Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020)

by Sigurdardottir, Yrsa

  Sigurlaug resumed her story in a husky voice. ‘Sibbi … Margeir, I mean, was a sick man. It was as if something had broken inside him. I believe he did love me in his own way – he kept insisting he did – but he treated me as if he hated me. It was a bit like being pregnant. I know I’m going to have a baby, but I don’t know exactly when. I can see the bump growing, just like I used to see the storm clouds gathering. I would do everything in my power to postpone the inevitable. I kept the flat spotless. Avoided doing anything I knew would get on his nerves. But the list of things that set him off just kept getting longer, and it got harder and harder to keep him happy.’ She bowed her head, staring unseeingly at the hospital blanket. ‘I know it’s not very nice of me, but now he’s dead I have to cling to the memory of how badly he treated me. I want to push away all the good times. It makes the grief easier to bear.’ Sigurlaug broke off for a moment, then went on: ‘But I didn’t love him any more. By then, the only emotion I felt was fear. We went to Majorca on holiday and he attacked me so viciously that I was scared he’d kill me. But shortly after we got home, his mood suddenly improved and he seemed happy. He stopped worrying about our finances, which were in a complete mess, and his behaviour completely changed. It was as though he was looking forward to something – a side of him I hadn’t seen for a long time. Before that he’d always been so pessimistic about the future.’

  Sigurlaug winced and tried to find a more comfortable position so the drip wouldn’t pull at her arm. Then she sighed and continued her story: ‘In some bizarre way, I still cared about him, you know. In spite of everything. I convinced myself he’d change. If only I did this and not that. But deep down I knew it was hopeless.’

  Freyja reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently, then let it go.

  ‘That night Sibbi woke me and ordered me to get up. He said he had something to show me and I could tell it was bad news. Although I usually gave in to him, this time I put my foot down and refused to leave Siggi alone. He was sleeping so I pulled on his clothes and carried him out to the car. I don’t think he was aware of anything; he was just fast asleep. Sibbi drove us over to Sudurhlíd. When he pulled into the parking area, I realised I was in trouble. You see, I recognised the building and I knew Sibbi hadn’t brought me there by chance. What had happened there five years earlier had had such shattering consequences that I’d never forgotten it …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Erla prompted her: ‘Could you tell us about that? We need to hear your side of things, because all we’ve heard so far is your husband’s version, which is hard to prove now.’

  A hint of colour rose in the woman’s pale cheeks. ‘I didn’t cheat on Sibbi, though he refused to believe me. I went home with a man called Helgi, Helgi Fridriksson.’ She lifted the hand that wasn’t hooked up to the drip and stroked back her matted hair. ‘I looked better in those days. Much better. But Sibbi couldn’t stand it when other men looked at me, so I stopped making an effort. That’s how he wanted it.’ She gave a faint, rueful smile. ‘That’s one thing I’m looking forward to when all this is over – being able to dress up and wear make-up again when I’m in the mood.’

  Freyja smiled at her but said nothing. Erla remained as coldly detached as before. Perhaps the need for a witness had been a pretext; perhaps Erla actually needed someone who was capable of showing a bit of humanity.

  ‘Anyway, Sibbi and I weren’t together at the time. Our relationship had been on and off for a while, though we ended up moving in together. So I went home with the man and that’s all there was to it. He didn’t call me afterwards and I didn’t call him. I had no reason to think that night would cause me problems any more than any other night I’ve spent with a man.’ She turned her head quickly to look at them. ‘You mustn’t think I’m the type who goes home with just anybody. It was just one of those things.’

  ‘You were an adult and free to conduct your sex life as you pleased. You have no need to make excuses for anything.’ Finally Erla had said something Freyja approved of.

