He came almost straight back. ‘There’s no one there, love. You must have been dreaming. I expect the poor chap’s sound asleep.’
She shook her head but didn’t say anything.
‘Come on, love. Let’s try and go back to sleep ourselves. We don’t want to be up and about in the middle of the night.’ He closed the door but, to her chagrin, didn’t lock it.
She went over and locked it herself, then got into bed next to him and turned over on her side, facing away from him, lying with her eyes stretched wide open.
XII
‘Your mother’s definitely coming over tomorrow, isn’t she?’ Jón asked from the armchair, without raising his eyes from his book. There was a sweet smell of cocoa in the air. He had heated milk for them and stirred in the best-quality drinking chocolate, but one of the three mugs was still standing untouched on the sofa table.
Hulda, who was engaged in the annual chore of trying to disentangle the fairy lights, answered curtly: ‘Yes.’ She would gladly have got out of the duty of hosting her mother for once and celebrated Christmas alone with Jón and Dimma. She was especially dreading her mother’s visit this time, with Dimma being so difficult and unpredictable.
‘I reckon we’re all set,’ Jón said, finally looking up from his book. ‘Aren’t we, darling?’
‘Well, except for Dimma.’
‘Oh, can’t we talk about something else? Just leave her alone to get over it. She’ll come round when it’s time to open her presents.’ He smiled at Hulda, but neither his smile nor his rallying tone rang true.
In the background they could hear the traditional Christmas messages to friends and family being read out over the radio, a reminder that this was the time of peace and harmony, but the emotions churning inside Hulda felt jarringly at odds with this spirit. She was anxious and upset. More than that, she felt apprehensive, though of what she didn’t know.
‘Do you have to work on Christmas Day?’ Jón asked. ‘Aren’t you senior enough to have a bit more say in what shifts you get lumbered with these days?’
‘I can’t do anything about it; it’s just how the rota worked out. Is it a problem?’
‘No, of course not. It’s fine. Dimma and I will just read our books while you’re out. Maybe we could do a puzzle too. We’ve got an old jigsaw in the loft, haven’t we?’
‘Several, yes.’
‘Then we’ll have a nice lazy time. Like in the old days before Dimma was born, when it was just you and me. Do you remember how we used to snuggle up on the sofa and read for days on end over Christmas and Easter? With no one to disturb us.’
‘Yes, before you started working so much.’
He smiled. She knew that smile. It was his way of defusing difficult conversations, and she’d fallen for it every time. Ever since they first got together.
‘You’ll take good care of her while I’m out, won’t you?’ she asked, a pleading note in her voice.
‘On Christmas Day? Of course I will.’
‘Promise me, Jón,’ she said.
XIII
Erla started awake and automatically reached for the alarm clock, peering at the hands in the gloom. It was morning, gone seven o’clock. She must have fallen asleep in spite of herself. The disturbances of the night felt like a bad dream. Could she have imagined it, or part of it, at least? Suddenly she wasn’t sure … not entirely, and the thought unsettled her.
After a moment she registered that Einar was no longer lying by her side. She sat up and tried to switch on the light, but nothing happened: the power was obviously still out. The morning was pitch black, as usual at this time of year, indistinguishable from the night, but the clock didn’t lie. She felt a momentary stab of fear. Could something have happened to Einar? Closing her eyes, she listened, but couldn’t hear anything. All was quiet in the house.
Too quiet?
Her heart began to race, making the blood throb in her head, and next minute she was out of bed and running into the passage in her nightclothes. It was lighter out there than in the bedroom, illuminated by a dim glow that appeared to be coming from the sitting room. Heading towards it, she found the room lit up by candles and Einar and the man who called himself Leó both sitting there.
There was a comforting aroma of coffee in the air. Then her gaze alighted on the tree and the colourful parcels beneath it and it dawned on her that it was Christmas Eve.
