There was a silence at the other end.
‘Then I’m going to the police,’ Elena announced.
‘The police?’
‘Yes. I’m going to tell them you helped her run away. If the police question you, you’ll have to tell them the truth. And then she might have a chance, don’t you understand? A chance to get an actual residence permit. But she’s got to give herself up first!’
There was another silence. They had been on the phone so long that Bjartur’s nerves were in tatters. He was worn out with the strain of having to lie. And now he was afraid, too.
He couldn’t go to prison. He couldn’t. The murder mustn’t come to light. Her body was lying safely hidden at the bottom of a crevasse and he had done his best to scrub away any incriminating evidence from the hut. Besides, no one, not a soul, had a clue that they’d been there. He’d got away with it, or so he had thought, until that bitch Elena had decided to ruin everything.
‘OK,’ he said at last.
‘OK?’ repeated Elena, audibly astonished. ‘You want me to go to the police?’
‘No, I’ll tell you where she is. Or … wouldn’t you rather come with me this evening and see her in person?’
‘What? Seriously? Yes, of course I would.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be all right. It’s a big day, exciting news … I’ll take you there.’
As he spoke, the wheels in his mind were busy turning, working out the perfect spot: the isolated little cove at Flekkuvík, about halfway between Reykjavík and Keflavík. It was an area he knew well; through his work as a guide, he was familiar with much of his country’s geography, either from first-hand experience or reading about it in books. The advantage of this particular cove was that, although only quarter of an hour’s drive from Njardvík, it wasn’t overlooked by any houses or the road. They were guaranteed to be the only people around since it wasn’t even accessible by car: they would have to get out and walk the last few hundred yards.
‘Can you come and pick me up?’ Elena asked.
‘Hmm … not from the hostel. I can’t take the risk of being seen – because of Katja being in hiding, you understand.’ He mentioned a shop within walking distance of the hostel and asked Elena to meet him there.
* * *
‘It’s such a long way,’ Elena whined, her teeth chattering from the cold. Although there was no snow on the ground, the weather was freezing and she wasn’t adequately dressed. Still, it couldn’t be helped. Bjartur led the way along the path to the cove. Ahead loomed a couple of buildings, hard to make out in the gloom.
‘She’s in that house over there, the one closer to the sea,’ he said at last.
‘Seriously? Katja’s there?’
‘No one would think of looking for her here.’
‘Unbelievable. You mean she’s been here all the time?’
‘She was staying with me to begin with,’ Bjartur said, allowing a little warmth to steal into his voice. For a moment, he almost believed it himself, recalling his fantasy about marrying her and taking her to live in his house. ‘But it was too risky,’ he went on. ‘I’ve got my elderly parents living with me. They’d have found out sooner or later.’
‘I see,’ Elena said.
He couldn’t read her expression in the darkness. Was she convinced?
‘I’m sure she’ll be eligible for a residence permit, like me,’ Elena continued after a moment. ‘Our situations aren’t that different.’
‘Right,’ said Bjartur. ‘Right.’
‘But … it’s a pity she had to run away like that. Was it your idea?’ Her tone was accusatory.
‘Mine? Of course not.’ Bjartur adopted an injured tone. ‘I did my best to talk her out of it.’
‘Does she know? That we’re coming, I mean?’
‘No. She hasn’t got a phone.’
Elena was silent.
Only as they approached the houses did she speak again.
‘You know what, this doesn’t feel right, Bjartur. No one could live here. There’s no glass in the windows. These buildings are empty.’
‘Don’t be silly. I assure you she’s here.’
Elena turned to look at him, and now he could see that her eyes were narrowed with suspicion.
‘Are you lying to me?’
Alone with him in the cold and dark, she seemed suddenly tense with fear.
Bjartur halted. There was hardly a breath of wind, and the murmur of the waves was mesmerizing. He studied her. She couldn’t escape now.
‘Are you lying? Why are you lying?’ Her voice rose, sounding high and strained: ‘Where’s Katja?’
