Erlendur paused.
“Another feature of Nordurmyri is this sort of basement flat. Originally there weren’t any basement flats, the owners had them converted, installed kitchens and walls, made rooms, made places to live. Previously these basements were where the work was done for, what did Marion call them? Self-contained homes. Do you know what that is?”
They both shook their heads.
“You’re too young, of course,” Erlendur said, well aware that they would hate him saying that. “In basements like this were the girls’ rooms. They were maids in the homes of the more wealthy people. They had rooms in holes like this. There was a laundry room too, a room for making haggis, for example, and other food, storerooms, a bathroom and all that.”
“Not forgetting that it’s a marsh.” Sigurdur Oli said sarcastically.
“Are you trying to tell us something important?” Elinborg said.
“Under these basements are foundations…” Erlendur said.
“That’s quite unusual,” Sigurdur Oli said to Elinborg.
“… just like under all other houses,” Erlendur continued, not letting Sigurdur Oli’s quips disturb him. “If you talk to a plumber, as Marion Briem did…”
“What’s all this Marion Briem bullshit anyway?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“… you’ll find out they’ve often been called out to Nordurmyri to deal with a problem that can arise years, decades after houses have been built on marsh land. It happens in some places but not others. You can see it happening on the outside of some houses. A lot of them are coated with pebbledash and you can see where the pebbledash ends and the bare wall of the house starts at ground level. A strip of maybe one or two feet. The point is that the ground subsides indoors too.”
Erlendur noticed they’d stopped grinning.
“In the estate-agency business it’s called a concealed fault and it’s difficult to know how to deal with this sort of thing. When the houses subside it puts pressure on the sewage pipes and they burst under the floor. Before you know it, you’re flushing your toilet straight into the foundations. It can go on for ages because the smell can’t get through the concrete. But damp patches form because the hot-water outflow in many old houses is connected into the sewage pipe and leaks into the basement when the pipe breaks, it gets hot and the steam reaches the surface. The parquet warps.”
Erlendur had their complete attention by now.
“And Marion told you all that?” Sigurdur Oli said.
“To fix it you have to break up the floor,” Erlendur continued, “and go down into the foundations to mend the pipe. The plumbers told Marion that sometimes when they drilled through the floor they’d hit a hollow. The base plate is fairly thin in some places and underneath there’s an air pocket. The ground has subsided by half a yard, maybe even a whole yard. All because of the marsh.”
Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg looked at each other.
“So is it hollow under the floor here?” Elinborg asked, stamping with one foot.
Erlendur smiled.
“Marion even managed to locate a plumber who came to this house the same year as the national festival. Everyone remembers that year and this plumber clearly recalled coming here because of the damp in the floor.”
“What are you trying to tell us?” Sigurdur Oli asked.
“The plumber broke up the floor in here. The base plate isn’t very thick. It’s hollow underneath in a lot of places. The plumber remembers the job so clearly because he was shocked that Holberg wouldn’t let him finish.”
“How come?”
“He opened up the floor and mended the pipe, then Holberg threw him out and said he’d finish it himself. And he did.”
They stood in silence until Sigurdur Oli couldn’t resist the temptation any longer.
“Marion Briem?” he said. “Marion Briem!” He said the name over and again as if struggling to understand it. Erlendur was right. He was too young to remember Marion from the force. He repeated the name like it was some kind of conundrum, then suddenly stopped and looked thoughtful and finally asked:
“Wait a minute. Who is this Marion? What kind of name is that anyway? Is it a man or a woman?”
Sigurdur Oli gave Erlendur a questioning look.
“I sometimes wonder myself,” Erlendur replied and took out his mobile phone.
27
Forensics began by tearing away the flooring in each room of the flat, the kitchen and bathroom and the den. It had taken all day to get the necessary permission for the operation. Erlendur had argued his case at a meeting with the police commissioner who agreed, though reluctantly, that there were sufficient suspicions to justify breaking up the floor in Holberg’s flat. The matter was rushed through because of the murder that had been committed in the building.
Erlendur presented the excavation as a link to the search for Holberg’s murderer; he implied that Gretar could well be alive and might conceivably have been the killer. The police would doubly benefit from the excavation. If Marion Briem’s hunch was correct, it would rule out Gretar as a suspect and solve the riddle of a person missing for more than a quarter of a century.
They ordered the largest available size of transit van into which to load the whole of Holberg’s household effects, apart from the fixtures and their contents. It was starting to get dark when the van backed up to the house and shortly afterwards a tractor pulled up with a pneumatic drill. A team of forensics experts gathered there and more detectives joined them. The residents were nowhere to be seen.
It had been raining all day, as on the previous days. But now it was only a fine drizzle that rippled in the cold autumn breeze and settled on Erlendur’s face where he stood to one side, a cigarette between his fingers. Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg stood with him. A crowd had gathered in front of the house but seemed reluctant to get too close. It included reporters, television cameramen and newspaper photographers. Cars of all sizes marked with newspaper and television company logos were spread all around the neighbourhood and Erlendur, who had prohibited all contact with the media, wondered whether to have them removed.
Holberg’s flat was soon empty. The big van remained in the forecourt while it was being decided what to do with the effects. Eventually Erlendur ordered them to be sent to the police storage depot. Erlendur saw the linoleum and carpets being carried out of the flat and loaded into the van, which then rumbled off, out of the street.
The head of forensics greeted Erlendur with a handshake. He was about 50, named Ragnar, rather fat and with a black mop of hair standing out in all directions. He was educated in Britain, read only British thrillers and was a particular devotee of British detective series on television.
“What bloody nonsense have you got us into now?” he asked, looking over towards the media crews. There was a hint of humour in his voice. He thought it was marvellous that they were tearing up the floor to look for a body.
“How does it look?” Erlendur asked.
“All the floors have a thick coat of some kind of ship’s paint,” Ragnar said. “It’s impossible to tell if they’ve been tampered with. We can’t see any concrete of a different age or anything that might be a repair to it. We’re banging on the floor with hammers, but it sounds hollow almost everywhere. Whether it’s subsidence or something else, I don’t know. The concrete in the building itself is thick, quality stuff. None of that alkaline bollocks. But there are a lot of damp patches on the floor. Couldn’t that plumber you were in touch with help us?”