Girls Who Lie

by Eva Bjorg AEgisdóttir

  ‘Yes, exactly. Anyway,’ the man continued, ‘whether or not the girl was lying, the family’s life was ruined and a young man died. It was devastating.’

  Elma couldn’t hold back. ‘Why were there so many people who didn’t believe her?’

  ‘Well, when it came to the point, she didn’t want to press charges. And on top of that the girl had a bit of a … what shall I say? A bit of a reputation.’

  ‘Reputation?’

  ‘Yes, she was quite the party girl. Not that I remember anything about it, but apparently she was known for being a bit free and easy with the truth.’

  ‘I see,’ Elma said, although she didn’t see at all.

  ‘Her family moved away as well after Anton died. I don’t think her parents could look people in the eye after … after what their daughter had done. Mind you, she seems to have come out of it all just fine.’

  ‘Oh?’ Elma swung her chair back to her desk. ‘Did she move back to Sandgerði?’

  ‘No, I don’t imagine she’ll ever do that,’ the man said, with confidence. ‘No, she appears regularly on our TV screens nowadays. Her name’s Viktoría Margrét Hansen, though she always used to be known as Vigga. Today she just calls herself Margrét. She doesn’t use Viktoría anymore, so perhaps she’d rather forget everything connected to that name.’

  Ten Years Old

  After the door has closed, I stand deathly still for a moment. My hands are still shaking. Rage is seething inside me, just waiting to explode. But the strange thing is that my first thought is not sadness at what Hafliði has done but at who he’s done it with: a plain, dirty little slut like that. With a white face, blotched with red, and thin, straggly hair that looks as if it’s about to fall out. If the circumstances had been different, I might have felt jealous, but instead I’m filled with disgust and humiliation. No one gets to treat me like this.

  As I turn to go back up to my flat, Hafliði comes after me. He’s ashamed and immediately starts making excuses. He employs his mellow voice and his eyebrows, like he does when he’s trying to be charming. As I look at him now, I realise I have no feelings for him. I don’t care if our relationship is over. Don’t care if I never see him again. Hafliði has bad breath and several days’ worth of stubble, and the wrinkles that have begun to form around his eyes don’t suit him. The eczema on his neck and hands is particularly bad too, red and inflamed as if he’s been scratching it. But even though I don’t care for him, I’m still churning with rage over his betrayal and the humiliation of it all. After he’s finished his piece, I leave him standing there in the stairwell and take the lift up to my floor. If I’d taken the stairs, my temper might have had time to calm down a bit before I opened the door to our flat. Perhaps the time would have been enough for me to recover my composure. But no, I take the lift. The doors open and I’m as angry when I step out as I was when I got in.

  ‘Turn off the TV!’ My voice comes out much sharper than intended.

  She looks alarmed. Jumping up from the sofa, she heads straight to her room without question or argument. I lie down on the sofa and close my eyes, picturing that girl in Hafliði’s T-shirt. I can’t stop thinking about the look in her eyes, both jubilant and provocative. There was something vaguely familiar about her. Of course, the most obvious explanation is that she’s from Sandgerði and that we know each other from there, but I can’t place her, however hard I try.

  I pull the blanket over me. My thoughts are all over the place, images from past and future flashing around me. I reach out for the framed photo on the windowsill behind the television, which shows me as a pretty little girl with pigtails, in a white dress and black, patent-leather shoes, smiling to reveal straight, white teeth, as small as grains of rice. My parents are standing behind me, their hands resting on my shoulders. It meant so much to them that I should be their pretty little princess that they even christened me after two princesses: Viktoría Margrét. I never could stand my name. I found it so pretentious that I made my friends call me Vigga. My parents couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear me, come to think of it, after I stopped being their perfect, pretty little daughter.

  I suppose we were quite comfortably off. Some might even have said we were rich. Dad was a ship’s captain and mum a doctor. We lived in a large house on the edge of the town. I was my parents’ only child and used to getting a lot of attention, by which I don’t mean the sort of attention that all little children get. No, I was the centre of attention everywhere I went. I was praised for my hair, my eyes, my clothes and even my figure. She’s so tall and slim, people used to say. She’ll be a model one day.

