Silence of the Grave (21 page)

Simon racked his brains, still staring at the burn.

"They're going to sort him out," Grímur said.

"Sort him out?" Simon didn't know what Grímur meant, but it couldn't be nice.

"Is the rat in the passage?" Grímur said, nodding towards the door.

"What?" Simon did not catch on to what he was talking about.

"The moron? Do you think it's listening to us?"

"I don't know about Mikkelína," Simon said. That was some kind of truth.

"Is his name Dave, Simon?"

"It might be," Simon said tentatively.

"It might be? You're not sure. What does he call you, Simon? When he talks to you, or maybe he cuddles you and strokes you, what does he call you then?"

"He never strokes . . ."

"What's his name?"

"Dave!" Simon said.

"Dave! Thank you, Simon."

Grímur leaned back and moved out of the light. He lowered his voice.

"You see, I heard he was fucking your mum."

At that moment the door opened and the children's mother came in with Tómas following behind her, and the cold gust of wind that accompanied them sent a chill running down Simon's sweating back.

22

Erlendur was at the hill 15 minutes after talking to Skarphédinn.

He did not have his mobile with him. Otherwise he would have called Skarphédinn and told him to keep the woman waiting until he arrived. He felt sure it had to be the lady that Róbert had seen by the redcurrant bushes, the crooked lady in green.

The traffic on Miklabraut was light and he drove up the slope on Ártúnsbrekka as fast as his car could manage, then along the road out of Reykjavik where he took a right turn for Grafarholt. Skarphédinn was about to drive away from the excavation site, but stopped. Erlendur got out of his car and the archaeologist wound down his window.

"What, so you're here? Why did you slam the phone down on me? Is something wrong? What are you looking at me like that for?"

"Is the woman still here?" Erlendur asked.

"What woman?"

Erlendur looked in the direction of the bushes and thought he saw a movement.

"Is that her?" he asked, squinting. He could not see well from that distance. "The lady in green. Is she still there?"

"Yes, she's over there," Skarphédinn said. "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you later," Erlendur said, walking off.

The redcurrant bushes came into focus as he approached them and the green figure took shape. As if expecting the woman to disappear at any moment, he quickened his pace. She was standing by the leafless bushes, holding one branch and looking over towards Mount Esja, apparently deep in thought.

"Good evening," Erlendur said when he was within earshot of her.

The woman turned round.

"Good evening," she said.

"Nice weather tonight," Erlendur said for the sake of saying something.

"Spring was always the best time up here on the hill," the lady said.

She had to make an effort to speak. Her head dangled, and Erlendur could tell that she had to concentrate hard on every word. They did not come of their own accord. One of her arms was hidden inside her sleeve. He could see that she had a club foot protruding from her long, green coat, and her shoulder-length hair was thick and grey. Her face was friendly but sorrowful. Erlendur noticed that her head moved gently on reflex, with regular spasms. It never seemed to stay completely still.

"Are you from these parts?" Erlendur asked.

"And now the city's spread all the way out here," she said without answering him. "You never would have expected that."

"Yes, this city crawls everywhere," Erlendur said.

"Are you investigating those bones?" she suddenly said.

"I am," Erlendur said.

"I saw you on the news. I come up here sometimes, especially in spring. Like now, in the evenings when everything's quiet and we still have this lovely spring light."

"It's beautiful up here," Erlendur said. "Are you from here, or somewhere nearby maybe?"

"Actually, I was on my way to see you," the lady said, still not answering him. "I was going to contact you tomorrow. But it's good that you found me. It's about time."

"About time?"

"That the story came out."

"What story?"

"We used to live here, by these bushes. The chalet's long gone now. I don't know what happened to it. It just gradually fell apart. My mother planted the redcurrant bushes and made jam in the autumn, but she didn't want them only for jam. She wanted a hedge for shelter where she could grow vegetables and nice flowers facing south at the sun, wanted to use the chalet to block off the north wind. He wouldn't let her. It was the same as with everything else."

She looked at Erlendur, her head jerking as she spoke.

"They used to carry me out here when the sun shone," she smiled. "My brothers. There was nothing I loved more than to sit outside in the sunshine, and I used to squeal with joy when I came out into the garden. And we played games. They were always inventing new games to play with me, because I couldn't move much. Due to my disability, which was much worse in those days. They tried to include me in everything they did. That they got from their mother. Both the brothers, at first."

"What did they get from her?"

"Kindness."

"An old man told us about a lady in green who sometimes comes here to tend the bushes. His description fits you. We thought it might be someone from the chalet that was here once."

"You know about the chalet."

"Yes, and some of the tenants, but not all. We think a family of five lived here during the war, possibly the victims of violence from the father. You mentioned your mother and both brothers, two of them, and if you're the third child in the family, that fits the information we have."

"Did he talk about a lady in green?" she smiled.

"Yes. The lady in green."

"Green's my colour. Always has been. For as long as I can remember."

