Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020)
Page 1
Contents
About the Author
About the Translator
Also by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Pronunciation guide for character names
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Yrsa Sigurdardóttir works as a civil engineer in Reykjavík. She made her crime fiction debut in 2005 with Last Rituals, the first instalment in the Thóra Gudmundsdóttir series, and has been translated into more than thirty languages. The Silence of the Sea won the Petrona Award in 2015. Gallows Rock is her thirteenth adult novel and the fourth in the Freyja and Huldar Series.
About the Translator
Victoria Cribb studied and worked in Iceland for many years. She has translated some thirty books by Icelandic authors including Arnaldur Indriðason, Ragnar Jónasson and Sjón. In 2017 she received the Orðstír honorary translation award for her services to Icelandic literature.
Also by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
The Thóra Gudmundsdóttir novels
Last Rituals
My Soul to Take
Ashes to Dust
The Day is Dark
Someone to Watch Over Me
The Silence of the Sea
Standalones
I Remember You
The Undesired
Why Did You Lie?
The Freyja and Huldar Series
The Legacy
The Reckoning
The Absolution
Gallows Rock
GALLOWS ROCK
Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
www.hodder.co.uk
First published with the title Gatið in 2017 by Veröld Publishing, Reykjavík
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Yrsa Sigurdardóttir 2017
English translation copyright © Victoria Cribb 2020
The right of Yrsa Sigurdardóttir to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
eBook ISBN 978 1 473 69341 8
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
This book is dedicated to the Traplord$
– Yrsa
Pronunciation guide for character names
Baldur – BAL-door
Didrik – DITH-rik
Einar – AY-narr
Erla – ED-la
Fanney – FANN-ay
Freyja – FRAY-a
Geir – GYAYRR
Gudlaugur – GVOOTH-lohgur
Gunnar – GOONN-arr
Hallbera – HADL-baira
Heidrún – HAYTH-roon
Helgi – HELL-ghee
Huldar – HOOL-dar
Jóel – YOH-el
Leifur – LAY-voorr
Lína – LEE-na
Maren – MAAR-en
Margeir – MAR-gyair
Sigrún – SIK-roon
Sigurlaug Lára – SIG-oor-loyg LOW-ra
Thórdur – THOHR-thoor
Thormar – THOR-marr
Tómas – TOH-mas
Ugla – OOG-la
Chapter 1
Sunday
There was a crunching of tyres on gravel. Then a sudden jerk as the vehicle came to a halt and Helgi was flung along the back seat, his cheek grating over rough, smelly fabric. This couldn’t be his car. Slowly opening one eye, he registered that it was dark. Then the driver flicked on the ceiling light and Helgi took in the rubbish on the floor: crumpled drink cans, a scrunched-up crisp packet, used paper napkins, two broken cigarettes, a hot-dog wrapper. Taxis really were disgusting these days. But maybe it wasn’t a taxi. Could he have hitched a lift? Jumped into some random car in the city centre? It wouldn’t be the first time Helgi had done something drunk that he’d never have dreamt of sober.
It hurt to think. Pain shot through his head, his stomach clenched ominously in sympathy and the next minute he was retching. Sitting up was beyond him, so he would just have to throw up on the seat. Judging by the smell, that would be nothing new. Christ, what had he been drinking? He usually steered clear of the sort of piss that left you feeling like this. But booze must be to blame for the state he was in. He was all too familiar with the sense of lethargy, the befuddled brain, though it was years since he’d been this wasted.
When the spasm arrived, Helgi managed by some miracle to shift his head to the edge of the seat, hurling the acid contents of his stomach onto the floor. The resulting mess on top of the rubbish was so revolting that he closed his eyes. There was an exclamation from the front seat, followed by an outbreak of loud cursing. Even in his bleary state Helgi could tell what that was about. No one wanted vomit in their car.
The driver’s door opened with a metallic screech, then slammed shut, cutting off the cursing and plunging the car into darkness as the ceiling light went off. There was the noise of gravel underfoot. Then the door by Helgi’s head was wrenched open and cold fresh air streamed inside. His nausea receded a little and with it the headache. The relief was indescribable, but he wasn’t allowed to enjoy it for long. Somebody grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and heaved. Helgi wanted to protest that no one pushed him around like that, but the words wouldn’t come out. It was as if the nerves connecting his brain to his tongue had been severed.
