‘Yes.’ If she told him how few possessions she had, the tears would overflow.
‘Make him drive you to the Central Bus Station. They’ll let you rest in the waiting room till morning. You should be able to take the bus back up north tomorrow.’ Hákon held out his hand. ‘It was nice knowing you, Aldís. Best of luck. Remember things are never as black as they seem.’
Aldís could feel the rough skin of the man’s palm. ‘Thank you. Good luck to you, too.’ She closed the door, threw her suitcase on the bed and began cramming clothes into it. Next she emptied the dressing table and chest of drawers, and chucked the English textbook in on top. A few minutes later, having taken a moment to quench her thirst and splash her face with icy water, she added her toiletries from the bathroom and shut the case.
She sat down on the bed in her anorak and shoes, looking around for the last time. She wouldn’t miss any of it. Then she went over to the window and looked out. The engine was running, though it could hardly be to warm the car up for her. She saw a short figure cross the drive, glancing around nervously. Tobbi spotted her, waved, then broke into a run and came to a panting standstill below her window. He signalled to her to open it. ‘I just wanted to say goodbye. I heard Lilja say she was sending you away this evening.’
Aldís wished she could pull the boy up to her. ‘Thanks, Tobbi. I’m sure we’ll meet again. I’m probably going up north. Maybe you’ll pass through some time.’
The boy peered round, then looked back up at her. ‘Sorry I didn’t tell the truth about that horrible girl in the dining room. I was so scared of her. She was lying in wait for me when I went to fetch the post and forced me to tell her which room was Einar’s. Then she made me meet her and threatened to hurt me if I didn’t help her see him. Then you turned up. She was horrible. She smelt of blood.’ He was breathing quickly. ‘Is that why Lilja’s sacking you?’
‘No. It’s not because of that. It’s not your fault – it’s mine.’ She was about to say more when she was distracted by a figure appearing round the corner. She recognised him by his gait, the way he ducked his head against the wind. She wanted to say a hurried goodbye to Tobbi and shut the window. If Einar had heard about her dismissal, he’d want to know the reason and she couldn’t explain. Though at least discussing it through the window would be preferable to having him in her room.
‘You’re both here. Just the people I wanted to see.’ Like Tobbi, Einar kept his voice down. He snatched off the smaller boy’s hood and ruffled his hair, making it even more of a mop than usual. Then he looked up. ‘I just wanted to warn you. She’s here. I caught a glimpse of her just now behind the buildings. You’d better lie low.’ He had no need to explain: Tobbi pulled up his hood and peered around fearfully. To Aldís’s relief, Einar didn’t seem to have heard that she’d been dismissed. Now she’d never see him again and could concentrate on sorting out her life. Seeming to sense this, he stared at her as if he wanted to memorise every detail of her tear-swollen face. Only then did he register the state she was in. ‘Are you ill?’ She shook her head, wiping her face as if to make it smooth again. Einar looked as if he was about to ask more questions, so she said a quick goodbye, closed the window and watched them cross the drive together.
A movement by the corner of the main building brought a knot of fear to Aldís’s stomach. A slash of bright green cut through the gloomy surroundings. She opened her curtain a fraction wider in the hope of seeing the movement again and thought she could hear some sort of commotion and shouting. Einar and Tobbi seemed to have heard the noise too because they stood frozen to the spot beside the car. Two figures appeared round the corner and the boys immediately ducked. The figures headed towards the yard, apparently startling the boys because Einar opened the car door cautiously and he and Tobbi slipped into the back seat. The larger figure was having difficulty dragging the smaller one along. Not until they drew near could Aldís see who they were.
Dropping the curtain, she backed away from the window. The hairs rose on her arms and she hastily turned off the lights so no one could see in. What if Eyjalín evaded Veigar’s clutches? She might still have the knife she had threatened to use that night in the cellar. Curiosity drove Aldís back to the window. She saw that Veigar was trying to march Eyjalín, with a great deal of kicking and screaming on her part, over to his office. He was probably planning to lock her in the little storeroom, where troublemakers were sometimes left to cool their heels, while he waited for the police. The thought of Eyjalín shut up in the dark pleased Aldís no end.
