Oblivion

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Are you from Washington like your boyfriend?’

  Caroline gazed out over the dark sea.

  ‘We met in the marines. I didn’t know what to do after high school and my dad suggested I try the army. He’d fought in the war and stayed in the army afterward and loved it. That’s where I met Brad. We were together for several years until it just wasn’t working any more. He was … I don’t know. I applied to be transferred somewhere far away. Wanted to high-tail it out of Washington as soon as possible. See the world. I thought Iceland would be a choice assignment. I didn’t know it was a windswept rock in the middle of the North Atlantic and that I’d end up helping out the Icelandic police. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not unhappy here. I travelled round the country a bit last summer. The scenery’s incredible. And I like the midnight sun. When the sun doesn’t go down in the summer and the nights are as light as day.’

  ‘Not everybody’s keen on that,’ said Erlendur. ‘So you don’t regard Iceland as a hardship post?’

  ‘Hardship post? No, I don’t think of it like that.’

  ‘Anyway what do you want to do now?’

  ‘Brad told me to lie low till he’d had a chance to look into the matter at his end,’ said Caroline. ‘So perhaps I’d better take it easy till I hear from him again. All that stuff about farmers and famine has soothed my nerves a little.’

  Erlendur smiled. ‘Do you trust him, this Brad?’

  ‘Yeah. Brad’s OK – he’d never get me into trouble.’

  ‘Did you tell him about me and Marion?’

  ‘Sure. Wasn’t I supposed to?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Look, wouldn’t it be best if you went straight to Fleet Air Command? Is there any reason to wait? Marion and I could go with you, if you like.’

  ‘Brad told me not to trust anyone or talk to anyone till I’d heard back from him,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s going to try and find out what Wilbur Cain’s up to in Iceland. Chances are he’s here with the knowledge and at the request of the military authorities. Brad told me that when the time came, I should go directly to the Rear Admiral and take you both with me.’

  ‘Good,’ said Erlendur. ‘In the meantime, you can come with me if you want. We could put you up in a hotel in Reykjavík or –’

  ‘No, thanks all the same. But it was good talking to you. I feel a bit less stressed. I’ll be fine. I have friends here I can turn to.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You won’t go back to your apartment, will you?’

  ‘No, not till I hear from Brad. Maybe the whole thing’s a big mistake and Wilbur Cain has nothing to do with Kristvin’s death. That’s what Brad said. But I think he was just trying to reassure me.’

  ‘And you definitely trust him?’

  ‘Yes, I trust him,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘You’d better not talk to anyone about this either until you hear from me. You never know by what route information reaches the base. If something’s happening here that’s costing the lives of innocent civilians, the Icelandic government might well be in on it. Brad told me to trust nobody. Nobody at all.’

  ‘I don’t believe the Icelandic government could be –’

  ‘Everyone has their price and it was you who told me that the defence question here revolved mainly around money.’

  ‘All right,’ said Erlendur, ‘though I hope you trust me and Marion, if no one else.’

  ‘Yes, maybe you two. But not many others.’

  Caroline looked despondently out into the gloom. Erlendur sensed that she had not quite finished. Something remained to be said. Not wanting to put pressure on her, he let time pass without breaking the silence.

  ‘Marion asked me to check who could have been in the hangar the night Kristvin was killed,’ said Caroline at last.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Work’s been suspended for the most part because of the construction, but the hangar’s guarded twenty-four/seven. I discovered that one of the security guards is called Matthew Pratt. A private. Young. Only twenty-two. A friend of mine who works on the airport gate knows him but he didn’t recognise the names of the other guards. There are several, apparently, and they patrol it in shifts.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him? This Pratt?’

  ‘That’s the strange part.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t trace him,’ said Caroline. ‘He’s not at home. His neighbours haven’t seen him for forty-eight hours. He hasn’t been on duty and I’m told he reported in sick several days ago. He hasn’t left the base, to the best of my knowledge, but he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.’

