The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  She’d begin the story as she had at the police station, with Mördur’s heart attack. How she hadn’t suspected a thing when the lean, older gentleman had suddenly collapsed in front of her in the car park. His name hadn’t rung any bells, hadn’t triggered any memories of the teenage Ásta, a person with whom she had long since severed all ties and would rather never have to think about again. She was a completely different person now; an adult, who lived her life in peace and harmony with all. A grown woman, focused on what mattered most: the wellbeing and safety of her family. Before, she had only ever thought about one thing: herself. Her own little life and whatever minor drama was at the centre of her world at any given time.

  Of course, her teenage years hadn’t been easy, but then no one’s were. She wasn’t unique; lots of gay teenagers went through a major crisis when they discovered their sexuality. It was especially hard because it came at the height of adolescence, at a time when most kids just want to fit in with the crowd. Opinions, appearance, weight, height, taste, hair, clothes, shoes, even shoe size – nothing must be different from the sacred norm. It had been desperately hard to discover one’s homosexuality at that age. So she had been over the moon when she was suddenly invited to join the elevated ranks of the popular clique at her new school. All it had taken was for them to open the door a tiny crack and she had rushed up to them with her tongue hanging out, ready to sell her soul for the privilege of being one of them.

  Her conscience told her now that this was no excuse. She had been a real traitor to another outcast, and the fact that she had been admitted to the inner circle did nothing to excuse her behaviour. Few gay kids took part in bullying as self-defence. She’d just been weak, that’s all. Not bad. Not really. If she had truly been a bad person, she would still be bad. You couldn’t just shake off something like that. At least, that’s how she chose to look at it.

  Thórey might provide a sympathetic ear for these reflections, but the police had been dismissive, merely telling her to stick to the point. It had been enough for them to know that she’d forgotten all about Laufhildur once her former friend had vanished after the accident with the shotgun. Ásta hadn’t even been given a chance to correct this impression by explaining that she hadn’t stopped thinking about her, just that it no longer happened every single day. Laufhildur only flashed into her mind on the rare occasions when she saw young people with serious injuries at the hospital. Then she would freeze. It was horrific to have been the cause of such terrible suffering to another human being.

  That was why there had only been one possible response – to block out the incident from her mind. Pretend it had never happened. She refused all shifts in the orthopaedic ward or at the Children’s Hospital. She stuck to caring for senior citizens in the cardiology ward, only agreeing to do extra shifts there or in geriatrics. That way she reduced the risk of being reminded of the incident. The suicide attempt and the gory aftermath in the car park behind the shop were kept locked away in a compartment at the back of her mind.

  Right up until an older man came walking quickly towards her in the car park, only for his face to contort and for him to crumple up on the ground in front of her. She’d have done better to step right over him and go on home.

  None of what she’d told the police was a lie. Every word was true. She just hadn’t told them the whole story. They’d seemed satisfied by her explanation, though, and didn’t ask any further questions once she’d finished. Apparently they believed her when she claimed that she’d been acting strangely because all the talk of bullying had raked up painful memories that had filled her with shame, and that when Laufhildur’s name finally came up she’d denied that she knew her out of sheer panic. They’d also accepted her claim that she hadn’t twigged when she heard Mördur’s name, because her friendship with Laufhildur had been brief and had ended such a long time ago. That was no lie. She hadn’t known who he was at first.

  The only time during the interview that she’d been required to put on an act was when the policewoman told her they believed Mördur had been on his way to attack her the evening she’d saved his life. She had gasped at the news, putting a hand over her mouth. She must have been convincing because the interview had been wrapped up soon after that, though doubts had remained in Huldar’s eyes.

  But he couldn’t begin to suspect that Mördur had confided in her.

