The Draining Lake (10 page)

Ómar, the retired director general of the Foreign Ministry, was about eighty, completely bald, nimble and clearly pleased to have visitors; he had a broad face with a large mouth and chin. He complained bitterly to Erlendur and Elínborg about having been forced to retire when he turned seventy, still in fine fettle and with his capacity for work unimpaired. He lived in a large flat in Kringlumýri which he said he had swapped his house for after his wife died.

Several weeks had passed since the hydrologist from the Energy Authority had stumbled across the skeleton. It was now June and unusually warm and sunny. The city had unwound after the gloom of winter, people dressed more lightly and seemed somehow happier. Cafés had put out tables and chairs on the pavements in the continental fashion and people sat in the sunshine drinking beer. Sigurdur Óli was taking his summer holiday and barbecued whenever the chance arose. He invited Erlendur and Elínborg over. Erlendur was reluctant. He had not heard from Eva Lind but thought she was no longer in therapy. As far as he knew she had completed it. Sindri Snaer had not been in touch.

Ómar was very fond of talking, especially about himself, and Erlendur began at once to try to stem the flow of words.

'As I told you over the phone . . .' Erlendur began.

'Yes, yes, quite, I saw it all on the news, about the skeleton in Kleifarvatn. You think it's a murder and—'

'Yes,' Erlendur interrupted, 'but what hasn't been reported on the news and what no one knows and you must keep to yourself, is that a Russian listening device from the 1960s was tied to the skeleton. The equipment had clearly been tampered with to conceal its origin, but there's no doubt that it came from the Soviet Union.'

Ómar looked at them both and they saw how this aroused his interest. He seemed to turn more cautious and slip into his old ministry manner.

'How can I assist you with that?' he asked.

'The questions we're considering mainly involve whether there was spying on any scale in Iceland at the time and whether it is likely to be an Icelander or a foreign embassy official.'

'Have you looked up the missing persons from this time?' Ómar said.

'Yes,' Elínborg said. 'It's not possible to link any of them to Russian bugging devices.'

'I don't think any Icelanders went in for serious spying,' Ómar said after a long pause for thought, and they both sensed that he was choosing his words very carefully. 'We know that the Warsaw Pact and NATO countries both tried to get them to, and we know that there was espionage in one form or another in neighbouring countries.'

'The other Nordic countries, for instance?' Erlendur said.

'Yes,' Ómar said. 'But of course there's one obvious problem. If Icelanders were spying for either side we wouldn't know about it if it was successful. No Icelandic spy of any note has ever been uncovered.'

'Is there any other possible explanation for that Russian equipment lying there with the skeleton?' Elínborg asked.

'Of course,' Ómar said. 'It needn't have had anything to do with spying. But your inference is probably correct. It's a reasonable enough explanation that such an unusual discovery is somehow related to the ex-Warsaw Pact embassies.'

'Could such a spy have come from, let's say, the Foreign Ministry?' Erlendur asked.

'No official from the Foreign Ministry went missing, to my knowledge,' Ómar said.

'What I mean is, where would it have been most useful for the Russians, for instance, to plant spies?'

'Probably anywhere in government,' Ómar said. 'The civil service is small and the officials are all closely acquainted, so they keep very few secrets from each other. Dealings with the US defence force largely took place through us in the Foreign Ministry, so it would have been worth having someone there. But I can imagine it would have been enough for foreign spies or embassy officials to read the Icelandic newspapers – which they did, of course. It was all there. In a democracy like ours there's always a lot of public debate and things are difficult to conceal.'

'And then there were the cocktail parties,' Erlendur said.

'Yes, we mustn't forget them. The embassies were quite clever at compiling their guest lists. We're a small community, everyone knows everybody else and is related to everyone else, and they took advantage of that.'

'Did you never have the feeling that information was leaking out of the civil service?' Erlendur asked him.