"Don't they say that people who like green are down-to-earth types?"

"That could be true," she smiled. "I'm terribly down-to-earth."

"Do you know of this family?"

"We lived in the house that was here."

"Domestic violence?"

She looked at Erlendur.

"Yes, domestic violence."

"It would have been . . ."

"What's your name?" she interrupted Erlendur.

"My name's Erlendur," he said.

"Do you have a family?"

"No, yes, well, a kind of family, I think."

"You're not sure. Do you treat your family well?"

"I think . . ." Erlendur hesitated. He had not anticipated being questioned and did not know what to say. Had he treated his family well? Hardly, he thought to himself.

"Maybe you're divorced," the woman said, looking at Erlendur's tatty clothes.

"As it happens, I am," he said. "I was going to ask you . . . I think I was asking you about domestic violence."

"Such a convenient term for soul murder. Such a harmless term for people who don't know what lies behind it. Do you know what it's like, living in constant fear your whole life?"

Erlendur said nothing.

"Living with hatred every single day, it never stops no matter what you do, and you can never do anything to change it, until you lose your independent will and just wait and hope that the next beating won't be as bad as the one before."

Erlendur did not know what to say.

"Gradually the beatings turn into sadism, because the only power that the violent man has in the world is his power over the one woman who is his wife, and that power is absolute because he knows she can do nothing. She is totally helpless and totally dependent on him because he doesn't just threaten her, doesn't torment her only with his hatred and anger for her, but with his loathing for her children too, and makes it clear that he'll harm them if she tries to break free from his power. All the physical violence, all the pain and the beatings, the broken bones, the wounds, the bruises, the black eyes, the split lips – they're nothing compared to the mental torment. Constant fear that never goes away. For the first years, when she still shows some sign of life, she tries to find help and she tries to flee, but he catches her and whispers to her that he'll kill her daughter and bury her on the mountainside. And she knows he's capable of that, so she gives up. Gives up and commits her life into his hands."

The woman looked over towards Esja and to the west, where the outline of Snaefellsnesjökull glacier could be seen.

"And her life becomes a mere shadow of his life," she continued. "Her resistance ebbs and with it her will to live, her life becomes his life and she is no longer alive, she's dead, and she goes around like a creature of darkness in an endless search for a way out. A way out from the beatings and the torment and his life, because she no longer lives her own life, but only exists as the object of his hatred.

"In the end he destroys her. And she's all but dead. One of the living dead."

She became silent and stroked her hand across the bare branches of the bushes.

"Until that spring. During the war."

Erlendur said nothing.

"Who passes sentence on anyone for soul murder?" she went on. "Can you tell me that? How can you charge a man for soul murder, take him to court and have him sentenced?"

"I don't know," Erlendur said, not altogether following.

"Have you got down to the bones?" she asked, almost as if her mind was elsewhere.

"We will tomorrow," Erlendur replied. "Do you know anything about who's buried there?"

"She turned out to be like these bushes," the woman said faintly.

"Who?"

"Like the redcurrant bushes. They don't need tending to. They're particularly hardy, they withstand all kinds of weather and the harshest winters, but they're always green and beautiful again in the summer, and the berries they produce are just as red and juicy as if nothing had ever happened. As if winter had never come."

"Pardon me, but what's your name?" Erlendur asked.

"The soldier brought her back to life."

The woman stopped talking and stared into the bushes as if transported to a different place and a different time.

"Who are you?" Erlendur asked.

"Mum loved green. She said green was the colour of hope."

She snapped out of her trance.

"My name's Mikkelína," she said. Then she seemed to falter. "He was a monster," she said. "Full of uncontrollable hatred and rage."

23

It was approaching 10 p.m., the temperature was dropping on the hill and Erlendur asked Mikkelína whether they ought not to get in his car. Or they could talk some more tomorrow. It was late and . . .

"Let's get in your car," she said, and set off. She moved slowly and lurched to one side with every step that she took with her club foot. Erlendur walked just ahead of her and showed her to his car, opened the door and helped her in. Then he walked round the front of the car. He couldn't work out how Mikkelína had got to the hill. She didn't seem to have driven.

"Did you take a taxi here?" he asked as he sat down behind the wheel. He started the engine, which was still hot, and they soon warmed up.

"Símon gave me a lift," she said. "He'll be back to collect me soon."

"We've tried to gather information about the people who lived on the hill – I presume it's your family – and some of what we've heard, mostly from old people, sounds strange. One story is about the Gasworks by Hlemmur."

"He teased her about the Gasworks," Mikkelína said, "but I don't think she was the product of some doomsday orgy there as he said. It could just as easily have been him. I think that insult was levelled at him once, he might even have been teased about it, maybe when he was younger, maybe later, and he transferred it to her."

"So you think your father was one of the Gasworks kids?"

