‘When did he note down Lárus’s name?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Probably in November or maybe even earlier. Thröstur’s been in a coma since the beginning of December, so of course it would have to have been before then.’
‘So he was interested in Lárus for some reason before he tried to kill himself?’
Nína nodded.
‘And they both resorted to suicide in the same month?’
Again Nína nodded.
‘Extraordinary. Did they know each other?’
‘No. Not to my knowledge. At least I don’t remember Thröstur ever mentioning him. Perhaps their paths crossed in connection with work but Thröstur very rarely discussed the stories he was working on and I didn’t talk to him about my job either. In spite of the rumours doing the rounds here.’
Aldís shrugged and the certificate on the wall was knocked even more crooked. ‘I don’t know if you’ve looked at Lárus’s file but some people thought his death was suspicious.’
‘I remember.’ Nína gave a wry smile. ‘I was aware of the case though I wasn’t allowed anywhere near it because of my situation. It was considered inappropriate.’
‘Understandably.’ Aldís did not return her smile.
‘But I didn’t hear how it ended, for example what happened about the visitor who was supposed to have been with Lárus that evening. If I’d known Thröstur had some connection with Lárus I’d probably have taken more interest. Was the visitor ever found?’
‘No. All we know is that there was somebody with him that evening. His wife was away but the neighbours said they’d heard talking and there were signs in his flat that more than one person had been drinking there. They concluded that the unknown individual had probably left by the time Lárus took the overdose. At least there was no evidence that he’d been coerced into taking the pills.’
‘What’s the link to the Skerjafjördur business you mentioned?’
‘Had you stopped following the case by the time Lárus’s widow brought in the letters she found in his office?’
‘Yes. I expect so. I don’t remember hearing about them, anyway. What were they?’
‘Cryptic messages that we never got to the bottom of. Short sentences, one per sheet of paper, which had been folded to fit inside an envelope. No one knows if the letters came in the post or if Lárus wrote them himself intending to send them to other people. His wife had no knowledge of them. She vaguely remembered Lárus receiving letters but had the feeling he’d told her they were junk mail from the bank. Advertisements for investments, that sort of thing. But she was adamant that she had seen no logos on the envelopes. She was convinced the notes were proof that Lárus had been murdered. She started laying into us when it sank in that we didn’t consider them sufficient evidence to justify reopening the case.’
‘Just what did these letters contain?’
‘That’s the weird part, and that’s where the Skerjafjördur business comes in. Notes were found there containing exactly the same kind of messages. At the family’s summer chalet. Then another note was posted through their letterbox late yesterday evening.’
‘What is the Skerjafjördur case precisely?’
‘What isn’t it?’ Aldís made a face. ‘The husband called us yesterday afternoon because he’d found a dead cat on the barbecue at their summer chalet.’ She looked wearily at Nína. ‘Don’t ask. They wanted to report some Americans they’d done a house swap with, who they believed had disappeared off the face of the earth. Or something like that. The whole thing’s far from clear and although I’ve read the first report several times I’m still none the wiser. But among the evidence they handed over to the police were these notes. Something about liars getting their come-uppance. Then just before midnight last night the wife was knocked down by a car and I was sent round to break the news to her husband. He was initially regarded as a suspect. Then it emerged that another note had arrived. The husband said he didn’t know Lárus Jónmundsson and his wife is so mashed up that we won’t be able to get a word out of her till later today. Maybe even tomorrow.’
‘Who was the driver?’
‘We don’t know. It was a hit and run.’ Aldís kicked her foot against the wall, leaving a dirty mark on the discoloured paint. ‘Did you two receive any notes like that?’
‘No. Definitely not. I’ve just been through all our stuff because I’m selling the flat, and there were no messages like the ones you’ve just described.’
‘It seems Lárus didn’t tell his wife about the notes, and the husband in Skerjafjördur was equally in the dark. He didn’t know how the letters had reached the chalet. One of the officers who went to see them originally said the wife started acting very strangely when the subject came up and he thought she might know more than she was letting on. Is it possible your husband could have kept the notes secret from you? Read them, then thrown them away?’
