The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  It was a welcome opportunity to find out what was happening. Although they’d attended the scene yesterday evening when the body was found, today they’d been relegated to the bottom of the heap again. While other members of the department were bustling around, they were sitting almost empty-handed. It was absurd given how much donkey work needed to be done.

  From what passed between Erla and the guy at the next desk, it was clear there was a ton of information that needed sifting through. Experts from Forensics had examined Stella’s laptop and phone overnight, and passed on copies of any material they found interesting. Records of Stella’s social media activity were also available, which meant there were hundreds if not thousands of posts that needed skimming through. The CCTV footage from the cinema required further attention since the first viewing hadn’t produced any results. The crowds that had gathered in the foyer before the screens opened and poured out of the auditoriums during the intervals had made it incredibly difficult to spot potential suspects. The results of the post-mortem were also due any minute, along with a preliminary report on material found at the scene where the body was dumped. The latter shouldn’t take long to read as Huldar had gathered from the forensics team yesterday evening that evidence had been thin on the ground in the car park, apart from the sheet of paper with the number two on it.

  On top of all this, the police had a long list of people who needed interviewing, some for the second time – particularly those, like Stella’s parents, who had been too traumatised the first time round. Huldar pricked up his ears when he heard this, hoping it would involve more interviews with adolescents, which would give him an excuse to bring in Freyja. But Erla didn’t mention any. He only hoped she wouldn’t let her hostility towards Freyja have an adverse impact on the inquiry. Certainly she hadn’t said a word about Freyja’s e-mail or the bullying angle yet. But perhaps she was working up to it.

  ‘If I had unlimited manpower I’d send someone for another chat with the two women whose letterbox the phone was dropped through.’ Erla exhaled irritably. ‘One of them was definitely behaving suspiciously. I didn’t manage to catch her out but she was nervous. Unnaturally nervous, I reckon.’

  ‘Gudlaugur and I can cover that,’ Huldar cut in, betraying the fact he’d been eavesdropping. ‘It might make sense for someone different to have a word with them. To get a second opinion.’

  Erla’s head snapped round. Gudlaugur was bending over his computer, pretending not to listen. ‘What? You two?’

  ‘Sure. Why not? We’ve got nothing else on. Or have you got another job for us? We’re all ears.’ Huldar’s smile earned him a grimace. For a moment, meeting her contemptuous look, he missed the days when they were mates. Back before they’d slept together, before internal affairs had ripped and chewed their way through the tatters of their friendship. In the fraction of a second before Erla answered, he wondered if they’d ever be mates again.

  ‘OK. Go ahead.’ Erla put her hands on her lean hips, a malicious grin crossing her face. ‘And take Kári with you. It’ll be good to get him out of my hair as well as the pair of you.’

  There was a snigger from the detective Erla had been talking to. Huldar didn’t give a damn. He’d actually succeeded in prising an assignment out of her. Holding Erla’s gaze, he asked: ‘Which was it?’

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘Which of the women was jittery? The nurse or the doctor?’

  ‘The nurse, Ásta. The doctor’s called Thórey. You’ll find her details in the report. It’s in the case folder on the server. And mind out for Kári’s ankle.’ She turned back to the man she had been talking to, presenting Huldar with the uncompromising line of her knobbly spine, jutting through her tight shirt.

  The nurse, Ásta, looked like the type who goes jogging or mountain walking every day after work and cycles hundreds of kilometres every weekend. She positively glowed with vitality. Though it was December, her thick blonde shoulder-length hair appeared sun-kissed and she was healthily tanned. Huldar suppressed a sigh over the injustice of it. But any further such thoughts were nipped in the bud when he recalled his colleague Helgi’s sleazy comments about lesbians.

  Ásta was reluctant to let them in. She blocked the doorway for as long as she could, as if hoping they’d change their minds. When they persisted, she reluctantly made way for them. Yet it wasn’t as if they’d turned up unannounced. Huldar had rung ahead, assuming both women would be at work and that he’d have to speak to them in some quiet corner of the hospital. Or outside in the car, maybe. But the one he was interested in, Ásta, turned out to be at home.