‘You’re awake, love,’ Einar said. ‘There’s hot coffee in the pot. Thank God, the gas is still working.’
She stood rooted to the spot, the words stuck in her throat. The seconds seemed to be passing as slowly as minutes as she stood there, speechless, feeling the weight of the men’s stares bearing down on her.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
‘Why don’t you join us?’ Einar asked.
‘Anna?’ she croaked at last. ‘Isn’t she here yet?’
‘I thought the road was blocked?’ Leó muttered, avoiding Erla’s eye.
‘You can always get through on foot,’ Erla contradicted him sharply. ‘What’s the weather like now?’
She glanced at the window, but all she could see was the reflection of the candles.
‘Sit down, love,’ Einar said. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’
Instead of obeying, she turned and went into the hall.
‘You had such a disturbed night,’ Einar called after her. ‘I thought I should let you lie in a bit. This power cut really seems to have got to you.’
‘I’m perfectly used to power cuts,’ she retorted from the hall. She opened the front door and stuck her head out into the unrelieved darkness, then took a step forward in her thick socks, hardly knowing what she was doing, and sank straight into a deep, fresh snowdrift. Icy flakes brushed against her face. She jerked back her foot, feeling the cold biting through flesh and bone. What an incredibly stupid thing to do, wading out into the snow like that.
She retreated into the hall and closed the door.
‘What on earth were you thinking, Erla?’ Einar boomed in her ear, laying a hand on her shoulder.
She was so shocked she almost lost her balance.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, concerned.
The blood was throbbing in her head again. She rubbed her temples and tried to concentrate. It was safe to say that she had got out of bed on the wrong side. She would have to pull herself together. After all, she thought with a sudden sense of relief, they had got through the night unharmed, and Leó would be leaving shortly.
Turning to her husband, she said in a falsely cheerful tone: ‘Yes, of course everything’s all right. I was just going to check on the weather and accidentally stepped in some snow. It’s very deep out there.’
‘It’s been falling all night, love. Come back in and have some coffee.’
She followed Einar into the sitting room and sat down in an armchair, waiting while he fetched her a cup, uncomfortably conscious of her wet sock. She didn’t say a word and deliberately avoided looking at Leó, who was still sitting on the sofa, facing her across the coffee table, nursing his cup and raising it to his lips from time to time.
Only when Einar came back and took the chair next to her did she find her voice. ‘Still no electricity?’ she asked her husband in a low voice.
She knew there wasn’t but had felt compelled to break the silence somehow. Anyway, there was a certain comfort in asking a question to which you already knew the answer.
‘It’ll be out all bloody Christmas, I guarantee you,’ said Einar.
‘Do you get used to this?’ Leó asked with a smile.
The room was illuminated by five candles, three on the table, two on the sideboard, the jerky shadows making the familiar surroundings appear oddly eerie. Erla felt almost as if she were trapped in a bad dream.
‘Yes, you get used to it,’ she said after a delay, then added, with an edge: ‘But you needn’t worry about that, since you’ll be leaving as soon as you’ve finished your coffee. Has Einar
gone over the route with you?’
Instead of answering, Leó threw a glance at Einar, and for a while there was an embarrassed silence, as if the two men had formed an alliance from which she was excluded.
Einar cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere today.’
‘Not going anywhere? What do you mean?’
‘You saw for yourself, love: the snow’s too deep. There’s a storm out there. We can’t send the poor man out in that.’ From the way he spoke, Einar might have been talking about someone who wasn’t present, rather than about the man who was sitting right in front of them.
‘Of course he can go!’ Erla tried to stop her voice rising to a screech. ‘If Anna can get here, he must be able to leave, even if he does have a bit further to go.’
‘Your husband tells me it’s actually quite a long –’
‘And why didn’t you tell us you’d stopped off at Anna’s place first?’ Erla interrupted him. ‘Did you meet her? Hm? Did you meet her?’
