Free Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason Page A

Statistics Office hasn't got the names of any people who lived in that house, if anyone ever did," Elínborg said, getting out of the car.
"The records for that period are all in a mess. Reykjavík was swamped with people during and after the war, registration was a bit hit and miss while they were moving in. And I think they've lost part of the population records. A bit of a mix-up. Said he wouldn't be able to find it immediately, the man I spoke to."
"Maybe no one actually lived there."
"They needn't have been there long. Might have been listed somewhere else and didn't register the new address. Maybe lived on the hill for a couple of years, months even, during the housing crisis, then moved into one of the converted barracks after the war. What do you think of that theory?"
"Fits like a Burberry."
The chalet owner met them at the door, a very old man, spindly and stiff in his movements, with thin white hair, and wearing a light blue shirt with a string vest clearly visible underneath it, grey corduroy trousers and new trainers. When Elínborg saw all the rubbish inside, she wondered whether he might live there all year round. She asked him.
"I suppose you could say that," the man answered, sitting down in an armchair and gesturing to them to sit on some chairs in the middle of the room. "I started building this place 40 years ago and moved everything here in my old Lada about five years ago. Or was it six years? It all becomes a blur. I couldn't be bothered to live in Reykjavik any more. An awful place, that city, so . . ."
"Was there a house up here on the hill then, maybe a summer chalet like this but not necessarily used for that purpose?" Sigurdur Óli hurried to ask, not wanting to listen to a lecture. "I mean, 40 years ago, when you started building yours?"
"A summer chalet but not a summer chalet . . . ?"
"Standing by itself on this side of Grafarholt," Elínborg said. "Built some time before the war." She looked out of the sitting-room window. "You would have seen it from this window."
"I remember a house there, not painted, not properly finished. It disappeared ages ago. It was definitely quite a sizeable chalet, or should have been, quite big, bigger than mine, but a total shambles. Almost falling down. The doors were gone and the windows were broken. I used to walk up there sometimes when I could still be bothered to fish in the lake. Gave that up years ago."
"So no one lived in the house?" Sigurdur Óli asked.
"No, there was no one in the house then. No one could have lived in it. It was on the verge of collapse."
"And it was never occupied, as far as you know?" Elínborg said. "You don't remember anyone from the house?"
"Why do you want to know about that house anyway?"
"We found a human skeleton on the hill," Sigurdur Óli said. "Didn't you see it on the news?"
"A skeleton? No. From the people in that house?"
"We don't know. We still don't know the history of the house and the people who lived there," Elínborg said. "We know who the owner was but he died a long time ago and we still haven't found anyone registered as living in it. Do you remember the wartime barracks on the other side of the hill? On the south side. A depot or something like that?"
"There were barracks all over the countryside," the old man said. "British and American too. I don't recall any on the hill here in particular, that was before my time anyway. Quite a way before my time. You ought to talk to Róbert."
"Róbert?" Elínborg said.
"If he isn't dead. He was one of the first people to build a chalet on this hill. I know he was in an old people's home. Róbert Sigurdsson. You'll find him, if he's still alive."
Since there was no bell at the entrance, Erlendur banged on the thick oak door with the palm of his hand in the hope of being heard inside. The house was once owned by Benjamín Knudsen, a businessman from Reykjavik, who died in the early 1960s. His brother and sister inherited it, moved in when he died and lived there for the rest