The Legacy

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘No, he was just wearing clothes. Not a uniform. Anyway, I don’t know what a petrol-station uniform looks like.’

  ‘An overall the same colour as the petrol-station sign. With the logo on the front.’ Freyja patted her left breast and again Huldar had to discipline his thoughts to prevent them from straying. ‘Was he wearing something like that?’

  ‘No. Just ordinary clothes. A jacket and trousers. And gloves.’ She stole a quick glance at Freyja, her face grave. ‘Not a balaclava. Just a hood. Like the man in the garden.’

  ‘Ask if she thinks it was the same man.’

  Freyja shook her head unobtrusively, by turning it slowly once to either side. Silja explained to Huldar: ‘Not a good idea. If she asks that, Margrét might start to believe it. And if that happens, you’ll never get her to change her mind even if it turns out to be wrong.’

  Huldar leant forward to the microphone again. ‘Forget that. Just ask if she saw his face or heard him speak. And if he went inside the petrol station after he’d filled the car.’ Huldar turned to Silja. ‘If so, he might have been caught on the security camera in the shop.’

  ‘Did you see the pump attendant’s face, Margrét?’

  ‘No. He had his hood up, like I told you.’

  ‘What exactly did he do? Can you remember?’

  Margrét wrinkled her nose. ‘He came over when Mummy got out of the car and took the keys from her. Then he went and opened the little door of the petrol tank and put in the nozzle. I didn’t see him do it, I only heard it. But I wasn’t really taking any notice because I had to tell off Stefán and Bárdur. I took the Spider-Man off them.’

  ‘You remember it very well. What then?’

  ‘When he’d finished he came and opened the door and put the keys on Mummy’s seat. Then he went away.’

  ‘Did you see his face when he opened the door and reached inside?’

  ‘No. He had his hood up like I told you. I keep telling you that. And I was sitting in the back with Stebbi and Bárdur. I’m not allowed to sit in the front until I’m ten. Or twelve, I can’t remember.’

  ‘We can check that later if you like.’ Freyja adjusted her hair over her ears. ‘Where did he go then? After he’d shut the car door.’

  ‘He went away.’

  ‘Into the petrol station?’

  ‘No. Just away.’

  ‘Did you see where?’

  ‘No. Stefán snatched the Spider-Man from me. I had to fight him to get it back.’

  ‘All right. You can’t see everything.’ Freyja reached for the jug of water on the small table and poured herself a glass. ‘Would you like some water?’ Margrét shook her head and Freyja took a sip. ‘There are just two more things we need to talk about, Margrét, to finish off, but it won’t be easy. Shall we get them over with? Then we can take Molly out and maybe buy some ice-cream. Or hot chocolate. Maybe it’s too cold for ice-cream.’

  ‘It’s never too cold for ice-cream.’

  ‘No. You’re right.’ Putting down the glass, Freyja leant back again. ‘Shall we get this over with?’

  ‘Can I choose what comes first?’

  ‘Sure you can.’ Freyja hesitated, picking her words carefully. ‘Which would you rather talk about first: the night the man hurt your mummy, or about your daddy?’

  Margrét started fidgeting again, unsurprisingly: the choice wasn’t an easy one. ‘I want to talk about that night first.’ Suddenly she raised her eyes to Freyja. ‘But you’re only allowed to ask one thing. You’re not allowed to ask two questions. Just one about that night and one about Daddy. Then I want to go.’

  ‘All right. It’s a deal: one question about that night and one about your daddy.’ Freyja took another sip of water. ‘Then I’ll begin. How did you know the man was going to hurt another woman – did he say so?’

  ‘Yes.’ Margrét closed her mouth and met Freyja’s eye with a mulish look.

  ‘That’s not a fair answer, Margrét.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I answered.’

  ‘That’s like me taking you to the ice-cream parlour and only letting you have an empty cone. You have to tell me what he said.’