  Sigurlaug looked relieved. ‘Anyway, not long after I went back to work after maternity leave, the boys in my class started behaving oddly. They kept sniggering and whispering in lessons. Then it spread to the rest of the school and before long most of the older pupils had started copying them whenever I walked down the corridors. They wolf-whistled and made moaning noises and called out stuff that I’d rather not repeat. In the end I got the story out of the only girl in my class I could trust to tell me what was going on. She not only told me, she showed me where to find the video as well. After that I pretended I was ill and went home. I kept that up for a few days but in the end I realised I couldn’t face going back to work. I couldn’t handle it on top of the stress of coping with Sibbi’s temper at home. It was too much. When I told Sibbi I wanted to quit teaching, he sensed that something was up. He wouldn’t leave me alone, just kept on and on at me. I held out, but in the end he beat the truth out of me. I was so frightened that I told him where to find the video, and Helgi’s name and address as well. Of course Sibbi went charging straight over there but there was nobody home. He kept trying but the man was never there. In the end he asked one of the neighbours, who said he thought Helgi lived abroad.’

  Sigurlaug fell silent and closed her eyes. Erla and Freyja waited patiently for her to recover. This wasn’t an easy thing to rake up, especially when the woman was already in a weakened state. Before opening her eyes again, she heaved a deep breath, which seemed to give her new strength.

  ‘A couple of years passed. Sibbi brought up the incident less and less often, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten about it. Then one day he found out that Helgi had moved back to Iceland and was living at a new address. After a fit of rage that left me covered in bruises, he stormed out, saying he was going to beat the man to a pulp. When he came home he had calmed down but I didn’t dare ask what had happened.’ The woman paused and bit her lip. Then she took another deep breath. ‘I don’t know what went on after that. Sibbi was calmer for a while but when he did lose it with me he was far more violent than before. During our holiday in Majorca, he went for me out of the blue – he almost killed me – and started going on obsessively again about how I’d cheated on him. Then, just after Christmas, he attacked me so badly that I ended up in A&E. A doctor spoke to me while I was there and although it might sound a bit feeble, I had started to think about leaving him. I just hadn’t summoned up the courage. You see, he was always threatening to kill me if I ever left, and swearing that he loved me.’

  The story continued in fits and starts. Sigurlaug described how Margeir had parked in front of the block of flats on Sudurhlíd and sat there in silence instead of getting out. Then a scruffy old SUV had driven up and Margeir had got out and spoken to the driver, a man Sigurlaug didn’t recognise. They started arguing and from what she could hear it was about her. After that they went inside and she waited in fear, sure that the night was going to end with a beating. She knew the signs.

  But nothing happened. The other man came back alone and at first she mistook him for Margeir because he was wearing his anorak and a baseball cap. When he came over to the car she saw that his face had blood on it and there were blood-stains on his clothes as well. He ordered her to get out and get into his car instead, which she did, while he carried Siggi over. The boy stirred but then went back to sleep. The man drove off in their Yaris, and a minute or two later returned on foot. At this point Sigurlaug interrupted to ask if her car had been found and Erla told her that it had been parked by a hotel just round the corner from Sudurhlíd. Since there were lots of cars parked there, no one had noticed that a Yaris had been there for several days.

  Sigurlaug seemed relieved and returned to her story. She said she’d suspected that the man had done something to Margeir but had been too terrified to ask what. She had just sat there, staring dazed at the road ahead, while he silently drove them over to Sæbraut and parked on Lindargata. At this point, he ordered her to keep quiet and threat
ened to hurt her son if she wasn’t in the car when he got back. As proof that he meant business, he showed her a recording on his phone of a man being hanged and told her that it was Helgi. Then he lifted Siggi out of the back seat and disappeared with him, having first taken off Siggi’s scarf and wrapped it round the lower half of his own face.

  When he came back, he got in the car and ordered her to keep her mouth shut. They sat there until it was nearly morning. Then the man drove to a nearby kiosk and ordered her to put her hood up before he pulled up to the window and bought a bottle of soda water. He put some sort of powder in the water and ordered her to drink it. Sigurlaug had tried to refuse but he insisted, promising that it wouldn’t do her any harm. After that her memory became hazy.

