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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Struggling to separate her dreams from reality, a young woman investigates the disappearance of her sister ten years earlier … worried that she might be next. A breathtaking, twisty standalone thriller from the international bestselling author of the Forbidden Iceland series… `Truly addictive, I inhaled it in a single day´ Louise Candlish `Dark, chilling and so atmospheric´ Claire Douglas `Eva Björg Ægisdóttir just gets better and better´ Sarah Pearse `A complex, increasingly creepy tale of young love, dysfunctional families, long-buried secrets and pen pals who are not what they seem … Its psychological depth and physical shocks recall the work of the great Ruth Rendell´ The Times `A masterclass of psychological suspense from the superstar of Icelandic noir … addictively creepy´ Daily Express **WINNER of the Blood Drop Award for Iceland's Best Crime Novel of the Year** **SHORTLISTED for the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel** –––––––––– November, 1967, Iceland. Fourteen-year-old Marsí has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister's name. Now she is excited to meet him for the first time. But when the date arrives, Marsí is prevented from going, and during the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later found at the place where Marsí and her penpal had agreed to meet. November, 1977. Stína's disappearance remains unsolved. Then an unexpected letter arrives for Marsí It's from her penpal, and he's still out there… Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might coming after her next, Marsí returns to her hometown and embarks on an investigation of her own. But Marsí has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can't even trust her own memories. And her sister's killer is still on the loose… ––––––––––––––– `That rare crime novel – pacy and well-plotted but also driven by well-drawn, believable characters … Put this at the top of your TBR!´ Sarah Pearse `A chilling, atmospheric mystery with a devilishly unguessable solution´ Louise Candlish `Like an Icelandic winter, Home before Dark chilled me to the very core. An utterly gripping read, it kept me guessing till the last shocking twist´ Heidi Amsinck `Dark, chilling and so atmospheric, I was utterly gripped by this clever, twisty thriller … a must read´ Claire Douglas Praise for Eva Björg Ægisdóttir `Chilling and addictive, with a completely unexpected twist´ Shari Lapena `Fans of Nordic Noir will love this´ Ann Cleeves `This is virtuoso suspense writing´ A.J. Finn `Riveting, exciting, entertaining and packed with intrigue´ Liz Nugent `A tense, twisty page-turner that you'll have serious trouble putting down´ Catherine Ryan Howard **Winner of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger** **Shortlisted for the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime** **Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger** **Shortlisted for the Capital Crime Award for Best Thriller**
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TEAM ORENDA
iiiPRAISE FOR HOME BEFORE DARK
‘A chilling, atmospheric mystery with a devilishly unguessable solution. Truly addictive, I inhaled it in a single day’
Louise Candlish
‘Dark, chilling and so atmospheric, I was utterly gripped by this clever, twisty thriller … a must-read’ Claire Douglas
‘Another belter from Eva Björg, who is such an immense talent in her field, and brings us something strikingly new and different, but always brilliant, every time’ Lee-Anne Fox
‘This book isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s dark. It’s disturbing. It’s twistier than a roller coaster. And it’s fiendishly good’
Caroline Gleeson
‘Like an Icelandic winter, Home before Dark chilled me to the very core. An utterly gripping read, it kept me guessing till the last shocking twist’ Heidi Amsinck
‘Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir just gets better and better and this original, clever novel kept me gripped and furiously turning the pages.