'Never as far as I knew,' Ómar said. 'And if there was any espionage here on any scale, it would probably have come to light by now, after the Soviet system collapsed and the old-style secret services were disbanded in Eastern Europe. Former spies in those countries have been busily publishing their memoirs and there's never been any mention of Iceland. Most of their archives were opened and people could remove the files they found about themselves. The old communist countries gathered a huge amount of personal information and those records were destroyed before the Berlin Wall came down. Shredded.'

'Some spies in the West were uncovered after the Wall fell,' Elínborg said.

'Certainly,' Ómar said. 'I can imagine that it sent tremors through the whole espionage community.'

'But not all the archives were made public,' Erlendur said. 'It's not all waiting for anyone who cares to look.'

'No, of course not, there are still official secrets in those countries, just as there are here. But actually I'm no expert on espionage, neither abroad nor in Iceland. I know little more than you do, I expect. I've always found it a bit absurd to talk about spying in Iceland. Somehow it's so unreal for us.'

'Do you remember when those divers found some equipment in Kleifarvatn?' Erlendur asked. 'That was some distance from where we found the skeleton but the equipment provides an obvious link between the cases.'

'I remember when that was discovered,' Ómar said. 'Of course the Russians denied everything and so did the other Eastern bloc embassies. They claimed ignorance of the devices but the theory was, if I remember correctly, that they had simply been disposing of old listening devices and radio equipment. It wasn't worth the expense of sending them home in diplomatic bags and they couldn't dispose of them in the city dump so . . .'

'They tried to hide them in the lake.'

'I imagine it was something like that but, as I say, I'm no expert. The equipment proved that spying went on in Iceland. No question of that. But no one was surprised, either.'

They fell silent. Erlendur looked around the room. It was crowded with souvenirs from around the world after a long career in the ministry. Ómar and his wife had travelled widely and visited the four corners of the globe. There were Buddhas and photographs of Ómar at the Great Wall of China and at Cape Canaveral with a space shuttle in the background. Erlendur also saw photographs of him with a succession of cabinet ministers.

Ómar cleared his throat. He had, they felt, been mulling over whether to help them further or just send them away. After mentioning the Russian equipment in the lake, they sensed a hint of caution about him, and had the feeling that he was watching every word he said.

'It might not be, I don't know, such a bad idea for you to talk to Bob,' he eventually said, stumbling over his own words.

'Bob?' Elínborg repeated.

'Robert Christie. Bob. Head of security at the US embassy in the 1960s and 1970s, a fine man. We got to know each other well and we keep in touch. I always visit him when I go to America. He lives in Washington, retired ages ago like me, has a brilliant memory, a lively character.'

'How could he help us?' Erlendur asked.

'The embassies spied on each other,' Ómar said. 'He told me that much. I don't know on what scale and I don't think any Icelanders were involved, but the embassy staff, from NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, had spies in their employ. He told me this after the end of the Cold War, and history corroborates that, of course. One of the embassies' tasks was to monitor the movements of diplomats from enemy countries. They knew exactly who came here and who left, what their jobs were, where they came from and where they went, their names, their personal circumstances and family situation. Most of the effort went into gathering that kind of information.'

'What was the point?' Elínborg asked.

'Some staff were known spies,' Ómar said. 'They came here, stayed briefly and left again. There was a hierarchy, so if someone of a certain rank arrived, you could be reasonably certain that something was going on. You recall the news reports in the old days about diplomats being expelled? That happened here too and it was a regular event in neighbouring countries. The Americans would expel some Russians for spying. The Russians would deny all the accusations and respond immediately by expelling a few Americans. It went on like that all over the world. Everyone knew the rules. Everyone knew everything about everyone else. They tracked each other's movements. They kept precise records about who joined the embassies and who left.'

Ómar paused.

'One of their priorities was recruitment,' he continued. 'Recruiting new spies.'

'You mean training diplomats to spy?' Erlendur said.

'No, recruiting spies from the enemy.' Ómar smiled. 'Getting staff from other embassies to spy for them. Of course, they tried to get people from all walks of life to spy and gather information, but embassy officials were particularly sought after.'

'And?' Erlendur said.

