She opened the door.
XXVII
Christmas Day.
This was normally one of Hulda’s favourite days of the year. After all the stress of getting the house clean and dinner ready on Christmas Eve, the twenty-fifth was a day of relaxation, which she liked to spend quietly absorbed in the books she’d been given, especially since Dimma had grown old enough to entertain herself. Even Jón generally took a break from work and lounged in front of the TV or read the papers.
The twenty-fifth was sacred; they never left the house and avoided all social contact – not that they received many invitations. Jón was an only child. His parents, who’d had him late, were no longer alive and he didn’t have many relatives. So there were just the three of them in their little family. They had always looked out for one another, and Hulda had felt it was her role to look after Jón and Dimma. But this year nothing was as it should be and she was at a loss to know why. It was as if the family was disintegrating, as if Dimma was tearing her and Jón apart. Of course, the world doesn’t stand still, she knew that; things change. But these were no ordinary changes. There was no obvious explanation for Dimma’s strange withdrawal.
Hulda was almost counting down the minutes until the holiday was over and she could call a psychologist. There must be some sort of emergency service available, but following her conversation with Jón she had decided not to look into it. No, the family would just have to paper over the cracks until Christmas had run its course.
It didn’t help that Hulda was on duty today. Rare though it was for anything serious to happen on the twenty-fifth, someone still had to be available in CID. But she couldn’t keep her mind on the job. Her thoughts were entirely preoccupied with the problem of Dimma. She hadn’t seen her daughter for nearly twenty-four hours. The girl hadn’t come out of her room at all on Christmas Eve except to go to the bathroom, in spite of all their attempts to put pressure on her to join them at the table. Hulda wasn’t worried about her being hungry as Jón had taken a tray of food up to her room. Besides, Dimma was perfectly capable of feeding herself, sneaking out to fetch something from the fridge when no one else was around. Teenagers were constantly hungry.
Hulda didn’t usually slope off home at midday, but this time she was going to make an exception. Her shift was supposed to last all day, but she’d take a good long lunch break and just hope that nothing would come up at the police station while she was away. If the worst came to the worst, they could always call her at home. She hadn’t achieved a single thing that morning anyway. The office was almost empty, and a bit creepy on this loneliest shift of the year.
Hulda hadn’t forgotten that she owed the couple in Gardabær a phone call, but she didn’t like to ring them on Christmas morning. She was guessing that all they wanted was the same as they had for weeks now: to ask for news of the investigation. But, unfortunately, there was nothing to tell and the odds were vanishingly small that their daughter would be found alive after all this time. Then again, perhaps she had deliberately run away, out of a desire to make a break with her parents. It had emerged during the inquiry that she had decided to take a year off between school and university to travel around Iceland and that her parents had heard from her only intermittently since she’d left. It was conceivable that something had been going on under the surface at home which no one wanted to admit. And, of course, travelling alone around the country was inherently risky. It wasn’t impossible that the girl had gone out hiking or even climbing in the highlands on her own. Iceland could be an inhospitable, hazardous environment at any time of year, as an experienced hiker like Hulda was well aware. Yet, in spite of the dangers, she had always felt most at peace with herself in the wild interior.
She got out the case files yet again, since she had nothing better to do, and sat looking at the photo of the girl. She was beautiful, with long red hair and haunting eyes. Hulda had sometimes wondered – against her better judgement, of course – whether she could read any clue in that unfathomable gaze. This was a girl who had gone on a voyage of self-discovery, far from friends and family, only to vanish without trace.
Then suddenly it was Dimma’s gaze she was seeing. It used to be so bright and innocent, but since she’d entered her teens, her blue eyes had been shadowed with sadness.