  She did recall having fallen asleep in the car, then later getting out once it was daylight. The man had led her inside a building and taken her down to the basement where he had locked her in a hot, dark room. After that she could remember only snatches, like being given a drink and a sandwich to eat, and also him saying that if she called for help, Siggi would pay the price. Despite that, she’d found it almost impossible to stay awake. At some point she’d been given an air mattress and a blanket that she didn’t need because it was so hot in there. After the drug had worn off and she regained consciousness, the man had taped her mouth shut, drilled a hole in the wall for a large hook, tied her hands behind her back with wire and fixed it to the hook. He made sure it was long enough for her to be able to lie down, though. She had slipped in and out of sleep after that, right up until the moment when the door had opened and the police were outside.

  ‘But I have to say that he didn’t treat me badly, in spite of everything. He seemed concerned about my wellbeing and kept insisting that he was going to let me go. I just had to be patient. He assured me that the drug I’d been given wouldn’t harm my baby. And the doctors have confirmed that he was right.’

  Freyja and Erla didn’t say anything to this. It sounded as if the woman was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, although this usually took longer to develop. Perhaps her years with a violent husband had taken their toll.

  Now that Sigurlaug had finished, she seemed utterly exhausted. ‘I want to see my son,’ she said fretfully. ‘When’s he getting here?’

  Freyja told her they were expecting him any minute. She’d passed on the message that it was safe to bring him to the hospital. Sigurlaug closed her eyes at that and asked to be left alone.

  By the time they left the room she appeared to have fallen asleep.

  Huldar was sitting outside with Saga on his lap. The little girl showed no desire to leave him when Freyja reappeared. She had to go over and almost drag her away. Then she stood there with Saga on her hip while Erla brought Huldar up to date on what they’d learnt, adding various details that filled in some of the gaps in the woman’s account.

  Sigurlaug’s abductor had been forced to wait before smuggling her into the building because of the security cameras. He had reasoned that if he allowed a long enough time to elapse after Siggi’s arrival, the police were less likely to notice that the camera covering the garage entrance had been switched off briefly later that day. Freyja also learnt that after locking the unconscious woman in the boiler room, the man had driven the Land Cruiser back to the garage Margeir had taken it from. Margeir had been working on the electrics there and managed to steal the car keys. Thórdur hadn’t known exactly where the Land Cruiser had been parked but had hit on the right place purely by chance. As a result, no one noticed that the car had been moved or that the keys were missing. The garage owner was now demanding compensation from the police for a new set of keys and for cleaning the vomit from the back seat. Huldar and Erla had laughed at the absurdity of this.

  They went on discussing the case. Freyja stood by, temporarily forgotten, so she learnt that some questions remained unanswered, like how Margeir had got his hands on the Rohypnol. The most plausible theory was that he’d bought it from a Facebook page that dealt in the drug. The following morning, a search was to be launched for the phones belonging to Margeir, Sigurlaug and Helgi, which Thórdur claimed to have chucked into the sea off Sæbraut, the coast road near Helgi’s flat. A number of other names also came up that meant nothing to Freyja: apparently the police were not going to apply for custody of two men called Thormar and Tómas. The men’s relief at this was tempered by the fact that Erla and Huldar were united in their determination to charge them and two others with distributing pornography.

  By the time they finally wrapped up their conversation, Saga was growing restless. Erla announced that she had to head off but asked Huldar to hang around for Siggi’s arrival to make sure that everything went smoothly. After that, he was to get his arse back down to the station. Then she marched off without a word to Freyja.

  ‘She’s unbelievable.’ Freyja shook her head in disgust over Erla’s rudeness.

  ‘She’s not having an easy time. It’s no joke being head of department, especially for a woman in a man’s workplace.’ Huldar grinned at Saga.

  Freyja was about to object that this didn’t excuse Erla’s lack of common courtesy when the door at the end of the corridor opened and Didrik appeared, accompanied by Sigurlaug’s mother Margrét, holding Siggi by the hand. The boy was all eyes as he took in these strange new surroundings. Instead of stopping at the reception desk halfway down the ward, they made a beeline for Freyja and Huldar.