The girl kicked and struck out, and apparently managed to claw Veigar in the face as he opened the door. At that he lost control and slapped her. Eyjalín slumped down and Veigar dragged her inside. The door closed; everything returned to normal: Aldís might almost have dreamt it. Then the lights went on in the house.
Aldís turned her gaze back to the car. There was no movement visible; neither boy stuck his head out to check if the coast was clear. Perhaps they had got away while she was preoccupied watching Veigar and Eyjalín. That must be it. There was a strange air of stillness about the car; she couldn’t quite work out what it meant.
Aldís sat down on her bed and stared at the suitcase by the door. On the way south the bus driver had tied up the handle with string for her. Perhaps it would be the same driver on the way home. She had nowhere else to turn. Her savings wouldn’t stretch far in Reykjavík and who would want to employ a feckless girl who’d gone and got herself pregnant? Worst of all, she hadn’t rung her mother. She’d have preferred to hide behind the telephone receiver while delivering her news. She remembered reading somewhere that you could never really go home once you’d grown up; the chick couldn’t crawl back into the egg. Nothing would be the same.
Well, she would just have to deal with that problem later. Presumably she’d be able to phone from the bus station. What to do in the immediate future was her most pressing concern now. She had no desire to sit out in the car and wait while Veigar dealt with Eyjalín; it might take half the night. Perhaps, given what had happened, they wouldn’t leave until tomorrow morning after all. Aldís flopped back on the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to block out all thoughts. Now she just needed peace to exist.
She was jolted awake from a fitful doze by the sound of a car, and stumbled to her feet, convinced that Veigar must have set off for town with Eyjalín. But his car hadn’t moved. Another vehicle had parked in the yard and out stepped a man she didn’t recognise, wearing an overcoat. He glanced around, apparently unsure about where to go, then Veigar appeared and beckoned him over.
For a while nothing happened. But Aldís couldn’t tear herself from the window, so she witnessed the moment when Veigar, Eyjalín and the stranger finally emerged.
Eyjalín kept her head down and allowed herself to be propelled along by the stranger who had his arm round her shoulders. As they passed Veigar’s car, he opened the driver’s door as if to switch off the engine, only to reel back, clamping a hand over his nose and mouth. He made a second attempt and this time managed to turn off the engine, then shouted to the stranger who went over to join him. Eyjalín tore herself free and peered inside, in spite of the man’s ineffectual attempts to stop her.
The silence was shattered by the girl’s piercing scream. The three of them were standing there at a loss when Hákon came running out in his pyjamas. He shoved Eyjalín aside, looked in the window, then tore open the rear door.
Aldís clapped her hand over her mouth when she saw him pull a body out of the car and lay it on the snow. It was Einar. Next he pulled out Tobbi.
They lay in the snow, deathly still. Like the bird.
Standing there at the window, watching through her tears as Veigar snatched something that looked like a black cloth out of the exhaust pipe, she realised that it should have been her in the back seat; her, lying there staring with glazed eyes at the night sky. Not poor little Tobbi. Someone always gets punished when a crime is committed, but not always the guilty party.
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Chapter 32
‘I couldn’t care less if you believe me, Ódinn. I long ago gave up worrying what other people think of me. If it weren’t for Lára and then Rún, I’d have got in touch with the authorities years ago. For the first few years after I left Krókur, I was convinced no one would listen to me; no one would take a young single mother seriously, and if I’d tried to alert people to what had happened I’d have been lucky not to be locked up in the loony bin.’ Aldís wrapped her arms round her thin body and leant back on the sofa. She was surrounded by embroidered cushions, decorated with lurid designs of stags and colourful flowers in wine-red and moss-green shades. Ódinn and Lára had received two of these cushions as a housewarming gift, and on the rare occasions that he’d visited their old flat after the divorce, they seemed to have proliferated. What had become of those kitsch, badly stuffed cushions? Perhaps one had been placed under Lára’s head in the coffin. ‘In any case, access to information was very limited in those days. Just because I didn’t see any news about the investigation, that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. But when I still hadn’t seen a word about it in the papers two years later, I began to despair that nothing would ever happen.’