Stylishly conceived and executed, Home before Dark is that rare crime novel: pacy and well-plotted but also driven by well-drawn, believable characters with real depth. Put this at the top of your summer TBR pile’ Sarah Pearse
What Readers Are Saying…
‘Twistier than a roller coaster and fiendishly good’
‘A brilliant, twisty psychological drama’
‘Absolutely chock full of small-town atmosphere’
‘If it was possible to give this book ten stars, I would’
‘The best thriller I’ve read in a very long time’ iii
‘The definition of a page-turner’
‘What did I just read? Absolutely exceptional’
‘I couldn’t put it down’
‘My new favourite author’
PRAISE FOR THE FORBIDDEN ICELAND SERIES
WINNER of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger WINNER of the Storytel Award for Best Crime Novel WINNER of the Blackbird Award for Best Icelandic Crime Novel WINNER of the Blood Drop Award for Best Icelandic Crime Novel
‘She uses complex plots to explore how monsters are made and demonstrate that “evil can lurk behind the most attractive of smiles” … If you have never read Ægisdóttir, now is the time to start’ The Times
‘Fantastic’ Sunday Times
‘So atmospheric’ Heat
‘A canny synthesis of modern Nordic Noir and Golden Age mystery’ Financial Times
‘Your new Nordic Noir obsession’ Vogue
‘So chilling’ Crime Monthly
‘Exciting and harrowing’ Ragnar Jónasson
‘Chilling and addictive, with a completely unexpected twist … I loved it’ Shari Lapena
‘Fans of Nordic Noir will love this’ Ann Cleeves iv
‘Emotive, atmospheric and chillingly suspenseful’ AA Chaudhuri
‘This is virtuoso suspense writing’ A.J. Finn
‘Riveting, exciting, entertaining and packed with intrigue’ Liz Nugent
‘A tense, twisty page-turner that you’ll have serious trouble putting down’ Catherine Ryan Howard
‘Beautifully written … one of the rising stars of Nordic Noir’ Victoria Selman
‘Eerie and chilling. I loved every word!’ Lesley Kara
‘Creepily compelling’ Heidi Amsinck
‘A masterful writer does it again’ Fiction From Afar
‘Another fantastic addition in the brilliant Forbidden Iceland series which has definitely become one of my favourites in crime fiction’ Hooked from Page One
‘A very good police procedural that kept me glued to the sofa’ Lynda’s Book Reviews and News
‘Tense, twisty and shocking’ Blue Book Balloon
‘The taut and twisty plot will keep you enthralled.’ Fictionophile
‘Brilliant, chilling and very deadly. Move over Succession; the Snaebergs are here!’ Live and Deadly
‘Eva Björg really builds the tension, creating a chilling family dynamic that you know can only end in tragedy’ The Belgian Reviewer v
‘This series just keeps on getting better and better. I cannot wait for book six!’ Monika Armet
‘There’s a cleverly obfuscated mystery intertwined with personal developments for our main series protagonists’ Liz Barnsley
‘Dark, chilling and tense. Another fabulous read from one of the best crime authors out there’ Random Things through My Letterbox
‘With its atmospheric sense of place and tense, propulsive storyline, Boys Who Hurt is an exceptional darkly suspenseful thriller which delves into the chilling, shameful secrets behind even apparently respectable front doors.’ Hair Past a Freckle
‘As chilling and atmospheric as an Icelandic winter’ Lisa Gray
‘The setting in Iceland is fascinating, the descriptions creating a vivid picture of the reality of living in a small town … a captivating tale with plenty of tension and a plot to really get your teeth into’ LoveReading
‘At each stage, Ægisdóttir is not giving us information but asking things of us. She’s getting us to think through the implications: what if it’s him, what if it’s her, what would it mean? We’re involved, we’ve got skin in the game and we can’t ask for more as readers’ Café Thinking
‘I love Icelandic Noir and I am so pleased to be able to add this author to my must-read list’ Atomic Books
‘A page-turning must-read for fans of crime thrillers and especially Icelandic crime fiction’ Crime Fiction Critic vivii
viiiixx
Home Before Dark
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir
Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Contents
Pronunciation Guide
Icelandic has a couple of letters that don’t exist in other European languages and which are not always easy to replicate. The letter ð is generally replaced with a d in English, but we have decided to use the Icelandic letter to remain closer to the original names. Its sound is closest to the voiced th in English, as found in then and bathe.
The letter r is generally rolled hard with the tongue against the roof of the mouth.
In pronouncing Icelandic personal and place names, the emphasis is always placed on the first syllable.
Names which are pronounced more or less as they would be in English, are not included on the list.