  32

  ERLENDUR COULDN’T PERSUADE Caroline to change her mind about returning to the base, so he left her in the car park by the Keflavík football ground. She gave him the phone number of some people she was going to take refuge with and said she would be in touch soon.

  ‘Be careful,’ Erlendur said in parting. ‘The fewer people you tell, the better. Are you sure you can trust them?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Caroline. ‘They’re the kind of friends who’ll help without asking any questions.’ She pulled up the hood of her jacket and got out of the car.

  As Erlendur drove back along the Keflavík road he looked over at the billows of steam rising from Svartsengi and felt as if many weeks had passed since he saw Kristvin’s body floating in the lagoon. Since then the inquiry into his death had almost entirely focused on the naval air station on Midnesheidi, and now both the CIA and Military Intelligence had become tangled up in it. Erlendur found it highly unlikely that a nobody like Kristvin could have constituted a serious thorn in the side for a powerful nation like the US, but then again Caroline was clearly rattled, and maybe Kristvin had as much chance as anyone else on the base of stumbling on classified information. He had access to the largest hangar on the site, after all, so he could have witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to.

  As Erlendur wrestled with this question on the drive back to Reykjavík, he reflected on what he had told Caroline about the difference in scale between their two nations. From there, his thoughts wandered back to Dagbjört and what the old woman, Baldvina, had told him about Camp Knox. Erlendur had made casual enquiries about where he might find her son Vilhelm these days. All he had learned was that the tramp was still alive and occasionally showed his face at the shelter for alcoholics and homeless men on Thingholt.

  When Erlendur got back to the office he found Marion sitting at the desk, apparently sufficiently recovered to return to work. Erlendur gave a detailed account of his meeting with Caroline out at Gardskagi and how her investigations had put her on the trail of Wilbur Cain, who scared her.

  ‘But she insisted on going back to the base in spite of that?’ said Marion, once Erlendur had finished.

  ‘She said she was going to stay with friends and would be in touch when she had more information. Let’s just hope she knows what she’s doing. I told her we’re a bunch of clueless bloody amateurs when it comes to the world she moves in.’

  ‘Maybe not such a bad thing to be, in the circumstances,’ said Marion.

  ‘No, true.’

  ‘What can we do at this end to help her?’ asked Marion. ‘Anything practical?’

  ‘She said she didn’t trust the Icelandic government any more than the military authorities. One option would be for us to issue a warrant for Wilbur Cain’s arrest, but we can’t produce any evidence to back it up. Caroline said they could whisk him away at a moment’s notice and claim ignorance of his existence.’

  ‘What are the chances he killed Kristvin – realistically?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Erlendur. ‘Caroline thinks it’s possible Wilbur knew him and was with him at that club or bar or whatever it is, the Animal Locker. We have Joan’s word for that. She referred to Kristvin’s companion as “W”. Admittedly it’s not definitely “Wilbur”, but it was enough to spur Caroline to talk to her contact in Washington, who told her to watch out
for this Cain character.’

  ‘I hope we’re not going to live to regret the fact we persuaded her to help us,’ said Marion.

  ‘She can look after herself.’

  Erlendur announced that he had a brief errand to run. Marion promised to stay by the phone in the meantime in case Caroline rang. Saying he would call in regularly to check if there were any developments, Erlendur left and drove down to the homeless shelter on Thingholt. He spoke to the warden who knew Vilhelm well and said he had spent the previous night there, but he didn’t know whether to expect him back that evening.

  ‘The poor bloke’s in pretty bad shape,’ said the warden.

  ‘Well, it’s a dog’s life.’

  ‘You could try the centre of town – they sometimes gather in Austurvöllur Square in spite of the cold. Or up on Arnarhóll. Or by the bus station at Hlemmur.’

  Erlendur drove through the centre of town without seeing Vilhelm. During his years on the beat he had become acquainted with the desperate lives led by the city’s homeless and knew the names of many of the men and women who roamed the streets, in varying states of intoxication. Among their number was a woman called Thurí and he spotted her now, standing on the corner by the post office, wearing a thick anorak, two scarves tightly knotted round her neck and a torn hat on her head, the ear flaps fluttering in the wind. She recognised him immediately when he drew up beside her. They were old friends.

