The Mist

by Ragnar Jónasson

  Two or three weeks should be about right. That’s what she’d agreed with the farmer’s wife over the phone. Her name was Erla and, from her voice and manner, Unnur had got the impression she was a nice person.

  Unnur trudged up to the front door, only to hesitate a moment before raising her fist to knock. This was her last chance to back out, she found herself thinking. But surely there was no reason to do that? She knocked and waited.

  When the door opened she was greeted by a middle-aged woman who just stood there, studying her thoughtfully for a while, as if sizing her up. Eventually, she said: ‘Hello. Welcome. I’m Erla. Do come in.’

  Unnur followed Erla into the sitting room and noticed a cup of coffee on the table beside an open book.

  ‘Your room’s in the attic,’ Erla said. ‘The stairs are along here.’ Then, after a pause, she added: ‘But what am I thinking of? Can I offer you something to drink? Some coffee, perhaps? I didn’t hear a car. Surely you haven’t walked all the way?’

  ‘Yes … yes, actually, I did walk,’ Unnur said, a little shyly.

  ‘Well I never. Then you’ll definitely need some refreshment. You do drink coffee, don’t you?’ Erla asked, and Unnur got the impression that ‘no’ would not be an acceptable answer.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have a seat, then. There’s hot coffee in the pot.’

  Unnur obeyed, gratefully taking off her backpack and sitting down on the sofa. She looked round the room, taking in the old, slightly shabby furniture, the grandfather clock that seemed to have stopped and the walls hung with amateurish landscape paintings and reproductions of well-known works. It was all a bit tired and worn, yet the overall effect was cosy.

  Erla disappeared, then came straight back with the coffee.

  ‘Here you are, dear. Strong, black and sugarless.’ She paused, then added: ‘Or do you take milk and sugar? I can fetch them.’

  Unnur shook her head. ‘This is fine, thanks.’

  ‘You must be exhausted.’

  ‘It was, er, quite good exercise,’ Unnur said, taking a sip of the ferociously strong black brew.

  ‘I’m alone here at the moment,’ Erla told her. ‘My husband’s in Reykjavík. He often has to go at this time of year. So there’s plenty to do. You won’t have time to get bored.’

  ‘Oh, right, that sounds good. Having enough to do, I mean.’

  ‘You mentioned on the phone that you were writing a book,’ Erla went on, staring at her with a peculiar intensity.

  ‘Yes, or at least I’m trying to. In my free time.’

  ‘Yes, well, there’s plenty to do here, but plenty of free time too. Once the day’s chores are over, our life here’s pretty uneventful, unless you plan to walk into the village in the evenings.’ She smiled. ‘It’s good to have something to occupy yourself with. I myself read, you know.’

  Unnur nodded.

  ‘Anyway, your room’s upstairs. It’s not very big but I hope it’s all right. No one’s complained so far.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m sure it’ll be great. I don’t need many creature comforts.’

  ‘That’s just as well. I’m very pleased to have you here, by the way. It’s a lonely spot, especially when Einar’s away. I have a feeling we’re going to get on well.’

  Again, Unnur nodded.

  ‘Our meals are pretty traditional – old-fashioned home cooking, you know the sort of thing. Country food, really.’ Erla smiled again. ‘It might be a bit different from what you’re used to in …’

  ‘Gardabær,’ Unnur finished for her. ‘I’ve never been a fussy eater, and, yes, I’m sure we’ll get on well.’

  IX

  ‘It must have been about ten years ago,’ Jens said, frowning. He and Hulda were still standing huddled in the hall, their hands buried in their pockets to keep warm. The inspector had pulled the door to but, even so, a cold draught was stealing in from outside. Hulda shivered involuntarily.

  Jens thought for a moment, then went on: ‘Yes, that’s right, it would be about ten years since their daughter died.’

  Hulda waited without speaking. She still didn’t trust her voice.