Hulda was too distracted to concentrate. Her thoughts kept returning to the situation at home, feeling Dimma’s pain, unable to understand how Jón could be so calm about things. She knew he was intending to have a lie-in for once, so she had promised herself not to ring too early. But it was nearly eleven and there was no reason to think he’d still be asleep. It wasn’t a luxury he usually allowed himself, workaholic that he was. She picked up the receiver to call, then, abruptly changing her mind, rose to her feet. She would take her lunch break early instead.
There was a nip in the air outside, but the snow that had fallen on St Thorlákur’s Mass had been washed away and the ground was bare, making it feel autumnal rather than wintry. This was just as well since there were few ploughs out on high days and holidays, and reliable though her Skoda was, she didn’t trust it in heavy snow. Usually, Hulda hated snowless Christmases, finding them dark and dreary without the white backdrop to reflect the fleeting winter daylight, but today she had no thoughts for anything but her daughter.
Her drive was the same, day in, day out, the ten or so kilometres from the police station in Kópavogur to their house on the Álftanes peninsula, but today she drove like an automaton, totally unaware of her surroundings. All her thoughts were concentrated on the problems at home. As she approached their dear old house, with the sea stretching out flat and grey beyond it, she realized that of course she should never have gone to work. She should have called in sick. After all, it was true that she was in no state to be on duty. As she thought this, she was overwhelmed by a wave of unease so powerful that it almost frightened her.
She parked the car in front of the garage and walked quickly to the house, obeying a sudden, inexplicable need to hurry. She was almost panting in her haste to get inside and see Jón and Dimma. This time she wasn’t going to put up with any nonsense: Dimma would have to come out of her room and talk to them – her behaviour was totally unacceptable. Hulda was determined to make a last-ditch attempt to get their family life back on track. She rang the bell but there was no answer, then knocked, but nothing happened. She started rummaging in her coat pocket for the bunch of keys, but it took her longer than usual to find them. She was all fingers and thumbs once she finally got them out and tried to insert the front door key into the lock. At last she succeeded and burst into the house, only to come face to face with Jón, who was standing awkwardly in the hall.
‘Sorry, I fell asleep again. That’s why it took me so long to come to the door. I must have been out like a light. I woke when you left this morning, then went back to bed with a book. Don’t know what came over me; I don’t usually sleep that long.’ He smiled, blinking blearily. ‘I must just be knackered after the last few months – all that backbreaking work and now the problems with Dimma.’
‘You need to be careful, Jón. You’ve got to look after your heart. Remember what the doctor said. You are taking your pills, aren’t you?’
‘Of course. I’m not taking any risks.’
‘And … and …’ She braced herself for the answer she dreaded. ‘Is Dimma awake? Has she come out of her room?’
Jón shook his head. ‘No, as far as I know, she’s still asleep.’
‘Haven’t you tried to wake her?’
He hesitated. ‘No, I haven’t had a chance. Besides, it’s a holiday. And our attempts to talk to her yesterday evening weren’t exactly a success. She just needs some time, poor kid.’
Hulda came further inside without bothering to take off her shoes and coat. ‘No, this has gone far enough, Jón.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly what I say. You can’t excuse behaviour like this day after day, right through Christmas, by dismiss
ing it as just a phase she’s going through. Or that all teenagers are like that. Look, I know Dimma’s our only child, the only teenager we’ve ever had to deal with, but no way can you expect me to believe that this is normal. It can’t possibly be normal.’
‘Calm down, love. We’ll sort it out together.’ He blocked her way, then turned and walked resolutely in the direction of Dimma’s room. He knocked, politely at first. ‘Let’s just see, love. I’ll talk to her. I’ll take care of this.’ Then he added, as if it had only just dawned on him: ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I can’t work with this going on, Jón. And we’ll take care of this together. I’m not letting you shoulder all the responsibility.’
There was no answer from inside the room.
Jón rapped again, a little louder than before.
‘Dimma!’ he called. ‘Let us in. Your mum’s home from work.’
‘Dimma, darling,’ Hulda interrupted, ‘open the door for us. I need to talk to you. We have to talk.’
