Betrayal

by Sigurdardóttir, Lilja

  ‘It’s confidential,’ he said. ‘It’s work stuff.’

  ‘Liar,’ she hissed.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said calmly. ‘I work for the Cabinet Office. So I’m not at liberty to let anyone see my emails.’

  ‘You’re a fucking chauffeur!’ she snapped. Gunnar imagined that the tourists who had rented the flat next door would be awake by now. ‘What can a fucking chauffeur be doing that’s so secret? Well?’

  ‘It’s confidential,’ he said in the same calm voice, feeling the need to correct her growing inside him. He wanted to tell her that he was also a bodyguard, that he oversaw the minister’s security, and that he was working directly with the commissioner of police. But she knew all that; she was simply trying to provoke a response. But a response was what she wasn’t going to get.

  ‘If you’re messaging someone else then I’m going to go fucking crazy,’ she yelled, storming into the bedroom and throwing things around.

  He wanted to call after her that she was already crazy, but instead said, ‘I’m not messaging anyone else. I’m telling the truth.’

  It was indeed the truth, but now that her anger had been triggered, there was nothing he could do. And he had no inclination to try to do anything. He took up his position on the floor to go back to his abdominal exercises, but hadn’t even begun when he heard the front door slam shut behind her. Now the tourists next door would definitely be awake.

  He filled his lungs and pumped out his breaths. Tearing each muscle made it stronger, so he had to push them beyond their limits if he wanted to increase his strength. He was close to two hundred repetitions, and the sweat was cascading down his forehead and into his eyes when he heard the whoosh from his computer that told him he had a message.

  Breathless, he got to his feet and shook the mouse to wake the computer; as expected, he saw a reply from fossi@gmail.com.

  He opened it and saw immediately that his courteous approach had not had a positive effect. If anything, the wording told him that his efforts had rather served to infuriate this lunatic still further.

  You can request all you like, you idiot. You don’t tell me what to do. I’ll bite her fucking tits off if I feel like it, and fuck her posh arsehole after I’ve beaten her head to a pulp. Go to hell and take the fucking whore with you.

  37

  Time passed in a crazy, recurring whirl, repeating itself, but at the same time constantly bringing new things for him to deal with. He had gone to a funeral in the cathedral with Eddi, who was so tanked and such a sensitive soul that he began to weep after the eulogy for a man he didn’t know from Adam.

  ‘After that, I feel like I know the fellow,’ Eddi said, and sniffed.

  They had probably sung the hymns a little too enthusiastically because it wasn’t long before the undertaker came and told them to keep it down. The undertaker was a good guy, though; he let them stay where they were, on the pew at the back, as long as they didn’t cause any bother. Some undertakers wouldn’t let them in, but this one was always good to them.

  After, they had gone to the wake held in the cathedral’s hall, but they had struggled with the stairs; Eddi because of how drunk he was, and him because of his wretched bad foot. They stuffed themselves at the cold buffet and announced that ‘he was always a friend to me’ in sob-choked voices to anyone who would listen. Nobody had the heart to throw them out, and nobody wanted to dishonour the departed by being less than charitable. It always worked.

  Eddi had puked the whole lot up on the steps outside, after they tumbled down them on their arses. It was strange how it was always harder coming down steps than climbing up them. He had helped Eddi, miserable, nauseous and wailing with artificial sorrow, up to the shelter, where they washed their faces at the sink and got ready to get some sleep.

  He woke with the sermon echoing in his head, and crossed himself, thankful for this power against the evil that had pursued him ever since the Devil had brought little Úrsúla under his sway.

  The warden suddenly appeared before him, anger in his eyes, and ordered him to get to his feet.

  ‘You know we don’t tolerate any trouble here!’ he said, and added that Eddi was in a state because of him and had been taken to A&E. ‘You’ve given him a black eye and fat lips, not to mention knocking out one of the few teeth he had left! And the bathroom’s awash with blood. What the hell’s that about – beating the shit out of your pal?’

