‘We have a bus driver who remembers seeing you and Tinna catching the bus from Bifröst to Akranes on the fourth of May,’ Sævar said.
‘I couldn’t go alone,’ Margrét said. ‘You must understand that. I tried to lift the body but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough.’ She slumped back in her chair and gave a loud sigh, as if exasperated by their inability to understand. For a moment the mask seemed to slip, and Elma caught a flash of anger behind her eyes. Then Margrét straightened her back again and said: ‘Hekla and Tinna can both confirm everything I’ve said.’
She hadn’t been expecting hugs. Reproaches, yes, but not hugs. She breathed in the coconut scent of Bergrún’s hair. And then Fannar was there, his embrace a little clumsier and briefer, but still so warm and lovely. Like being wrapped in a soft blanket. After her witness statement had been taken, they’d gone straight home, where Bergrún had run Hekla a bath, and they hadn’t even mentioned what had happened. She was grateful for that. Once she was in bed, though, she couldn’t stop thinking about whether she could have done anything differently. Whether she would have even wanted to change anything.
On 4 May, Hekla had slipped away in the middle of her swimming lesson without anyone noticing. Ignoring Maríanna’s attempts to get hold of her, she had contacted Agnar, but he hadn’t had time to pick her up. As a result, she had taken the bus to Akranes with no clear idea about what she was going to do once she got there. She was so angry that all she could think of was getting away from Maríanna, who didn’t understand anything and couldn’t care less if Hekla missed her football tournament. But she couldn’t go to Bergrún and Fannar’s house because that was the first place Maríanna would look for her.
Tinna had answered the moment she rang. And Tinna’s mother hadn’t commented when she turned up at their house, since there was nothing unusual about it; Hekla dropped in to see Tinna most weekends when she was in Akranes. But Maríanna had gone on ringing, and in the end Hekla had come to her senses and decided to go home. She was so afraid of being grounded that on the way back she had racked her brains for excuses: she’d lost her phone, she’d been doing homework with some other kids from school (like Maríanna would believe that), she’d got permission to stay longer at the pool, she’d lost her house keys, she’d gone to the library where she’d been reading and had forgotten the time…
By the time the bus reached Borgarnes she had the story fully formed in her head, but when she got home there was no sign of Maríanna. Just that note: Sorry. I love you. Mum. Of course, she’d thought the message was about the football tournament and felt even more guilty about having sneaked off to Akranes.
When it became clear that Maríanna wasn’t coming back, she’d seen the note in a whole new light. It wasn’t because of the tournament at all, but because Maríanna had decided to vanish forever. Or so she’d believed.
After that, everything had happened both quickly and slowly. The move, the change of school, new bedroom, new life. Supper at seven o’clock, wake up at half past seven, football practice five times a week. And Hekla was happy; too happy to think about Maríanna. If anything, she was grateful because it was as if Maríanna had finally set her free. That’s how Hekla had felt after she disappeared: free.
But now Hekla knew the whole story. She knew what kind of brother Maríanna had had and what he had done. She couldn’t imagine how Margrét must have felt. The thought of Margrét, so beautiful, so kind, made her smile. Why had she ever been afraid of her? At the summer house she had felt so easy in her company. As if she was finally part of a real family; her blood relatives. She and Tinna were first cousins. That was something she had never thought she would have. Yet she felt a pang in her heart when she thought about Tinna and what could never now happen between them. Maybe it was just as well. Maybe it had never been a real possibility, and she had just imagined that Tinna had feelings for her. Maybe.
It didn’t matter. What they had now was so much bigger and more important, and all she had to do was tweak the truth a little. Claim she had witnessed something that she hadn’t, to save Margrét and Tinna from getting into trouble. Then life could continue just as it was. No, not quite as it was – better than before.
Now everything would be so much better.
