46
María the news editor was doubling as the desk editor that Saturday.
Ísrún took a seat in her office.
‘Spill the beans,’ María told her. ‘What’s the latest scoop?’
‘The full story of the abduction case,’ Ísrún said, pleased with herself.
The story was already written and it would cause a stir. It was clear that now there would be no interview with the Prime Minister. His office had cancelled the appointment without giving a reason. For once Lára was not handling communications with the media, and there had been just a hint of an apology from the ministerial official.
‘Something new?’ María asked.
‘You could say that,’ Ísrún replied. ‘It all started with the assault on Emil’s wife, Bylgja.’
‘Yeah, I know; she died not long ago, didn’t she – never regained consciousness.’
‘Precisely. So, when the assault occurred, two years ago, the culprit probably went to the wrong address. The police had Róbert as their main suspect but nothing was ever proved. Emil never recovered mentally from what happened. He knew that Róbert was guilty, but didn’t do anything – at least, not right away. Around the same time as the attack, there were moves to establish a government of national unity under Ellert Snorrason. It was an open secret that his son Snorri was a hopeless alcoholic …’
‘And probably a drug user,’ María added.
‘As you know, Marteinn was the party’s crown prince. He was the deputy chairman and generally seen as a highly competent character. He was also an old friend of Snorri’s, although he does his best these days to talk down their friendship. Snorri confided in him that he had been through a rough patch of drinking and presumably drug use, and that he lost a whole week of his life. By chance, the assault on Bylgja took place that same week, which is where things get interesting …’
Ísrún paused and saw that María was waiting anxiously for the rest of the story. This meant points in her favour.
‘Someone had the bright idea of blaming Snorri for the assault, but not publicly – just whispers within the party. The story didn’t go all that far, but it did reach Ellert. He spoke to his son, who confirmed that he had no idea what had happened to him that day. Ellert resigned quickly, for “personal reasons”, and Marteinn took over and became the Prime Minister of the national unity government. And the rest is history, as they say. He’s a young man who has already come far and will undoubtedly make an indelible mark on our political history.’
Ísrún took a deep breath.
María used the opportunity to ask the obvious question. ‘So who had this bright idea?’
‘Marteinn’s adviser, Lára. She admitted to me earlier today that it was her idea and she made sure the lie reached Ellert. I’ll certainly mention that in my piece. I’m under the impression that she’ll resign. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she and Marteinn make their relationship public some time soon, now that she’s decided to sacrifice her career for the man she loves. He’s bound to help her into some comfortable berth sometime later, when everyone’s forgotten all this.’
‘Sacrifice herself for Marteinn?’ María was on her feet. ‘Did he have some part in this?’
‘She flatly denies he had anything to do with it,’ Ísrún said. ‘But I’m not convinced.’
María stood in silence. ‘It’s unbelievable,’ she said. ‘Do you think this could bring the government down?’
‘It’s hard to tell,’ Ísrún said. ‘Lára took care to stop the lie going too far, and Marteinn would naturally deny any knowledge of it.
‘How did you hear about all this?’ María asked, now pacing the floor.
‘From one of the party members; a guy Lára leaked the story to about Snorri’s involvement in the assault. The man’s name is Nói. Once Bylgja died in hospital, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer, so he contacted Emil and told him the whole story – that Snorri had assaulted Bylgja. Nói didn’t know that it was a lie. Emil decided it was time for revenge; I suppose the hatred had been building up inside him for two years.’
‘Good grief,’ María said. ‘So he took it out on Snorri – when he had nothing to do with the assault?’
‘It’s not easy to tell how clearly he was thinking. He must have believed that Róbert and Snorri had both been behind the attack. He enticed Snorri to a place where nobody would see them and murdered him. It seems he borrowed his parents’ car and ran down an innocent man. We know what he did to Róbert; and there’s no way of telling how that could have ended if Emil hadn’t been caught.’
María sat down with a sigh. ‘This is all beyond belief. If I understand this right, an innocent man was murdered, while Róbert, the man who was probably behind that brutal assault, could still get away with it.’
