The Reckoning

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  Freyja got up. ‘I suppose that’ll have to do. I expect the police will approach you directly about the other records. Or go straight to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Department. Somebody at the hospital must know how the archives work and how to access them. Not that the police are likely to read the report themselves – presumably they’ll ask you to look at it for them. Or me, for that matter.’

  ‘Either way, we’ll see.’ The woman’s bracelets jangled again as she turned to the computer and placed her meaty hands on the keyboard. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

  Freyja’s attention was distracted by the storm raging outside the window. It was a fair reflection of her mental state at that moment.

  * * *

  Freyja hadn’t had any matches on Tinder, apart from one that hopefully didn’t count. She’d swiped right on a man and he’d reciprocated. But the attractive thirty-year-old had turned out to be a boy of nineteen, as he revealed in a message asking if she was a cougar in search of sex with a younger guy. If so, he was up for it.

  This did nothing to improve her mood. Instead of sending back a snarky reply that thirty-something women weren’t that desperate, she’d simply deleted his message. She had only herself to blame if the most eligible bachelors in Iceland weren’t exactly queuing up to meet her. The profile she’d put up was pretty uninspiring – she’d nicked the wording more or less unchanged from another woman and had used her photo from the office intranet. The camera on her phone was broken and she’d just uploaded all the pictures to free up some memory. Why did everything have to go wrong at the same time?

  At that moment she received an alert that someone had liked her picture. This removed her frown briefly, until she saw who it was: Huldar. How the hell did that happen? Why hadn’t she checked to see if he had an account before she signed up? She should have known. Freyja sighed. What was the betting he’d be the first man she bumped into when she went out clubbing this weekend? Annoyed by the thought, she deleted her account and went offline. If only she could unplug her computer as well.

  Rather than give in to this impulse, she stared grumpily at the screen in search of something to do that wouldn’t rile her further. Her mind was blank. The landscape photo she’d set as her wallpaper could hardly be seen for all the files she had saved on her desktop, in defiance of the centre’s IT officer. The files were of no use to her now, the cases they related to long since closed. She had a choice between another bout of online surfing, refreshing all the usual websites in the hope that they would be updated faster than she could read them, or staring at the screen, wondering why her life had gone down the drain. The third option was apply her mind to Sólveig’s puzzling reaction.

  This option won and without pausing to consider whether she was authorised to do so, Freyja accessed the Child Protection Agency intranet. First she looked up Thröstur Agnesarson’s ID number. Although she had no idea if reports by school psychologists ended up here, there was no harm in looking. If her concerns about the boy had any basis, he would presumably have received further treatment, and in that case she ought to be able to find him on the system.

  She knew full well that all searches were logged, so she could expect an enquiry as to why she had been looking up old files about a young man who wasn’t one of her clients. The prospect didn’t alarm her; there were advantages to being at the bottom of the pecking order – she didn’t have far to fall. Besides, she could always use the police investigation as an excuse. No one need know that she hadn’t been asked to look at the reports. If she’d read Huldar right, he would back her up.

  Suddenly she regretted having quit Tinder instead of simply liking his picture and following up with a polite message explaining that she wasn’t interested. Too late now.

  The ID number instantly brought up Thröstur’s name and a date indicating when his case had first been recorded on the system. That date fitted with the headteacher’s account: December 2005, or the boy’s first term as a pupil at the school. But Freyja raised her eyebrows at the second entry, initially assuming it was a mistake. This one dated from 2001 and concerned not Thröstur Agnesarson but Thröstur Jónsson. When she compared the ID numbers, however, they were the same. At some point between 2001 and 2005 the boy had stopped using his patronymic and begun going by his mother’s name instead.

  So the headteacher had been right: Thröstur had also come to the attention of the system in early January 2001, when he would have been eight. It would be interesting to know if Sólveig had handled his case both times or only on the second occasion. With a flutter of excitement, Freyja called up a list of records linked to Thröstur’s ID number. Much to her annoyance, she drew a blank. It seemed that Sólveig had been right: old records, even digital ones, could go missing.

