Why Did You Lie?

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘Weird to think strangers have been sleeping in our beds.’

  They had done a house swap with an American couple who had been staying at their place while they were using their summer house in Florida. The money they had saved had gone on the contents of their suitcases. And more. Their credit card bill was going to be eye-watering, but then Nói had been aware of what would happen as soon as he let himself be cajoled into agreeing to this trip. It was lucky they were comfortably off; he ran a small software company that turned over a decent profit and Vala, who was a sought-after personal trainer, also earned a decent salary.

  ‘Hope they were satisfied. It’s a bugger about the barbecue.’

  The American couple had also had access to their holiday chalet and had sent an e-mail mentioning that the barbecue wasn’t working. Nói had answered immediately, running through every solution to the problem he could think of. He had received no reply. Vala interpreted the silence as meaning that the couple had got it working again, but Nói was worried they had been offended.

  ‘Oh, it can’t have made any difference to them.’

  ‘Unless they turned up at the chalet with a pile of steaks.’

  ‘They could have chucked them in a frying pan. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.’ As usual, Vala’s attempt to stop him worrying had the opposite effect.

  Nói tried to pretend he wasn’t particularly bothered but his tone emerged sounding aggrieved. ‘Maybe not. But I’d have preferred it if they’d sent us a final e-mail to say thanks and goodbye. We did.’

  ‘We’re not them. Perhaps they were too busy sightseeing to send us a message. Or the internet’s stopped working at home.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with the internet.’ Nói the IT expert couldn’t stand any interference in his domain.

  ‘OK, fine. There’s nothing wrong with it.’

  They spoke little for the rest of the drive. Not because they were angry with each other but because when their conversation descended into sniping like this it was better to shut up. Besides, there was nothing to discuss. Nothing more to be said about the internet or the foreigners’ behaviour. There’d be time enough for that later. Fortunately they had always been able to sit in companionable silence, even when first getting to know each other; a time when people usually dread running out of things to say.

  Predictably, they hit heavy morning traffic in Hafnarfjördur and had to crawl all the way into Reykjavík. Only when they reached Sudurgata in the west of town did they escape the rush-hour congestion and turn off to their own suburb of Skerjafjördur, which lay by the sea, almost at the end of the domestic airport runway. By the time they got there the heavens had emptied themselves. Nói turned off the squeaking windscreen wipers and the absence of noise left a strange emptiness in the car for the last few hundred metres home. The sight of their familiar street evoked an odd mixture of happiness and gloom in their hearts: they were home; their holiday was over. Nói suspected that all the happiness lay on his side and the gloom on his wife and son’s. Now it was back to school for Tumi and work for him and Vala. The sultry heat and retail frenzy were a thing of the past.

  Nói parked in the drive beside Vala’s car, which they had lent to the Americans. Climbing out, they inhaled the bracingly cold, fresh air.

  Tumi stood like a spare part, staring vacantly at nothing, while his tired and irritable parents busied themselves unloading the car. He made no move to help until snapped at by Nói, at which point the boy came to. If anything, he seemed even dreamier than usual. Nói put this and his clumsy movements down to tiredness, yet he suspected that something else was troubling his son. After all, he was the only one of them who had managed to sleep all the way across the Atlantic, dead to the world in a long-legged huddle before they had even taken off. There was something odd, too, about the way he kept staring up at the house. As if he expected to see the American couple waving at them from the windows: Welcome home! We’re thinking of staying put!

  ‘Are you OK, Tumi?’ Vala had halted behind her son, who was blocking her way. He stood as if rooted to the spot, suitcase in hand, gazing at the upstairs windows.

  ‘Mm? Yeah.’ Tumi shook himself as if he had fallen asleep on his feet.

