2012
The clouds had parted and the wintry sun cast the odd ray through the sitting-room window at the home of Pétur, the doctor Hulda had been involved with many years after she had lost her husband. Judging by the nameplate on the doorbell, he lived alone in the large house.
Helgi had meant to bring along the box of Hulda’s personal items from his office to give to Pétur, but at the last minute he had changed his mind. He wanted to have a rummage through the contents himself first in case there were any clues lurking there.
An impressive oil painting by Kristján Davídsson had greeted him as Pétur showed him into the sitting room.
‘Have you been collecting art for long?’ Helgi asked, to break the ice.
‘It’s in the blood, you know. My parents started collecting, and I’ve continued the tradition, though I stick mainly to the old Icelandic masters.
I don’t have the same nose for art as my parents did, so I haven’t broadened my search.
I’m afraid I don’t keep up to date with what’s happening on the contemporary art scene. ’
‘Did Hulda appreciate art?’
‘We didn’t discuss it much,’ Pétur said.
‘We didn’t get a chance. But she appreciated these paintings, I’m glad to say.
Especially the Kjarval – she was keen on his work.
I rather took it for granted that she would move in here with me.
It’s lonely rattling around in a big place like this.
My wife died, you see. Like Hulda’s husband.
’ After a moment he added reflectively: ‘Two lonely souls.’
‘Was she lonely, do you think?’
Pétur appeared to consider the question.
‘Yes, I think so. Of course, I didn’t know her very well, but…
that said, I probably knew her better than most people did.
She didn’t have that many friends, but I’m not sure that necessarily means someone’s lonely.
Mind you, she’d been through an awful lot of hardship in her life and I could see the pain in her eyes at times.
She’d lost her husband and her daughter.
She didn’t talk about them much, though; in fact, she didn’t talk about her late husband at all. That struck me as odd.’
‘She was on the point of retiring, wasn’t she?’
‘She was asked to take early retirement. I believe she was upset by that. Her job meant everything to her. Anyway, she and I got on well – I think she appreciated the company. I’m sure we could have had fun together.’ There was a note of regret in his voice.
‘Her father rang me once, from America,’ Helgi said, a little diffidently. ‘Did she have much contact with him?’
Pétur seemed non-plussed by this.
‘Her father? That can’t be right. She never met him. She told me she’d gone to America to try and track him down but that he was already dead by then. He was an American soldier who’d been briefly stationed in Iceland, as far as I could gather.’
The phone call Helgi had received, when he had only just moved into the office, had stayed with him.
He remembered the conversation almost word for word.
The man had said to tell her that her dad, Robert, had called, and that he’d like to hear from her.
He’d said she’d know how to reach him: ‘No, there was no doubt about it,’ Helgi told Pétur.
‘The man who rang me – or rather who rang Hulda’s office phone – said he was her father. ’
‘Well I never – how extraordinary. How can that be possible?’ Pétur frowned. ‘Unless the man she met while she was over there was actually…’ He was no longer speaking to Helgi but to himself. ‘Could she have been lying to me? Did she perhaps meet him? Or did he lie to her…’
Helgi didn’t say anything for a while, but when he finally felt it was time to break the poignant silence he remarked: ‘And nothing has been seen or heard of Hulda since then.’
‘No, not after that last evening. Or rather, the next day, when she rang me to postpone a dinner we’d arranged. We were still planning to meet up, though. We had a date, like two giddy schoolkids – that’s what it felt like. We were going to climb up Esja together.’
‘It’s all very strange,’ Helgi said; then, worried this might be misconstrued, he added: ‘Her disappearance, I mean.’
Pétur didn’t respond to this or appear likely to volunteer anything further on the subject.
‘Her disappearance was investigated, up to a point,’ Helgi continued eventually. ‘I wasn’t involved, but I assume they interviewed you…’
‘Only in a very perfunctory way. I believe there were two reasons for that.’ Pétur paused and cleared his throat.
‘On the one hand, I suspect her colleagues didn’t take the matter as seriously as they should have done.
She had no family and wasn’t properly appreciated at work.
No one missed her.’ He was silent for a long moment. ‘Except me.’
Although his voice was firm, without a tremor, somehow his strength of feeling shone through.
Helgi allowed the words to hang in the air for a while.
‘Two reasons, you said?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You said there were two reasons.’
‘Right, yes. The other deciding factor was that everyone seemed convinced she had taken her own life. Gone off into the mountains, not intending to come back.’
‘But we know that was wrong, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Of course it was wrong.’ Pétur raised his voice. ‘She was planning to meet me. And she most certainly wasn’t having suicidal thoughts. Why on earth would she have wanted to kill herself, Helgi?’
Helgi got the impression the question was rhetorical.
‘She’d experienced a series of terrible tragedies; her life had been infinitely sad. And although I admit I hadn’t known her very long, let me tell you something, Helgi: I don’t believe Hulda had ever been happier than she was right before she went missing.’