  ‘I don’t know what else you want from me,’ Ásta protested. ‘I told the police yesterday that we don’t know the girl. Nothing’s changed since then.’ She led them into the kitchen and gestured to the chairs but didn’t offer them any coffee. Not even a glass of water. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was neat and unpretentious, though everywhere you looked you could see signs that they had kids. The fridge was covered with drawings by their two daughters. Some were little more than crayon scribbles by a very young child who was just learning to draw people. Circles with eyes and mouth, stick limbs. The other pictures were better executed and the people in them had hair, bodies and clothes. Most were drawings of the family: four smiling figures in dresses, two big and two small, all holding hands. Each figure was clumsily labelled: ‘Mummy’, ‘Mummy’, ‘Ósk’ and ‘Sól’. It was lucky the girls had such short names as there wouldn’t have been room on the paper for any more big, wobbly letters. From the back of the house came the screeching soundtrack of a cartoon. It seemed the small artists were at home.

  ‘We’ve just got a few more questions.’ Huldar pulled out a kitchen chair. ‘It won’t take long. Sometimes things come back to people after we’ve left, so we do a routine follow-up.’

  Ásta propped herself against the kitchen unit as the three of them took their seats and Kári laid down his crutches. He grunted as he lowered himself into a chair.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Ásta gestured at Kári’s plaster cast sticking out from under the table. Huldar doubted her interest was genuine: she must get enough of sick people at work. Personally he had zero interest in maintaining law and order during his free time. He guessed her question was no more than a delaying tactic.

  ‘I broke my ankle.’ As Kári embarked on the tedious tale of how he’d injured himself, Huldar thought Ásta looked pleased at the temporary respite this offered from their questions. He and Gudlaugur had already been subjected to the story in the car. Still, at least it wasn’t as boring as Kári’s droning on about his déjà vu in the car park. Huldar broke in before he could move on to that.

  ‘Anyway, I suppose we’d better get down to business. The sooner we do, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair.’ Ásta immediately showed signs of being on edge again, reaching for a cloth by the sink and starting to wipe down the already spotless work surface. Huldar went on with what he was saying, pretending not to notice. Erla had been right: the woman was definitely nervous. He reminded himself that he never used to doubt Erla’s instincts and that there was no reason to do so now, just because they’d fallen out. ‘Yesterday you told my colleagues you didn’t know the missing girl, Stella Hardardóttir. Have you had time since then to search your memory for any possible connection?’ Rising to his feet, he laid a blown-up photo of Stella on the worktop in front of her, then sat down again.

  ‘The answer’s still no. I’ve never met her.’ Ásta didn’t pick the picture up or appear to give it more than a fleeting glance.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ When she nodded, Huldar persevered: ‘Could you have nursed her at the hospital?’

  ‘I doubt it. I work in the cardiology ward. We don’t tend to get children or teenagers in there.’

  ‘You haven’t done any extra shifts at the Children’s Hospital? Or as a school nurse?’

  ‘No.’ Ásta started cleaning the worktop again, avoiding Huldar’s eyes. She wiped around the
photo, as though reluctant to touch it. ‘You can ask all the questions you like: I don’t know the girl. And I have absolutely no idea why her phone was put through our door.’

  Huldar wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘Could you have come across her at the cinema where she worked? Taken your daughters to a film and exchanged a few words with her in the interval maybe?’

  ‘No. How often do I have to repeat it? I don’t know her.’

  Huldar couldn’t deny that in spite of her strange behaviour and obvious tension, the woman sounded convincing. He cleared his throat. The police were going to issue a press release about the discovery of the body before the midday news. As it was already ten o’clock, he saw no reason to withhold the fact any longer. ‘I’m going to let you into a secret. We’ve found the girl. She’s dead. Murdered. So perhaps you’ll understand why we have to keep repeating the same questions. It doesn’t get any more serious than this.’

