The Absolution

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  The silence grew even more oppressive. Clearly no one was keen to share a car with the distraught couple for the forty-five-minute drive from Keflavík to town. Huldar raised his hand. He’d rather do that than man the phones. ‘I’ll go.’ Beside him Gudlaugur raised his hand as well. Erla nodded distractedly and carried on with the briefing. Huldar and Gudlaugur lowered their hands. Neither had been expecting praise or thanks.

  ‘We’ll continue to monitor the phones we’ve confiscated. If things develop in the same way as in the Stella case, we can expect the phone to turn up after maybe one more Snap. And following that, the body. Until then we’re going to have to work round the clock to catch the perpetrator. There’s nothing to indicate that he’s finished and don’t forget that we’re still missing number one from his series. The third victim could be just around the corner – or the first, I should say.’

  While Huldar was debating whether to stick up his hand again and mention Freyja’s theory about a possible link to bullying, Jóel jumped in without bothering to ask permission to speak. ‘Where are we supposed to start? There’s no common ground between the two victims. No connection.’

  Erla narrowed her eyes angrily. She hated being interrupted during these progress meetings, clear evidence that she found them a strain. She’d prepared what she wanted to say and didn’t like having her train of thought interrupted. Any discussions could take place afterwards. ‘Of course they’ve both got a bloody connection to the perpetrator. Maybe not through family or friends, but we can be sure this fucker didn’t choose his victims at random. If he had, that whole business of forcing them to apologise wouldn’t make any sense. We have to work on the basis that they both crossed paths with him at some point and pissed him off big time.’

  Jóel wasn’t about to give up so easily. Erla’s harsh tone obviously rankled with him. ‘What if it’s a terrorist? A member of IS? In that case their only crime would have been that they were born in this country, so they could easily have been chosen at random.’

  ‘Did we not just watch the same fucking videos?’ snarled Erla. ‘Did you hear anyone shouting “Allahu Akhbar”? Because I didn’t. All I heard was “Sorry”. So let’s not have any more of that bullshit.’ She leant forward on the meeting table, surveying the assembled officers, every muscle tense in her lean body. ‘Don’t you dare fantasise for one second that we’re looking for a terrorist. The guy we’re after is a sick fucker, who the entire country expects us to arrest within the next twenty-four hours. If anyone else has any crackpot theories, you can bring them to my office. Just don’t waste everyone’s time by blurting them out here. We can’t afford to lose our focus.’ She straightened up. ‘Is that fucking clear?’

  Huldar reflected that it was a good thing he hadn’t raised the subject of bullying. All those present nodded meekly, even Jóel, who was squirming in his chair, his face dark red. Huldar, on the other hand, had rarely felt better.

  There was complete chaos at Leifsstöd. People were pouring through the double doors into the arrivals hall, but it wasn’t hard to tell the locals from the foreign tourists, who all seemed to be dressed to man the weather station in Antarctica, and wandered in bemused circles, trying to work out which way to go. The Icelanders, on the other hand, made a beeline for the exit or the queue for bus tickets. The tourists’ luggage was different too, consisting of rucksacks or battered holdalls, while the locals’ trolleys were piled high with enormous designer suitcases and duty-free bags. A number of planes had landed at around the same time, and the one carrying Egill’s parents had been one of the last. The couple were due to appear any minute but Gudlaugur and Huldar had to use their elbows to remain at the front of the waiting crowd. They’d studied pictures of the couple online before setting out, so they shouldn’t have any trouble recognising them, and besides they would be escorted by customs officials.

  When they did come out, Huldar thought they might as well not have bothered to look them up, since they were unrecognisable. In the pictures he’d found online they looked like those glossy types forever snapped holding wine glasses at cocktail parties or leaning smiling on ski poles on foreign pistes under a brilliant blue sky – no shivering on the local slopes at Bláfjöll for them. Not a hair out of place or trace of lipstick on their white teeth. Even their designer ski-suits looked freshly cleaned and ironed.