  ‘I only know the background from what I’ve heard from other people, but then, more or less everything gets around in the countryside. Anyway, as I said, their daughter moved home to the neighbouring farm after finishing college. Apparently, Erla was very upset.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The gossip was that Erla had sent her daughter away to school as far from here as possible. It seems she was hoping Anna would settle in Reykjavík. Erla was from the city herself and was never happy here – I think most people would agree about that. She must have regretted leaving the capital and wanted to make sure her daughter would have the chances she herself had missed out on, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Anna knew her own mind. She wasn’t going to let anyone tell her what to do. She loved the country life, like most of us who live here, so she moved back.’

  Hulda nodded.

  ‘Erla hated the isolation, the winters, the darkness – that was obvious when you met her. She always used to come into the library to stock up on books before winter really set in, and Gerdur, the librarian, remarked to me more than once that it felt like serving someone facing a prison sentence. You’d have thought she was on her way to do a stint in solitary confinement.’ The inspector paused to reflect. ‘I suppose Erla wanted to spare her daughter that kind of existence, but in reality she was trying to save her life, though neither she nor anyone else could have known that then, if you see what I mean?’

  Again, Hulda nodded, though of course she didn’t know what Jens was referring to.

  ‘Was it Einar?’ she blurted out, though she hadn’t meant to say anything.

  ‘What? Einar?’

  ‘Was she trying to keep her daughter away from Einar?’

  ‘You mean …? Good grief, no! Einar wasn’t like that. Absolutely not.’

  Hulda lowered her eyes, her thoughts on Jón and Dimma. Perhaps, deep down, she had been hoping that the story of Erla, Einar and Anna was somehow similar. That she wasn’t the only one to have been in this situation.

  ‘Well, then disaster struck,’ Jens said, lowering his voice, as if reluctant to tell the story. ‘It was winter, of course.’ He sighed. ‘The winters are very long out here, as you can imagine. Not only long, but we get a lot of snow. It happened in December, shortly before Christmas, as a matter of fact. The weather was about as bad as it can get. It had been snowing relentlessly.’

  Hulda found it easy to picture the conditions. It would have been enough to take a quick peek outside the front door and imagine a bit more snow on the landscape.

  ‘Anna was staying with her parents at the time. She’d come over to see them before the weather deteriorated and got stuck here. Anyway, she was going down to the cellar on some errand when she slipped on the ice, fell and hit her head on the edge of one of the concrete steps. Her parents didn’t see the accident, but Erla found her, not long after she’d fallen, apparently. The girl was unconscious but still alive, though she’d lost a lot of blood. Of course, they immediately rang for an ambulance …’

  He broke off and Hulda felt it best not to prompt him.

  ‘I remember …’ he said, his gaze unfocused, ‘I remember so well how Erla described it. They didn’t dare move her, so they crouched out there in the snow beside the girl and basically watched her die. It took a long time. They tried to stop the bleeding – they were given instructions over the phone – and managed to some extent, but it wasn’t enough. Erla said she just sat there for ages, powerless to do anything. The thing was, you see, that –’

  Hulda, guessing the rest, finished for him: ‘The ambulance couldn’t get through because the road was blocked.’

  ‘Exactly. It did get here eventually, but it had to wait for the snow plough first. They even called out a helicopter, but the decision was taken too late. Anna was dead by the time the ambulance
finally got here. The tragic part was that it would have been a simple matter to save her life if they could have got her to a doctor sooner.’

  ‘So it was the isolation that killed her,’ Hulda murmured.