‘He probably will. But Emil himself will be charged. He’ll be inside for years, or locked away in a psychiatric ward.’
‘And Marteinn? Can we nail him?’
‘I’m sure he was behind it, not Lára. It’s obvious, don’t you think?’ Ísrún said. ‘You know what he’s like. He comes across as a great guy, but he’s completely ruthless. There are good reasons why he’s managed to get so far as quickly as he has.’
‘So how are we going to approach this? Do you have anything that pins this on him?’
Ísrún side-stepped the question. ‘I’d like to drop a hint in the news item,’ she said. She knew, however, that if she did, she would be going against her own better judgement, giving way to her own anger and sense of justice.
‘And what proof do you have that he had anything to do with this conspiracy?’ María asked, excited now. ‘If he had a hand in it, then this isn’t just a massive scoop, but the biggest political scandal in years.’
Ísrún hesitated. ‘I don’t have any direct proof … but it’s so obvious …’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ María roared – in disappointment more than anger. ‘We don’t broadcast accusations against the Prime Minister just because you’ve come up with a conspiracy theory, Ísrún; you know that. The news piece can be about corruption within his party and his adviser’s admission of involvement in a terrible tragedy. We can let the viewers draw their own conclusions,’ she decided. ‘But it’s a hell of a scoop, all the same,’ she added, her composure returning.
Ísrún nodded.
She had known all along what María’s reaction would be. And she also reckoned she knew Marteinn well enough to be sure that he would weather the storm.
47
It was evening in Siglufjördur and it was almost time to visit Delía. It was quite stormy, fresh northerly air blowing in from the ocean. Ari Thór had made full use of the day, gathering the information he felt he needed to support a concrete theory. He and Kristín had gone back to Ólafsfjördur to visit the retired midwife a second time. The result of their conversation was far from conclusive, but his theory was firm in his mind.
There was a knock on the door of his house in Eyrargata, and when he opened it, he was surprised to see Tómas standing outside. He hurried in without waiting to be asked, escaping the rain outside.
‘Hello,’ Ari Thór said with a smile. ‘Do come in.’
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Tómas said. ‘Are you busy?’
‘Not specially. Kristín and I are about to go out. We’re going to meet Hédinn to see some old film of Hédinsfjördur,’ he said, deciding to let that short explanation suffice.
‘Sounds good,’ Tómas said. ‘I just need a quiet word.’
‘Of course.’ He showed Tómas into the living room. ‘Kristín’s upstairs getting herself ready,’ he said and realised that Kristín and Tómas had never met. He felt it was probably better to keep it that way – preferring to keep the world of the rootless young man who had hooked Kristín separate from that of the Siglufjördur police officer who had wrecked every possible aspect of his personal life.
‘I knocked earlier,’ Tómas said when he had sat down.
‘We went over to Ólafsfjördur,’ Ari Thór said.
‘Something happened today,’ Tómas said gravely. ‘I wanted to talk to you face to face about it.’
Ari Thór felt a wave of discomfort come over him and wondered what to expect.
‘I had an offer on the house today,’ Tómas said haltingly. ‘An offer from a buyer – not a potential tenant, which is what I had been expecting.’
‘Well … that didn’t take long.’
‘No. It’s happened very fast – faster than I had imagined. As soon as it was advertised in fact. It’s some doctor who lives in London but who has roots here. He’s been on the lookout for a decent house up here and said that mine looks like his dream home. He made a good offer – above the asking price. Said he didn’t want to miss the opportunity.’
‘Well,’ Ari Thór said. ‘You’d best think it over carefully.’
Tómas looked away. ‘We’ve already accepted the offer,’ he said awkwardly.
‘What?’ Ari Thór stammered.
‘That’s right. My wife said we couldn’t dare turn down an offer like that. It’s not as if it’s easy to sell property around here at such a decent price.’
‘So are you taking leave?’ Ari Thór asked, his heart pounding at the thought of the change about to come.
