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

  ‘I’m in a bad way all right but that’s not what this is about. It’s my ex-wife, Dagmar. I’m afraid there’s something seriously wrong.’

  ‘Is she there with you now?’

  He seemed affronted, as if Freyja was implying that he had a lunatic frothing at the mouth in the bed beside him. ‘No. Good God, no.’

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Orri hesitated as if having second thoughts about the wisdom of ringing her. ‘But I have my suspicions.’

  ‘OK. Leaving that aside for the moment, are you afraid she might harm herself?’

  ‘Can I come round?’ he blurted out.

  Freyja glanced round the room at the mauled sofa, the dog hairs and the mess she had been intending to tidy up all weekend. ‘No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Then could you come to my place … or meet me somewhere? I feel very uncomfortable discussing this over the phone.’

  Freyja thought. What else did she have to do? Spend her evening on social media, bored out of her mind? ‘Can it wait till morning? You could come over to the Children’s House and I could help you find a psychologist who specialises in adult cases. How urgent is it?’

  Orri gave a dry, mirthless laugh. ‘If my suspicion proves right, it would be hard to imagine anything more urgent.’

  ‘It sounds like she needs to be committed. I’d advise you to call the psychiatric department at the National Hospital. I can’t be of much help in a situation like that.’

  ‘I’ve tried. They won’t talk to me. I’m not her next of kin, and I had the feeling they thought I was trying to get even with Dagmar in some kind of divorce drama. But you’ve got to believe me, that’s not what this is about. We’ve had nothing to do with each other for over ten years now.’ He paused, then resumed in a flat voice, his earlier agitation replaced by a note of defeat. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘OK, I’ll meet you.’ Freyja mentioned a café in the area that would still be open and was likely to be neither full nor completely empty. She had no desire to meet this man alone: his request was odd and she didn’t really understand what he wanted. But then she remembered how cruelly fate had treated the couple. Vaka’s death had destroyed their marriage, yet Orri plainly felt a lingering affection for Dagmar. ‘I understand that you still care about your ex-wife and, you never know, I might be able to help in some way.’

  But in this her psychologist’s insight had failed her.

  ‘Dagmar? I couldn’t give a shit about her. It’s the others I’m worried about.’

  Freyja stood outside the café, watching Orri, still inside, staring unseeingly at the pictures on the walls. The hand she held her phone in was trembling with cold and shock. Orri had talked almost ceaselessly, barely once sipping his coffee. Her own cup was standing untouched on the table. Now and then she had got in a word, but apart from that she had sat and listened to the man’s emotionless recital. During her studies she had read articles about extreme cases of psychopathic behaviour on a par with what he was describing, but it had never occurred to her that she would be faced with such a situation, let alone that she would be expected to come up with a solution. After he’d finished, she had needed a moment to savour the quiet ordinariness of the café, the muted chatter of the few other customers. How she regretted having agreed to meet him instead of staying home and scrolling through pictures on Facebook of her friends’ kids with their colouring books.

  Orri hadn’t seemed at all surprised or unsettled by her silence; he seemed to be glad of a moment’s respite too.

  Finally, Freyja pulled herself together, stood up and told him she was going to call the police. They might also alert the psychiatric department, but that wasn’t top priority right now. She was ready for him to react angrily and remind her of a psychologist’s duty of confidentiality but he did nothing of the sort. He merely nodded and said he would wait.

  Huldar’s phone rang several times. Freyja began to fear that he wouldn’t pick up – ironically, since in addition to not wanting to call him in the first place, she would have preferred never to hear his voice again. When he finally answered she didn’t beat about the bush: ‘You’ve got to send a police car. I’m with Orri, Vaka’s father, and he’s just been telling me about his ex-wife and what he thinks she’s done.’

  ‘Where are you?’ He didn’t ask what Dagmar was supposed to have done. Either he trusted Freyja implicitly or he already knew something. She suspected the latter. It didn’t matter. The main thing was that he was going to take this nightmare out of her hands. She named the café and he interrupted. ‘I know where it is. I’m on my way. Don’t go anywhere and don’t let him leave.’