  ‘Yes. I’m told that’s how Erla always saw it. Like I said, she’d become pretty disenchanted with life out here anyway, even before it happened, so you can just imagine how she felt about it after Anna’s death. But instead of moving away, she stayed. She stuck by Einar. She changed, though, and became a bit peculiar.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It was like she refused to accept what had happened. Of course, we don’t know what she was like at home because Einar never spoke about it. He never was much of a talker, anyway. For him, actions spoke louder than words. And he’d never have gossiped about his wife. But she was a frequent visitor to the village and, more often than not, she’d talk about Anna as if she was still alive. I’ve heard stories from various people, in the library, the shop, and so on. Sometimes she’d even talk about how she was expecting Anna to come over later and was doing the shopping ready for her visit, that kind of thing. I don’t suppose many people had the heart to correct her, so I get the impression she convinced herself Anna wasn’t dead. She invented an alternative world in her head and lived in that, alongside the real one.’ After a moment he added: ‘And who can blame her?’

  Hulda had tried to listen to the story with professional detachment but, every time he mentioned Anna, she found herself picturing Dimma. And now all she could think of was the frightening possibility that she, Hulda, might unravel in the same way as Erla; that she might retreat into some corner of her mind to escape – if only briefly – the unbearable pain that had been pursuing her like a shadow ever since that terrible moment on Christmas Day.

  X

  Her memories of Dimma’s funeral were partly shrouded in fog, partly too starkly vivid, as if reflecting her simultaneous desire to remember and to forget. It was one of the hardest days of her life, and the weather, as if in sympathy, had been bitterly cold. There had been intermittent snow flurries and a fierce, blustery wind, as one might expect on the penultimate day of the year. Hulda had met the vicar two days earlier to go over the main points of her daughter’s life with him but the meeting had ended prematurely when she’d broken down, too overcome with grief to continue. She hadn’t met the vicar before. As the family weren’t regular churchgoers, the task of conducting her daughter’s funeral service had fallen to a stranger. Not that it had mattered. Nothing mattered any more.

  The vicar had duly given the funeral address, but Hulda couldn’t remember what he had said, since she hadn’t taken anything in. Instead, she had found herself thinking about the address that would one day be given at her own funeral, whenever that might be.

  Although she had sat in the pew beside Jón, there had been an invisible, impenetrable wall between them. They both knew that their daughter’s death was entirely his fault. What he had done to her was so unforgiveable that it couldn’t be put into words.

  Sometimes Hulda found herself wishing that Dimma had left a suicide note, but at others she was extremely relieved that she hadn’t. Such a letter would no doubt have been a severe indictment of both her parents; Jón for his crimes, Hulda for her complacency.

  As the coffin was lowered into the ground on that bitterly cold day, Hulda’s tears had melted the snow at her feet and the howling of the wind had echoed the scream inside her.

  XI

  It was nearly midnight. Hulda and Inspector Jens were once again on their way back to the village in the big police vehicle. Although the snow was still coming down, the flakes were wetter and no longer settling, which made the road easier to negotiate.

  Hulda kept picturing the missing girl, Unnur, trying to persuade herself that she might still be alive, that it might still be possible to rescue her. She simply had to believe it.

  She dreaded the night ahead. Nights were the most difficult time. Her sleep was fitful at best, disturbed by feverish dreams, but worst of all were the hours she lay awake, her head thrashing back and forth on the pillow, alone with her merciless thoughts. That was when she came closest to tipping over the edge.

  And now the night was approaching with inexorable speed. Hulda would have preferred to remain at the scene and wait for news, passing the time by talking to Jens. She might even have been able to doze a bit and recharge her batteries that way.

  ‘Are you building up a picture yet?’ the inspector asked, his voice barely audible over the roar of the engine and the battering of the wind against the windows.

  Hulda had to admit that much remained unclear. Judging by the evidence at the scene, they could be fairly certain that a third person had killed both husband and wife, for reasons that were obscure. They had also established that there had been another person with them in the house, and the odds were that this had been Haukur Leó. Otherwise, why on earth would his car have been abandoned there? The question was what had happened to him, and what possible reason could he have had for travelling right across the country to this remote spot just before Christmas?

  Unnur.

  There could be no other reason. He had to have been looking for his daughter.