  She was tortured by regrets. If only she’d left Mördur to die on the tarmac, she would never have found out what he’d come there to do, and the girl and boy would have been allowed to live. None of it would have happened if she hadn’t looked in on him the following day to see how he was doing, if she’d managed to avoid tending to him before he died. But, as she’d told the police, the penny hadn’t dropped when she saw his name. It had all been too long ago and when she thought about Laufhildur, it was always by her first name. At first she had merely smiled when the man gripped her hand as she stood by his bed. But his grip was so hard that it hurt and her smile had faded. People as ill as him weren’t usually that strong. But hatred had lent him strength. He jerked her close until she could smell the stench of death from his mouth, too astonished to resist. Death dripped from his words as well, from the threats and the demands he made of her.

  The strange thing was that she had believed him, never once doubting that he meant what he said. He brought up Laufhildur straight away and that was enough to get her attention. She took in the whole thing, grasping at once that it had been no coincidence she’d been there when he had his heart attack; he had come to find her. He told her he’d been lying in wait for her, to make sure she didn’t make it home from work alive. He was going to kill her in a belated revenge for Laufhildur. Fatally wound her, then drive her to a shipping container where she’d be left to die alone. Ásta had hardly been able to breathe when he told her this.

  In retrospect, it was a miracle she hadn’t cried out when he went on to describe how, long ago, he’d found out that she was to blame for what happened to his daughter. Laufhildur had given a clear account of it in her suicide note. It didn’t matter that she had deliberately left out Ásta’s name. It hadn’t been hard for him to guess. His voice quivering with hatred, he told her how he’d dreamt of revenge, dreamt of seeing her suffer like the vermin she was. When he realised that he didn’t have long to live and that when he was gone Laufhildur would lose her only support, he had decided to take action. That way he felt he could die at peace with himself. In the process, he would do others the favour of drawing attention to bullying and its consequences. He told her too that the gentle Laufhildur who hadn’t wanted to name Ásta in her letter had long gone. In her place was a far more vindictive person who had supported him all the way. Few things had pleased his daughter more than the thought of Ásta, alone and forsaken, in her death throes. While he was speaking, Ásta’s knees had almost given way. She felt a despairing urge to smother the man with his pillow but resisted it. He was dying anyway.

  Although it had been his illness that made him determined to quit the world in style, it had in fact saved her life. His heart hadn’t been able to cope with the tension that had built up as he was lying in wait for her. He’d ignored the sharp pain in his arm and chest that had intensified the more agitated he became. He wasn’t the first person to ignore the warning signs. When Ásta appeared, he had charged towards her but the effort had proved too much.

  Ásta had had an unbelievably narrow escape. Now she would just have to take care until any of Mördur’s remaining accomplices learnt that he would no longer be able to shoulder the blame for anyone else. He had boasted that he had several people working for him and threatened to send them after her if she didn’t keep her mouth shut and obey his orders.

  When she left his room she hadn’t believed for a minute that he had men working for him, but that changed when Stella’s phone turned up at her house. He boasted to her next day that he’d arranged it. But by this stage, she was in no position to go to the police. He had already made her c
harge his phone for him and send a Snap to a user on his list of friends, claiming he was too weak to do it himself. If she didn’t help him, he’d threatened to tell anyone who stuck their head into his room what kind of person she was, how she’d treated Laufhildur and what had happened as a result. At the time this had seemed the worst thing imaginable. She couldn’t bear to think of her colleagues giving her sideways looks, as they were bound to do, however many excuses she made, however hard she tried to explain. But she’d had absolutely no idea then that he’d planned Stella’s murder, or that the Snap he’d made her send had given the green light for the attack. Her original worries paled into insignificance in comparison. She’d unwittingly helped him attack a girl who was the same age as Laufhildur had been. So now she had the cruel fate of two young people on her conscience.

  It couldn’t be undone. She’d sent the message on Snapchat and although she’d kidded herself that it was harmless, she’d known better, even as she was sending it. She’d bought herself some respite at another person’s expense. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d done it again in Egill’s case. She’d also agreed to keep an eye on Mördur’s phone, which was lying on his bedside table, and give him a nudge whenever he received a message. Each time she tried to persuade herself that it didn’t matter. He’d have done it himself anyway and got her into trouble as well. She had to think of herself and her family. Besides, she owed him a debt, there was no denying the fact. These acts she performed for him were her pathetic attempt to buy his absolution.

