The Reckoning: Children's House Book 2 (Freyja and Huldar) Read online

  This visit was turning out to be quite different from their first one. Last time he and Freyja had barely sat down before they were shown the door; this time they had already been there much longer, though still without managing to extract the answers he was after. Freyja was jumpy, constantly darting sidelong glances to check that the front door hadn’t moved. But Thröstur gave no trouble, though he could hardly be described as polite or hospitable. When his mother Agnes had made a move to offer them coffee he had snapped at her, making her wilt. Now she was sitting, chastened, beside her children on the sofa.

  The visit had been arranged at short notice. Erla had wanted someone to find out if the family had any news of Jón Jónsson. He seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, like snow disappearing into the gutters in spring. Although the family had cut all ties with him, like lopping off an unwanted limb, the police thought it likely he would get in touch with them, perhaps in the belief that he would be forgiven now that he had served his time – and found Jesus into the bargain. They were also after some item with his fingerprints on it, as the police couldn’t simply rely on Dagmar’s claim that Jón was alive and in possession of both his arms. Finally, Huldar wanted to grill Thröstur about the initials in his letter, though he doubted the young man would discuss the matter in front of his mother and sister. No doubt they would have to summon him to the station for a formal interview at the weekend. When Huldar rang to request a meeting with the three of them, he had offered them two choices: either they could come to the station – if they didn’t turn up willingly, a car would be sent to fetch them – or the police could come round and interview them at home. Thröstur, who had answered the phone, had plumped for the second choice.

  Erla had agreed to let Huldar talk to the family as she herself was due to present senior management with a progress report. There was no chance of postponing a meeting with them; you were expected to attend even if you were in a hospital gown with a drip in your arm. But she showed no sign of dreading the meeting now that the inquiry was getting somewhere at last. It hadn’t hurt when Huldar had let it be known that he wasn’t bothered about taking the credit for spotting the connection between the murder of Benedikt Toft and Jón Jónsson. If it turned out to be a false lead, though, he was willing to bet that the blame would fall squarely on him.

  Huldar wasn’t going to worry about that now. He was used to dealing with problems when they cropped up; there was no point fretting about them beforehand. All the same, he wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable conversation with Freyja after the present visit was over. They had both been held up by the Friday traffic and only had time to exchange a few words in front of the building before coming upstairs. They’d been so keen to cut the embarrassing encounter short that they had bumped into each other in their haste to ring the bell. Now Huldar was regretting not having hung around long enough to get their little chat out of the way.

  ‘So none of you have seen or heard from Jón since he got out?’ The trio on the sofa shook their heads in unison. ‘I’d prefer it if you each answered individually. Let’s start with you, Sigrún.’ One of the few things Freyja had said to him before entering the building was that he must never refer to Jón Jónsson as their dad. The word was inappropriately affectionate in the circumstances. She had also advised him not to ask the siblings if their father had abused them as children. That ought to be done in private, not out of the blue like this, in their home. ‘Sigrún?’

  The young woman raised her eyes and briefly met Huldar’s before lowering them again. Her long, mousy hair fell over her face as she said in a small voice: ‘I haven’t spoken to him. Or seen him either.’

  ‘He hasn’t tried to reach you? Hasn’t tried to call your mobile, for example?’

  The young woman shook her head.

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d answer, rather than just nodding or shaking your head.’

  Sigrún looked up and although she didn’t meet Huldar’s gaze, he could at least see her face. He was struck yet again by how unmemorable it was. If he closed his eyes he’d have difficulty recalling what she looked like.

  ‘I don’t have a mobile phone.’

  Huldar raised his eyebrows in astonishment. ‘You what?’

  Sigrún blushed and started fiddling with her maimed hand. Up to now she had kept her hands in her lap, as if to hide the missing fingers. ‘I said I don’t have a mobile phone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just so unusual these days.’ Huldar ventured a smile, but it didn’t help. Thröstur bristled and their mother looked as though she didn’t know where to put herself. ‘Anyway, good for you. Mobile phones are a terrible waste of time.’ The trio on the sofa relaxed slightly. ‘What about you, Thröstur? Have you seen or heard from your father?’

