The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  There was nothing she could say, no way of getting across to the girl that better times were around the corner. Realistically, to have any effect, Freyja would need to see her regularly for counselling sessions over a long period. Just telling her it would soon sort itself out would sound like an empty platitude. Talking about the future was no comfort when it was the present that was crushing a person’s heart and soul. Especially when it came to teenagers, for whom the future was what happened next week. You couldn’t take it for granted, either, that things would get better. Some people were eternal victims, bringing out their fellow human beings’ baser instincts. And workplaces were as fertile a breeding ground for bullying as any school, though at least you could change your job.

  In spite of this, Freyja decided to share her own experiences with Adalheidur, in the hope that they might provide temporary relief from her misery. ‘You know, I went through the same sort of thing at school, though not quite as bad. In my case things got better as soon as I went to college. New environment, new kids. You’ll probably find the same thing.’ She glossed over the fact that it hadn’t been quite that simple; she’d had to take a Saturday job to earn money for nicer clothes, a phone and a computer. And then there had been the mirror she’d hung up in the cycle shed of the block of flats where she lived, so she could put on her make-up before school without being denounced as the whore of Babylon.

  Adalheidur snorted again, then gave Freyja a challenging stare, her mouth set in a hard line. ‘Don’t think I’m going to help you catch that man.’ She pushed herself upright again, holding her chin higher than before. ‘I bet Stella showed her true colours and someone finally noticed.’

  The outburst was to be expected and Freyja didn’t rise to it, just continued in a calm voice: ‘I can tell you one thing, Adalheidur. Though you may not believe it now, sooner or later you’ll change your mind. I don’t know the exact details of what Stella did to you, but nothing can justify what’s happened to her. It’s easy to think all kinds of things when you’re upset. But over time your attitude will soften. It’s human nature. Hopefully it won’t be long before Stella and her mates stop mattering to you. Hold on to that thought and don’t let yourself get bogged down in hating them or yourself. You never know, it might make your current situation a little easier to bear.’

  The girl’s voice shook with rage as she answered: ‘I’m not trying to make things better or fix them. I’m just telling the truth. Anyway, I’m going. I’ve got nothing more to say to you, and my dad’s waiting.’

  There was no point detaining her any longer. She’d described a different side of Stella from the one the police had been told about so far. Stella wasn’t just the nice, popular kid; she was capable of acting with astonishing cruelty, with a total disregard for other people’s feelings. In other words, she was two-faced, like so many people. Of course, no one label was ever adequate to describe the mass of inconsistencies that made up an individual, any more than a single stroke of a brush could constitute a painting. It was hard to see, though, what connection there could be between Adalheidur’s story and the attack. The victims of bullying rarely took revenge. Quite apart from which, the girl was far too small and skinny to be the person in the CCTV footage. But she was bound to have male relatives who were bigger and stronger. Her father, for example. Perhaps he’d been driven to distraction by the way his daughter was being treated? It wasn’t entirely implausible.

  ‘Of course you’re free to go. But you may be contacted again. The police may want to hear for themselves what you have to say. Do you have a phone?’ An absurd question; Freyja might as well have asked if she had a head. There wasn’t a teenager in Iceland who didn’t have a phone.

  Adalheidur gave Freyja her number, then went to the door, her shoulders as hunched now as they had been when Freyja was pursuing her down the corridor. Before leaving the room, she paused, looked round and said, so quietly that Freyja wasn’t sure she’d heard right: ‘I hope Stella’s dead.’

  Then she turned and walked away, her head held high.

  The door swung shut and Freyja was left standing there, staring blankly at the equations on the board. Then, remembering the girl’s father, she hurried after her, keen to get a look at him.

  Adalheidur didn’t notice her; her head was hanging once again. It wasn’t far to the main exit and once the girl had gone through the large glass doors she headed straight for the car parked outside, almost breaking into a run. Freyja remained inside, watching. From what she could see, the driver was middle-aged and his face was set in harsh lines as he sat staring straight ahead. Freyja couldn’t see if it softened when he turned to his daughter as she got into the car, as the back of his head didn’t convey much. But when he faced the front again the grimness was still there. He drove off, faster than necessary, and when Freyja stepped outside to watch, she noticed three pupils jumping out of his path to avoid being run over. The man didn’t slow down. It seemed Adalheidur wasn’t the only member of her family consumed by a justifiable but no doubt corrosive sense of bitterness.

