Snow was falling gently, the flakes melting the moment they touched the ground in the car park and on the path leading to the house. Geothermally heated pipes had obviously been installed underneath to keep the area clear for the residents. Gudlaugur knocked and after a lengthy interval, the door opened. The expression on the face of the young woman standing there almost made the wait worthwhile. She was unusually diminutive and had to tilt her head back to see their faces. Rarely had Huldar been so aware of his and Gudlaugur’s height. He regretted not having taken the time to shave that morning. It would have been better to turn up in uniform too, but neither of them had thought of it. The upshot was that Huldar looked more like one of the men he spent his days pursuing than a guardian of the law.
‘Good evening.’ Gudlaugur smiled at the woman and Huldar followed his example, but far from reassuring her, their smiles prompted her to half close the door again. ‘We’re from the police. Could we have a word with you or whoever’s in charge of the home?’
The woman’s face radiated suspicion. ‘Have you got any ID?’ she asked through the crack.
Huldar fished his out of his pocket and presented it to her. She bent forwards to inspect it carefully, then, her suspicions allayed, opened the door properly.
‘We’re here about Laufhildur. Am I right that she lives here?’ Huldar entered what turned out to be a spacious hall.
‘Yes.’ The woman waited for Gudlaugur to come in as well, then closed the door behind them. But she showed no sign of allowing them any further inside. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Her father died earlier today. I don’t know if anyone’s informed you yet.’ Huldar assumed not, since this was probably a job for Mördur’s brother, who didn’t know the address of the home, let alone the phone number.
The woman drew herself up. ‘No. We hadn’t heard.’ She sighed heavily. ‘We were wondering why he hadn’t been round. I suppose it was connected to his illness?’
‘Yes.’ Huldar left it at that, assuming that someone more qualified than him would explain the precise cause of death to the staff. ‘Did he visit often?’
‘Every day. Sometimes twice a day. Though he did warn us last week that he was going to be busy, so we shouldn’t expect to see as much of him. But we didn’t know it was because of his illness.’ The news seemed to be taking a while to sink in. She shook her head, sighing again. ‘I can’t say I look forward to breaking it to her.’
‘We can do that if you like. We need to talk to her anyway, if possible. But we’ve been told she’s in a bad way and can only express herself with the help of aids?’
‘Laufhildur?’ The woman looked surprised. ‘Did no one tell you that she doesn’t see anyone? Only her father, though the carers can go in if she opens the door to us. No one else – including the other residents – is allowed in. That was stressed to us when she arrived. Apparently she’s so agoraphobic that she never leaves her room. She even wanted her windows blacked out. We drew the line at that, obviously, but we do try to respect her wishes as far as we can by limiting unnecessary contact and avoiding putting any pressure on her to come out. I think those were two of the conditions for her coming to live here. Not that anyone’s tried to see her since then. Her father was her only visitor. And now you.’
‘May I ask why?’ Huldar asked, disconcerted. ‘Is it connected to her accident? To be honest, we know next to nothing about her situation.’
‘Oh.’ The young woman’s eyes widened. ‘Oh.’ Looking from one to the other, she saw that they were waiting for enlightenment, and that just saying ‘Oh’ wasn’t enough. ‘I don’t know exactly what’s true and what isn’t, because I’ve heard different stories. I mean, her father claimed it was an accident but I’ve heard it whispered that it was attempted suicide.’
‘Did she suffer brain damage? Or paralysis?’ During his years on the beat Huldar had attended the scenes of a few failed suicides. The consequences could be devastating.
‘I gather she suffered some kind of brain damage, but she hasn’t been assessed since she finished her treatment following the accident. She’s supposed to be evaluated in due course but they decided to wait till she’d settled down here and come to terms with the move. As I mentioned, she doesn’t want to see anybody, and that applies to doctors and other health workers as well. Though of course we’d make an exception in an emergency. But we keep our contact with her to a minimum, in accordance with her wishes.’
‘I have to say it all sounds rather unorthodox to me.’ Huldar tried to suppress his irritation over the odd embargo.