  Freyja hung up and turned back to the window. Through the dirty glass she met Orri’s tired eyes. She raised a hand and waved to him like an idiot. Then walked calmly back inside.

  A cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the still, frosty air. One of the police cars had taken Orri back to the station. There he would be made to repeat his story and sign a formal statement. What would happen to him after that Freyja didn’t know and didn’t really care. He seemed to be under the impression that there was nothing wrong with him, but that was far from the truth. It would be up to others to judge how ill he was. Perhaps he was simply one of the worst enablers in history.

  ‘Thanks for calling. You did exactly the right thing.’ Huldar was lingering over his cigarette, apparently in no hurry to head off again. He looked in better shape than the last time she had seen him; not as sorry for himself either. In fact, he seemed bullish and upbeat. ‘You never know, this might help us find Thorvaldur’s kids in time.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  After speaking to Orri, Huldar had taken the time to bring her up to speed with the case. At first she had assumed there was a professional reason for this but he ended by explaining that this was why he hadn’t been in touch to apologise properly. Her only response had been an icy stare. ‘Can you send someone straight there from Borgarnes?’ she asked now.

  ‘Yes, they’ve already been called out. If they find the family, I’ll head over. The question is, would you be willing to come along? The kids are bound to need professional help.’ He took a puff, then added: ‘Or let’s hope so. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  Freyja didn’t answer immediately. A one- to two-hour drive in the dark with Huldar wasn’t exactly what she would have chosen right now. ‘What’ll happen to the couple?’

  ‘Hard to say. If he’s telling the truth, he might get off with a caution. Of course he should have reported this a long time ago. It’s possible he’ll try and claim that he never believed Dagmar would actually go through with her plans, but after the events of the last few days that just isn’t credible. The moment Benedikt Toft’s name appeared in the media, he should have realised she might be acting out her revenge fantasy. If he’d come forward then, Thorvaldur and his children would be safe, even if it was already too late to save Kolbeinn.’

  Freyja nodded. She drew her hands into the sleeves of her coat; the frost was beginning to bite. ‘Do you think he’s lying?’

  ‘No. But the truth has many versions. This is how he sees it. She may see it differently.’ Huldar sucked the last puff out of his cigarette, then stubbed it out. ‘How did he describe it to you? That account might not be quite the same as the one he fed me. You can sometimes read a lot from the discrepancies; no liar has all the details worked out when he starts inventing.’

  ‘It was such a long story – I’m not sure I can repeat it in detail. But I remember the main points.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It started normally enough. He talked about how badly they’d both been hit by Vaka’s death. At first there didn’t seem to be any difference in how their grief was affecting them, but as time wore on it became increasingly obvious that Dagmar wanted to – how did he put it? – spend all her time looking in the rear-view mirror, while he wanted to look at the road ahead.
What finally drove them apart was when Thröstur came round to see them after his father was convicted. They had encountered him and Sigrún when the kids turned up at court to testify, and although Orri was reluctant to say exactly what happened, he admitted that his and Dagmar’s behaviour didn’t do them any credit. They’d also treated the children badly at Vaka’s funeral. He seemed to be ashamed and stressed they hadn’t been themselves at the time. In their eyes Sigrún was to blame for setting off the train of events that led to their daughter’s death.’

  ‘That’s pretty consistent with what he told me. There was less emotional crap, but in other respects it was similar. What did he say about the grandfather, Einar Adalbertsson?’

  Freyja wanted to shove that reference to ‘emotional crap’ down Huldar’s throat but found she didn’t have the energy. It wouldn’t serve any purpose; he was entitled to his opinions and could live by them – like the uncivilised brute that he was.