  The anger in the warden’s eyes was shot through with disappointment. He was all right, this guy, but like everyone who worked there, he was strict.

  ‘I won’t deny what I don’t remember,’ he muttered as he pulled on his coat.

  It was clear that the Devil’s works were gathering around him. And now that the Devil had his hooks in the interior minister herself, nothing and nobody was safe.

  ‘You need to have a word with yourself, Pétur. You’re not coming in here again unless you abide by the house rules,’ the warden yelled at him as he set off into the snow.

  Dawn wasn’t far off and there was nobody about in the city so there was a silent stillness to the place. It wasn’t long before his feet were wet, as the snow was thawing and the footsteps of those who had walked this way before him had become a million little foot-shaped puddles. He tried to avoid them, but slid and stepped in them now and again.

  All the lights were off at Úrsúla’s house and the letterbox had been screwed shut. It was just as well her car was parked outside so he could leave his message for her on the windscreen; his warning for her to turn aside from the path of the Devil.

  Thursday

  38

  Úrsúla looked up from her laptop and was about to say something to Nonni as he returned from dropping the children off at school, but was startled by the expression on his face.

  ‘There’s another note!’ he hissed, angrily waving the piece of paper in Úrsúla’s face. ‘It was on the windscreen this morning. Under one of the wipers. It’s obviously meant for you.’

  Devil’s-mini-ster reaps death, the note read.

  ‘Looks to me like a direct murder threat,’ Nonni said, fidgeting as he stood by the desk, too agitated to sit down.

  Úrsúla nodded her agreement.

  ‘I’ll have Gunnar look into it,’ she said, but that was as good as adding fuel to the fire.

  ‘Have Gunnar look into it? What on earth does the driver have to do with this? We need an injunction on this weirdo to stop them from coming near us. We can’t live with daily threats. You need to have the police deal with this right away!’

  Úrsúla stood up, pulled Nonni close and wrapped her arms around him. His body was stiff with tension, and it took a little while before he began to relax. She laid her face against his chest and felt his rapid heartbeat through his shirt.

  ‘I do take this seriously, my love, I promise,’ she said. ‘Gunnar has a direct line to the national commissioner’s office, which makes sure that government people like us aren’t troubled by weirdos. They collect all the evidence and do some kind of assessment of what level of security is needed.’

  Nonni squeezed her tight, once, and let her go.

  ‘I have to admit that it scares me a bit,’ he whispered.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

  She stroked his face. He was so agitated that she didn’t dare mention the email she had received the day before. That would wreck all his ideas about protecting her. He had been certain that they would be safe in Iceland, that here nothing bad ever happened and evil was restricted to comments online. And anyway, she had a hunch that the email was less significant than the scrawled notes, a feeling that was especially true, now that she knew the note-writer’s identity. She would have to tough it out and tell Nonni she knew who it was.

  ‘I’ll take this very seriously,’ she said. ‘In fact, the feeling I had was right: the down-and-out in the boot of the car did know me. I saw in the police report last night that he’s Pétur Pétursson. Now that he’s lost all his teeth and has a be
ard, I didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘Úrsúla! And it’s only now that you’re telling me this?’ Nonni snapped.

  ‘I only realised last night,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want you to have a sleepless night.’

  This was a half-truth. The reality was that she had first wanted to think it over for herself. She had preferred to examine the fear and the sorrow in her mind before tackling Nonni’s reactions. They were what she expected: he strode back and forth across the kitchen, his face flushed and a look in his eyes that could have been panic, anger or fear.

  ‘Pétur Pétursson?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pétur Pétursson has been holed up in the boot of your car and has been sending you death threats?’

  The tension made his voice so high, it was ready to crack.

  Úrsúla nodded.

  ‘The Pétur Pétursson who murdered your father?’

