2012
‘What are you reading?’
The words seemed to hover a long way off on the edge of his consciousness, faint but full of warmth. Helgi didn’t immediately react, then stirred and realized he had dozed off on the sofa with the book on his stomach.
He had been dreaming, and his dream stayed with him.
He had been looking at a small gravestone, mossy from many years in a churchyard. In his dream the weather had been still and the inscription had been clear: Elín S. Jónsdóttir . But when he looked back at the stone, the name had changed and the grave was now that of his mother.
The horror of it still clung to him. He did his best to shrug it off. Usually he didn’t take much notice of his dreams, but this one had been so sinister.
‘What are you reading?’ Aníta asked again.
He rubbed his eyes and smiled at her.
‘S. S. Van Dine.’
‘Never heard of him. Or her?’
‘Him. He’s long dead, like most of the authors I read.’
‘Are you reading it for the second time? Or the third?’
It was a pertinent question. Although they’d only been together a short time, she already knew him well enough to understand that his passion for old whodunnits more often than not involved rereading the same books.
‘Yes, sure, I’ve read it before. It’s a great favourite of mine.’
‘Can I see?’
He handed her the book.
‘ The Dragon Murder Case .’ She opened the dog-eared hardback. It was a first edition, bought a few years ago. ‘MCMXXXIII – 1933. A good year?’
‘A good year for crime novels.’
‘I like this map at the front. It’s charming. What does it show, an estate and houses? And here, yes, here’s the Dragon Pool. Maybe I’ll borrow it when you’re done. Why are you rereading it now?’
‘Just for fun. It’s about a missing-persons case.’
‘I see.’
‘Like Elín. Well, quite different, actually. It’s just that the case is preying on my mind; I can’t get a proper handle on it.’
‘In what way is it different?’
‘What?’
‘The case in the book.’
‘It’s about a man who vanishes, quite literally, in his own swimming pool. He dives in and doesn’t reappear. It’s an entertaining set-up.’
‘Who’s the investigator?’
‘Philo Vance – a great character.’
‘You won’t solve Elín’s mystery by reading this,’ Aníta pointed out. ‘At least, I very much doubt it.’
He smiled. Having an opportunity to talk about his old books made him happy and helped to distract him.
He felt the strain of shouldering the responsibility for the investigation into Elín’s disappearance, even though no one had put him under any real pressure yet.
It had all the makings of a big, high-profile case.
If it went well, he would earn kudos; if not, the buck would stop with him.
‘Elín’s mystery?’ he asked.
‘It’s just a manner of speaking.’
‘Interesting choice of words, though. You don’t think she… well… could have staged it herself?’
Aníta shrugged.
‘Who knows what these authors are capable of?’
On evenings like this, Helgi thought how he would have loved to have a fireplace in the sitting room; it would have been such a perfect complement to the weather, his book and the company. He sat upright and laid the novel aside on the table.
‘Do you have to work this weekend?’ Aníta asked.
‘I’m afraid I do, yes. But I was thinking of cooking this evening. How does that sound to you?’
Aníta smiled.
‘Please.’ After a pause, she added: ‘By the way, have you seen her at all?’
‘Who?’
‘You know, Bergthóra? Have you seen her recently?’
The question dismayed him. The last thing he wanted was the spectre of his ex intruding on their cosy Friday evening.
‘Bergthóra? No.’
Aníta sometimes asked him questions about his previous relationship, quite adroitly, always careful to be polite and considerate, never pushing for answers, but he usually managed to sidestep the subject, if not quite as adroitly.
Still, it didn’t matter at this stage. No doubt they would be able to discuss it one day, like a lot of other things, but he wasn’t ready, not yet.
He felt sick at the thought of having to acknowledge the violence, even though he had been the victim, not the perpetrator.
He would only start inadvertently wondering whether he could have done something to prevent it, whether things could have turned out differently.
Perhaps their relationship had been doomed from the start and Bergthóra’s character flaws had been too serious for it ever to have worked, even though the honeymoon period had been good. There had been heat and passion during those first weeks and months, before everything started to go wrong.
Despite going round and round in his thoughts to convince himself that the violence had been her fault, and hers alone, he couldn’t face talking about it to anyone.
He felt guilty, for reasons he didn’t understand. Obscurely ashamed too.
The worst part, though, was the dread he felt deep down that his relationship with Aníta might end in disaster.
Of course, there was nothing to suggest it would, and Aníta was everything that Bergthóra wasn’t.
It was simply that, having gone through that horrible ordeal, that maelstrom of destruction, he now saw dangers on every side.
Perhaps that was why he was so desperate to avoid talking to Aníta about Bergthóra, the fear that her name alone was enough to poison things between them.
‘Has she been back to your office again?’ he asked, suddenly struck by an uneasy suspicion that this might be why she was asking.
‘No… er… no,’ Aníta faltered.
She couldn’t fool him.
‘No, really? Has something happened?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Helgi. Let’s just relax.’
But he could hear the tension in her voice.
‘Did she come to your office again?’ he demanded.
Aníta shook her head.
‘No, it wasn’t like that.’
‘Did you meet her?’
‘Helgi, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment. This isn’t important. She’s quite harmless and, anyway, I may have been mistaken. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Aníta…’
‘Look, it was just on the bus, on my way home… I was sitting at the back, like I always do, when I saw her – I’m fairly sure it was her – sitting at the front.
She didn’t approach me, but at one point she turned round and stared at me and it…
it was so sinister. I panicked a bit, though of course that was irrational of me… but…’
Helgi felt a surge of resentment and rage, the same corrosive feelings Bergthóra had so often stirred up in him.
He had believed he was free once he had finally taken the step of leaving her, yet it seemed she still had a hold over him.
He could have borne it better if she had been harassing him, but she had discovered his weak spot by turning her sights on Aníta.
‘Maybe it was just a coincidence,’ Aníta said. ‘Maybe she just happened to be on the same bus as me – assuming it was actually her—’
Helgi interrupted. ‘It’ll be OK. I just need to have a word with her.’
Of course it hadn’t been a coincidence, he thought. The whole thing had been deliberately staged.
‘Should I try talking to her next time – you know, if I run into her again?’ Aníta asked, her voice tight with fear but also with determination.
‘Better not,’ Helgi said quickly. ‘Let’s not give her the gratification. Like you said, hopefully it was nothing. She’s obviously not in a good way.’
‘Did she behave like that to you? I remember you saying…’ Aníta paused. ‘I remember you mentioning psychological violence…’
‘It was difficult, a stressful relationship.’
‘In what way? I mean, she didn’t lay hands on you or anything?’
Helgi dodged a direct answer to this. ‘Let’s just say I wasn’t happy with her. Look, I don’t think we should waste any more time talking about her. Don’t let her spoil our evening.’
Yet Bergthóra had succeeded in doing precisely that. All of a sudden there were three of them in the room, and Bergthóra’s brooding presence was anything but welcome.
He would have to speak to her; he couldn’t avoid it any longer. But he dreaded the conversation. He needed time to muster the courage, find the right words. The mere thought of it made him break out in a cold sweat.
People disappear all the time, Magnús had said the other day.
Why the hell couldn’t Bergthóra just disappear?