2012
After his meeting with Kristín, Helgi hurried down the stairs at the police station.
He had managed to convince her that the recording was best kept with him for the time being but promised to have a copy made and sent to her at the first opportunity. He could deal with that later. For now, the priority was to hang on to this precious piece of evidence – and to go and see Lovísa.
That warm, kindly woman – mother, grandmother, respected lawyer and judge. Helgi pictured her, thinking that it would never have crossed his mind that she had a human life on her conscience. Perhaps even two lives.
Surely this must be the explanation? The missing piece of the puzzle.
Elín knew something that no one else must find out – the truth which not only could but would ruin Lovísa’s life. And now Elín had vanished.
Helgi ran back outside into the rain.
His coat had hardly had a chance to dry.
And yet, he thought, it didn’t add up, not entirely.
If the recording was to be believed, Lovísa must have known that it wasn’t in her interest for Elín to die, since her death would precipitate a chain of events that would result in the exposure of Lovísa’s crime.
It was pure coincidence, or luck, that Kristín had decided to speak to the police now, although Elín’s fate was still unknown.
The interview wasn’t supposed to be published until after Elín’s death, so what possible motivation would Lovísa have had to kill her best friend?
Helgi drove fast, almost recklessly, once he had pulled out into the traffic. Visibility was limited in the rain and the roads were congested, but he was impelled by a sense of urgency to see Lovísa as soon as possible. The radio was on in the car, booming in the rain.
Perhaps Kristín was about to go on air at this very moment. He wondered if she would still feel like working from nine to five once her bank account was full of money.
Was it a hundred per cent certain that Elín was dead?
Not for the first time, he felt as if he were immersed in one of Elín’s novels. The last case, a mystery that reached beyond the grave.
He was well on his way to the suburb of Fossvogur, weaving through the traffic, when his phone rang.
‘Helgi?’
‘Aníta, hi. Look, I’m in a hurry. Can we talk later?’
‘No, wait, have you got a minute?’
He slowed down a little, not wanting to risk an accident. The streets were wet and slippery and his car had already skidded when taking a bend.
‘Yes, but only one minute. What’s the matter? Is everything OK?’
‘What, oh, yes, fine, of course. It’s just that I went out to get a sandwich just now and I thought I saw her.’
‘Who?’ he asked, though of course he knew the answer.
‘Bergthóra.’
‘Are you sure, Aníta?’
‘No, the thing is, I’m not quite sure. She was in the car park and I was going in the other direction, and the rain’s so heavy it was hard to see. Maybe I’m just being silly…’
He simply didn’t have time to deal with this now, especially if Aníta had become paranoid and started seeing Bergthóra on every street corner.
Not that this was Aníta’s fault. Bergthóra had given her a nasty fright with her unsettling visit – and the incident on the bus – and Aníta clearly hadn’t got over it yet.
Whether or not Bergthóra had been in the car park, Helgi made up his mind once and for all: this weekend he was going round to the flat to have it out with her.
Make her understand that this behaviour was totally unacceptable.
If necessary, he would even consider a restraining order, though that was probably a bit over the top.
Besides, he’d never made a formal complaint about the violence she had used against him, or mentioned it to anyone except the psychologist he was no longer seeing.
He and Aníta had to be allowed to get on with their lives in peace, though. Perhaps they should slip away on holiday, go for a long weekend abroad. Somewhere with decent weather.
‘Can we talk it over this evening, Aníta?’ he asked. ‘It must have been somebody else. I can’t believe Bergthóra’s stalking you.’
‘It’s such an uncomfortable feeling, but, OK… And there’s another thing. On Sunday evening—’
‘I’ll cook something nice for us, OK?’ he interrupted, afraid of having an accident if he didn’t concentrate on his driving. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve got to go now.’
‘Yes, please. OK, let’s talk about it later.’ He could almost hear her smiling at the other end.
Helgi drove into the Fossvogur neighbourhood.
It was a quiet old suburb, hidden away in a valley of sorts, so the weather there was always a little kinder than elsewhere in Reykjavík, and in a town so close to the Arctic, every little helped.
This was somewhere he could imagine living in future if he didn’t move back to Akureyri.
He hadn’t quite adapted to Reykjavík. The trouble with the capital was that it just wasn’t Akureyri.
The weather was too dreary in summer; he missed the long sunny days up north.
And, conversely, there wasn’t enough snow in winter.
