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

Everything had blurred together. She racked her brains to understand what could have led to her ending up incarcerated here, when she was completely innocent.

They had come to her little basement flat in the middle of the night and started banging on the door, and when she’d opened up, still half asleep, they’d almost dragged her outside in her nightclothes. They had clapped handcuffs on her, although she’d made no attempt to resist arrest since she was so confused that it had taken her a while to work out what was going on.

It was all connected to Hilmar and Hannes. She was supposed to have murdered them.

Murdered Hannes? The man she loved … And Hilmar? She had barely exchanged two words with him.

She had protested her innocence throughout, but the police thought differently. They insisted that she had taken part in the murders and helped dispose of the bodies in a fissure in the lava-field.

They could be horribly convincing, but she had to resist the intolerable pressure they were putting on her to confess. She knew better; they would never get her to admit to such terrible crimes when she’d had nothing to do with them.

It was so cold in the cell. She couldn’t get warm, but worst of all was the feeling of claustrophobia, the fear of suffocation, of not being able to breathe. Sometimes she screamed at the top of her voice, but it made no difference. Perhaps it just made matters worse.

She huddled in the corner, in the pitch blackness, letting the time pass, trying not to fixate on the walls that were closing in on her, on the men who wanted to deprive her of her freedom. She told herself that she was still alive, still a young woman. She just had to get through this somehow.

It was all a terrible misunderstanding and the only question was how long it would take the police to realize this.

XVII

Una’s attention was distracted by the lights which briefly swept across the room where she and Salka were sitting. They were unmistakably the headlights of a car.

It was getting on for six on Saturday evening and, being the shortest day of the year, it had already been dark for three hours. The sun set noticeably earlier up here in the far north than Una had been used to in Reykjavík and, with Christmas nearly upon them, she found herself missing the lights and the festive atmosphere in the centre of town. Salka had taken out a few candles and other decorations in an attempt to dispel the gloom, but Una, who had long ago given up decorating her own flat at Christmas, was glad that she hadn’t gone the whole hog: no tree, fussy knick-knacks or fairy lights. In fact, the only lights to grace the streets of the village so far were on Guffi’s house: countless large, yellow bulbs, rather clumsily strung.

Salka hadn’t mentioned any plans for the Christmas celebrations, but Una assumed she would be invited to eat supper with mother and daughter on the twenty-fourth, and thought she would probably accept. Given the choice, she would have preferred to spend the holiday alone upstairs with a glass or two of good red wine, but perhaps a bit of company would do her good.

This evening, however, Una’s thoughts were preoccupied with the Christmas concert which was due to take place the following day. She had done her best to prepare for it, with staunch assistance from Gudrún. Or, rather, it would be truer to say that Gudrún had borne the brunt of the organization: she had chosen the carols, taken the rehearsals, selected the Christmas readings, baked the cakes to be served with coffee as refreshments, and overseen the decoration of the church. But Una’s brooding over Gudrún’s interference was interrupted by the novel sight of car headlights at this time in the evening. Most of the villagers went everywhere on foot since distances were short and few people had any business elsewhere, especially this close to Christmas.

Una and Salka both glanced over at the window.

‘Is that a visitor?’ Salka wondered aloud. ‘I didn’t know anyone was expecting guests.’

When she first arrived in Skálar, Una would have thought this was an odd thing to say, but by now she was aware that everyone knew everyone else’s business. There were no secrets here.

Una heard the noise of a car, then suddenly all was quiet again: the engine had been switched off. ‘They can’t be coming to see us, can they?’ she said.

‘No, impossible.’

They waited in suspense. After a few moments, sure enough, there was a knock at the door.

Una and Salka both automatically shot to their feet, but Una hung back and let Salka go to the door before following.

There was a young man of about thirty standing on the doorstep, with hair so short he looked almost like a skinhead, wearing jeans, a white shirt or jumper and a leather jacket. For a moment he looked at Salka without speaking, then his gaze flickered to Una, who instinctively dropped her eyes.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ he said politely. ‘I hope I’m in the right place. This is Skálar …?’

‘That’s right,’ Salka said curtly.

‘I’m looking for a woman I know who lives here. Her name’s Hjördís. I’m taking in the sights on Langanes and was hoping I could get a bed for the night at her place. I just knocked on your door because it’s the first house I saw and I noticed that the lights were on …’

‘Sorry, but she doesn’t live here,’ Salka said, with a quick glance at Una.

‘No, right … then maybe I should, er …’

‘She lives up at the farm. You need to turn round and take the track up the hill. You can’t miss it.’ Then she added, stressing the words: ‘You can get back to the main road to Thórshöfn that way too, if you change your mind.’

The subtext was clear: leave our village.

‘Right, yeah. Thanks very much.’ He smiled, but Una