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

eye. Someone was peering in through the window, looking for the man who was dead.

It was a woman, a young woman with black hair, as far as he could tell.

He hid in the shadowy hall, watching her as she pressed her face up against the glass. Was she the man’s girlfriend? All of a sudden he felt a faint stirring of conscience; she would never see him again, perhaps never have any idea what had happened to him, especially if his plans for getting rid of the body worked out.

All he needed to do now was hang around and wait for the woman to leave. He just hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid, like ringing the police. It was bloody lucky he’d taken the precaution of parking a couple of streets away.

Once the coast was clear, he would lug the body out to his car and drive it to the lava-fields, under cover of night.

There was no alternative. There was too much at stake, too much money, and the men in charge were utterly ruthless. It wouldn’t do to leave any loose ends that could upset everything. What did one or two lives matter, in the circumstances? Once he had taken care of this, he also had orders to deal with the other man who was planning to squeal.

So what if the bodies of two no-good pieces of shit went to their final resting place in the lava-fields? Few would miss them.

XI

Una had been planning to play it cool and let a bit of time pass before she engineered another meeting with Thór. Or, rather, she’d been hoping she might bump into him, but that still hadn’t happened, even though she’d been in the village for three days now.

After the frustration of being talked at during coffee with Gudrún and Gunnar, she felt a simple longing to spend time with someone younger, someone she actually liked. There had been a spark between her and Thór during their encounter in the darkness, she could swear to it; some indefinable connection which convinced her they would hit it off. Not only was he close to her own age, but he had also come across as friendly.

In the end, she decided to take a walk up towards the farm, which was just out of sight of the village, over the brow of the hill. It was the first time since her arrival that Una had seen anything beyond the low, eroded slopes that formed a backdrop to the small area of grassy lowland on which Skálar lay. But as she breasted the rise, all she saw inland were more low, featureless hills. Immediately before her appeared the farmhouse, which was large, with a dilapidated air. Under the traditional red roof, the white walls were turning grey where the paint had flaked off to reveal the concrete underneath. In addition to the usual outbuildings, there was a smaller house, presumably the guesthouse Thór had mentioned. After a moment’s reflection, Una decided it would be politer to knock at the door of the main house first.

As she stood there waiting, she had time to feel increasingly awkward before the door eventually opened to reveal a woman of about forty, with long dark hair and a wary expression, though she must presumably have had an inkling who Una was.

‘Yes?’ the woman said.

‘Hello, I’m Una, the new teacher.’

‘I know,’ the woman replied. ‘I’m Hjördís. I live here.’

‘I wondered …’ Una hesitated, feeling her face grow hot with embarrassment, as if she’d come round to ask after the popular boy at school. ‘I was wondering if Thór was in.’

This time it was Hjördís’s turn to hesitate. She stood there staring at Una, as if unsure how to react. Finally, she said: ‘He’s upstairs. I’ll get him.’

She disappeared without inviting Una in, and Una wondered, belatedly, if there was something going on between Hjördís and Thór. Perhaps that was why she had reacted so oddly to Una’s visit. It might also explain why Thór hadn’t made any effort to get in touch since they’d met that first night. For a moment she considered turning and walking away. She lowered her head, closing her eyes briefly, then decided to tough it out. There was no point giving up straight away, before the battle had even begun.

‘Hi,’ she heard a voice say, and looked up quickly. There was the beard and the attractive twinkle in his eyes, but now she could also see his hair, thick, dark and tousled, which had been hidden by his woollen hat the other night. His manner was still rather diffident, as if he didn’t know how to react to her, yet she felt instinctively that friendliness came more naturally to him than reserve.

‘Oh, hi, sorry,’ she said, stumbling over her words. ‘Maybe I should have called first. I was just going for a walk and decided to drop by and say hello.’

‘You’re quite a one for walks, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Not that there’s much scope for them in the village. You’ve hardly got started before you’re out the other side.’

‘Well, you’ve got to do something to keep the boredom at bay,’ she countered. Aren’t you going to ask me in? she thought, and wondered, if he did, whether he would invite her into the house or over to the guesthouse. Where did he actually sleep? And what was the nature of his relationship with Hjördís? Their eyes kept meeting, then skittering apart, embarrassed. Una could feel her cheeks going pink. She could have sworn he was feeling as shy as she was.

After a moment’s hesitation, he said: ‘Hang on, I’ll grab my coat and walk along with you.’ He ducked out of sight, then reappeared in the same thick anorak he had been wearing the first time they met.

‘So, how are you finding life in the village?’ he asked, once he had joined her outside and closed the door behind him. They set off into the stiff breeze, hunching their shoulders and burying