Oblivion (13 page)

‘Did it happen again?’

‘No, or at least not that Krissi told me. He gave back the camera. Said he couldn’t risk lugging it around at work. We stopped talking after I broke up with Nanna. It was over between us. All of us.’

‘Do you remember what the airline was called?’

‘Yes, it was … hang on … it ended in “trans” something, “transfer”, or …’

‘Could it have been Northern Cargo Transport?’

‘Hey, that’s it,’ said Rúdólf. ‘Northern Cargo Transport. Krissi found that out. He also found out that the plane was in transit from Europe to South America. He didn’t know where exactly but of course there’s all kinds of conflicts there.’

‘I don’t follow,’ said Marion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘They were obviously shipping arms.’

‘So?’

‘Handled by a civilian operator. Northern Cargo Transport.’

‘So?’

‘So why? Why aren’t the Yanks using their own Hercules transports? Tell me that.’

‘Do you think Kristvin might have found out why?’ asked Marion.

‘Dunno. But it’s entirely possible.’

Later that day a dispatch marked ‘Confidential’ arrived from Fleet Air Command. It was their response to the reiterated letter rogatory that had been issued by the state prosecutor’s office and police commissioner to request all necessary access to the military base for an investigation into the death of an Icelandic citizen. The letter had stated that there were grounds for believing that the man had been murdered on the naval air station, and that the Defense Force’s assistance with the investigation of the incident would be not only welcome but essential. The inquiry’s findings were briefly outlined to explain how it had come to focus on Kristvin’s work on the base, more specifically in Hangar 885.

Fleet Air Command’s response stressed that, since no direct connection to Defense Force activities had yet emerged from the investigation, the military authorities saw no reason at the present time to cooperate with the Icelandic police or grant them access to restricted areas. This applied particularly to Hangar 885. It was pointed out that the naval installation was US territory and that, if the Icelandic police wished to question American nationals within the military zone, they would be required to submit a special application to the commander’s office in each instance, and that all interviews would have to be conducted in the presence of the Defense Force attorney. However, since the Icelandic police’s case was at present based on no more than conjecture, they could not expect further cooperation from the Defense Force at this time.

THE WOMAN BORE
all the signs of a tough life. From her hands with their swollen knuckles and fingers twisted into the palms it was evident that she was far gone with osteoarthritis. Her small eyes peered colourless from a face scored with wrinkles. Her skin was dry and withered, her lips sunken, and when she spoke her words were accompanied by a whistling through the gaps in her teeth. Her hair was a straggling grey mess. Erlendur had come across her name in the police reports from 1953. At the time she had been living in Camp Knox, struggling to bring up five children as a single mother. She was about seventy but looked ninety.

She lived on Brædraborgarstígur in the west of town. Erlendur had rung her doorbell twice before he caught sight of a bent figure shuffling towards him, carrying a green net of groceries from the local shop and a shabby handbag. She was on her way home from work. As she came closer he noticed that she was a little lame and wore a threadbare coat and a headscarf knotted under her chin. On her feet she had brown winter boots with woollen socks sticking over the tops.

‘Who are you after?’ she asked when she reached the door and began scrabbling in her handbag for her keys. Her voice was hoarse and tetchy, as if she didn’t care for men hanging around on her doorstep.

‘Baldvina,’ said Erlendur. ‘This is the right house, isn’t it?’

‘My name’s Baldvina,’ said the woman, surprised. ‘Is it me you’re looking for?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Well, I never. What do you want?’

‘I’d like a quick word, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘What about?’

‘You used to live in Camp Knox, didn’t you?’

‘Camp Knox? Why do you want to know that?’ said the woman. She had her keys in her hand and was about to open the door but changed her mind. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ she added gruffly.

‘I wanted to know if you could help me with something,’ Erlendur said, noting how her guard had gone up at the mention of Camp Knox. ‘I’m looking into the case of someone who went missing near there a long time ago.’

‘What’s that to do with me?’ asked the woman. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Erlendur. You spoke to the police at the time in connection with the missing girl. Remember?’

‘The girl?’

‘Yes, she was called Dagbjört.’

‘Oh, her, yes. I remember. What about her?’