‘No, my boy. I’m resigning,’ Tómas said with an awkward smile. ‘It’s time to try my luck elsewhere. We’re going to start again down south.’
Ari Thór said nothing.
‘My job will be advertised and I’d like you to apply for it,’ Tómas continued. ‘It goes without saying that I’ll recommend you for the position. I can’t imagine that you’ll be overlooked.’
It was exactly eight o’clock when Ari Thór and Kristín hurried from her car up to the little, corrugated-iron-clad house. The storm had gathered strength. The wind threatened to send them flying and the rain hammered down unmercifully. The streets were mostly deserted, few people were interested in braving the elements.
Ari Thór rang the bell. This time there was no need to hold a conversation through the letterbox. It didn’t take Delía long to come to the door.
‘Come inside,’ she smiled. ‘Dreadful weather, isn’t it?’
‘Thank you,’ Ari Thór said. ‘This is … This is Kristín.’
‘Pleased to meet you, my dear,’ Delía replied. ‘The projector is ready in the kitchen. There isn’t a lot of room, so we’ll have to squeeze together, if nobody minds.’
Ari Thór and Kristín followed her into the kitchen, where he noticed that there were two chairs and one stool. Delía hadn’t expected an extra guest.
‘Do you have another chair?’ Ari Thór asked.
Delía nodded, vanished from the room and returned with another stool.
The projector stood on the kitchen table with its green-and-white plastic cloth, alongside coffee cups and a plate of rolled pancakes. Two candles burned on the windowsill, giving the room a peaceful ambience while the storm raged outside. The rain was beating heavily on the windows and the wind managed to squeeze through gaps in the less-than-perfectly insulated windows of the old house. For a moment Ari almost had the feeling that the house might collapse.
Ari Thór took one stool and Kristín took a seat beside him on the other.
‘I do hope Hédinn enjoys watching the film,’ Delía said from the doorway. ‘I ought to get it transferred to a video tape for him one day.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Ari Thór agreed, refraining from pointing out that the golden age of video tapes was long over.
Delía was on her feet to answer the door as soon as the bell chimed. She showed Hédinn into the kitchen. Ari Thór stood up to greet him.
Hédinn nodded and mumbled something indistinct. He was dressed in his best – a checked suit that he filled out with no room to spare; a white shirt and a red tie. It was easy to imagine that these clothes had been acquired at a time when Hédinn had been both a few years younger and a few kilos lighter.
Kristín stood, introduced herself and shook Hédinn’s hand.
‘Good evening. My name’s Hédinn,’ he said, his voice clearer.
‘Sit yourselves down. There’s coffee in the pot,’ Delía said. ‘It makes a change to have visitors, especially in weather like this.’
Hédinn silently took a seat at the table, apparently unaffected by Delía’s cheerful demeanour.
Delía poured coffee into the cups, offered milk and sugar, and urged her guests to sample the pancakes.
‘Should we start the show?’ she asked, switching on the projector.
‘Absolutely,’ Ari Thór agreed, and turned to Hédinn. ‘As you know, I’ve been going over the case over the last few days. A lot has happened since I spoke to you last that casts some light on what happened. When the film has been shown, I’d like to share with all of you my theory about the circumstances around Jórunn’s death.’
‘Theory?’ Hédinn asked in surprise. ‘You mean …?’ His breathing came shallow and fast, and he seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
‘It’s difficult to say with certainty what happened all those years ago,’ Ari Thór said, trying not to sound too authoritative. ‘But I think I know what took place that winter in Hédinsfjördur.’
Delía clicked off the kitchen lights. The lights in the living room were also off, so the only light came from the candles in the window and the projector itself. There was the feeling of anticipation normally found in a cinema just as the film begins. The atmosphere in the room was thick with tension, with the storm outside adding to the gloomy, almost sinister ambiance. Hédinn muttered something to himself and his heavy breathing almost drowned out the projector’s clatter. But he sat in silence as images began to appear on the kitchen wall and Jórunn appeared, smiling at them. This evening would maybe reveal just why she had died so suddenly.
