‘Yes, you’re right,’ Elma said. ‘So presumably she went to Akranes before heading up to Bifröst.’
‘Exactly. But her phone stopped sending a signal in the early afternoon in Akranes. The battery could have run out or…’
‘Or someone could have got rid of it,’ Elma finished for him. ‘Nowadays most people are aware of the big role phones play in investigations. Anyone who reads or listens to the crime news couldn’t fail to have heard that they can be traced.’
‘The press will have a field day when this gets out,’ Hörður said glumly, and sighed.
Although Maríanna Þórsdóttir’s case was still fresh in Elma’s memory, she called up the files to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any important details. It was rare for young women to disappear in Iceland, and the case had attracted a great deal of attention at the time, so Hörður was probably right: now that it was clear Maríanna had been murdered, the media frenzy would be off the scale.
Elma looked at the photo of Maríanna on her desk. It was the picture they had circulated to the media back when she was reported missing. A selfie from her Facebook page, probably taken for some special occasion. At least, she was all dolled up in it, wearing a black top, with her hair set in waves and an enigmatic smile on her red-painted lips. It seemed impossible to believe that this was the same person as the gruesome remains they had seen on the pathologist’s slab that morning.
The original investigation had quickly revealed that Maríanna had a long history of mental illness. She had been on medication for depression and had gone through several episodes of drug and alcohol addiction. The message that had been waiting for her daughter when she got home from school had been scribbled on the back of an envelope and left on the kitchen table of their flat in Borgarnes, along with a crumpled five-thousand krónur note.
Sorry. I love you, Mum.
Although it was out of character for Maríanna to leave a note like that, Hekla hadn’t given it much thought. She had used the money to order a pizza, then gone to bed before midnight. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why her mother hadn’t come home since she knew Maríanna had a date that evening. It wasn’t until the following afternoon that Hekla had begun to grow anxious. She had tried to ring her mother, only to find that her phone was switched off. When Maríanna still hadn’t come home by that evening, Hekla had rung Bergrún, who had driven up to Borgarnes to fetch her and had alerted the police.
As soon as the police started making enquiries, they discovered that Maríanna had failed to turn up for her date. Only then did things begin to look serious, by which time she had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. The man she had been planning to meet was called Sölvi and worked shifts at the ferro-silicon plant at Grundartangi in Hvalfjörður, like so many people who lived in the area. There was nothing to connect him to Maríanna’s disappearance since they had only recently started seeing each other. He had seemed quite hurt and annoyed that she had stood him up and had rung her repeatedly before eventually giving up, as his phone records confirmed.
Maríanna had an ex-boyfriend – more than one in fact – but all her past relationships had been short-lived. The police hadn’t dug very deep into her dating history, though, as she hadn’t been in contact with any of her exes. Her only living family member had been her father, who lived in Reykjavík. Hekla hadn’t seen him since before her grandmother died, which had happened when the girl was ten. Maríanna also had a brother, who had apparently killed himself at the age of twenty-five, when she was pregnant with Hekla.
After the police had combed Akranes and the surrounding area in search of Maríanna, her car, a rusty old Golf, had turned up seventy kilometres north of the town, by the university campus at Bifröst. This had been a cause of some consternation, since they had traced her phone to Akranes and based their search on this information. The records showed that the phone battery hadn’t in fact run out; it had been switched off manually. Had Maríanna done this herself or had somebody else done it for her? At the time, they had guessed the former.
There had been nothing of interest in her car; no phone or handbag, no blood or other signs of a struggle. The car had been filthy – in a disgusting state – with leftover food and drinks cans on the floor and a bag containing a mouldy swimming costume and towel. All the indications were that Maríanna had simply abandoned the car in the car park by the hotel at Bifröst and either continued on foot or got on a bus. For days, searchers had scoured the area around the car, walking the surrounding landscape and dragging the lakes, but they had found no trace of Maríanna. Even the tracker dogs had failed to pick up her trail.
