‘Yes, we heard about that.’ Freyja had reported what she’d learnt from the headmistress, but Huldar hadn’t been expecting the girl’s father to raise the subject himself.
‘Oh.’ A shiver went through Haukur. He didn’t seem to care how they had heard. ‘She took some pills she found in the cupboard. A whole handful of all the prescription drugs in the flat. Luckily she threw them up again, but it could have gone badly. Very badly.’
‘Was she given counselling afterwards?’ Freyja’s voice managed to strike a warm, gentle note, without sounding smarmy. Huldar wouldn’t be capable of producing a note like that even if he oiled his throat.
‘No. We didn’t report it. What was the point? No one can do anything. Believe me, we’ve tried everything. “Don’t know, can’t, not allowed”. Those are the responses I get. Why do you think I went off the deep end at her school? Because of a cancelled Icelandic lesson?’
This time it was Freyja’s turn to pull something out of her pocket. It wasn’t a notebook but a card that she held out to the man. ‘These are the contact details for a psychologist called Kjartan Erlendsson, who specialises in bullying cases. I recommend you get Adalheidur an appointment with him. He might not be able to stop the problem but he can help her work through it. If she’s attempted suicide, it’s vital she get psychiatric help. If you like, I can ask him to fit her in immediately. He’s very sought-after.’
Haukur took the card. ‘Seriously? You recommend this guy?’
‘Yes. Have you come across him?’
‘I have, actually. I went for a couple of sessions with him myself. I was hoping he’d be able to give me some tips for dealing with the situation, but I can’t say he was much help.’ Nevertheless, he put the card in his pocket, without saying if he intended to follow Freyja’s advice. While he was trying to snap his pocket shut, Huldar asked his next question.
‘How did you feel when you heard Stella was dead? In light of what you’ve been telling us.’
‘How did I feel?’ The man gave a dry laugh. ‘To be completely honest, I was relieved. Not exactly pleased, but relieved. It was an odd sensation because I knew I should be shocked, but I just couldn’t make myself feel it.’ He scanned each of their faces in turn as they sat watching him, waiting for him to go on. ‘But I didn’t kill her.’
‘Where were you on Sunday evening?’ Although Huldar thought the man sounded convincing, his word alone wasn’t enough. People could lie very persuasively. It didn’t take any particular skill, just a powerful desire to get away with something.
‘I was at football practice. Old boys. We practise every Sunday evening from seven to half past eight. Afterwards we went to the pub. If you like, I can give you the names of the other guys. I’d rather you didn’t start ringing them all, but if that’s what it takes to get you lot off my back, it’ll be worth it.’
Gudlaugur jotted down the details of the three men as Haukur read them out from his phone. He held the screen tilted away from them. It was hard to guess why, unless it was just paranoia. Gudlaugur closed his notebook. ‘What about your wife? Where was she on Sunday evening?’
‘My wife?’ The man was startled. ‘You don’t think she’s involved in this? Are you crazy?’
‘Where was she?’ Huldar took over. ‘I don’t suppose she was at football practice with you?’
‘Er … she was at home.’ Haukur seemed to search his memory, then repeated, more confidently: ‘Yes. She was at home.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘Confirm it? No.’
‘What about your daughter? Adalheidur? Was she at home too?’
‘Adda? I think so. So they should be able to vouch for each other.’ He sounded a little unsure. It was as if he’d remembered something he was unwilling to share with them. He opened his mouth, revealing a glimpse of teeth, then closed it again. Firmly.
‘Does your wife have short hair?’ asked Gudlaugur. ‘Have you got a recent picture of her?’
‘What’s her hair got to do with it?’ The little self-control Haukur had displayed up to now had vanished. His gaze flickered rapidly around the three of them, alighting most often on Freyja, who he plainly regarded as his most likely ally. ‘My wife has nothing to do with Stella.’
‘Does she have short hair?’ Gudlaugur persisted doggedly.
‘Yes. Is that a crime?’ Haukur asked, then swung his head back to Freyja. ‘What the hell is this? Don’t you even know if you’re looking for a man or a woman?’
Freyja didn’t answer, just repeated Gudlaugur’s question: ‘Have you got a picture of her?’
‘Yes, on my phone. But you’re not having it.’
Huldar saw no reason to pursue this. They could easily track down a recent photo of his wife online – unless she was the only woman in Iceland not on Facebook. ‘Right, I reckon we’re done here. We’ve established that you were at football practice and your wife was here with your daughter. Possibly. Or perhaps alone.’ Huldar clicked his tongue. ‘Or somewhere else entirely.’ He prepared to stand up. ‘I think we’ve got all we want. For the time being.’
The cigarette didn’t taste right. Maybe it was the dreary surroundings of the yard behind the police station; maybe it was the tender roof of his mouth where he had burnt himself on a toastie from the new microwave in the cafeteria. Either way, Huldar carried on puffing. After all, that was why he was out here in the biting cold.
