Free The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason Page B

remember that well. Níels handled that case. The lazy bastard.'
    'Yes, quite,' said Erlendur, who knew Níels. 'The man owned a Ford Falcon that was found outside the coach station. One hubcap had been removed.'
    'Didn't he just want to give his old girl the slip? As far as I recall that was our conclusion. That he killed himself.'
    'Could be,' Erlendur said.
    Marion's eyes closed again. Erlendur sat on the sofa in silence for a while, watching the film while Marion slept. The video-box blurb described how John Wayne played a Confederate Civil War veteran hunting down the Indians who had killed his brother and sister-in-law and kidnapped their daughter. The soldier spent years searching for the girl and when he found her at last she had forgotten where she came from and become an Indian herself.
    After twenty minutes Erlendur stood up and said goodbye to Marion, who was still sleeping under the mask.
    When he arrived at the police station, Erlendur sat down with Elínborg, who was writing her speech for the book launch. Sigurdur Óli was in her office too. He said he had traced the sales history of the Falcon right up to the most recent owner.
    'He sold the car to a spare-parts dealer in Kópavogur some time before 1980,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'The company's still in business. They just won't answer the phone. Maybe they're on holiday.'
    'Anything new from forensics about the listening device?' Erlendur asked, and he noticed that Elínborg was moving her lips while she stared at the computer screen, as if she was trying out how the speech sounded.
    'Elínborg!' he barked.
    She lifted a finger to tell him to wait.
    '. . . And I hope that this book of mine,' she read out loud from the screen, 'will bring you endless pleasure in the kitchen and broaden your horizons. I have tried to keep it plain and simple, tried to emphasise the household spirit, because cookery and the kitchen are the focal point . . .'
    'Very good,' Erlendur said.
    'Wait,' Elínborg said. '. . . The focal point of every good household where the family gathers every day to relax and enjoy happy times together.'
    'Elínborg,' Sigurdur Óli said.
    'Is it too sentimental?' Elínborg asked, pulling a face.
    'It makes me puke,' Sigurdur Óli said.
    Elínborg looked at Erlendur.
    'What did forensics say about the equipment?' he asked.
    'They're still looking at it,' Elínborg said. 'They're trying to get in touch with experts from Iceland Telecom.'
    'I was thinking about all that equipment they found in Kleifarvatn years ago,' Sigurdur Óli said, 'and this one tied to the skeleton. Shouldn't we talk to some old codger from the diplomatic service?'
    'Yes, find out who we can speak to,' Erlendur said. 'Someone who remembers the Cold War.'
    'Are we talking about spying in Iceland?' Elínborg asked.
    'I don't know,' Erlendur said.
    'Isn't that pretty absurd?' Elínborg said.
    'No more than "where the family gathers every day to relax and enjoy happy times together",' Sigurdur Óli parroted her.
    'Oh, shut up,' Elínborg said, and deleted what she had written.
     
    Wrecked cars were kept behind a large fence, stacked six high in some places. Some had been written off, others were just old and worn out. The spare-parts dealer looked the same, a weary man approaching sixty, in a filthy, ripped pair of overalls that had once been light blue. He was tearing the front bumper off a new Japanese car that had been hit from behind and had concertinaed right up to the front seats.
    Erlendur stood sizing up the debris until the man looked up.
    'A lorry went into the back of it,' he said. 'Lucky there was no one in the back seat.'
    'A brand new car too,' Erlendur said.
    'What are you looking for?'
    'I'm after a black Ford Falcon,' Erlendur said. 'It was sold or given away to this yard around 1980.'
    'A Ford Falcon?'
    'It's hopeless, of course – I know,' Erlendur said.
    'It would have been old when it came here,' the man said, pulling out a rag to wipe his hands. 'They stopped