The Darkness(11)

Bjartur smiled but didn’t rise to this. Instead, after a brief pause, he said: ‘Actually, there was something else …’

‘Something else?’ Hulda asked encouragingly. She could tell from his expression that he was in two minds about whether to go on.

‘You’d better keep it to yourself, though.’

‘Keep what to myself?’

‘Look, I don’t want to get dragged into anything … I can’t …’

‘What happened?’ Hulda asked, employing her friendliest voice.

‘It was just something she said … By the way, this is strictly off the record.’

Hulda forced herself to smile politely, resisting the urge to point out the difference between a police officer and a journalist. Although she had no intention of making any promises, she maintained a diplomatic silence, not wishing to frighten him off.

Her tactic worked. After a moment’s hesitation, Bjartur continued: ‘I think she might have been on the game.’

‘On the game? Working as a prostitute, you mean?’ Hulda asked. ‘What reason do you have for thinking that?’

‘She told me.’

‘This didn’t come out in any of the reports,’ Hulda said angrily, though her anger was directed more at the absent figure of Alexander than at Bjartur.

‘No, it wouldn’t have. She told me the first time we met but insisted she didn’t want anyone else to know. I got the feeling she was scared.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of who, you mean.’

‘An Icelander?’

‘Not sure.’ He wavered, seeming to think it over. ‘To be honest, I got the impression from what she said that she’d been brought over to Iceland solely for that purpose.’

‘Are you serious? You mean her application for asylum was just a cover?’

‘It’s possible. She was a bit vague about the whole thing, but it was very obvious that she didn’t want the news to get out.’

‘So her lawyer didn’t know?’

‘I don’t think so, no. I certainly didn’t tell him anything. I kept her secret.’ After a beat, he added, a little ashamed: ‘Until now, of course.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell anyone?’ Hulda demanded, sounding harsher than she’d intended.

There was another brief pause, then Bjartur replied, rather lamely: ‘Nobody asked.’





IX


The young mother walked home as usual, but this evening she was unusually tired. It had been a long day at Hótel Borg, the weather had been dark and dreary, the wind and rain dragging her down. Her job description at the landmark hotel in the town centre was rather vague; sometimes she was asked to clean the guestrooms and other times she helped out in the restaurant and bar, often well into the night. She took any shift she was offered, as long as it didn’t interfere with her visits to her daughter.

It had been a day of celebration, 1 December, Sovereignty Day, commemorating Iceland’s achievement of partial independence from Denmark thirty years earlier, in 1918. Students had gathered at the hotel during the evening for a party, and there had been lots of singing and speeches, and the well-known poet Tómas Gudmundsson had performed some of his works.

Christmas was fast approaching and she wanted to buy a present for her daughter, although she wasn’t sure what to get her. It had to be something special, that was all she knew. And she had to have some money to buy the gift. There was this film she really wanted to see at the Gamla Bíó, Boom Town, starring Clark Gable, but she would probably have to give it a miss, as she was saving every penny for her daughter.

How she had envied those young students tonight. How she had longed to be one of them. She knew she had the potential to make something of herself, but that it would never be fulfilled. Iceland was supposed to be a classless society, everyone was supposed to be equal, with no upper, middle or lower class. Everyone was supposed to have an equal chance of succeeding. But she knew this was a myth; she would never rise above her current status, working in low-paid jobs, with no security. A single mother from a poor background. She didn’t stand a chance.

But she was determined that things would be different for her daughter.





X


Bjartur’s revelation had put Hulda’s investigation – if you could call it an investigation – in a whole new light. This was dynamite. Not only had Alexander’s inquiry been exposed as perfunctory in the extreme, but the Russian girl’s death had acquired an entirely new angle. The question was at what point Hulda should inform her boss of this fresh twist. At the moment, Magnús didn’t even know which cold case she had chosen to reopen. No doubt he was busy congratulating himself on the neat way in which he had edged her out and, if he thought about her at all, would assume she was sitting at her desk, poring over old police files to while away the time as the clock ticked inexorably towards her retirement.

In fact, she hadn’t been near CID since this morning’s fateful meeting. To her surprise, the day had passed far more quickly than she had feared: all that rushing around had left her with no time at all to wallow in self-pity. She had the rest of the evening for that. But, no – she was planning to get an early night, have a good long sleep to clear her head, and put off any decision about what to do next until the morning. She could make up her mind then whether she had the energy – and the courage – to completely immerse herself in the Russian girl’s case or whether she should simply throw in the towel and start getting used to life as a pensioner. Admit to herself that her career in the police was over. Stop trying to resist the inevitable. Stop chasing phantoms that may never have existed.