‘Not if they came in the post. He was at work until evening, so it was usually me who picked up the post. I don’t remember any strange letters.’
Aldís shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s all completely unrelated. Stranger things have happened. Do you know a man called Nói or might your husband have known him?’
Nína shook her head and the bones of her neck clicked. ‘I’d recognise the name. It’s not that common.’ She sensed the conversation was coming to an end. Aldís obviously wanted to get back to the others, take the weight off her feet and let her fatigue slowly dissipate over a bad coffee. ‘Will you be involved any further in the Skerjafjördur case?’
‘Yes, I expect so.’ Aldís frowned slightly. ‘Why?’
‘I was wondering if I could have another word. Not today but maybe next time you’re on duty.’ Nína was quite prepared for her to say no. Word at the station was that Aldís would go far. Though she was still forced to take the occasional night shift everyone knew this would soon be a thing of the past. Nína, on the other hand, was on her way down. Or even out. So it would be only natural if Aldís didn’t want anything to do with her during daylight hours. ‘I won’t get in your way – I’m down in the basement most of the time. I’d just like to keep in touch about what happens.’
‘If you like. I’m not sure there’ll be much more to hear. With some cases you know from the moment they’re reported that they’ll hang around for a while, then sink without trace. The Skerjafjördur business is one of those.’
‘What about the Americans they did a house swap with? Have they been found or is the suggestion that they’re missing actually a possibility?’
‘We haven’t established that yet. Hopefully things’ll be clearer on Monday or Tuesday when they’ve checked the passenger lists at Keflavík. It complicates matters that they were apparently travelling onwards to Europe and we don’t know where they were heading or which airline they were flying with. Though we do have the date of their flight.’ Aldís yawned without opening her mouth, her lips barely parting. ‘But I don’t suppose much’ll come of it. If they haven’t left the country they’ve probably got lost in the highlands on one of those crazy hiking trips that can only end in disaster at this time of year. An appeal will be put out for them and someone’ll phone in to say they were spotted at a petrol station in the countryside, buying supplies from the shop. They’ll turn up when the snow melts.’
‘I suppose so.’ There was nothing more to say. Aldís’s assessment of the situation was only too plausible. ‘But maybe I could talk to you later in the week. Send you an e-mail or ring you if I don’t run into you.’
‘Sure. E-mail me. That’d be best.’ It didn’t surprise Nína that Aldís should choose a private method of communication over a conversation in the middle of the corridor for all the world to hear. Aldís went back into the room, leaving Nína behind on her own. She longed to keep talking but checked the urge to follow Aldís. If the woman was going to be given a major role in this investigation, Nína felt annoyed with herself for not having pressed Thröstur’s case harder.
She went back to her office. Pity it was still too early to make any phone calls. It had occurred to her that Lárus’s widow might be able to shed light on her husband’s connection with Thröstur. There must have been one, given that Thröstur had noted down his name. Perhaps he had been abused in his youth and Thröstur had interviewed him about it. Larús might have been the main subject of yet another series of articles about historical sex abuse cases. For all she knew, raking the whole thing up might have thrown his mind into such turmoil that he had felt unable to go on living. But that didn’t explain why Thröstur had resorted to the same way out. And done so first.
Nína sat down in front of her computer but instead of poring over the report on Lárus’s suicide she decided to examine what had been entered into the database about the Skerjafjördur case. She looked up the husband Nói’s address in the phonebook. He turned out to be the only person with that name in Skerjafjördur, which would make it easy to find the evening shift’s report on the server. But it was unlikely that Aldís and co. would have finished their incident reports for the night yet, so Nína would have to be patient.
She checked the earlier report and hadn’t read far when she came across the name of Nói’s wife. Nína leant back slightly from the computer. Vala Konrádsdóttir. The woman the police thought had something to hide.
