The Reckoning: Children's House Book 2 (Freyja and Huldar)

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  He had only a vague idea of how long he had been held captive here. His phone was missing and the expensive watch had vanished from his wrist. When he discovered this he had been strangely relieved, though the feeling hadn’t lasted. His initial reaction was that he must have been robbed. But then he got to thinking. He knew his countrymen; knew that Icelandic robberies didn’t happen like this.

  It would have been nice to be able to console oneself with the idea that this was one of those conventional, lame, incompetent Icelandic crimes. But he couldn’t indulge in that kind of fantasy any longer. This was something altogether different and far worse. Thorvaldur tightened his grip on the expensive-looking walkie-talkie that he had spotted lying on a reasonably dry patch of the floor. At first he had been over the moon, thinking that the person who’d brought him here must have overlooked this life-saver. But then he realised that the channel selector button had been removed. His repeated calls for help on the channel it was tuned to had resulted in nothing but crackling static. The walkie-talkie hadn’t been left there by mistake. He had waited in desperation for a message from his mysterious jailor. When nothing happened, he had started to think that maybe the radio was just some old junk after all.

  A drip fell from the ceiling directly onto his head, making him even colder, if that was possible. Thorvaldur tried to focus on the positives. At least he wouldn’t die of thirst.

  Thorvaldur stared at the blanket covering the thing, whatever it was, in the corner. If he wrapped that around himself, he’d be able to lean against the wall without being soaked through. Maybe even have a nap. Then again, when he woke up he would be faced by the sight of the thing itself and the stench was bound to be twice as bad. No, better leave the blanket where it was.

  How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he taken more care when he left the police station? He should have known that the man watching him meant business. If his suspicions proved correct, the man had already killed two, possibly three, other people. He had been perfectly aware of that as he walked back to his car, congratulating himself on having resisted the police officers’ whining requests for him to come clean.

  He couldn’t actually recall much after that blow to his head. He could remember opening the car door but after that only snatches: he was lying on the back seat, struggling not to throw up in his car. He had a hazy recollection of being dragged out and leaning heavily on someone who led him along a gravel path or driveway. Next he remembered standing in the middle of this room, fighting dizziness and a lingering nausea. Amazingly enough he had managed to stay on his feet.

  The bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered and Thorvaldur craned back his head to look at it. He couldn’t bear the thought that it might blow any minute, leaving him alone in the pitch dark. With that thing in the corner.

  The walkie-talkie crackled and Thorvaldur jumped. He held it up to his ear so as not to miss anything, only to jerk it away when a loud voice blared out: ‘Hi, Thorvaldur. How are you doing?’ There was nothing wrong with the volume, though you couldn’t say the same for the sound quality. The voice was harsh and indistinct, made worse by the fact that the speaker was obviously trying to disguise it. Thorvaldur took this as a hopeful sign: if the intention was to kill him, why would it matter if he recognised the voice again?

  ‘Who is this? What do you want?’ He realised he’d forgotten to press the transmit button and repeated his words. ‘Who is this? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that. You’ll soon find out.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Shut up. One more question out of you and I’ll hang up. Is that clear?’

  Assuming there was more to come, Thorvaldur waited. The walkie-talkie crackled again. ‘Answer me when I ask you a question, you piece of shit.’

  Thorvaldur pressed the button. ‘Yes. Understood.’

  ‘Not understood. Answer either yes or no. No ifs or buts. Just yes or no. Got that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Thorvaldur only just stopped himself from adding ‘understood’.

  ‘I’m going to make you an offer. Want to hear it?’

  ‘Yes.’ His tiredness had vanished. Instead, Thorvaldur was overwhelmed with fury and frustration over being forced to communicate in this restricted manner.

  ‘You can expect visitors. I’m going to make it up to you for cutting short your weekend with the kids.’

  The cold seemed to intensify. Thorvaldur’s fingers were almost too numb to press the button to answer. This couldn’t be happening. ‘No.’ He had to bite his lip to stop himself saying more.

  ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘No.’ He did his best to charge the word with meaning. His children mustn’t be mixed up in this. Oh God, no. But he couldn’t convey the message. He heard the word echoing in his head, sounding as if he were merely declining the offer of coffee.

  ‘But so it’s not just the usual family reunion, I’m going to invite another guest.’

  Thorvaldur didn’t know whether to say yes or no but opted for yes in order to save up his ‘no’s. They would carry more weight if he didn’t answer no every time. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should know him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you mean “yes”? Do you know who it is?’ The response betrayed anger and for a moment the speaker forgot to disguise their voice. Thorvaldur realised suddenly that it was a woman. A woman with a deep voice. Or a man with a feminine one.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. Your visitor will be none other than Jón Jónsson. You’ll have a great time. Aren’t you looking forward to it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, well. Now we get to my offer. Listen carefully.’

  The words echoed round the room, harsh and tinny, each one piercing his ears like a knife. When the voice finally fell silent he lost control, pressed the button and screamed into the radio: ‘No way, you fucking cunt! Don’t think for one second that you’ll get away with this.’ He broke off to catch his breath, then added more calmly, refraining from shouting for fear his words would be too distorted to be understood: ‘I’m going to kill you. When I get out of here I’m going to kill you.’ He released the button and waited.

  For a long interval there was no sound; no crackling, static or speech. Then the voice emerged again, as level as his own had been towards the end: ‘You broke the rules. So I’ll have to say goodbye. But do one thing for me. Look under the blanket. Then you’ll see that I mean business. And do smarten yourself up a bit. You’re expecting visitors, remember?’

  The radio fell silent and nothing happened, though Thorvaldur pressed all the buttons and howled like a madman, both into the gadget and up at the concrete ceiling. When he finally gave up he was exhausted.

  He stared over at the mound on the other side of the room. He would have to look under the blanket. It was pointless to resist. Best get it over with.

  Stiff with cold and fatigue, he walked over to the mound. He was forced to hold his nose as he bent down and took hold of the woollen blanket. Gingerly he lifted one corner, just enough to get a glimpse of what lay beneath. Despite the grisly sight that met his eyes, as bad as the worst of his fears, it wasn’t enough; he had to see more, and he lifted the blanket higher. And was violently sick.

  The phone bleeped. Æsa wondered if she should ignore it and carry on watching the boring cartoon with the kids, or check who the message was from. She got up. It was time to find them something to eat anyway. Since being returned to her they had been quiet and listless, too distressed to have any appetite, too traumatised to come to terms with their thoughts. None of the child-rearing manuals she had consulted had contained any advice for the parents of children who had stumbled on a pair of sawn-off feet.

  ‘You go on watching. I’m going to make some food.’ Neither Karlotta nor Dadi appeared to be listening. They stared at the screen, their eyes weary and red from weeping. Since they were obviously in no hurry to eat, Æsa checked her phone. The messag
e was from Thorvaldur and despite her anger at him she opened it: Let me take the kids out for a meal. I owe them and it might cheer them up a bit. Please. You’re welcome to come along too if you like.

  She read the text again, glancing briefly at the two small heads just visible above the back of the sofa. Despite her reluctance to go anywhere with Thorvaldur, she knew the idea wasn’t such a bad one. Karlotta and Dadi would be delighted to get out of the flat for a while, so long as it wasn’t into the garden. It would be a long time before they could be persuaded to go and play outside again. Doubtless it would also do them good to see their father as soon as possible. If they didn’t see him for two weeks, as the schedule dictated, there was a risk he would be forever linked to the idea of amputated feet. Also, Thorvaldur would owe her a favour in return, which meant she might be able to force him to explain what was going on. One miserable meal would be worth it for that.

  ‘Would you like to go out to a late lunch with Daddy?’

  Karlotta and Dadi got to their knees and peered over the sofa, their faces hard to read. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he’ll let you choose.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in his garden.’ It must have been hard for Dadi to say this. He worshipped his father: in his eyes Thorvaldur was superior in every way and anything that belonged to him was the best. Including his garden.

