The Legacy Read online

  ‘Ask her if he mentioned who the woman was.’

  Huldar had spoken too loud and Silja winced. She tapped her ear pointedly, then focused on Margret again. ‘Did the man say who the woman was or anything else about her?’

  Margrét shook her head. ‘No. He just said he was going to make her suffer. Like Mummy.’ Margrét broke off and took a deep, gasping breath. ‘I saw Mummy. He’d covered her eyes with sticky tape.’

  Silja coughed. During the briefing, Huldar had shown her a photograph of Elísa’s body at the scene. It was considered unavoidable since Margrét might refer to the grisly details. Freyja had been shown the photo too and it had taken her a moment to work out what she was seeing. When it sank in, she had to look away.

  ‘Did you come out from under the bed, Margrét?’

  ‘No. Mummy looked underneath. But she couldn’t see anything. She stroked me and said, “Ssh”. Then the bad man dragged her away.’

  ‘That was sensible of her, Margrét. She didn’t want the man to know you were there. Now you can see for yourself that the last thing she’d have wanted was for you to rush out from under the bed. She wanted you to do exactly what you did. To stay hidden.’

  Huldar bent suddenly to the microphone. ‘Don’t lose the thread. Ask if she heard anything else. That was effective.’

  ‘After he dragged your mummy back up, Margrét – did the man say anything else?’

  ‘Yes. A story. He wanted to tell her a story. But I put my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to hear his story. I knew it would be nasty. He didn’t say anything else after that. Nor did Mummy.’

  Nobody could speak for a moment. Silja was the first to recover and carry on as if nothing had happened. ‘Tell me something else. Did you have your eyes closed? I know you saw your mummy when she told you to keep quiet, so you must have opened them sometimes.’ Silja took great care over the phrasing of this, but Margrét didn’t answer.

  ‘Ask her again.’ Huldar grabbed the microphone. Silja flinched at the crackling in her earpiece. He was speaking far too loud and it didn’t help when he repeated his words even louder. ‘Ask her again.’

  Freyja laid the flat of her hand on his chest and pushed him away from the microphone. She tried not to remember that the last time she had touched him there it had been to brace herself so she could move faster on top of him. ‘Leave it to Silja. She’s well aware of how important it is.’

  Huldar let go and shut up. They turned back to the glass as Silja resumed.

  ‘Did you have your eyes closed, Margrét? If you did, it’s OK. If not, it would be good to know what you saw.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ There was a hint of anger in the girl’s voice now. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘All right. Shall we talk about something completely different?’

  The girl raised her eyes for the first time. She peered hopefully at Silja. ‘Yes. You’re not trying to trick me, are you?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not trying to trick you. I want to ask you about a picture you drew.’ Silja smiled at her. She reached for the sheet of paper on the little table beside the sofa. There was a teddy bear sitting there too, with legs straight out and head tilted archly on one side, as if it had little faith in the proceedings – much like Huldar. ‘You’re very good at drawing.’ Silja handed Margrét the picture. ‘Could you tell me what the picture shows?’

  Margrét pushed her hair back from her face and bent over the page. ‘You can see what it shows. You said I was good at drawing.’ She handed it back.

  Silja didn’t lose her cool. ‘I can see it’s a house. Is it your house?’

  Margrét nodded.

  ‘Is it your car?’

  Again the girl nodded.

  ‘What about this? Is this the tree in your garden or is it a Christmas tree you bought to put in the house?’ Silja was trying to phrase her question so as to elicit a longer answer.

  ‘It’s in the garden.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very big. I can see it wouldn’t have fitted in the house.’ Silja asked about other details of the drawing. She was careful to ask questions that would require full sentences in reply. They all noticed that each answer Margrét gave was longer than the one before. As she relaxed, her replies were becoming more detailed. But the prosecutor and Huldar were growing restless. The former caught Freyja’s eye when Silja asked about the curtains in the window, and gestured to his watch. Freyja looked away and took care to avoid his gaze after that. The two men settled down when Silja finally came to the point.

  ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘The man.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Just a man.’

  ‘Do you know him? Is it your daddy?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘A neighbour?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s called.’

  ‘Why did you draw him then?’

  ‘Because I saw him.’

  ‘Did you see him when you were drawing the picture?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’

  Huldar bent to the microphone again. To his credit, this time he spoke with restraint and didn’t touch the equipment except to press the button. ‘Ask her if she saw the man near the house or somewhere else. If he has nothing to do with the house, we can move on.’

  Silja nodded unobtrusively. ‘Tell me something, Margrét. Where did you see this man?’

  ‘In our street. On the pavement. And once in our garden. At night.’

  Silja nodded. ‘Was he often in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Children had difficulty grasping what constituted ‘often’.

  ‘Did you see him twice? Five times? Ten times, maybe?’

  Freyja swore under her breath. Silja shouldn’t have mentioned any numbers. The girl was bound to seize on one.

  ‘Maybe five times. But only maybe. I didn’t count.’

  ‘That’s quite often.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When was this, Margrét?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘A while ago.’

  ‘Was it after Christmas?’

  ‘Yes. Or no. When I saw him in the garden it was still Christmas. I woke up and I was looking in my shoe to see if I’d got any presents but there weren’t any. At first I thought he was Father Christmas.’

  ‘Did you see him after Christmas too?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘What do you think he was doing?’

  ‘Watching. He was watching.’

  Huldar reached for the microphone again. ‘Ask if she saw his face.’

  ‘Did you see his face, Margrét? Can you describe him?’

  ‘I saw him. His face was cross. He wasn’t happy.’ The girl suddenly began to swing her legs again. It was a sign of agitation; they swung mechanically back and forth. ‘I don’t want to talk to you any more.’

  She focused on her socks as they swung back and forth. ‘Can I stay here?’ She didn’t look up. ‘I don’t want to be with Daddy. It’s all his fault.’

  Chapter 12

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe she blames her father for the murder because he wasn’t home that night.’ Huldar shrugged, not to emphasise his point but in an attempt to stay awake: he’d rather not keel over on his boss’s desk. The fatigue that had been building up over the weekend was kicking in badly now; he couldn’t hold it off any longer with coffee and nicotine gum. Since early on Friday morning when Elísa’s sons had been found wandering around in the street, he had slept no more than eight or nine hours, and only in the form of cat naps in his office, either on his desk or on the little couch that was so short it was more like a chair. ‘I’d be wary of reading too much into what she said. At least, that was the opinion of the psychologist who interviewed her.’

  Egill wrinkled his nose, revealing a gleam of unnaturally white teeth. No one had dared to comment on the transformation when he turned up to work one day sporting a Hollywood smile. Any more than they had when
his bald patch suddenly disappeared. His hair no longer stirred in the breeze except en masse and he had taken to wearing his police cap whenever he went outside. Egill’s efforts to enhance his appearance had coincided with his decision to swap his old wife for a new model twenty years younger. Some of the guys in CID had bets on whether Egill would go for a face-lift, but the odds weren’t that great as everyone was betting he would.

  The twitching around his eyes suggested that Egill could read Huldar’s mind. He coughed portentously. ‘The opinion of the psychologist. Quite.’ He sat behind his desk, pretending to bring the full weight of his great intellect to bear on the matter. The self-important air and empty phrases were par for the course. ‘By the way, what’s your impression of the Children’s House? I’ve never actually set foot inside the place but I have my reservations about the work they do there. In my opinion, it’s inadvisable to entrust forensic interviewing to amateurs. It’s unlikely to pay off.’

  Huldar felt overwhelmed by weariness. ‘It’s all right. I wouldn’t describe the staff as amateurs. They have people specially trained to interview children.’

  ‘Children, adults – what’s the difference?’

  Huldar’s surprise must have shown on his face because Egill suddenly backpedalled.

  ‘All right, granted, of course there’s a difference. I didn’t mean literally. Children are smaller and all that. But different when it comes to answering questions? I doubt it.’