Alfreð – AL-freth
Ari – AA-ree
Áslaug – OWS-lohg
Bergur – BAIR-goor
Böðvar – BERTH-var
Borgarfjörður – BORG-ar-FYUR-thoor
Brákarhlíð – BROW-kar-HLEETH
Brú – BROO
Deildartunguhver – DAYL-dar-TOONG-u-kvair
Einar – AY-nar
Eiríksjökull – AY-reeks-YER-koodl
Fjarðaregg – FYAR-thar-egg
Gröf – GRERV
Guðrún – GVOOTH-roon
Gústi – GOOST-ee
Halldóra – HAL-doh-ra
Hallmundarhraun – HADL-moond-ar-HROHN xii
Helgi Hrafn – HELL-kee HRABN
Höfn í Hornafirði – HUBN ee HORD-na-FIRTH-ee
Hraunfossar – HROHN-foss-ar
Hvítá – KVEET-ow
Hvítársíða (Síða) – KVEET-owr-SEE-tha (SEE-tha)
Ína – EE-na
Ísafjörður – EESS-a-FYUR-thoor
Ívar – EE-var
Jón Ingi – YOHN ING-kee
Jónína (Nína) – YOH-nee-na (NEE-na)
Karvel Kristjánsson – KAR-vel KRIS-tyown-sson
Kleppjárnsreykir (Reykir) – KLEP-yowds-RAY-keer (RAY-keer)
Kristín (Stína) Karvelsdóttir – KRISS-teen (STEE-na) KAR-vels-DOH-teer
Kristrún – KRIST-roon
Langjökull – LOWNG-yer-koodl
Laxdæla – LAX-dye-la
Maja – MYE-ya
Málfríður Thormóðsdóttir – MOWL-free-thoor THOR-mohths-DOH-teer
Marsibil (Marsí) – MAR-sib-il (MAR-see)
Mette – METT-uh
Nátthagi – NOWT-ha-yee
Örn – ERDN
Reykholt – RAYK-holt
Reykjavík – RAY-kya-veek
Sætún – SYE-toon
Sigga Steindórs – SIGG-ga STAYN-dohrss
Skeiðará – SKAY-thar-ow
Sólveig (Solla) – SOUL-vayg (SOLL-la)
Torfi Már Sigurðsson – TOR-vee MOWR SIG-oorth-sson
Ytri-Hólar – IT-ree HOLE-ar
Prologue
For many years I’ve dreamt the same dream: I’m standing in a bathtub in the garden at home and Mum is scrubbing at me with a flannel. The surroundings are covered in snow, the sky is bright with stars, and a cloud of steam is rising from the scalding water to envelop us. ‘We’ve got to get you clean,’ Mum keeps muttering, scrubbing at me so hard that my skin turns a fiery red.
A bell jangles in the distance.
I can never work out if this dream is good or bad. I feel all right while it lasts, but when I wake up, a sense of foreboding follows me into the day, and, no matter how often I wash, I can’t shake off the feeling that I’m unclean. 2
I
‘There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.’
—Desiderius Erasmus 4
5
1 Marsibil – Saturday, 12 November 1977
The letter was on the floor when I got home, a white envelope lying on the dirty tiles. My name was written in block capitals on the front in black ink: MARSIBIL KARVELSDÓTTIR. My heart began to race as I opened the envelope – not neatly with a paper knife, as Dad had taught me, but tearing it messily, greedily open, ripping the contents as I did so. The message inside was handwritten and in some places the ink had run from the letters, like tiny veins.
Hello Marsibil,
I’ve missed you! How are you? I hope you’ll forgive me for using your real name this time (ha ha, funny, isn’t it?). I felt I had to write to let you know that I’m still here, still just a few words away, if you need me.
Yours in hope.
A cold sensation crawled like a worm down my back, and my knees felt so weak I wanted to sink to the floor. But I didn’t give in to the urge. Instead, I sat down at the kitchen table and stared out of the window for an hour.
The rest of the day I roved around the flat as if on autopilot, checking the locks at half-hour intervals, thinking I heard someone fiddling with the windows, then hiding behind the curtains to watch a man who stood looking up at my flat as his dog squatted on the grass.
I didn’t sleep that night.