  Freyja fidgeted with the mouse. How was she to track them down? An uncharitable thought occurred, unfair and unfounded, but persistent. Could Sólveig have accessed the system after their conversation and deleted the records? Then done the same with the report she had written, wherever it was archived? No, surely not …

  Freyja put on her headphones and called the Child Protection Agency’s IT officer. While waiting for him to answer, she idly studied his photo on the website, part of an initiative to ensure that the agency staff would recognise one another, although they worked at different sites around the country. The theory was that if you reminded people that they were talking to a flesh-and-blood human being, their interaction would be politer. As if they could be in any doubt that they were talking to a real person. The IT guy appeared to have been taken unawares in his studio portrait. If he was on Tinder, she hoped he wasn’t using this as his profile picture.

  ‘Have you cleaned up your desktop yet?’ the man launched in immediately.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied without a moment’s hesitation. ‘How does it work with client records on our system – could someone delete them remotely?’

  ‘Yes, it’s possible. But who’d do a thing like that?’ The man paused. ‘Have you deleted something by accident?’

  ‘No, of course not. I was just looking for some records that should be there but appear to have vanished.’

  ‘Are you sure they were there?’

  ‘Yes, they must have been. The client’s ID number’s on the system and there are two cases linked to it, but no files. Not a single one. Isn’t that a bit odd?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. Unless they never existed.’

  ‘I’m fairly sure they must have done.’ Freyja paused briefly, then added: ‘Could you check for me if the records were there? Yesterday, for example?’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, for example. Or last week. Or last year, for that matter. It’s up to you. But yesterday would be best.’ She gave him Thröstur’s ID number.

  ‘OK. I’ll have a look. Just a sec.’

  Freyja was surprised at how easy it was to persuade him to help her. ‘Thanks. I owe you one.’

  ‘Keep it. I’m the IT officer. I get paid to deal with stupid requests.’

  Freyja didn’t rise to the bait. In revenge she surveyed all the files on her desktop, pleased that she still hadn’t deleted them. Even petty little victories like that could raise the spirits.

  ‘No. There was nothing there yesterday. Want me to check further back in time?’

  ‘No, that’s fine. Thanks.’ She had done Sólveig an injustice. But that didn’t alter the fact that there was something fishy about all this. Something didn’t feel right.

  Chapter 7

  Cheap little plastic flower pots were lined up on the windowsills in the sitting room. Æsa had given up hope that any of the seeds would be tricked into thinking it was spring. When she peered in to check, it was as she’d suspected: no change, nothing but bare brown earth. Perhaps it was just as well. If the plants did decide to sprout, she wouldn’t know what to do with them once they’d outgrown their little containers. The winter showed no sign of releasing its iron grip, so they couldn’t be planted outside. Æsa knew
next to nothing about gardening. She had got carried away after hearing two women she worked with at the council offices holding forth about how much money they had saved by growing their summer bedding plants from seed, and, infected by their enthusiasm, she had seen no reason not to start them off shortly after New Year. Her weariness with this gruelling winter had been partly to blame: the thought of pansies and marigolds was so cheering. Last summer she hadn’t been able to afford any flowers to brighten up her little plot. But now it looked as if she had wasted her money.

  Æsa rapped on the big window, then opened the smaller one a crack and called to the two children playing outside. ‘Time to come in. Supper’s ready.’ They turned to look at her, bundled up in their hoods, hats and scarves. The little that could be glimpsed of their cheeks was bright red. Between them was a mound – presumably the snowman they had been planning to build, or the beginnings of one. ‘Come along, or supper will get cold.’ Æsa added the last bit for the benefit of any neighbours who might be listening. There was no hot food, any more than there usually was, unless toast counted as a hot meal. There was no point cooking anything more ambitious: the kids wouldn’t appreciate it and anyway they got a cooked lunch every day at nursery. For supper their preference was for bread, skyr and cold liver sausage, and why should she change this arrangement when it suited them all? She’d had enough of obeying other people’s rules during her years with Thorvaldur, who had expressed an opinion – invariably disparaging – on everything she or the children did. How he must enjoy being alone and free to have his own way in everything.