  ‘No.’ Thröstur managed to charge even this brief monosyllable with fury. He had painted his nails black since Huldar last saw him but the varnish had begun to chip, making his hands look dirty and drawing attention to his tattoos: Ultio dulcis. Huldar had looked it up and wanted to ask Thröstur why he had chosen to adorn his skin with this quotation, but there would be plenty of time for that later.

  ‘You haven’t received a call that you chose to ignore?’

  ‘No.’ Thröstur expanded his puny chest as far as he could. The action smoothed out his wrinkled T-shirt, revealing a picture of a man’s head with a gun at one temple and a mess of blood and brains bursting out of the other. The man’s face was distorted by a scream. Huldar felt a sudden urge to drag Thröstur along to the scene of a suicide; show him what it really looked like when someone blew their brains out. That would make him think twice about wearing the T-shirt again.

  ‘OK. What about you, Agnes? Have you been aware of him at all?’

  The woman looked up, apparently surprised that it was her turn. She glanced nervously at her son as if he were controlling her answers, but Thröstur ignored her. ‘No.’

  ‘Does that surprise you? That he hasn’t been in touch with any of you?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’ Mother and daughter were not dissimilar, both hunched and shamefaced, with restless hands. Naturally, Sigrún looked a good deal younger than her mother, but Huldar guessed that in thirty years’ time she would be the living image of her. Agnes’s age was hard to guess. Gaunt and round-shouldered, with all the spirit drained out of her like that, she probably seemed older than she was. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘When did you last speak to him?’

  ‘Oh, not for years.’ Agnes opened her eyes wide and her grey face brightened momentarily. ‘Not for years and years.’

  ‘Could you say how many?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to him since it happened … since his arrest. I don’t know exactly how many years it is. I try not to think about … about all that.’ The woman seemed incapable of meeting Huldar’s eye; her gaze kept flickering to the side, up, down, anywhere but at him. Now, though, she was looking at Freyja, which Huldar took as a sign of good taste; in her place he would rather look at Freyja too. He suspected that Agnes was uncomfortable in the presence of a man, and no wonder: her husband, who should have been her life’s companion, had treated his family worse than words could describe. They would have been better off with a python in the house.

  Apparently reading Huldar’s mind, Freyja now stepped in. She spoke in a gentle voice, without a trace of superiority. ‘What about child maintenance and so on? You must have had to discuss that sort of thing at some point.’

  ‘I never applied for child maintenance. I didn’t want a penny from him; all I wanted was to get the divorce over with as quickly as possible.’ Agnes sat up a little straighter at this, as if somewhere inside her lurked the ghost of her pride. ‘The main thing was to cut all ties with him. Even if the money came via the Department of Social Security, it would still have been tainted by association with him.’

  ‘I understand.’ Freyja nodded, then went on, still in a gentle voice: ‘We know that Jón received letters in prison
, handwritten letters from an adult. Were they, by any chance, from you?’

  ‘Are you joking? No, I never wrote to him.’

  ‘I see. Did he try to stay in touch with you or the kids while he was in prison? In the early years, for example, before he realised you were serious about breaking off all contact? Did he send Christmas cards, birthday messages, anything like that?’

  Agnes tutted indignantly. ‘No. Nothing like that. I’d have been amazed if he’d remembered Thröstur and Sigrún’s birthdays, let alone mine. He can hardly have failed to notice Christmas, but he left us in peace then as well.’

  ‘What bullshit is this?’ Thröstur thrust his head forwards and his mother instinctively shrank back. ‘Christmas? Birthdays? Why the fuck are you asking about that?’

  Huldar was about to intervene, but it seemed Freyja had no need of a knight in shining armour this time. All sign of nerves had vanished and he couldn’t detect the faintest trace of fear when she replied. There was no accounting for women when they took offence. ‘All right,’ she said with a sudden edge to her voice. ‘Then tell me something. You claim your father has never been in touch; you say you haven’t seen him and no one informed you that he was getting out. So how did you know he’d been released when we came round the other day?’