  ‘Something wrong with the house?’ Nói looked up, searching in vain for anything out of the ordinary. The curtains were in place; in fact the couple seemed to have drawn them all, even in the sitting room where the window dressings were only really for decoration. Home, sweet home. Nói smiled at the thought that popped into his head as he inspected the two-storey wooden house. When they bought it the intention had been to tear it down and replace it with a modern structure of concrete and glass, with door handles and cupboard fittings of brushed steel. But the homely atmosphere of the old house had won Nói over and in the end he had managed to persuade Vala to abandon her vision of a tastefully grey-toned interior. Instead they had done up the old place, extended the kitchen and knocked through some of the rooms. The result was a triumph in Nói’s opinion; his childhood dream of a cosy home come true. Vala had seemed content too and Tumi didn’t let the upheaval bother him. As long as the house had an internet connection, nothing else mattered to him.

  ‘I can’t see anything. What’s the matter?’

  ‘No. Yeah. I don’t know.’ Tumi lowered his gaze and started walking.

  ‘You’re just dazed from the journey. It’s hardly surprising.’ Nói wished his son could have pointed to something concrete – a broken window or a bird on the roof. Anything. He scanned the house again but still couldn’t see anything amiss. Lethargy and fatigue gave way to an inexplicable sense of dread.

  Together they managed to ferry all the luggage from the car to the front door. Their suitcases seemed to have grown heavier on the trip and as they stood there in a heap they gave the impression of containing an infinite amount of stuff that would now have to be found a home. Nói shook his head; they hadn’t needed anything to start with, so they would probably end up having to throw away perfectly good stuff they already owned to make room for all this new gear. He sighed under his breath, then reminded himself that he was home at last and that this was a reason to celebrate.

  When they went inside, Nói’s pleasure faded slightly. There was an unfamiliar smell in the air and their home seemed indefinably alien, as if the foreign couple had made it their own during the two weeks they’d been living there. Perhaps the same was true of their place in Florida; perhaps there was a lingering trace there of his family’s presence. If so, he wished he could go back, fling open all the windows and give it an even more thorough clean.

  Nói fumbled for the light switch in the hope that the brightness would dispel his unease. The entrance hall was lit up and he saw the familiar cupboards and shoe rack, looking unnaturally tidy. Before leaving they had blitzed the entire house, including the chaos in the hall. The pairs of shoes were placed neatly in a row, side by side, as if to show that an unusually tidy family lived there. Which was not so far from the truth, if you ignored Tumi’s room.

  Vala gathered up the pile of letters and newspapers that they had stepped over on their way in, and, yawning, handed them to Nói. She often said that good news never came in the post. He flicked quickly through the envelopes and placed a late Christmas card on top of the pile. Vala bent over him, trying unsuccessfully to identify the handwriting. It didn’t actually matter who the card was from as they hadn’t sent any this year because they had been too busy preparing for their trip. No doubt they would be crossed off several people’s lists as a result.

  Before leaving, they had taken down only some of the Christmas decorations. This had been a source of concern to Nói as he was afraid the couple weren’t Christian and might be offended. Besides, Christmas was over and it seemed tasteless to leave them up. Vala had asked if he was all right in the head: who on earth would be offended by Christmas decorations? She wouldn’t mind the decorations of other religions herself. Anyway, it looked much more homely with them up and the couple
would enjoy that. There hadn’t been so much as a pine needle in their house in Florida.

  ‘Puss, puss, puss!’ Vala hung up her new jacket, which looked shockingly garish among the sober coats in the cupboard. ‘Kitty, kitty, kit!’

  ‘What? Don’t say they locked the cat out?’

  He usually appeared immediately the front door opened, even if they had only taken out the rubbish. Had something happened to the poor creature? That might explain why the foreigners hadn’t answered Nói’s e-mails. Perhaps they were traumatised because they’d killed or lost their pet and didn’t know how to own up. If that was the case, Nói damn well hoped the Christmas decorations had caused mortal offence.

  But at that moment a pathetic mewing was heard from inside the house and shortly afterwards Púki appeared and rubbed himself against the doorframe. The concrete box they had originally planned to build would have required a greyhound. A tabby cat wouldn’t have gone with the tasteful monochrome colour scheme.

  Vala picked up the cat in her arms and buried her face in his soft fur. ‘Gosh, he’s lighter and thinner than I remembered.’

