Girls Who Lie

by Eva Bjorg AEgisdóttir

  ‘Isn’t there anything to eat?’ Tinna asked.

  ‘I brought along some bread and salad.’ Margrét stood up and put on the slippers that were on the floor by the sofa. ‘Sorry there’s nothing more exciting. This trip was a bit of a spontaneous decision. Sit down and I’ll get supper ready.’

  She opened the cupboards in the dimly lit kitchen and took out some dark-grey plates that looked as if they were made of stone. Then she turned on the tap and filled a jug with water, then poured wine into a long-stemmed glass for herself. Hekla noticed that there wasn’t much left in the bottle on the table. When everything was ready, Margrét joined them at the table and told them to help themselves.

  ‘Hekla,’ Margrét said, after a few minutes. Hekla raised her head and looked at her enquiringly. There was an odd light in Margrét’s eyes, as if she was seeing her for the first time. Usually, Hekla felt as if Margrét was looking through her without really noticing her. But now her eyes seemed to see right inside her.

  Yes, she meant to reply, but her voice got lost somewhere along the way. She coughed and took a sip of water.

  ‘Have I ever told you that you and Tinna are related?’

  Hekla almost choked on her water. She glanced at Tinna, who merely grinned as if it wasn’t news to her.

  ‘It’s true,’ Margrét smiled faintly. ‘You’re cousins. Tinna’s father was your mother’s brother, so you’re very … very closely related. You’re first cousins.’

  ‘But…’ Hekla didn’t know how to react to this information. It must be a mistake. ‘He’s dead. My mother’s brother died ages ago.’

  ‘Yes.’ Margrét nodded. ‘He died before Tinna was born. He never knew about her, and I don’t think your mother realised either.’

  Almost all Hekla knew about her Uncle Anton was that he had killed himself when Maríanna was pregnant with her. Maríanna had hardly ever talked about him, but once or twice she had reminisced about things that had happened when they were young, like when he convinced her to open her Advent calendar in November and helped her eat all the chocolates. But whenever Hekla had asked any questions about her family, her mother had refused to answer. Hekla never let on that she had tracked down her grandfather on Facebook and sent him a message. Since then she had talked to him from time to time. But there had never been any mention of Anton having a child. It simply wasn’t possible, let alone that the child could be Tinna. No, there must be some mistake.

  ‘Tinna knows the whole story already,’ Margrét said. ‘But I wanted to bring you here to tell you about it. It’s only right that you should know too.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Well…’ Margrét dropped her eyes to her glass and rotated it slowly, swirling the wine right up to the brim. ‘Know what really happened. And why we need to stick together; keep quiet about our secret.’ She looked up, straight into Hekla’s eyes. ‘Do you think you can do that?’

  The drive to Bifröst felt as if it would never end. They were hurtling along the icy roads, way over the speed limit, their blue lights flashing, but even so Elma felt as if they were crawling past the slopes of Mount Hafnarfjall.

  ‘What if Hekla saw something?’ Sævar said, as they reached the bridge over the fjord to Borgarnes. Up to now, silence had reigned in the car.

  ‘Saw something?’

  ‘Yes, I mean, what if she witnessed her mother’s murder, and that’s why Margrét’s abducted her?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Elma said. ‘She could have been in the house when her mother came round. But, in that case, why stay silent about it all this time? Why protect Margrét? Surely Hekla must have cared more about her mother?’

  ‘Really? Maybe she wasn’t particularly fond of Maríanna. And what if it wasn’t Margrét she was protecting?’

  ‘Who…?’ Elma hesitated. ‘You mean she might have been protecting Tinna?’

  Sævar shrugged. ‘Or both of them. From what we’ve seen, Hekla has problems fitting in socially. I wouldn’t put it past her to do something drastic to avoid losing her friend.’