An angry voice penetrated his confusion, ordering him out of the car. The driver must want to get rid of him because he’d thrown up. To his own astonishment, Helgi found himself obeying. He hadn’t intended to sit up but his limbs and muscles seemed to act of their own accord. A concerted effort and he was on his feet outside the car. He filled his lungs. The fresh air tasted even better out here. There was a full moon, the sky was clear and there wasn’t a breath of wind, as if the world had been frozen into perfect stillness. Leaning his head back to admire the night sky, he lost his balance and was caught by the same rough hand. Helgi was grateful for its support: the gr
avel at his feet looked sharp.
Once he had stopped rocking and was standing more or less upright, he was given a shove and ordered to start walking. Again, Helgi’s body obeyed without any input from his brain. He was vaguely surprised that the man hadn’t given him an earful about chucking up in his car. It was all very strange, but he couldn’t martial his thoughts enough to work out what was going on. Perhaps he was in the middle of one of those dreams where you wake up with a gasp just as you’re about to fall off a cliff.
The gravel underfoot gave way to a series of grassy sheep paths, winding through the unmistakeably jagged terrain of an old lava-field. Helgi peered at the ground in front of him; at the frosty grass, pale in the moonlight. It was all he could do to keep his footing. He staggered along in front, the man following close on his heels. Every time Helgi started to veer off course or paused to recover his balance, the hand propelled him forwards. He wanted to tell the man that he wasn’t being deliberately difficult, but his tongue felt too thick and unwieldy to form the words.
The path led briefly uphill, then down again, through a series of grassy hollows which opened out between the lava walls; ideal picnic spots in summer but bleak and uninviting now. Thinking he recognised his surroundings, Helgi raised his head groggily to get his bearings. Not far off, the lava-field ended and the sea began: it was black in the darkness except where the moonlight glittered on the ripples. The sight brought back a childhood memory of walking with his grandfather along a shore not unlike this one – maybe even the same one. They had accidentally flushed out two eider ducks, which had flown away in alarm. His grandfather had gone over to the spot where the birds had been sitting and found two big, bluish eggs lying in a soft brown nest. Crouching beside it, Helgi had touched the down with his finger and it had felt as insubstantial as air. When he straightened up, his grandfather had drawn his attention to the gulls that had formed a wide circle around them. They were far enough away that the siege wasn’t immediately obvious, but they appeared to be closing in. When his grandfather told him what they were doing, Helgi had wanted to throw stones at them.
It was a horrible dilemma and, sadly, he had been just old enough to understand. If they stayed where they were, the gulls wouldn’t dare approach, but neither would the parent birds. The eggs would grow cold and the embryos inside them would die. If, on the other hand, he and his grandfather moved away, the eider ducks would eventually come back but by then there was a risk that the gulls would have raided the unprotected nest. In the end, Helgi’s grandfather had decided that they should continue on their way, and they had left, walking almost backwards, watching in the hope that the ducks would come swooping in to save their eggs. But there had been no sign of them; at least, not before they lost sight of the nest. Helgi never found out what had happened afterwards.
Now, though, it was winter and there were no eggs. No eiderdown either. It had all been collected, cleaned, stuffed into duvets and sold off to wealthy foreigners.
Another hard shove from behind alerted Helgi to the fact that he had stopped moving and he slowly set off again, following the winding path up a slope. Shortly afterwards, he was ordered to stop.
Raising his eyes, he stared in dull surprise at a tall black rock formation, split into two halves that reared up like something out of The Lord of the Rings. A heavy plank, like a footbridge, had been laid between them. Had his dream led him to Mordor? Before his sluggish brain could come to any conclusion, he was pushed forwards again, this time towards one of the rocks. It was covered in last summer’s dry grass, which made it fairly easy to scramble up. Following the man’s orders, Helgi stopped near the top, then climbed onto a narrow ledge that jutted out into the cleft between the two lava outcrops. There he stood, gazing out over the moonlit sea that looked deceptively innocent and gentle in the still weather.
Swaying dangerously, Helgi realised that sooner or later he was going to fall. But, oddly enough, the thought didn’t alarm him. It wasn’t so terribly far to the ground, after all, and besides he was dreaming, wasn’t he? The abysses in his dreams tended to be bottomless, though: he couldn’t usually see down into a dry grassy hollow surrounded by jumbled lava.
The hand now swivelled Helgi round to face its owner, who had climbed up behind him. The lower half of the man’s face was obscured by a scarf. All that could be seen were his eyes, which were narrowed with an expression of such loathing that Helgi flinched and dropped his gaze. His attention was caught by some sort of tool, black and a paler colour – yellow, perhaps – in the man’s right hand. With his left hand, the man seized Helgi’s coat and dragged him closer, then started undoing his top buttons. Next, he pulled a white sheet of paper from his pocket and held it against Helgi’s chest. Helgi strained his eyes, trying to read the few lines written on the paper, but the letters were upside down. The moon was so bright that if his brain had been less fuzzy he might have been able to decipher it. The effort dispersed the fog in his head a little and in that brief window of lucidity he recalled being handed a piece of paper and forced to sign it. But there had been more writing on that one … He had been able to read it all right and the contents had been pretty earth-shattering. But in a good or a bad way? The fog closed in again and he couldn’t remember.