  Ever since Huldar had transferred to the Police Commissioner’s office he had been working for this man. At first he had been so low down the food chain that he had scarcely been able to breathe for the crush of people above him. At that time he had felt an awed respect for Egill, taking his trademark look of disgruntlement as a sign of profound intelligence and insight. The man must be weighed down by all the crimes that were constantly being committed on his patch when he wasn’t there to prevent them. But nothing could be further from the truth. With the passing of the years, Huldar had come to realise that Egill had been born discontented. Nothing was ever good enough for him. Nothing anyone said ever pleased him. No cases were ever solved quickly enough and, when they were solved, Huldar got the impression that Egill took most of the credit. The man was in the habit of barging into progress meetings, casting an eye over the evidence, then stating the blindingly obvious, triumphantly drawing attention to details or suggesting angles that everyone else had spotted long ago. Huldar couldn’t once remember hearing anything of substance emerging from those perpetually downturned lips.

  The man’s forte appeared to be technology. He had an inexhaustible enthusiasm for gadgets, ranging from screen projectors to firearms. As a result, CID was unusually well equipped with the latest gizmos, but since the budget was tight, this was at the cost of other areas in which their boss had less interest. That autumn, for example, all the officers in the department had been kitted out with iPads for ill-defined purposes. It swiftly became apparent that they were mainly being used to play Candy Crush. At the same time Egill had tried to convert them to a paperless office as part of an economy drive, by removing the paper from their printers and photocopiers. Anyone who wanted to print or copy had to knock on his door to be allocated paper. Huldar knew he wasn’t the only one who preferred to bring along his own supplies from home.

  ‘The picture’s bound to become clearer soon. We’ve got the father coming back for further questioning later today. In the meantime, I’m thinking of grabbing a quick nap at home. I’ve hardly had any sleep since all this kicked off.’ Huldar shifted his feet to combat a sudden wave of dizziness, fighting the urge to lean on Egill’s desk. He was afraid of tipping it over, scattering all the carefully arranged framed photographs of Egill in the company of various VIPs with whom he had crossed paths in the line of duty. Huldar was willing to bet that the VIPs didn’t return the favour. He recovered his balance without having to reach out for support, and continued: ‘There’s nothing going on that can’t wait or be taken care of by someone else.’

  Egill emitted a deep rumble, the corners of his mouth turning down even further. ‘And there was I thinking the captain was always the last to abandon ship. I hope it won’t be necessary to remind you that you’re in charge of the investigation and that the first few days are critical.’

  Huldar felt as if he had grit in his eyes. It hurt to blink, they were so sore. ‘Erla, Ríkhardur, Almar and Stefán are all hard at it. The others are performing their tasks on top of their other work, though most have gone home seeing as it’s Sunday. The inquiry’s progressing slowly but surely and won’t stop just because I nip home for a rest. I won’t be much good to anyone till I’ve caught up on some sleep.’ He refrained from pointing out the absurdity of the captain metaphor: the investigation was hardly a sinking ship. He didn’t for a minute believe that any of his predecessors would have stayed awake round the clock in the early stages of an inquiry. Quite apart from which, their working methods hadn’t exactly set a good example. These days you could hardly move in the property office for members of the internal inquiry team who were busy taking everything down from the shelves in an effort to work out whether any evidence had gone missing. It was rumoured that the results of this stock-taking were not going to look good for CID.

  Egill grabbed his mouse, abruptly switching his attention to the computer. Huldar was willing to bet he was in the middle of a game of Patience. There was no need for him to be in the office on a Sunday; he only turned up at weekends to avoid exercising with his young wife. She had arranged for them to cycle right round the country next summer and Egill was going to have to come up with a bloody good excuse for not taking part if he wanted to avoid a second divorce. If he did go, Huldar had every intention of driving out east to visit his family, making sure that their paths crossed. He could do with a laugh.

  ‘Well, I just hope you’re not going to let us down. It would be a pity if you cocked this up.’

  This wasn’t worth pursuing. ‘I won’t. But there’s more risk of that if I work round the clock without any sleep.’