‘Could I possibly have a word with you about the incident? I promise it won’t take long.’

‘No, I can’t help you, I’m afraid,’ said the woman, opening the door. ‘Just clear off, will you, and leave me alone?’

‘People said she had a boyfriend in the camp. Do you remember?’

‘They thought he’d killed her, didn’t they? Easy to blame the camp people for everything. Buried under the floor of his hut, I expect.’

‘I hadn’t heard that,’ said Erlendur. ‘Was … is that what you’ve heard?’

‘They built the swimming pool where the camp used to be. Expect she’s buried under there now.’

Erlendur couldn’t tell if she was making fun of him.

‘Do you know who her boyfriend was?’ he asked, hastily jamming his foot in the door as she tried to close it on him.

‘Leave me alone, mister,’ said Baldvina. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. Bugger off.’

‘Her father died the other day,’ said Erlendur. ‘And her mother passed away some time ago. They never did find out what happened to their daughter. But I don’t think they ever really stopped hoping she’d come back one day.’

He pulled out his foot and the door closed. A few seconds passed, then he heard the lock rattling and the woman opened the door again and peered at him.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Erlendur.’

She continued to eye him.

‘What business is it of yours?’

‘The girl’s aunt hasn’t quite given up hope of finding out what happened. She asked me to do some digging around for her.’

The woman was still sizing up the stranger, with suspicious, grey eyes.

‘All right,’ she said at last and began to hobble up the old wooden staircase. Erlendur slipped inside and tried to lighten her load by taking the shopping bag but she wouldn’t hear of it. He caught some muttered comment about thieving scum. He followed her upstairs to the landing where she laid down the bag, put her key in the lock and opened the door.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘come in then.’

‘Thank you.’ Erlendur entered the small flat. The woman turned on the lights and went into the kitchen to put away her shopping. Then she re-emerged, took off her coat and hung it in a cupboard.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ she said. Erlendur had not dared to go into the sitting room without permission and was still hovering by the door. ‘Go on, sit down. Excuse the state of the place. I’m not used to visits like this and to tell the truth I don’t like ’em.’

‘No, I’m sorr—’

‘Don’t waste time apologising, just get on with it and tell me what you want. Wait a moment, though. I should make us some coffee.’

With that she went back into the kitchen and before long a strong aroma of coffee wafted into the sitting room. As he took in his surroundings, Erlendur reflected that she had no need to be ashamed of her housekeeping. Despite the signs of poverty – the shabby old furniture, the lack of all ornaments apart from a few family photos – everything was spick and span. The photographs appeared for the most part to be of her children, grown up and surrounded by their own families. An impressively large group. One daughter had died, he knew, and one of her sons was well known to the police and often on the streets. He’d been in trouble from a young age and still got on the wrong side of the law from time to time. He had crossed Erlendur’s path now and then when he was an officer on the beat. There was an old photo of him with his brothers and sisters, and this made Erlendur feel oddly uncomfortable, as if he had been forced into a closer intimacy with the man than he would have liked.

‘They didn’t half make a fuss about that girl,’ Baldvina remarked as she came in with the coffee.

‘Yes, well,’ said Erlendur, removing his gaze from the photos. ‘It was a terrible business.’

‘I don’t know how I can help. Hasn’t everyone forgotten all about it?’

‘I gather you were a single mother at the time. It must have been a hard slog bringing up five children on your own,’ said Erlendur, his eyes returning to the pictures.

‘I had kids by three men,’ said Baldvina. ‘A mixed bunch. The first was a boozer, no use to anyone. The second was good to me. We had a decent life, had three kids together but then he went and died and left me on my own, and I had no choice but to move into the camp. He had an accident in Hvalfjördur. He was all right, the poor sod; he couldn’t help what happened to him. The last one used to knock me about. Biggest piece of shit I ever met. There weren’t any more and I’m bloody glad about it and that’s a fact.’

Erlendur wasn’t sure how to respond to this.

‘Yes, the camp was a rough place,’ continued the woman. ‘I’m not one to grumble but it wasn’t easy.’

‘They weren’t good places to live in, were they?’ said Erlendur. ‘The huts, I mean.’