‘I didn’t meet anyone on my way here, not a soul,’ Leó assured her, looking uneasy now. ‘That’s the honest truth.’
‘Why don’t you go back to bed, love?’ Einar said gently. ‘You’re tired. Leó’s spending Christmas with us, and that’s all there is to it. We can’t just throw him out in weather like this.’
Erla groaned. She felt as if the walls were closing in on her, as if she were alone in the world, with no allies. And she was worried sick about Anna. She became conscious of her quickened breathing. The desperation to speak, to convey her fears to Einar, was so intense that it almost choked her.
Leó stood up. ‘Look, I think I’ll go back to my room. I do apologize for the inconvenience. I’m really very sorry. And very grateful for your hospitality – you must know that.’
Einar nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Only when Leó had left the room did Erla calm down enough to speak. ‘Einar …’ She struggled to find the words to express her fears. ‘Einar, you know he’s lying to us.’
‘We shouldn’t always believe the worst of people, Erla.’
‘But why didn’t they mention it on the news?’
‘Perhaps they did, love. We haven’t been able to listen to the radio since the electricity went. Perhaps there’s a search party out looking for him even as we speak.’
‘You know perfectly well there isn’t. And his tracks – he came along the road, past Anna’s house. He’s lying that he stumbled on our place by chance. And … and …’ Again she felt the pressure building up in her temples, the beginnings of a splitting headache. ‘And he was snooping around last night, and yesterday too, when we weren’t there to see. He wants something from us, Einar. I saw him, he was in our bedroom yesterday. And last night – I don’t know where – up in the attic maybe, or in the sitting room. I don’t know, Einar, all I know is that he … that he …’
‘Come on, let’s get you back to bed, love,’ he said kindly. ‘You need a rest.’
XIV
Hulda knocked on the door again, a prolonged, hard rapping.
‘Why are you behaving like this, Dimma?’ she shouted, her throat constricting with unshed tears and frustration.
From inside the room she could hear some kind of response but couldn’t make out the words. Dimma had emerged that morning and eaten her breakfast in silence, not even returning her parents’ ‘good morning’.
Hulda had suggested that she and Dimma should wrap up their presents together or at least drive round and drop off those that needed to be delivered, but Dimma had merely shaken her head to whatever suggestion she made. It seemed to mean nothing to her that it was Christmas Eve. She had withdrawn so entirely into her own little world that nothing outside it appeared to matter to her.
Hulda had been so sure that everything would improve once Christmas arrived, but it was all too clear that there would be no seasonal good cheer in their house. Only now, belatedly, had it sunk in: she couldn’t just stand by any more, she would have to intervene.
She had found it difficult to admit the situation to herself and face up to the fact that their daughter needed professional help, but she was at her wits’ end. And Jón was no use. She carried on furiously banging on her daughter’s door, although she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Her anger was mainly directed at herself for not having acted sooner. She had gone on deluding herself that Dimma would snap out of it, but it was obvious now that there was no hope of that.
‘Come out, Dimma, come out right now!’ she shouted. ‘Or … or we’ll break the door down. I’m not joking.’
Jón grabbed her hard by the shoulders. ‘Calm down, Hulda. She’ll get over –’
‘She won’t get over it, Jón!’ Hulda yelled, rounding on her husband. ‘She won’t bloody well get over it. She’s had plenty of chances. No one behaves like this.’
‘Come on, come back to the sitting room; you’ve got to calm down.’
‘I have no intention of calming down. We’ve got to get her … get her to a doctor.’ Hulda’s voice broke and, once the floodgates had opened, she found herself sobbing uncontrollably, hardly able to stammer out the words.
Jón pulled her gently but firmly away from the door and guided her into the sitting room. Hulda fought him at first, but eventually gave in, feeling utterly defeated.
‘Jón,’ she cried, ‘we have to get an appointment for her … with a therapist, a psychiatrist … we have to do something.’
