The Girl Who Died, Ragnar Jonasson [small books to read .TXT] 📗

get in the way of her plan. Once she’d stretched her legs a little she was bound to feel sleepy. Slipping out of her nightie, she pulled on jeans, a white jumper and her thick coat, then tiptoed out of the door and down the stairs, along the hall to the back door.

Una hesitated briefly, experiencing a moment’s trepidation before she opened the door. It was her first night in a new place. All she needed, she told herself, was to breathe in the atmosphere and clear her head a little.

Outside she was met by the chill of a late-summer night. There was a light breeze coming off the sea, which seemed to have blown away the fog. The rain had stopped and the little settlement was engulfed in darkness. It was past midnight of course, but only now did Una notice that there were no streetlights. Apart from the outside lights twinkling here and there on the houses, the surrounding blackness was almost complete.

Una found it oddly unsettling. Although not usually afraid of the dark, she felt suddenly vulnerable, as if anything could happen to her in the gloom. She started walking down towards the sea, passing the church and two houses, telling herself briskly that there was nothing to be afraid of. This was a peaceful little community and no one was going to jump out at her from a dark alleyway. The very idea was absurd. However unnerving the blackness might feel, she was unquestionably safer here, alone in the middle of the night, than she would have been in the brightly lit centre of Reykjavík.

Once down on the beach, Una was lulled by the tranquillity into a calmer frame of mind. She listened to the sighing of the unseen waves as she inhaled the briny smell of the sea and tried to persuade herself that she had made the right decision, that this move was going to change her life for the better.

After a minute or two, she turned up towards the building containing the Co-op, intending to walk there, then back to Salka’s house next door. It was hard to see where she was going and she kept missing the gravel path and stumbling into long grass. If it hadn’t been for the outside lights on a few of the houses, she wouldn’t have been able to make out a thing. There seemed to be the odd derelict building here and there among the inhabited ones and she was unnerved by the empty doorways and windows, which formed gaping black holes in the walls.

A bird flew up out of a tussock right in front of her, giving her the shock of her life and making her gasp. Next moment she had almost collided with another person. Her heart lurched and in an instant of panic she thought she’d seen a ghost, though of course she didn’t believe in ghosts. She recoiled, peering at the shadowy figure, which seemed unreal, as if the darkness had taken on material form.

‘Sorry,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you.’

She took another step backwards and, mastering her own voice, said: ‘That’s OK, I didn’t see you either. I was just …’ She was about to apologize and explain that she was just going for a walk when she checked the impulse. She didn’t owe him an explanation and, anyway, it was obvious.

She strained her eyes in an effort to see the man. He turned a little and the outside light on one of the houses dimly picked out his face, revealing that he was thickly bearded and wearing a woollen cap over his hair. Although she could make out little more of his features than the gleam of his eyes, Una sensed that he didn’t pose any threat. Once she’d recovered from her initial shock, she felt oddly as though she’d bumped into someone she knew, someone familiar and benign, though she couldn’t work out what had created this impression.

‘Anyway, I’m just on my way …’ he said, a little awkwardly, making as if to turn back.

Acting fast, she held out her hand: ‘My name’s Una.’

‘Yes, sorry.’ He hesitated, then said: ‘I’m Thór.’ He shook her hand firmly. ‘Er, who are you?’

‘I’m the new teacher. I’ve just moved here from Reykjavík.’

In the faint illumination she saw that he was smiling, an attractive smile. She guessed that he was a little older than her, perhaps in his mid-thirties. Una had turned thirty that spring, and had meant to hold a party for her friends but never got round to it. She had kept finding reasons to postpone it, pleading lack of money and time, but perhaps the truth was that she didn’t want to invite the girls round to her place. She had more or less stopped seeing them nowadays, except for Sara, of course. Nor was it a milestone she felt any particular desire to celebrate. Although she kept reminding herself that she was still young, it was a bit of a jolt to find herself entering her thirties.

‘Yes, so I heard.’ He still seemed reluctant to engage, as if he’d rather be somewhere else.

Now that she was standing still, the cold began to penetrate her coat, but she ignored it, eager to spin out the encounter as long as possible.

But before she could say anything in reply, he added: ‘I don’t really understand. Why on earth did you want to move to the back of beyond?’

‘Why not? I was fed up with the city and wanted to try living in the countryside for a change.’

He was silent and she could sense his unspoken desire to get away. But eventually he replied: ‘Living in the countryside’s one thing, but living out here …’

‘What about you?’ she asked quickly. ‘What brought you here?’

Again that hesitation, then he said: ‘I work on the farm up the hill. Have you been there yet? I live in the guesthouse and help out Hjördís, the woman who owns it.’

Una shook her head. ‘No,