"He wasn't my father," Mikkelína said. "My father was lost at sea. He was a fisherman and my mother loved him. That was my only consolation in life when I was a child. That he was not my father. He hated me in particular. The cripple. Because of my condition. I had an illness at the age of three that left me paralysed and I lost my power of speech. He thought I was retarded, but my mind was normal. I never had any therapy, which people take for granted nowadays. And I never told anyone, because I lived forever in fear of that man. It's not unusual for children who experience a trauma to become reticent and even dumb. I presume that happened to me. It wasn't until later that I learned to walk and started talking and got an education. I've got a degree now. In psychology."

She paused.

"I've found out who his parents were," she went on. "I've searched. To understand what happened and why. I tried to dig up something about his childhood. He worked as a farmhand here and there, the last place was in Kjós around the time he met Mum. The part of his upbringing that interests me most was in Mýrarsýsla, at a little croft called Melur. It doesn't exist any more. The couple who lived there had three children of their own and the parish council paid them to take others into their home. There were still paupers in the countryside at that time. The couple had a reputation for treating the poor children badly. People on neighbouring farms talked about it. His foster parents were taken to court after a child in their care died from malnutrition and neglect. An autopsy was performed on the farm under very primitive conditions, even by the standards of the time. It was a boy of eight. They took a door off its hinges and conducted the autopsy on that. Rinsed his innards in the brook on the farm. Discovered he was subjected to 'unnecessarily harsh treatment', as they used to call it, but they couldn't prove that he'd died from it. He would have seen it all. Perhaps they were friends. He was in care at Melur around the same time. He's mentioned in the case documents: undernourished with injuries on his back and legs."

She paused.

"I'm not trying to justify what he did to us and the way he treated us," she said. "There's no justification for that. But I wanted to know who he was."

She stopped again.

"And your mother?" Erlendur asked, though he sensed that Mikkelína intended to tell him everything she considered important and would go about it her own way. He did not want to put pressure on her. She had to tell the story at her own pace.

"She was unlucky," Mikkelína said forthrightly, as if this was the only sensible conclusion to draw. "She was unlucky to end up with that man. It's as simple as that. She had no family, but by and large she had a decent upbringing in Reykjavík and was a maid in a respectable household when she met him. I haven't managed to find out who her parents were. If it ever was written down, the papers are lost."

Mikkelína looked at Erlendur.

"But she found true love before it was too late. He entered her life at the right moment, I think."

"Who? Who entered her life?"

"And Simon. My brother. We didn't realise how he felt. The strain he was under for all those years. I felt the treatment that my stepfather dished out to my mother and I suffered for her, but I was tougher than Simon. Poor, poor Simon. And then Tómas. There was too much of his father in him. Too much hatred."

"Sorry, you've lost me. Who entered your mother's life?"

"He was from New York. An American. From Brooklyn."

Erlendur nodded.

"Mum needed love, some kind of love, admiration, recognition that she existed, that she was a human being. Dave restored her self-respect, made her human again. We always used to wonder why he spent so much time with Mum. What he saw in her when no one else would even look at her apart from my stepfather, and then only to beat her up. Then he told Mum why he wanted to help her. He said he sensed it the moment he saw her the first time he brought over some trout; he used to go fishing in Reynisvatn. He recognised all the signs of domestic violence. He could see it in her eyes, in her face, her movements. In an instant he knew her entire history."

Mikkelína paused and looked across the hill to the bushes.

"Dave was familiar with it. He was brought up with it just like Simon, Tómas and me. His father was never charged and never sentenced, and never punished for beating his wife until her dying day. They lived in awful poverty, she contracted TB and died. His father beat her up just before she passed away. Dave was a teenager then, but he was no match for his father. He left home the day of his mother's death and never went back. Joined the army a few years later. Before the war broke out. They sent him to Reykjavik during the war, up here where he walked inside a shack and saw his mother's face again."

They sat in silence.

"By then he was big enough to do something about it," Mikkelína said.

A car drove slowly past them and stopped by the foundations of the house. The driver stepped out and looked around towards the redcurrant bushes.

"Simon's come to fetch me," Mikkelína said. "It's late. Do you mind if we continue tomorrow? You can call on me at home if you want."

She opened the car door and called out to the man, who turned round.

"Do you know who's buried there?" Erlendur asked.

"Tomorrow," Mikkelína said. "We'll talk tomorrow. There's no rush," she said. "No rush about anything."

The man had walked over to the car by now to help Mikkelína.

"Thank you, Simon," she said and got out of the car. Erlendur stretched over the seat to take a better look at him. Then he opened his door and got out.

"That can't be Simon," he said to Mikkelína, looking at the man who was supporting her. He could not have been older than 35.

"What?" Mikkelína said.

"Wasn't Simon your brother?" Erlendur asked, looking at the man.

"Yes," Mikkelína said, then seemed to understand Erlendur's bewilderment. "Oh, he's not that Simon," she said with a smile. "This is my son, whom I named after him."