Free Oblivion by Arnaldur Indridason

importing drugs themselves. People like Ellert and Vignir.
    Vignir was as intransigent as his brother. He denied everything and professed himself as surprised as Ellert when the questions began to touch on the Defense Force and naval base. He tried to fish for more information from the detectives, with little success.
    ‘Who is this guy?’ he asked. ‘What did he do?’
    ‘It occurred to us that he might have been a rival of yours,’ said Erlendur. ‘If he was selling the same kind of goods maybe you and your brother didn’t like the competition.’
    ‘What … why … did something happen to him?’
    ‘Or that he was a customer of yours,’ continued Marion, ‘and was planning to snitch on you.’
    ‘Then there’s a third possibility – that he was smuggling stuff on your behalf and helped himself to some of it,’ said Erlendur.
    ‘Who the fuck is this guy? What’s his name?’
    ‘Kristvin,’ said Erlendur.
    ‘Kristvin? I’ve never heard of any Kristvin. Who is he? Why are you asking about this bloke? Are you implying we did something to him?’
    ‘Tell me about the cannabis you and Ellert deal in: does any of that come from the base?’ asked Erlendur, leaving Vignir’s question unanswered.
    ‘Now you’ve lost me.’
    ‘Where do you get the currency to import your goods?’ asked Erlendur.
    Vignir shook his head.
    ‘From the Yanks?’ asked Marion. ‘We know you’ve been dealing in currency on the base.’
    ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Vignir. ‘Not a clue. As usual.’
    A little later, as Marion and Erlendur were leaving, a prison officer came running after them.
    ‘They’ve found some car you’re trying to trace … a Corolla,’ he said, reading from a scrap of paper on which he had taken down the message. ‘It’s out at Keflavík. Parked by one of the barracks on the base and …’ The prison officer tried to decipher his own scribble. ‘… and, oh yes, the tyres have been slashed.’

14
    THE TWO POLICE officers who came across the grey Toyota Corolla had been summoned to the military zone when a fight broke out at one of the dormitory huts belonging to the Icelandic contractors. The men had clashed over a card game during their break. The three huts, in which the workers were put up two to a room, stood in a row not far from the contractors’ large canteen. The culprits lived on the same corridor and had been spoiling for a fight for some time. They were both keen poker players and had been betting money on the game. The atmosphere had soured when, not for the first time, the loser refused to pay up. A row broke out, threats were exchanged, and in the end they flew at one another and rolled around the corridor of the hut, before falling, still grappling, out of the door onto the ground outside. At that point two other men became drawn in and it was thought advisable to call the police, who duly arrived to break it up. By then the men were exhausted; one was lying on the ground covered in blood, the other was leaning against the wall, panting and bleeding from the nose and one ear where he had been bitten. The police saw no reason to take anyone to hospital as they all denied they needed to see a doctor, but they were separated and moved to different huts.
    The officers’ attention was distracted by a grey Toyota Corolla with flat tyres, parked by the end of one of the barracks, not far from the contractors’ huts. A description of the missing car had been circulated to police stations around the country and, as far as they could tell, this was it. They had the sense not to touch it and reported their discovery immediately. The military police, notified at the same time, sent a car to the scene. Naval Air Station Keflavík came under the jurisdiction of the US Navy. Whenever the military police were required to deal with Icelandic nationals, they would summon the local police from Keflavík to handle the matter. Similarly, the Icelandic police gave notice