  Karlotta and Dadi reluctantly picked their way across the small white lawn. Their arms hung at their sides, their mittens weighed down by clumps of snow. They headed for the door that opened into the sitting room. It was the garden that had persuaded Æsa to take the plunge and buy the flat, though it had been beyond her means. Her pay was nothing to write home about, and since becoming a single mother she hadn’t been able to take on any overtime because of the kids. It would have been more sensible to buy a flat on the first or second floor, not only for financial reasons but also to avoid the ongoing fear that a criminal had only to smash a window to break in. Although she liked fresh air at night, since moving in she hadn’t been able to sleep with the window open. Every time she closed her eyes she imagined an arm reaching in to undo the catch. Such worries hadn’t occurred to her when she’d let herself be captivated by the garden. All she had thought of was Karlotta and Dadi playing outside where she could keep an eye on them.

  When she opened the door to let them in, she was met by a wall of cold air. The mat inside was soon covered in snow as the children shook the worst of it off their outdoor clothes. Much of it ended up on the parquet thanks to their clumsy efforts, but Æsa didn’t let this annoy her. In the past Thorvaldur would have been standing over her, grumbling about the pools of water on the floor. Without lifting a finger to help.

  This reminded her that Thorvaldur had rung earlier. Five times, so it must be something important. She had been at work and it hadn’t occurred to her to answer since calls from him rarely ended on a good note. She couldn’t bear to let her colleagues overhear their bickering.

  ‘Go and wash your hands, then come and eat.’ Æsa carried the pile of wet garments into the hall and started hanging them up on pegs. She moved the shoes from underneath so the melting snow wouldn’t drip into them. Her phone rang as she was looking around for somewhere to hang the Manchester United bobble hat Thorvaldur had brought back for Dadi after attending a conference in the UK, a month before she had announced that she wanted a divorce. The hat was threadbare and faded, but Dadi refused to wear anything else.

  ‘Mummy! Your phone’s ringing! It might be Daddy.’ Dadi sounded excited but it was hard to tell if this was pleasure that his father wanted to talk to them or tension at the prospect of having to listen to yet another quarrel. One side of a quarrel, rather, because neither he nor Karlotta could hear what their father said. Just as well. The poor kids had more than enough on their plate as it was.

  ‘Don’t answer!’ Æsa stuffed the hat into the hood of the nearest anorak, then hurried into the kitchen to stop Dadi or Karlotta picking up. But she was too late. When she came in Dadi was standing with the phone held to his ear, looking as if Parliament had just passed a law to abolish his birthday.

  ‘Give me that. Give me the phone, Dadi. Now.’ She regretted raising her voice when she saw that she had only increased her son’s distress. He handed her the phone.

  ‘We’re eating, Valdi. Can’t it wait?’ Æsa tried to keep her tone civil. The children’s eyes were fixed on her. They stood there side by side, showing no sign of sitting down, though their meagre supper was already on the table. In her agitation she had accidentally used her old pet name for her ex-husband, though after the divorce she had resolved never to call him anything but Thorvaldur, even in her head.

  ‘If you’d answered my calls earlier I wouldn’t have to ring now.’ Thorvaldur could afford to vent his anger since the children couldn’t hear. Mind you, Æsa wasn’t sure he would have bothered to hold back even if the kids had been in front of him. He never had in the past. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have noticed her slip-up over his name. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was still carrying a torch for him.

  ‘I was at work. You know I don’t like taking private phone calls at the office.’

  ‘You’re not telling me you’ve only just got home?’ The sarcastic note was all too familiar.

