Oblivion

by Arnaldur Indridason

  It was blatantly obvious that Kristvin was smuggling something off base – presumably whatever it was that he had fetched while he made his workmate wait for him outside the PX. Vernhardur demanded to know what he was carrying and Kristvin was evasive, insisting he had only fetched a couple of cigarette cartons from the vending machines in the barracks. Vernhardur didn’t believe this for a minute – Kristvin wouldn’t have been that stressed out about something so trivial – and said he had a right to know. Kristvin had put him at risk without warning him. He had narrowly escaped being arrested for Kristvin’s crime and might even have had to do time in prison as a result. It was unbelievably irresponsible and Vernhardur was furious that Kristvin would be so selfish and such a total fucking dickhead as to mix him up in that sort of crap. In the end, Kristvin pulled over in the Hvassahraun lava field and switched off the engine. He explained to Vernhardur that his sister had cancer and that he was supplying her with marijuana to make her life more bearable. He refused to reveal his source but admitted that the drugs were concealed in the passenger door on Vernhardur’s side. He had tampered with the panel on the door so it was easy to prise off, and there was a compartment inside. It couldn’t be simpler. ‘I’m really sorry, mate,’ said Kristvin. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking of. I didn’t stop to consider that you were with me. It just didn’t cross my mind. Honest!’

  ‘The poor guy, he was mortified,’ Vernhardur said. ‘Kristvin wasn’t the type to get involved in big-league stuff, quite frankly, but he was prepared to do it for his sister.’

  ‘Were there other times, do you know?’ said Marion.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. After that we drove to work in our own cars. Separately. We never referred to the incident again.’

  ‘But he carried on?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘You must have gone ballistic,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘I did. He had no right to risk my neck like that. I told him he was crazy – the door was the first place they’d look.’

  ‘So you had no part in it?’ said Marion.

  ‘No way,’ said Vernhardur.

  ‘And you don’t know if he scored any more drugs, or how he financed them, or who he supplied, other than his sister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And we’re just supposed to believe you.’

  ‘I knew you’d try and implicate me, I said so at the beginning, didn’t I? I’m not lying. I’m telling you exactly how it was. I didn’t have to mention it but I did. I thought the information might help you.’

  He looked at them both, his face grave. ‘The marijuana wasn’t only for Nanna. Kristvin had picked up the habit long before. But I don’t believe he was dealing or making any money out of it. He wasn’t the type. He was only buying for himself and his sister.’

  ‘Did he pay for it in dollars?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘I didn’t ask. But he must have done if he bought it on the base.’

  ‘Were you working with him in Hangar 885?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘No, I haven’t been there in a while.’

  ‘But you know it, of course?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are you familiar with an airline whose planes are serviced there – American, called Northern Cargo Transport?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve … I know we serviced a Hercules for them recently. Faulty landing gear. In fact Kristvin was working on that in the big hangar – Hangar 885.’

  ‘He didn’t happen to mention anything about it, did he?’ asked Marion.

  ‘No. What … like what?’

  ‘I don’t know, anything. Like, for example, what cargo it was carrying, or what he’d seen in the hold?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. Did something happen there? In the hangar?’

  ‘Not as far as we know,’ said Marion.

  ‘There was another thing Kristvin told me while we were parked up in Hvassahraun,’ added Vernhardur hesitantly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I don’t know if it has any bearing.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He was rattled after the near miss at the gate and the bollocking I’d given him. And he’d just told me about his sister’s illness. He seemed at the end of his tether and let something slip that you should maybe know about.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked Marion again.

  ‘He didn’t say it in as many words but he implied that he was seeing a woman and that she lived on the base.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And she wasn’t Icelandic either.’

  ‘An American?’

  Vernhardur nodded.

  ‘What were his exact words?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Can you remember?’

  ‘He didn’t come right out with it. I just read between the lines. He was very embarrassed and only hinted at it, like I said, but I twigged at once. He’d got into some kind of relationship with a woman on the base. We didn’t discuss it again and I didn’t ask any questions. Besides, we saw a lot less of each other after the smuggling incident. But from what Kristvin said, he was going to have to break it off and I assume he did.’

  ‘But you don’t know for sure?’

  Vernhardur shook his head. ‘Just to complicate things, the woman was married.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘… to an American serviceman?’

  ‘Yup.’

  19

  AFTER VERNHARDUR HAD left, Erlendur and Marion drove into Reykjavík and went for a meal at Skúlakaffi. It was nearing supper time and Skúlakaffi offered a range of traditional Icelandic dishes, such as salted lamb and boiled haddock, at affordable prices. It was patronised by labourers and lorry drivers who knew they could be sure of a quick, substantial meal there, followed by coffee and kleinur. Though no one would claim that the cafeteria, with its worn lino and grubby canteen atmosphere, represented exactly haute cuisine, you could hardly find a more loyal or satisfied clientele anywhere in Reykjavík.