‘Well, it has nothing to do with me any more. You’ll have to discuss your version of events with my successor. And presumably the police too.’ Ódinn was longing for a coffee but Aldís hadn’t offered him any refreshment.
‘It’s not my version – I was a witness. I’m telling you what I saw and what I know.’
‘You’ll still have to discuss it with someone else. We’ll find out later this week who’s going to take over the report – there’s no time to lose if they want to meet the deadline.’
‘You think this all boils down to some report?’
‘No. I realise it doesn’t.’ Ódinn held his temper. Their conversations always descended into sniping. ‘But the report will give you a chance to bring this to the public’s attention. If that’s what you want. I don’t suppose you gave Róberta too easy a time.’
‘She was such a mug. I don’t know what her intentions were but she seemed to be snooping into my affairs on Eyjalín’s behalf. You can imagine how I felt about helping her.’
It seemed obvious now that Aldís had sent Róberta those threatening e-mails, getting decades of repressed rage out of her system. His theory was lent support by the presence of an old computer with a cumbersome monitor in the room opening off the dining room. ‘Did you threaten her?’
Aldís hugged herself tighter. ‘She wouldn’t listen when I said I didn’t want to talk to her. I’d had enough of her endless phone calls, here and on my mobile and at work. It’s not as if I’m indispensable – I’m sixty and competing with immigrants who make no demands. No one wants to employ an old woman who’s always on the phone. It’s still six years till I can claim my pension, and the dole only lasts two years. A man with your education should be able to work out the shortfall. I can’t survive on thin air.’ Aldís loosened her arms and took a deep breath. ‘Yes, I sent her some messages. What else could I do?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ódinn shifted and his chair protested. It must have been a long time since a man last sat on it. ‘I didn’t come here to judge you for what happened in the past, Aldís.’ The past no longer mattered apart from a few details he’d come here to straighten out in order for him and Rún to start living a normal life. ‘If Lilja intended to murder you by stuffing the rag in the exhaust pipe, she should be charged, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Even if she was the only person who knew you were supposed to wait in the car, it’ll take more than your unsupported testimony to stir the prosecution service into action after all these years. Especially as Eyjalín will do everything in her power to convince them that you were guilty. I’m no lawyer but I assume they would examine the possible motives. People don’t just go around killing for no reason. If the woman had no clear motive for wanting you dead, no one will listen to you.’
‘Do you think I haven’t thought about why she did it?’ Aldís went on to tell him about the deformed baby that Veigar had taken from Lilja’s bed and buried at the foot of a tree. She described how she had blurted out to the couple that she knew what had become of their child, and guessed from Lilja’s reaction that she hadn’t known the whole story until that moment. The realisation that her baby had been born alive after all and that her husband had killed it must have tipped Lilja over the edge.
Her madness had found an outlet in attempting to silence Aldís – the ‘Whore of Babylon’, in Lilja’s eyes. When all else fails, it often helps to kill the messenger.
‘I thought about it as I was travelling back up north on the bus, and every evening for years. I didn’t exactly have many distractions, living with my mother, bringing up Lára alone. Otherwise I might have forgotten all about it. In fact, I’d given up brooding on it long before Róberta got in touch.’
Aldís hugged a cushion to her, stroking it as though it was a cat. She seemed exhausted, like a counsel for the defence who has presented her summing up, but knows it’s not enough.
‘I’m not here about that, Aldís.’ Ódinn shot a glance at the cushion and she put it down. ‘I need to talk to you about your relationship with Lára. And Rún.’