Ari Thór had seen the footage before, but the film had the same overwhelming effect on him. The spirit of a long-gone age filled the kitchen, and the beauty of the remote fjord, resplendent in its white winter finery, was almost tangible.
Ari Thór heard Hédinn gasp as the young man appeared on the screen. Kristín also seemed to feel far from comfortable when she saw him, and fumbled to clasp Ari Thór’s hand tightly.
‘Well, I’ll be … That’s Dad there,’ Hédinn mumbled as Gudmundur was seen in the distance. ‘Remarkable, quite remarkable.’
There was silence in the little kitchen as the film came to an end, as if all those present needed a moment’s quiet to make their way back to the twenty-first century from the black-and-white Hédinsfjördur winter of more than fifty years before.
A heavy gust of wind battered the walls of the iron-clad house, bringing them all back to reality.
‘Well,’ Ari Thór said, speaking into the half-darkness. ‘Hédinn, you don’t mind if I explain briefly the theory about the young man and Jórunn’s death?’
‘Of course not … There’s nothing to hide. Feel free. I’m intrigued to know what you have to say. I’d just ask that none of this goes further than this room,’ he said, with an awkward glance at Delía.
‘You can trust me, Hédinn,’ she said.
Ari Thór turned his stool so that he was facing Hédinn rather than the wall.
‘My suggestion is that Jórunn’s death is linked to something that was a sensitive subject at that time, and which some people feel is still controversial today. But it’s best to begin at the beginning. We need to go back further, to around 1950.’
‘When Jórunn’s and Maríus’s son was born?’ Hédinn asked.
‘Exactly. The evidence is that they had a son. He would be in his sixties now, if he’s alive. I haven’t been able to find out anything about what became of him, though. Jórunn and Maríus were both about twenty at the time. I understand that Maríus’s brother, Nikulás, encouraged them to put the child up for adoption. Maríus was out of work and they certainly didn’t trust themselves to support a family.’
/> ‘That’s interesting,’ Delía observed. ‘Hédinn, you’ll have to try and find the man.’
Hédinn mumbled something.
‘Maríus has been described as having been easily led; immature, even,’ Ari Thór continued. ‘Maybe he wasn’t ready for parenthood at that time, but the descriptions cast a little light on what happened later on,’ he said and paused.
‘That fits perfectly with my memories of my uncle Maríus,’ Hédinn said in a low voice, hardly louder than the whistling of the wind outside. ‘He was a kindly soul, but not a strong man. He was quiet and retiring – I thought he had become like that after his wife passed away, but it may well be that he had always been that way. People don’t change that much as they get older.’
‘You’re damned right there,’ Delía broke in. ‘I still feel like I’m twenty. The only change is what I see in the mirror,’ she said, and her observation lightened the mood somewhat.
‘It’s interesting to compare these descriptions of the man with those of his brother-in-law, Gudmundur,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Most people agree that Gudmundur was the complete opposite: a strong, decisive man who was used to getting his own way.’
‘That’s true. Nobody pushed the old man about. He always got what he wanted and never gave an inch,’ Hédinn said with pride.
‘That’s right,’ Ari Thór said. ‘All the same, it seems he had a thoughtful side that doesn’t sit comfortably with the image of the man that I have.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Hédinn asked in a sharp voice.
‘I mean that he appears to have gone out of his way to look after his brother- and sister-in-law.’
‘And is there anything odd about that?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘So what did Gudmundur do?’ Delía asked cautiously, as if hardly daring to break the tension that had built up between Ari Thór and Hédinn.
‘To begin with, he found work for Maríus in Siglufjördur; and then he invited the couple to join in on the Hédinsfjördur adventure, which I assume he must have paid for,’ Ari Thór said. ‘As well as that, he also offered to take in their little boy, before he was put up for adoption. A letter has come to light in which he makes that possibility plain. But as far as I can ascertain, the upshot was that strangers from elsewhere in the country adopted him. Jórunn was unwilling to run the risk of meeting her son by chance. I can imagine that she never saw him after she gave him away, and most likely Maríus never saw him either.’
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