  39

  Stella swore with disgust as the bus she couldn’t afford to take shot past, splashing her with slush as it went on its way. She sketched the Óttastafur fear symbol in the air and angrily sent it to the driver, although she knew it wouldn’t change anything. She would have to walk further from the kerb wherever she could, but the snow was piled in such a way that the only clear part of the pavement was right by the road, which was just where anyone making their way on foot would get splashed as inconsiderate drivers hurtled past without slowing down. Right now she had seen enough snow to last her a lifetime.

  She had been captivated by it when she had seen it for the first time, not long after they had come to Iceland. Guðmundur had woken them up to see the falling snow, and she hadn’t been able to contain her excitement, rushing out into the little garden in her nightdress, where she danced and tried to catch flakes of snow on her tongue as they fluttered to earth. Then she had rolled in the white, soft snow until her teeth had begun to chatter with cold. Her mother and Guðmundur had laughed and kissed, and for breakfast Guðmundur had made pancakes using the leftover rice pudding from the day before.

  She recalled sitting, looking out through the window at the snow, with the sugary, oily residue of the pancakes running down her chin, and thinking that she and her mother were just too lucky for words. It seemed too good to be true that they were in a safe place where they would never again need to be frightened. And that was the way it had turned out: too good to be true. Just as the snow that fell to earth – pure, white and beautiful, with promises of bright winter days to come – soon turned into a slippery, grey-brown mess on the streets, getting in everyone’s way, so her mother’s marriage to Guðmundur soon turned sour, and then it became dangerous.

  Stella turned down onto Sæbraut and crossed over at the lights. She clambered over a high mound of piled-up snow to reach the cycle lane that ran along the shore; it had been cleared and scattered with sand, so she could make reasonably fast progress here. The snow falling from the storm-pink sky was wet and would undoubtedly turn to rain by daylight. At any rate, she hoped so. It would be great to have a few days of rain to clear away the dirty snow and the ice beneath it.

  Not far from the ministry, just as she was going to cross over Sæbraut again, she slipped on the ice. She put out a hand to save herself, and felt the pain shoot up her arm as her palm landed on the sand-strewn ice and she found herself sitting in the snow. She screamed to stop herself from crying, and when she stood up she realised that her behind was soaked and the legs of her trousers were still wet through from the bus splashing her earlier. But she had taken a decision. She was going to sell this creepy guy all the rubbish he wanted, as long as he’d pay a thousand krónur a bag on the spot. At least she’d be able to afford to take the bus and have something left for a hot dog and a Coke for dinner.

  40

  Gunnar finished scraping the wet slush off the steps with a shovel and took a big bag of salt from the boot of the car to scatter on the path. Úrsúla’s husband, Jón, had told him there was no need to clear the snow, but it was in his job description and he had no intention of having the minister slip on the ice and injure herself. As well as that, he was pretty sure that the husband had enough on his plate, as the minister was hardly going to be doing any household duties considering she left for work early in the morning and came home late in the evening. He thought of Fossi’s message as he salted the steps and reproached himself for having got in touch. He should have known that there was little point appealing to the good sense of a man who could write that kind of thing.

  He was just about to ring the doorbell when Úrsúla opened the door.

  ‘Come in and have a cup of coffee,’ she said. ‘Nonni has just made some.’

  ‘I can wait in the car if you’re busy,’ he said. He wanted Úrsúla to understand that she had no need to be concerned about his wellbeing, or to worry about whether he was properly fed and rested. But sometimes people who weren’t used to having others looking after them found this difficult, and according to the bodyguard’s handbook, this could lead to increased tension.

  ‘I need a word with you,’ she said, gesturing for him to follow her inside.

  His heart lurched and he felt a knot of anxiety form in his belly. He had no doubt she was going to get rid of him and go back to driving herself. He had noticed how uncomfortable she was being driven around, her every footstep followed. He took off his shoes and tiptoed into the kitchen, where she was sitting at the table.

  ‘Good morning. Fresh coffee,’ Nonni said, placing the coffee pot on the table in front of him.

  He nodded, smiled but left the coffee untouched.