  The cloth stopped moving on the worktop. Ásta’s knuckles were white. ‘Will you catch the person who did it?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  She seemed relieved. If she was mixed up in Stella’s case, he was willing to bet it wasn’t through any involvement with the killer. But her behaviour was definitely odd and it was hard to imagine what else she could have to hide. ‘What about the phone? Did it look familiar?’ Huldar had seen a photo of it and, apart from the decorative case, it had looked like pretty much every other teenager’s phone in the country.

  ‘The phone? No. I’d never seen it before.’ Ásta wrinkled her brow, puzzled. Her gaze, no longer lowered to the worktop, was fixed on Gudlaugur. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Me?’ Gudlaugur blushed and looked shifty. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I could have sworn I’ve met you before.’ The woman appeared to be genuinely struggling to remember, though Huldar suspected this was just another ruse to change the subject. ‘Have you ever been to Cardiology?’

  Gudlaugur shifted in his seat, turning away from her. ‘Me? No. I don’t believe we know each other.’

  ‘I expect he’s got one of those typical Icelandic faces that you always think you’ve seen before,’ Kári volunteered, apparently failing to notice Gudlaugur’s peculiar reaction.

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t think that’s it.’ Ásta studied Gudlaugur’s red face thoughtfully. ‘I’ve definitely seen you before. It’ll come back to me as soon as I stop trying to remember.’

  Gudlaugur stood up with a loud scraping of his chair. ‘Could I use your toilet?’

  She told him where to find it and Gudlaugur fled the kitchen. Huldar tried not to let this development throw him off track, but it was hard. What the hell was going on? ‘If you find it easier to remember things when you stop trying, do you think it might come back to you later? Where you’ve encountered Stella before, I mean. Perhaps we could drop by this afternoon and have another go.’

  ‘That’s different, because I’m positive I never met her. So there’s nothing to remember. But I know I’ve seen your colleague before. What’s his name again?’

  ‘Gudlaugur. Gudlaugur Vignisson.’

  ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

  ‘Anyway.’ Huldar returned to the matter at hand. He’d have plenty of opportunity to interrogate Gudlaugur later. ‘What about your wife, Thórey? Has she remembered anything?’

  ‘No,’ Ásta said flatly. ‘She doesn’t know the girl.’

  Huldar decided a slight change of tactics was in order. ‘All right then. Tell me, what do you know about bullying?’

  ‘Bullying?’ Ásta repeated the word as if she’d never heard it before. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Bullying. Have you ever been bullied? You, or your daughters, or your wife? Or, let’s put it another way, have you or any member of your family ever bullied anyone?’ Huldar wondered if he should mention her daughter’s squint in this context but decided against it; no need to put her back up any further.

  Her eyes dropped again to the cloth in her hands. ‘No.’ Shaking her head, she said again: ‘No.’

  ‘Quite sure?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’ But she didn’t look or sound it. Her face hardened. ‘I’d rather not answer any more of your questions. They’re getting ridiculous. Surely your time would be better spent investigating something that’s actually relevant? My time’s precious too, you know. I’m on duty this evening and I hadn’t bargained on wasting half my day.’

  ‘You can’t always tell what is or isn’t relevant at the beginning of an inquiry,’ Kári offered sagely, looking smug. He was right, of course, but Huldar hoped he wasn’t about to become overconfident and start muscling in on the conversation.

  Kári lapsed back into silence, though, and Huldar was able to go on questioning the woman until he’d run out of things to ask and was becoming as fed up as Ásta was. Her answers were all along the same lines: no, no, I don’t know or I’ve already said no. Every time she opened her mouth she sounded more resigned, yet she stuck to her guns. While this was going on, Gudlaugur returned from the toilet and sat down again, this time on the other side of the table. He didn’t seem himself, contributed nothing to the interview and gave the impression of counting down the minutes until they could leave. Before they did, Huldar decided to copy his ploy and see if leaving the three of them alone together would achieve anything. ‘I couldn’t use your loo as well, could I?’