  ‘You needn’t go out there. Of course not. Just out to eat.’

  ‘What about the police lady?’ Karlotta twisted a lock of hair round her finger, as she often did when she was insecure. ‘Is she coming too?’

  ‘No. Why do you think that?’

  ‘The lady said he had to go and see the police. They wanted to talk to him. But they could talk to him at home.’ She released her hair. ‘Perhaps he’s gone to jail.’

  ‘He hasn’t gone to jail, Karlotta. He’s inviting you out to a meal. Me too, if you want me to come along.’

  ‘Yay!’ Dadi beamed, his tiredness banished. ‘We’re going to eat with Mummy and Daddy.’

  The moment Æsa saw his reaction she realised this was a mistake. Now Dadi was bound to think they were getting back together. Just when he had finally stopped asking if they were going to. Too late. The children were wild with excitement. She picked up the phone and texted Thorvaldur to accept his offer. She had hardly put it down when it bleeped again. When she opened the message it said simply: Outside.

  Frowning, Æsa began to have second thoughts. This was typical of Thorvaldur: to be sitting outside, confident of getting what he wanted. She went over to the window and there was his car. He had reversed up to the house so all she could see was his shiny boot through the cloud of exhaust fumes.

  ‘He’s here.’ She dropped the curtain. ‘Put your boots on. Hurry up.’

  Chapter 32

  Erla stood with legs apart and one hand on her hip. Viewed from behind, she could have been either braced for an attack or auditioning as a backing singer for a Eurovision band. Thröstur was sitting on the sofa in front of her, hands cuffed behind his back. His mother had been taken down to the station and they were waiting for the car to return for him.

  The frozen image of a heavily armed soldier filled the large TV screen. He was in the act of running along a sandy alleyway, brandishing an automatic weapon. Huldar had negotiated the same alley when playing the game with a mate of his. Call of Duty – Black Ops II. A few more steps and the warlike figure would be taken out by a sniper on a neighbouring rooftop. The controller was lying on the coffee table where Thröstur had put it down when they arrived. Beside it were those glued-together figurines, looking as forlorn as they had last time. It would be a while before Thröstur could finish his game. He was looking uncharacteristically low key and conventional without his black eye-make-up and piercings. It made him appear younger: his face was naked and innocent, his skinny frame more apparent. But his eyes gave him away: they were dark in his pale face, flickering from side to side in search of an escape route.

  ‘I repeat: where is your sister?’ Erla’s tone made it clear that she wouldn’t ask again.

  ‘I repeat: I don’t know.’ Thröstur had to tip his head back to meet her eye.

  ‘Right. I give up. If this is the way you want it, this is how we’ll do it.’ Erla turned to Huldar and jerked her head. ‘Take him down. The car should be on its way. Make sure he doesn’t have a nasty fall on the stairs.’

  Huldar took hold of Thröstur’s arm and yanked him to his feet. He felt strangely heavy. Given his emaciated body, Huldar had expected it to be like manhandling a child. ‘Come on.’ Thröstur let himself be guided, seemingly resigned to his arrest. When they reached the hall, Huldar was even allowed to drape a scruffy jacket over his shoulders, after searching in vain for a warmer coat. He hoped they wouldn’t have to wait too long for the car. Just in case, he shoved a woolly hat on Thröstur’s head. The gesture clearly wasn’t appreciated but that was tough.

  ‘You know it’ll be better for everyone if you tell us where your sister is. We’ll find her in the end anyway. If we have to launch a manhunt, everyone will know she’s mixed up in this.’ Huldar addressed this to the back of Thröstur’s head as he followed him downstairs, without loosening his grip.

  ‘She hasn’t done anything. You lot haven’t a clue what you’re doing.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. We need to speak to her. The sooner we do, the better for everyone.’

  Neither of them spoke again until they emerged into the cold outside. There was no sign of the police car. ‘Do you smoke?’ Huldar fished a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket. When Thröstur didn’t answer, he added: ‘If you do, I’d accept one now if I were you. It’ll be a long time before you get another chance.’ Seeing that Thröstur was wavering, he shoved one in his mouth and lit it.

