Hypothermia Read online

  ‘It started a few months before he died. He confided in me. I don’t think he told anyone else and I haven’t told anyone either. It’s nobody else’s business. Magnús told Leonóra that he wanted to end the marriage. It came as a terrible shock to her, from what she told me. She’d had absolutely no idea. She had loved my brother and given him everything . . .’

  ‘So he told her about it, at Thingvellir?’

  ‘Yes. Magnús died and I never mentioned the affair. To Leonóra or anyone else. Magnús was dead and I didn’t think it was anyone else’s business.’

  Kristín took a deep breath.

  ‘Leonóra blamed me for not having told her about the affair as soon as I found out. Magnús must have told her that I knew. But I thought it was right for her to hear it from him. She was very stubborn and prone to holding grudges. It was as if she felt I had betrayed her, even after all these years. When she died . . . I simply couldn’t bring myself to go to the funeral. I regret it now. For María’s sake.’

  ‘Did you ever talk to María about the accident?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you tell me the identity of the woman that Magnús was involved with?’

  Kristín took a sip of aquavit.

  ‘Does it matter?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘I think that was one reason why Magnús was so hesitant. Because of who she was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The woman Magnús was involved with was a good friend of Leonóra’s.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘They never spoke again after that.’

  ‘Have you ever connected this with the accident?’

  Kristín looked at Erlendur gravely.

  ‘No. What do you mean?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Why are you investigating the accident now?’

  ‘I heard about the incident at—’

  ‘Did any of this come out in connection with María’s death?’

  ‘No,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘But María told some friend of hers that maybe Magnús was meant to die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve always considered what happened at the lake as a ghastly accident. It never occurred to me that it could have been anything else.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘No, no buts. It’s too late to change it now.’

  The taxi company was located downtown in a low-rise building that had seen better days. It had once been a community centre, in the days when young men wore their hair in Brylcreemed quiffs and their girlfriends sported perms and they used to go crazy on the dance floor to the new American rock ’n’ roll, before they eventually vanished into oblivion. One half of the building had been converted into the premises of a taxi company where peace and quiet now reigned. Two older men were playing rummy. The yellow lino on the floor was full of holes, the shiny white paint on the walls had long ago succumbed to the grime, and the air freshener had not yet been invented that could overcome the stench of mould rising from the floor and wooden walls. It was like stepping back fifty years in time. Erlendur savoured the sensation. He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, breathing in its history.

  The woman operating the radio looked up and, when she saw that the rummy players weren’t about to stir, asked if he needed a cab. Erlendur went over and enquired about a driver with the company who was called Elmar.

  ‘Elmar on 32?’ the woman said. She had been in her prime at about the same time as the building.

  ‘Yes, probably,’ Erlendur replied.

  ‘He’s on his way in. Would you like to wait for him? He won’t be long. He always eats here in the evenings.’

  ‘Yes, so I gather,’ Erlendur said.

  He thanked her and sat down at a table. One of the rummy players glanced up in his direction. Erlendur nodded but received no response. It was as if the pair’s existence was completely defined by the card game.

  Erlendur was leafing through an old magazine when a taxi driver appeared at the door.

  ‘He was asking for you,’ the woman operating the radio called, pointing at Erlendur who stood up and greeted him. The man shook his hand, introducing himself as Elmar. He was the brother of Davíd, the young man who had gone missing. He was in his fifties, plump, with a round face, thinning hair and no arse as a result of a lifetime spent sitting behind the wheel. Erlendur explained his business in a lowered voice. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the rummy players had pricked up their ears.

  ‘You’re not still picking over that?’ Elmar asked.

  ‘We’re wrapping up the case,’ Erlendur said, without elaborating.

  ‘Do you mind if I get stuck in while we’re talking?’ Elmar asked, sitting down at the table furthest from the rummy players. He had his supper in a plastic container: sausage and onion hash from the supermarket hot-food counter. Erlendur sat down with him.

  ‘There wasn’t much of an age gap between you brothers,’ Erlendur began.

  ‘Two years,’ Elmar said. ‘I’m two years older. Have you discovered anything new?’

  ‘No,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘Davíd and I weren’t really that close. You could say I wasn’t very interested in my younger brother; I thought of him as just a kid. I tended to hang out more with my friends, people my own age.’

  ‘Have you come to any conclusion about what might have happened?’

  ‘Only that he might have topped himself,’ Elmar said. ‘He didn’t mix with the sort of people – wasn’t involved in anything, you know – where someone might have wanted to hurt him. Davíd was a good kid. Shame he had to go like that.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘The last? I asked him to lend me some money for the pictures. I never had any cash in those days. Any more than I do now. Davíd sometimes worked alongside his studies and scraped a bit of money together. I’ve already told the police all this.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘And nothing: he lent it to me. I didn’t know he was going to disappear that evening, you know, so there weren’t any fond farewells, just the usual “Thanks, see you.” ’

  ‘So you were never close?’

  ‘No, you couldn’t really say that.’

  ‘You didn’t confide in each other at all?’

  ‘No. I mean, he was my brother and all that, but we were very different and . . . you know . . .’

