The Doll

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘No, Rósa never gets in touch when she disappears. And she never tells me where she’s been when she turns up again. I don’t ask either. I think it’s better not to know. If she looked for shelter here she’d be welcome, but she never does. We have a bit of a strange relationship. She’s never forgiven us for not fighting harder to keep her after her mother died and she was taken away from us.’ The grandmother clasped her hands on the table. When she spoke again, it was with a note of regret and she seemed to have forgotten about trying to appear sober. Her voice slurred a little as she went on: ‘Perhaps we should have done. But neither of us was in any fit state to fight the system. Everyone gives up in the end. You feel you have as much chance as a butterfly trying to break through a windowpane.’

  Erla didn’t have the patience to sit quietly through a rant on the injustices of the system. ‘Has Rósa ever discussed her mother’s death with you?’ she interrupted. ‘We understand that she believes it was murder.’

  The woman snorted. ‘Discussed? She wouldn’t talk about anything else for years. It did my head in having to listen to it. The truth is that Dísa died in an accident but Rósa couldn’t accept the fact. You can’t really blame the poor kid. First her father, then her mother. She was only a child at the time, too young to have learnt how unfair life is. People are put through all kinds of misery and there’s no rhyme or reason for it. It just happens.’

  ‘We understand that a doll came into it?’

  ‘Oh, give me strength! Not that bloody thing again.’ The woman groaned. ‘I can’t bear to hear it mentioned. Rósa used to be obsessed with it. She couldn’t sleep for fear that the doll would come and get her. Well, sometimes it was the doll, other times the girl who owned it. She used to go back and forth between the two.’

  ‘Did you see a photograph of the doll on Dísa’s Facebook page?’ Huldar hoped the woman might remember, even though it was so long ago.

  ‘Facebook? No, I wasn’t on Facebook in those days. I am now. Have been for two years. When Dísa died, people my age didn’t used to be on there so much. Now we’ve more or less taken over. Driven the young people away. I have two hundred and something Facebook friends. More than all the real friends I’ve made in my entire life.’

  When neither Erla nor Huldar commented on this, Rósa’s grandmother got back to the point: ‘What’s this case Rósa’s supposed to be a witness in? I hope it’s nothing serious. She’s been through enough already.’

  Before they could answer, she leant back in the kitchen chair, her eyes narrowing suddenly. ‘Is it the paedophile who abused that boy? The case that’s been all over the papers?’ Reading the answer in their faces, she nodded slowly. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘Did she ever mention anything about abuse to you?’ Huldar found himself inadvertently leaning forward.

  ‘Come to think of it, she did, yes. Not directly to me, but I heard her and her friend whispering about something that sounded like that. About sex abuse by someone who worked for children’s services. When I tried to ask them about it, they went quiet and left soon afterwards. At the time I thought it was probably just some rumour going around among the kids in the system. It sounded so unbelievable. What an idiot I am.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Now you’re asking … In the spring, I think. In May. Possibly.’ Rósa’s grandmother had been managing to stay on the ball so far but now she seemed to lose focus and started fiddling with the little round cloth on the table as if to get it exactly in the middle. Although her efforts made no perceptible difference, she seemed satisfied.

  ‘Who was her friend? Someone from school?’

  ‘No. It was a boy she’d got to know at one of those care homes. As unlucky in life’s lottery as her. Maybe that’s why they became such good friends. They still are, I think. His name’s Tristan.’

  ‘Tristan?’

  ‘Yes. He came round here with her a few times when they first got to know each other. Not that she came by that often.’ The woman’s eyes narrowed again. ‘Is he the boy in the news?’

  When neither Erla nor Huldar answered, she interpreted their silence correctly and seemed pleased at having guessed right. ‘Of course, of course.’

  Huldar bit back the urge to ask what impression she’d got of the boy. Tristan was the victim, not the perpetrator. What he was like was irrelevant. It didn’t alter the crime.

  ‘When did you last see them together?’