  But it was all over now. The police were satisfied and hopefully Thórey would be too, eventually. One day she’d have to forgive herself as well. Cling to the thought that she’d only been one link in a much longer chain of events. Just as she had been all those years ago. Her role in Laufhildur’s story hadn’t really been that big; she’d simply finished off what years of relentless cruelty by others had started. The same applied to Mördur’s crimes. All she’d done was press ‘Send’. And keep her mouth shut. There’s no way she could have known about Stella or done anything to save her. As for Egill, she’d just have to push away the thought that she could have prevented his death if only she’d opened up and taken the consequences. But she mustn’t think that way. She was no more than a pawn, an instrument in the hands of fate.

  Just as she had been no more than a pawn in the hands of Laufhildur’s enemies. Those girls hadn’t really been her friends. They’d only invited her into the fold because she’d befriended Laufhildur and, in order to be successful, bullies had to isolate the victim. Once Laufhildur was out of the picture, Ásta was no longer needed and she had been unceremoniously ejected again. When she went back to school after several days’ absence while she was trying to recover from the horror of the scene behind the shop, they’d turned their backs on her. She found herself out in the cold again after only the briefest spell in the warmth.

  Sól murmured in her sleep and kicked the duvet against the foot of her bed. Ásta knew there was no point tucking her in again; the little girl got so hot in the night that it would be thrown off before she even closed the door. Ósk, on the other hand, felt the cold and liked to sleep with the covers pulled up over her head. Funny how different children could be, despite the same genes and the same environment, and only being a few years apart in age.

  ‘Mummy.’ Ósk opened her good eye as she whispered this.

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘But it’s important.’

  ‘It’ll keep till tomorrow morning. You need to sleep now.’ Ásta went over to the bed and smiled at her daughter. It was over. The whole thing. Now she could concentrate on what mattered: on the girls, on Thórey and on her job. Laufhildur, Mördur, bullying and all that stuff belonged in the past and could stay there.

  ‘But I don’t feel good.’ Ósk opened both her eyes, which were now glistening with tears.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Ásta sat down on the side of the bed and stroked her daughter’s hair.

  ‘The other kids say I’m ugly. That I’ve got someone else’s eye in my head.’

  Ásta took a deep breath. ‘Well, they’re wrong. You and your sister are the most beautiful girls in the world.’

  ‘They say I’m stupid. Stupid and ugly. They say I’m a stupid, ugly pirate. No one wants to play with me and María didn’t invite me to her birthday party and Gunna didn’t either, and the boys spat in my hair during break.’

  Ásta’s hand stiffened in the act of stroking her daughter’s hair. She squeezed her eyes shut but it didn’t help. The tears started pouring silently down her cheeks. She’d been given a chance to repay her debt to Laufhildur, to make a clean breast of things and save two young people from a horrible, premature death. But instead of taking it, she’d only bought herself a brief respite from the debt. And now it seemed that the person who was going to have to pay was Ósk.

  The only consolation was that the police would never be able to link her to the crimes.

  ‘And Mummy …’ The little girl hadn’t finished. Ásta wiped away the tears she didn’t want her daughter to see, before turning back to her.

  ‘What?’ She managed to sound normal.

  ‘There was a strange person in the garden earlier. I saw them from the window.’

  ‘There’s no one in the garden, Ósk. I checked just now and there’s no one there but the snowman.’

  ‘But there was somebody there.’

  Ásta felt a pang. Her daughter might be right. Few people knew of Mördur’s death yet. Now that she came to think of it, he’d let her off pretty lightly. Was it possible that he’d sent someone after her, as a parting gift to Laufhildur? Surely he didn’t expect his daughter to avenge herself?

  Ásta stood up and went to the window again. She tore the curtain aside with a shaking hand. But the garden was empty and there was no one to be seen. All was as it should be. All apart from the snowman, which was now wearing a gruesome mask.

  A mask with green hair.

  Loved The Absolution? Try The Legacy, the first book in the Freyja and Hulder Series …

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