‘Yes and no. Not in light of her injuries. You see, she shot herself. Either by accident or design. But either way I’m sure she didn’t mean to rip off the lower half of her face.’
‘Rip off her face?’ Gudlaugur looked shaken.
‘Yes. Her lower jaw’s missing. And her tongue. That’s why she can’t talk.’
‘Christ.’ Huldar tried and failed to picture it. Suppressing his curiosity, he merely asked if it couldn’t be sorted out with modern plastic surgery, by grafting on a new jaw or replacing it with an artificial one, for example.
The woman shrugged. ‘Maybe. But it wasn’t possible at the time. Her face was just patched up without its bottom half. You never know, she might be persuaded to explore the options now that she’s living with us. I really hope so. I haven’t seen her face but I gather it’s a pretty shocking sight.’
‘So you haven’t been allowed into her room?’
‘Oh, yes, sure. But she wears a mask.’
Huldar and Gudlaugur nodded uncertainly.
The young woman picked up on their confusion and added, on a more upbeat note: ‘As I said, we’re hoping things are going to start looking up. Though her father wanted nothing but the best for her, maybe he wasn’t the ideal person to look after her. She hasn’t received the treatment she should have had. I don’t doubt for a minute that she was the one refusing to meet other people, but he should have consulted a specialist.’
‘Are you saying she never once left the house in the two decades following the accident?’ Gudlaugur’s eyes widened in disbelief.
‘No, apparently not. I gather there was a fenced-in decking behind their flat, so she could go out for some fresh air, but she never mixed with other people. Her father paid to have a garden entrance put in for her here and the same kind of fenced-off decking built. That was another of his conditions for her moving in. I expect he intended the arrangement to remain unchanged but we’ve got other ideas in the long run. The fact he’s passed away may ultimately be a good thing.’
Huldar and Gudlaugur were both silent and the woman fidgeted, as if uncertain what to say next. Then she clapped her hands and offered to check if Laufhildur would agree to meet them, seeing as they were from the police. ‘Though of course I can’t guarantee anything.’
Waving her tiny hands at their feet, she added that there was no need for them to take off their shoes. Then she showed them into a large lounge area where several residents were watching television. None of them took any notice of the visitors but remained glued to the frantic action on screen. Asking them both to wait, the woman disappeared down a corridor. They heard a distant knocking, then the sound of a door opening and the woman saying something, though they couldn’t make out the words over the noise of the TV. A few moments later she returned, looking surprised. ‘She’s willing to see you.’
As they followed her down the corridor, she filled them in on the rules. ‘Though Laufhildur can’t talk, she understands plenty, so be tactful. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be present, because I’ve got quite good at interpreting her body language and mood. If I say we need to call a halt, I mean it. I don’t want her upset. OK?’ They nodded. On the way, the woman stuck her head into a small coffee room and asked the young man sitting there to stand in for her at reception. He raised his eyes from his phone and got to his feet, showing a total lack of interest in the visitors.
Laufhildur’s door was halfw
ay down the corridor. It wasn’t numbered like a hospital room but had her name on it, spelt out in colourful wooden letters, presumably courtesy of her father. None of the other doors were labelled in that way; in fact, they were all different, presumably to avoid an institutional feel. The woman tapped lightly, then, without waiting for an answer, opened the door and ushered them in.
Laufhildur’s living space was more like a big hotel room than a flat; larger than your average bedroom but smaller than the few studio apartments Huldar had seen inside. It contained a large bed, a tiny kitchen corner, a two-seater sofa, a compact sideboard and a small wardrobe that wouldn’t have met the needs of any woman Huldar knew. In addition there were shelves full of books and a large television tuned to the same channel that the residents had been watching in the lounge, though the quality was terrible, the pixels so large you’d have thought it was Minecraft. Yet, despite the limited space, Huldar reflected rather ruefully that it was homelier than his own flat.
