‘There were two padlocks on the shed: you had keys to both. Why are you acting like that’s nothing?’
Vignir didn’t answer.
‘You were caught with your pants down, and you’re sore about it, but that’s just tough,’ said Marion. ‘Face facts. And stop pissing about so we can get this over with and go home.’
‘I’m not keeping you here,’ said Vignir. ‘You can bugger off for all I care.’
‘True,’ said Marion, glancing at Erlendur. ‘Shall we call it a day?’
‘Why do you think Ellidi’s got it in for you?’ asked Erlendur. He knew that the Ellidi Vignir was referring to had sometimes worked for the brothers, selling drugs, collecting debts and threatening punters. He was a violent thug with a long record of convictions for assault.
‘Was it him?’ asked Vignir.
‘No. We don’t know who it was.’
‘Sure you do.’
‘I thought Ellidi was your mate?’ said Erlendur.
‘He’s a dickhead.’
At that moment a detective stuck his head round the door and asked Marion for a word. Marion accompanied him out into the corridor.
‘What’s up?’
‘A body,’ said the detective. ‘On the Reykjanes Peninsula. Near Svartsengi.’
3
The woman who had found the body was aged about thirty and immediately volunteered the information that she suffered from psoriasis. To prove it, she showed them the dry patches of skin up one arm and particularly around her elbow. She was about to show them her scalp as well but Marion had seen enough and stopped her. The woman was insistent that her skin disease should be mentioned as it explained why she had chanced on the body in this unlikely, out-of-the-way spot.
‘I’m usually alone here,’ she said, looking at Marion, ‘although I know other people visit the lagoon too, even if I’ve never seen any of them. There are no facilities or anything. But the water’s lovely. It’s the perfect temperature and lying in it makes you feel so much better.’
At this point she was sitting in a police car, describing to Marion and Erlendur how she had come across the body. Marion was beside her in the back seat, Erlendur behind the wheel. Around them were other patrol cars, an ambulance, a forensics team and two press photographers — word about the discovery had already reached the news desks. There was no road to the lagoon, which had formed three years earlier as an outflow from the Sudurnes District Heating Utility at Svartsengi. The geothermal power station was visible a little way off, lights ablaze in the winter darkness. The woman had been bathing in the western end of the lagoon, having hiked to it over the lava field from the Grindavík road. The water was shallow there and she had wallowed in it for an hour or so, before deciding to head home. The days were short at this time of year; dusk was falling and she hadn’t wanted to stumble through the winter gloom again like last time when she’d had real difficulty finding her car.
‘I stood up and... it’s always struck me as an incredibly beautiful place but a bit creepy too. The steam rising from the water, being all alone out here in the lava, you know... So you can imagine what a dreadful shock it was when I saw... I waded further out than I’ve ever been before and suddenly I saw a shoe. The heel was sticking up out of the water. At first I thought it was just a shoe — that someone had lost it or chucked it in the pool. But when I went to pick it up it was stuck and... stupidly I tugged harder and then I realised it was... it was attached to...’
The woman faltered. Marion, aware that she was badly shaken by her grisly discovery, was taking the interview slowly. When they had carried the body up to the road the woman had tried to avoid looking at it. She was close to breaking down as she related what had happened. Erlendur attempted some words of comfort.
‘You’ve coped extremely well in difficult circumstances.’
‘God, it was a shock,’ she said. ‘You... you can’t imagine what a horrible shock it was. All alone out there in the pool.’
Half an hour earlier Erlendur had pulled on a pair of chest waders and splashed out to the body, accompanied by two members of the forensics team. Marion had watched from the shore, smoking. Fortunately, the Grindavík police, who had been first on the scene, had had the sense not to touch anything until the detectives from CID arrived. The technicians took photos of the body and its position, their camera flashes illuminating the surroundings. A diver had been called out to comb the lagoon bed. Erlendur bent over the body, up to his waist in water, trying to work out how it had been transported to this spot. Once forensics had seen enough, they lifted the body out and carried it ashore, discovering something odd about it as they did so. The limbs appeared to have sustained multiple fractures, the ribcage had collapsed into the spine and the spine itself was broken. The corpse hung like a rag doll from their arms.
It was evening by now and pitch dark but floodlights, powered by a diesel generator, had been set up around the site and in their harsh glare the battered state of the corpse became even more evident. The face was crushed and the shattered skull gaped open. From the clothes, they guessed it was male. He had no ID in his pockets and it was difficult to guess how long he’d been lying in the water. Clouds of hot vapour formed continually above the wide surface of the lagoon, enhancing the eeriness of the scene. It was too dark to conduct a proper search for tracks now; that would have to be postponed until first light tomorrow.
The corpse was covered up and carried by stretcher over the lava field to the Grindavík road. From there it would be conveyed to the National Hospital morgue on Barónsstígur in Reykjavík, where they would wash off the mud and conduct a post-mortem.
‘And that’s when you notified the police?’ Marion prompted, as the three of them sat in the car. The heater was on and condensation had formed inside the windows. Outside, beams of light played over them, there was a sound of voices and shadowy figures flitted past.
‘I ran across the lava to the car and drove straight to the police station in Grindavík. Then I brought them back here and showed them the place. Then more police cars turned up. And then you two. I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to sleep for a long time.’
‘That’s only natural. It’s no fun at all experiencing something like this,’ said Marion. ‘You should ask a friend or relative to keep you company. Talk about what happened.’
‘So you didn’t notice any other people near the lagoon when you came here today?’ asked Erlendur.
‘No, no one. Like I said, I’ve never seen anyone else out here.’
‘And you don’t know of anyone who comes to bathe in the lagoon like you?’ asked Marion.
‘No. What can have happened to the man? Did you see the way he...? God, I couldn’t bear to look.’
‘No, that’s understandable,’ said Marion.
‘This skin disease, psoriasis — does it cause a lot of irritation?’ asked Erlendur.
Marion shot him a look.
‘They keep developing new drugs to suppress it,’ said the woman. ‘But it’s not comfortable. Though the itching’s not the worst part. The worst part’s the blemishes.’
‘And the lagoon helps?’
‘I think it does. It hasn’t been scientifically proven, but I think so.’
She smiled weakly at Erlendur. Marion asked the woman a few additional questions about the discovery, then let her go. They all got out of the car and the woman hurried off. Erlendur turned his back to the north wind.
‘Isn’t it obvious why his face and body are mashed up like that?’ he asked Marion.
‘Are you implying he was beaten up?’
‘Wasn’t he?’