Monday
They had discussed the case back and forth over the last few days, but in reality it was out of their hands. Margrét would be charged, though Elma doubted she would be looking at a long prison sentence. Both Tinna and Hekla had confirmed Margrét’s story, and there was no evidence to disprove their version of events. Not only was Margrét convincing but people wanted to believe her.
Her story was all over the media; the tale of how the small town had turned against her after the alleged rape. Someone had got wind of the fact that Maríanna, the rapist’s sister, had stalked her afterwards. There was a clamour of voices demanding Margrét’s release. It was as if the case had been turned upside down, and instead of being guilty of murder, or at least of having covered up a murder, Margrét was now a victim. A hero. Admittedly, most people agreed that hiding the body had been a mistake, but an excusable one in the circumstances. She had only been protecting her daughter. Maríanna received much worse treatment at the hands of the press, who described her as a bad mother and criticised the Child Protection Agency for having allowed her to keep Hekla. Especially after somebody leaked the fact that Hekla had been left alone for three days when she was three years old. The very few voices who believed that Margrét deserved a heavy sentence were drowned out by the tidal wave of those who were active in the comments sections. Elma wouldn’t be surprised if the persuasive power of social media ended up influencing the court.
Resting her chin on her hand, she looked at Sævar. ‘There’s something not quite right about this. Something about her that just … that just doesn’t fit.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘There’s some quality that doesn’t come across on television or in newspaper interviews – or even necessarily when you meet her. It’s like she puts on this face for the cameras. Like it’s all just theatre. She’s kept quiet about Maríanna’s death for seven months, coolly pretending nothing happened. If the body hadn’t turned up, she’d have got away with it too.’
Sævar sighed. ‘Margrét has quite a strong story, and there’s a variety of evidence to support it. We should be able to compare the handwriting in the threatening letters with Maríanna’s writing, which would settle the question of whether she sent them. And if Tinna’s guilty, it’s quite possible that a mother would react like that. If she was protecting her daughter.’
Elma nodded. She couldn’t provide any real reasons to justify her dislike of the woman. Perhaps it was just personal prejudice, influenced by the way Margrét had looked at her as if she wanted to laugh. It didn’t matter how often Elma reminded herself that Margrét had been treated abominably over the rape, she just couldn’t summon up any sympathy for her.
Maybe too it was the discrepancy she perceived between Margrét’s public persona and how she behaved when she was talking to Elma. She wasn’t the same person. Elma could understand how people fell for the friendly, warm, open, sincere woman they saw on their TV screens. But that wasn’t the Margrét Elma had encountered behind closed doors.
The phone rang, and Elma went into her office and shut the door. It was Gulla from reception.
‘I’ve got a woman on the line. Can I put her through?’
Elma glanced at the clock: she’d been on her way out. ‘Yes, OK. Put her through.’
The woman introduced herself as Guðrún. Elma found it impossible to guess her age. Her voice sounded youthful, but her diction was very clear and her language formal.
‘She’s lying,’ the woman said. ‘Margrét is lying about the whole business.’
‘I’m sorry, who did you say you were?’
Sævar put his head round the door, and Elma gave him a sign to hang on. A few of them were going out to lunch together.
‘I have a son called Hafliði who was in a relationship with Margrét,’ the woman said. ‘He was head over heels in love with her and very attached to her daughter, Hrafntinna. I only met them the once, but that was quite enough. There was something downright malevolent about her, and you didn’t have to be around her long to see it. It was useless even trying to discuss it with Hafliði, though. Love is blind.’
Elma remembered Hafliði’s name from when she’d looked Margrét up on LÖKE, the police information system. He was the neighbour who had been seriously injured in an accident. But Margrét couldn’t have been involved as she’d had an alibi, so Elma couldn’t think why Hafliði’s mother was calling. ‘I don’t quite follow…’
‘No, I don’t suppose you would,’ the woman said. ‘My son and I were very close. I say were because although he’s still alive, he’s not the same person anymore. He’s unrecognisable as the old Hafliði. Anyway, he rang me the evening before the accident, distraught because he’d wrecked his relationship with Margrét. He’d … been unfaithful to her.’