  Now, though, they presented a very different picture. The woman’s face was puffy with weeping, and any make-up had long worn off. The man’s eyes held an almost crazy glint, like the expression Huldar remembered from drugs busts, back in his days in uniform. Their clothes were a mess; his shirt was buttoned up wrong, her dress was creased and there was a ladder in the front of her tights. Their coats looked crumpled and grubby too, as if they’d slept in them. And her bag was hanging open from her shoulder, revealing the contents to anyone who cared to look. They looked like a couple who’d been caught up in some natural disaster.

  He and Gudlaugur shook their hands, and thanked the customs officials, who seemed glad to get away. Then the four of them walked out to the car park in the bleak, icy surroundings of the airport, having completely forgotten their original plan that one would fetch the car while the other waited inside with the couple. They couldn’t ask these people to wait in the terminal, being bumped and elbowed in the crush.

  The car doors had no sooner slammed shut than the woman broke down in tears, not with a loud sobbing but quietly, almost politely.

  ‘You must be hungry and thirsty. We got you some sandwiches and drinks.’ Gudlaugur passed back a plastic bag from the shop in Arrivals. He and Huldar had spent ages dithering over what they’d want to drink and in the end had opted for soda water as the most neutral option. As Huldar pulled out of the car park, he heard the bag rustle.

  The woman’s quiet weeping had stopped. Instead, she asked hoarsely: ‘How could you think for one minute that we’d have any appetite?’

  ‘No need to have them if you don’t want to. We just thought you might not have eaten much. Or that you might have forgotten to drink.’ Gudlaugur sounded mortified. It had been his suggestion and Huldar had thought it a good idea. He heard the hisses as the bottles of soda water were opened, so obviously it hadn’t been such a bad one after all.

  ‘Thanks.’ The husband sounded as hoarse as his wife. ‘We’re not quite ourselves. I hope you understand.’

  ‘Of course, no problem.’ Huldar pulled out onto the Reykjanes dual carriageway. ‘We understand what you’re going through.’

  ‘Did you see the videos? On Snapchat?’ The woman didn’t sound quite as husky now that she’d had a drink.

  ‘Yes.’ Huldar turned on the wipers to brush a few white flakes from the windscreen. There was heavy snow forecast for the drive back and it wouldn’t be long before they got caught up in it. ‘It’s better if we don’t discuss them.’

  ‘Why not? I can’t think about anything else. If I shut my eyes, they’re all I can see. If I open them, too. It’s going to be like that for the rest of my life.’ The woman started crying again, with low gasping sobs this time.

  Neither Gudlaugur nor Huldar said a word. The sobbing ceased after a minute or two and the woman sniffed. ‘Thanks. Thanks for not saying anything.’ She didn’t sound sarcastic. Her husband was silent and in the rear-view mirror Huldar saw that he was staring out at the dark lava-fields lining the road.

  ‘That’s OK.’ Huldar turned up the wipers.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about when Egill was little. When he was three. He used to have nightmares about a bad man. A bad man hitting him. We got so fed up with being woken in the middle of the night. Perhaps he remembered that when the man finally turned up – how we used to lose our tempers and tell him to shut up.’

  ‘They don’t want to hear about that.’ Her husband kept his face turned to the window as he spoke. Huldar thought he’d closed his eyes.

  ‘All right, I’ll shut up.’ The woman hung her head and her sobbing started up again, in short, dry gasps
that trailed away into silence. But this didn’t last long before she started talking again. ‘Have they caught the man who did it?’

  ‘No.’ It was Gudlaugur who answered. ‘But we’re pulling all the stops out to catch him as soon as possible.’

  The man laughed contemptuously. ‘All the stops. Right.’ In the mirror his face was drawn in harsh lines. ‘Is that what they teach you to say at training college? I suppose you’re going to add that it’s a “heinous crime”. And that you’ll “leave no stone unturned”?’