Chapter 28
26 January 2014
The light was on over the kitchen table. Apart from that the house lay in darkness. The open doorways leading to the sitting room and hall yawned black and silent, and an air of lonely melancholy lay over everything. As Nói contemplated the dimly lit kitchen, for the first time he saw through the illusion he had created. The perfect family life that he had dreamt of and taken such immeasurable pains to construct was really as flawed as everything else in this world.
It was rather late to come to this realisation now that their life was lying in tatters.
There would be no chance to start afresh and undo the past: take the pressure off Vala and Tumi, cease the perpetual nagging that they had complained about so bitterly over the years. He had always known that a shiny fitted kitchen and soft leather sofas weren’t everything, so he had stressed the importance of cultivating family life. Felt that he had achieved the only things that really mattered: that Tumi and Vala should be perfectly happy and healthy; that Tumi’s childhood should be different from his own upbringing; that his son would never have to be ashamed of their house or hesitate to invite friends home for fear that his parents would be drunk and embarrassing; that his clothes wouldn’t be full of holes and he would never have to resort to pulling things out of the dirty laundry basket to find something to wear; that he would never have to lie about the gifts he had received in his shoe in the run-up to Christmas because it had always been empty in the morning. His son deserved a perfect existence on which nothing cast a shadow.
Therein lay the problem. Nói had aimed too high. He had never known what was normal or realistic, had failed to grasp that it was possible to go too far the other way. Nobody lived a perfect life; by refusing to adjust his expectations he had ended up even further from his goal. Although he meant well, he had forced his family to act out some sort of utopian fantasy. Tumi and Vala – but especially Vala – had chosen to hide from him anything that didn’t fit in with his vision.
On the kitchen table lay the notes Vala had concealed from him. He was still ignorant of their origin and purpose, and endlessly poring over them was futile. All he had gained by this was to sense the anger of the person who had written them. He couldn’t exactly read between the lines, since each note consisted of only one line. No, the thoughts that had flown through Nói’s mind had been of Vala. Why hadn’t she confided in him? Why had she hidden the vile threats, which, it was now clear, were far from empty?
Of course she couldn’t have known at first how serious this was, but why hadn’t she shown him the letters, shaken her head over them, laughed them off as nonsense? It was impossible to tell what order the threats had arrived in, so he was in no position to decide what a normal reaction would have been in the beginning. They were undated and although every note showed signs of having been folded to fit in an envelope, they could just as well have been delivered by hand, pushed through the letterbox like the one yesterday evening. There were no envelopes in the box where Vala had hidden them.
No, there must be more to it than these sinister notes. It didn’t make sense otherwise. How would she have known the threats were meant for her? Surely, they could just as well have been for him? Or Tumi? If he had found a letter like this in the post he would immediately have assumed it was something to do with their son; that it was teenagers fooling around. If he had received letters like this and had no idea why, it would never have occurred to him to conceal the fact from Vala and hide them in a box of old trainers. Vala must instantly have connected them with some event from her past that she was unwilling to reveal to her family. To him. Something to do with a lie she must have told, if there was any truth in the repeated references to lies or liars. But who had she lied to and what had she lied about?
Nói rubbed his dry eyes, which only made them feel worse. So many questions but no answers. Why hadn’t Vala simply thrown the letters away? Was she expecting to have to bring them out later if the situation turned out to be serious? Probably. But probably wasn’t a good enough answer.
Nói didn’t want to face up to the hardest question of all: was Vala mixed up in something so bad that it wouldn’t merely shake the foundations of their marriage but destroy it completely? He could only think of two alternatives. One was that she had cheated on him and the letters were from her lover’s wife. The other was that she had been involved in something illegal and the victim was out for revenge. The first theory seemed far more plausible. He simply couldn’t imagine Vala committing a crime. The idea was absurd. Yet he couldn’t entirely dismiss it: after all, what seemed absurd sometimes turned out to be the bitter truth.
And which was worse, when it came down to it?