She began to back away from him. Bjartur didn’t move.
Then she turned and fled into the night.
It didn’t take him long to catch up. When he did, he hurled her to the ground, grabbed a nearby stone and bashed her on the head, knocking her out. Was she dead? Probably not. He thought he could detect a pulse.
Bjartur lifted her up and carted her limp body down to the cove, stumbling once or twice on the rocks in the darkness. Then he laid Elena carefully on her front, with her head in the salt water, and held her down.
XXVII
‘You mean there was nothing in the papers I brought you?’ Hulda asked, her mind working furiously, determined to do everything in her power to keep the conversation going.
Bjartur laughed. ‘Nothing of interest. Obviously, I had to think fast when you mentioned Katja; find some excuse to lure you out of town. I had to get rid of you. There’s no alternative.’
Hulda cursed silently. This had turned into the day from hell. All her mistakes came back to haunt her: Emma’s confession, the man murdered in hospital, Áki’s arrest. She should never have got out of bed. Normally, she told herself, she’d have been far quicker to sense the danger she was in, but worry had blunted her instincts.
‘Please, give me some water,’ Hulda gasped, though it went against the grain to ask this man for anything.
‘Later,’ he said, but she wasn’t sure he meant it.
‘Were they both working as prostitutes?’ she asked.
Bjartur burst out laughing. ‘Of course not. Neither of them was. They were good girls, especially Katja – she was lovely.’
‘But…’ Only now, far too late, did Hulda understand how Bjartur had misled her, set her on the wrong path at the very outset of the investigation.
‘I was so thrown when you appeared on my doorstep,’ he went on. ‘I’d put the whole thing behind me; thought the case was closed ages ago. All I could think was to find some way of deflecting your attention from me. Then I had a brainwave: I’d tell you Elena had been on the game. And it worked pretty well, didn’t it? Had you fooled.’
Hulda saw that Bjartur was smiling, absently.
She could feel the terror clutching at her heart, but she mustn’t let it paralyse her. For a moment, she was a child again, locked in the naughty cupboard by her grandmother.
Closing her eyes briefly, she concentrated on the birdsong. Surely somebody would help her. Even though it was past midnight, there must be someone about. Or perhaps Bjartur would change his mind, perhaps he was only trying to frighten her … Her hopes ebbed away with every second that passed.
‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said at last, but it sounded unconvincing, even to her own ears.
‘I’ve already got away with two murders. I’m getting to be quite an old hand. And I’ll make sure you’re never found. We’re laying the concrete foundation this week.’
‘But…’ Her mind flew to her mobile. It must be possible to track her whereabouts, find out where she’d been, even if it was too late to save her.
Once again, Bjartur seemed to read her mind.
‘I dealt with your phone hours ago. Remember when you lent it to me and I pretended to call my dad? I took out the battery.’
‘There’s still my car.’
‘That’s a bit more of a headache, I grant you, but I’ll dispose of it. Drive it off a cliff into the sea
then make my way back to town somehow. Anyway, no one’ll be interested in my movements, since I’ve never been a suspect in this case. Don’t worry, I’ll get away with it.’
XXVIII
The advantage of darkness is that there are no shadows.
Hulda closed her eyes.
The suffocating sense of claustrophobia was horrific, indescribable, yet, oddly, she felt a kind of peace descending on her, should these be her final moments of life. She would never have to endure the humiliation of being prosecuted for professional misconduct. In the event of her death, Magnús would drop the proceedings against her, she was sure of that. Her thoughts flew to Pétur. He would be waiting for her. Perhaps he had been trying to call her. And he would have to wait for ever.
Above all, death offered a merciful way out: an end to the nightmares. The long-desired absolution. Peace. For the last twenty years and more, Hulda had been trying to atone for what she had done, for the act that weighed so heavily on her soul, by showing understanding and sympathy to the guilty. At times, this had led her to cross a line, as in the case of Emma. The woman had committed a crime, driven her car into a paedophile, but Hulda had understood her all too well.