  But why here?

  Did Unnur have some connection to the couple on the farm? None had emerged during the original inquiry following her disappearance, though the search had been very thorough and every possible clue had been followed up.

  No, there wasn’t any connection. Except the odd coincidence that the couple’s daughter had borne a striking resemblance to Unnur. Was there any chance they had been related?

  She would have to ring Unnur’s mother when they got back to the village, however late the hour. The woman might be able to shed some light on what could have taken her husband to a remote farm in east Iceland, over 600 kilometres from home. And besides, she had every right to know that Haukur Leó’s car had turned up.

  Hulda sat on the bed in the little guesthouse where she had been provided with a room. It was clean but rather chilly, as if the owner were too mean to heat the rooms properly.

  She had looked up Unnur’s mother’s number in the telephone directory. After sitting there for a while, mentally preparing herself, she went ahead and dialled it. The phone rang and rang before eventually the poor woman answered, her voice husky with sleep and anxiety.

  ‘Hello, this is Hulda Hermannsdóttir, from CID,’ she said formally, although there was no real need to give her full name since she had been a frequent visitor to the couple’s home in the period following Unnur’s disappearance.

  ‘Hulda? Hello …’

  Hulda heard the woman’s sharp intake of breath as she realized what this could mean.

  ‘I’m sorry to ring you so late. It’s about your husband, Haukur Leó … We’ve found his car.’

  ‘What, you’ve found it? But he … have you found him?’

  ‘No, not yet. We’re going to launch a search first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Where … where was it?’ the woman asked, her voice choked by tears.

  ‘In the east,’ Hulda told her, and proceeded to give a more detailed description of the location.

  The woman’s bewilderment was obvious. ‘What … why … what on earth was he doing there? I just don’t understand.’

  ‘Do either of you have any link to this area? The car was found near the farm of a couple called Einar and Erla. Are you familiar with those names?’

  ‘We … we don’t have any family out east. I’ve never … never heard of these people.’

  ‘That’s helpful to know. We’re working round the clock to try and shed some light on the matter. It appears that the car may have been there since before Christmas.’

  ‘And Unnur … Is there any …?’

  ‘At the moment there’s nothing to suggest that Unnur was here,’ Hulda said. ‘But of course we’re trying to find out if there’s any chance she could have been.’

  ‘Yes … OK �
� Can I ring you if …?’

  ‘You can get in touch via the police station here in the village. But rest assured that I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.’ Hulda gave her the phone number.

  ‘OK … OK … thanks.’ The woman gave a shuddering sigh.

  ‘Goodbye. I’ll keep you posted.’

  Hulda lay down in bed, closed her eyes and was immediately presented with the image of Dimma.

  She could already tell that she wasn’t going to sleep a wink tonight, and knew that she wasn’t alone. On the other side of the country, Unnur’s mother would also be lying awake through the dark, lonely hours.

  XII

  As she had feared, Hulda had hardly dropped off at all before she was woken by the phone on the bedside table in the early morning.

  ‘Hulda.’ It was Jens. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you. The thing is, they’ve found something rather odd behind the farmhouse. The rescue team came across a spade that had been covered by the snow. It looks as though someone had been digging there.’

  ‘What? Do we have any idea why?’

  ‘No, we’re working on it. Of course, the ground’s frozen solid. But whoever was trying to dig there hadn’t got very far.’

  ‘Could someone have been planning to bury the bodies?’ Hulda asked.

  ‘Either that or trying to dig something up,’ suggested the inspector. He sounded grave. ‘I don’t know if you remember, Hulda, but there was a heap of spades in one corner of the cellar, although the rest of the tools were neatly stowed away. It looked as if someone had grabbed a spade in a hurry and accidentally knocked the rest down.’

  Hulda was silent. She couldn’t get her head around this latest development. The full picture still eluded her, but it must become clearer, if only she could piece all this evidence together.