The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Instead of following her, Huldar decided to stay where he was for a minute or two. He didn’t want to come across like a dog, constantly trailing after her in the hope of a pat or a titbit. So he was still sitting there, gazing unseeingly into his mug, when a uniformed policeman came in. ‘Is Erla not here?’

  ‘No. She went back upstairs. What’s up?’

  The man hovered in the doorway. He was holding a piece of paper that flapped as he waved his hand. ‘We’ve just had a call from the Red Cross. The message was a bit weird but I thought you lot should take a look at it.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘Is she in a bad mood? Should I maybe wait and let the morning shift deliver it?’ Erla’s reputation had obviously spread.

  ‘Dunno. Depends on the message.’ Huldar knocked back the last of his coffee and prepared to listen to some nonsense. The Red Cross wasn’t usually a source of important tip-offs.

  The policeman read out the handwritten note. ‘“One, two, three.”’ He looked up, embarrassed. ‘That made me think it could have something to do with your case.’ He dropped his gaze to the paper again and continued. ‘“You” … in other words, us, the police …’ Huldar gestured at him impatiently to get on with it. ‘… “should look into Lauga’s case.”’

  Huldar leapt to his feet, his drowsiness banished in an instant.

  Like Huldar, Erla had been instantly revitalised by the message. She sat bolt upright, her eyes properly open and the colour returned to her cheeks. Even the black shadows under her eyes seemed to have receded a little. After bringing her the news, Huldar had had to dissuade her from ringing round the entire team.

  The message had been delivered via the charity’s helpline, 1717, a telephone service offering a listening ear to those with problems. Although it was supposed to be confidential, in this instance the man who rang had specifically requested that his message be passed on to the police. Fortunately, the person manning the phone had taken him at his word rather than giving in to his first instinct, which had been to put the call through to the emergency reception at the psychiatric unit. According to him, there had been something odd about the man’s voice, which had made him take his request seriously. It transpired that the call had been made from Egill’s mobile. When Erla learnt this, she raced round to see the technician on duty in Forensics, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the boy’s phone in case it reappeared on the network. Huldar dashed after her, no longer giving a damn if she thought he was following her around like a lapdog. It was worth it, if only to see her bawl out the technician, who they found slumped across his desk, snoring.

  If she had anything to do with it, by the time spring arrived he’d find himself back in uniform, shepherding ducklings across the road in the town centre.

  ‘Who the hell’s Lauga?’ Erla stared at the note that she had been clutching in her fist throughout all the frantic activity of the last hour.

  ‘Search me.’ Huldar had typed the name into the Police Information System as well as their more informal database, which, despite being unauthorised, contained the names of almost all those who had ever set foot in a police station.

  A search for ‘Lauga’ had failed to return any results on either system but then, as well as being a name in its own right, it was short for no less than thirty-six Icelandic women’s names ending in ‘-laug’ and two that began with ‘Laug-’. Both databases threw up countless results, the most common names being Áslaug, Sigurlaug and Gudlaug. ‘It’ll be a hell of a lot of work to sift through all these women. Not impossible, though. The majority of the entries relate to minor offences, and, more often than not, they’re witnesses. There’s the odd driving under the influence, one theft and a burglary. Nothing that stands out. All the cases were closed long ago. I can’t find any still open in which the woman’s a victim or a suspect.’

  Erla sighed, burying her face in her hands. When she looked up again, Huldar went on, in the hope of forestalling a stream of invective that he was too tired to see the funny side of. ‘Could the caller have said Laugi? Maybe it’s a reference to a man’s name. You’ve listened to the recording. Is it possible?’ The name that had instantly sprung to mind was ‘Gudlaugur’, but he wasn’t about to tell Erla that. The suspicions that had been roused by his partner’s inexplicable caginess over his link to Ásta came flooding back.

  ‘No. It was muffled and the man was obviously using a voice-changer, but the name definitely ended in an “a”. You’re welcome to listen for yourself. I can forward the file to you.’