  Thröstur sucked avidly on the cigarette and blew out the smoke. Huldar followed his example. ‘You’re in deep shit, I’m afraid.’

  Thröstur took another drag, trying to act nonchalant. He was shivering slightly. Whether it was from the cold or from his predicament was impossible to say. ‘Fuck you,’ he mumbled.

  Huldar smiled and carried on smoking. ‘How long do you reckon your mother’ll hold out under questioning – before she breaks down and tells us everything?’ He stared down the empty street, watching the traffic lights on the corner changing pointlessly from red to amber to green. ‘I’d give her a quarter of an hour. Five minutes to sit down, listen to the questions and hear them repeated over and over, with increasing seriousness. Ten minutes to cry, then bingo – a slip of the tongue and after that there’ll be no stopping her. Your sister’s a bit tougher, maybe, so I give her an hour. Then the tears’ll start to flow.’ He took a drag and let the smoke curl out from between his lips. God, it was good. ‘I’ve seen it too often, mate. Don’t try and kid yourself that this’ll be any different.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Thröstur mumbled again, impeded by the cigarette between his lips.

  Huldar smiled. Thröstur could swear at him until he was blue in the face for all he cared; nothing could touch him at this moment. The case was about to be solved, thanks in large part to him. He meant to savour his triumph as it would soon fade; other cases would follow and his achievement would be forgotten. Nobody could rest on their laurels in the police. He turned back to Thröstur. ‘I’m just telling you like it is. It’s up to you to shield them from this. If it weren’t for you and your obstinacy, I’m sure they’d gladly tell us the whole sordid tale.’

  Thröstur took another puff, then indicated that he wanted to speak. Huldar plucked the cigarette from between his lips. Perhaps all he would get was a fresh stream of abuse but never mind. ‘They’ve got nothing to do with this. Absolutely nothing. Leave them out of it. Save the sadism for when you get home.’

  Huldar shoved the cigarette back between his lips. It hadn’t worked. ‘They found soil in the hire car. Quite a bit of it, on the back seats too. They’d obviously been put back to make room for quite a larg
e object. What could that have been, I wonder?’

  Thröstur had turned his head away to hide his reaction from Huldar.

  ‘The samples we took will be compared to the soil from the grave and I’m assuming the results won’t look too good. Why the hell didn’t you return the car? They’d have cleaned it and that would have made our life much harder. Was the deal for the week really that irresistible?’

  Thröstur said nothing.

  ‘But … you’re unbelievably clumsy operators. Like that business with the time capsule. I just can’t understand why the hell you put that letter in there. If it hadn’t been for your list, it would have taken us a lot longer to work the whole thing out. That was such a bad move. Though you were only a kid at the time, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re a moron.’ Thröstur inhaled, then blew the smoke in Huldar’s face. ‘A total moron.’

  The squad car appeared and pulled up to the kerb. Huldar removed the cigarette from Thröstur’s mouth, threw it in the nearest gutter and flicked his own after it. Then he pushed Thröstur into the back and took a seat in the front himself. Before they set off, he twisted round to study the young man who was gazing at the rundown building. Nobody dreamt of watching their home recede into the distance from the back of a police car. ‘One more thing. There’s a sniper on the roof at the end of that alleyway. You have to take him out before you can progress any further. There’s a good line of sight from behind the cart.’ He turned to face the front again, fairly sure that Thröstur would have forgotten this advice by the time he got back to his computer game. Because he wouldn’t be going home any time soon.

  ‘What kind of person doesn’t own a mobile phone? Even three-year-olds have phones these days.’ Erla couldn’t let it go, though they’d received confirmation from every telecom company in the country. There were so many other aspects she should have been giving her attention to. It wasn’t as if all the other details had been pieced together yet. Huldar wished Erla would pack it in. He was burning with impatience to start questioning Thröstur, who had been sitting waiting for them in the interview room for more than three-quarters of an hour now. ‘Shouldn’t we be heading downstairs?’