  Erlendur and Marion sat down at a quiet table. One of the dishes of the day was the traditional winter delicacy of fermented skate with melted dripping, and Marion was worried that the fish’s uniquely putrid stench – a gross combination of decay and urine – would cling to their clothes. But Erlendur couldn’t care less and asked for a generous helping of skate with a good dollop of dripping and thickly buttered rye bread on the side. He set to with such gusto, ravenous after his long day, that it was almost impossible to get a word out of him between mouthfuls. Marion, more fastidious, sedately ate a hamburger with gravy, potatoes and redcurrant jelly, and reflected that it would be necessary later to air one’s clothes on the balcony and rinse the stench of skate out of one’s hair.

  Marion remarked that members of the 57th Fighter Squadron at Keflavík had once been quoted as describing Iceland as a ‘hardship post’: few servicemen stayed longer than a year, though some stayed two or three, especially if they had their families in tow, and most were only too glad to leave once their tour of duty was over. As a result there was a fairly quick turnover of personnel.

  ‘They complain that most of their time here’s spent running for cover from the weather,’ Marion added.

  ‘Hardship post?’ echoed Erlendur, carving into the congealed fat and shovelling it into his mouth with his knife. ‘We’re just one big barracks slum to them, aren’t we? One big … Camp Knox.’

  Marion smiled. There was some indefinable quality about Erlendur – defensiveness, perhaps – that made him seem tiresomely pig-headed to many, but which Marion found almost charming. Unlike the weather-battered Americans, Erlendur would never use words like ‘hardship’ or ‘inhospitable’ to describe a barely habitable wasteland like Midnesheidi.

  Marion watched Erlendur wolf down the fermented skate, carefully scraping up the last of the dripping and eating it with relish. He was in his element. But no one who worked with him could have failed to notice that he had been unusually morose of late. Marion put it down to what people had been gossiping about in the office,
though not in Erlendur’s hearing: his recent divorce.

  ‘I also discovered,’ said Marion, pushing away the plate, ‘that Hangar 885 was originally built in the fifties for B-36 Peacemakers, the biggest bombers ever made, with a range halfway round the world. That’s why it’s so vast.’

  ‘Do you think Kristvin could have fallen from the roof in there?’

  ‘The impact injuries the pathologist described imply as much, but the question is what was he doing climbing about up there?’

  ‘Perhaps he threw himself off. Killed himself.’

  ‘And the blow to the back of his head?’

  ‘Banged it on the rafters.’

  ‘And afterwards some person or persons unknown took his body and disposed of it off base?’

  ‘They didn’t want to draw attention to the hangar,’ said Erlendur. ‘It’s a base for spy planes, isn’t it?’

  ‘What reason would he have had for killing himself?’

  ‘His sister’s got an incurable illness.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s helping her. Surely he’s not going to abandon her just when she needs him most?’

  ‘All right, you’ve got a point. So it’s not suicide.’

  ‘Perhaps he saw something he shouldn’t have in the hangar.’

  ‘In addition to which, he was involved in smuggling and acquired the goods from a party we know nothing about, and to cap it all he’s got a woman on the base who’s married to a soldier. Presumably one of those airmen of yours, who’s found out for himself just what kind of hardship post Iceland can be …’

  ‘And attacked Kristvin?’

  ‘Maybe he owed the guy money? He was buying dope regularly from some soldier and maybe he’d got into debt. Then the guy gets wind of the fact he’s on the base that evening and pays him a visit.’

  ‘It’s as good a guess as any other,’ acknowledged Marion.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, I haven’t the foggiest about what happened in there,’ said Erlendur.

  Marion shrugged and took out a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Any news of Camp Knox?’

  ‘No, not much,’ said Erlendur. ‘I talked to Dagbjört’s friend who was the source for the boyfriend and she’s sticking to her story. Insists there was a boy. She’s convinced he’s still out there and might know something. Might even have been responsible for doing away with Dagbjört.’

  ‘Yes, that’s an old theory,’ said Marion.

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Do you think it’s too late to visit Kristvin’s sister?’ asked Marion, looking at the clock on the wall.

  ‘Shall we go and find out?’

  ‘By the way,’ said Marion, standing up, ‘is it right what I hear, that you’ve just got divorced? Not that it’s any of my business.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ said Erlendur, pushing away his plate. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  20

  NANNA DIDN’T COMMENT on the lateness of the hour. She was clearing up after supper but invited them in and asked if the police were any closer to finding out how Kristvin had died; if that was the reason for this unexpected visit. Marion said they weren’t, but that various facts had emerged that they needed to run by her.

  She finished tidying up the kitchen, put on some coffee and they sat down. The odour of Skúlakaffi still hung around Marion and Erlendur.

  ‘Have you been eating skate?’ Nanna asked bluntly.

  ‘He has,’ said Marion, pointing accusingly at Erlendur. ‘The place stank to high heaven. Has it followed us here?’

  ‘We could take our coats off, if you like,’ Erlendur offered apologetically.