There was still no response. But in her imagination Hulda could hear Dimma saying: We needed to talk a long time ago. Why only now, Mum? Why not before?
The same sense of unease took hold of her, even more powerfully than before, and for the first time Hulda was properly frightened.
She pushed Jón out of the way. ‘Open the door, Dimma! Open up!’ She started pounding with both fists on the flimsy old door that was keeping them apart from their daughter, half expecting Jón to try and stop her, to tell her to take it easy, to wait and see, but he hung back. Perhaps he had finally accepted that the situation was serious.
‘Open up!’ Hulda banged harder than before, her knuckles aching. It occurred to her that Dimma might have slipped out in the night and gone … gone where? Her door was locked from the inside and there was no way of climbing out of her window, as it didn’t open far enough. No, she was in there, she had to be, so why wasn’t she answering?
Before Hulda knew what she was doing, she had started violently kicking the door.
‘Hulda, let’s …’ Jón gently caught hold of her arm.
‘We’re going to get into our daughter’s room,’ she said in a voice that brooked no opposition, and kicked the door again, as hard as she could.
‘Dimma, please open up!’ Jón shouted.
Then he shoved Hulda aside and pushed his shoulder against the door with all his strength. When nothing happened, he took a few steps back and ran at it. It didn’t give but came close.
He rammed it again and this time there was a loud crack and the door flew wide open.
Hulda couldn’t see inside because Jón was blocking her view, but then she dodged round him and looked in.
The sight that met her eyes was so unspeakably, so unimaginably horrific that it robbed her of almost every last ounce of strength. With all that was left to her, she screamed at the top of her voice.
Part Two
* * *
TWO MONTHS LATER – FEBRUARY 1988
I
The days following Hulda and Jón’s discovery of Dimma’s body were lost in a haze.
Hulda could remember the moment when Jón broke the door open, but almost immediately afterwards a sort of amnesia had descended, blotting out the subsequent events. The trauma had proved too much even for a tough policewoman like her, although she had experienced her share of grim sights during her years on the force.
She had been wandering around in a stupor ever since. But even that hadn’t prevented her from finally seeing things in their true light. When she looked back at the events leading up to her daughter’s death, she realized just how blind she had been. The resulting mental torture was beyond anything she had ever known. Her mind was racked one minute with self-accusations, the next with violent hatred towards Jón. As the numbness began to recede, she couldn’t bear to be at home. She had to get out, go to work – do something, anything, to disperse her thoughts and give her a temporary respite from this hell on earth.
And now, here she was, having just landed in the small town of Egilsstadir, the largest community in the east of Iceland, accompanied by two forensic technicians whose job it was to carry out the crime-scene investigation. The journey east had brought no improvement in the weather, especially not here, so far inland. Snow lay deep on the ground and pewter-coloured clouds hung low over the open landscape, almost brushing the tops of the distant fells. The milky waters of the long, narrow lake were grey and bleak under the wintry sky, the stands of dark pine forest along its shores making the scene appear strangely un-Icelandic.
They were met at the airport by a middle-aged representative of the local force called Jens, who had come to pick them up in a big police four-by-four. Hulda would have preferred to take the wheel herself, as she hated being driven by other people, but she could hardly ask this man, who turned out to be an inspector, to move over into the passenger seat for her.
Even in the off-roader, the journey turned out to be far from easy. Away from the lake, the landscape was harsh and treeless. The roads were treacherously icy and the snow grew deeper the further they travelled from the town, making progress achingly slow. They were driving through what seemed an interminably long, empty, U-shaped valley between rugged hills when the inspector broke the silence.