  ‘Her cousin.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If it’s right that Anton was Tinna’s father, they’re first cousins,’ Elma said. ‘Their parents were brother and sister.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Sævar slowed his frantic pace as they drove through Borgarnes. ‘Then all the more reason for Hekla not to want to lose her. But we still can’t be sure if she knows they’re cousins.’

  Sævar put his foot down again once they were back on the Ring Road, and soon there was nothing to relieve the darkness but the distant lights of the odd farmhouse in an otherwise empty landscape.

  The phone rang in Sævar’s pocket, and he passed it to Elma.

  ‘We’ve found blood,’ the man from forensics told her. ‘The whole kitchen floor lit up.’

  The summer house looked new. It was painted black and had a slanting roof and French windows that opened onto a large sundeck, complete with a hot tub. The whole place oozed affluence. But all the lights were off, and if it hadn’t been for the car parked nearby, the house would have appeared empty. Elma strained her eyes to see inside but couldn’t make out any movement. Curtains were drawn across all the windows downstairs.

  ‘Do you think they’re in there?’ Sævar whispered, though there wasn’t really any need.

  ‘We saw a movement earlier,’ said one of the police officers from Borgarnes, who had been first on the scene. Their car was parked further down the road from where they had been able to watch the house.

  ‘So they’re in there?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ the officer said. ‘At least, there were footprints leading to the front door and there’s somebody inside. It’s possible they’re in the room at the back of the house, with the windows facing away from the road.’

  ‘Is there any reason to wait?’ Elma asked Hörður, who had followed them in his SUV and was now standing beside her. ‘Shouldn’t we just go in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hörður said. ‘You and Sævar go and knock. The rest of us will take up position around the house to make sure no one gets out another way. I don’t believe it’s actually necessary, but it’s better to be sure.’

  Elma and Sævar walked over to the summer house and knocked on the door. As Elma strained her ears, she thought she could hear a murmuring of voices that could be coming from a television. Shielding her eyes with her hands, she pressed her face to the pane of glass in the front door. Inside she saw a cupboard for coats and some shoes. There were two pairs of trainers on the floor. She glanced at Sævar.

  ‘Margrét!’ he said loudly and banged again, harder.

  As he did so, they heard footsteps, then the door opened.

  Margrét stood in the doorway, seeming unsurprised to see them. ‘Good evening,’ she said.

  ‘Where are the girls, Margrét?’ Sævar asked.

  Margrét didn’t answer, just smiled and looked them up and down. Elma found it hard to interpret her manner. She looked exactly like she did on television: friendly, sincere.

  ‘Where are they?’ Elma said, stepping inside.

  ‘They’re in there.’ Margrét gestured towards a closed door.

  Elma walked past her, with Sævar on her heels. She went straight to the room at the back, from which the sound of the television was coming. She didn’t know what to expect but gasped when she saw the girls lying on the sofa. Their arms were dangling limply and in the darkness she couldn’t see if they were breathing. For a split second the world seemed to stand still, then Sævar switched on the lights and they stirred. Tinna raised a hand to shield her eyes, and Hekla rolled over onto her other side. When Tinna made them out, she didn’t appear remotely alarmed nor surprised. She just sat up and pulled off the throw that had been covering her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hekla asked in a low voice.

  ‘You need to come with us, girls,’ Elma said. ‘We’ll explain on the way.’

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ Tinna asked.

  ‘She�
��s…’ Elma hesitated. ‘She’s going with my colleague.’

  ‘Why?’ Tinna asked. ‘Can’t she come in the same car as us?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ Elma said calmly. ‘We’ll explain—’

  ‘No.’ The girl’s voice was so determined that Elma was silenced. Tinna rose to her feet. She was much taller than Elma, and suddenly it felt uncomfortable standing there facing her. There was a look in Tinna’s eyes that made Elma take an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘Tinna, we—’

  ‘I did it,’ Tinna said. ‘Mum didn’t do anything. It was me who killed Maríanna.’