Two large Star Wars posters hung over the bed, while on the sideboard and here and there on the walls were framed photos all featuring the same little girl and smiling woman. Two healthy-looking pot plants decorated the window sill and there was nothing institutional about the curtains, which were drawn back although it was dark outside. The view from the window and garden door consisted of nothing but a high fence, presumably the one enclosing the decking. Next to the rows of books on the shelves were figurines and ornaments more suited to a young girl than a woman in her thirties. Perhaps they were relics of her former life, before the accident that had completely cut her off from the outside world.
Huldar’s gaze didn’t linger long on the furniture or decorations. Instead, it was drawn to a wicker chest that stood against the wall, its lid open to reveal a collection of masks. He recognised several, including the Guy Fawkes one used by the Anonymous group, the Scream mask, a red-eyed number from the Saw franchise, a green Ninja Turtle and a white stormtrooper from Star Wars. And then there was the shiny black Darth Vader mask. He had an odd sensation that it was looking at him, daring him to pick it up. Huldar coughed but there was no need to nudge Gudlaugur, who was examining the chest and its contents with equal fascination. Next, they both turned their attention to Laufhildur herself.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, straight-backed and quite still. She was a large, big-boned woman, but what immediately caught Huldar’s attention was not her build but the mask she was wearing. A chalk-white face, black hollows around the eye slits, blood-red lips and scars extending from both corners of the mouth. The whole was topped with fake green hair that was combed back over the head. He was face to face with Batman’s arch-enemy, the Joker. The situation was so grotesque that his mind went momentarily blank and he just stood there, gawping like an idiot.
The young woman who had accompanied them into the room didn’t seem remotely fazed. Taking a remote control from a cloth bag that hung from the headboard on the bed, she switched off the TV, replaced it, then said to Laufhildur: ‘These are the policemen I was telling you about.’ The woman lowered her voice as she turned to Huldar and Gudlaugur. ‘I’m afraid they have some bad news for you.’
Huldar drew himself up. ‘Hello, Laufhildur. My name’s Huldar and I’m from the police.’ He could see that she was watching him through the holes in the mask but it was impossible to tell if her eyes were friendly. Instinct told him they weren’t, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could just be the bad associations conjured up by the Joker.
‘Like she said, I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news.’ Huldar paused. His dread of what he had to say next had nothing to do with the weird situation he found himself in. After the three previous occasions on which he’d been required to notify someone of the death of a close relative, he had vowed never to do it again if he could possibly help it. He coughed, trying out the words in his head, but he couldn’t come up with anything this time either. Better men than him had lost their tongues in circumstances like this. Best keep it simple. ‘I’m terribly sorry to have to tell you that your father’s dead, Laufhildur. He passed away in hospital earlier today.’ He paused, unable to decide whether he should add anything, and if so, what.
Laufhildur watched him, the mask hiding all expression. She must be heart-broken. The news had turned her world upside down and nothing would ever be the same again. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but he’d been very ill.’ Huldar hadn’t a clue whether she’d known about her father’s cancer. After all, what good would it have done to tell her? She would probably have been worse off knowing that something bad was going to happen. Personally, he wouldn’t want to be told if the plane he was travelling in was about to crash into a mountainside.
Laufhildur kept her gaze fixed on his. He was beginning to wonder if she’d understood when he noticed something glistening in the corner of her eye. It was a tear that swelled and swelled until it disappeared from sight under the mask. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a bigger tear in his life.
The young woman seemed to have noticed as well because she went and fetched some loo paper from the en-suite bathroom. She left the bathroom door open and Huldar noticed the same air of homeliness in there as well: a pink towel hanging by the sink, a soap bottle of the same colour on the side, and a collection of necklaces draped over a hook beside the mirror. But something was missing: there were no cosmetics, no face creams or make-up. He’d been in enough women’s bathrooms to realise how unusual this was. But of course this woman had missed out on many things more remarkable than the opportunity to slather herself in beauty products. Laufhildur took the loo paper from the woman but made no move to dab her face. Instead, she scrunched it up in her fist. A peculiar noise emerged from behind the mask.