‘Isn’t that a bit drastic, Hulda, love?’ he said, his voice soothing. ‘There’s no need to blow this up out of all proportion.’
‘Out of all proportion? Are you completely blind, Jón? Deliberately blind? There’s something seriously wrong and we should have realized it a long time ago. Perhaps there’s a problem at school? Something … I mean, what’s happened to all her friends? She doesn’t seem to have any left.’
‘Darling, let’s wait and see until after Christmas. I know you were hoping she’d come round and things would be like they used to be, but we have to accept that it’s not going to happen. Let’s just take a deep breath and let her lock herself in her room if she wants to. Perhaps she just needs to be alone. What do we know about it?’
‘But that’s exactly what I mean! What do we know about what’s going on in her head? Nothing! That’s why we need professional help. I want us to ring someone now, today!’
‘It’s Christmas Eve. We’re not ringing anybody, Hulda. Forget it. Everyone will be on holiday. I promise we’ll talk to someone between Christmas and New Year, if she hasn’t snapped out of it by then. OK?’
Hulda thought about it, her chest heaving with suppressed sobs. Although she didn’t agree that they should wait, she had to admit there was something in what Jón said. They could hardly justify calling out a doctor or a child psychologist during a public holiday unless it was an emergency. Perhaps she was overreacting.
‘We’ll see,’ she answered grudgingly. It was all she would say for now.
The worst part was that she had to go into work tomorrow, on the twenty-fifth. It was incredibly unfortunate that her shifts should have fallen out like that, and of course Jón was right in a way that she had been with the police long enough to be able to refuse to work on major holidays. But the truth was that she didn’t dare say no: her life in the police was a perpetual battle with the patriarchy and she felt compelled to do more than was expected of her, however much she might regret the fact now.
In fact, damn it, why should she have to take the shift? She would just tell them to find someone else. She rushed out into the hall, snatched up the phone and rang her colleague, who was on duty.
‘Hello, Hulda here …’ Even as she spoke, she realized it was a stupid idea; there wouldn’t be anyone in CID today except this officer, who had no power to release her from tomorrow’s shift.
‘Hello, everything OK?’
‘What, oh, yes, sure … Are you the only person on duty today?’
‘Of course. People are
n’t exactly queuing up to come in on Christmas Eve. It’s a hell of a bummer to get landed with this shift. I’m hoping I’ll make it home early this evening, though, if things stay this quiet.’
‘Is … er, I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could take my shift for me tomorrow?’
There was a brief silence at the other end, then he burst out laughing. ‘Nice one, Hulda! The answer is no – no chance.’
‘Do you … is there anyone … The thing is, I’ve got a bit of a problem at home,’ she persisted, trying to stop her voice from wobbling.
‘You haven’t got a hope in hell of getting someone else to take your shift at such short notice. You’ll just have to come in tomorrow and find some other way to solve the problem at home.’
‘Yes, I … suppose …’
‘Listen, while I remember, there was a message for you when I arrived this morning. Someone on the switchboard took it down.’
‘A message?’
‘Yes, that you should ring some number, hang on … six-five-six something, I can’t remember the rest. Just a sec.’
Hulda wanted to hang up; she had absolutely no interest in dealing with work matters today, but she waited in spite of herself. Finally, her colleague located the phone number, but the message had apparently contained no other information.
‘Could you look it up for me?’ she asked. ‘I can’t think whose number it is.’
‘Yes, sure, of course. It’s not as if I’ve got much else to do. Give me a minute.’ There was a rustling as he put down the receiver. After a short interval he picked it up again: ‘It’s a Gardabær number, Kolbrún and Haukur –’
‘Oh, right, them …’ She wondered why on earth they had been trying to get hold of her. ‘When did they call?’
‘It doesn’t say. Could have been yesterday evening, or maybe this morning. When did you leave work?’
‘Yesterday afternoon … Right, OK, I’ll … I’ll ring them.’
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