  She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of listing everything she’d had to do since finishing work: race to the nursery to avoid a ticking-off for picking the children up late, shepherd them through the crush at the supermarket after selecting the very cheapest goods, drive home, get them and the shopping into the house, take off their outdoor clothes, clear away the food, give them a drink, help them back into their outdoor clothes, let them out in the garden, put a load in the washing machine and fix something for supper. There hadn’t been a spare minute to return his call. But any mention of her difficulties in keeping things going would be music to his ears, so it was better to bite her lip. ‘What do you want, Thorvaldur?’

  ‘What do I want? Just to know if you’re all right. Well, not you, obviously. I couldn’t care less about you. But Karlotta and Dadi. They are OK, aren’t they?’

  It suddenly dawned on Æsa that Thorvaldur sounded worried. Æsa couldn’t remember ever having heard him sound worried before. It alarmed her. ‘What do you mean? Of course they’re all right. Why are you asking? Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, nothing. I just wanted to know.’ Thorvaldur lapsed briefly into silence, then continued in a pleading tone that could hardly have been less like him: ‘You will look after them, won’t you?’

  ‘What’s wrong, Thorvaldur? Tell me.’ She should have watched what she said. Karlotta and Dadi opened their eyes wide and gaped at her anxiously. She tried to retrieve the situation by adding at a more normal pitch: ‘There’s nothing wrong here. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Look after them. Promise me.’

  What on earth had happened to the old Thorvaldur? To the arrogant man who was accustomed to doling out orders left, right and centre, and would never have dreamt of pleading with anyone?

  ‘I always do. I don’t need to make you any promises.’ Turning away from the children, Æsa hurried out of the kitchen and whispered so they couldn’t hear: ‘What’s going on? Has someone threatened them?’ Her initial thought was that Thorvaldur must have been threatened by one of the criminals he’d put behind bars. ‘If they have, you’ve got to tell me.’ Now it was her turn to sound pleading, thereby restoring their relationship to its old footing.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Thorvaldur tried but failed to sound normal. ‘Nothing at all. Just make sure you tell them not to talk to strangers or go anywhere with anyone they don’t know.’ He paused and his naturally overbearing manner reasserted itself. ‘And answer the phone
next time I ring. It’s not as if your work’s so important that you can’t spare two minutes to talk to me.’ He hung up.

  * * *

  Supper was a silent affair. Æsa had cut short any attempt by the children to find out what their father wanted, and as they couldn’t think about anything else, there was little to say. She herself was too anxious to be able to lighten the atmosphere. As always when Karlotta and Dadi were feeling insecure, their appetites suffered, and she had to nag them to clean their plates. They had been born skinny, never developed apple cheeks like other children, and since they had no puppy fat to fall back on, they couldn’t afford to miss a meal. They were so like their father. You’d have thought he’d produced them on his own, were it not for their temperaments. They were gentle and rarely got cross. Unlike their father in that respect, then. But, who knows, perhaps he had been a delightful child?

  ‘Good night.’ Æsa reached for the light switch as she stood in the doorway. She had put a red bulb in the lamp on the table between their beds to give them a soft light to fall asleep by. The pink glow lit up the little faces peering out from under the covers, their eyes still wide and staring.

  ‘Good night, Mummy. We promise not to get in a car with a bad man.’ Karlotta gave her a watery smile. ‘Dadi promises too.’

  Smiling back, Æsa wished she hadn’t warned the children about strangers just before bedtime. She wouldn’t be surprised if they woke up with nightmares. But it would be worth it if they took her lecture to heart. ‘It’s not only bad men, darling. There are bad women too. You must remember that.’ No need to mention that the chances of a woman trying to harm them were negligible compared to the bad man of their imagination. They must be careful of all strangers, men or women. ‘You can’t always tell if people are bad by looking at them.’ Their eyes became even wider on hearing this. ‘But that’s enough of that. Night, night.’ She left their door open a crack.