‘What is it, Laufhildur dear? Is there something I can do for you?’ The young woman reached out to take her hand but Laufhildur snatched it away. Then she turned her head and pointed to the small sideboard. Seen in profile like this, the mask didn’t quite conceal her facial disfigurement. Where her earlobe ended there was nothing but a mass of scarring where the skin had been pulled tight under her cheekbone, and below that nothing but the dark hollow where her jaw should have been. Gudlaugur elbowed Huldar and pointed unobtrusively at Laufhildur’s head. At first Huldar thought he was drawing attention to the disfigurement, but then he realised it was something else. Just above her ear there was a small bald patch where the skin was redder than on the ear itself.
The young woman straightened up and went over to the sideboard, watching to see where Laufhildur was pointing. She touched the drawers one after the other until Laufhildur started waving more agitatedly. ‘Is there something in this drawer?’ Laufhildur nodded. The woman opened the drawer and rooted around inside, then took out a white envelope and held it up to Laufhildur. ‘Is this what you mean?’
Laufhildur, alias the Joker, nodded and the woman gave her a kindly smile. She came over and handed Huldar the envelope. ‘There you are. I recognise the writing. It’s from her father.’
A single word was written in blue biro on the front of the envelope: Police. No address or any other indication that the envelope was meant to be posted. Huldar was reluctant to touch it but had no choice but to pinch it between thumb and fingernail before the woman could handle it further. ‘Thanks.’ Gudlaugur, cottoning on, pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag from his coat pocket. The bag was too small, which left half the envelope sticking out, but it would have to do.
‘Could you excuse us a moment?’ Huldar asked Laufhildur out of politeness. It was her home, after all. ‘We’re just stepping out to the car but we’ll be right back.’
The young woman answered for Laufhildur, apparently no more thrown by their sudden departure than she had been by the discovery of the envelope.
Once in the car, Huldar removed a pair of tweezers from the small toolkit in the glove compartment. Donning a pair of latex gloves, he removed the envelope from the evidence bag. It wasn’t sealed, so he carefully drew out t
he letter it contained, ignoring Gudlaugur’s protests that they ought to take it straight down to the station.
The phone rang in his pocket but, ignoring that too, Huldar delicately unfolded the letter and began reading. The ringing stopped and he was distantly aware of Gudlaugur’s phone starting up instead. He continued reading while Gudlaugur answered and had just finished the densely written page when his partner tapped him on the shoulder. ‘That was Erla on the phone. They’ve found Egill’s body. She wants us to go straight there.’
Huldar sat there without moving for a moment, his eyes unfocused. What the hell? Turning to Gudlaugur, still holding the letter in the tweezers, he said: ‘Mördur claims responsibility for the murders. He doesn’t name any names but it’s clear what he’s referring to. He says he did it to show his countrymen once and for all that bullying is a deadly serious matter. Because nothing else had worked. Jesus Christ.’
‘What? But he was in hospital.’
‘It gets worse. He says he killed all three of them. Three!’ Huldar clenched his jaw. So there was a victim number one after all.
Gudlaugur was lost for words. Huldar handed him the tweezers, asking him to put the letter back in the envelope. Then he started the car and backed out of the drive. Unfortunately there wouldn’t be time to say goodbye to Laufhildur or her carer. But it didn’t really matter since the police would be back all too soon.
Chapter 36
The mood at the scene was subdued. Despite knowing that it was almost impossible Egill would be found alive, they’d been unconsciously nursing a faint hope, which had now been brought crashing down to earth. The news that there was a third victim out there had only deepened the air of despondency. Hardly anyone spoke.
The boy had been found in a shipping container. The location had been revealed when his phone suddenly appeared on the system and a Snap of his dead body was sent to all his friends. As might be expected, the kids, who made up most of his contacts, had been unable to resist the temptation to view the picture. In the wake of this, the police had been inundated with calls. Most of those who got in touch wanted to know if this meant Egill was dead, a question the police refused to answer. They didn’t need to: the boy’s face in the picture said it all. They made an exception when Egill’s father rang, though. It was deeply regrettable that he’d contacted the police before they’d had a chance to notify him, but it couldn’t be helped. The officer who took the call was quick to forward it to Erla, who was tight-lipped afterwards about what had been said.
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