Girls Who Lie

by Eva Bjorg AEgisdóttir

  We’re on our way to a lunch party at Hafliði’s mother’s place, with his siblings and their spouses and kids. Two older sisters and one younger brother. Hafliði is close to his mother. He talks to her on the phone every day, always stepping outside the flat as if he doesn’t want me to hear what he’s saying. I’ve watched her come round to visit him. Watched from the window at a safe distance. From my vantage point she looks perfectly harmless: a plump figure, with curly grey hair, always dressed in a cream-coloured jacket and a shawl.

  We park in front of a small block of flats in Hafnarfjörður, not far from the town centre and the harbour. I take my daughter’s hand. She hardly dares breathe. Although she doesn’t say anything, I can tell she’s nervous. I saw her standing in front of the mirror this morning, repeatedly combing her hair, although it was already smooth. Stefán, in contrast, races ahead to ring the bell.

  ‘You’re late,’ says Hafliði’s sister, who opens the door. She hugs Stefán and Hafliði, then gives me and my daughter a brief smile. I open my mouth to introduce myself, but she turns away and goes back inside, leaving us to follow.

  The sitting room is full of people. Hafliði immediately offers to help lay the table, leaving me standing there. My daughter presses herself against me, and we wait awkwardly, ignored by the other guests. They’re all too deep in conversation to say hello. I bend down and tell her to go and play with the other children, but she doesn’t even answer, just shakes her head and goes on fingering her necklace, as is her habit when she’s nervous. Only when Hafliði takes us round to meet everyone do they deign to notice us.

  They’re an arrogant bunch. Like Hafliði in their brash self-confidence, but lacking his warmth and charm. Last of all he introduces us to his mother. Her name’s Guðrún and she’s a chubby little woman with a perm, dressed in a rose-patterned blouse. Her smile is friendly and her voice velvety-soft, but her eyes give her away. They’re an icy grey-blue and directed uncompromisingly at the floor. When she does fleetingly meet my eye, she looks right through me. Her gaze lingers briefly on my daughter, then returns to Hafliði, and her whole face softens.

  We take our seats at a long table that’s already laden with food. Bread, toppings, iced buns and chocolate-coated Danish pastries.

  ‘And what do you do?’ asks the oldest sister, whose name I’ve already forgotten.

  ‘I work in a legal practice,’ I answer, as I spread tuna salad on my bread.

  ‘Oh, so you’re a lawyer?’ I see how the eyes around the table open wider and study me with slightly more interest. I want to say yes. If Hafliði hadn’t been there, I would have gone ahead and lied.

  ‘No, I work in reception,’ I say. ‘But I’m planning to go back to college one day and study law.’

  They murmur something polite, but it’s clear that I’m no longer of interest. The conversation moves on, and my daughter and I sit there in silence.

  ‘I didn’t know you were from Sandgerði,’ someone says after a while, and I glance up to find them all looking at me. Sandgerði’s the last thing I want to talk about.

  ‘Yes, I grew up there.’

  ‘What was that like?’ Hafliði’s brother asks. ‘It must be quite cosy growing up in a small community where everybody knows each other.’

  ‘Well…’ I hesitate. ‘It was OK.’

  ‘As it happens, I’ve got a friend from there,’ the brother continues. He turns to Hafliði. ‘You know, Ívar, who I work with.’

  ‘Oh, yes, right. He’s from Sandgerði,’ Hafliði says.

  ‘He must be about your age,’ the brother persists. ‘Do you know him at all? Ívar Páll?’

  I can feel the blood draining from my face. I do know him. Well, maybe ‘know’ is an exaggeration – I know who he is. Or was. We were classmates. He was one of those terribly nerdy boys who lived more in computer games and fantasy novels than in the real world. All skin and bone, with glasses and rabbit teeth. We called him ‘the squirrel’ because, when he ate, he used to nibble at the bread with his big front teeth, scattering crumbs all over the table. We once filled his school bag with nuts, and when he went to take out his books, the nuts went tumbling and bouncing all over the floor.

  ‘No, I don’t recognise the name,’ I say, poking with my fork at the unappetising pasta on my plate.

  ‘Oh, right,’ he says. ‘But maybe he remembers you.’