  ‘No thanks. I’m too knackered to do any more now.’ He held out the two lists to Erla without moving from his seat in front of the computer. ‘If you like, I can go over this. Preferably not till tomorrow, though. I can’t concentrate now.’ He grinned. ‘Unless you’d care to nick me some speed from the property office.’

  It provoked an answering grin from Erla – a rare sight at the best of times. ‘Dream on.’ Her grin vanished. ‘You know what this means.’

  ‘The message? No, I can’t say I do. Maybe I’ll be more on the ball tomorrow.’

  ‘Not the message itself. The “one, two, three” business.’

  Huldar nodded slowly. ‘Ah, that. Yes, it means we’re definitely missing a victim.’

  Erla groaned, her face flattening out with exhaustion. ‘Jesus Christ, I can forget about that promotion. I’m more likely to be out on my ear.’

  She was right. If a third body was found and it turned out to be another teenager, she really would be for it. Although she was unlikely to be sacked, her career would take a nosedive. Maybe she’d be given Gudlaugur’s job if he put in for a transfer. ‘It’s not your fault. No one else could have done any better.’ Huldar was hit by a sudden craving for nicotine. ‘I have a hunch things are going to start moving now.’

  His words did nothing to cheer her up. ‘Let’s hope so.’ Erla drew a deep breath as if preparing to plunge into a swimming pool. ‘Where’s Gudlaugur?’ She seemed to have only just noticed that Huldar was alone.

  ‘He went home to crash. He’ll be in tomorrow morning.’ He made an effort to sound normal. The last thing he wanted was for Erla to detect from his voice that there was any tension between them.

  Erla nodded absently. ‘Go home. It’s late.’

  Huldar stood up, seeing no reason to protest. ‘You should take your own advice.’

  ‘I’m going to wait for the cars to get back, then I’ll go.’ Four officers in two squad cars had been dispatched to the spot where Egill’s phone had briefly popped up on the GSM network. They’d called in, saying there was nothing to report at first glance but they were going to take a closer look. ‘I’ve got to be here if they find … him.’

  ‘They’d have called by now if they had.’ Egill’s phone had been traced to a footpath on the western slopes of Öskjuhlíd hill. The margin of error was eight metres, which meant the search area was a rough circle with a diameter of sixteen metres. ‘Four men couldn’t fail to spot him, whatever the terrain.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m going to hang on anyway. They should be back any minute.’ She folded her arms, yawning. ‘Or else I’ll just have to fetch that speed from the property office.’

  Huldar smiled and said goodnight. In spite of his tiredness, he was pleased. The investigation had gone up a gear, Erla had temporarily thawed towards him, he was about to have a ciggie and soon he’d be in bed. Life was as close to perfection as it could get in the middle of the night at the police station.

  Chapter 22

  Photocopy of a handwritten letter, entry no. 2 – posted on blog.is by a blogger going by the name of Laufa.

  Every year things got worse. Every year I thought I’d hit rock bottom. I kept telling myself the other kids would soon have a change of heart. They’d feel bad and come to say they were sorry. Say they couldn’t understand what they’d been thinking of and that I didn’t deserve it. That we could all be friends again. But, sadly, nothing like that happened. Whenever I pictured the scene, it always ended the same way: I’d throw out my
arms and say I didn’t hold it against them. That we could all be friends. Forever, starting right now. Looking back on it, it seems ridiculous.

  From the moment I suddenly became the target of all my classmates’ cruellest instincts until I moved up to secondary school, time passed slowly. I had no social life and dreaded having to go to school every day. I spent the weekends shut in my room, dreading Monday morning. When I tried to get to sleep at night I used to pray to God for a volcanic eruption in Reykjavík like the one in the Westman Islands in 1974. When that happened, all the islanders were evacuated to the mainland and their children were sent to new schools. I still wonder if any of them were in the same situation as me and welcomed the fact they were forced to leave. Welcomed the chance of a new start with a different lot of children who wouldn’t constantly pick on them.

  I suppose I should have complained, should have said I didn’t want to live in the area any more and insisted on being allowed to change schools. But I didn’t want to make life at home any harder or Mum any sadder than she already was. Or Dad. I put on an act to hide the fact that I didn’t have a social life. Pretended nothing was wrong and invented all kinds of lies so I didn’t have to explain why my life was so different from the lives of other girls.