Hulda almost wished she believed in a higher power. She had gone to church regularly with her grandparents as a child, but later, after the death of her daughter, the last vestiges of her faith had deserted her.
Her thoughts returned to Jón and Dimma.
Once, she had loved no one in the world as much as those two, her husband and her daughter. But when she found out that Jón had been subjecting Dimma to unspeakable cruelty, her love had been transformed into hate. In one fell swoop, she had lost them both: Dimma had taken her own life; Jón had been transformed into a monster. Her hatred had grown and intensified every day, swelling into a vast, uncontrollable rage. What he had done could never be forgiven, yet he was alive and Dimma was not. Every time Hulda saw him, she thought of Dimma. Her daughter was dead, she had failed her, and yet she was flooded with a mother’s love more powerful even than when Dimma had been alive.
She had to erase Jón from her life. But divorcing him wouldn’t be enough and she had no desire to drag the family through a public sexual-abuse inquiry. That was out of the question. No, she wanted everything to remain fine on the surface, but Jón had to go, and he had to pay for his hideous crimes.
In the event, it had proved quite easy.
Jón had a heart condition, but he could have lived to a ripe old age with the right medication.
Hulda had replaced his pills with a useless substitute, and then waited, hoping the change would have some effect, that he would – one fine day – simply fall asleep and never wake up again.
Of course, she knew what she was doing was wrong. Not only wrong but murder, pure and simple. Yet she pushed these feelings away, focusing on the job at hand, on getting rid of Jón. And hopefully finding a little peace. The desire for justice was overwhelming; she had to avenge her daughter’s death. But, more than that, she couldn’t bear the thought of Jón being allowed to live any longer.
After the plan came to her, she never really had any second thoughts. They came later; too late.
In the end, she had had enough of waiting. One day, she came home for lunch, knowing that Jón would be there. She deliberately picked a fight with him and kept at it mercilessly, working Jón up into such a state that he suffered a massive cardiac arrest.
He fell to the living-room floor, unable to speak, unable to cry out, but he was still alive. He looked at her, his eyes pleading. He couldn’t know what she’d done, and Hulda felt no urge to explain. She just stood there and watched him die, thinking of Dimma. She felt nothing; no regrets, but no pleasure either. And then, when he was finally gone, there was a feeling of relief, that it was over at last.
Hulda knew she could finally move on. Nothing would ever be normal again, of course, but she had done what she had to do.
She had killed a man who had committed a crime worse than murder.
She left him on the floor and went back to work.
Later, she came home, ‘found’ the body and called an ambulance. And that was that.
A man with a weak heart drops dead before his time. Nothing unusual about that. His daughter had killed herself not long before; it had all proved a great strain. There wasn’t a whisper of suspicion about the real reason for Dimma’s suicide, let alone that there might have been anything unnatural about Jón’s death. Everyone’s sympathies lay with his wife, who was, moreover, a police officer. Of course, there was no inquest. And, of course, she got away with it, but hardly a night had passed since then when Jón hadn’t revisited her in her dreams. She had committed murder and got away with it, but discovered that she couldn’t live with the fact.
So perhaps it was a fitting punishment, she thought, that her life should end in this cruel manner.
Hulda tried not to panic. She was hoping against hope, and thinking of her daughter. Of course, Dimma had never left her thoughts, not really, but now she could see her face clearly and was flooded with boundless love, mingled with terrible guilt.
Dimma …
Hulda had to give life one last shot.
‘Please, Bjartur,’ she said. ‘Show some mercy. I am sure we can come to some sort of understanding. Please? I’ll let you go, I’ll never mention this to anyone. I’ll even go away, so you won’t have to make me disappear. I promise. What do you say, Bjartur? Please.’
The birds sang.
They didn’t know it was night.