  I was six years old.

  I didn’t even know what a model was but I understood that people thought it a desirable thing to be. Then, when I started school, I looked at all those podgy little kids with their grubby faces, wearing their older siblings’ hand-me-downs, and knew that I was better than them.

  Yet I don’t remember my parents showing me much affection when I was young. I was bounced between institutions and relatives; put in day-care for most of the day, then given a succession of babysitters in the evenings. Girls who rummaged around in Mum’s stuff and let me stay up late as long as I didn’t bother them. There was only one person in my childhood that I really loved, and that was my father’s mother. Granny lived nearby, and I used to go round to hers for half the day, while the other half was spent at nursery school. She was nothing like my parents, who had no interest in me. Yet she wasn’t particularly grandmotherly either, at least not like the grannies in stories. She was slim and strong, with hair that she refused to allow to turn grey and used to dye black with a sachet every third Friday. When I think about Granny I always picture her with her wet black hair swept back, a towel round her shoulders and a cigarette between two fingers, puffing smoke out of the window.

  She claimed to have the second sight and owned a large collection of stones. According to her, they gave off different kinds of energy. One reduced anxiety, another inflammation and a third calmed the emotions. There was one stone that I found more beautiful than all the rest. It was big, black and shiny, with sharp edges. The sides were both jagged and mirror-smooth. Its scientific name was obsidian, but in Iceland it was known more poetically as hrafntinna or ‘raven flint’.

  Granny said it gave off an energy that protected and purified us. Sometimes the energy was so strong she had to keep it out on the balcony. Shortly before she died, Granny told me to take the stone. ‘To protect you,’ she said, pinching me on the cheek. That was another thing about Granny; she only ever showed affection by pinching you or tweaking your hair. She wasn’t much of a cuddler. But that didn’t matter to me: I wanted to be treated as an equal, not as a child. And she had done that ever since I could remember. She told me stories that some people would probably have considered too dark for little girls, but Granny said I was strong. Later, when my daughter was born with her black hair and grey eyes, I could only think of one name: Hrafntinna, after Granny’s most beautiful stone.

  Granny always said I was like that stone, a bit sharp around the edges, but smooth and pretty in between. My energy was so strong that sometimes it would be hard to contain it. Later, I wondered what the real reason was for her comparing me to a black stone. Was it because she saw who I was? Was it the colour of my soul? She was well aware that there were problems at school and that I wasn’t always a little angel. I was mean and spiteful, and everyone knew that. But Granny saw something good in me that no one else could. There was no chance for the goodness to grow and blossom, though; not among all the lies that came pouring out of me.

  I pull the blanket up to my chin, aware that I’m about to spiral into a bad place; a place that I’ve done well to avoid all these years. But now I can sense it again, the shame. That vile sense of shame that sucks all the blood out of my body. I picture their faces: the anger and contempt; the disappointment in my parents’ eyes. And I picture him. His fleshy face and red eyes. Hear his panting in my ear. Smell the sour stenc
h of alcohol.

  After she had hung up, Elma sat quite still. It just didn’t fit. Or perhaps all the pieces fitted now. Margrét had lied – she had known Maríanna only too well. They’d lived in the same small town, and Margrét had accused Maríanna’s brother of rape. Surely she must have recognised his sister fifteen years later? Then again, there was quite an age gap between them. Elma looked Margrét up and worked out that she would be thirty-seven this year. Maríanna, who had been six years her junior, would have been thirty-one now, had she lived. Two years younger than Elma, yet she’d had a fifteen-year-old daughter. It was a strange thought. When Elma was fifteen, having a baby had been the last thing on her mind, as indeed it was today.

  She stretched, then finished the last drop in her mug. She would have to break the news to Sævar and Hörður. She got up, only to stop short as a thought struck her: the connection between the two women was even stronger than she’d realised.