  For example, I used to pretend I’d been invited to parties by people in my class. I’d leave home carrying wrapped-up parcels that I threw in the bin as soon as I was out of sight of the house. Then I’d hang around alone on the swings at the playground behind one of the blocks of flats until it was safe to go home. If it was raining or snowing, I’d wait in the bus shelter, terrified of being spotted by one of the kids from school. Every time I saw a bus coming I’d walk away so it didn’t stop.

  I only invited the other kids to my birthday party once. That was the year the whole thing started. Nobody came. I lied to Mum that I’d forgotten to hand out the invitations. Then I said I didn’t want to hold it the following weekend because most of the girls would be at a handball match, so there was no point. The next year I claimed I didn’t want a party because they all had flu. After that I think Mum believed I didn’t want to invite anyone round out of consideration for her. Her health had got a lot worse by then and she couldn’t be expected to do any baking.

  I did try to go along to social events with my class but it was awful. I was mocked and humiliated, though never in a way that adults would notice. Like at school. My teacher just thought I was antisocial. She never once asked me if anything was wrong. Not even when my marks started going down and I handed in my homework late and in a mess. If she’d asked, I could have told her that this was because it was always getting stolen. Sometimes they’d sneak it back into my bag with red scribbles all over the work I’d taken so much trouble over. Or with the hurtful names they liked to call me scrawled all over the exercises I’d carefully written out at home. I think the teacher knew about Mum’s illness and thought I was down and couldn’t concentrate because of that. It’s better than thinking that she just didn’t care. Because the fact is, I was boring; I never said a word unless I was asked. Whereas the other kids used to brighten up when she was around. They sucked up to her and were as nice to her as they were horrible to me.

  I could describe so many hurtful incidents. I know the story behind every tiny crack in my heart, behind the ones that grew so big they eventually split it in two. There was this one time I was dragged up to the blackboard to recite a poem we’d been told to learn by heart, and the whole class pulled faces and stuck out their tongues at me. I knew the poem but I was so stressed I forgot everything except a few words. And because the teacher’s eyes were on me, she couldn’t see what was going on behind her back. She didn’t say a word when the other kids laughed at me. Just told me off when I finally gave up.

  Or the time the boy who sat behind me cut off my ponytail. I went home and lied that I’d done it myself because I’d wanted short hair. It wasn’t true but I ended up with a boy’s haircut anyway. The other kids in my class thought it was hilarious.

  Or the time a pot of jam from the canteen was emptied into my school bag.

  Or the time I was pushed over during gym and broke my nose. The games teacher told me off for being clumsy.

  And all the other times. Each one worse than the last. No one would do something this drastic just because of one incident. But when you can’t count on the fingers of both hands all the things that happen to you every day, you start to lose your grip. And when it’s gone on for years and years …

  In secondary school it started up again, even though we were all mixed up into different classes. I’d believed the situation couldn’t get any worse but it did. The comments grew increasingly bitchy, and more and more kids seemed to enjoy tormenting me. Then, one day, an incredible thing happened: a new girl started at the school. She was shy, an outsider like me, and we became friends. Suddenly the other kids stopped mattering to me. They could say what they liked. It didn’t get to me any more. My life was no longer worthless.

  Chapter 23

  Freyja woke up to the smell of vomit. All the scouring and scented candles had been in vain. The stench had hit her when she’d got home yesterday evening, so she had fetched the candles from the cupboard and placed them around the flat. They were gifts she’d received over the years but never found a use for. Candles were for putting around the bathtub while you wallowed in a mass of bubbles, champagne glass in hand. But Baldur’s flat didn’t run to such luxuries; all it had was a leaky shower cubicle.