  As soon as they started talking, the little boy turned shy. Although he recognised Freyja and Huldar, he wasn’t used to seeing them in this new environment. His grandmother, on the other hand, couldn’t stop talking, one minute bubbling over with joy that her daughter had been found alive, the next frantic with worry about her condition and the wellbeing of the unborn child.

  Huldar, dazed by the woman’s excitable chatter, sent her off to talk to the nursing staff who would be better able to answer her questions.

  ‘Any chance you could take it from here?’ Didrik turned an imploring gaze on Freyja. ‘They couldn’t find anyone else to bring the boy and his grandmother over but it’s my wife’s birthday today and she’ll never forgive me if I don’t go straight home.’

  To her chagrin, Freyja noticed a smile twitching at Huldar’s mouth.

  ‘You can leave too, the moment the visit’s over,’ Didrik continued. ‘The boy’ll be going home with his grandmother.’

  Freyja was about to draw his attention to Saga, who was still sitting on her hip, now frowning curiously at Siggi, but he could hardly have failed to notice her. ‘OK, you go,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait here.’

  Didrik didn’t wait to be told twice but almost ran off down the corridor. Freyja watched him go, a little disappointed that he’d turned out to be taken. But Huldar’s attitude had undergone a complete transformation. ‘He’s a good guy, isn’t he? I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought he was single.’

  Ignoring him, Freyja crouched down carefully to talk to Siggi. Saga immediately reached out a hand for his hair and Freyja moved back out of harm’s way before she could grab a fistful. ‘Well, Siggi. Would you like to see your mummy?’

  The boy, who had been staring at Saga, now smiled warily. ‘Yes please. Is she hurt?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. Don’t worry. She just needs to stay here for a bit so the doctors can check that the baby’s all right. I’m sure she’ll be allowed to go home soon.’ Freyja stood up again. ‘Come on.’ She led the little boy to the door of his mother’s room where she let go of his hand and watched him break into a run and fling himself into his mother’s arms.

  They exchanged a long, wordless hug until eventually the questions started tumbling out of Siggi’s mouth. ‘Were you lost? Where have you been? Is your mouth hurting? Why have you got a plaster on your hand? What’s this tube? Where’s Daddy?’

  The last question was the hardest. Sigurlaug hugged the boy to her again and handed him the rabbit, which he immediately tucked under his arm. Then he repeated: ‘Where’s Daddy? Is h
e dead?’

  Freyja thought Sigurlaug’s eyes were wet, but apart from that she seemed to have herself well under control and was obviously perfectly capable of breaking the news to her son in private. Deciding to leave them in peace, Freyja tiptoed out, pulling the door to behind her. The last thing she heard was Sigurlaug saying to Siggi that there was something she had to tell him …

  Huldar was hovering in the corridor of the ward, looking impatient. ‘I’ve just had a text and I need to get down to the station immediately.’

  ‘Has there been another development?’

  ‘No, this is personal. Remember Gudlaugur?’ Of course she did. ‘One of the biggest pricks on our team has found out something he can use against him. The message was from him. It’s clear he wants to get as much mileage out of the situation as he can and he’s trying to wind me up. Unfortunately for him, he’s succeeded. I’ve got to go and beat some sense into him before he sends the video round the whole department.’

  ‘I see.’ She didn’t actually, but didn’t want to pry. If Huldar wanted to beat someone up, it was none of her concern. Besides, the guy presumably deserved it if he was persecuting that nice young Gudlaugur. Then again, remembering the black eye Huldar had been sporting when he’d escorted her to her class reunion in December, she thought the result might not be a foregone conclusion. ‘Maybe you should try and solve it some other way,’ she suggested mildly.

  ‘No chance.’ Huldar grinned. ‘By the way, Saga and I have made plans to go out for dinner tomorrow night. You don’t happen to be free then, do you?’

  Freyja couldn’t suppress an answering smile. ‘Sure, why not?’ She hoped he wouldn’t be black and blue this time, but suspected this was a vain hope.

  Chapter 34

  Sigurlaug buried her face in her son’s hair and breathed in his scent. He smelt strange, alien.