‘I see,’ Elma said. She recalled that a neighbour had heard Hafliði and Margrét having a row a few days before the accident. Presumably their bust-up had been about his cheating.
‘I just know she was involved in his accident. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? A flowerpot wouldn’t just randomly fall off the seventh floor, directly onto Hafliði’s head. It’s too convenient a coincidence. No, if you ask me, it was deliberately dropped on him.’
Elma glanced at the clock again. Naturally, she pitied the woman. It had been a terrible accident. But she pitied her even more for her inability to accept what had happened and move on, instead of feeling she had to blame someone; find a scapegoat.
‘Then there was the necklace,’ the woman added.
‘The necklace?’
‘I gave Hafliði a necklace for his thirtieth birthday. A chain with an H pendant that he never took off. When he was found, there was no sign of the necklace. We searched his entire flat without finding it.’
‘Couldn’t he have lost it?’
‘No,’ Guðrún said flatly. ‘No, somebody stole it. The same person who dropped the flowerpot.’
The claim struck Elma as absurd. ‘I see,’ she said.
Sævar put his head round the door again and tapped at his watch. Elma gave him a sign that she was almost done.
‘Could I send you a photograph?’ the woman asked.
‘A photograph?’ Elma got to her feet and took her jacket off the back of her chair.
‘Of the necklace.’
‘I don’t know how that will help.’
‘Please,’ Guðrún begged. ‘In case you come across it in the course of your—’
‘OK, send it over,’ Elma interrupted quickly. She was starving. Begga now looked into the office as well, her expression impatient. Elma gave Guðrún her email address and hurriedly ended the call.
After lunch, Elma returned to her desk. She sat there for a while, staring at the wall and stroking Birta’s ears, feeling strangely empty inside. She had been enjoying her lunch until Sævar had broken some news to her and Begga that had made her completely lose her appetite for her club sandwich. Apparently, Gígja’s cancer had spread to her bones, and Hörður was going to take indefinite leave as a result. Elma didn’t know much about cancer and was grateful for that, but she did know that once it had spread to the bones, the outlook wasn’t good.
Gígja and Hörður had been together since they were kids. They had children and grandchildren, and everything that Elma would like to have herself one day. However different they were, no one could fail to see how much they loved each other, and there was no mistaking either how badly Gígja’s illness had affected Hörður. He had been distracted for months now, and his worries seemed to be overwhelming him these days. If only there were some way she could help.
Elma’s thoughts went to her own parents. They’d had a rocky patch when the sisters were younger, but over the years their relationship appeared to have grown stronger. Perhaps it was all the holidays abroad or the hobbies they now shared. Last year, her dad had given her mum waders for Christmas, and in the summer they had gone on a fishing tour together. Now her mum was going to repay him in kind by taking him with her to a Liverpool game.
Elma sighed, took out her phone and selected Jakob’s number. It was time to tell him the truth. She couldn’t go on avoiding him like this. It wasn’t fair.
After the phone call, she sat down again, feeling as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She then noticed that Hafliði’s mother had sent her a message. When she opened it, a large jpeg began to download, bit by bit.
The man in the picture was strikingly handsome. He had dark, slightly wavy hair, warm eyes and a big smile, revealing perfect white teeth. Last of all, his neck appeared with the chain and pendant, and Elma remembered exactly where she had seen the same kind of necklace.
Thirteen Years Old
My little girl has become a teenager. A thirteen-year-old who loves rappers I’ve never heard of, spends an hour in the shower and takes another hour to get ready. I let her dye her hair blonde. It suits her, drawing out the grey in her eyes. There’s not much left of the frightened little girl she once was. No one would suspect that she hadn’t had any friends for the first ten years of her life or that she hardly spoke a word until she was three years old. No one, looking at her now, would see a girl who had hardly raised her eyes from the floor as a child and played obsessively with those green toy soldiers. They’ve long gone. We put them in a bin bag and threw them out, the day we moved to Akranes. Only I can see the odd glimpse of the child she once was. The hesitation when she finds herself in a situation where she doesn’t know how to behave. Most people just see a girl who carefully weighs up her words before speaking. They don’t know that what she’s really doing is working out what people expect her to say. That normal communication doesn’t come naturally to her.
