2012
The flat in Laugadalur was history; Bergthóra lived there alone these days, though Helgi was still paying the rent.
It was a problem he’d have to deal with sooner or later, but he’d kept the fact hidden from Aníta.
He’d envisaged letting the contract run its course – there was only a month left on it – then at some point sending Bergthóra a bill for the months when she’d been living there at his expense.
He’d heard on the grapevine that she had started seeing someone else, a man who worked at the University Hospital, but he didn’t want to know.
Bergthóra could be charming on first acquaintance, she came across as loving and impulsive, but that flame would be quickly extinguished as the relationship wore on.
Helgi had rented himself a small flat on Sudurgata in the west of town, in the basement of an attractive red house clad in corrugated iron.
Sometimes, when he got home after work, he felt as if he were living in a story.
It was all very alien and different to an Akureyri boy like him.
In retrospect, Akureyri seemed almost like a village compared to the noise, traffic and crowds of Reykjavík, even though he lived in an area of the capital that was characterized by charming traditional houses.
The proximity to the centre of town had its advantages and drawbacks too.
He had settled in very well, all things considered. He’d had to solve the problem of accommodation in a hurry after the powder keg that was his relationship with Bergthóra had finally exploded. For him, this flat didn’t represent a future home so much as a temporary solution.
It belonged to a colleague of his in the police, who had offered him reasonable conditions and a special discount on the rent for the first few months in light of the circumstances.
Helgi had been planning to find a larger flat in the suburbs, to buy rather than rent, but Aníta’s arrival on the scene had complicated things, and now he thought he might have to add her into the equation when it came to finding somewhere to live, though she hadn’t officially moved in with him yet.
They got on so well. They could spend their evenings relaxing on the sofa, just chatting, and even enjoy a glass of wine together. Sadly, that hadn’t been true of his life with Bergthóra.
He and Aníta had just opened a bottle of red after a long day at work.
Helgi already trusted her more than he had ever trusted Bergthóra and didn’t hesitate to discuss his job with her. He knew she would never betray his confidence and he really appreciated being able to bounce his ideas and theories off someone from outside the police.
His mind was permanently in overdrive, buzzing with speculation about his cases all day and half the evening, except when he could switch off by losing himself in a book.
Although he was careful not to be at work, directly or indirectly, the whole time, the truth was that he relished the jobs that were assigned to him and was eager not only to perform them well but to achieve better results than any of his colleagues.
He saw himself staying on in CID for the next couple of decades at least, so he was determined to scale the promotional ladder as quickly as possible.
When he first joined the police he had still been working on his MA dissertation about the murders at the sanatorium, so he had asked for an extension and planned to focus on finishing it in the new year.
‘Should I give Bergthóra a call tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘I’m serious. We can’t have her bothering you at work.’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ Aníta pleaded, finishing the last mouthful in her glass. Helgi had tried to bring up the subject earlier that evening too, without success. ‘By the way, I’ve never read anything by Elín,’ she added.
He replenished their glasses.
‘Yes, you should try some more good crime novels,’ he said, taking the bait. They could discuss Bergthóra later or just try to forget about the incident.
Aníta didn’t share his interest in detective fiction, but he saw that as a challenge rather than a disadvantage. He was hoping he could teach her to appreciate something new and had already lent her several titles from his collection.
Earlier that evening he had gone through his shelves and picked out a handful of novels he was intending to peruse over the next few days, old detective stories dealing with disappearances of one kind or another.
It wasn’t that he thought the solution to the mystery would be lurking in any of them, he just needed a means of distracting himself when he was under a lot of pressure.
The first book from the pile was lying on the sofa beside him now: The Dragon Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine.
‘Elín was bloody good,’ he told Aníta. ‘Was, or is – I don’t know what to say in the circumstances.’
‘What do you think has happened? Any ideas?’
‘To be honest, my gut instinct is that she’s dead, but I couldn’t tell you why.’
‘How odd.’
‘At other times I think she might have masterminded her own disappearance.’
When he’d first heard that Elín was missing, he’d been immediately reminded of Agatha Christie, who vanished without trace in 1926, just as she had become successful.
She had later turned up at an English country hotel in Harrogate, under an assumed name.
Christie had only been thirty-six at the time, while Elín was almost twice that age.
Christie had recently learnt that her husband was intending to leave her, whereas, at least on the surface, nothing of note seemed to have happened in Elín’s life recently.
She simply led a quiet existence as a retired bestselling author.
Then, all of a sudden, nobody knew where she was.
‘It sounds like the sort of thing an artist would contrive, staging a disappearance like that,’ Aníta said. ‘Then maybe publishing a new book in the autumn?’
‘She hadn’t… hasn’t… written anything for many years. There’s no book in the pipeline.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Aníta asked teasingly. With her, smiles and light-heartedness never seemed far from the surface. She was the complete opposite of Bergthóra in that respect.
‘Quite sure. I’ve spoken to her publisher. She wouldn’t lie to me, not in a situation like this.’
Aníta shrugged.
‘Agatha Christie vanished, only to reappear again,’ Helgi remarked. ‘She was a promising young writer at the time. She’d just published the book that made her into a star.’
‘What happened?’
‘She turned up,’ Helgi said.
‘Where?’
‘At a hotel, under an assumed name. She never referred to it in her autobiography. There are no explanations, though there have been any number of theories. I think it’s safe to say that it was one of the most famous mysteries of the twentieth century.’
‘I think it sounds rather fun, being able to disappear, then pop up again.’
‘You could put it like that.’
‘What about Elín?’ Aníta asked.
Helgi was pleased that she seemed genuinely interested.
Of course, he had to be circumspect when discussing ongoing investigations, but he trusted Aníta.
He supposed he’d trusted Bergthóra too, to begin with, but she’d never been interested enough to ask him about the work he was engaged in, whether it was his studies or his job.
‘I have to say, I think it’s unlikely she’ll turn up at a hotel,’ Helgi said. ‘No, I think there’s more to it. Maybe she intended to disappear for good and never come back.’
‘That can’t be ruled out.’
‘No, you’re right about that.’
‘This could be a good assignment for you, couldn’t it?’ Aníta asked diffidently.
‘A good assignment?’
‘Prominent, I mean. A big case.’
Of course this had occurred to him, but when it came to the point he found it distasteful to dwell on that aspect.
‘It’ll certainly cause a stir – hopefully not straight away, but soon enough. It would be great to have a few days to look into things in peace first, though. As I mentioned, I spoke to her publisher earlier…’ He paused. ‘She didn’t know anything, or…’
‘Or claimed she didn’t,’ Aníta finished.
‘Exactly. Forensics have examined Elín’s house from top to bottom. I’m going over there tomorrow. There are no clues, apart from the fact that she doesn’t seem to have been at home for several days. It’s all very strange.’
‘Was she strong? Healthy, I mean?’
‘Yes, I got in touch with her doctor. She was fighting fit. I’m going to talk to her best friend as well tomorrow. Her name’s Lovísa. She’s a judge.’
‘Women tell their best friends everything,’ Aníta said with a mischievous grin. Helgi tried not to wonder what she said about him to her female friends. ‘You should have spoken to Lovísa before anyone else. Maybe I’d be better at this job than you.’
Laughing, Helgi bent and kissed her.