  Ásta looked surprised. ‘What, don’t you lot have any toilets at the police station?’ When Huldar merely smiled, she muttered her consent.

  On the way there he passed the room from which the cartoon voices were emanating and, peering round the door, saw a large TV on a low stand, showing blue cartoon parrots rolling around on a beach. The two daughters were sitting on the sofa. Neither looked like Ásta. Perhaps they took after their other mother. Certainly, they bore a striking resemblance to each other, as though they were the same girl in different sizes, apart from the eye patch worn by the elder sister. Both had rosy cheeks, slightly protruding ears and big blue eyes that were now regarding him in surprise from under wavy, mouse-coloured fringes. ‘Who are you?’ the elder girl asked while her little sister snuggled against her. The patch made her look like a sweet little pirate. Huldar wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the parrots had flown out of the television and perched on her shoulder.

  ‘My name’s Huldar.’ He smiled at them, injecting as much warmth and likeability into his voice as he knew how. ‘Shouldn’t you two be at school?’

  ‘We’ve got the day off. It’s teacher training day. And Sól was allowed to stay home because I’m here. She doesn’t go to school yet. She’s at nursery.’ The girl lifted up the patch.

  ‘I do go to school. Nursery school.’ After this brief outburst, the younger girl ducked behind her sister again.

  Ignoring her, the elder girl let her patch fall back into place. ‘Are you a cop?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Huldar decided to answer honestly, though he’d rather have said he was a plumber to forestall the inevitable questions about what he was doing there. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘I know. I saw you out of the window yesterday. You were wearing a uniform. Why aren’t you wearing a uniform now?’

  ‘I only wear it sometimes.’ He waved goodbye and turned to continue down the hall.

  ‘You made Mummy cry.’ It sounded matter-of-fact rather than accusatory.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Not you. The police. That woman. Mummy cried a lot. After you all went home.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know. We didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Nobody knew. Only me. She hid in the bathroom so Mummy Thórey wouldn’t see.’ The girl paused and frowned. Lifting up her nose a little, she wound a strand of hair between her fingers. ‘Has Mummy done something bad? Are you going to put her in prison?’ The little sister’s head popped up again, staring at Huldar with wide eyes.

  ‘No. Of course not. The police often have to talk to people who haven’t done anything wrong. That’
s why we’re here. There’s really nothing to worry about.’ He pointed at the TV. ‘Except how that parrot fight’s going to end.’

  The girls turned back to the screen and Huldar made his escape. He couldn’t be bothered to keep up the pretence of going to the loo, so he went straight back to the kitchen to fetch Gudlaugur and Kári. They might as well leave. The woman wouldn’t provide any answers, however long they grilled her, and she’d already betrayed the fact that there was something funny going on. As he left, he placed his card on the kitchen table and asked Ásta to call him if she remembered anything. He didn’t for a minute believe she would.

  On the way back to the station Kári started boring on about his ankle again. Huldar tightened his grip on the steering wheel, threw Gudlaugur a sideways glance, and asked, not caring that he was talking over Kári: ‘What exactly was going on back there?’

  ‘Going on?’ Gudlaugur kept his eyes straight ahead; you’d have thought he, not Huldar, was driving. He was sitting bolt upright, as if his seat back had been cranked up too far. ‘In my opinion she knows something she’s not letting on. But it’s anybody’s guess what it is.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about that. I meant what was going on between the two of you? Where does she know you from?’

  ‘She was mistaken. I’ve never met her before.’

  ‘You do realise you sound about as convincing as she did when she denied knowing Stella?’ Huldar snatched another glance at Gudlaugur, then returned his eyes to the road. The young man was looking as twitchy as he had in Ásta’s kitchen. ‘Come on, where does she know you from?’

  ‘Look, I haven’t a clue, all right? I’ve never met her before in my life.’

  Huldar gripped the steering wheel even harder and drove on without asking again. In the back seat Kári was still gassing away, completely oblivious to the undercurrents in the front.