He desperately needed to think. The buzz of activity in the department had risen to new heights, which made it hard to concentrate at his desk. He needed peace and quiet to pin down his thoughts. The visit to Adalheidur’s father hadn’t clarified anything beyond confirming that the man had something to hide. The same applied to the nurse, Ásta. His mind shied away from the thought that Gudlaugur was also being secretive. The trouble was that most people had something to hide. If only the public knew how little the police cared about minor transgressions when a murder investigation was under way. Not to mention when a young person was missing, feared dead.
There was definitely something dodgy about Haukur. When Huldar recalled their conversation, it was like watching a film on his tablet when the wifi stuttered, causing the image to become suddenly pixelated. Why wouldn’t he show them his Snapchat account? If he’d received or sent anything incriminating, it would already have vanished. He would hardly keep something like that on file. All Huldar could think of was that he wanted to hide who he was following.
But phone calls to Haukur’s friends had confirmed that he had indeed been at football practice the evening Stella was attacked, and, assuming his three friends weren’t all lying, he could hardly have slipped away, except to go for a leak at the pub afterwards. The police hadn’t got hold of his wife yet, but the hairs found in Stella’s fist could conceivably have been hers, going by the pictures of her online. However, the same pictures showed that she wasn’t nearly tall or broad enough to have been the person in the CCTV footage from the cinema.
They’d identified another glimpse of the killer, this time as he was aiming his phone at the kiosk where Stella was serving. Again, he had been careful to keep his face hidden. They assumed he had taken a photo of Stella, though this couldn’t be confirmed. The incident was easy to miss, like his entry during the interval. No wonder the detectives hadn’t spotted him the first time round. It was hard to pick him out in the milling throng in the foyer, especially since they had been specifically looking for a man in a dark anorak rather than an overcoat.
They still hadn’t found a shot of him sneaking behind the advertising display and guessed that he had done so during the crush when people were pouring back into the main auditorium. But at least it was clear that Stella could have done nothing at the cinema that evening to provoke the man to a frenzied attack since there had been no interaction between them.
One of the details they needed to look into was what had happened to his overcoat. The cinema had been searched in the immediate aftermath of the attack but with no result. All
that had been found was a scarf and two non-matching gloves under the seats in the auditoriums. The crime-scene team hadn’t been on the lookout for a coat, since they hadn’t known about it at the time, but a garment that large couldn’t have escaped their notice, so the assumption was that the man had been wearing it under his anorak, with the coat tails bundled up underneath. That would have made him look bulkier than he really was, which left a question mark over his actual build. He could be as thin as Haukur, or Adalheidur’s mother, for that matter. The only problem was that both were shorter than the killer appeared to be.
But the biggest question preying on all their minds was who and where was victim number one?
Huldar took a final drag, then stubbed out his cigarette and pushed it into a nearby bin.
Chapter 26
‘I’ve requested permission to run the DNA profile of the hair through the deCODE database. Running it through CODIS didn’t produce any results.’ Erla was looking fed up. The piles of paper on her desk were mounting ever higher. If things went on like this, her mouse and keyboard would soon be engulfed, and there’d be no room even for a coffee cup. ‘I argued that the hairs could be from a victim we haven’t yet found, victim number one. And that they’d ended up in Stella’s fist in the killer’s car. I pointed out that if we had a name, we might be able to save the woman in question, if she’s still alive. But mainly I’m hoping the name will lead us to the killer.’
‘Right.’ Huldar couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say. The fact that permission hadn’t instantly been refused was a clear sign that the investigation was going nowhere and management were getting desperate. And no wonder. Four days had passed since the attack on Stella and statistics were not on their side. As a rule, you’d expect to get the murderer in your sights within twenty-four hours; generally as soon as the body was found. Unlike their counterparts in big cities abroad, Icelandic murderers were normally still standing over the body when the police arrived. Not always, though. And these were the tough ones to crack. Huldar didn’t think they stood much chance of getting the go-ahead for the deCODE search. It was an obvious course to try but he couldn’t think of a single example of the police being allowed access to the genetics company’s database. It probably contravened all sorts of privacy laws, or they’d be using that option every time they got their mitts on some DNA. ‘Any chance you’ll get the green light?’
‘Not much. Unlikely – but not impossible. Isn’t that our new motto?’ Erla closed her eyes and exhaled wearily. ‘The Data Protection Authority will have the final say. Apparently they refused permission in connection with a paternity case where the father was deceased, on the grounds that the subject hadn’t given permission for his DNA to be used for anything other than genetic research. I’m just praying they’ll overlook that consideration this time, seeing as a person’s life could be at stake. That’s why I made a big deal about the possibility that the hair came from victim number one.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Huldar. Then, after a moment, ‘By the way, what’s happening about the nurse? Are you still looking at her?’
Erla fiddled with the papers in front of her. She didn’t seem particularly interested in their contents, just leafed through them distractedly as she talked. ‘Nope. I’ve halted the checks on her for the moment. I can’t justify them based on nothing more than a gut instinct. But that may yet change. Something’s bound to turn up that links her to one or other of the kids.’