  ‘He said Thröstur came knocking on their door after they met at the Reykjanes District Court, almost a year after the murder. He’d come to tell them that it wasn’t his or Sigrún’s fault. They’d both tried to stop their father but their grandfather had blocked their attempts. Thröstur claimed he had gone to the police when he was younger, but no one would listen to him, and Sigrún had confided in her teacher, which had eventually resulted in a charge being brought. But his father had been let off because everyone had betrayed them. Thröstur said that before the trial his grandfather Einar took him aside and bragged that he had them all – judges, lawyers, social workers – in his pocket, and that if Thröstur didn’t swear that everything was perfectly fine at home he’d make him sorry. The old man said he’d murder him if he didn’t do as he was told. So naturally Thröstur obeyed. Apparently the grandfather gave Sigrún the same lecture but it doesn’t seem to have worked. Not that her testimony achieved anything.’

  ‘That fits more or less with what Thröstur told us. We’ve got him in custody. Did Orri say nothing about his and Dagmar’s visit to Einar?’

  ‘Yes. That’s when I began to have my doubts about his version of events. He said they didn’t entirely believe Thröstur. They forced the boy to accompany them to his house.’

  Freyja took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the pure, icy air. ‘At first, Einar denied everything, as you’d expect, and wouldn’t come clean until Dagmar threatened him with a hammer she’d brought along. Orri said she’d been intending to use it to smash the old man’s place up. But instead of threatening his property, she started saying she was going to smash his face in. Einar was too frightened to lie. Although I don’t know for sure, I have my suspicions that Orri played some part in that. Thröstur might be able to tell us more about who threatened Einar and how. Anyway, the old man came clean and told them exactly who had taken part in the cover-up and what he’d bribed them with. Thröstur was forced to sit through the whole thing.’

  ‘What about Einar’s death? Did Orri explain how that came about?’

  ‘Yes, though he insists he doesn’t know exactly what happened. He was so enraged after Einar had admitted everything that he had to step out into the hall to try and calm down. Next thing he knew there was a crash and when he went back in the old man was lying with his head on the glass coffee table, which was covered in blood. Orri said he was fairly sure that Dagmar had lost control and hit the old man on the back of the head with the hammer. At the time, though, Dagmar swore that Einar had fallen and hit his head on the table. Of course that’s rubbish and so’s his claim that he believed her lie. Anyway, they acted in a panic, put a plastic bag over his head and dragged him, dead or dying, into the bathroom. There they took off the bag and bashed his head against the rim of the bath. That finished him off. Then they poured the blood from the bag around the bathtub, and cleaned the coffee table. As a final touch, they forced a toothbrush into Einar’s fist, then fled the scene. Poor Thröstur witnessed the whole thing and according to Orri, Dagmar threatened to kill him too if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. But this time they promised Thröstur a reward. If he kept quiet, Dagmar would kill all the people who had betrayed him and Sigrún – and Vaka of course – but not until his father got out of jail. Dagmar wanted to wait that long because she was dead set on murdering Jón Jónsson too. And that meant having to keep her vengeance on ice until he was released.’

  Huldar zipped up his parka to the neck. ‘Do you want to finish the story in the car? You can sit in the front.’ He smiled. ‘I’m freezing to death.’

  The heater worked, unlike the one in her pile of junk, and although the blast was cold for the first few seconds, it carried a promise of much-desired warmth. ‘Please, go on.’ Huldar rubbed his hands and blew on them. ‘I’m just waiting for news from Borgarnes.’

  ‘Where had I got to?’

  ‘Dagmar had murdered Einar Adalbertsson and threatened Thröstur.’

  ‘Right. Orri said that after that, Dagmar became completely obsessed with vengeance. At first he tried to ignore it. He thought she wasn’t serious, it was just a phase she was going through. But as time went on there was room for nothing else in her life and in the end their marriage broke down. He waited until the Supreme Court had given its verdict, hoping that she would feel Jón had got his just deserts, but that wasn’t enough for her. She went on plotting how to kill all the people who had been implicated in Jón’s first acquittal. In her eyes they were all equally culpable. Orri didn’t agree and said that the final straw came when she started stockpiling all kinds of tools, sulphuric acid and other worrying stuff. She was determined to get hold of them years in advance so they couldn’t be traced when the time came. The day she came home with a chainsaw, he says he walked out.’