There was nothing particularly suspicious about the fact she hadn’t been found. The volcanic landscape around Bifröst was riven with dangerous cracks and fissures that a person could easily fall down. Every now and then people vanished without trace there. In the end, the search was called off. Although the case remained open, the general belief was that the missing woman had taken her own life. Now that this assumption had been proved wrong, however, Elma could think of several details that should have roused their suspicion.
For example, on the morning of her disappearance Maríanna had put on a wash. Not that remarkable, perhaps, yet Elma had had an uneasy feeling when she noticed the wet laundry during their examination of Maríanna’s flat. She would hardly have bothered to do a wash if she had been planning to kill herself. The flat was a total mess, the beds were unmade, and the fridge contained both mince and raw chicken. Why go to the trouble of buying food if the intention had been to commit suicide? Surely she wouldn’t have expected Hekla to cook it.
The police had watched the CCTV recordings from the supermarket the day before Maríanna’s disappearance and seen her wandering around the shop with her trolley. Elma remembered thinking that wasn’t someone who had decided to end it all. But then her thoughts had strayed to Davíð. She would never have believed he was capable of killing himself either, so perhaps her judgement wasn’t to be trusted. This was why she had kept quiet at the time, just watched the woman, who was several years younger than her, putting fizzy drinks and sweets in her trolley, then carrying two bulging shopping bags out of the supermarket. All the same, the thought of the clothes in the washing machine and the mess in the flat had continued to niggle at Elma, which might explain why she had periodically opened and flicked through the file since May. When Davíð left, he had made the bed, neatly folded his clothes and put them away in the wardrobe. Davíð never used to make the bed and usually left a pile of dirty clothes on his side of it. This was what had immediately led Elma to suspect that something was wrong.
On the other hand, the mental-health issues, the note for Hekla and the abandoned car all supported the theory that there had been nothing suspicious about Maríanna’s disappearance. No one had a grudge against her; there had been no stormy relationships or dubious business deals, nothing to link her to anything remotely shady, and therefore no reason to prolong the investigation once several weeks had passed and no new information had emerged. The police had turned their attention to other, more pressing concerns.
Elma was dreading the media coverage, picturing headlines about the incompetence of West Iceland CID. Minor details they had missed or interpreted wrongly would be blown out of all proportion. She leafed back through printouts of Maríanna’s phone and computer records. They had gone through them all systematically at the time. Her phone had never been found and the records from the phone company, which covered the previous six months, hadn’t shown anything of interest. Maríanna had used Facebook on her laptop to communicate with her female friends. She had also used the site to message Sölvi, her date for the evening of 4 May. He had been planning to pick her up and take her out to dinner. When she didn’t answer his calls, he had kept trying, as the records showing his phone usage confirmed.
Bergrún, Hekla’s foster mother, had rung Maríanna a number of times during the week before she went missing: they had spoken almost ever
y day. Elma couldn’t remember exactly what Bergrún had said about these phone calls, so she made a note to ask her again.
The records also showed that Maríanna had tried repeatedly to reach Hekla during and after lunchtime on Friday, 4 May. Hekla hadn’t answered, presumably because she had been at school until 14.00. The last call had been made at 14.27, but since Hekla’s last class had been a swimming lesson, perhaps she had still been in the changing rooms and had forgotten to unmute her phone.
Elma sighed and leant back in her chair. She couldn’t see anything new in the files or any obvious suspects. If it weren’t for the badly decomposed remains on the pathologist’s slab in Reykjavík, she would have come to the same conclusion as they had in the spring: that Maríanna Þórsdóttir had disappeared of her own free will.