Huldar merely nodded. But he thought he knew what was behind this uncharacteristic decision. Erla usually followed her own convictions, come what may. But he’d heard the whispering doing the rounds in the department, the empty gossip about the nature of her interest in the nurse. Totally absurd – but then gossip didn’t require any basis in reality to spread like wildfire. Or to be resurrected. Back before Erla had become head of department, before the station had been abuzz with her one-night stand with Huldar and the subsequent sexual harassment inquiry, plenty of people had reckoned she was gay: she had short hair, did a man’s job and wasn’t willing to jump into bed with every member of the team who gave her the come-on. No further evidence needed.
Huldar didn’t for a second believe there was any truth in this but that was irrelevant. Her position was shaky, that’s what had got the rumour mill going again; her team were no longer worried about keeping on the right side of her. All the muttering about her sexuality felt so last century; it just showed what a dysfunctional workplace CID was. Homosexuality wouldn’t have been considered an issue in most offices these days; certainly nothing to gossip about. But that was beside the point. If it wasn’t her sexual preferences, her colleagues would have found something else to bitch about: a drink problem, a gambling habit, you name it. It was a pity their relationship was too fragile for him to point this out to her and urge her to ignore the whispering.
‘I happen to know that Ásta’s on evening shift for the next few days,’ he said. ‘If you don’t object, I’d like to drop by the hospital later and try having a word with her there. It might jolt her into opening up. No one wants a visit from the cops at work. I thought I might wear my uniform – to leave her colleagues in no doubt about what I am. But first, I’ve got a proposition for you.’
‘What’s that?’ Erla asked unenthusiastically.
‘How about you and me go and pay a visit to the father of the boy Egill was bullying? It’ll give you a chance to escape this mountain of paperwork for a while and get some fresh air at the same time.’ To his surprise, she didn’t immediately dismiss the suggestion. ‘Maybe it’ll turn out that Stella and Egill knew each other after all – maybe without actually realising it. Most of the abuse they doled out online was under aliases. Their victims could have clubbed together and attacked Egill. Who knows? The boy’s dad could have found out about the bullying and wanted to put a stop to it.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘No. Not necessarily. Everything about this case is so bizarre that who’s to say the solution isn’t just as unlikely?’ Huldar waited, giving her time to think. When it seemed she was going to refuse him, he added: ‘Perhaps the link to Egill is just what the girls were afraid we’d uncover.’
‘No. We know what that was.’
‘What?’ Huldar hadn’t heard.
Erla rooted around on her desk, then pulled over some papers from the top of a pile. She handed them to Huldar. ‘They’ve just unearthed this.’
Huldar skimmed through what turned out to be the printout of a Facebook page. Adalheidur’s name appeared under the picture of a pair of enormous boobs in a ridiculously skimpy bra. Nothing else was visible: head, limbs and torso had all been cut off. Next to her name was the e-mail address: [email protected]. ‘What the hell?’ he asked. Leafing through the following pages he saw more photos: some were normal shots of Adalheidur fully clothed, others were of headless, semi-naked female bodies in a variety of sexual positions. They were accompanied by conversations between her and other users apparently discussing the cost of various sex acts. He looked up, momentarily confused. ‘Christ. Is Adalheidur selling herself? Stella and her mates too, maybe?’
Erla reached for the papers and replaced them on top of the pile. ‘It’s not what it looks like. We can safely assume Adalheidur has nothing to do with it. The IT guy says he found a link to the page when he was going through Stella’s browsing history. He couldn’t get in at first but eventually he tracked down the username and password of the fake profile Stella had set up for Adalheidur. She’d used it to register her with this prostitution page on Facebook. Although it’s a closed group, he managed to access it using the fake details. The girls had also created that e-mail address for her, so interested parties could get in touch. It takes real fucking ingenuity to dream up something that cheap.’
Huldar gestured to the pages. ‘You don’t have to be a genius to see that the pictures don’t match. Adalheidur’s face doesn’t appear in any of the nude shots.’
�
��No, but come on, Huldar; I don’t need to tell you that it’s the norm to put up tit or arse shots that don’t belong to the woman in question. The punters don’t seem to care.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing as yet. We’re trying to trace the men who got in touch with Adalheidur on this page or via the e-mail address Stella set up. Almost all the punters have fake profiles but IT are working flat out to identify them.’ Erla shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe one of these guys freaked out when he discovered he’d been taken for a ride and decided to get even. For all we know, Stella could have used the information to blackmail them. There’s no evidence of that yet, but it’s anyone’s guess what we’ll find if we dig deeper.’
Huldar was silent while he digested this theory. ‘So what’s Egill’s link to all this? Did he create a profile for someone on this page too?’ All the information he’d got from the IT department, before interviewing Egill’s friends, had involved abusive comments and a few posts that could be classed as direct threats. Nothing to do with porn or prostitution.
‘That’s still unclear. Nothing’s been found, but they’re going over his computer again with that in mind. After all, there are plenty of pages for rent boys as well.’
‘Hmm.’ Huldar had nothing further to contribute at this stage. It would be premature to speculate. ‘You’re just waiting, then?’
‘Yep.’
‘So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t come with me?’
Erla glanced through the glass wall at the open-plan office. Huldar half turned, wondering what had attracted her attention, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. His colleagues were all hard at it, most of them in front of their computers or on the phone, some in pairs or small groups.
The Absolution Page 19