After I started my job on TV, so much changed. I changed. I lost all the kilos I had gained and looked more like the girl I used to be. I didn’t care who saw me now or who might recognise me, because I had no need to be ashamed of anything. I met Leifur at work. He was the TV company’s finance manager. Hrafntinna and I moved to Akranes, because he lived there and commuted to Reykjavík every day. I enjoyed living in a small town again, and the change of scene did my daughter good too. Being at a new school gave her a chance to recreate herself, and she did it better than I would have dared dream. She’s been so successful that I hardly recognise her anymore.
But her room isn’t quite like other teenagers’ rooms. I listen to mothers complaining about what pigsties their daughters’ bedrooms are and how they spend hours on the phone and won’t do their homework. My daughter’s room is always immaculately clean and tidy. Everything has its place, and every piece of clothing is neatly folded and put back in the cupboard after use, while her shoes are lined up on a rack at the end of her bed.
I pause by the photo on her desk: Tinna at six years old, on her first day at school. At least I did one thing right: I took the conventional picture that all parents should take. Beside the photo is Granny’s black stone, the hrafntinna.
I open the drawer in her desk. It’s full of papers and books. Felt pens in all the colours of the rainbow and rubbers designed to look like food. A hamburger, a pineapple, a chicken. Once she used to arrange them on a shelf, but now they’ve found a new home. I automatically straighten the pile of papers and move the rubbers aside.
It’s then that I notice the chain. It’s hidden at the back of the drawer. When I take it out, I see the pendant with the H on it dangling in front of me. Suddenly the floor seems to be moving in waves, and I sink into the chair at the desk. I drop the necklace back into the drawer and sit there dumbly staring at it. Then I close my eyes and see Hafliði, the evening before the ac
cident. I clearly remember the chain around his neck as he stood at the door, begging my forgiveness. And I see Hrafntinna, the day they first met, pointing at it and saying, ‘Hey, that’s my initial’. See the two of them holding their H pendants as though they were proof of their relationship. ‘Do you hate Hafliði, Mum?’ she had asked. A black-and-white world. Either good or bad, nothing in between.
My hands shake as I stand up and carefully close the drawer. As I carry on cleaning the house, the questions keep running through my head: who is she really? Who is this girl I brought into the world?
Tuesday
Tinna watched the blender pulp the frozen berries until they were reduced to a pink mush. Now it was just her, Leifur and her stupid stepbrother in the house. She had come home yesterday after spending several days with a doctor who thought he could analyse her. It was rather lonely in the house without Mum. She wished her mother hadn’t had to go away but knew she’d had no choice. With any luck, she wouldn’t be away too long. Because there was no way Tinna was staying here for any length of time without her. She would have given anything to be allowed to go with her. It had always been the two of them together, her and her mum, and Tinna found it hard to imagine a different life.
In all these years Tinna had only once asked who her father was, and her mother’s reaction then had ensured that she had never asked again. But now she knew. Since Maríanna had come round that day back in the spring, she had known that his name was Anton and he was dead. He’d died before she was born. When she looked him up online, all she found was an article from when he had represented Iceland in a maths competition as a teenager. She had inherited her interest in maths from him, then, along with her dark hair and large build. Tinna wished she was more like her mother: smaller, with finer features. That her nose wasn’t as big and her hair wasn’t as dark. She had done what she could to make herself more like her mother. Dyed her hair blonde, wore clothes her mother had bought for herself, and imitated her manner. Studied her expressions and smile, practising in front of the mirror until her cheeks ached. It had pleased her mother so much, and she would do anything to please her. Everything was so much easier when her mother was happy.
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