Hörður’s desk was covered in crumbs from the bread roll he had just eaten. He swept them together to form a line. His to-do list was already far too long and now this case had been added to it; a case they would be criticised for not having solved earlier. Hörður toyed with the idea of giving up work next year. He had almost reached retirement age and just didn’t have the energy anymore. Actually, that wasn’t quite true: he had the energy, he just didn’t have the heart for his job. His interest dwindled with every month that passed, and he had begun looking forward to doing something else. He wanted to use his time to enjoy himself and travel, as he and Gígja had always dreamt of doing. It had come home to him that the time he had left wasn’t infinite, all the more so since Gígja had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumour was still small, according to the doctors; it hadn’t spread. But that didn’t make it any less frightening. He moved the line of crumbs back and forth before finally collecting it in the palm of his hand and chucking it in the bin under his desk.
It seemed that every other person his age was being diagnosed with some illness or other, and he was terrified that things would end badly. The cancer, even though it had turned out not to be as serious as they had originally feared, had put everything in a new light. Time was precious, and he meant to use his remaining years well. Death had a way of sneaking up on people when they least expected it. Even in old age there was a tendency to believe that there would be another day tomorrow. Another year after this one. It scared him to think that it might not be true.
There was a knock at the door, and Hörður dusted the last crumbs off his hands.
‘Come in.’
Elma opened the door. ‘Wasn’t the meeting supposed to be at four?’
Hörður glanced at the clock. ‘What, yes, is it that late? Give me a couple of minutes. I’ve just got to make one phone call.’
Elma nodded and pulled the door to behind her. She had changed since she joined CID just over a year ago. On first acquaintance she had come across as rather serious, but then she’d had a good reason for that. Hörður hadn’t heard about the death of Elma’s partner until Gígja, who knew everything about everyone, had asked him about it much later. He could hardly begin to imagine the pain she must have felt at losing someone so close to her. He himself had only lost his elderly parents, but of course that was something he’d had many years to prepare for mentally. It was quite different to lose a partner or other close family member who should have had years left to live. Hörður could see now that Elma hadn’t been herself at all when she first joined CID. These days she generally came into work with a cheery smile on her face and, if anything, talked rather more than necessary.
Hörður picked up his phone and selected Gígja’s number. She was in Reykjavík for her radiotherapy. He hadn’t been able to accompany her as he’d intended, but their daughter had gone instead. Gígja had been in a good mood that morning, so good that he’d wondered if she was glad he couldn’t go with her this time. Mother and daughter were planning to combine the trip with a bit of shopping, a meal out and maybe even a film. They’d probably be back late, Gígja had said. He just hoped his daughter wouldn’t exhaust her mother with a shopping marathon.
One Year Old
I don’t sing on her birthday but I do buy a cake and put it on the table in front of her with a single candle stuck in it. We watch it burn down, the noise of the bin lorry outside filling the silence between us. Then I blow out the flame and hand her the cake.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. I had a plan. I did everything I could to follow it through, but things didn’t go quite as I’d intended – because the world can fall apart in an instant and one small lie can change how people see you. Although I don’t believe in God, I do wonder if he’s punishing me – whether this child was sent here as revenge for what I did. Because when I look at her I see nothing, feel nothing; she might as well be a stranger, someone else’s child. She doesn’t look a bit like me with that thick, black hair, and she’s far too big for her age. The folds of fat on her thighs make it hard to find trousers to fit her. During my pregnancy, I bought loads of expensive clothes for her that I couldn’t really afford, but I might as well not have bothered. She’s nothing like the children in the advertisements and looks ridiculous in dresses from Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein. They don’t suit her at all as she’s not one of those pretty little girls the clothes were designed for.
At first I thought of giving her up for adoption. I pictured the couple who would take her in and care for her as if she were their own. If I had done that, perhaps my parents would have stayed in Iceland. The last I had heard from them was a few days after my daughter’s birth when they sent me a letter in the post. I instantly recognised my mother’s writing on the envelope and ripped it open like a hungry child. The envelope contained nothing but a card with a conventional message, underneath which my mother had written their names. Not Mum and Dad, just their Christian names, as if I were a distant relative rather than their own daughter.