  ‘Fancy seeing you, mate,’ she said.

  ‘I’m looking for Vilhelm. Seen him around?’

  ‘No,’ said Thurí. ‘Why are you looking for him?’

  ‘Any idea where he might be?’

  ‘Has he been a bad boy?’

  ‘No, I just need a word with him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘He hangs out in the Central Bus Station sometimes, but I don’t know if he’s there now.’

  ‘I’ll check. How are you, by the way?’

  ‘Ah, you know,’ said Thurí, ‘same old shit.’

  He didn’t see Vilhelm at the bus station. Two coaches were waiting out on the tarmac behind the building, one marked ‘Akureyri’, the other ‘Höfn in Hornafjördur’. Passengers were handing their bags to the driver to stow in the baggage compartment. A third coach drew up and the passengers climbed out, stretched their limbs, then went to retrieve their luggage. Erlendur hung around, watching people going in and out of the station building. He had searched the gents, the cafe and the waiting area, and done a circuit of the building, but Vilhelm was nowhere to be seen.

  Finding a payphone, he rang Marion, who hadn’t heard from Caroline and was growing increasingly anxious.

  33

  ERLENDUR WAS BACK in his car, pulling away from the bus station, when he caught sight of a figure loitering by the dustbins at the eastern end of the building. The man lifted the lid of a bin, examined its contents and rooted around inside, then replaced the lid and moved on to the next. Having drawn a blank, he was turning to leave when Erlendur walked up to him.

  ‘Hello, Vilhelm,’ he said, recognising the tramp at once by the glasses perched on his nose, the thick, domed lenses making his eyes look huge. The frames were broken, stuck together in two places with Sellotape.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Vilhelm, instantly wary.

  ‘I’m Erlendur.’

  ‘I lost my gloves,’ said Vilhelm, as if compelled to explain why he had been rummaging in the dustbins. ‘Thought maybe they’d fallen in the rubbish.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember me but we spoke several years ago about a homeless man who was found in the old peat diggings in Kringlumýri.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, does that ring any bells?’

  ‘You mean … do you mean Hannibal?’

  ‘Yes, Hannibal.’

  ‘Didn’t someone drown him?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. A nasty business. Feel like a coffee or a bite to eat inside? Warm up a bit?’

  Vilhelm subjected Erlendur to a suspicious, magnified gaze.

  ‘What … what do you want from me?’

  ‘I want a chat about the old days,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘The old days? What do you mean?’

  ‘I want to talk to you about Camp Knox,’ said Erlendur. ‘I know you grew up there and I wanted to ask a few questions about the old barracks neighbourhood.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Vilhelm. ‘Like anyone’s interested in Camp Knox. Who cares about Camp Knox nowadays?’

  ‘I had a chat with your mother – with Baldvina – the other day. She told me about life in the camp. Said you might be able to help me.’

  ‘You spoke to my mother? Why the hell would you do that? What did you want? What did you have to go and do that for?’

  ‘I’m gathering information. I’ve spoken to her and various other people and now I’d like to sit down for a chat with you. It won’t take long.’

  ‘I don’t know … I wouldn’t mind a coffee but I doubt I can help you with anything to do with the camp. I’ve forgotten all that, not that there was anything to remember. Nothing you’d want to remember.’

  Erlendur escorted him into the bus station cafe and chose a table as far from the other customers as possible since Vilhelm gave off a foul odour that came into its own indoors. He was wearing rubber waders laced up his calves, a coat tied around him with a belt, and several layers of jumpers. Erlendur had read descriptions of the old vagrants who used to tramp the Icelandic countryside, travelling from farm to farm, often welcome visitors for the news they carried which livened up the monotony of life. Vilhelm reminded him of these old gentlemen of the road.