  She’d never have gone to sleep leaving the candles burning if she’d been sober but after all the wine she’d drunk with Kjartan, her inbuilt safety threshold had been lowered. Now, as she sat on the side of the bed, rubbing her aching forehead, it came back to her that it was because of the smell that she hadn’t invited Kjartan home with her – not necessarily to share her bed, though clearly that had been on the cards. He’d shown all the signs of being up for it but explained that they couldn’t go back to his house, so it had been hers or nothing. Which meant nothing, on this occasion. The smell, Molly, the dingy little flat – none of them were ideal for a first date. She was banking on there being a second date, though, assuming that next time he’d make sure his children were staying with their mother.

  ‘Jesus.’ Freyja stood up, head swimming. She bumped into the bedside table and a burnt-out candle in a glass holder fell on the floor and rolled under the bed. Molly watched her lugubriously. When she saw herself in the bathroom mirror she understood why. Red eyes, wild hair and yesterday’s make-up smudged all over her face as if she’d invited Dieter Roth to use her skin as a canvas. ‘Christ.’ She had a lecture in an hour. In the mirror she caught the movement as Molly poked her head round the door and seemed to nod disapprovingly.

  A hot shower, breakfast and a brisk walk with Molly worked wonders. By the time Freyja left the flat, closing the door on a rather pissed-off dog, nobody would have guessed she’d drunk too much red wine the previous night. On the outside she looked like someone who’d just done a session at the gym, followed by a healthy carrot smoothie. Inside, she was still horribly hung-over, with a pounding headache and acid curdling in her stomach.

  The snow that had been falling when she got out of the taxi the previous night now crunched underfoot. She had a sudden flashback to herself standing out here, head tipped back, mouth open and tongue sticking out to catch the snowflakes. Embarrassed at the memory, she stole a glance up at the building, hoping that none of her neighbours had witnessed the incident. All the windows were dark but that was of little comfort; the occupants were mostly night owls, so someone was bound to have seen her.

  She made a vow never to drink again. Or at least not that much, and certainly not in the middle of the week.

  The wind snatched up the loose snow as Freyja scraped it off the car, blowing it away. When she got in and slammed the door, a whole drift tumbled off the roof onto the windscreen. Instead of getting out and scraping it again, she let the wipers do their best.

>   Her bag on the passenger seat contained the maths exercises that she was intending to hand in, despite having missed the deadline. She’d sat down and gone through the whole lot after coming home last night, though both handwriting and workmanship showed signs that her concentration had been a bit blurred. No doubt her solutions would be marred by the same lack of focus, but she meant to hand them in anyway. It wasn’t as if she’d have a sober version to deliver any time soon. If she was going to persevere with the course, it was better to hand in nonsense than nothing. At least she might get half a mark for effort.

  The car started at the first attempt and Freyja smiled, taking it as a sign that things were looking up, whatever happened with her studies. For the first time in ages she had gone out with a man she liked. OK, maybe she wasn’t head over heels, but that could change. During their date, she’d kept being distracted by thoughts of Stella, her mind’s eye presenting her with screenshots of the horrific scenes in the cinema. That was a hard obstacle for Kjartan to charm his way past. And he’d smacked his lips while eating, which had made her shudder. She preferred her dining companions to down their food as silently as ninjas. Still, on the plus side, he hadn’t been wearing an ankle tag and he was keen to meet her again, as soon as possible. So the jury was still out on whether this could be the beginning of something.

  One of the things she remembered discussing with him was the bullying she herself had suffered as a teenager. It had felt good to open up to someone, since she hadn’t let on to a soul at the time. Baldur would only have beaten up the kids responsible, and her grandparents would have fallen to their knees and prayed to the Almighty for an answer – that same Almighty Lord who had proved worse than useless when Freyja needed him. Having no shoulder to cry on, she’d kept her unhappiness to herself. Until now.

  Her pleasure at having got this weight off her chest was clouded only by the fact that she’d gone and told Kjartan about the class reunion at the weekend. He’d urged her to go along and take him with her. With him at her side for moral support, she’d soon realise that her former tormentors weren’t worth wasting any more anger on. Yesterday evening this had struck her as a brilliant idea but in the harsh light of morning it seemed terrible. Alas, though, when she’d waltzed in the previous night, she had sent off an e-mail to the reunion organiser, announcing that she’d be there after all. With her partner. So Kjartan had better make good on his promise.