Erlendur drew him aside and sat down with him in the cafeteria before asking if he remembered the accident on Lake Thingvallavatn, and Leonóra and her daughter María.

‘It was an open-and-shut case, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, I expect so. You don’t happen to remember anything unusual about the circumstances: the people involved or the accident itself?’

Níels adopted an expression intended to convey the idea that he was racking his brains in an effort to recall the events at Lake Thingvallavatn.

‘You’re not trying to uncover a crime after all these years?’ he asked.

‘No, far from it. The little girl you saw at the scene with her mother died the other day. It was her father who drowned.’

‘I don’t recall anything unusual in connection with that investigation,’ Níels said.

‘How did the propeller come loose from the engine?’

‘Well, naturally I don’t have the exact details on the tip of my tongue,’ Níels answered warily. He regarded Erlendur with suspicion. Not everyone at the police station appreciated it when Erlendur started digging up old cases.

‘Do you remember what forensics said?’

‘Wear and tear, wasn’t it?’ Níels asked.

‘Something like that,’ Erlendur replied. ‘Not that that explains much. The engine was old and clapped out and hadn’t received any particular maintenance. What did they tell you that didn’t go in the report?’

‘Gudfinnur was in charge of the examination. But he’s dead now.’

‘So we can’t ask him. You know that not everything goes into the reports.’

‘What is it with you and the past?’

Erlendur shrugged.

‘What are you trying to get at, old chap?’

‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said, controlling his impatience.

‘What exactly do you need to know?’ Níels asked.

‘How did they react, the wife and daughter? Can you remember?’

‘There was nothing unnatural about their reactions. It was a tragic accident. Everyone could see that. The woman almost had a breakdown.’

‘The propeller was never found.’

‘No.’

‘And there was no way of establishing exactly how it had come loose?’

‘No. The man was alone in the boat and probably started tinkering with the engine, fell overboard and drowned. His wife didn’t see what happened, nor did the girl. The wife suddenly noticed that the boat was empty. Then she heard the man cry out briefly but by then it was too late.’

‘Do you remember…?’

‘We talked to the retailer,’ Níels said. ‘Or Gudfinnur did. Talked to someone at the company that sold the outboard motors.’

‘Yes, it’s in the report.’

‘He said the propeller wouldn’t come off that easily. It required some effort.’

‘Could it have gone aground?’

‘There was no evidence of that. But the wife told us that her husband had been messing around with the engine the day before. She didn’t ask him about it and didn’t know what he was doing. He might have loosened the propeller accidentally.’

‘Her husband?’

‘Yes.’

Erlendur recalled Ingvar telling him that Magnús did not have the first clue about engines.

‘Do you remember the girl’s reaction when you arrived on the scene?’ he asked.

‘Wasn’t she only about ten or so?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, of course she was like any child who suffers a shock. She clung to her mother. Never left her side.’

‘I can’t see from the reports that you spoke to her at all.’

‘No, we didn’t, or at least not to any extent. We didn’t see any reason to. Children aren’t the most reliable witnesses.’

Erlendur was on the point of objecting when he was interrupted by two uniformed officers entering the cafeteria and hailing Níels.

‘Where are you going with this?’ Níels asked. ‘What’s it all about?’

‘Fear of the dark,’ Erlendur replied. ‘Simple fear of the dark.’

14

María’s friend Karen met Erlendur at the door of her home, a spacious flat in a block situated in the west end of Reykjavík. She had been expecting him and invited him inside. When he had called her after their meeting at the police station she had given him a list of names of people connected with María, as well as discussing their friendship that had begun when they were eleven and had shared a desk at their new school. Leonóra had recently moved María to a different school due to her dissatisfaction with the governors and teachers at her previous one where she had been subjected to minor bullying. Given little say in the matter, María was trying her best to find her feet among the unfamiliar faces at her new school. Karen meanwhile had just moved to the neighbourhood and knew no one. Leonóra used to drive María to school every morning and fetch her in the afternoons, and once María asked if Karen would like to come home with her. Leonóra welcomed Karen as her daughter’s new friend, and from then on their friendship quickly blossomed under her protection.

‘Actually her mother was a bit overbearing,’ Karen told Erlendur. ‘She enrolled us for ballet, which neither of us could stand, took us to the cinema, arranged for me to come for sleep-overs with them in Grafarvogur, though my mum never let me go for sleepovers with any other friends. She organised cinema tickets, made popcorn for us when we were watching TV. We hardly had a moment to play by ourselves. Leonóra was very kind, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you’d just had enough of her. She wrapped María in cotton wool. But although she was spoilt to death in my opinion, María never lorded it over other people: she was always polite and dutiful and good – it was her nature.’

Karen and María’s friendship grew closer by the year. They graduated from sixth-form college together, Karen embarked on a teaching degree and María read history, they travelled abroad together, formed a sewing circle that eventually fizzled out, took holidays together, spent weekends in the country and went out on the town together.

Erlendur now had a better appreciation of why Karen had come to see him at the police station after her close friend’s suicide and had claimed that there must have been something more to it than bottomless despair.

‘What did you think of the seance?’ Karen asked.

‘Did you know about her going to this seance?’ he asked, evading the question.

‘I drove her there,’ Karen said. ‘The medium’s called Andersen.’

‘Apparently Leonóra was going to let María know if she found herself in some sort of afterlife,’ Erlendur said.

‘I don’t see anything odd about that,’ Karen said. ‘We often discussed it, María and I. She told me about Proust. How do you explain something like that?’

‘Well, there are a number of possible explanations,’ Erlendur said.

‘You don’t believe in that sort of thing, do you?’ Karen said.

‘No,’ Erlendur replied. ‘But I understand María. I can well understand why she chose to speak to a medium.’

‘A lot of people do believe in life after death.’

‘Yes,’ Erlendur said, ‘but I’m not one of them. What people on the point of death describe as a bright light and tunnel are to my mind nothing more than the brain sending out its final messages before shutting down.’

‘María thought differently.’

‘Did she tell anyone else apart from you about the Proust business?’

‘I don’t know.’

Karen sat staring at Erlendur as if wondering whether he was the right man to talk to, whether she had made a mistake. Erlendur met her gaze. The light in the room was fading.

‘There’s probably no point telling you what María told me only a short while ago.’

‘You needn’t tell me anything unless you want to. The fact of the matter is that your friend took her own life. You may find it hard to face up to – but then, a lot of things happen in this world that we find it hard to reconcile ourselves to.’

‘I’m perfectly well aware of that and I know how María felt after Leonóra died but I still find it a bit odd.’