  ‘How is she then?’ Vilhelm asked when Erlendur returned with a large mug of coffee and a tasty-looking Danish pastry which he placed before him. There was a chaser of brennivín that Vilhelm had asked him to buy. Vilhelm downed it in one and wiped his mouth.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Thought you said you’d talked to my old mum.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I had a good chat with her. She’s a tough old bird,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Yes, she always knew how to fend for herself,’ said Vilhelm. ‘I haven’t … haven’t been to see her in ages.’

  ‘You should go round,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘It’s coming back to me now,’ said Vilhelm. ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Erlendur. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What does a cop want with Camp Knox? I thought everyone’d forgotten about that shithole.’

  ‘I don’t know if you recall but back when you were living there with your mother, a young girl, a pupil at the Women’s College, went missing on her way to school and was never found. Her name was Dagbjört and her route to school in the mornings passed by the camp. There was a rumour she knew a boy who lived in the huts but he never came forward and in spite of inquiries he was never found. Baldvina told me you might know about a boy who moved out of the camp at around the same time. His mother was called Stella.’

  While Erlendur was speaking, Vilhelm sipped his hot coffee impassively. Then he extracted a dirty rag from his coat, wrapped the Danish pastry in it and returned it to his pocket. Saving it for later, no doubt.

  ‘So what if he moved out?’ said Vilhelm. ‘Nothing odd about that, is there?’

  ‘Do you know why he left?’

  ‘People moved out of Camp Knox because they’d found something better, I can tell you that for nothing. From there you could only move up in the world.’

  ‘Do you remember Dagbjört’s disappearance?’

  ‘Yes, I do, as it happens,’ said Vilhelm.

  ‘And Stella’s son?’

  ‘Stella had three sons,’ said Vilhelm, brushing his hand over the shot glass. ‘One drowned in Skerjafjördur. He was only thirteen. Fell in the sea. His name was Tobbi. Bloody good lad. Used to play together all the time. Same age as me. He was an ace footballer. That was before the thing you’re talking about. Then there was Haraldur, kno
wn as Halli. Couldn’t swear to it, but I think he became a baker. At least he used to talk about it enough and he was a fat bastard, always stuffing his face – I’ve never known anyone as cunning at shoplifting from bakeries. Haven’t seen him for donkey’s years. Then there was the eldest. I didn’t know him as well. They used to call him Silli, and you’re quite right, he moved away. I think it was to somewhere out of town.’

  ‘Any idea what his full name was?’

  ‘Sigurlás.’

  ‘Were they full brothers? Do you know who their father was?’

  ‘Stella was a single mother. Tobbi and Halli shared the same dad, far as I can remember. Silli was their half-brother. Had a different dad. Don’t know who he was, though.’

  ‘You don’t know what became of Silli? Or why he left Camp Knox right around then?’

  ‘No. Never heard any particular reason. People were generally keen to clear out of there as soon as they could.’

  The heavy glasses had slipped down Vilhelm’s nose. He pushed them up again and fixed the domed lenses on Erlendur.

  ‘Why are you asking about that girl now?’ he asked.

  ‘Her aunt’s still looking for her.’

  ‘Isn’t that a lost cause?’

  ‘They know she can’t still be alive, if that’s what you mean. They just want to try and solve the mystery of why she vanished.’

  ‘But why now? Is there some new evidence?’

  ‘No, it’s just that time’s passing and soon it’ll be too late. What did the residents of the camp think of the search? Did they know Dagbjört? Did they know about the lad she was supposedly seeing?’

  ‘I remember that lots of them took part in the search and it was talked about at the time, but I don’t think the camp people felt it had anything to do with them. Or that any of them were likely to have harmed her. At least I don’t recall any mention of it. I’m not sure anybody knew her.’

  ‘Was it unusual for a lad from the camp to get involved with a girl from outside?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said Vilhelm. ‘We were no worse than anyone else. Don’t think that. Prejudice is prejudice, whichever way you look at it. OK, there were a few ugly customers around like anywhere else, I’m not trying to make excuses for that, but on the whole we were no worse than other people. I never knew a harder-working woman than my mother.’