  I smile, though his words sound like a threat. Feeling a tug at my jumper, I look round. She hasn’t touched her food and is looking rather pale.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  She pulls me down to her so she can whisper in my ear. ‘I want to go home.’

  Me too, I long to say. I want to go home too.

  ‘Not just yet,’ I say. ‘Eat your lunch.’

  She stares at me without speaking. A few minutes later there’s another tug at my jumper. ‘What?’ I snap.

  ‘I feel sick, Mummy.’

  Only then do I notice that she’s turned as white as a sheet. She closes her eyes slowly, then opens them wide and clamps both hands over her mouth. It’s not enough. The vomit gushes out with such force that it splatters all over the table. I grab her and rush her away but it’s too late: lunch is ruined. Everyone rises in a hurry and moves back from the table. Hafliði leaps to his feet and takes us to the bathroom, where we wash her face and give her a drink of water. After a little while he goes back in to clean up the sitting room, while we stay sitting in the bathroom. She rests her head on my chest, her whole body shaking.

  ‘Can we go home now?’ she whispers.

  I gently stroke her sweaty forehead. ‘Yes. Now we can go home,’ I whisper back. At this moment there’s nowhere I’d rather be than at home with my daughter.

  Saturday

  Elma had faked illness the previous evening when Jakob knocked on the door. She’d even gone as far as to wrap a blanket round her shoulders and cough unconvincingly. Remembering this now and cringing at her bad acting, she doubted he had believed her. She knew Jakob would connect it with their date and take it as a rejection, but it wasn’t like that. It had absolutely nothing to do with their date.

  It would simply have felt wrong to wake up with Jakob that Saturday morning, because it was Davíð’s birthday. In the old days, they would have gone out for dinner at the Indian restaurant by the harbour, ordered a good bottle of red and chocolate mousse for dessert. Sat by the window, watching the boats rocking gently in the gloom, then walked home, a little tipsy from the wine.

  Elma closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. The day shouldn’t be a sad one, she told herself. She wasn’t going to dwell on thoughts of what might have been. Yet she suspected that it would be hard to avoid doing so this evening. Was it too late to ring Davíð’s family and cancel?

  She looked out at the snow that had fallen during the night. Tiny flakes were dancing outside the window before softly settling on the ground. Davíð used to love snow. It was probably a coincidence that it had decided to snow on his birthday, but she doubted it. Some things couldn’t be a coincidence.

  She sighed and slumped forwards on her desk. After a long day at work yesterday, she wasn’t exactly in the mood to be back in the office on a Saturday morning. But she and Sævar had both agreed to take the weekend shift. Elma wandered into the coffee room. Kári, one of the uniformed officers, was sitting at the table, immersed in the paper.

  ‘What’s new, Kári?’ Elma asked, sitting down opposite him with her mug.

  ‘Nothing much.’ He was poring over the paper, his black hair falling forwards over his small, dark eyes.

  Elma grimaced when she tasted the coffee. It was so strong and bitter it was almost undrinkable. Usually people went out of their way to stop Kári going anywhere near the coffee machine, as it more or less guaranteed a big increase in the frequency of the staff’s trips to the toilets.

  ‘Quiet evening?’

  ‘Well … there was a girl who hasn’t come home.’

  ‘Oh?’

&nbs
p; ‘Mmm. A fifteen-year-old. Daughter of that newsreader.’

  ‘I, er…’ Elma put down her cup, unable to stomach any more of the bitter brew. When checking various aspects of Hekla’s statement, Elma had realised she needed to find out whether Tinna and her mother could confirm that Hekla had visited them on Friday, 4 May. Tinna’s mother’s name was Margrét, and after a brief search Elma discovered that her face was familiar: Margrét was a presenter on the evening news.

  ‘You mean Margrét?’ Elma asked Kári.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, I expect she was at some party.’ Kári didn’t seem too concerned, but then it was common for kids not to be home by their appointed time at weekends. ‘Her mother got in touch. I’ll take a drive round later and see if I can spot her.’

  ‘I’ll talk to the mother. I need to speak to her anyway about another matter.’

