Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason Read Free Book Online

while to come round. The paramedics stood over her, holding the stretcher between them. The little boy was hiding in the room. The two men lay knocked out on their mattresses.
Erlendur crouched by the girl, who was slowly regaining consciousness. She looked at Erlendur and up to the doctor and the paramedics.
"What's going on?" she asked in a low voice, as if talking to herself.
"Do you know about Eva Lind?" Erlendur asked.
"Eva?"
"She was with you tonight. I think she might be in danger. Do you know where she went?"
"Isn't Eva okay?" she asked, then looked around. "Where's Kiddi?"
"There's a little boy in the room over there," Erlendur said. "He's waiting for you. Tell me where I can find Eva Lind."
"Who are you?"
"Her father."
"The cop?"
"Yes."
"She can't stand you."
"I know. Do you know where she is?"
"She started getting pains. I told her to go to the hospital. She was going to walk there."
"Pains?"
"Her gut was killing her."
"Where did she set off from? From here?"
"We were at the bus station."
"The bus station?"
"She was going to the National Hospital. Isn't she there?"
Erlendur stood up and the doctor told him the hospital switchboard number. He phoned, only to hear that no one by the name of Eva Lind had been admitted in the past few hours. No woman of her age had been there. He was put through to the maternity ward and tried to describe his daughter as well as he could, but the duty midwife didn't think she'd seen her.
He ran out of the flat, got into his car and raced to the bus station. There was not a soul around. The bus station closed at midnight. He left his car and hurried along Snorrabraut, broke into a run up the street past the houses in Nordurmýri and scanned the gardens for his daughter. He started calling her name as he drew closer to the hospital, but no one answered.
At last he found her lying in a pool of blood on a lawn sheltered by trees, about 50 metres from the old maternity home. But he was too late. The grass beneath her was stained with blood and so were her jeans.
Erlendur knelt beside his daughter, looked up at the maternity home and saw himself going through the door with Halldóra all those years ago when Eva Lind herself was born. Was she going to die at the very same place?
Erlendur stroked Eva's forehead, unsure about whether he dared moved her.
He thought she was seven months pregnant.
*
She had tried running away from him, but had given up long ago.
She had left him twice. Both times while they were still living in the basement flat on Lindargata. A whole year elapsed from the first time he beat her up until he lost control of himself again. That was what he called it. When he still talked about the violence he had inflicted on her. She never regarded it as losing control of himself. To her it seemed he never had more self-control than when he was beating the living daylights out of her and showering her with abuse. Even at the height of his frenzy he was cold and collected and sure of what he was doing. Always.
Over time she realised that she too would need to cultivate that quality to be able to triumph over him.
Her first attempt to flee was doomed to failure. She did not prepare herself, did not know the options available, had no idea where to turn and was suddenly standing outside in the chill breeze one February evening with her two children, holding Símon by the hand and carrying Mikkelína on her back, but she had no idea where to go. All she knew was that she had to get away from the basement.
She had seen the vicar who told her that a good wife does not leave her husband. Marriage was sacred in the eyes of God and people had to put up with much in order to keep it together.
"Think about your children," the vicar said.
"I am thinking about the children," she replied, and the vicar gave a kindly smile.
She did not try to approach the police. Her neighbours had twice called them when he attacked her, and the officers had gone to the basement to break up a domestic quarrel and