  This pleased Nói as they had long been planning to put Púki on a diet.

  ‘Did you miss us?’ Vala murmured into his fur and was rewarded by a mouthful of cat hair. But instead of putting him down, she hugged him tighter. ‘If you two bring the cases in, I’ll make sure Púki doesn’t get underfoot.’

  In no time Nói and Tumi had almost filled the hall with luggage. ‘That’s the lot.’ Nói smiled weakly. They took off their coats but after hanging his up, Nói pulled a man’s coat out of the cupboard. ‘Recognise this?’ Vala shook her head. The garment was short and dark, and looked too big for Nói.

  Vala put the cat down and inspected the coat narrowly before handing it back to Nói. ‘No. Never seen it before. Can they have forgotten it?’ An image of the couple’s house ran through her mind with all the countless places they themselves could have left something.

  ‘Unless it was left behind after the party.’ The weekend before they went abroad they had thrown a thirty-fifth birthday party for Nói, inviting their wide circle of friends. Some of the guests had left the party late, rather the worse for wear, so it wasn’t impossible that one of them had headed out into the night in his shirtsleeves. But no, that couldn’t be right, and Vala corrected herself immediately. ‘Except that I sorted through the cupboard before we went to America and I’d certainly have noticed it then.’

  ‘Oh, great.’ Nói hung it up again. ‘I suppose we’ll have to post it to them. Though I guess it would make sense to wait and see if we come across anything else of theirs.’ He looked round irritably. ‘Where are the keys? Weren’t they going to leave them on the mat?’

  ‘There was nothing on the floor but post and papers.’ Vala was right; a bunch of keys would have been visible among them. ‘It looks as if they’ve just let it all pile up on the mat. How extraordinary. You’d have thought they could have picked it up. We tidied up theirs.’

  ‘Un-bloody-believable.’ Nói shook his head.

  The cat perked up when they went into the kitchen and wouldn’t stop yowling until Tumi had filled his empty dish. The visitors had departed the previous day and Púki had obviously gobbled up all the food they’d left him. His water bowl was dry as a bone but the cat didn’t seem as interested in that when it was filled. This wasn’t surprising as he generally preferred the water left in the bottom of the shower tray.

  ‘Here they are.’ Vala picked up the car keys from the kitchen table where they were lying beside a neat stack of letters and newspapers. Apparently the Americans had picked up the post for the first part of their stay, then let things slide. She tapped the pile. ‘But the other bunch is missing. With the keys to the house and chalet.’

  Nói had cheered up but groaned when his satisfaction proved short-lived. ‘Jesus. The instructions about the bloody keys weren’t exactly complicated. We didn’t just chuck theirs in the corner.’ Vala often complained that he had a tendency to obsess over things that got on his nerves. It looked as if the Americans were going to prove an endless source of inspiration.

  ‘Well, obviously they didn’t do that with them either. But it doesn’t matter. The keys’ll turn up and, anyway, we have a spare set.’ Vala yawned. ‘Let’s forget it and go to bed. I’m dying on my feet.’

  ‘I’m off to bed.’ Tumi left the box of cat food untidily on the table. ‘I’ll wake up when I wake up. Don’t disturb me.’ Neither of his parents bothered to take note of this instruction. When the time came to unpack their cases he would be woken up whether he liked it or not. They watched him go into the hall and listened to his thunderous progress up the stairs, two at a time as usual.

  Once they had heard the door to his room close, Nói broke the silence. He was staring at the bunch of keys in Vala’s hand. ‘Do you think this is their revenge for the barbecue? Deliberately losing the keys to the chalet?’ No sooner had he spoken than he realised he was too tired to think straight.

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Vala smiled, then pulled him to her when she saw his eyes straying to the computer in a corner of the kitchen. ‘Don’t check on that now. It can wait.’ But Nói wouldn’t be dissuaded. Gently freeing himself from her arms, he sat down in front of the computer, turned it on and waited impatiently for it to start up.