  ‘Good morning,’ he replied quietly and took in their expressions. It was obvious that something was wrong. The veins in Nonni’s neck were bulging as he moved nervously behind his wife, who pushed a shabby scrap of paper across the table towards Gunnar.

  He read Devil’s-mini-ster reaps death and felt a strange surge of relief. She wasn’t going to get rid of him. In fact, she needed him. It was clear that they were both upset by the note.

  ‘It seems to be from our friend who was in the boot of the car,’ he said.

  Úrsúla nodded, and Nonni cleared his throat, as if encouraging her to say something.

  ‘Our so-called friend is probably no friend of mine,’ she said and slid a sheet of paper across the table. He quickly recognised it as the police report about Úrsúla finding the down-and-out in the back of her car. ‘Look at the man’s name.’

  Gunnar did so. He had heard the police mention that the man’s name was Pétur, but other than that there was nothing familiar about it.

  ‘Begin at the beginning,’ Nonni said, standing behind her, and Úrsúla coughed.

  ‘There’s some back story here,’ she said, and took a deep breath. ‘My late father struggled with alcoholism and ended up more or less on the street. So most of my memories of him from when I was small are of seeing him downtown with his mates, who were all in much the same boat – dirty and drunk, sometimes causing trouble; other times battered and bruised by fights or accidents. A lot of the time he hung around with Pétur. They were friends.’

  She picked up her mug and sipped, several times in a row, as if she was trying to swallow a lump in her throat.

  ‘And Pétur was in a cell with my father, up at Hverfisgata, the night he died.’

  ‘Pétur Pétursson, the man who has been sending Úrsúla clear death threats, is the man who murdered her father in a police cell,’ Nonni said.

  He was obviously deeply upset, and it manifested itself in this burst of anger, as if he had been keeping his rage under control until an opportunity arose to let it go. His wife sat silent, though, and stared into her coffee mug. Gunnar could see no anger in her expression. There was only sadness.

  ‘He was judged unfit to stand trial,’ she said. ‘It must be years since he was released from the psychiatric detention unit at Sogn. It’s deeply disconcerting that he’s showing this interest in me now.’

  ‘Showing interest!’ Nonni
snapped. ‘Saying it’s disconcerting that your father’s murderer is sending you death threats is putting it mildly!’

  41

  In that moment between sleep and waking, the same string of thoughts ran repeatedly through Marita’s mind. Opening her eyes and waking up fully, she sighed. She had been back in that nightmare situation when all this had first happened. Her mind was going through the events of that evening again and again in the hope of finding some overlooked detail that could shine a light on Jónatan’s innocence.

  Marita had met Katrín Eva in the doorway when she came in, wrapped up in her down jacket, and had greeted her:

  ‘Hello, love. How was the evening?’

  Katrín Eva had mumbled a reply, which Marita had taken as confirming that the evening had been fine.

  ‘Was Klemmi all right?’

  ‘Yes. He went to sleep ages ago.’

  Katrín Eva had not looked up, and she guessed that the girl was sleepy and clearly wanted to be on her way home rather than hanging about in the cold.

  ‘I’ll pay the money into your account, love,’ Marita had called after her.

  Katrín Eva had turned and waved the notes she had in her hand, indicating that Jónatan had already paid her for the evening’s babysitting. There was nothing unusual about that. It looked to be three five-thousand krónur notes, much more than she was owed, but Jónatan had always liked to be generous. Katrín Eva was normally cheery and would spend some time chatting to Marita before leaving, but that evening she had seemed taciturn, but it had been late and she must have been tired. On top of having drunk a beer.

  Maybe that was why she hadn’t stopped to tell Marita what Klemmi had got up to as she sometimes did, and hadn’t asked how the staff dinner had been. Perhaps she was trying to disguise the fact that she was feeling the effects of the beer, and that was why she had avoided Marita’s eye and kept her face deep in the fur collar of that ridiculously expensive coat she was so proud of.