Read Oblivion for Free Online Page A

have the key to his flat?’
    Nanna nodded again. They decided it was time for her to accompany them to the morgue and Marion said she should prepare herself for the worst. They rose to their feet and Nanna fetched her coat and put on a woolly hat and gloves. They had sent advance warning to the pathologist who was standing ready beside the body when they arrived at Barónsstígur. It lay under a powerful lamp, covered in a white sheet. The pathologist greeted Nanna and also warned her about the state of the body. She listened in silence. Marion and Erlendur stood at her side.
    One of the corpse’s arms was exposed. She didn’t touch it, as if unable to bring herself to, but stared down for a long while at the cold, lifeless hand; the unfamiliar blue pallor of the skin. She had received her confirmation.
    ‘It’s him,’ she whispered.
    ‘Are you sure?’ said Erlendur.
    ‘I recognise his hands. There’s no doubt, it’s him,’ she said, tentatively taking hold of the hand.
    ‘All right.’
    ‘He never listened to my nagging,’ she said.
    ‘About what?’
    ‘I was always going on at him not to bite his nails.’

9
    HE WASN’T SURPRISED that the woman should be momentarily lost for words when he said he was calling to see if he could have a word about her niece, Dagbjört, who had vanished one morning many years ago on her way to school. After a stunned silence, she asked him to say again who he was. He explained that his name was Erlendur, he was a detective, and he had come across her niece’s case in the police archives. As he was interested in missing persons, he wondered if he might visit her. He made it absolutely clear, to prevent any misunderstanding, that there had been no new developments and that the inquiry had not been reopened. His interest was purely personal. He omitted to say that he had in fact come across the girl’s case long before, shortly after joining the police, had read up on the background and often visited the relevant sites, consumed by curiosity. Nor did he tell her why, after all this time, he had finally, hesitantly, taken the step of contacting one of the girl’s relatives. He hardly knew. Some time ago he had promised himself not to pursue it, unwilling to expose himself to the pain associated with the disappearance of a loved one, yet in spite of that he had gone ahead. The obituaries for the girl’s father had made him think. In the end there would be no one left to tell what had happened. No one to provide answers to the questions about her disappearance that had so often plagued him. And perhaps worst of all: no one left waiting for those answers.
    After a quarter of a century, the case had long faded from the public consciousness, but when he rang the girl’s aunt to explain his business, he realised that it was far from forgotten in that household. The woman was instantly on the ball. After bombarding him with questions about the case and his interest in it, she finally seemed satisfied that he was in earnest and invited him round to see her. Before she rang off, she thanked him for the call and his concern.
    ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Erlendur once he had taken a seat in her living room. ‘I saw the obituary you wrote for your brother.’
    She thanked him again, pushing back a lock of hair that had fallen over her forehead as she poured them both coffee. Her name was Svava, she was around seventy, and had prepared for his visit by baking
kleinur
and brewing strong coffee. She said she needed a pick-me-up too and offered him a glass of chartreuse which he accepted. She knocked hers straight back and refilled it immediately. The bottle was almost empty and he wondered if she often had recourse to pick-me-ups. He sipped his slowly. She had come across in their phone conversation as forceful and assertive; not someone who suffered fools gladly. She demanded straight answers and would not tolerate any beating about the bush. He did his best to satisfy her. He