  ‘…Which makes Tinna Maríanna’s niece,’ Elma finished. ‘They’re related: Tinna and Hekla; Tinna and Maríanna. The policeman I talked to from Sandgerði said that Margrét and her entire family had moved away from the village. What if it wasn’t because they were ashamed, as he thought, but because they wanted to hide the fact that Margrét was pregnant by Anton?’

  ‘Well, there’s a question,’ Hörður said.

  It was past midday. Hörður had been eating at his desk when she and Sævar came in, and had put down his half-finished flatcake.

  ‘Admittedly, there’s always a chance that Margrét didn’t realise Maríanna was Anton’s sister,’ Elma added. ‘She didn’t have any contact with Hekla’s mother, only with Bergrún, so perhaps it never occurred to her to wonder where Hekla came from.’

  ‘And Margrét claimed not to have seen Hekla the day Maríanna went missing?’

  ‘She couldn’t remember,’ Elma said. ‘But Hekla claimed that Margrét was at home when she went round to see Tinna.’

  They were silent as they pondered this latest twist. A sequence of events was taking shape in Elma’s mind that could be no more than conjecture at present. Supposing Maríanna had suddenly worked out who Tinna’s mother was and gone to Akranes to confront her. She might also have realised that Tinna was her niece and been angry with Margrét for hiding the child. Blamed her for everything that had gone wrong with her family. Could there have been a confrontation, during which one of them had reacted violently, with disastrous consequences?

  ‘I doubt Maríanna’s family ever knew about the child,’ Sævar said. ‘Otherwise, I think Þór would have mentioned it when we talked to him.’ He frowned, then added: ‘Having said that, how come he didn’t realise who Margrét was? He must have seen her on TV.’

  ‘He’s almost blind,’ Elma reminded him. She had wondered the same thing when she first learnt Viktoría’s identity. She drew a deep breath, then continued: ‘Margrét moved away from Sandgerði and had Anton’s baby. She never told anyone except her parents, who also kept quiet about it, so nothing got out. The news never spread to Sandgerði. But what if it all came out the day Maríanna died? What if Maríanna went round to Margrét’s and they recognised each other? According to Þór and Bryndís – that’s the old woman who used to have coffee with her – Maríanna was bitterly angry about what had happened. What if she’d wanted revenge?’

  Sævar scratched his head. ‘But it doesn’t make sense. Why would Margrét keep the child a secret if she’d already told people that Anton had raped her? And why didn’t she have an abortion?’

  ‘Perhaps it was too late by the time she realised she was pregnant,’ Elma suggested.

  ‘Well, then why not have it adopted?’

  ‘Not everyone can bring themselves to give their baby away,’ Elma said. ‘But it’s a good question why she was so determined to keep the child a secret. Maybe it was to avoid the risk of interference from Anton’s family. I can’t imagine she’d have wanted any contact with his parents if he’d raped her.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any chance Maríanna knew who Tinna’s mother was before she went over to Akranes that day?’ Sævar asked.

  ‘It’s possible she’d only just found out,’ Elma said. ‘Perhaps she was on Facebook and saw Tinna’s profile. That’s all it would have taken for her to realise who the girl’s mother was.’ She thought about Tinna’s profile photo of herself and her mother. She had looked it up after the phone call.

  ‘Surely she’d have recognised her from seeing her on TV?’ Hörður said.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Elma agreed. ‘But she wouldn’t necessarily have known who her daughter was. Maríanna may have been eaten up with anger about the past, but she’d got her act together in the last few years, so perhaps she didn’t freak out just because Margrét was on her TV screen.’

  Hörður took a sip from his glass of water. ‘Surely the only thing to do in the circumstances is talk to Margrét.’

  No one answered when they tried the doorbell at Margrét’s house, and her phone just kept ringing. When they finally got hold of her husband, he told them she’d gone to Reykjavík early. So there was nothing to be done but wait until she got back.

  Elma used the time to gather more information about her. Margrét had moved to Akranes four years previously when she started living with a man called Leifur. He already had a son of around twenty, who lived with them when it suited him. They had married the same year. A big fancy wedding: white dress, red roses, the whole works. As Margrét and Leifur posed on the church steps, Tinna had stood beside her mother, her arms hanging down by her sides and her expression a little solemn for the occasion, as if she had her doubts. Eleven years old and her life with her mother was about to be transformed.