  Jörundarholt, which was lined mostly with detached houses and terraces, formed a rough U-shape around a large playing field. Elma had lived in the area until she was seven and had continued playing there for much longer, since her parents hadn’t moved far away. The houses came in a variety of colours and designs, in contrast to Akranes’s more uniform newer estates. Elma parked in front of Margrét’s house. There was a woman standing at an upstairs window, looking out. She vanished as soon as Elma got out of the car and, before she had reached the front door, it opened.

  ‘Margrét.’ The woman who answered the door was tall and strikingly glamorous, despite the marks of tiredness and strain under her eyes. Her face was bare of make-up, she was wearing a dressing gown, tied tightly around her waist, and her blonde hair was pulled back in a gold clip, yet the way she coolly looked Elma up and down before inviting her in made Elma feel self-consciously scruffy, uncomfortably aware of her untidy hair, worn jeans and scuffed shoes.

  Margrét had clearly taken pains over every inch of the house. Everything was so tasteful and welcoming that Elma wished she could hire her to decorate her own flat. The walls were greyish-brown, the furniture made of walnut, and the sitting-room windows were hung with white voile curtains. She took a seat on one of the large, beige sofas, her feet sinking into a soft, deep-pile rug. The room smelt deliciously of vanilla and fresh laundry.

  ‘She’s only fifteen,’ Margrét said, once they were both sitting down. ‘She’s never failed to come home before. Never.’

  ‘Do you know where she was yesterday evening?’

  ‘A girl in her class had a birthday party,’ Margrét said. ‘I’ve called her parents, but it turns out the kids all left before midnight. Even her friends, Dísa and Hekla, are home, and the three of them always stick together.’

  ‘Didn’t they have any idea where Tinna might have gone?’

  ‘No, they said … they said she was going to another party. I haven’t a clue where.’ Margrét’s mouth puckered and she dropped her gaze to the pale-coloured floor tiles.

  ‘I can get someone to drive around town and look for her,’ Elma said. ‘But I’d advise you to keep calling her mobile. It’s not that late. Maybe she just fell asleep somewhere and she’ll turn up soon.’

  Margrét went on staring at the floor without answering.

  ‘Actually, I was going to get in touch with you today about something else,’ Elma went on.

  ‘Oh?’ Margrét raised her eyes.

  ‘It’s about Tinna’s friend Hekla,’ Elma said. ‘We’re looking into the death of Maríanna Þórsdóttir.’

  ‘Maríanna?’ Margrét frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m not quite with you. Are you talking about Hekla’s birth mother?’

  Elma nodded. ‘The day Maríanna vanished, Hekla came over to Akranes. She says she came round to see Tinna and that you were home too, so we were wondering if you could confirm that.’

  ‘I…’ Margrét paused. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Maríanna vanished on the fourth of May this year.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Margrét leant back on the sofa. ‘Yes, of course I remember but I just … I can’t remember if Hekla was here. The fourth of May, you say? She’s round here so often that I can’t possibly remember specific dates, as I’m sure you’ll understand. You’ll have to ask Tinna when … when she comes home.’

  ‘What time do you usually go to work?’

  ‘I have to set off between three and four to be in Reykjavík in time.’

  ‘In that case you should have seen Hekla, if she came round,’ Elma said. ‘It would have been at about half past two.’

  Margrét sighed. ‘You know, I just can’t remember. Sometimes I go in earlier, so it’s possible I did on that day too. And sometimes I’m not even aware that she’s here: they’ll be in Tinna’s room, up to goodness knows what.’

  ‘Hekla said she met you,’ Elma pointed out.

  Margrét was obviously growing tired of her questions. ‘Then she must have done,’ she said impatiently. ‘But I can’t confirm something I don’t remember. Look, I haven’t slept all night, so I’m not in any state to answer your questions right now.’ She gave Elma a quick on-off smile to show that the matter was closed.

  ‘I see. If you do remember, this is my number.’

  Margrét took her card and got up. In the hall, she suddenly grabbed Elma’s arm so hard that it pinched.

  ‘This … I’d rather news of this didn’t get out. I don’t want any appeals for Tinna in the papers or anything like that. People talk, and they’re bound to start imagining all kinds of things. Drawing the wrong conclusions, you know.’