  ‘Then do you promise not to ask me any more about it?’ Freyja agreed and the girl took a deep breath. ‘He said there was a woman he was going to get even with. He said she did her maths wrong.’ Margrét stopped speaking and stuck her hands under her thighs. The jolly panda on her T-shirt looked absurdly out of place.

  Huldar bent quickly to the microphone. ‘You have to ask her more about it. We found paper covered with calculations at the other victim’s house, so this is vital.’

  Freyja grimaced at the glass. ‘She can’t,’ interjected Silja. ‘She promised not to ask any more. You’ll have to accept that. Unless you want to drop the question about her father.’ Freyja gave a tiny nod to show she agreed with Silja.

  ‘No. Ask about her father.’ Huldar couldn’t hide his frustration but no one seemed to mind.

  To be fair to Freyja, she was trying to give Huldar what he wanted. Though sadly she was doing it for the investigation, not for him. Whereas there were plenty of things he wouldn’t mind doing for her …

  ‘Can I ask you another question about this woman and the maths, Margrét?’

  The little girl shook her head.

  ‘Then I’ll move on to the other thing. It’s actually harder because it’s about your daddy. But you’re such a good girl that you’ll be brave and answer, then you can start thinking about whether you’d prefer vanilla or strawberry ice-cream.’

  ‘Chocolate. I want chocolate flavour.’

  ‘Then it’s yours. Let’s finish this, then it’s time for ice-cream and a walk with Molly.’ The dog, which had been lying quietly at Margrét’s feet, now peered up through the cumbersome collar and searched both their faces hopefully before lowering her head again. ‘Why do you think your daddy’s to blame? Did the man say something that made you think that? And you’re not allowed to answer just yes or no.’

  Again Margrét drew a deep breath. She dropped her gaze and looked as if she’d like to shrink inside herself or be swallowed up by the sofa. When she spoke again her voice was low and filled with grief and despair. The audience all bent as one towards the speaker in the middle of the table. ‘I didn’t want to hear his story.’ Margrét paused. Breathing heavily, she went on. ‘But I heard it anyway. I heard him talk about Daddy. He told Mummy it was his fault. She had to die to punish him. The man said Daddy was the murderer, not him. But he killed Mummy anyway.’ Margrét looked up, her cheeks wet. Her small body was trembling as she wiped the tears away. ‘It’s all Daddy’s fault.’

  The interview was adjourned without any attempt to show Margrét the message containing the series of numbers. Freyja reached into her pocket for the tiny transmitter and switched it off. For a while there was silence in the meeting room while they pondered the implications of all they had heard. It seemed they would have to suspend the investigation into Elísa’s life and concentrate on Sigvaldi instead. Huldar didn’t for a moment believe that the man had actually committed murder, though of course he couldn’t rule it out. By far the more plausible explanation was that he had lied to them about his job. He must have been responsible for the death of a child or a mother or another patient at some point during his career. At least, that’s what Elísa’s murderer seemed to believe.

  Huldar rose to his feet. ‘I’d like to take the recording with me, if I may.’ He wanted to listen to the whole thing again at his leisure. He needed time to digest everything that had been said. Then all of a sudden it dawned on him. A big, shiny, black head. No ears.

  The man had been wearing a helmet. A motorcycle helmet.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday

  The odour of wet coats filled the lecture hall. They hung from the backs of seats, the melting snow forming shining puddles on the floor below. Every time the lecturer paused to draw breath you could hear the sound of dripping.

  Karl was finding it impo
ssible to concentrate. However hard he stared at the PowerPoint slides, he found himself distracted by straining to hear the next faint plink. The drips proved infinitely more fascinating than the lecture. The harder he tried to understand, the more confused he became. It had been the same with all his studies for as long as he could remember; like being caught up in a race he couldn’t win. Just as he was finally grasping a point, the next would arrive. He could never catch up. So what chance did he have now when he couldn’t even concentrate? Worse still, this was a key lecture; the teacher had announced at the beginning that the next part of the course would be based on today’s material. Which made it all the more bloody frustrating that he couldn’t follow it.