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ said Nanna, ‘I like skate.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Erlendur removed his coat anyway and, taking Marion’s too, went and hung them up in the small cloakroom. When he returned, he told her that Vernhardur had been in to the station and had described how her brother had gone about smuggling the marijuana off base. He had quite simply concealed the drugs in a hollowed-out compartment in the car door, then driven through the gate on a wing and a prayer. The panel on the passenger door had clearly been tampered with and forensics had found the compartment which, though empty, still contained traces of the marijuana. This had to some extent corroborated Vernhardur’s story. It was clear that Kristvin had taken a major risk every time he carried the drugs off the base in such an amateurish fashion.

  ‘He said he had a good excuse,’ said Nanna, when Erlendur had finished. ‘Said they’d listen when he told them why he was doing it. I know he was inexperienced – he was a complete amateur, like you said. I was always afraid he’d get into … into some kind of trouble, and begged him to stop. It wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘Are you positive he didn’t tell you where he got the drugs from?’ asked Marion.

  ‘He wanted to keep me out of it. Said the less I knew, the better it would be for both of us. Kristvin could be very stubborn like that. I stopped asking and he never told me anything.’

  ‘I’m afraid that doesn’t sound very plausible to us,’ said Marion. ‘I hope you understand that.’

  ‘I’m not lying. It’s how he wanted it.’

  ‘One would have thought you’d have been anxious to know what kind of risks your brother was running by scoring drugs for you. You don’t seem like the type to let him hide things from you. Even if he was only acting in your interests.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to say. It’s up to you whether you believe me or not. I … I’m trying not to think about the fact that he might have … that it might have been my fault he died in such a terrible way.’

  ‘You must understand how vital it is that you tell us the absolute truth.’

  ‘I do. Of course I do.’

  ‘Did your brother ever mention working in one of the American hangars, Hangar 885?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘Yes, he mentioned it from time to time,’ said Nanna, thinking back. ‘They could use the facilities there when they had a lot on. They had a bay or something, but they had to keep to it. It was a controlled area. The army kept planes in there that they weren’t allowed anywhere near. They steered clear of them or it would have jeopardised Icelandair’s relations with the military. Nobody wanted that.’

  ‘So he didn’t snoop around at all?’

  ‘No … that is …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it’s relevant, it’s … it must have been about a year ago …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a man I used to know, a journalist,’ said Nanna, and from her expression it was clear she was reluctant to speak of him. ‘He and Kristvin were mates – at least until we split up. He was my boyfriend. A bit of a jerk, really. Rúdólf. He …’ Nanna shook her head.

  ‘What?’ prompted Marion.

  ‘It was my fault for getting into such a rubbish relationship. I didn’t see it until too late.’

  ‘What didn’t you see?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘What a little shit he was. He made a quick exit when he heard about my cancer. I don’t know what I saw in him. We met at a disco and … anyway … His name’s Rúdólf, did I already mention that?’

  Marion nodded.

  ‘He asked Kristvin to look into some business on the base for him. In that hangar, if I’m remembering this right. There was some airline Rúdólf wanted information about.’

  ‘Which airline?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Northern Cargo Transport?’ suggested Erlendur.

  ‘Something like that, yes, I’m not sure. Northern Cargo Transport. That sort of name. Rúdólf wanted Kristvin to take pictures for him and do a bit of digging around. But that was, you know, about a year ago, so I don’t think … Is it likely to be relevant at all?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marion. ‘We may need to speak to this Rúdólf.’

  ‘Please don’t let on that I gave you his name. There’s no need, is there? I’d manage
d to wipe him from my memory. Completely. Oh God, he might start ringing again.’

  ‘We won’t say a word,’ promised Erlendur. ‘Do you know what he was after – Rúdólf, I mean?’

  ‘No. He was curious about this airline. I think Kristvin had mentioned it. That it was a bit fishy. Rúdólf thought there might be a story in it. Offered to get him a camera and everything.’

  ‘In what way fishy?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think Kristvin did anything about it. He was shit-scared of losing his job if he did what Rúdólf wanted, though that didn’t stop Rúdólf bugging him about it. Saw himself as some kind of … hotshot reporter – what do they call it?’

  ‘Investigative journalist?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Nanna. ‘The pathetic little creep.’

  ‘Is it possible that your brother was in trouble because he owed money to someone on the base?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Did he ever drop any hints to that effect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s another matter we wanted to ask you about, regarding your brother’s activities on the base,’ said Marion.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, at least you haven’t told us …’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Vernhardur reckons Kristvin had a woman there.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘A woman? No.’

  ‘Your brother didn’t go into any details but that was the impression he gave Vernhardur,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Then it must have been very recent,’ said Nanna. ‘Or he’d have told me.’

  ‘Not necessarily that recent,’ said Marion. ‘Vernhardur found out, or at least your brother hinted as much, some time ago, when Kristvin accidentally mixed him up in one of his smuggling trips.’

  ‘Who’s the woman?’