By the fourth night, as I lay awake, staring into the darkness, I wondered how long it was possible to survive without sleep. I’d heard it was about ten days, but I wasn’t sure what would kill you in the end, whether your heart would give up or your body would simply break down. Conk out. Before you reached that stage, you’d experience all the side effects of insomnia – hallucinations, memory loss, the inability to concentrate, sluggish reactions. I had certainly been aware of problems concentrating, but no hallucinations so far. 6
When Mum rang on the morning of the fourth day, I was counting the leaves on my peace lily. There were seventeen yesterday but now I could only make it fifteen. They wouldn’t add up, though I’d counted them three times now.
‘Did you see the article?’ she asked, her voice husky, as if she’d only just woken up.
‘What article?’
‘The one about your sister,’ Mum said. ‘Ten years since Stína went missing, or some rubbish like that. They only write this stuff so people can feed off our grief again.’
The way Mum put it conjured up an image in my mind: me and my family stretched out on a table while a mob fought over pieces of our flesh.
‘What does it say?’
I sat down, closing my eyes, which felt hot and sore after all the sleepless nights. Ever since the letter arrived, I’d been short-tempered and jittery, as if constantly expecting someone to jump out and grab me. The nights were the worst because as I lay there, in a waking dream, I kept thinking I could hear noises; a voice whispering in my ear or the crunching of footsteps on the gravel outside my window, though I lived on the third floor. The lack of sleep did strange things to my senses, distorting my hearing. Some sounds receded to a far-off hum, while others seemed amplified. The wind and the hissing of the hot-water pipes felt louder than the people talking to me or music on the radio. My thoughts seemed reduced to unmalleable clay, while my waking dreams were strikingly vivid. I’d always had trouble distinguishing dreams from reality; they had a tendency to blur into one another and become confused. Often, I had the feeling neither could be trusted.
Mum gave a heavy sigh. ‘They’re raking up Stína’s disappearance again. They’ve put a photo of her on the front page. There’s a picture of us in the article too; the one they took in our sitting room just after she went missing, remember?’
I said yes, though I could barely recall it.
Mum sounded close to tears as she groaned: ‘How can it be ten years, Marsí?’ 7
‘I don’t understand it either.’
A long silence. Then a rustling of paper and coughing. ‘Are you coming home tomorrow?’
‘I’m coming.’
Every year on 17 November, I got into my car and drove home to Nátthagi to commemorate this ‘anniversary’ that none of us wanted to commemorate. I dreaded the trip for weeks beforehand, inventing countless excuses, but always ended up going.
‘Don’t set off too late,’ Mum said. ‘It’s safer to drive before dusk. You know how dark it gets out here in the countryside.’
‘I know,’ I promised. ‘I’ll be home before dark.’
It was a lie.
After the phone conversation with Mum, I sat at the kitchen table with the letter. I recognised the handwriting, the g’s with their long loops and the small r’s, and when I closed my eyes, I could picture the very first letter that arrived eleven years ago. If I concentrated, I could smell it, the familiar faint odour of paper and ink, and also of something else. Something alien.
It all started one cold, dreary Thursday. Every Thursday, The Week was delivered to our house and my sister and I used to read the magazine together, me hanging over Stína’s shoulder as she turned the pages. By the end of 1966, though, Stína had lost interest, so I used to read it alone while she was out with her friends. I read the serials and the comic strips, but what I enjoyed most were the questions sent in by readers for ‘the Postman’ to answer. On that particular Thursday, a new column caught my eye: ‘Penpals’.
I had never given any thought to penpals before or wanted one of my own, but in the last few months I had been feeling increasingly lonely. Ever since Stína started at the senior school in Reykholt she had been spending more time away from home, and I was bored of having no one to talk to.
After some thought, I fetched a sheet of paper and began to compose an advertisement. Dear Week, I wrote. Many thanks for a8great magazine. I would like to be penpals with boys or girls aged thirteen to sixteen. I myself am thirteen. My hobbies are…
Stína came out of her room just as I was wondering what my hobbies were. She posed in front of the mirror in the hall and started combing her shoulder-length, blonde mane. My teenage years were marred by spots and greasy hair, but Stína just seemed to get prettier, developing a womanly figure and prominent cheekbones. What I envied most, though, was her sunny disposition. My mood swings were as unpredictable as the Icelandic weather, while Stína behaved as if the world brought her nothing but joy. Naturally, people were much keener to know a girl with an attitude like that than a sullen, bad-tempered kid like me.
