‘It would be no problem to push a man over this. It wouldn’t even require a struggle. Just a good shove.’
‘The pathologist said he’d almost certainly received a blow to the head before he fell,’ said Marion.
‘OK,’ said Caroline. ‘So it goes something like this: Kristvin’s poking around in the hangar, maybe searching for missiles from Thule. Or he’s come to meet a man who’s promised him information, maybe even to show them to him. If he had any other reason for being in here, we don’t know what it was. Then either something happens that forces Kristvin to seek refuge up here, or they meet up here to talk. I’d never agree to that but then I’m not Kristvin. They quarrel. Kristvin’s hit on the head and falls off the platform.’
‘Who’s up here with him?’
‘Wilbur Cain?’
‘So it all comes down to the presence of nuclear weapons from Thule?’
‘Looks like it,’ said Caroline.
‘We’d better get out of here,’ said Marion, testing the rail in several places to check if it was loose. ‘There’s nothing to see up here. I’ll try and take some samples from the floor over by the wall, then we’d better beat it.’
‘Jesus, I’ll be glad to get down from here,’ said Caroline.
‘Getting to you, is it?’ said Marion, bending over the rail.
‘I can’t stand it. In my worst nightmares I’m falling off a cliff and there’s no one to save me.’
‘You should find yourself a man,’ said Marion, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
‘Yeah, right,’ said Caroline.
She inched her way down the ladder with Marion just behind. Before long, weak with relief, she had her feet planted on terra firma again. Marion went round the corner of the scaffolding tower to the north wall and craned upwards, still marvelling at the height of the roof. Then Caroline called in a low voice and Marion saw she was pointing at some stains spattered up the foot of the wall. Moving closer, Marion crouched down, discerned four dark spots and tested one with a finger.
‘Is it paint?’ asked Caroline.
‘Not sure.’
‘You should take a sample.’
‘It may have nothing to do with Kristvin,’ said Marion. ‘We’re probably too late to collect any evidence in here.’
Nevertheless, Marion scraped at the marks with a knife and wrapped the scrapings in a handkerchief. Then straightened up again, gauged the position of the stains in relation to the scaffolding, and walked over to examine the floor for any signs of the blood that might have splashed from there onto the wall. But it was impossible to tell if any of the accumulated grime was blood.
‘We should get out of here,’ muttered Caroline.
‘Martinez made a comment about Joan and her husband, Earl, when we were talking in the bar,’ said Marion distractedly. ‘I forgot to mention it. By the way, I think you’ve got a better friend in Martinez than you realise.’
‘What are you implying?’
‘Haven’t you... hasn’t it struck you?’
‘What exactly did he say? And stop trying to meddle in my private life.’
‘He reckoned Earl was supplying drugs to Icelanders,’ said Marion. ‘What if Kristvin bought the marijuana from him?’
‘And slept with his wife?’
‘Hadn’t we better have another word with her?’
‘Yes. Bitch though she is.’
‘What about the weapons? Ought we to take a quick look round while we’re here? See if we can find anything from Greenland? From Thule?’
‘I very much doubt they’d be stored in here if they’re trying to cover up their presence,’ whispered Caroline, starting to move towards the door. ‘Far too many people coming and going. They could be anywhere on the base. Come on, we need to get the hell out of here.’
45
Mensalder stood in the lee of the garage shop and stole a nervous look at Erlendur. He had finally revealed the secret he had not dared to breathe a word about for more than a quarter of a century.
‘She never showed up,’ he repeated, as if it was vital to make this understood. The most vital aspect of the whole story.
Erlendur could see how difficult this was for him, how he stood, shoulders bowed, by the wall, hardly daring to raise his eyes from the tarmac. The other attendant appeared round the corner.
‘Mensi!’ he called in a hectoring tone. ‘Hurry up and serve these customers. I can’t do everything.’ He glared at them both, then disappeared back into the shop.
‘Coming,’ said Mensalder wearily, eyes flickering to Erlendur’s face, then away again. ‘You’ve got to believe me. She never showed up.’
‘When do you knock off?’ asked Erlendur.
‘In an hour or so.’
‘I’ll stick around,’ said Erlendur. ‘I need you to show me where you waited for her. Will you do that?’
Mensalder nodded and looked over at the pumps. Three cars were waiting to be served.
‘I didn’t touch her,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t think I did.’
‘I’ll talk to you in an hour.’
Erlendur got back in his car to wait for the garage to close up. He switched on the heater, chilled to the bone from running about after Mensalder in the icy northern blast, and listened to the radio news. The search for the missing men up north continued. A spokesman for the rescue team was quoted as saying that conditions on the Eyvindarstadir Moors were much improved. The snow had drifted over any tracks so it was difficult to guess where the two friends had gone, but now at least the wind had dropped and there was a bright moon.
Erlendur watched Mensalder dealing with the cars. His movements seemed even more ponderous than before, he no longer exchanged pleasantries with the drivers, and carefully avoided looking in Erlendur’s direction. As closing time approached, the traffic thinned out and eventually the lights by the pumps went out and Erlendur saw Mensalder’s colleague shutting up for the night. The two men emerged from the garage shop together and said goodnight, and after a brief hesitation Mensalder headed over to where Erlendur was sitting in the car. Erlendur wound down the window.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Do we have to do this?’ said Mensalder. ‘Haven’t I told you enough?’
‘You haven’t told me anything,’ said Erlendur. ‘Let’s get this over with. The sooner the better.’
‘But nothing happened and... I don’t know what it is you want,’ whimpered Mensalder. ‘She never came and I don’t know—’
‘Have you got a car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Leave it here. Come on, hurry up. You’re not getting out of this, Mensalder. You’ve done that for far too long.’
Mensalder still hung back. But when it finally came home to him that Erlendur was not planning to give up, he walked round the front of the car and got into the passenger seat. Erlendur set off, heading for the west of town. They drove in silence the whole way, except when Mensalder gave directions, and in no time they had reached the place where he claimed to have waited in his car for Dagbjört that fateful morning. It wasn’t far from the Vesturbær swimming pool, where Camp Knox had once stood. The wind had dropped and hot veils of steam rose from the open-air pool, reminding Erlendur of the time he had stood beside the milky-blue lagoon on Reykjanes, watching the clouds of vapour dispersing above the power station.
‘Stop,’ said Mensalder. ‘It was around about here. All these houses have been built since then, and the pool too, of course, but this is where I parked and waited for her.’
‘Why didn’t you just go round to her house?’ asked Erlendur, turning off the engine. ‘Why all the secrecy?’
‘She didn’t want me to. She didn’t want her parents to know — that she was wasting money on records. She was going to say she’d borrowed them. Anyway, what I was doing was black-marketeering and I wasn’t keen to draw attention to the fact. I’d spent the night in town and was on my way back to Keflavík that morning, so it suited me fine.’