  Chapter 6

  Flashing blue lights lit up the snow outside the house, making the scene appear almost Christmassy, though there was nothing else particularly festive about it. Squad cars were lined up in front of the drab, single-storey terraced house. Police officers were fanning out around the property. Neighbours stood silhouetted in doorways, watching intently; one couple even had a bowl of popcorn.

  Huldar stamped his feet and blew on his hands, sending clouds of vapour streaming out through his fingers. His police parka and uniform, which he hadn’t had a chance to change after visiting the school, were stiff with frost. He would have given anything to go indoors, but the odds of that happening any time soon were virtually nil. Erla was responsible for deciding who went in with her to talk to the stricken occupants and who stood guard outside, and he wasn’t in her good books. Relations between them had soured still further when he’d involved Freyja in the inquiry without asking Erla’s permission. She’d given him hell for that; his protests that the school had insisted and that Erla herself had been busy talking to Stella’s parents at the time had cut no ice. To make matters worse, the school had rung to request that a representative from children’s services be present whenever the police spoke to any of their pupils, preferably a child psychologist, in case it all proved too much for them. Management had agreed, effectively making Freyja one of the team, to Erla’s even greater vexation. She seemed to believe that Huldar had plotted the whole thing, which couldn’t have been further from the truth: he wasn’t that cunning. He had merely set the ball rolling.

  He extracted a cigarette from the crumpled packet and pushed it back into his jacket pocket. As always, the first drag warmed him up a little and he wondered idly why this was. If he voiced the question aloud, Gudlaugur, who was standing beside him, was sure to look up the explanation on his phone. But Huldar doubted he’d like the answer: online searches never threw up anything positive about smoking. Besides, Gudlaugur appeared to be busy admiring the shapely backside of a young woman from Forensics, who was bending over some footprints in the snow with another technician. The assumption was that the prints belonged to the person who had shoved Stella’s phone through the letterbox. Huldar gestured at the young woman with his cigarette. ‘Reckon she’s taken?’

  Gudlaugur blinked at him in surprise. ‘I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask her?’

  ‘I was thinking about her for you. She looks like your type.’ Huldar took another drag, taking care not to blow the smoke in Gudlaugur’s face. ‘My type’s not that friendly; wouldn’t give us a sweet smile like she did. I tend to go for snarky women. Or moody ones.’ He omitted to mention that the snarkiness and moodiness didn’t usually become apparent until after he’d got to know them. To begin with, they were all smiles. Or most were. Though, of course, going home with a stroppy cow could have its moments. ‘Anyway, how about it? Want me to introduce you?’

  ‘Er, no, thanks.’ Gudl
augur tried to blow some warmth into his numb fingers. If his cheeks hadn’t already been scarlet with the cold, no doubt he’d have blushed: it didn’t take much to set him off. ‘She’s not my type either. Anyway, I’m perfectly capable of pulling without your help.’

  Huldar didn’t comment on this. He knew Gudlaugur better. The young man was crippled by shyness and the few times they’d gone out on the town together, he hadn’t once plucked up the courage to approach any women. Even when they’d obviously been checking him out. But if he didn’t want advice, Huldar wasn’t about to force it on him. When it came to relationships, his advice was better avoided.

  ‘Is he sending us a message by dumping the phone here?’ Gudlaugur asked in a transparent attempt to change the subject. They’d already tossed this question back and forth between them without coming to any conclusion.

  ‘No idea – any more than I did earlier. But I’m beginning to think the location must be significant. Maybe he was passing. Maybe he lives in the area. Maybe he’s the guy next door with the popcorn.’ They both glanced at the couple with the bowl and watched as the husband shovelled a handful into his mouth.