  Neither Huldar nor Gudlaugur rose to this. They weren’t offended. They’d encountered any number of grieving people and knew that their anguish could take a variety of forms.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’ The man turned from the window, slumping against the backrest. Only now did Huldar notice that husband and wife were sitting pressed against the doors at opposite ends of the seat, as if to keep as wide a space between them as possible. He remembered that they hadn’t held hands or leant against each other as they walked to the car. He put it down to yet another strange manifestation of grief.

  To reassure the man that they weren’t affronted, Huldar said: ‘I don’t know if you were told but there are two female officers waiting at the house with your daughter. You’ll be offered a police guard for the rest of the night if you want it.’ Ahead the snowstorm closed in and he took his foot off the accelerator as they drove into the sudden darkness. ‘No need to decide now.’

  Neither gave any sign of having taken in what he’d said. Nor did they seem alarmed that the police thought they might need protection. Right now they probably couldn’t care less what happened to them.

  ‘I never wanted to go on this trip.’ The woman appeared to be addressing the back of the seat in front of her.

  ‘Sure you did.’ The man sounded as if they’d had this conversation before. Many times. Huldar hoped they’d had a row to themselves on the plane. He pitied anyone who’d had to sit next to them.

  ‘Did you remember to fasten your seatbelts?’ Gudlaugur’s attempt to calm the waters seemed to work, as the couple relapsed into silence.

  For the rest of the journey, they repeated this exchange from time to time, sometimes in different words, sometimes the same. By the time the police car passed the endless grey walls and red-and-white towers of the aluminium smelter at Straumsvík, signalling the beginning of the built-up area, the couple appeared to have sheathed their swords. For the time being, at least.

  Huldar turned into their neighbourhood. The sight of the familiar houses and streets reduced the husband to tears, not decorously like his wife but with gut-wrenching howls. She didn’t know how to deal with it and started talking aloud, though it wasn’t clear who to.

  ‘I never dreamt when we drove out to the airport that our homecoming would be like this.’ She laughed sardonically. ‘My worries about Egill then seem like a joke now. Laughable. Utterly trivial. Like worrying about whether you’ll get a parking space in town.’

  Before leaving the station, Huldar and Gudlaugur had been given clear orders not to question the couple on the way. That could wait until morning when the interview would be conducted under the proper conditions. But Huldar couldn’t resist this chance. ‘What were you worried about?’

  The woman snorted. ‘School.’

  ‘Wasn’t he doing OK?’ Huldar halted at a stop sign and grabbed the chance to turn the mirror to reflect the woman’s face. She looked like a deflated balloon as she sat there with drooping shoulders and hanging head. Her weeping husband was huddled at the far end of the seat.

  ‘Sometimes. When he could be bothered. But the school had given up ringing about that. No, it was some rubbish about his behaviour towards another pupil. I was supposed to discuss it with him. I was going to wait till we got home. Didn’t think there was any rush. Now I’m glad. At least our last conversation wasn’t a negative one.’

  The man stopped crying. ‘What was your last conversation about? Can you tell me that? I seriously doubt it.’

  Huldar coughed. ‘What kind of behaviour?’ He met the woman’s eye in the mirror. ‘Are you talking about bullying?’

  She nodded.

  Chapter 20

  Wednesday evening and the bar was practically empty. The few customers in there had spread themselves out, and were talking and laughing more loudly than usual. The sound system was cranked up too loud as well, pumping out obnoxiously upbeat dance tunes, the kind designed to make you wave your arms in the air with a beer in each hand. Annoying as it was, the music did have its advantages. No one would be able to overhear their conversation, though Freyja didn’t imagine that they would be discussing anything sensitive. She wasn’t going to ask Kjartan to reveal his clients’ secrets, and anyway he had a duty of confidentiality. Of course there were limits to how far this duty went, but the police inquiry had uncovered nothing as yet to justify a relaxation of the rules.

