It all fits, more or less,’ said Marion. ‘Why do you think his tyres were slashed?’

  ‘I suppose there’s a faint chance someone did it for a laugh, but … given what we know happened to Kristvin, maybe it’s a bit more complicated than that. I think it’s much more likely he landed in some kind of trouble here.’

  ‘Which led to him turning up in the lagoon?’ said Marion, poking a finger into the slit in the rubber.

  ‘Why didn’t he fetch help?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Change the tyres? Drive away?’

  ‘He needed more than one tyre. He must have been planning to come back later and sort it out.’

  ‘Or he couldn’t do anything about it just then.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he was in a hurry and didn’t have time,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Why was he in a hurry?’

  ‘Because … he needed to get away? Somebody was after him?’

  ‘Because somebody was after him,’ repeated Marion. ‘He had to make an urgent getaway and didn’t have time to worry about the car.’

  ‘Who let down the tyres? The man or men who were after him?’

  Marion straightened up: ‘… who thought Kristvin might escape by car and wanted to prevent him.’

  ‘So Kristvin made a run for it? Are you implying he was killed here on the base?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder. Though perhaps the tyres were slashed because the car was left here unattended and some vandals just happened to be passing. We can’t rule that out.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s likely?’

  ‘No,’ said Marion, ‘I don’t. Kristvin worked on the base. And was involved in shady business here that could have got him into hot water. Doesn’t it all point to the same thing?’

  ‘M
aybe,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘You’re not convinced.’

  ‘We’re not just talking about Icelanders any more, are we?’ said Erlendur. ‘His assailants, I mean?’

  ‘No, I think that’s clear.’

  The military police stood a little way off, watching Marion and Erlendur examine the car and listening to their conversation without understanding a word. Forensics had arrived to collect the Corolla for inspection at their workshop in Kópavogur and were waiting for a lorry. Marion strolled over to the two American policemen, exchanged introductions and explained that members of the Icelandic CID would need to interview the residents of the neighbouring barracks.

  ‘Is that strictly necessary?’ asked one of the men.

  ‘The owner of this car was murdered,’ Marion informed him in competent English. ‘I thought you were aware of that. We need to find out why his car’s here, what business he had visiting the barracks.’

  ‘Was he murdered in one of the barracks?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Was he murdered on the base?’

  From the stripes on his shoulder the policeman appeared to be an officer, maybe a sergeant. He was young, in his twenties, and spoke with a noticeable Southern drawl. His companion, who was around the same age, contributed nothing to the conversation.

  ‘We don’t know,’ repeated Marion. ‘That’s why we need to –’

  ‘Why don’t you find out first?’ interrupted the young sergeant, making no effort to appear accommodating. ‘I don’t believe the folks round here would care to be questioned by you people.’

  His arrogance, the way he said ‘you people’ and cut Marion off short, angered Erlendur and made him want to step in and give the guy a piece of his mind. But he bit his lip.

  ‘Maybe it would be better if we spoke to your superior officer,’ said Marion.