  Thröstur flushed dark red. His coarse skin was suffused; his face lost any last vestige of attractiveness. His nostrils flared, making the ring through his septum twitch. ‘How did I know?’ He glowered at Freyja in a vain attempt to intimidate her.

  ‘Yes. You must be able to remember. He only got out a week ago.’ Freyja stared back at the boy with icy equanimity.

  ‘Of course I remember.’

  ‘Oh, do tell us how.’

  Thröstur clamped his thin lips in a tight line, but before Freyja or Huldar had a chance to press him, his mother interrupted. ‘I told him.’ A faint colour tinged her cheeks. ‘I got a phone call from the Prison Service.’

  ‘But it was our understanding that you hadn’t received any warning?’ Huldar tried to keep a simultaneous eye on the reactions of both mother and son but it was impossible. He chose to focus on Agnes instead as her nerves were more likely to betray her.

  ‘They rang me. Not to tell us he was out or anything like that but because they wanted Jón’s address. The one he gave them was wrong. At least, he wasn’t living there.’ Agnes smoothed her trousers and stared into space as if mesmerised. ‘I told Thröstur about it afterwards.’ Thröstur nodded and grinned, obviously pleased with this intervention.

  Huldar turned to Sigrún. She came across as honest, if only because she seemed too much of an innocent to employ deceit. Then again, it could take more courage to speak the truth than to lie. Perhaps she was the worst of the three. ‘What about you, Sigrún? Did you hear the news from your mother?’

  Sigrún darted a glance at her brother, defenceless under this renewed onslaught. Her fingers twitched in her lap and she rubbed at the stumps. But before she could answer, Thröstur forestalled her: ‘No. I told her. After you two came round. I didn’t want some stupid arseholes blurting it out to her.’

  No doubt ‘stupid arseholes’ was a reference to Huldar and Freyja. Neither of them batted an eyelid.

  ‘Is that right, Sigrún?’ Freyja employed her soothing voice again. Her whole manner was gentler than when she had been exchanging shots with Thröstur, like a dog lowering its hackles on encountering a harmless creature. ‘Was it your brother who told you?’

  Sigrún didn’t look at Freyja but suddenly appeared fascinated by the two cracked figurines on the scuffed coffee table. ‘Yes. I heard it from him.’

  ‘Do you remember when?’

  ‘A couple of days ago. I can’t remember exactly when.’

  Huldar didn’t believe this for a minute and assumed Freyja wouldn’t either. It was well known that people remembered exactly where they were when they received momentous news. And this news must have been momentous for all of them. But it was as clear as day that he wouldn’t be able to get anything sensible out of the women while Thröstur was present. Much as Huldar disliked the thought of hauling them all into the station to be interviewed separately, there was no avoiding it. The family had already suffered a raw deal in life but sadly there was no upper limit when it came to suffering. ‘I see. Changing the subject, you wouldn’t happen to have anything in your possession that Jón could have handled?’

  They all looked up as one and gaped at Huldar, nonplussed. Then the brother and sister turned to their mother and waited as anxiously as Huldar for her answer. Finding all eyes resting on her, Agnes realised she would have to reply. ‘No. There’s nothing of his in this flat. I got rid of most of his belongings when it was clear that he wasn’t coming home again, and I chucked out the few remaining items when we moved. The odd thing of his used to turn up, but we’ve moved countless times since we lived in Hafnarfjördur.’

  ‘Well, if you do come across anything, I’d be grateful if you’d let us know as a matter of urgency.’ Huldar turned to Thröstur and Sigrún. ‘I gather that one or other of you visited him in jail, on at least one occasion. Am I correct?’

  Thröstur reddened as he shook his head. He wasn’t much cop as a liar; none of them were. Perhaps it ran in the family. ‘No. Sigrún never went there. Nor did I.’

  ‘Is that true, Sigrún? Our sources tell a different story.’

  Her voice emerged in a squeak. ‘Thröstur’s right.’

  Huldar turned to Freyja. That was that then. He would have to call them in separately for questioning. If he carried on now, there was a risk the family would prepare their answers by synchronising their story. ‘Shall we call it a day?’

