‘And you’ve lived alone here ever since?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about your father?’
‘They split up when I was a child. I can hardly remember him except as a guest in my mother’s house. Then we didn’t hear from him any more. My mother told me he’d moved abroad.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Quite possibly. I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you have any interest in finding out?’
‘No. None at all. Are you done?’
‘Yes, almost,’ said Erlendur. ‘Were you at home the morning Dagbjört vanished?’
‘Ye-es,’ said Rasmus slowly.
‘Did you see her leave for school?’
‘No.’
‘Positive?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you sometimes saw her, didn’t you? Leaving for school?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘But not that morning?’
‘No.’
‘Is your memory that good? After all, it was a long time ago and—’
‘Yes. It’s not easy to forget. When people vanish like that.’
‘Did you know if she had a boyfriend?’
‘A boyfriend? No.’
‘Did you ever see anyone hanging around outside, watching her house in the evenings?’
‘No. I never saw anyone. Why, do you think...? Was someone watching the house? I never noticed.’
‘Did you ever see any of the youths from Camp Knox loitering in the street?’
‘No, I didn’t see... not that I noticed, but it’s such a long time ago and everything’s... you forget... and... and I didn’t know any youths from Camp Knox. Mrs Kruse wouldn’t allow it. She said they were no better than scum, the lot of them.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Were you interested in Dagbjört?’
‘Me? Oh, no. No, not at all.’
‘Did you see what she did in the evenings?’
‘In the evenings?’
‘Did you sometimes see her in the evenings?’
‘No, it... I... I wasn’t interested in her.’
‘Did you sometimes see her in the evenings when she was alone in her room?’
Rasmus seemed disconcerted by the question.
‘Do you think she spotted you?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Do you think she saw what you were up to?’
Rasmus had difficulty disguising his dismay when it suddenly dawned on him where all these questions had been leading. His prominent eyes bulged even wider and his face was aghast with surprise and fear. He retreated inside the house.
‘I haven’t got time for this,’ Erlendur heard him mutter, then add, on a low, pleading note, as the door closed: ‘Please, just go away and don’t ever come back.’
Some time later Erlendur stood on the pavement by a high wooden fence, looking into a playground and watching people coming to collect their children. Grandmothers in overcoats and headscarves, with handbags on their arms. Mothers in anoraks and peasant blouses. They lingered, maybe smoked a cigarette. There was the odd father too. Some of the children were playing with teenage helpers who joined them in the sandpit, on the swings or see-saw, aware that soon it would be closing time and they would be free to go home. He heard the sound of the mothers’ voices, the shrieking of the children, and watched the woman in charge comforting a little girl who had hurt herself falling off the see-saw. The woman dusted the dirt from her red waterproof trousers and told her she was all right, then took her to the sandpit and encouraged her to play with the children who were building a sandcastle there. The little girl, who was five years old, instantly forgot her woes and started patting sand into a green plastic bucket. He saw that the woman in charge was keeping an eye on her as if she didn’t want the girl to be left out. Erlendur had noticed that she had a tendency to wander about on her own.
He watched her pottering about in the sandpit for a while, then turned away and walked off with a heavy heart. He knew the little girl well but thought she was probably starting to forget him. He had only himself to blame. One day he hoped they could be friends, so he wouldn’t have to watch her from afar, like some kind of outcast. Every so often he stopped by, like now, but didn’t talk to anyone, especially not to the little girl, because he didn’t want to cause any trouble. Nor did he hang around long, for fear people would mistake him for some kind of pervert.
Erlendur hunched his shoulders against the cold and headed back to his car, thinking about the little girl and himself and what a mess he had made of things. One day he hoped he would have a chance to explain to his daughter who he was and why he’d had to leave.
29
When Erlendur returned to the office in Kópavogur, he was informed that Marion wanted to see him. Marion was still ill in bed, and Erlendur had to get directions to the house since he hadn’t been there before. It was unusual for people to be invited round. At least, this was the first time Erlendur had heard of it and he didn’t know what to expect. He had always had the sense that, like him, Marion preferred to keep private life and work separate.
It was nearing supper time and Erlendur was starving since he hadn’t eaten lunch, so before heading over to Marion’s he swung by Skúlakaffi and bought a takeaway of salted lamb with potatoes and swedes. He was back in his car before it occurred to him that Marion might like something to eat too, so he returned and ordered a sandwich in a box. This offering seemed to meet with approval.
‘Thank you, you shouldn’t have,’ said Marion, accepting the box.
‘I thought you might like something to eat,’ said Erlendur. ‘The only sandwiches they had were prawn.’ He glanced around the flat and noticed an open bottle of port on the table. ‘Feeling any better?’
‘Getting there.’
As was evident from the bookshelves, Marion was an insatiable reader. Every wall was lined with books, from large foreign reference works in many volumes to slender collections of Icelandic verse that marked themselves out here and there by their tatty paper spines. Icelandic sagas rubbed shoulders with love stories; Icelandic folklore mingled with foreign biographies and translated detective stories, works on natural history and every kind of art form, from ballet to baroque music. Everything was neatly ordered on the shelves, the perfectly even rows a pleasure to the eye, testimony to the fact that Marion had once worked at the City Library. The overall effect was only enhanced by the myriad small figurines arranged in front of the books, some made of delicate painted porcelain, others of cruder pottery or carved wood, resulting in the most varied collection. Marion noticed Erlendur’s gaze pause on these knick-knacks.
‘An old friend of mine, a woman who used to travel at lot, sent me those ornaments over many years,’ said Marion. ‘No two are alike or come from the same place.’
‘Used to? Has she given up now?’
‘I got a letter the day before yesterday informing me that she was dead,’ said Marion. ‘It came as quite a shock. I... I wasn’t expecting it.’
‘I see,’ said Erlendur. ‘You can’t have felt like coming into work.’
His eyes fell on the photograph of an older man in a black suit, which stood on a table. Beside it burned a candle in a small holder made of lava.
‘A friend of mine,’ said Marion. ‘He rejoiced in the unusual name of Athanasius. Died years ago. Did you see Caroline? I hear you’ve been out to the base.’
Erlendur nodded and put Marion in the picture about his meeting with Caroline, the cocktail waitress Joan and her relationship with Kristvin, and the fact that Kristvin had in all likelihood been with her the evening he fell to his death. He wouldn’t have been able to use the Corolla, so would have had to walk and might conceivably have been attacked by the same individuals who had sabotaged his car. Erlendur admitted that he and Caroline had had a difference of opinion about the presence of the army and that he wasn’t sure she would offer them any further help.