  Freyja contemplated the Coke she had bought before sitting down. The bartender, all geared up for more expensive purchases that required cocktail shakers and the creative use of his chopping board, had been unimpressed by her order. She didn’t want the drink, wasn’t even thirsty, but she’d wanted to get in her order before Kjartan arrived. That way she wouldn’t have to make excuses if he offered to buy her a drink. He had tried to pull her back when they were students and she didn’t want the embarrassment of having to turn him down if he was still interested. She had a suspicion he might be, based on the alacrity with which he had agreed to meet her. No questions, no difficulties. His answer had been pretty much: I’ll be there. Of course, there was always a chance that he was genuinely interested in what she wanted to discuss, but she doubted it. After a long day’s work at the Children’s House, the last thing she would be in the mood for was meeting a former fellow student to talk about child abuse, and the same must be true of Kjartan. Why would he seek out the company of someone who wanted to discuss bullying after spending the whole day dealing with its fallout?

  Despite her suspicions, Freyja had made an effort to tart herself up for their meeting. It wasn’t because she was in two minds about whether she was interested in him; it was purely out of habit. If she was dressed up and looking good, no one would doubt for a minute that her life was perfect. She reached for her glass. The neon-green straw and the parasol the bartender had balanced on the rim with a mocking flourish were in laughable contrast to the drink itself. One sip was enough to discover that the Coke was flat.

  The door opened and for an instant the gloomy bar was lit up with a harsh, dazzling glare, not from the sun, which had set hours ago, but from the powerful floodlights outside the entrance. It was so strong that all Freyja could see of the newcomer was his silhouette until the door swung shut behind him.

  It was Kjartan, wearing an overcoat, with snow on his shoulders. He stamped his feet before coming any further inside, and dusted the snow from his hair by ruffling it with his hands. She was pleased to see that he was looking good: slim, fit, still with all his hair. She had been prepared for something different since he had started university late and was older than her, old enough to have fleshed out into a tubby teddy bear in the intervening years. If anything, he was better-looking now than he had been as a student. Well dressed too, his clothes neither too formal nor too casual. She reckoned she could see through his choice of outfit: though it was intended to convey the impression that he had ‘just thrown something on’, it had in fact been carefully chosen, like her own.

  Kjartan came over and they shook hands. Before sitting down, he announced that he was going to get a drink and couldn’t hide his disappointment when Freyja indicated her glass. As she watched him walk over to the bar, she felt a twinge of regret at having been so calculating. The fact was, he was looking bloody good, from the back as well as the front, and she was long overdue a one-night stand. This might be her best chance for ages – if he turned out to be single, that is. A quick glance had established that he wasn’t wearing a weddi
ng ring, so if he bought another drink and offered her one, maybe she’d accept after all. She took another swig, bigger this time. If the chance arose, it would help if her glass was empty.

  ‘I have to admit, I’m curious. Are you getting bullying cases at the Children’s House now?’ Kjartan sat down, placing his beer in front of him. ‘That’s what it sounded like from your e-mail. Unless the problem’s personal?’

  ‘No, neither, actually.’ Freyja smiled. ‘I don’t have any children. I make do with being an aunt. My brother has a girl who’s eighteen months.’

  Kjartan’s smile faded. ‘Oh, I heard somewhere that you had a son.’

  ‘No, I don’t know who could have told you that. I don’t have any kids.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kjartan looked as if he wanted to ask a question but didn’t know how to put it. ‘Yet more proof that you should never believe what you hear on the grapevine.’ He smiled again, not quite as genuinely as when he’d first sat down.

  They briefly exchanged news on what they’d been up to since graduation, but since neither seemed particularly interested in what the other had to say, Freyja quickly got down to business. Never mind how good Kjartan was looking; it was information she was after. ‘I’m assisting the police with an inquiry that may involve bullying. I can’t go into any details but that doesn’t matter. I just wanted to know if it was worth their investigating this angle – whether bullying cases can lead to violence, I mean.’