Epilogue
‘It’s gratifying to see so many of you gathered here, on this beautiful day, as we pay our last respects to Hulda Hermannsdóttir,’ the priest said. ‘Of course, this is not a funeral, as such, since, as we’re all aware, Hulda has not yet been found. We pray with all our hearts that she’s out there somewhere, still with us, still enjoying life; that she simply left, for reasons of her own. So perhaps we should look on this occasion rather as an opportunity to celebrate Hulda’s life, although it is of course a sad occasion in many respects. No one here knows exactly what happened on Hulda’s last day at work or why she should have vanished without trace, just as she was about to embark on a long and happy retirement, the reward for all her years of dedicated service with the police. It goes without saying that not everyone welcomes that milestone: some dread the day; others can’t wait. We don’t know how Hulda felt about retirement or what was going through her mind on that last day, nor do we know where her body is resting now, but one thing we can be sure of, and that is that she can rest there, reconciled to God and her fellow men. Hulda enjoyed a distinguished career with the police, rising rapidly through the ranks and commanding the respect of junior and senior officers alike. Much of that career was dedicated to investigating serious crimes, to ensure the peace and security of her fellow citizens. In recent years, she was involved in solving many of our most high-profile cases, often at the forefront of the inquiry, at other times working behind the scenes, eschewing the limelight with characteristic modesty.
‘Many of Hulda’s colleagues went beyond the call of duty in their efforts to search for her this spring, despite the almost total lack of indications as to where she had gone missing. I know that Hulda would have been deeply moved by the selfless generosity of their endeavours, which is testimony to the affection in which they held her. Her friends refused to give up their ceaseless hunt until all hope of finding her was lost. Much of their time was spent combing the highlands where, one could say, Hulda had been on home ground. As you are all no doubt aware, Hulda’s greatest passion was for walking in the mountains: in her own words, she was a real mountain goat. I’ve lost count of the peaks she climbed – she’d probably lost count of them herself. Let us picture her, then, on the eve of her retirement, striding up one of her favourite mountains to mark the occasion, a journey that turned out to be her last. And let us take comfort from the thought that she now rests in the heart of the Icelandic wilderness that she
so loved.
‘Hulda spent the first two years of her life at a children’s home in Reykjavík, due to difficult family circumstances. Such things were not unusual in those days, but she was well cared for by the dedicated staff. At the age of two, she went to live with her mother and, later, they moved in with her maternal grandparents, to make one big family, and Hulda always maintained a strong, close bond with her mother, grandfather and grandmother. This happy, loving childhood served Hulda well later in life: she had an open, sunny disposition and got on well with everyone. Hulda never met her father, who was an American.
‘But there were two people above all who occupied the most important place in Hulda’s heart. One was her husband, Jón, whom she met young and married after only a short acquaintance; a happy decision; they have been described as true soul-mates. Hulda and Jón stuck together through thick and thin, shared many interests and complemented one another, as good companions should. Friends testify to the fact that they never exchanged a cross word. They made their home by the sea on Álftanes, still a rural area in those days, and perhaps it was there that Hulda’s passion for the Icelandic landscape was first kindled.
‘It was also there that the apple of their eye, their daughter, Dimma, was born. Dimma was popular at school and a model pupil, a little girl of great promise, and unsurprisingly, Hulda and Jón were enormously proud of her. So her tragic death in her early teens came as a devastating blow to her parents. They coped with stoicism and courage, inseparable as ever, no doubt drawing great comfort from one another. They continued to live on Álftanes and eventually returned to work: Hulda to the police, Jón to his job in investment. Then, two years later, Hulda also lost Jón, the love of her life. He had been diagnosed with a heart condition several years earlier, but no one had expected him to die so young. Once again, Hulda was called on to cope with a dreadful shock and responded with indomitable courage, getting back on her feet, tackling life and continuing to make her mark in a demanding profession.
‘Hulda never forgot Jón or Dimma. And, as we are aware, she always remained true to her Christian faith, in the conviction that she would be reunited with her loved ones in the next life. For all of us who miss Hulda so keenly, there is comfort in the knowledge that she is resting now in the arms of Jón and Dimma, whom she loved more than life itself.
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