‘In that case you’d better tread carefully.’ Anger brought colour to his ex-mother-in-law’s cheeks and for the first time Ódinn could picture what she’d looked like as a young woman. Pretty, but not too beautiful; just what most men like.
‘What do you mean?’ Ódinn’s voice conveyed his weariness with this endless hostility.
‘I know what’s behind this. You’re going to accuse me of something that you, of all people, have no right to.’ She snorted. ‘I brought Lára up so she wouldn’t suffer the same fate as me and my mother. You can imagine how I felt when you walked out on her and history repeated itself, in spite of all I’d done to try and prevent it.’ She met Ódinn’s gaze with such contempt that he felt his cheeks burn. ‘You ruined my relationship with her. She misunderstood everything I did to try and build her up, and took everything I said as criticism. No doubt you’ll experience that for yourself. Though I hope not – I’m too fond of Rún.’
‘I reckon I know what happened that morning.’ If he didn’t come straight out with it, he would only have to sit here and endure more abuse. ‘There’s nothing “behind this” – I just don’t want you to see Rún any more, that’s all. She has to look forward now, not back. If she remembers anything, I want her to forget it. I don’t care about justice. I just want to take care of Rún and do what’s best for her. It’s up to you what you do but I haven’t discussed it with anyone, so you needn’t worry that I’ll shop you.’
The contempt vanished from Aldís’s face, to be replaced not by fear but by astonishment. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Lára. I know you pushed her. It doesn’t matter whether it was an accident or not because it can’t be undone. I won’t go to the police. In return I just want you to leave me and Rún alone.’
‘You’re such an idiot.’ Her voice was warm and full of pity, quite the opposite of what Ódinn had expected. He thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes, but perhaps it was only the gleam from the wonky standard lamp beside the sofa. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and gave a low groan. Then, turning to face him, she told him the whole story. He sat in silence, listening until he couldn’t bear it any more, then left without saying goodbye, the key to Róberta’s garage still in his parka pocket.
* * *
The pencil travelled back and forth across the blank top page of the A4 pad. It left behind a steel-grey sheen, interspersed with paler shadows showing the imprint of what had been written on the page above, the page Ódinn had burnt for Rún out on the balcony. He had meant to rub the pencil over the whole page first, then read her letter from the beginning, but he couldn’t help seeing the odd word and phrase as he worked. All desire to read it had deserted him by the time he finished, but he forced
himself. There must be no misunderstanding; too much was at stake. What he read left him crushed, and afterwards he tore the page from the pad and scrunched it up. He couldn’t face reading it again; didn’t even want to see it. He sat in the kitchen with the crumpled ball of paper in his hand, considering his options: what would happen now and how could he make the best of the situation, save what could be salvaged? But whatever alternatives he came up with, however he approached the problem, he could see no way out. It didn’t matter what action he took; he would never be able to accept the outcome. Was he prepared to walk through fire to save himself? Emerge badly burnt and reconcile himself to the kind of life and suffering that would await him when it was over? No. Was he prepared to put Rún through all that? No.
He ripped the paper to shreds, went out on the balcony and let the wind blow the pieces away. Then he paced back and forth in the sitting room, thinking until his head ached. He rubbed his forehead, slapped his cheeks lightly, then called to his daughter. ‘Rún. Let’s go round and see Baldur.’ He put on his shoes, dialled his brother’s number and announced their visit, then hung up and watched as Rún put on her anorak. She smiled at him, excited about this unexpected treat, and he smiled back.
It was this smile that stayed with him as he slipped the sleeping pills, which he had been prescribed after Lára’s death, into her Coke at the hamburger joint. Her smile, and her carefree laughter during their brief visit to Baldur and Sigga. Again and again he recalled the happy sound of her childish voice as she said goodbye to them, promising to come back at the weekend. And he remembered the moment in the car when he’d said she could give up handball, and suggested getting supper at the Hamburger Factory, for which he was rewarded with a kiss. Just like any normal father and daughter. No one would have guessed that shortly after this he would send them both to their eternal rest.
The Undesired Page 29