Chewing the end of my pencil, I watched my sister.
In my letters I could be anyone I wanted. I didn’t have to be sulky Marsí; I could be more like my sister instead: cheerful, funny, radiant.
I could be Stína.
After a moment’s reflection, I rubbed out ‘thirteen’ and wrote ‘fifteen’ instead. Then I quickly wrote down Stína’s interests – art and films – before signing off: Best wishes, Kristín Karvelsdóttir.
It was only a trivial little lie, but almost a year later I was still corresponding with my penpal.
He was a boy – Bergur. Or that’s what he told me his name was in the regular letters we exchanged over those twelve months. Letters that led us to the decision to finally meet.
He said he was happy to come to me – to make the journey from his place to mine. And that was when it hit home: he would be driving all that way across the country to meet not me, Marsibil, but a sixteen-year-old young woman called Kristín.
And then she was gone.
And I thought he was responsible.
For the next ten years, I remained sure Bergur was involved somehow in Stína’s disappearance. But I said nothing. I kept my suspicions to myself. Because if I spoke out, it would be to admit that 9in some way it might have been my fault. If I’d never told that stupid little lie, Stína would still be with us.
In the immediate aftermath, I had waited, hoping that he would prove me wrong. That he would send an explanation, telling me he’d been prevented from coming or had decided not to meet me after all. But no such message arrived. And in the ten years that had elapsed since Stína vanished, I’d received not a single letter from him.
Until now.
2 Thursday, 17 November 1977
There was a story about the road leading to my house that went as follows:
People who drove the road in the dark sometimes saw a woman standing on the verge, hitching a lift. If they made eye contact with the woman or slowed down, her face would appear in their rear-view mirror a moment later and they’d find her sitting in the back of their car. The shock of it was enough to make them lose control of the wheel and swerve off the road.
Similar stories were told about other roads in the Icelandic countryside. As a rule, it was a man or a woman standing there, and in some versions the figure held a human head under their arm. I’d never spotted the woman myself, despite driving along that route countless times after dusk, but there was no denying that an unusually large number of people had lost their lives on that stretch. I suspected, however, that this had more to do with a combination of poor road maintenance, the lack of streetlights, and the driver’s speed or tiredness than a female ghost materialising in their car.
Mum didn’t agree.
She was full of terrifying tales like this and believed them implicitly. I had never known anyone as superstitious as her. She had regularly whispered to me that I must be sure to fall asleep before midnight because that’s when the evil spirits came out. She used to rap under the 10table or on wood, saying that ghosts knock twice, so she would always knock three times. Once, she was delighted to find a horseshoe in the hayfield. It was still hanging over the door at home. Mum said it brought good luck, but I had my doubts. Our family had never been lucky.
Before turning to follow the fjord inland, I made a small detour and stopped at the petrol-station shop, where I ate a hot dog and drank a fizzy drink and a cup of weak coffee.
‘Hungry?’ asked the woman behind the counter, her tongue ticking along her cracked lower lip like the second hand on a clock.
I couldn’t stand shop assistants who tried to chat, but I forced myself to smile, then chucked the rest of my coffee in the bin and went into the ladies, where I hunched over the toilet bowl. I retched for a few seconds without bringing anything up, my eyes stinging from the ammonia, then wiped my mouth and flushed the toilet.
The woman I came face to face with in the mirror had a small mouth, thin lips and glassy eyes that gave her face a sickly cast. She horrified me. Insomnia had transformed me, causing my skin to droop like paint that had run.
Rain rattled on the windscreen as I resumed my journey. I pushed a cassette into the car radio and turned up the music to crowd out any brooding thoughts. I had reached such a pitch of exhaustion that I was in an almost constant state of drowsiness – the kind normally experienced just before you fall asleep, except I could never get all the way; I was stuck in limbo, my head heavy, eyelids drooping, thoughts drifting out of control.
