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

would head back down south, the richer for the experience, having used the time to get her life back on track.

She parked her car at the edge of the village, next to a handful of other vehicles. So there was life here after all. The village itself could only be entered on foot. She had been given a clear description of Salka’s house, in which she was to have the use of the attic flat: a handsome, white, two-storey building, she had been told, dating from the turn of the century. As luck would have it, the first building to meet her eyes was a house fitting this description, right next to the car park. It was set back a little from the sea. The dense cloud stirred in the breeze, shifting and parting to reveal a number of other houses clustered around the water’s edge. To her right, she noticed a particularly imposing building, dominating the settlement from its position on a rise in the ground, and, down by the sea, she glimpsed an attractive old wooden church. She hadn’t necessarily expected that, in a community this tiny.

Una got out of the car and went to stand in front of Salka’s house, which had large windows in keeping with the period in which it was built. Now there was no question that she was being watched. The curtains in one of the downstairs windows moved, and she waited, expecting to see Salka herself appear in the gap, so she was rather taken aback when the face that appeared behind the glass was that of a little girl, of perhaps seven or eight years old, with long, pale hair.

Although Una could hardly make her out in the gloom, she felt sure the child was watching her.

It was 10 p.m. Should children be up this late?

Smiling, Una waved at the girl, but even as she raised her hand, the small figure vanished from sight behind the curtain.

Salka hadn’t mentioned that she had a daughter.

Una walked slowly up to the front door, feeling a little chilled now. She couldn’t see any doorbell, just a heavy, functional-looking copper-lion knocker. As she lifted it and brought it down, the noise echoed around the silent village, and only then did she notice how quiet it was here compared to Reykjavík. Apart from the lapping and sighing of waves from the shore, you could have heard a pin drop – until she shattered the hush with her knocking.

She stood and waited, feeling apprehensive about meeting Salka and about her stay here. Next minute, without warning, the heavens opened and the silence was dispelled by a sudden downpour. In the absence of any shelter, Una stood where she was, trying to ignore the rain, but she raised the knocker again just to be on the safe side. The blows sounded muffled this time, almost drowned out by the drumming of the rain.

Probably only a few seconds had passed between the rain beginning its assault on Una and the door opening, but in that brief interval she was completely soaked.

‘Una? For goodness’ sake, come in,’ said the woman standing in the doorway. ‘Just look at that! I didn’t know it was supposed to rain this evening, let alone as heavily as this.’

She held out her hand once Una was under cover. ‘Hello, I’m Salka, obviously. Nice to meet you.’

‘Hello. You too,’ Una replied, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. What a welcome – gloom, cold and rain. She hoped with all her heart that the place would look less bleak in the morning. At this moment all she wanted was to turn around and flee straight back to Reykjavík.

Inside, however, it was warm and homely. The entrance hall was unusually large and it was immediately apparent from the shoes and outdoor clothing that a child lived there. Salka appeared to be around thirty-five, as Una had guessed from their phone conversation. She had black hair and the expression on her thin face was hard to read. Una thought she was very pretty.

‘Do take your things off,’ Salka said. ‘Just hang your coat up here for now. You can take it upstairs later. Would you like some coffee?’

‘Oh, yes, please,’ Una replied, trying to smile. It was too late to back out now, and the coffee was bound to raise her spirits, though it probably wasn’t wise to drink it this late in the evening.

The sitting room opened off the hall. It was lined with shelves full of books and photographs; there were handsome wooden boards on the floor and ceiling, and paintings on the walls. Una could imagine the room looking much the same in the 1920s or ’30s; it was like stepping into the past.

There was no sign of the little girl, though she had been standing behind the curtains downstairs.

‘I didn’t know you had a daughter,’ Una said, taking a chair, as she didn’t want to sit on the elegant old sofa in her wet clothes.

Seeing Salka’s brows lift in surprise, Una explained: ‘I saw her at the window just now. She was watching me.’ She smiled.

‘Really?’ Salka said. ‘I thought she’d gone to bed. She promised she would. But she’s always up to mischief. Her name’s Edda.’ She called out in a low voice: ‘Edda, love, are you awake?’ There was no answer. ‘She must have gone back to bed. It’s difficult to maintain any sort of discipline here in the countryside. It’s just her and me living in this house, and, as you know, there are only two children in the whole village, so they’re treated like grown-ups and do as they like. Edda’s seven; the other girl, Kolbrún, is nine.’ Salka hovered, still on her feet. ‘They have to play together, though, to be honest, if we lived in a bigger community I doubt they’d be friends. It’s not just the age gap; they’re very different types as well. Edda’s outgoing and cheeky, always off somewhere, hardly ever home, helping herself to