‘Not far now to the farm,’ he remarked. ‘The road’s been more or less impassable since Christmas. No one had seen or heard from the couple – Einar and Erla, that is – for a couple of months and they couldn’t be reached by phone either, so I decided to check up on them. See how the winter had treated them, you know. And … well …’
He had no need to say any more: Hulda had been shown the photographs from the crime scene. She had spent most of the journey worrying about whether she was in any fit state to cope with this case. Worse, she could sense that her colleagues also had their doubts about her state of mind. When they’d stopped at a petrol station earlier to buy hot-dogs and Coke, she had noticed her two companions from Forensics conferring in low voices and could tell from their expressions that they were talking about her. Goodness knows, it was understandable.
Mostly, she was aware of their sympathy, but even that made her uncomfortable. She felt as if her colleagues had discovered her weak spot, and the thought was unbearable. She hated the idea of letting her guard down for fear they would think of her as an emotional woman who wasn’t tough enough for the job. But none of this really mattered; it was rendered utterly trivial by what had happened at Christmas. Then another voice in her head kicked in, telling her that if she didn’t pick herself up again soon, she never would.
She would have to do it alone. Although she and Jón were still living under the same roof, in her eyes he might as well be dead.
There had been an awkward silence in the car for much of the way. Hulda was sure it was because her companions didn’t know how to act around her after what had happened. Their behaviour got on her nerves. Surely it should be up to her to decide when she was ready to come back to work? Anyway, like it or not, she was here. If taking on the case had been a mistake, that was her business. She couldn’t stand having people tiptoeing around her, even though it was entirely well meant. She couldn’t stand being a victim.
It had begun to snow, quite heavily, the thick flakes clogging the windscreen wipers. ‘It’ll be fine,’ the inspector said, reading her mind. He was about ten years older than her, overweight, with a deep voice and thin, wispy hair. ‘We’re used to it here. A bit of snow doesn’t bother us – this is nothing compared to what it was like up here at Christmas.’
He got no response from the back seat, where the two Forensics guys were sitting, so it was up to Hulda to reply, rather curtly: ‘Right.’
Inspector Jens took this as an invitation to carry on talking: ‘It looks to me like some kind of tragic domestic. Of course, I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I don’t see how it could have been anything else. Anyway, I sent two strong lads to the scene after I found the bodies, to secure the place
until you could get here. They’re still up there in the cold, poor boys. I hope they’ll have the sense to wait indoors.’ He seemed unable to stop talking now that he had started. ‘I just don’t understand how the couple could have clung on up there for so long. Of course, it was Einar’s family home, but it was the only farm left in the whole valley. All the other inhabitants gave up trying to scrape a living out here and upped sticks a long time ago.’
‘Right,’ Hulda repeated shortly, hoping this would deter him from continuing.
‘It’s unbelievable how long some people hold out, though. I reckon it’s a kind of bloody-mindedness. But then Einar’s family had a reputation for being stubborn. Determined not to give in but to go on battling the elements until the day they die.’ After a brief pause, he added: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean literally.’
Hulda decided not to encourage him by responding to this.
‘I sometimes wondered if it was to do with money, you know? Maybe they just couldn’t afford to move. I doubt the property would fetch much if it was sold, it’s such poor grazing land. It wouldn’t occur to anyone to start a farm there now. They would have to be crazy even to consider it. And the house is in a pretty dilapidated state, to be honest.’
‘We’ll soon see for ourselves,’ Hulda said, a little sharply.
‘Of course, it’s been nothing but tragedy with that family –’
Hulda’s patience was running out. She wanted to form an opinion of the case herself without having to listen to the inspector’s theories. ‘Are we nearly there?’ she interrupted him.
‘Nearly, not far now,’ he answered in a rather subdued tone, having finally grasped that silence might be what Hulda was after.
In the event, though, the silence Hulda had been longing for brought no relief. Instead of providing her with the peace and quiet to clear her head in preparation for the investigation, it merely gave her more time to brood on thoughts of Dimma and her suicide, the gut-wrenching discovery of her body, the hazy ensuing hours and days, and the corrosive feeling of hatred for Jón, although she hadn’t accused him of anything and he hadn’t confessed.
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