The tool appeared before his eyes, pressed against the paper on his chest. Helgi frowned, puzzled, and waited. He felt no fear, only curiosity. The tool wasn’t one he recognised – not that he owned any tools himself. What could it be for?
Helgi watched the man’s fingers tighten on the handle, then a loud snap echoed in the hush. He felt an agonising stab in his chest that left him momentarily winded. He was about to topple backwards off the ledge when the hand grabbed him again. In spite of the searing pain, he was relieved. If the man had saved him from falling, he couldn’t mean him to come to any real harm.
Something was slipped over his head and, looking down again, he saw a thick rope lying above his throbbing chest like a clumsy necklace. Perhaps his companion was belatedly concerned for his safety: after all, he couldn’t fall off if he was tied to the rock. But when the rope tightened around his neck, Helgi wanted to point out that this couldn’t be a good idea – it would make more sense to tie it round his waist. But his tongue still felt too thick to shape the words, and the agony in his chest was making it hard to breathe.
It didn’t matter. This was a dream. It had to be. If he fell, he would fly. Any minute now he would wake up and the pain would disappear, along with the sense of unreality.
While his companion cursed, Helgi gazed out to sea, noticing that waves were beginning to ruffle the calm surface. On the other side of the bay, he could see familiar white buildings with darker roofs: the presidential residence at Bessastadir. He was definitely dreaming. His befuddled brain recalled something connected to this very shore and he recoiled from the thought, afraid of throwing up again. Returning to the present, he became aware once more of the beauty of his surroundings and the jarring stream of abuse issuing from the man behind him.
Helgi didn’t really take it in. The view was so soothing that even the pain in his chest seemed to fade. His gaze moved from the president’s residence to the bay itself. All his attention was focused on the waves glittering on the black surface of the sea. Far out on the horizon a bank of cloud hung like a thick black band across the sky. He felt himself nodding off, which was strange given that he was already asleep.
He was roused by a shove, this time in the small of his back. It was to be the last. Helgi tumbled forwards off the ledge and floated through the air for a few brief seconds until his fall was arrested by the violent jerk of the rope. But he couldn’t have flown anyway. This was no dream.
Chapter 2
The body stirred in the wind, turning a slow half-circle first one way, then back again. Huldar averted his eyes as the blue face reappeared, with its horribly black, protruding tongue. The man’s head lolled on his chest as if he were staring down at his feet, surprised that he’d lost a shoe. The
shoe in question was now sealed in a plastic bag in the Forensics van, waiting to be taken for analysis, though no one expected it to shed any light on the reasons behind this sad suicide. Nevertheless, the police had observed standard procedure when it came to gathering material, though this time the treatment of the shoe was almost the only thing that had been done by the book.
Huldar looked away from the dead man, taking in the rough terrain of Gálgahraun. The lava-flow had formed thousands of years ago, long before any human had set foot in Iceland, when the Arctic fox ruled supreme. Huldar had taken part in a police training exercise in the area several years before, during which they had been given a potted history of the lava-field. Its unusually irregular, rugged appearance had been caused when the glowing lava rolled over a marshy area close to the seashore, causing the marsh to boil and the half-solidified sheets of lava to explode. There were fissures, craters, spires of rock and endless jumbled lumps and bumps in every direction. Even the carpet of moss that had covered the lava-flow over the centuries couldn’t soften its harshness. It was a bleak, restless landscape.
‘Strange spot to hang yourself in, don’t you think?’ Huldar remarked, glancing at his colleague Gudlaugur.
‘No stranger than anywhere else.’ Gudlaugur was still staring up at the man dangling from the noose. ‘At least this way he made sure none of his loved ones would find him. I’m guessing that explains the location.’
‘Maybe.’ Huldar was unconvinced. The whole operation would have required an extraordinary amount of effort. For one thing, the spot was quite a distance from the road, and, judged with his carpenter’s eye, the plank that served as a gallows probably weighed a ton. There were any number of things Huldar would rather spend the last minutes of his life doing than lugging a heavy plank across a lava-field. But he didn’t share this thought with Gudlaugur. The young man was looking conspicuously hungover on this Sunday morning: red-eyed, his hair uncombed, sucking a constant succession of Ópal liquorice lozenges. He was in no state to be disagreed with on the rare occasions he opened his mouth.