The Draining Lake - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,7

and that what had happened no longer mattered.

No one cared about the man in the lake any more.

4

Forensics had erected a large tent over the skeleton. Elínborg stood outside it as she watched Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli hurrying across the dry bed of the lake towards her. It was late in the evening and the media had left. Traffic had increased around the lake after the find was reported, but had died down and the area was quiet again.

'Nice of you to find the time,' Elínborg said as they approached.

'Sigurdur had to stop for a hamburger on the way,' Erlendur grunted. 'What's going on?'

'Come with me,' Elínborg said, opening the tent. 'The pathologist is here.'

Erlendur looked down towards the lake in the evening calm and thought about the fissures in its bed. The sun was still up, so it was completely daylight. Staring up at the white puffs of cloud directly above him, he was still pondering how strange it was that there had once been a lake four metres deep where he was standing.

The forensics team had unearthed the skeleton, which could now be seen in its entirety. There was not a single piece of flesh or scrap of clothing left on it. A woman aged about forty knelt beside it, picking at the pelvis with a yellow pencil.

'It's a male,' she said. 'Average height and probably middle-aged, but I need to check that more carefully. I don't know how long he's been in the water, perhaps forty or fifty years. Maybe longer. But that's just a guess. I can be more precise once I get him down to the morgue to study him properly.'

She stood up and greeted them. Erlendur knew her name was Matthildur and that she had recently been recruited as a pathologist. He longed to ask her what drove her to investigate crimes. Why she didn't just become a doctor like all the others and milk the health service?

'He's been hit over the head?' Erlendur asked.

'Looks like it,' Matthildur said. 'But it's difficult to establish what kind of instrument was used. All the marks around the hole have gone.'

'We're talking about wilful murder?' Sigurdur Óli said.

'All murders are wilful,' Matthildur said. 'Some are just more stupid than others.'

'There's no question that it's murder,' said Elínborg, who had been listening.

She scrambled over the skeleton and pointed down to a large hole that the forensics team had dug. Erlendur went over to her and saw that inside the hole was a bulky black metal box, tied by a rope to the bones. It was still mostly buried in the sand but what appeared to be broken instruments with black dials and black buttons were visible. The box was scratched and dented, it had opened up and there was sand inside.

'What's that?' Sigurdur Óli asked.

'God knows,' Elínborg said, 'but it was used to sink him.'

'Is it some kind of measuring device?' Erlendur said.

'I've never seen anything like it,' Elínborg said. 'Forensics said it was an old radio transmitter. They went off for something to eat.'

'A transmitter?' Erlendur said. 'What kind of transmitter?'

'They didn't know. They've still got to dig it up.'

Erlendur looked at the rope tied around the skeleton and at the black box used to sink the body. He imagined men lugging the corpse out of a car, tying it to the transmitter, rowing out onto the lake with it and throwing the whole lot overboard.

'So he was sunk?' he said.

'He hardly did it himself,' Sigurdur Óli blurted out. 'He wouldn't really go out onto the lake, tie himself to a radio transmitter, pick it up, fall over on his head and still take care to end up in the lake so he'd be sure to disappear. That would be the most ridiculous suicide in history.'

'Do you suppose the transmitter's heavy?' Erlendur asked, trying to contain his irritation with Sigurdur Óli.

'It looks really heavy to me,' Matthildur said.

'Is there any point in combing the bottom of the lake for a murder weapon?' Elínborg asked. 'With a metal detector, if it was a hammer or the like? It might have been thrown in with the body.'

'Forensics will handle that,' Erlendur said, kneeling down by the black box. He rubbed away the sand from it.

'Maybe he was a radio ham,' Sigurdur Óli said.

'Are you coming?' Elínborg asked. 'To my book launch?'

'Don't we have to?' Sigurdur Óli said.

'I'm not going to force you.'

'What's the book called?' Erlendur asked.

'More Than Just Desserts,' Elínborg said. 'It's a pun. Justice – get it