  ‘No, of course we won’t put out any appeals at this stage. With any luck she’ll be home before there’s any need.’

  ‘It would be best,’ Margrét said.

  After Elma had said goodbye, she reflected that Margrét came across as much more likeable on television. But perhaps that was unfair in the circumstances. The woman hadn’t slept and she was frightened about her daughter, but the fact remained that Elma hadn’t warmed to her at all.

  Elma’s brain was like a broken record, playing the same refrain over and over again until it became meaningless. Sævar, who was facing her across the table in the meeting room, looked equally baffled.

  ‘Unnar flatly denied it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course he did.’

  Sævar shrugged. ‘Unnar’s a vet. Apparently there was an emergency case the day we were supposed to meet him: a horse with colic.’

  ‘I see,’ Elma said. ‘But did he have an alibi for when Maríanna went missing?’

  ‘Yes, he was at home with his wife,’ Sævar replied. ‘They both confirmed it. I don’t think we have any evidence to suggest there was something going on between him and Maríanna. We should focus on Sölvi instead. They were supposed to be going on a date, after all, and he doesn’t have a solid alibi because we haven’t got a clue what time Maríanna went missing.’

  ‘But we don’t have any evidence that Sölvi’s guilty either,’ Elma protested. ‘Maybe we can’t eliminate him completely, but there are other more likely candidates. Hekla and Agnar, for example. Or Bergrún. Though, to be fair, Bergrún’s colleagues have confirmed that she was at work until almost five.’ All their potential suspects seemed to be looking less and less likely as perpetrators. It was as if the more urgent their search became, the further the solution slipped from their grasp. They were drawing blanks everywhere. ‘What about Fannar? Has his alibi been corroborated?’

  ‘Yes, he flew to Egilsstaðir on the Friday morning and came home on the Sunday.’ Sævar dropped his pen on the table and stretched his arms overhead. ‘How was Margrét?’

  ‘She was…’ Elma paused thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think she was quite herself. She was worried about her daughter.’

  ‘Understandably,’ Sævar said. ‘But the girl’s bound to turn up.’

  ‘I expect so. Margrét couldn’t remember anything that happened on the fourth of May. Not whether Hekla had come round, nor whether she’d seen her.’ Elma propped her cheek
on one hand and looked at Sævar. ‘Isn’t that a bit strange? Usually, when something major happens, the things you do before and afterwards become imprinted more clearly on your memory.’

  ‘True. Perhaps Maríanna’s disappearance didn’t seem that big a deal to Margrét at the time. After all, she didn’t know her, and we thought Maríanna had probably done one of her usual vanishing acts.’

  ‘So what do we do next?’ Elma asked.

  ‘We haven’t exactly exhausted all avenues…’

  ‘We’ve been in touch with the bus drivers and shown them pictures of everyone who could possibly have driven Maríanna’s car to Grábrók and caught a bus back. We’ve checked all the available CCTV footage from Akranes and Borgarnes that day, without finding anything of interest. We’ve got no evidence and no leads.’

  ‘Hekla lied about coming to Akranes,’ Sævar pointed out, yet again.

  ‘Yes, but she had an explanation for that.’ Elma rubbed her eyes and yawned. ‘And I believe it’s valid. Hekla thought her mother would be coming back and didn’t want to admit to her that she’d sneaked off to Akranes. Then, when the case began to look more serious, she felt it was too late to come clean, which I can well understand.’

  ‘We should have a chat with her friend Tinna when she turns up.’

  ‘Yes,’ Elma said. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She rapped her knuckles on the table several times, then said: ‘I’m going to Reykjavík later.’

  Sævar had started collecting the glasses and coffee cups that were cluttering up the table. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Davíð’s parents have invited me round as it’s his birthday today. Or, you know, it would have been his birthday.’

  Sævar stopped and looked at her. ‘Ah.’

  Elma smiled. She was used to people not knowing how to react when she mentioned Davíð. ‘Anyway, I thought of visiting Maríanna’s father on the way, since I’ll be passing. I know they didn’t have much contact, but given that we don’t seem to be getting anywhere—’

  Sævar interrupted: ‘I could come with you.’