That she had cheated on him or broken the law?
Cheating, he thought. That affected him personally. Breaking the law affected others. But like every aspect of this miserable bloody business, the choice wasn’t that simple. How would he like to visit Vala in prison? Would he allow Tumi to go? Would that be easier for their son than if they divorced because Vala had been unfaithful? In that eventuality, which of them would Tumi live with? Which of them would stay on in the house? However hard Nói wrestled with the problem, the answer eluded his grasp. On second thoughts, it might be easiest for everyone if Vala went to prison, however implausible the idea. If only he knew what was behind all this.
He would have his answers when Vala woke up tomorrow morning, so there was no point losing his mind just yet. He had stopped himself from asking her any questions when he found her in the utility room, just dosed her with painkillers and helped her back to bed. He had given her some sheets of paper and a pen and told her to write it down if there was anything she needed. He could fetch water, a blanket, whatever she wanted.
She had taken them and turned away, avoiding his eye. Nói thought it best to leave her in peace. She could do with some rest if she was going to be fit enough to provide him with an explanation tomorrow morning. He didn’t care if it took the whole of Sunday, from sunrise to the following night, to drag the truth out of her.
Vala would be up in a few hours, but even so he couldn’t stop brooding.
He ceased rubbing his sore eyes and blinked a few times in the hope that they would recover. They didn’t. Instead, it felt as if he had dislodged grit from his lashes and forced it under his lids. Every time he blinked it hurt. He got up to fetch some eye drops and noticed that his neighbours’ kitchen light was on. Clearly he wasn’t the only one with insomnia.
Forgetting the eye drops, Nói went over to the window. He was curious to know which of them was up and about. Not that it mattered but at least it would be a distraction from his w
orries. No movement was visible in the brightly lit kitchen windows. It used to irritate him when he was loading the dishwasher after supper that he risked glancing up to see the couple opposite doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Whenever it happened, it was hard to tell who was more embarrassed, him or his neighbours. Sometimes they exchanged waves, at other times they pretended not to notice one another.
Now, unable to see either of them, Nói concluded they had forgotten to switch the lights off. He was turning away from the window when he caught sight of a movement in the garden behind the neighbours’ house. He strained his eyes but could hardly see a thing in the darkness, let alone tell who or what was there. Nói felt his tiredness receding as the adrenalin began to pump through his veins. Part of him hoped it was the perpetrator prowling around out there. If so he would reduce him to the same state Vala was in. It would be infinitely sweeter than any justice administered by the courts. If the driver was found, it would take years for the case to pass through the system, no doubt deliberately to ensure that all the wind had left the victim’s sails by the time the suspended sentence was finally passed. No, thanks. An eye for a fucking eye and a tooth for a fucking tooth. He may have buggered up many aspects of their family life over the years but no one would be able to say that he had sat idly by while his wife suffered an injustice.
He was surprised at how easily he slid into the role of primitive man of violence who longed to redden his hands with another’s blood. He certainly had enough pent-up rage. Well, here was his chance. He shoved his feet in his clogs as fast as he could and dashed outside onto the decking.
His primitive instincts were immediately checked by the cold. Gooseflesh reminded him how inadequately he was dressed and how ill equipped he was for any kind of struggle if it came to blows. If this was the man who had knocked Vala down he was almost certainly armed with a blunt instrument, a knife or worse. Nói was empty-handed. He wondered if he should go back inside, fetch his jacket and something to defend himself with, then realised that it was the woman from next door who was standing there, gazing out to sea. She was clutching a thick towelling dressing gown around her and had on a large pair of boots. The wind whirled her hair, making her look half crazed. Nói turned back to close the door, noticing too late that Púki had slipped out. His pawprints led away across the snow. Damn. Nói walked over to the boundary between their properties and called out in a low voice: ‘Hi, Bylgja. Is anything wrong?’ Perhaps she had seen a man lurking out here. If so, he would urge her to go straight back inside.
Why Did You Lie? Page 26