  ‘About three months ago. At the end of May.’ Rósa’s grandmother thought. ‘Yes, around about then. I was hurt when they took off. It was the first visit I can remember that she didn’t start harping on about her mother being murdered. Or her father – that was a new bit of nonsense that started about a year ago.’

  Huldar raised his eyebrows. ‘Was the doll supposed to have been responsible for that too?’

  ‘No. The doll didn’t exist when he died – if you can believe any of her story. Apparently it was caught in a fishing net the day before Dísa’s accident. Thröstur died five years earlier. But Rósa didn’t say how she thought he’d been murdered – I didn’t give her the chance. I just couldn’t bear to listen to it. Over the years I’ve kept hoping and hoping that she’d stop talking about her mother’s death like that. I always thought she’d never get over her loss until she did. But when she started bringing her father into it as well, I couldn’t take any more. When she came round last spring, though, she didn’t mention it once.’

  ‘Do you know what could have brought about the change?’

  ‘No. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe she’ll talk about it non-stop the next time she appears. I thought she was getting better before, until she relapsed.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About two years ago. She came round with Tristan. I think that was the first time I met him. Anyway, she wanted the condolence book from her mother’s funeral reception. So I got it out and gave it to her, thinking maybe it was the first step towards coming to terms with her loss. There was such a pretty picture of Dísa on the front, and I’d put the order of service in there too and even stuck in a dried rose from the wreath on her coffin. I cut out the death notice, the funeral notice and the obituaries from Morgunbladid and stuck them in too. At the back I put in some photos of her as a little girl and as a young woman. It was a lovely book and I thought it would do Rósa good to look at it. But the next time I saw her, several months later, she was back to obsessing about murder again. I haven’t seen the book since.’

  Huldar, noticing that Erla was growing restless, hastily changed the subject. ‘Might Tristan know where she is?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ The woman’s shoulders sagged. ‘I simply don’t know. But they were on the same wavelength. Young but carrying a heavy burden. Not your typical angst-ridden teenagers but genuinely weighed down by misfortune. I don’t know how else to describe it.’ She brightened up a little. ‘You know what? In a way, I’m glad you’re here about something serious. My first thought was that she must have gone to the police like she used to. About some nonsense like the murderous doll. She wouldn’t stop pestering you lot at one time and I wouldn’t have been surprised if her latest crazy idea hadn’t sent her back to you.’

  ‘What idea’s that?’ Erla didn’t sound as if she was expecting any great revelation. She appeared to be suppressing a yawn.

  ‘Oh, some nonsense about dead people in the sea. I ask you … What next?’

  Erla’s gaze sharpened. ‘What exactly did she say?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘I didn’t really get it. It was during the same visit that I overheard them whispering about abuse. She went off on some flight of fancy, claiming she knew about a couple of dead people in the sea. Something like that. I stopped listening – I’ve had about all I can take of that kind of thing. There’s no way I can fake interest in those delusional stories of hers. I just can’t. So I shut her up by offering them some pancakes, then went into the kitchen to make them. While I was cooking, it occurred to m
e that at least she wasn’t going on about her parents being murdered. I should have been relieved, not angry. It was when I took the pancakes through to the sitting room that I heard them whispering about abuse, but they shut up the moment I came in. After that we just talked about normal stuff: school, the weather, football and their chances of getting summer jobs. Then they thanked me for the pancakes and left.’

  It was Erla’s turn to lean forwards over the table. ‘And you’re saying this was back in May? Not last week?’

  When drunk people are offended, they demonstrate the fact with exaggerated gestures. Rósa’s grandmother leant back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest, her face hard. ‘Do you seriously think I’d mix up what happened last week with what happened months ago? I told you – she came round at the end of May. She hasn’t been here since then. I’m sure of that. And I didn’t dream or imagine the whole thing either.’

  Huldar and Erla exchanged glances. News of the bones had only broken two days ago. No one could have had a clue about their existence at the end of May or beginning of June. No one, that is, except the person responsible for putting the bodies there – if that’s what had happened.