  Freyja agreed and they rose to their feet. The mother and daughter’s relief was almost palpable, as if they’d received a visit from the Stasi and been given a stay of execution at the last minute. Thröstur did a better job of feigning indifference. He escorted them out, stood over them while they put on their shoes, then slammed the door behind them without saying goodbye.

  They walked downstairs without a word, then stood outside on the pavement, shuffling their feet awkwardly, until Huldar broke the silence: ‘About last night—’

  ‘Do we have to talk about it? I should never drink liqueurs. Let’s leave it at that.’ Freyja zipped up her parka and pulled up the hood.

  ‘OK. I just wanted—’

  ‘Fine. Please don’t say any more.’ Snow settled on the fur collar of her parka and Huldar yearned to brush it off. Freyja’s make-up had been applied unusually sloppily that day; one eyelid was smeared with mascara and there was a hint of lipstick at the corner of her mouth, but these imperfections only made her more gorgeous. If they were on that sofa now, there was no way he could get up and leave.

  A car drove past, spraying slush onto the pavement where they stood. They moved back from the kerb and Huldar saw that she was fumbling in her pocket for her car keys. The moment she found them she would say goodbye, so it was now or never. ‘Are you busy this evening?’

  Freyja had her keys now. She smiled thinly. ‘No. But I’m getting an early night. I’m still feeling the effects of that wine.’

  ‘What about tomorrow evening?’

  ‘I’m babysitting this weekend. My niece. You’ll have to try elsewhere.’

  ‘Have I ever told you how brilliant I am with kids? They adore me.’ No need to mention that he only had nephews. ‘Can I invite you both to the cinema?’

  ‘She’s not even one.’

  ‘To feed the ducks, then? They must be starving in this weather.’

  She jingled her keys. ‘We’ll see. Maybe I’ll call you.’ She neither smiled nor frowned nor gave any other clue as to whether he should get his hopes up. ‘See you.’ She walked away.

  Huldar stood there watching until Freyja disappeared round the corner, then strolled back to his car. He took his cigarettes out of his pocket but before he could extract one, his phone rang. It was the guard he had spoken to at Litla-Hraun ea
rlier that day.

  ‘We found something that used to belong to Jón Jónsson. Handled a lot by him but no one else. Can you pick it up or should I send it over?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘His Bible. He left it behind. They usually do.’

  Chapter 22

  Æsa’s children meant the world to her. They were all that mattered; without them life wouldn’t be worth living. All the same, she couldn’t help feeling grateful for the weekends they spent with their father. She could sleep in, binge on sweets, turn up the TV as loud as she liked without the risk of waking them, miss a meal or eat when she felt like it, order a pizza – something other than a margherita for a change – and lounge on the sofa, reading a book, with no need to feel guilty. In other words, it gave her the opportunity to be lazy, and to enjoy every minute of it. She could go out on the town too, if her friends were planning a girls’ night out, though these had become much rarer since they got themselves husbands and children.

  There was nothing arranged for this weekend. She was faced with the prospect of spending it alone in the flat with only her worries for company. Thorvaldur was due any minute to collect the kids but she didn’t trust him to look after them properly. He was as bad as that idiot cop who had spoken to her after she rang to report the incident at the Family Park. Not only had he belittled her concerns but he had actually dared to imply that she was making the whole thing up. Well, she knew better and so, of course, did Thorvaldur. He had claimed not to know any woman called Vaka, but she could tell when he was lying. Perhaps this Vaka was the new woman in his life and the man in the Father Christmas costume had been a jealous ex. If so, she wished the man would leave their children alone and get it out of his system by punching Thorvaldur instead.

  Who on earth would do a thing like that? Lure someone else’s children into their car and drive off with them? She had been plagued by such questions all day yesterday; they had invaded her dreams last night and she hadn’t been able to shake them off even after she woke up. The colleagues she had told about the incident had rolled their eyes when they thought she wasn’t looking. Even the nursery teachers seemed sceptical, though of course it was in their interest not to believe her tale. If Æsa was talking nonsense, they needn’t feel ashamed of having failed in their duty to keep an eye on the kids in the park.