  Before that, as far as Elma could discover, Margrét and her daughter had lived alone in Reykjavík since Tinna was born. Margrét had got her TV job a year before she moved to Akranes. She came across well, always spoke clearly and gazed into the camera with that typical TV-presenter intensity. Her professional manner and soothing voice had soon got her noticed.

  Elma remembered seeing a full-page interview with her in the paper a while ago and tracked it down in the online archives. The interview was two years old; in it Margrét didn’t mention Sandgerði once. On the contrary, she said she’d lived most of her life in Reykjavík. She talked a lot about her daughter and how rewarding she had found being a single mother. The piece was accompanied by two photos of Tinna: an old one of her blowing out ten candles on her birthday cake, and a more recent one of mother and daughter with their arms around each other, smiling into the camera, a glimpse of green grass behind them and sunshine in their hair.

  I caught up with Margrét one lunchtime at a café in the city centre. Her face is well known after appearing on our TV screens, reading the evening news for the last two years. As she comes in, you can see heads turning and eyes widening, and you would expect no less, because Margrét cuts a glamorous figure, with her statuesque height and that signature mane of blonde hair. But that’s not the only reason she attracts attention; she literally exudes charisma as she orders a big latte and bestows a friendly smile on the woman behind the counter…

  Elma sniffed. Her own experience of Margrét had been quite different. Sure, she was beautiful and wasn’t short on confidence, but the friendly smile had got lost somewhere along the way. Maybe she saved it for the TV cameras, rather than wasting it on police officers who asked her awkward questions. Elma clicked to turn the page of the digital newspaper and carried on reading. She skimmed over the bits that dealt with Margrét’s job but paused when she spotted Tinna’s name.

  ‘There are two people in my life who have been more important to me than anyone else: my daughter, Tinna, and my paternal grandmother, Svanhvít.’ When the conversation turns to Margrét’s grandmother, her face takes on a dreamy expression. ‘Granny was probably the most important influence on my life. She wasn’t like other grandmothers, always ready with the cakes and cuddles. No, Granny didn’t have much of
a sweet tooth. Instead, she taught me to drink tea and read auras. When I was five, she terrified me with stories about the black elves. She told me they lived in dark rocks, with the result that I didn’t dare go near a lava field for years.’ Margrét laughs, then continues: ‘She had a big collection of stones that she claimed gave off different kinds of energy. The most beautiful of all was a big black chunk of obsidian or “hrafntinna”. It gave off an energy that was supposed to have protective powers, and the day before she died she gave the stone to me.’ Margrét is silent for a moment, gazing pensively out of the window. ‘That’s why I christened my daughter Hrafntinna. For Granny,’ she says, smiling again. ‘So it was a lucky coincidence when she was born with all this black hair.’

  Elma closed the page. There wasn’t much of interest there, though it gave her pause when she read the part about black elves and lava. The little boys who found the body had thought they’d seen a black elf. Yet she herself couldn’t remember having heard anything about black elves being associated with lava fields. Elma yawned and rotated her chair towards the window. Perhaps she hadn’t been quite fair to Margrét. Although the woman had come across as a bit arrogant when they met, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. Elma wasn’t going to judge somebody she’d only met once. After all, anyone could have a bad day.

  She switched off her computer and stood up. It was almost inconceivable that Margrét could have killed Maríanna, hidden her body in the lava field, then turned up and read the news reports for the TV cameras every evening, cool as a cucumber, with a smile on her face. Not unless she’d been completely unaffected by the murder. Of course, there were people like that – individuals who lacked any kind of empathy. Psychologists referred to them as psychopaths, and the condition was often associated with serial killers. But in Elma’s experience few people who committed murder were psychopaths. They were usually under the influence of drink or drugs, mentally ill or blinded by passion. Thinking about Margrét’s smiling face, though, Elma couldn’t help wondering if she might be the exception.