  Wednesday

  The forensics team was busy until late. When Elma went into work the following morning, she looked through the photos they had taken. There were clear signs of where the blood had splashed the walls and formed a large pool on the floor. A bloodstain-pattern analyst, who had examined the scene, concluded that Maríanna had been lying on the floor when she was beaten. In fact, it was still to be confirmed that the blood belonged to her, but they were working on the assumption that it did. All the indications were that she had been murdered in the house. The only remaining question was who had been responsible.

  Elma strolled into the kitchen and filled her mug, then sat down at the table instead of returning to her office. She didn’t believe Tinna was guilty of murdering Maríanna, as the girl had claimed the night before. Her confession had almost certainly been an attempt to protect her mother, but the police couldn’t be sure. The bus driver had seen Margrét with a young girl whose description fitted Tinna: taller and more strongly built than Margrét. Elma guessed that Tinna would be admitted to a children’s mental-health unit for a few days, just while the reports were being completed. As she had only been fourteen when the murder was committed, she was too young to be charged. There was no question of custody either, as too much time had passed, which meant the police had no justification for keeping mother and daughter apart. If Margrét and Tinna wanted to synchronise their stories about Maríanna’s death, they’d already had ample opportunity to do so.

  But where did Hekla fit in? Had she witnessed her mother’s murder? Elma had been in the car with Hekla the previous evening. The girl hadn’t spoken much, just sat in the back seat, staring out of the window. When she saw Bergrún and Fannar waiting to meet her at the police station, she had run into their arms.

  Elma put down her coffee mug, having lost her appetite for the black swill. Margrét’s interview was due to begin soon. She had asked if she could have her lawyer present, and he was on his way up from Reykjavík. It was past midday, and Elma felt as if she hadn’t slept at all, although she had in fact had quite a few hours. Her head had been whirling with the events of the evening when she laid it on the pillow last night and closed her eyes, but to her surprise it had been morning when she next opened them. She was in mid-yawn when Sævar walked into the kitchen.

  ‘The lawyer’s here,’ he said. ‘Shall we get started?’

  As Elma studied Margrét, she just couldn’t picture the sequence of events that had ended in Maríanna’s death. Had Margrét really stood over her body, beating and kicking her long after she had lost consciousness?

  Sævar switched on the recording device and read out the formalities. Margrét watched him, her face grave, though her eyes were alive with curiosity. The only sign of nerves was the way she kept taking sips of water, and when she gripped the glass, Elma noticed that her knuckles were white.

  ‘Right,’ Elma said. ‘Let’s go over the events of Friday, the fourth of May. Can you tell us what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’ Margrét cleared her throat. ‘I was about to leave for work when there was a knock at the door.’

  ‘Was anyone else home?’

  ‘Tinna and Hekla were in the bedroom.’

  ‘All right,’ Elma said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Anyway, as I said, there was a knock, and I went to the door. I saw at once by the way she looked at me that the woman recognised me. I just assumed she knew me from TV. But she didn’t say a word, just … stared.’ Margrét dropped her gaze to her glass. ‘Then she asked if I knew who she was and, when I said no, she said she wanted to talk to me. We went into the kitchen, and she told me who her brother had been. Naturally, I was startled. In fact, that’s putting it mildly; I was shocked.’

  ‘Could you explain who her brother was?’ Sævar asked. ‘For the recording.’

  ‘Anton lived in Sandgerði like me. We met at a party, not that I remember much about it. All I remember is that I fell asleep alone in a bedroom but when I woke up, he was on top of me. He’d pulled off all my clothes.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Sorry, I … All my life I’ve tried to escape what happened. I’ve hidden from the people who didn’t believe me and judged me for something I had no control over, so seeing his sister standing there in my kitchen was … I can’t describe it.’ Margrét paused, staring unseeingly at the table. ‘I suppose I didn’t react the way I should have done. I told her to go away and take … take Hekla with her. Of course it wasn’t fair, but then what happened to me wasn’t fair either. None of it was fair.’

  ‘How did she react?’ Sævar asked, when Margrét showed no sign of continuing.