  And, apparently, Rósa.

  Chapter 11

  Wednesday

  The horses raised their heads and stared at Hjálmar from under their long forelocks. Bulging brown eyes watched his approach until, eventually losing interest, they returned to their grazing. The grass was growing well after all the recent rain and the horses were looking plump and glossy. Plumper than usual. If things went on like this, they’d be in fine fettle by the time they were brought into the stables.

  The field, which was situated between the villages of Stokkseyri and Eyrarbakki on the south coast, was well fenced and almost free from tussocks. There was a magnificent view of the ocean to the south and in good visibility you could make out the volcanic island of Surtsey. He was fairly sure that animals were indifferent to views but he still liked to think of them having all this beauty before them. Even though they hardly ever looked up from the grass. And even if the horses didn’t care, he could at least enjoy the view himself whenever he visited them.

  Not that it was much to write home about today. A curtain of fog hung just offshore, obscuring the view of the sea. The fine mist Hjálmar could feel on his cheeks as he walked over the rough pasture suggested that the fog was coming in over the land as well. Droplets glittered on the grass. He regretted not having put on the riding boots he kept in the boot of his car. His trainers were already soaking.

  Hjálmar went up to the chestnut mare he had come here to check on. As he stroked and patted her neck, the mare ceased her grazing and turned her head to him with a vigorous snort. Her nostrils dilated, then reverted to their usual teardrop shape. He rubbed her soft muzzle and the mare seemed content. Then down went her muscular neck again and she carried on tearing at the grass. In the silence her munching was as audible as if he had laid his ear against her powerful jaws.

  Moving slowly, Hjálmar slid his hand down her near hind leg. ‘Easy, girl.’ The mare had bent it and was resting her hoof on the ground, which wasn’t a good sign, but when he examined the stitches, the wound appeared to be healing well; there was no sign of infection or fresh bleeding. Taking a small can of antiseptic spray and a cloth from his pocket, he palpated the area around the stitches as the vet had recommended. The mare’s coat was damp and most of the antiseptic seemed to bounce off and run uselessly down her leg into the grass. Wetting the cloth, Hjálmar pressed it to the stitches in the hope that this would work better.

  A flash of light on metal at the far end of the pasture caught Hjálmar’s eye. It was near one of the fence posts but he couldn’t see whether it was inside or outside the field. Once he reckoned he had got enough antiseptic on the mare’s cut, he stuffed the cloth and spray can back in his pocket and walked over to the fence. The mare had been injured here in the field but they hadn’t been able to find the offending object. The vet thought she might have rubbed up against a fence post and caught herself on a protruding nail. Hjálmar had asked if it could have been deliberate; if some sadist was going around harming horses. You heard stories from time to time. But the vet had been sceptical. Nevertheless, Hjálmar hadn’t been able to find any protruding nails, despite walking right round the fence, so the cause of the injury had remained a mystery. Perhaps he had found it now, though in that case it occurred to him that he ought to have spotted it the other day, when he was searching the pasture.

  In fact, the shiny object proved to be outside the fence. It appeared to be the pointed end of a metal pole which was sticking up from a ditch about two metres from his property. Feeling curious, Hjálmar climbed over the fence to investigate. His feet were so wet by now that there was no point going back to the car for his boots.

  It turned out to be a tent pole, coated with green plastic apart from the sharp end that was poking up. On closer examination, he discovered that the tent itself was lying bundled up at the bottom of the ditch. He thought there was a sleeping bag there too, and other camping gear, including a single trainer and a muddy backpack. A little further off he spotted two bicycles. The stuff was all filthy and looked as if it had been lying there for quite a while. Hjálmar scratched his head and felt a sudden spurt of anger. Bloody tourists. They were clearly no better behaved than Icelanders at an outdoor festival; the type who dumped their tents and rubbish once the fun was over. The idiots had probably pitched their tent on the bank of the ditch or even in his field. Perhaps they had been defeated by the relentless rain, as there would have been no way to dry a tent this summer, and trying to pack up a wet tent was a horrible job. Before Hjálmar could start feeling sorry for the tent’s owners, his eye fell on the bicycles again. No amount of rain could explain what they were doing in the ditch. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with them; the tyres were pumped up and the wheel rims were intact. There was nothing to suggest they were a write-off.

