The Darkness(62)

‘Please, give me some water,’ Hulda gasped, though it went against the grain to ask this man for anything.

‘Later,’ he said, but she wasn’t sure he meant it.

‘Were they both working as prostitutes?’ she asked.

Bjartur burst out laughing. ‘Of course not. Neither of them was. They were good girls, especially Katja – she was lovely.’

‘But …’ Only now, far too late, did Hulda understand how Bjartur had misled her, set her on the wrong path at the very outset of the investigation.

‘I was so thrown when you appeared on my doorstep,’ he went on. ‘I’d put the whole thing behind me; thought the case was closed ages ago. All I could think was to find some way of deflecting your attention from me. Then I had a brainwave: I’d tell you Elena had been on the game. And it worked pretty well, didn’t it? Had you fooled.’

Hulda blinked, her eyes full of dirt. When they cleared, she saw that Bjartur was smiling, absently.

She could feel the terror clutching at her heart, but she mustn’t let it paralyse her. For a moment, she was a child again, locked in the naughty cupboard by her grandmother.

Closing her eyes briefly, she concentrated on the birdsong. Surely somebody would help her. Even though it was past midnight, there must be someone about. Or perhaps Bjartur would change his mind, perhaps he was only trying to frighten her … Her hopes ebbed away with every second that passed.

‘You won’t get away with this,’ she said at last, but it sounded unconvincing, even to her own ears.

‘I’ve already got away with two murders. I’m getting to be quite an old hand. And I’ll make sure you’re never found. We’re laying the concrete foundation this week.’

‘But …’ Her mind flew to her mobile. It must be possible to track her whereabouts, find out where she’d been, even if it was too late to save her.

Once again, Bjartur seemed to read her mind.

‘I dealt with your phone hours ago. Remember when you lent it to me and I pretended to call my dad? I took out the battery.’

‘There’s still my car.’

‘That’s a bit more of a headache, I grant you, but I’ll dispose of it. Drive it off a cliff into the sea then make my way back to town somehow. Anyway, no one’ll be interested in my movements, since I’ve never been a suspect in this case. Don’t worry, I’ll get away with it.’

He resumed his shovelling.





XXVIII


The advantage of darkness is that there are no shadows.

Hulda closed her eyes.

She decided to stop struggling. Give up the fight.

The suffocating sense of claustrophobia was horrific, indescribable, yet, oddly, she felt a kind of peace descending on her, once she had resigned herself to the inevitable, to the realization that no one was coming to her rescue now, that these were her final moments of life. She would never have to endure the humiliation of being prosecuted for professional misconduct. In the event of her death, Magnús would drop the proceedings against her, she was sure of that. Her thoughts flew to Pétur. He would be waiting for her. Perhaps he had been trying to call her. And he would have to wait for ever.

Her face was almost completely covered with earth now.

Above all, death offered a merciful way out: an end to the nightmares. The long-desired absolution. Peace. For the last twenty years and more, Hulda had been trying to atone for what she had done, for the act that weighed so heavily on her soul, by showing understanding and sympathy to the guilty. At times, this had led her to cross a line, as in the case of Emma. The woman had committed a crime, driven her car into a paedophile, but Hulda had understood her all too well.

She didn’t know how long she had left. Perhaps only a few brief seconds.

At that moment, she almost wished she believed in a higher power. She had gone to church regularly with her grandparents as a child, but later, after the death of her daughter, the last vestiges of her faith had deserted her.

Her thoughts returned to Jón and Dimma.

Once, she had loved no one in the world as much as those two, her husband and her daughter. But when she found out that Jón had been subjecting Dimma to unspeakable cruelty, her love had been transformed into hate. In one fell swoop, she had lost them both: Dimma had taken her own life; Jón had been transformed into a monster. Her hatred had grown and intensified every day, swelling into a vast, uncontrollable rage. What he had done could never be forgiven, yet he was alive and Dimma was not. Every time Hulda saw him, she thought of Dimma. Her daughter was dead, she had failed her, and yet she was flooded with a mother’s love more powerful even than when Dimma had been alive.

She had to erase Jón from her life. But divorcing him wouldn’t be enough and she had no desire to drag the family through a public sexual-abuse inquiry. That was out of the question. No, she wanted everything to remain fine on the surface, but Jón had to go, and he had to pay for his hideous crimes.

In the event, it had proved quite easy.

Jón had a heart condition, but he could have lived to a ripe old age with the right medication.

Hulda had replaced his pills with a useless substitute, and then waited, hoping the change would have some effect, that he would – one fine day – simply fall asleep and never wake up again.

Of course, she knew what she was doing was wrong. Not only wrong but murder, pure and simple. Yet she pushed these feelings away, focusing on the job at hand, on getting rid of Jón. And hopefully finding a little peace. The desire for justice was overwhelming; she had to avenge her daughter’s death. But, more than that, she couldn’t bear the thought of Jón being allowed to live any longer.