  The screen of his laptop was as blank as his mind; he hadn’t managed to take any notes. It was little comfort that the same was true of the students sitting in front of him. In fact, that only made matters worse because it meant he wouldn’t be able to scrounge their notes afterwards. He would have to make do with the lecturer’s slides, which would prove no more illuminating when puzzled over at home.

  ‘This element, named after the Swedish town of Ytterby, was discovered in 1843 when the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander managed to separate gadolinite into three materials that he named yttria, erbia and terbia. At the time the similarities between erbia and terbia led to their being confused by scientists and …’

  Karl had lost the thread. Far from taking in the significance of the discovery, which had clearly been of such magnitude that the lecturer’s voice was trembling with excitement, his mind was preoccupied with the shortwave station. Rather than ID or old-style social security numbers, yesterday’s broadcast had consisted of an incomprehensible sequence that meant absolutely nothing to him. The numbers flew around in his head as if they had sprouted wings and turned into buzzing flies. His attempts to marshal them into some kind of order were in vain, and yet there was something indefinably familiar about them. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t put his finger on what.

  9, 92, 6, 19, 39, 8, 92. There was no logic to these seven numbers – and since no alphabet contained over ninety letters, the digits couldn’t represent individual letters. Three times he had experimented with writing down the standard Roman alphabet, arranging it so that each letter represented three different numbers, but no sense emerged from it, not even when he factored in the extra Icelandic characters and re-numbered the whole thing.

  It was complete gibberish.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. He had been listening to foreign numbers stations for years without ever being able to make sense of a single sequence. Without the key, it was impossible to decode them. So what on earth had made him think the Icelandic station would be different? Yet he couldn’t rid himself of the suspicion that it was different, that he ought to recognise these numbers and what they signified. After all, he had picked out the ID numbers and social security number, so it followed that he ought to be able to understand other parts of the broadcast. Deep down he knew it was meant for him. So he must be able to interpret it. Why else would anyone have gone to all this trouble?

  If the numbers had been completely alien, he would have found it easier to dismiss them from his mind. It was this tantalising feeling that he was on the verge of comprehension that was driving him mad. Not helped by his growing conviction that the messages held some deadly serious significance.

  Either for him or for Arnar.

  Karl stared blankly at the lecture slides, which might as well have been written in Mayan hieroglyphics for all the sense he could make of them. Until he got to the bottom of the mystery, he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else, least of all chemistry. Again, Karl had the sense that the solution was on the point of breaking through into his consciousness but it seemed to have become entangled in his cerebral cortex and refused to penetrate any further.

  The lecturer had speeded up; his slides were flashing by as if he were paid for the number he got through. It was a sign that the hour was almost up; yet again he had tried to cover too much material. For once, however, Karl wasn’t relieved at the prospect of escaping the lecture theatre. His problems would follow him wherever he went. Even the girl he fancied couldn’t engage his interest, though she was sitting right in front of him, no doubt taking it for granted that he was gazing adoringly at the back of her head. With a sudden movement she tossed aside her hair as if to remind him of her presence. Usually he would have been thrown into confusion by the flying locks and faint fragrance of shampoo but this time he was oblivious.

  The final slide appeared on screen and the lecturer started intoning about homework and preparation for the next class. Karl caught none of it. Emulating those around him, he rose to his feet as soon as the time was up, while the lecturer carried on talking to deaf ears. The girl glanced round as she was stuffing her textbook into her bag and seemed miffed when he paid her no attention. Even this small victory in the uneventful tale of their relations failed to raise Karl’s spirits.

  The girl slung her bag over her shoulder and left the hall, swaying her hips provocatively. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed her look round to see if he was watching. When she realised that for once he wasn’t, she reverted to her normal gait.