  Elmar wolfed down his food. He added that he generally only took half an hour for supper.

  ‘Do you know if your brother had got himself a girlfriend before he went missing?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘No,’ Elmar said. ‘I don’t know of any girlfriend.’

  ‘His friend says he had met a girl but it’s all very vague.’

  ‘Davíd never had any girlfriend,’ Elmar said, taking out a packet of Camel cigarettes. He offered it to Erlendur who declined. ‘Or at least not that I was aware of,’ he added, glancing over at the rummy table.

  ‘No, that’s the thing,’ Erlendur said. ‘Your parents clung for a long time to the hope that he’d come back.’

  ‘Yes, they . . . they thought about nothing but Davíd. He was all they ever thought about.’

  Erlendur detected a note of bitterness in the man’s voice.

  ‘Are we done, then?’ Elmar asked. ‘I’d quite like to join them for a hand.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Erlendur said, standing up. ‘I didn’t mean to ruin your supper.’

  20

  Eva Lind came round that evening. She had seen her mother and heard about the encounter with Erlendur. He said it had been a mistake to try to bring them together. Eva shook her head.

  ‘You’re not going to meet again?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve done everything possible,’ Erlendur said. ‘We simply don’t get on. There’s too much awkwardness between your mother and me that we just can’t overcome.’

  ‘Awkwardness?’

  ‘It was a very acrimonious
meeting.’

  ‘She said she stormed out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you still met up.’

  Erlendur was sitting in his chair with a book in his hand. Eva Lind had taken a seat on the sofa facing him. They had often sat there opposite one another. Sometimes they quarrelled bitterly and Eva Lind rushed out, hurling abuse at her father. At other times they managed to talk and show each other affection. Eva Lind would sometimes fall asleep on the sofa while he read her the story of an ordeal in the wilderness or else some Icelandic folklore. She used to visit him in a variety of states, either so high that Erlendur couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying or so low that he was afraid she would do something stupid.

  He hesitated to ask if Halldóra had relayed their conversation to her in detail but Eva spared him the trouble.

  ‘Mum told me you never loved her,’ she began warily.

  Erlendur turned the pages of his book.

  ‘But she was crazy about you.’

  Erlendur didn’t say anything.

  ‘Maybe it goes some way to explaining your weird relationship,’ Eva Lind said.

  Still Erlendur did not speak, he merely gazed down at the book he was holding.

  ‘She said there was no point talking to you,’ Eva Lind continued.

  ‘I don’t know what we can do for you, Eva. We can’t agree on anything. I’ve already told you that.’

  ‘Mum said the same.’

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do but . . . We’re difficult parents, Eva.’

  ‘She says that you two should never have met.’

  ‘It would probably have been better,’ Erlendur said.

  ‘So it’s completely hopeless?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It was worth trying.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Eva stared at her father.

  ‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ she demanded.

  ‘Can’t we just try and forget it?’ he said, looking up from the book. ‘I tried. So did she. It didn’t work. Not this time.’

  ‘But maybe another time, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, Eva.’

  Eva Lind sighed heavily. She took out a cigarette and lit it.

  ‘Bloody ridiculous. I thought maybe . . . I thought it was possible to make things a bit better between you. It’s probably pointless. You’re both completely hopeless cases.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we are.’

  Neither of them spoke.

  ‘I’ve always tried to see us four as a family,’ Eva Lind said. ‘I still do. Pretend we’re a family, which of course we’re not and never have been. I thought we could establish some kind of harmonious atmosphere around us. Felt it might help all of us, me and Sindri and you and Mum. Christ!’

  ‘We tried, Eva. We won’t get anywhere. Not now. I think we would have made our peace by now if the will was there.’

  ‘I told her about your brother. She knew nothing about him.’

  ‘No, I never told her. Any more than anyone else. I’ve never talked about him to anyone.’

  ‘She was very surprised. She didn’t know your parents either, granny and grandad. She seemed to know very little about you.’

  ‘It was your grandmother’s birthday the day before yesterday,’ Erlendur said. ‘Not a major anniversary, but her birthday all the same. I always used to try and visit her on her birthday.’

  ‘I’d have liked to have met her,’ Eva Lind said.

  Erlendur looked up from his book again.

  ‘And she’d have liked to have known you,’ he said. ‘Things would probably have been rather different if she’d lived.’

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘A tragedy.’

  ‘Is it the one about your brother?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like . . . can I read it to you?’

  ‘You don’t need to make it up to me,’ Eva Lind said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For the way you and Mum behave.’

  ‘No, I want you to hear it. I want to read it to you.’

  Lifting the book, Erlendur leafed back a few pages and started to read in a low but steady voice about the violent blizzard that had shaped his entire life.

  Tragedy on Eskifjördur Moor

  By Dagbjartur Audunsson

  For centuries the main inland route from Eskifjördur to the Fljótsdalshérad district used to pass across Eskifjördur Moor. There was an old bridleway that ran north of the Eskifjördur River, inland along the Langihryggur ridge, up the near side of the Innri-Steinsá River, through the Vínárdalur valley and over the Vínárbrekkur slopes to Midheidarendi, then up on to Urdarflöt and along the Urdarklettur crags until it left the Eskifjördur area. To the north of this is the Thverárdalur valley flanked by the mountains Andri and Hardskafi, with Hólafjall and Selheidi beyond them to the north.

