The Draining Lake - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,2

looked down at the bones and at the hole in the skull.

Maybe she would rent a good detective film.

2

The police officers notified their duty sergeant in Hafnarfjördur about the skeleton in the lake; it took them some time to explain how it could be out in the middle of the lake yet still on dry land. The sergeant phoned the chief inspector at the Police Commissioner's office and informed him of the find, wanting to know whether or not they would take over the case.

'That's something for the identification committee,' the chief inspector said. 'I think I have the right man for the job.'

'Who's that?'

'We sent him off on holiday – he's got about five years' leave owing to him, I think – but I know he'll be pleased to have something to do. He's interested in missing persons. Likes digging things up.'

The chief inspector said goodbye, picked up the phone again and asked for Erlendur Sveinsson to be contacted and sent off to Lake Kleifarvatn with a small team of detectives.

Erlendur was absorbed in a book when the telephone rang. He had tried to shut out the relentless May sun as best he could. Thick curtains covered the living-room windows and he had closed the door to the kitchen, where there were no proper curtains. He had made it dark enough around him to have to switch on the lamp by his chair.

Erlendur knew the story well. He had read it many times before. It was an account of a journey in the autumn of 1868 from Skaftártunga along the mountain trail north of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. Several people had been travelling together to a fishing camp in Gardar, in the south-west of Iceland. One was a young man aged seventeen whose name was Davíd. Although the men were seasoned travellers and familiar with the route, a perilous storm got up soon after they set off and they never returned. An extensive search was mounted but no trace of them was found. It was not until ten years later that their skeletons were discovered by chance beside a large sand dune, south of Kaldaklof. The men had spread blankets over themselves and were lying huddled against each other.

Erlendur looked up in the gloom and imagined the teenager in the group, fearful and worried. He had seemed to know what was in the offing before he set out; local farmers remarked how he had shared out his childhood toys among his brothers and sisters, saying that he would not be back to reclaim them.

Putting down his book, Erlendur stood up stiffly and answered the telephone. It was Elínborg.

'Will you be coming?' was the first thing she said.

'Do I have any choice?' Erlendur said. Elínborg had for many years been compiling a book of recipes which was now finally being published.

'Oh my God, I'm so nervous. What do you think people will make of it?'

'I can still barely switch on a microwave,' Erlendur said. 'So maybe I'm not . . .'

'The publishers loved it,' Elínborg said. 'And the photos of the dishes are brilliant. They commissioned a special photographer to take them. And there's a separate chapter on Christmas food . . .'

'Elínborg.'

'Yes.'

'Were you calling about anything in particular?'

'A skeleton in Lake Kleifarvatn,' Elínborg said, lowering her voice when the conversation moved away from her cookery book. 'I'm supposed to fetch you. The lake's shrunk or something and they found some bones there this morning. They want you to take a look.'

'The lake's shrunk?'

'Yes, I didn't quite get that bit.'

Sigurdur Óli was standing by the skeleton when Erlendur and Elínborg arrived at the lake. A forensics team was on the way. The officers from Hafnarfjördur were fiddling around with yellow plastic tape to cordon off the area, but had discovered they had nothing to attach it to. Sigurdur Óli watched their efforts and thought he could understand why village-idiot jokes were always set in Hafnarfjördur.

'Aren't you on holiday?' he asked Erlendur as he walked over across the black sand.

'Yes,' Erlendur said. 'What have you been up to?'

'Same old,' Sigurdur Óli said in English. He looked up at the road where a large jeep from one of the TV stations was parking at the roadside. 'They sent her home,' he said with a nod at the policemen from Hafnarfjördur. 'The woman who found the bones. She was taking some measurements here. We can ask her afterwards why the lake's dried up. Under normal circumstances we ought to be up to our necks