So I try to moderate my expectations the day after her birthday when I see an envelope with her name on it in my mother’s decorative hand. The envelope is crumpled and dirty, as if the postman had dropped it in a puddle. When I get inside the flat, I put it on the kitchen table, make myself a coffee and try to control my breathing. I don’t open it until I am sitting down with my mug.
The envelope is thin but there’s something loose inside it. When I open it, a delicate silver chain falls out onto the table. It’s designed for a child’s neck and attached to the chain is a small silver pendant bearing the letter H: the first letter of my daughter’s name.
Bergrún heard the laughter as soon as she opened the door. The sort of laughter that makes your stomach ache and stops you from breathing. When had she herself last laughed like that? Probably not since she was a teenager. Fannar was a good man, clever, safe and dependable, but he wasn’t funny. They sometimes laughed together, but it seldom lasted long and it wasn’t the kind of breathless hilarity she could hear now, coming from Hekla’s room.
She went to the door and listened for a moment or two before knocking. Just so she could experience it again – those days which, in memory at least, had been so full of tantalising possibilities. When she was a teenager she had felt as if things would always be like that. As if adulthood was a long way off and she would always be this young girl who didn’t have to make decisions about who she was or what she wanted to do with her life. Time had seemed to stretch out to eternity, but now that Bergrún thought back, it was incredible how few years that stage had in fact lasted. Adulthood had crept up on her and, before she knew it, everything had changed. She still had the same friends, but these days when they met up they no longer lay on the bed, listening to music on a cassette player and giggling about boys. No, they talked about mortgages, politics and pay rises. About their husbands, children, colleagues and other people they knew. They never laughed like the girls were laughing now.
‘Hekla?’ She opened the door cautiously, and the girls finally caught their breath. All three were lying on the bed, the inevitable phones in their hands, their socks in a heap on the floor.
‘Yes?’ Hek
la said, sitting up a little, still breathless from giggling.
‘Would you like to stay for supper, girls? I was thinking of ordering pizza.’
‘Uh, yeah,’ Dísa said, then caught herself up: ‘I mean, yes, please.’
‘I just need to ask my mum,’ Tinna said.
‘Me too,’ Dísa added.
‘I’ll call your mothers,’ Bergrún said, thinking what sweet girls they were. Always so polite and well spoken, yet so different from each other. Tinna was tall, with a mane of what looked like dyed-blonde hair, big-boned without being overweight. She was quieter than Dísa and didn’t say much, but when she did speak, she chose her words carefully. She wasn’t exactly shy but came across as reserved. Withdrawn. Quite unlike Dísa, who didn’t have a shy bone in her body and spoke to Bergrún almost like an adult. Bergrún sometimes forgot she was only fifteen; she would often come and sit in the kitchen for a chat while Tinna and Hekla were absorbed in their phones.
Bergrún knew both girls’ parents quite well, their mothers especially. They had become good friends through their daughters, or as good friends as women can be at their time of life. That was another thing that had changed as Bergrún grew older: she didn’t have intimate friendships like before. She no longer had confidantes she trusted and who knew her inside out. Nowadays, she and her friends chatted over coffee and shared the odd secret or a little gossip; enough to bring them closer to one another, but never too close. Never enough to risk showing anything other than their best side.
It wasn’t long after Bergrún had closed the bedroom door that the giggling started up again. She wondered if Hekla had been this happy at Maríanna’s. She was pretty sure she hadn’t. There had been endless problems with friends, or rather with the lack of them, at her school in Borgarnes. Hekla had confided in her one Sunday evening before Maríanna’s disappearance. Bergrún had noticed her growing increasingly apprehensive as the day went on. Hekla had become ever more silent, her eyes more distant, until Bergrún had eventually taken her aside and asked what was wrong. Not if something was wrong but what it was.
Girls Who Lie Page 6