  The next lecture was due to start in fifteen minutes. Karl dithered. Should he go along or skive off? Skive off or go along? While the alternatives were fighting it out in his mind, his legs continued on their way. Before he knew it he was outside the building; his body had taken the decision for him. The wind was whirling up the loose snow that had fallen that morning. Small, hard flakes stung his eyes and he squinted at the car park, cursing himself for not having dressed more warmly. When his phone rang, he answered without even peering at the screen.

  ‘Have you seen the news?’ Börkur sounded out of breath. It was only eleven; he was never usually up this early.

  ‘What news?’ Karl tasted snowflakes on his tongue. He had a good idea what Börkur was referring to but didn’t want to say in case he was wrong. Talking to Börkur was unlikely to help him straighten out his chaotic thoughts.

  ‘Her name! The woman’s name!’ Börkur sounded highly agitated. ‘She’s dead. And that’s not all – they think she was murdered.’

  Karl was silent. He had read the name of the dead woman in the newspaper that morning over a bowl of rather dry cereal – there had only been a drop of milk left in the fridge. The cereal had turned to cement in his mouth when he saw that it was Elísa Bjarnadóttir, the woman whose ID number had been broadcast on the shortwave station. Swallowing with difficulty, he had read the rest of the item. It referred to earlier news releases about the woman’s death to which he had paid scant attention. The police were refusing to disclose any details or confirm whether an arrest had been made. All the journalist had been able to establish was that an inquiry was under way and that further information would be provided shortly. Newspaper sources were quoted as claiming that the police hadn’t yet made any arrests or discovered any leads, which would explain why they were urgently appealing for witnesses who had been in the area of the woman’s home last Thursday night. Karl knew the brief report almost by heart. ‘I saw.’ He didn’t mention the still briefer news item that had compounded his dread: another woman had died in suspicious circumstances. The woman’s name could not be divulged at present and the police were refusing to comment. There was no point causing Börkur even further alarm, especially since Karl had no idea whether or how the second murder was linked to him. ‘I read about it this morning.’

  ‘So? What does it mean?’

  This was the question that had been plaguing Karl ever since he had flung his half-finished bowl of cereal on the pile of washing-up in the sink. ‘I don’t know.’ Karl’s thoughts flew to the bracelet. He had scrutinised all the photos of Elísa on Facebook in the hope of spotting it on her wrist. Actually, ‘hope’ wasn’t the right word. It had been a load off his mind when none of the pictures showed her wearing any jewellery that resembled i
t. The bracelet was still lying beside his computer. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to touch it again, though he was almost sure it couldn’t have belonged to Elísa.

  ‘Are you going to call the cops?’

  ‘Yes. No. Not sure.’ Reaching his car, Karl trapped the phone between cheek and shoulder so he could open the door. ‘What am I supposed to say? That I heard her ID number on the radio?’

  ‘Yes. Why not? Then they can find out who’s been sending the messages.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And just how are they supposed to do that? It’s no joke trying to trace that kind of broadcast. And anyway, do you really think they’d launch a search based on some crazy-sounding bullshit that I come out with?’ It was even colder inside the car than out. ‘I don’t have any recordings and Halli was half asleep that time you heard it. We’re the only two real witnesses.’

  ‘Two are better than one.’ Börkur sounded deflated, as if it had belatedly dawned on him that he didn’t count for much in Karl’s eyes. ‘And it’s not like Halli could have been a witness anyway. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Was it possible that Halli’s arrest would disqualify him? But it wasn’t as though he had been arrested for perjury or bearing false witness. Illegally downloading and circulating music and videos surely didn’t count as a serious offence, on however large a scale it was done? Personally, Karl thought he would escape with no more than a fine, but Börkur and Halli liked to wind each other up about it, as though Halli faced a long spell in jail. Listening to their overexcited conversations, in which Halli’s imagined sentence grew ever longer, was like overhearing an auction. Perhaps Börkur had a point, though; Halli wouldn’t be considered a particularly reliable witness with this blot on his record.

  ‘Hey.’ Börkur seemed to have recovered his spirits. ‘The cops are bound to employ someone who can decode the messages. A codebreaker or cryptologist or whatever they’re called.’