  ‘She called me a liar. Said she’d been watching me and had seen what kind of person I was. It suddenly dawned on me that it must have been her who sent the letters.’

  ‘Tell us about the letters.’

  ‘I started getting threatening letters three years after Hrafntinna was born. Anonymous letters congratulating me on my little girl. One mentioned the name of Tinna’s nursery school, which made me afraid for her safety. Then one evening I was pushed down the stairs at a nightclub in Reykjavík. I didn’t see who it was, but I assumed it was the same person who sent me the letters. My daughter and I moved after that.’

  Elma nodded. She had read the letters and knew that Margrét was telling the truth. ‘Did Maríanna admit to having sent them?’

  Margrét looked up, smiling wryly. ‘Yes, she did. She laughed and asked if I’d been scared. That’s when I … when I completely lost control. I screamed at her and shoved her away because I wanted her to leave.’

  ‘So there was a struggle?’

  Margrét glanced at her lawyer, then back at Elma and nodded. ‘She was only trying to save me.’

  Elma leant closer. ‘Who? Who was trying to save you?’

  ‘Tinna,’ Margrét said in a choked voice. ‘She didn’t mean to kill her. She just came out of her room and saw us. She must have thought I needed help or … or I don’t know what she thought. All I know is that next minute Maríanna was on the floor and there was blood everywhere and … oh, God.’ Margrét clamped a hand over her mouth, and tears started running down her cheeks. ‘What will happen now? What will happen to Tinna?’

  The lawyer intervened. ‘Hrafntinna was fourteen years old at the time of the incident, which means she was below the age of criminal responsibility.’

  Elma caught Sævar’s eye. They hadn’t been expecting Margrét to put the blame on Tinna.

  ‘Can we take a short break?’ Margrét pleaded through her sobs.

  Sævar nodded and switched off the recording device. Elma rose to her feet, fetched some kitchen towels and handed them to Margrét. Shortly afterwards, Margrét had recovered her composure and was ready to continue.

  ‘As you can see, my client is not guilty of murder,’ Margrét’s lawyer said. ‘Her daughter has confirmed her story. She thought her mother was in danger and reacted accordingly.’

  ‘Please don’t interrupt the interview,’ Elma said. A lawyer’s role was merely to observe and protect the client’s interests. He would have his chance to put Margrét’s case when it came to the trial.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Sævar addressed his question to Margrét.

  ‘I just didn’t know what to do. Poor Hekla was there and saw everything. I told her to go home and begged her not to tell anyone what had happened.�
��

  ‘Why did you hide the body?’ Elma asked. ‘If it was an accident, self-defence, why didn’t you just ring the police?’

  ‘Like I said, I was scared and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t thinking straight. I rang work and told them I was ill. All I could think of at that moment was to make Maríanna disappear. To behave as if nothing had happened. I mean, I knew how she’d treated Hekla. I’d often talked to Bergrún, and she told me how that woman had just walked out and left Hekla alone at three years old. Three years old. Can you imagine? I didn’t think anyone would miss her. Even Hekla didn’t seem too upset by it. I told her that now she’d be able to move in with Bergrún and Fannar, as she’d always wanted. But my main priority was not to ruin Tinna’s life. Even though she wouldn’t be convicted like an adult would, she’d always have been branded a murderer. I know to my cost that the public don’t need judges – they’re perfectly capable of condemning people on their own. And the court of public opinion is far more merciless than the justice system.’

  Margrét finished the water in her glass. She was wearing a thick, light-brown jumper with a V-neck. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, and her face was bare of make-up, yet she could just as well have been on location. There was something about her posture as she sat there, very upright, looking straight in front of her as she spoke. And then there was that voice. Those familiar, mellifluous tones. As if she were reading a script. If Elma hadn’t met Margrét in different circumstances, she probably wouldn’t have noticed anything. But she had seen another side of her and this made her wonder if Margrét was telling the truth.