  Huldar shook his head and turned back to the garden. The chill was creeping into his bones again; the nicotine had stopped working. ‘When’s Erla going to call it a day? We might as well be in the office, doing something useful. Like eating.’ He pinched out his cigarette butt and carefully put it back in the packet so Forensics wouldn’t pluck it out of the snow and send it for analysis. ‘It must be clear by now that Stella’s not here.’ The over-the-top response to the tracing of the girl’s phone had stemmed from their belief that her body might turn up nearby, but the two tracker dogs from the K9 unit had scoured the area and drawn a blank, swiftly extinguishing that hope. Yet, in spite of this, no one appeared to be leaving. The dogs, bored, had just cocked their legs on the wheels of the vehicle that had brought them there.

  The door of the terraced house opened and a detective came out. It was Helgi. Past his prime and with his coat unzipped to reveal a big belly straining at his shirt. He’d certainly embraced middle age: too much food, too many beers, not enough hair. Although Helgi was no great mate of his, Huldar tapped Gudlaugur on the shoulder and jerked his head towards him. He knew Helgi would love this chance to wallow in his superior knowledge but he didn’t care. He was fed up with being kept in the dark. All he and Gudlaugur knew was that the phone had been traced here after a picture had been sent an hour ago to all Stella’s Snapchat followers.

  Huldar had been the first police officer to see the picture, having leapt down from the stage in the assembly hall and snatched the phone from the first teenager who hadn’t yet viewed the Snap. The photo showed the fully dressed body of a girl. Her head wasn’t visible – mercifully, as it was unlikely to be a pretty sight after being bashed in with the fire extinguisher – but the clothes looked like Stella’s. Whether it had been taken at the cinema or afterwards was unclear. The caption, written on a black strip across the picture – Cruelty has a human heart – sounded like a quotation, but Huldar didn’t recognise it. Mindful of the tutorial he’d been given on Snapchat, he took a screenshot of the photo before it could self-destruct, then reported it to the station and confiscated two more phones on which the Snap hadn’t been opened, much to the disgust of their owners.

  ‘Hey, Helgi!’ Huldar sped up, determined to catch the other man before he got to his car.

  Helgi turned, his face registering displeasure when he saw who it was. ‘What?’ He screwed up his eyes, shielding them against the glare of the flashing lights.

  ‘What’s happening in there? Are they nearly done?’ Huldar stopped at the end of the paved path that led from the front door to the drive, and Gudlaugur came up beside him, blocking the exit.

  ‘Yes, nearly.’ Helgi’s annoyance at being cornered evaporated when he realised he had the upper hand: he was in possession of information they wanted. ‘Why are you in uniform, lads? You must be freezing your balls off out here.’ His face split in an evil smile. ‘Won’t Erla let you in or are you just scared she’ll feel you up?’

  ‘What did you fucking say?’ Huldar advanced threateningly almost before the words were out of Helgi’s mouth. Attack was sometimes the best form of defence and he was keen to discourage any further comments along these lines.

  ‘Keep your hair on.’ The whites of Helgi’s eyes showed as he glanced round for an escape route. Ever since Huldar had stubbed out a cigarette in the eye of an arrested suspect he’d gained a reputation as a bit of a psycho. He made no effort to quash the rumours as there were advantages to keeping his colleagues on edge. Pity the incident was fading from people’s memories and he kept having to bang the table, so to speak, to reinforce his image.

  ‘Do I have to ask again? What’s happening? Is there any link between Stella and the people who live here?’

  The smirk had vanished and Helgi’s tone was almost civil as he answered: ‘No – or none they’re admitting. They know who she is from the news but they’re not relatives and they claim not to know her or her family.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘A couple of lezzies.’ Helgi’s nasty grin returned. ‘One’s a doctor, the other a nurse. They’re married or partners or whatever it’s called.’ He winked at Huldar and Gudlaugur, who stared back expressionlessly. When Helgi went on, Huldar couldn’t decide if he’d misread their reaction or was even more of a fool than he’d thought. ‘They’re both pretty tasty, I can tell you. I wouldn’t hesitate if they invited me to join in, know what I mean?’ He winked again.

  ‘I think you’ve misunderstood the basic concept, Helgi.’ Huldar made no effort to hide his contempt. ‘They’re into women. They wouldn’t touch the likes of you with a barge-pole. So spare us your pathetic fantasies.’