‘Good places to live in! Are you joking? Some of them may have been better than others but the ones I knew weren’t fit for people. They were damp and cold and leaked and the smell of mould used to get into your clothes – “the smell of the camp”, they called it. All you had to heat the place was a small oil stove, and oil cost an arm and a leg, and the hut never got properly warm. But the housing shortage was so dire you just had to put up with it. Families used to be squashed in three or four to a hut, with one small room each. Don’t know what people would say to that nowadays. And the men used to get smashed out of their skulls and you’d have a hell of a time trying to see the buggers off.’

Baldvina took a mouthful of coffee, her gnarled fingers crooked around the cup.

‘But the worst was the chill from the floor,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t put the children down at all for the cold, and water used to collect under it during the spring thaw and flood up into the hut. Then there were the open sewers, and the rats …’

She stared down into her coffee cup.

‘It’s always the kids who come off worst in dumps like that,’ she added, and Erlendur saw her gaze flicker to the photo of her son, the homeless alcoholic.

‘You said you remembered Dagbjört walking past on her way to and from school?’

‘Yes, though I was never sure. They showed us pictures and I thought it was the girl who walked past sometimes, but that’s all I could tell them. I knew nothing about her. Never saw her in the camp. Then I heard she was supposed to have had the hots for a boy there but I didn’t know anything about that either. Mind you, my friend Begga reckoned she’d been hanging about there, or a girl who looked like her, anyway. Begga lived in the hut next door. Died years ago. Don’t know if the police ever talked to her.’

‘Begga?’ said Erlendur, unable to recall any reference to her in the files. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘She told me once, when I bumped into her years later and we got talking about it, that one of the lads had moved out of the camp around the same time. Begga reckoned it was Stella’s boy and that he left because of some business with a girl. Though it needn’t have been that girl, I don’t think. But maybe you could talk to my son Vilhelm. He may’ve known the lad. I have a feeling they were the same sort of age.’

‘Stella’s son? Who was Stella?’

‘Oh, she had it tough, poor thing. I didn’t see much of her after we moved out of the camp. Heard a few years ago that she was dead.’

‘Do you know which boy it was? What he was called?’

‘No, I don’t. She had several sons. I expect he went off the rails like some of the other kids from the camp.’ Baldvina looked back at the photo.

‘Where can I find Vilhelm?’

‘God knows. He’s on the streets. Never been able to stick at anything. He’s well meaning, though. Heart’s in the right place. He came out of it worst of all my lot.’

‘Out of Camp Knox?’

‘Camp Knox was that sort of place.’

Erlendur pictured her son now, a frail homeless man with broken glasses. He had once dossed down in a hot-water pipeline, back when Erlendur was investigating the death of another tramp who had long been living rough and had ended up drowned in the old peat diggings in Kringlumýri.

Baldvina’s eyes were lowered to her arthritic hands.

‘No one was that bothered just because some girl had done herself in.’

IT WAS LATE
afternoon when Caroline finally answered the phone. She remembered Marion straight away. Marion wondered if it would be possible to meet her to ask a favour. Although initially reluctant, Caroline yielded in the face of Marion’s polite insistence, said she was free that evening and suggested a time and place. Marion asked if they could meet in private. Caroline took a moment to grasp what was required.

‘Somewhere off the beaten track would be best,’ said Marion. ‘I need to meet you where we can be sure we won’t be disturbed.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘If there’s some way you could arrange that, I’d be very grateful.’

‘Why?’

‘Also it would be better if you didn’t mention our meeting to anyone.’

‘Why … why all the secrecy?’

‘We’d like to proceed with caution,’ said Marion. ‘We trust you. And we don’t know anyone else on the base. We won’t try and force you to do anything you don’t want to. I promise.’

Eventually, after a lengthy pause for thought, Caroline agreed to these conditions. Evidently she was less than enthusiastic about a clandestine meeting with the Icelandic police in connection with a murder that, in her opinion, had nothing to do with her or the US military. She said as much to Marion, adding that she didn’t know what they expected of her. Marion asked her to be patient, to listen first before deciding whether or not to help them.