'Bob might be able to help you with that.'

'With what?' Elínborg asked.

'The diplomats,' Ómar said.

'I don't understand what . . .' Elínborg said.

'You mean he would know if something unusual or abnormal had gone on in the network?' Erlendur said.

'He certainly wouldn't tell you anything in detail. He never tells anyone that. Not me and certainly not you. I've asked him often enough but he just laughs and jokes about it. But he might tell you something innocent that aroused superficial interest and was difficult to explain, something odd.'

Erlendur and Elínborg looked at Ómar with slightly puzzled expressions.

'For instance, if someone came to Iceland but never left,' Ómar said. 'Bob could tell you that.'

'You're thinking about the Russian bug?' Erlendur asked.

Ómar nodded.

'What about you? The ministry must have kept tabs on who joined the embassies and what kind of people they were.'

'Yes, we did. We were always informed of organisational changes, new staff and the like. But we didn't have the opportunity or the capacity – or, as a rule, even the desire – to maintain surveillance of the embassies on the scale they did.'

'So that if, for example, a man joined the staff of one of the communist embassies in Reykjavík,' Erlendur said, 'and worked here without the American embassy ever noticing him leave the country, would your friend Bob know about that?'

'Yes,' Ómar said. 'I think Bob could help you with that kind of question.'

Marion Briem lugged the oxygen cylinder back into the sitting room after answering the door to Erlendur. Erlendur followed, wondering if this would be his fate when he grew old, withering away at home on his own, lost to the world and hauling an oxygen cylinder behind him. As far as he knew Marion had no siblings and few friends, yet the old fogey in the oxygen mask had never regretted not starting a family.

'What for?' Marion had said once. 'Families are just a nuisance.'

The subject of Erlendur's family had cropped up, which did not happen often because Erlendur disliked talking about himself. Marion had asked after his children, whether he kept in touch with them. This had been many years ago.

'Aren't there two of them?' Marion had asked.

Erlendur was sitting in his office writing a report on a fraud case when Marion suddenly appeared and started asking about his family. The scam involved two sisters who had defrauded their mother and left her penniless. This had prompted Marion to label families a nuisance.

'Yes, there are two of them,' Erlendur said. 'Can't we talk about this case here? I think that . . .'

'And when was the last time you saw them?' Marion asked.

'I don't think that's any of your b—'

'No, it's none of my business, but it's your business, isn't it? Isn't it your business? Having two children?'

The memory ebbed from Erlendur's mind when he sat down opposite Marion, who slumped into the tatty armchair. There was a reason that Erlendur did not like his ex-boss. He expected it was the same reason why the cancer patient had few visitors. Marion did not attract friends. On the contrary. Even Erlendur, who visited now and again, was no great friend.

Marion watched Erlendur and put on the oxygen mask. Some time went by without a word being said. At last Marion pulled down the mask. Erlendur cleared his throat.

'How are you feeling?'

'I'm dreadfully tired,' Marion said. 'Always dozing off. Maybe it's the oxygen.'

'Probably too healthy for you,' Erlendur said.

'Why do you keep hanging around here?' Marion said weakly.

'I don't know,' Erlendur said. 'How was the western?'

'You ought to watch it,' Marion said. 'It's a tale of obstinacy. How's it going with Kleifarvatn?'

'It's going,' Erlendur said.

'And the driver of the Falcon? Have you located him?'

Erlendur shook his head but said he had found the car. The current owner was a widow who did not know much about Ford Falcons and wanted to sell it. He told Marion how the man, Leopold, had been a mysterious figure. Not even his girlfriend knew much about him. There was no photograph of him and he was not in the official records. It was as if he had never existed, as if he had been a figment of the imagination of the woman who worked in the dairy shop.

'Why are you looking for him?' Marion asked.

'I don't know,' Erlendur said. 'I've been asked that quite a lot. I have no idea. Because of a woman who once worked in a dairy shop. Because a hubcap was missing from the car. Because a new car was left outside the coach station. There's something in all this that doesn't fit.'