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

the kitchen of their family farm. Everything appeared depressingly old and shabby: the screamingly yellow kitchen units, the table, the chairs, the chipped white coffee mug on the table in front of her.

The faces of brother and sister were grave. They both had murder on their conscience, and yet, Una thought, the act had been, to some extent, excusable. And from their demeanour she sensed that Patrekur’s death didn’t weigh that heavily on them; they felt they’d been justified in defending themselves. She studied them, first Hjördís, who stared stonily back at her, then Thór, whose gaze slid away from hers.

They haven’t a clue what they’ve done, Una thought, a chill suddenly running through her flesh. She would have to break it to them. There was no question of sparing them, even though she thought that Thór at least would be devastated.

They haven’t a clue what they’ve done …

XXXIX

Neither Hjördís nor Thór spoke. They seemed to be waiting for Una to finish what she had begun saying. She was still standing there, her words hanging in the air.

‘I … I think,’ she said carefully, ‘it could be quite a while before an overdose of paracetamol would take effect. I’m not sure, but I’d guess, um, about twenty-four hours.’

‘Twenty-four hours?’ Hjördís obviously hadn’t made the connection. ‘So if we’d waited, he might have died after all?’

‘That’s not the point, Hjördís. It wasn’t Patrekur I was thinking of.’

‘Oh, then what are you talking about?’

Una didn’t speak. She reached for her mug and finished the cold coffee, bracing herself for what had to be said. ‘It was … It was Edda I was thinking about.’

‘Edda?’ And then she saw the blow fall as first Hjördís, then her half-brother, cottoned on. Hjördís exploded to her feet, shrieking: ‘No, not Edda … no, no … no!’ She subsided into her chair again and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking, utterly distraught.

‘I learned enough during my medical studies to remember that paracetamol poisoning causes damage to the liver. And it was liver damage that caused Edda’s death.’

Hjördís’s face was frozen. ‘It’s not possible …’

‘The incident in the church happened about twenty-four hours after you made the meat stew, Hjördís. And you told me you thought he’d eaten some, didn’t you? That there had been a dirty plate on the table.’

‘Yes, I just assumed – I didn’t ask – but, now I come to think of it, he said he’d gone for a lie-down in his room. He didn’t mention the food at all … didn’t thank me …’

‘Edda used to eat with you sometimes, didn’t she?’ Una asked, although she already knew the answer. She had a clear memory of her first evening in Skálar and Salka telling her that Edda was never home but always off somewhere, helping herself to food at their neighbours’ houses. Even up at the farm, Salka had said.

Una now remembered that the evening before the concert in the church, the evening Patrekur had knocked at the door, it had been just the two of them, Una and Salka, at supper. Edda had been out somewhere, as so often, but they hadn’t found it in any way odd.

Hjördís nodded and raised her eyes, her face ashen. ‘Yes, she was always round here, coming and going as she liked, eating with us. We usually knew she was here, but sometimes … sometimes she used to help herself to food from the fridge … coming round without us even being aware …’

‘So that’s what happened,’ Una said, speaking more to herself than to them. ‘A terrible mistake, an accident – and Edda paid the price.’ She felt suddenly sorry for Hjördís.

All life was sacred, that’s what Una had been taught, but the reality wasn’t always quite so clear cut. Things were rarely black and white; they were much more likely to be shades of grey. In the great scheme of things, Edda’s life had been worth so much more than Patrekur’s.

He could stay in his watery grave – that was nothing to her – and she was already sure in her own mind that she wouldn’t do Thór and Hjördís the disservice of betraying them to the police.

She asked herself again if she could keep quiet about the other secret, the secret of Thór’s real identity. In that case there were three innocent victims, the three people who were still locked up in prison for their supposed role in murdering Hilmar. She knew what her father would have wanted her to do, what her conscience was telling her to do – the right thing, which meant going to the police. But for once Una resisted. She would delay making a decision until she’d had a little more time to think. After all, she told herself, she didn’t want to do anything to endanger Thór.

Finally, there was Edda – or rather, Salka. Wouldn’t she have to tell Salka the truth about Edda’s death? Even if it meant destroying the solidarity of the village? For good or ill, Salka had to know. Maybe not immediately, but sooner or later.

Neither Hjördís nor Thór said a word. Feeling it would be better to leave them in peace to let what they had done sink in, Una quietly slipped outside, without saying goodbye, into the darkness, and walked down the track, her shoulders bowed as though she were weighed down with all the world’s secrets.

PART THREE

FOUR WEEKS LATER

I

There hadn’t been any sight or sound of Thrá for a whole month now.

Una had almost succeeded in convincing herself that she had imagined the whole thing and that the alcohol had been to blame. She couldn’t actually remember if she’d been drinking every time she had been aware of Thrá, but perhaps it was no coincidence that she’d been sober for four weeks now, ever since that fateful evening in the farmhouse kitchen with Hjördís and Thór.

She had come to two momentous decisions. The first was to try to make a go of