  There used to be a farm called Bakkasel Croft, which stood on the old route over to the Fljótsdalshérad district at the head of Eskifjördur fjord. The farm is now derelict but around the middle of the century Bakkasel was home to the farmer Sveinn Erlendsson, his wife Áslaug Bergsdóttir and their two sons, Bergur and Erlendur, aged eight and ten. Sveinn kept a few sheep and also taught at the primary school in Eskifjördur. Saturday 24th November 1956 dawned cold and bright, with a fairly deep covering of snow on the ground. Sveinn was planning to round up a few sheep that had wandered off. The weather at that time of year was very unpredictable and there was little bare ground. Sveinn and his two sons set out on foot from Bakkasel at first light, intending to be home before dark.

  At first they made their way inland towards the Thverárdalur valley and Mount Harđskafi without finding any sheep. Then they headed south, ascending on to Eskifjördur Moor. They had made slow progress inland over Langihryggur to the Urdarklettur crags when the weather abruptly took a turn for the worse. Sveinn was concerned enough to consider heading straight for home but before they knew it a violent storm had blown up with a northerly gale and blizzard. Conditions continued to deteriorate until they could no longer see their way and before they knew it they were groping blindly through a complete white-out. The boys became separated from their father. He searched for them for a long time, shouting and calling in vain, before finally making his painful way down from the moor, following the Eskifjördur River home to Bakkasel. The conditions were so extreme by now that he could no longer stand upright and was forced to crawl the last stretch. He was in a desperate state when he reached home, hatless, coated in ice and barely in his right mind.

  They phoned for help from Eskifjördur and the news soon spread around the district that the two boys were fighting for their lives in the violent storm that had now hit the village as well. A volunteer search party gathered at Bakkasel that evening but deemed it impossible to start the search until the wind dropped a little and daylight returned. These were difficult hours for the parents, knowing that their two sons were out there on the moor, caught in the blizzard. The boys’ father in particular was distraught and barely in a fit state to talk to anyone, overwhelmed – beside himself, almost – with grief. He considered the boys beyond all aid and refused to take part in organising the search party, whereas his wife, Áslaug was tireless in looking after the helpers and at the head of the company when they finally set out at first light next day.

  By then search parties had been called out from the villages of Reydarfjördur, Neskaupstadur and Seydisfjördur, and quite a crowd had gathered. Although the wind had lost much of its force the searchers were hindered by deep drifts. They made first for Eskifjördur Moor, armed with long poles to poke into the snow, and tried to find the brothers’ tracks. But with no luck. It had been snowing heavily all night. It was thought that the brothers were together and had probably dug themselves into a drift. They had been missing for some eighteen hours by the time the rescue operation commenced and, given the freezing temperatures on the mountainsides, it was clear that the searchers were involved in a race against time
.

  The brothers had been warmly kitted out when they left home, in winter coats, scarves and woollen hats. After about four hours of searching a scarf was found, which Áslaug said belonged to the elder boy, and the search was intensified in the area where it was discovered. A volunteer by the name of Halldór Brjánsson from Seydisfjördur thought he met resistance when he stuck his pole into the snow and when people began to dig there they discovered the elder brother. He was lying as if he had fallen face down. Although he was showing signs of life, he was very cold and frostbite had started to form on his hands and feet. He was barely conscious and could give the searchers no clue as to his brother’s whereabouts. The man who could travel fastest was sent to fetch hot milk, then people took it in turns to carry the boy down from the moor and home to Bakkasel. A doctor was waiting there to examine him and issued instructions for restoring warmth to the boy. He dressed his frostbite and in time the boy began to recover, though it was obvious that he had had a narrow escape. He had come very close to dying of hypothermia.

  The search was intensified again in the area where the elder boy had been found but without success. It seemed as if he had been forced by the wind back towards the Thverárdalur valley and Mount Hardskafi. The area of the search was widened again when news came from Bakkasel that the brothers had become separated in the storm and the elder boy did not know what had happened to his brother. He said that they had stuck together for a long time but then he had lost him in the blizzard. He had hunted for him and shouted out his name until he was exhausted and fell again and again into the snow. The boy was said to be inconsolable and barely capable of human interaction. He was frantic to return to the mountains and look for his brother and in the end the doctor had to give him a sedative.

  Dusk began to fall again and the weather worsened, so the searchers were forced to retreat to the inhabited area. By then reinforcements had arrived from Egilsstadir. A headquarters was set up in Eskifjördur. At dawn next day a large number of people set out to comb both the moor and the Thverárdalur valley, and the slopes of the mountains Andri and Hardskafi. They tried to work out the boy’s movements after he had become separated from his brother. When the search in that area proved unsuccessful, it was extended both to the north and south but the boy was not found. So the day passed until evening fell.