“You think the brothers killed him?”

“I’d like to look into that. The backward one’s dead but the elder brother’s at an old people’s home here in Reykjavik and I reckon he’d have been capable of attacking someone on the slightest pretext.”

“And what would that be?” Marion asked. “You know you have no motive. He was going to sell them a tractor. They had no reason to kill him.”

“I know,” Erlendur said. “If they did, it was because something happened out there when he called on them. A chain of events was set in motion, perhaps by sheer coincidence, which led to the man’s death.”

“Erlendur, you know better than that,” Marion said. “These are fantasies. Stop this nonsense.”

“I know I have no motive and no body and it was years ago, but there’s something that doesn’t fit and I’d like to find out what it is.”

“There’s always something that doesn’t gel, Erlendur. You can never balance all the columns. Life’s more complicated than that, as you of all people ought to know. Where was the farmer supposed to have got the Russian spying equipment to sink the body in Kleifarvatn?”

“Yes, I know, but that might be another, unrelated case.”

Marion looked at Erlendur. There was nothing new about detectives becoming absorbed in cases that they were investigating and then getting completely obsessed by them. It had often happened to Marion, who knew that Erlendur tended to take the most serious cases to heart. He had a rare sensitivity, which was both his blessing and his curse.

“You were talking about John Wayne the other day,” Erlendur said. “When we watched the western.”

“Have you dug that up?” Marion said.

Erlendur nodded. He had asked Sigurdur Oli, who knew about all things American and was a mine of information about celebrities.

“His name was Marion too,” Erlendur said. “Wasn’t it? You are namesakes.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” Marion said. “Because of the way I am.”

26

Benedikt Jonsson, the retired agricultural-machinery importer, greeted Erlendur at the door and invited him in. Erlendur’s visit had been delayed. Benedikt had been to see his daughter who lived outside Copenhagen. He had just returned home and gave the impression he would have liked to stay longer. He said he felt very much at home in Denmark.

Erlendur nodded intermittently while Benedikt rambled on about Denmark. A widower, he appeared to live well. He was fairly short with small, fat fingers and a ruddy, harmless-looking face. He lived alone in a small, neat house. Erlendur noticed a new Mercedes jeep outside the garage. He thought to himself that the old businessman had probably been shrewd and saved up for his old age.

“I knew I’d end up answering questions about that man eventually,” Benedikt said when at last he got to the point.

“Yes, I wanted to talk about Leopold,” Erlendur said.

“It was all very mysterious. Someone was bound to start wondering in the end. I should probably have told you the truth at the time but…”

“The truth?”

“Yes,” Benedikt said. “May I ask why you’re enquiring about this man now? My son said you’d questioned him too and when I spoke to you on the phone you were rather cagey. Why the sudden interest? I thought you investigated the case and cleared it up back then. Actually, I was hoping you had.”

Erlendur told him about the skeleton found in Lake Kleifarvatn and that Leopold was one of several missing persons being investigated in connection with it.

“Did you know him personally?” Erlendur asked.

“Personally? No, I can hardly say that. And he didn’t sell much either, in the short time he worked for us. If I remember correctly he made a lot of trips outside the city. All my salesmen did regional work — we sold agricultural machinery and earth-moving equipment — but none travelled as much as Leopold and none was a worse salesman.”

“So he didn’t make you any money?” Erlendur said.

“I didn’t want to take him on in the first place,” Benedikt said.

“Really?”

“Yes, no, that’s not what I mean. They forced me to, really. I had to sack a damn good man to make room for him. It was never a big company.”

“Wait a minute, say that again. Who forced you to hire him?”

“They told me I mustn’t tell anyone so… I don’t know if I should be blabbing about it. I felt quite bad about all that plotting. I’m not one for doing things behind people’s backs.”

“This was decades ago,” Erlendur said. “It can hardly do any harm now.”

“No, I guess not. They threatened to move their franchise elsewhere. If I didn’t hire that bloke. It was like I’d got caught up in the Mafia.”

“Who forced you to take on Leopold?”

“The manufacturer in East Germany, as it was then. They had good tractors that were much cheaper than the American ones. And bulldozers and diggers. We sold a lot of them although they weren’t considered as classy as Massey Ferguson or Caterpillar.”

“Did they have a say in which staff you recruited?”

“That was what they threatened,” Benedikt said. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t do a thing. Of course I hired him.”

“Did they give you an explanation? Why you ought to recruit that specific person?”

“No. None. No explanation. I took him on but never got to know him. They said it was a temporary arrangement and, like I told you, he wasn’t in the city much, just spent his time rushing back and forth around the country.”

“A temporary arrangement?”

“They said he didn’t need to work for me for long. And they set conditions. He wasn’t to go on the payroll. He was to be paid as a contractor, under the table. That was pretty difficult. My accountant was continually querying that. But it wasn’t much money, nowhere near enough to live on, so he must have had another income as well.”

“What do you think their motive was?”

“I don’t have a clue. Then he disappeared and I never heard any more about Leopold, except from you lot in the police.”

“Didn’t you report what you’re now telling me at the time he went missing?”

“I haven’t told anyone. They threatened me. I had my staff to think of. My livelihood depended on that company. Even though it wasn’t big we managed to make a bit of money and then the hydropower projects started up. The Sigalda and Burfell stations. They needed our heavy plant machinery then. We made a fortune out of the hydropower projects. It was around the same time. The company was growing. I had other things to think about.”

“So you just tried to forget it?”

“Correct. I didn’t think it was any skin off my nose, either. I hired him because the manufacturer wanted me to, but he was nothing to do with me as such.”

“Do you have any idea what could have happened to him?”

“None at all. He was supposed to meet those people outside Mosfellsbaer but didn’t turn up, as far as we know. Maybe he just abandoned the idea or postponed it. That’s not inconceivable. Maybe he had some urgent business to attend to.”

“You don’t think that the farmer he was supposed to meet was lying?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Who contacted you about hiring Leopold? Did he do it himself?”

“No, it wasn’t him. An official from their embassy on Aegisida came to see me. It was really a trade delegation, not a proper embassy, that they ran in those days. Later it all got so much bigger. Actually he met me in Leipzig.”

“Leipzig?”

“Yes, we used to go to annual trade fairs there. They arranged big exhibitions of industrial goods and machinery and a fairly large contingent of us who did business with the East Germans always went.”

“Who was this man who spoke to you?”

“He never introduced himself.”

“Do you recognise the name Lothar? Lothar Weiser. An East German.”

“Never heard the name. Lothar? Never heard of him.”

“Could you describe this embassy official?”