  ‘I just want to check everything’s OK. Supposing they’ve left the keys in the door and some idiot’s got in.’ He logged into the chalet webcam. Nói had installed the surveillance system after a wave of break-ins at the holiday colony a year or so before. The camera showed the open-plan living room and kitchen area, as well as most of the decking outside the window. The system had a built-in motion sensor; although the camera was always on, it only saved the footage that included some kind of movement, plus ten seconds before the movement and ten seconds after it. The system could be switched on or off as required.

  ‘What are you going to do if it’s been trashed?’ Vala stood behind him, watching the screen. ‘There’s no way you’re charging up there now.’ Vala hadn’t been quite as sold on the idea of buying a holiday chalet in the countryside as he had. It struck him that she might even be pleased if it was broken into.

  ‘I just want to check. If necessary I could ring someone or go to bed now and head up there later.’ Nói was glad Vala didn’t ask who exactly he was planning to call. There was no caretaker on site and their chalet stood some distance from the main colony to which it officially belonged. His worries proved groundless, however. Everything looked fine when the picture appeared on screen. The old three-piece suite in the living room, which they really should replace, the clunky TV and DVD player, the small kitchen area. Everything was as it should be, intact and untouched. Nói couldn’t hide his relief and Vala shared it, though for different reasons. ‘Brilliant. Now can we go to bed?’

  Nói stood up, having recovered his good mood at last. He was even happier when they saw their bed. The Americans had changed the sheets and although Vala was a little put out by the non-matching linen they had used, she was too relieved to complain. Nói had stripped off and was about to collapse into bed when he announced that he had forgotten to turn off the computer. Vala sighed and told him to relax. It worked. He lay down and conked out even before she did.

  The family were all sound asleep when the computer in the kitchen suddenly came to life, so the cat was the only witness when the webcam picked up a movement. He watched the dark picture, then hissed at the screen. Darting out of the kitchen, he bounded upstairs and halted before the open door to the master bedroom. There he sat down on the threshold and mewed plaintively at his sleeping owners.

  Chapter 4

  20 January 2014

  The Christmas bauble resembled a small, fat Santa Claus. It grinned merrily at Nína from where it hung from the curtain pole in the hall, but drew no answering smile from her. She felt an urge to smash it. Thröstur had chosen December to try and kill himself, and although Christmas was over,
she still had to clear up after it, deliver the few gifts they had bought people and take down the corny decorations. She didn’t know why she couldn’t galvanise herself to get on with it, since the shiny tat did nothing but reopen the wound every time she laid eyes on it. One consolation was that they hadn’t put up many decorations, so when she finally got round to it the job wouldn’t take long. But she couldn’t drum up the energy. All she had done was drag the Christmas tree out onto the pavement in mid-January, still dressed in its baubles and fairy lights. It had tumbled around out there for a week before vanishing, and Nína suspected the old man on the ground floor of having something to do with that. Pity he didn’t have a key to her place, if he was that keen.

  The flat was almost as airless and dusty as the archives at the police station. Even though she’d hardly spent any time at home recently, it was well overdue a clean. Well, that would have to wait. Nína threw off her jacket, missed the peg and left it lying on the floor. This would only be a brief stop. She would have gone straight from work to the hospital but her sister had announced she was coming round. She was obviously worried and Nína wanted to reassure her that she was all right. Task of the day: look normal. Sad, of course, but not unhealthily so. She hoped this would deter Berglind from any further attempts to try and cheer her up. She just wanted to be left alone.

  While the coffee was percolating, Nína drew back the kitchen curtains for the first time since Thröstur had been admitted to hospital. She had wanted to spare the neighbours the unedifying sight of her sitting howling at the kitchen table, and also to avoid seeing the garage. She would pull the curtains across the windows again the moment Berglind had gone, though fits of weeping in the kitchen were a thing of the past. She hadn’t set foot in the garage since Thröstur had left it in an ambulance, and as far as she knew no one else had had any reason to go in there since the detectives had finished their examination. If Nína had had access to a bulldozer, the low-rise building would have been flattened by now.