  Helgi’s jaw sagged a little as his brain cast around furiously for a comeback, but Gudlaugur got in first. ‘Look, can we stick to the point? Have they got any kids Stella’s age?’

  Helgi looked relieved at being thrown a question he could answer without sending his brain into overdrive. ‘No. Two little girls: one’s just started school, the other’s still at nursery. No links, like I said.’ He shivered and tugged at his coat, which he had to hold closed over his gut. ‘The kids keep interrupting the interview. Makes no difference if you shoo them back to their room. The moment your back’s turned they’ve got their heads round the door again. It’s obvious they don’t get visits from the police every day.’ He sighed. ‘One of them’s cross-eyed, looks a real freak. It gives us the willies every time she appears.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, you’re talking about a child, you stupid twat.’

  Gudlaugur intervened before it could escalate into a full-blown row. ‘So, do they reckon the phone was dropped through their door by chance?’

  Helgi turned to the younger man, glad of an excuse to avoid Huldar’s contemptuous glare. ‘No. Erla doesn’t buy it. The person who dumped it deliberately walked up to their front door and stuck it through the letterbox. He didn’t just chuck the phone in the garden as you’d expect if he’d wanted to get rid of it. That’s why it’s taking such a long time. Erla keeps grilling them in the hope of finding a connection to Stella, but so far we’re not getting anywhere.’

  ‘They didn’t see who brought the phone?’ Gudlaugur gestured towards the door.

  ‘They say not. They came in via the garage and didn’t check what was in the box.’

  ‘Box? You mean the phone wasn’t lying on the floor?’

  ‘No. Apparently the previous owners had a dog that used to wait by the door and shred letters and papers as they came through. The postman’s fingers, too. So they fixed a box inside to prevent it. When we turned up and knocked on the door, the phone was still inside, so they may well be telling the truth. They certainly seemed surprised.’

  It wasn’t only Helgi whose brain was working sluggishly. The frost seemed to have paralysed Huldar’s ability to think. The questions that had crow
ded into his head while he and Gudlaugur were on guard wouldn’t come back to him now. If he couldn’t think of anything else to ask, he’d have to let Helgi go as he couldn’t just stand there staring into his vacant, watering eyes much longer. ‘Any news about the phone? Have the tech team managed to unlock it? Have they found any prints?’

  ‘No idea. We haven’t heard yet.’ Helgi shuffled his feet impatiently and Huldar stepped aside to let him pass. Now that he’d come out, presumably Erla and the other two officers would be following him any minute.

  As Helgi’s car door slammed, Gudlaugur muttered: ‘I can’t stand that bloke. He really pisses me off.’

  ‘You’re not the only one.’ They resumed their post in the garden, silently watching the young technicians from Forensics bending over more tracks in the snow. Huldar toyed with the idea of ringing Freyja on the pretext of wanting to hear what had emerged from her conversation with the girl who’d reacted oddly during the head’s speech. But before he could pull out his phone, his attention was caught by a movement in one of the windows. The cheerful pink curtain was pulled aside to reveal a child’s face – the elder daughter, Huldar guessed. In the illumination of the blue flashing lights, her eyes were wide and inquisitive, and one of them was pointing off to the side. The girl had a bit of a squint; she wasn’t cross-eyed like that idiot Helgi had claimed. When she saw Huldar, their gazes locked for an instant before she dropped the curtain back into place.

  Huldar was still staring at the window when the front door opened and Erla came out with her retinue in tow.

  Chapter 7

  The top of Davíd’s head was just visible over the back of the black sofa. His blond hair was unusually tousled, a few tufts standing up on end. Ævar remembered the first time he ever saw his son’s head and thought how much his hair had changed from the black strands that had been plastered over his scalp when the midwife invited him to see it emerging, just before the final push. The sight had etched itself on his memory, horrible yet beautiful at the same time. Feeling faint, he had dashed back to Ágústa’s side. His dizziness was caused not by the sight of the blood or his wife’s unnaturally stretched vulva, so much as by a crushing sense of the responsibility that was about to land on his shoulders – a responsibility he meant to take seriously. Had he known then how things would turn out, he might have surrendered to his faintness and keeled over on the floor of the delivery room.