Helgi wouldn’t dream of celebrating Christmas anywhere other than among the deep, picture-book drifts in Akureyri, where he could nip out to the little bookshop and settle down among the dusty volumes to read the treasures in his collection.
There was a lot to be said for a simple life.
He drove up to Lovísa’s house, this time without having called ahead to announce his arrival.
He parked nearby, though not in the drive, and rang the doorbell.
Lovísa wasn’t long in appearing. She greeted him with a smile, her brow wrinkling quizzically, her eyes radiating kindness. Could this woman really be a murderer? Even if it was true, he wasn’t afraid of her. In fact, he found it hard to believe she would hurt a fly.
‘Hello, Helgi, should I have been expecting you? Sometimes I worry that I’ve started forgetting appointments; it’s my age, you know. Come in, but please take off your shoes, if you wouldn’t mind. It’s so wet out there.’
‘No problem. No, you didn’t forget, I just happened to be passing. I have a few questions about Elín, if that’s all right with you?’
‘Of course. I’m on my way to Florida in ten days’ time.’ Her gaze darted to the wet, grey world outside the large sitting-room window. ‘I can’t wait to see the sun.’
‘I’ve never been there myself. I’ll have to remedy that.
’ Though he guessed that holidays of the kind Lovísa took would be considerably beyond the budget of a police officer.
Lovísa had done well for herself, as Elín had said in the interview: a large family home, an unblemished record at work, a family, no hint of skeletons in her cupboard.
‘No news of Elín,’ she said. At first, Helgi thought it was a question, then he realized it sounded more like a statement.
‘No, we haven’t heard from her,’ he replied. ‘I’m afraid. But we’re not giving up hope. Could you remind me when you last saw her?’
Lovísa seemed a little surprised by his question and didn’t immediately answer.
‘You went for a hike up Mount Esja,’ Helgi prompted, ‘then met for coffee two weeks ago, but—’
‘Yes, as I told you the other day. I haven’t forgotten; there’s nothing wrong with my memory in that respect.
We did a day trip to Esja on Saturday, 20 October, as I said, but you already have that information, Helgi.
Then we met for coffee a couple of days later, which would have been, let me see, 23 October. ’
‘At Kaffivagninn, am I right?’
‘Yes, as always.’
‘Then a week later, she didn’t show up.’
‘That’s right.’ Lovísa seemed suddenly on her guard. She had been friendlier when he first arrived.
Just then, Helgi had an idea and decided to test it, even though it would require telling a lie. But he reassured himself that the end justified the means.
‘As it happens, I spoke to the girl who was working at Kaffivagninn on 23 October and she doesn’t remember seeing the two of you. Yet it was a quiet day and of course she would have recognized Elín, as she’s so well known.’
Helgi was rather pleased with this lie. He had a hunch that he had hit on the truth.
That it had gone something like this: Lovísa had murdered her friend on the mountain, then pretended they’d met for coffee as usual three days later.
It wasn’t until Thor drew attention to Elín’s absence that Lovísa had been forced to admit that Elín hadn’t turned up the following Tuesday…
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at,’ Lovísa said after a long pause. ‘You’re saying she didn’t see us?’
‘Were you really there, Lovísa? You know, I think Elín’s been missing for longer than we’ve been told.’
Lovísa was silent.
‘There’s something else we need to talk about too.’
She kept her gaze fixed on him.
‘I had a meeting earlier with a woman who took an interview with Elín some years ago.’
The blood drained from Lovísa’s face.
It was as if she had been robbed of all her strength.
Helgi had never seen words have such an immediate effect.
‘I see.’ Lovísa got to her feet with some difficulty. ‘Sorry, I forgot to offer you coffee, Helgi. I can be so absent-minded. Would you like a cup?’
‘Black, please.’ Despite the warmth in the room, he was shivering in his damp clothes.
He stayed where he was while Lovísa vanished into the kitchen, and surveyed the paintings by her late husband that graced the walls. A talented artist, no doubt about it. Perhaps a little on the modern side for a house of this sort; the canvases didn’t quite go with the period furnishings.
Judging by her reaction, Lovísa must know what was coming.
‘Here you are, Helgi. Good and hot. This is wretched weather we’re having.’
He took a sip. The coffee was unusually strong but not at all bitter, yet even so it couldn’t quite drive out the chill.
‘Were you aware of this interview?’ he asked, returning to sober reality.
There was a lengthy pause before Lovísa answered.