  Egill kept his gaze focused on the screen. ‘At least set an alarm so you don’t oversleep and miss the interview of this Sigvaldi. Regardless of what the psychologist says, I believe the girl meant something by it.’

  ‘I won’t oversleep, don’t worry.’ He would set an alarm and as a precaution he had asked Erla to call him an hour before Sigvaldi’s interview was scheduled to begin. He had invited her to be present. Although she hadn’t contributed much at the Children’s House, she had paid close attention to the proceedings. They had worked together on a number of cases during the three years that Erla had been with CID. She had an excellent memory and never wasted her breath. With the exception of Ríkhardur, she was the person Huldar had probably worked with most closely, since he was one of the few officers who had no objection to partnering a woman. As a result she sought out his company, and since they were both single they tended to sit together at the rare CID socials. After the Karlotta debacle, Huldar had increasingly turned to Erla in an attempt to avoid Ríkhardur, but unfortunately she appeared to have misinterpreted his interest. Why did everything related to his private life have to go pear-shaped?

  Egill glowered at him; he could tell that Huldar’s mind was wandering. ‘Just as well. And don’t be misled by the crocodile tears. The really cunning operators are capable of putting on quite a performance.’

  Sigvaldi Freysteinsson shed no tears, crocodile or otherwise. He sat on the hard chair facing Huldar and Erla, head bent, shoulders bowed. His shirt was buttoned up wrong and hung out of his trousers on one side. He appeared utterly crushed. It was exhausting to look at him and the energy that Huldar’s rest had restored to him ebbed away every time his eye fell on that defeated face. To make matters worse, the man appeared to have hurt himself: he had a bandage around his right hand and a black bruise merging with the dark shadow under one eye. There had been no mention of any injuries in the report of his first interview.

&n
bsp; Huldar hadn’t yet commented on the injuries, although the interview had been in progress for nearly an hour. He had warned Erla not to refer to them until he himself raised the subject, for fear the man would go into lockdown if he mistakenly believed he was under suspicion. It was better to have him on their side, to start with at least. Up to now the questions had therefore touched on matters that were easy to discuss, such as what Sigvaldi thought about the message that had been left at his house and the possibility that someone might have a grudge against him because of a mistake he had made at work.

  The message appeared to be as much of a mystery to him as it was to everyone else, and he dismissed any suggestion of a link to his job. According to him, his reputation was irreproachable, though he added, drily, that it wasn’t that long since he had completed his specialist training. His patients were all women and he couldn’t remember a single one, whether pregnant or suffering from some ailment, who hadn’t parted from him on good terms.

  When it seemed that nothing of substance was going to emerge from the questions about his job, Huldar steered the interview to his marriage.

  The lifeless voice echoed off the bare walls. ‘As I keep trying to explain, everything was fine when I left. My relationship with Elísa has always been good. No quarrels. No tensions.’ Sigvaldi’s head drooped; he reminded Huldar of a grown-up version of Margrét, despite the lack of physical resemblance between father and daughter. Sigvaldi raised his eyes again, even more wearily than when he had first arrived. ‘I just can’t take it in. I keep praying I’ll come to my senses and find out I’ve imagined the whole thing. Or that it’s a bad dream.’

  Erla leant back, jabbing Huldar in the side as she did so. He had a feeling this wasn’t accidental, as she made little attempt these days to disguise her attraction to him. It was a pity it wasn’t mutual but Erla simply wasn’t his type. She was too hard, both mentally and physically. Viewed from the back, her honed body could have been that of a man and she had such a coarse tongue that she’d been known to shock even the most foul-mouthed veterans of CID. She also spoke in a deliberately deep voice, so it could be hard to tell her gender, especially on the phone. Huldar doubted this gruffness and crudeness came naturally to her. He suspected it was her way of trying to fit in with the guys. He often wanted to point out that the men who talked like that were far from desirable role models. For men or women. But it had proved difficult to broach the subject. And even more so to subtly convey the message that he wasn’t interested.