Free Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason Page B

of their lives. They were both unmarried, as far as Erlendur knew, but the sister had a daughter. She was a doctor, and now lived on the middle floor and rented out the flats above and below. Erlendur had spoken to her on the telephone. They were to meet at midday.
Eva Lind's condition was unchanged. He had dropped in to see her before going to work and sat by her bedside for a good while, looking at the instruments monitoring her vital signs, the tubes in her mouth and nose and veins. She could not breathe unaided and the pump gave out a suction noise as it rose and fell. The cardiac monitor line was steady. On his way out of intensive care he talked to a doctor who said that no change had been noted in her condition. Erlendur asked whether there was anything he could do and the doctor replied that even though his daughter was in a coma, he should talk to her as often as he could. Let her hear his voice. It often did the family as much good to talk to the patient under such circumstances. Helped them to deal with the shock. Eva Lind was certainly not lost to him and he ought to treat her as such.
The heavy oak door finally opened and a woman aged around 60 held out her hand and introduced herself as Elsa. She was slender with a friendly face, wearing a little make-up, her hair dyed dark, cut short and parted on one side; she was dressed in jeans and a white shirt, no rings or bracelets or necklaces. She showed him in to the sitting room and offered him a seat. She was firm and self-confident.
"And what do you think these bones are?" she asked once he had told her his business.
"We don't know yet, but one theory is that they are connected with the chalet which used to stand next to them, and which was owned by your uncle Benjamín. Did he spend a lot of time up there?"
"I don't think he ever went to the chalet," she said in a quiet voice. "It was a tragedy. Mother always told us how handsome and intelligent he was and how he earned a fortune, but then he lost his fiancée. One day she just disappeared. She was pregnant."
Erlendur's thoughts turned to his own daughter.
"He went into a depression, lost all interest in his shop and his properties and everything went to ruin, I think, until all he had left was this house here. He died in the prime of life, so to speak."
"How did she disappear, his fiancée?"
"It was rumoured she threw herself into the sea," Elsa said. "At least, that's what I heard."
"Was she a depressive?"
"No one ever mentioned that."
"And she was never found?"
"No. She . . ."
Elsa stopped mid-sentence. Suddenly she seemed to follow his train of thought and she stared at him, disbelieving at first, then hurt and shocked and angry, all at once. She blushed.
"I don't believe you."
"What?" Erlendur said, watching her suddenly turn hostile.
"You think it's her. Her skeleton!"
"I don't think anything. This is the first time I've heard about this woman. We don't have the faintest idea who's in the ground up there. It's far too early to say who it may or may not be."
"So why are you so interested in her? What do you know that I don't?"
"Nothing," Erlendur said, confounded. "Didn't it occur to you when I told you about the skeleton there? Your uncle had a chalet nearby. His fiancée went missing. We find a skeleton. It's not a difficult equation."
"Are you mad? Are you suggesting . . ."
"I'm not suggesting anything."
". . . that he killed her? That Uncle Benjamín murdered his fiancée and buried her without telling anyone all those years until he died, a broken man?"
Elsa had stood up and was pacing the floor.
"Hang on a minute, I haven't said any such thing," Erlendur said, wondering whether he could have been more diplomatic. "Nothing of the sort," he said.
"Do you think it's her? The skeleton you found? Is it her?"
"Definitely not," Erlendur said, with no basis for doing so. He wanted to calm her down at any price. He had been tactless. Suggested something not based on any evidence, and regretted it. It was all too