  ‘I can understand that.’ Huldar held his hands over the heater grille. ‘If my wife came home with a chainsaw, you wouldn’t see me for dust.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Dream on.’ Freyja wasn’t interested in discussing his love life. She wanted to finish the story so she could go home. ‘After he walked out, he said he stopped keeping tabs on her, so he didn’t know if she’d persisted with her obsession. He’d hoped the divorce would act as a wake-up call. But then several months ago she got in touch to ask a favour. She needed a house off the beaten track, with a windowless cellar, to borrow for a while. He’s quite a successful estate agent so he had lots of properties on his books that had belonged to the failed banks, which were standing vacant. According to him, she threatened to tell the police about his part in Einar Adalbertsson’s death if he didn’t do this for her. So he gave her the keys to a huge place just outside Borgarnes. The property’s not about to sell any time soon, so he was able to lend it to Dagmar without any danger of prospective buyers wanting to view it. A further advantage was that it came with a lot of land, which means there are no other houses nearby.’

  ‘That’s got to be where the kids are. It’s got to be. Their mother was thrown out of the car in the middle of nowhere on the shores of Hvalfjördur. I’m guessing Dagmar chose to drive the long way round the fjord to avoid the cameras in the tunnel. She can’t have been going anywhere else.’ The look Huldar turned on Freyja was almost pleading, as if begging her to back up his theory, to reassure him that everything was going to be all right.

  ‘Don’t look at me. I know even less about it than you. All I know is what Orri told me, and I’m not convinced he’s a hundred per cent reliable.’

  ‘What did he say about the murders? Did he know anything about them?’

  ‘He claims not. He said he got a shock when he saw Benedikt Toft’s name in the papers but didn’t want to believe Dagmar could be involved. I don’t find that very convincing, given that he knew she owned a chainsaw. Then he went quiet and seemed to be waiting for me to ask him questions. But I just wanted to get rid of him, so I rang you. Of course I should have asked why he’d only come forward now, but I didn’t.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, because I did.’

  ‘What did he say?’

&nbs
p; ‘That he couldn’t keep deceiving himself after Kolbeinn’s name was released and the severed limbs seemed to be linked to both cases. When the police appealed for information about Thorvaldur and his kids, he couldn’t stay silent any longer and rang you.’

  ‘Why me? It’s obviously a police matter. Why did he want to mix me up in it?’

  ‘I doubt he was thinking straight by then. Perhaps he just wanted to shift the burden to act onto somebody else. You rang the police, not him. Could it have been an attempt to assuage his guilt about Dagmar? Convince himself that he didn’t betray her and only had her interests at heart – wanted to get her psychiatric help, even though it was ten years too late?’

  ‘You’re not so bad at this “emotional crap” after all.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘One more question before I go.’ Freyja huddled closer to the blast of hot air. ‘Did you believe him?’

  Huldar shrugged. ‘Yes and no. You?’

  ‘Same here: yes and no. After all, he’s compromised himself by admitting to his part in Einar Adalbertsson’s murder. Is he likely to be shown any leniency for that?’

  ‘For the part he claims to have played – he could be. All he did was pervert the course of justice. And since the statute of limitations is ten years, court action can’t be taken for the offence now and there’s every chance he’ll get away with it. I bet he’d have kept quiet otherwise.’

  Huldar’s phone rang and he snatched it up. He said little, but let the caller do the talking. The message was brief and Huldar rang off. ‘That was one of the officers from Borgarnes who was sent to the property.’ He put the car in gear.

  ‘What? What did he say?’

  ‘Mostly: Shit, this is bad. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. Then he said they needed experts on the spot asap.’ Huldar roared off down the street before Freyja had a chance to get out of the car.

  So she was on her way north to Borgarfjördur – please God – to help two terrified children.