  The whole thing was extremely odd.

  It looked as if the tourists had cycled there, pitched their tent, then decided for some inexplicable reason to dump all their gear and continue on foot. Perhaps they had hitched a lift back to town and gone to a hotel after discovering that not every city dweller is suited to camping in the subarctic with only a thin sheet of canvas between them and the elements. But that didn’t excuse the mess they had left behind.

  Shaking his head, Hjálmar pulled out his phone to take a photo. There must be a group on Facebook dedicated to exposing the disgusting lack of respect some tourists showed for the Icelandic environment, and this was a perfect example. But however he positioned himself and whatever angle he tried, it was impossible to fit both tent and bikes in one picture. They were too far apart. He supposed he could climb into the ditch and take a picture from down there, but there was water in the bottom and Hjálmar didn’t fancy getting wet up to the knee. Perhaps all the stuff had originally been in the same place but the tent and pole had been washed further along the ditch by floodwater. The pole could have been pushed upright when it caught in the canvas below. That would explain why he hadn’t spotted it when he’d done the rounds last week.

  Hjálmar took several pictures of the tent and some more of the bikes, then checked to see how they had come out on screen. He tried but failed to come up with a snappy caption. Never mind, he would think of something on the way home.

  He walked back over the rough grass, pausing to pat and stroke the horses he passed on the way. They seemed humiliatingly indifferent to his caresses. But then love was rarely returned in equal measure.

  He climbed up the slope to the road, got in his car and drove away. The horses had already forgotten his visit.

  After he had gone, the fog condensed and turned into rain, and the water level in the ditch began to rise until in the end it covered the abandoned camping gear and the two bikes. Only the tent pole was still visible, poking up above the bank.

  Chapter 12

&
nbsp; Wednesday night

  The police car was unmarked, though Huldar didn’t suppose this would make much difference since most of the kids they were looking for were bound to recognise it. The driver, Rafn, a kindly, middle-aged officer who had been sent to assist Gudlaugur, was responsible for tracking down missing juveniles. His success with this group had made him something of a legend on the force. No one doubted that he had found his vocation in life. As they drove, he had answered their questions by sharing his experiences and describing the techniques that had worked best for him. It seemed obvious when he spelt it out: approach the kids as a friend, not a policeman. Build up trust. Never chase them. Be understanding. Listen. Don’t make threats. Don’t judge.

  Rafn was behind the wheel, Huldar in the passenger seat and Gudlaugur silent in the back. It was an unwritten law that the person with the least experience took the back seat on the rare occasions when more than two officers travelled together. Gudlaugur was clearly aggrieved by the arrangement, but that would change as he grew in seniority. Huldar had felt the same back in the day.

  The night was as dark as it ever got in late summer, a heavy blanket of cloud smothering the moon and stars. It was a long time since the inhabitants of Reykjavík had seen clear skies, whether by day or night. Their hopes of good weather had been crushed to the point where now all people asked was that the clouds held off from emptying themselves for as long as it took them to dash outside to slap a lamb chop on the rusty barbecue. Not that anyone had barbecuing on their mind at this late hour. Most people were tucked up in bed as it was past midnight. The few souls they did see out and about appeared to be in a hurry to get home, plodding purposefully along the pavements of the city centre in thick coats more suitable for the onset of winter than late summer. The occasional foreigner with a wheelie case in tow could be seen peering around for street names or house numbers, presumably in search of their Airbnb. It was unlikely that the owner would have applied for the necessary permits but this was of no concern to Huldar or his companions. All their attention was focused on searching for Rósa, the teenage girl who was almost certainly a witness in two of the hottest cases of the moment.