The Darkness(27)

Again, she experienced that creeping feeling of misgiving, that it was a bad idea to have come on this trip.

‘Impassable?’ She kept her eyes fixed on his face.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, patting the wheel and smiling at her. ‘Give this baby a chance to show us what she can do.’

In contrast to the bleak, wintry world outside, it was warm in the car, the heater pumping in a constant blast of hot air. She thought about her parents’ car back home. The heater had never worked.

She looked out at the landscape, at the vast, treeless expanse, enchanted but a little afraid. Everything was so white, as far as the eye could see, apart from the odd glimpse of black – rocks, perhaps, or tufts of grass. A faint blue light hung over the mountains; the beauty was all-encompassing. It was so peaceful, too. Although they hadn’t been driving long, they might have been alone in the world. The isolation was thrilling, yet at the same time it frightened her. The landscape felt somehow cruel and unforgiving, especially now, in winter; nature didn’t care if you lived or died. It would be terrifyingly easy to get lost here.

Abruptly, she was jolted out of her thoughts as the car skidded in the deep snow and, for one horrible moment, she thought they were going to veer off the road and roll over. Heart pounding, she braced herself for the impact. But her fears proved unnecessary, as the car righted itself.

The radio was emitting a flow of words that she couldn’t understand. It sounded like a monotonous recital of facts.

In the end, she felt compelled to ask what the announcer was saying.

‘It’s the weather forecast,’ her companion replied.

‘So what’s the forecast like?’

‘Not too good,’ he said. ‘They’re predicting a heavy snowfall.’

‘Shouldn’t we …’ She hesitated, then said it: ‘Shouldn’t we turn back, then?’

‘No way,’ he replied. ‘Bad weather will just add to the thrill.’





XV


When her phone rang, Hulda was standing by the hot-dog stand on Tryggvagata, grabbing a quick snack in the evening sun. This particular stand had been an important landmark in Icelandic cuisine for decades. Long before the concept of the takeaway was introduced to the country, its hot dogs had taken on the status of a national dish. Later, the stand had been given the international seal of approval when a former US president had stopped there for a hot dog while on a visit.

She couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with áki, though it was clear that he was nothing like the description of the man in the four-by-four who, according to Dóra, had picked Elena up.

A pity, as it would have been so handy, establishing a link with Elena and moving the case along.

She tried to answer her mobile without dropping her hot dog or spilling Coke, mustard, ketchup or remoulade down her jacket, a juggling act she had perfected through long practice. Hulda had been patronizing this van for years. It had always been popular but, recently, the queue had grown appreciably longer, thanks to the massive increase in tourist numbers. A crowd of them were now milling around it, either waiting to be served or struggling to eat their own hot dogs without dripping the contents down their fronts.

‘Hulda – Albert Albertsson here.’ The solicitor’s voice was as mellifluous as ever, inspiring trust from the first word, and for an instant Hulda let herself be lulled into believing that he had good news for her: surely a man with a voice like that couldn’t be the bearer of bad tidings?

‘Hello, Albert.’

‘How are you getting on with the … investigation?’

‘Reasonably well, thanks.’

‘Great. I thought I’d give you a bell because I’ve come across some paperwork relating to Elena. It was in my “filing cabinet” here at home.’ Hulda thought she detected a hint of irony when Albert mentioned the filing cabinet and, remembering the chaos in his office, guessed he’d found the papers at the bottom of some pile. But this was good news: additional documents might contain further clues, and she could do with some of those right now.

‘Excellent,’ she said.

‘I’ve got to go out to Litla-Hraun Prison tomorrow morning to meet a client, but I can take the papers to the office with me in the afternoon. Would you like to drop by then?’

Hulda thought for a moment. ‘No, I’ll come and pick them up now, if that’s OK. Did you say you were at home?’

‘Yes, I am, but I’m on my way out – I’m already late, in fact. Though if you’re in that much of a hurry, I suppose my brother could give you the paperwork. He lives with me. I’ll leave the envelope with him.’

‘Great. Where do you live?’

He gave her his address then asked again how the inquiry was progressing and if she really believed Elena had been murdered.

‘I’m convinced,’ Hulda told him, and rang off.

The evening was still young. Getting hold of the papers wasn’t quite as urgent as she’d led him to believe, but she felt a desperate need to keep herself busy. Anything was better than going home alone and trying in vain to get to sleep in the knowledge that she was one day closer to retirement, one day closer to the aching void of enforced inactivity that was all she had to look forward to.





XVI