As I drove, I kept glancing at the side of the road, imagining a woman’s face and wondering how the story had originated. Why would a woman have been standing there, hitching a lift? Where was she going? Or should the question be: who was she fleeing?
The house stood high on a hillside, just outside the small town of Hvítársíða, as if it wanted to set itself apart from the rest to underline 11its superiority. And it was superior. Most houses in the town were drab, concrete bungalows, built not to catch the eye but to be cheap and functional, but our house, which was called Nátthagi – ‘Night Field’, was the exception. It was a wooden building, clad in black corrugated iron, with a cellar, an attic, and traditional casement windows. There was a large, six-sided bay window in the middle of the frontage, and the wooden eaves ended in decorative flourishes.
As a child I used to admire it and proudly tell people that I lived in the big black house outside the town, but I avoided inviting the other kids round. From a distance, Nátthagi looked handsome and imposing, but the moment you stepped inside the impression changed. Houses were like people; appearances told only half the story, and I was sure that the other children would sense the same thing I did as soon as they walked in the door.
Not that the furnishings were ugly; the walls were papered in dark patterns and the floors covered with linoleum or carpets in shades of dark brown, orange and emerald green. The furniture was massive, heavy and dark too, and there was a hearth in the sitting room, in which we lit a fire in winter. Nátthagi should have cosy. I should have felt at ease every time I came home. I don’t know why I never did.
The garden was different. The plot was bordered by tall poplars, and behind the house a small forest of fir trees climbed up the slope. In summer, I used to lie in the grass, gazing up at the sky with the scent of greenery in my nostrils and the sun on my face, listening to the sighing of the wind in the trees. By the south wall of the house there were flowerbeds where Stína and I had planted chives and tulips, and redcurrant bushes from which we used to pick the berries in autumn and stuff them into our mouths until our stomachs ached.
Nowadays, though, Dad no longer had the willpower to maintain the house, so the black paint was flaking off the corrugated iron and the flowerbeds were nothing but bare earth and withered plants. The only thing my parents had done in the garden in recent years was to plant a laburnum tree in the middle of the lawn. I had never seen it in bloom as my visits were restricted to the winter, but Mum told me 12that the showers of yellow blossom that covered it in summer reminded her of Stína.
Dad was standing on the steps when I pulled into the drive. He held out his arms and enfolded me in an odour of unwashed hair and sweat. The word ‘home’ echoed in my head.
Since leaving, I had lived in many places, but none of them had been a home. None of them had filled me with the emotion I experienced now as I stood in front of my house, breathing in my father’s smell. I knew what the house would smell like inside too; knew there would still be a jar of Grandma’s jam in the kitchen cupboard, made decades ago; knew where the floorboards creaked and which windows never shut properly. Sometimes I had the feeling that Nátthagi was the only place that would ever fill me with this sense of belonging.
‘Hi, Pipsqueak,’ Dad whispered in my ear.
‘Dad,’ I said.
He looked like he always did; dark eyes set deep under shaggy grey eyebrows. Thin lips, though his smile was wide. But it was a long time since I’d last seen him smile properly. Even now, the corners of his mouth only gave an almost imperceptible upward twitch when he saw me. Worry lines had given him a graver, coarser look. His grief was etched on his face; he was indelibly marked by it, as we all were.
We hugged each other for a long time, our embrace tight and affectionate.
When Dad released his grip, he put his hands on my shoulders and studied me. ‘You’re getting to be so grown up. How did that happen?’
‘It’s inevitable, you know that,’ I said. ‘The years go by and we get wrinkles, grey hair and bad knees.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. You’ll always be my pretty little pipsqueak.’
I smiled, and Dad let go of my shoulders. ‘Well, come in, come in. It’s chilly out here and we’re letting the cold air inside.’
In the kitchen, Mum was standing over a fiercely bubbling saucepan. There were yellow splashes all around the hob and up the wall, and the smell of curry powder was overpowering. 13
‘Marsí,’ she said, in an unusually deep voice, raising her eyes briefly to mine. Mum was never one for cuddles, usually making do with a smile from a safe distance.
She had been an actress before she met Dad, and in 1950 she’d appeared in two plays at the National Theatre – as Lillý in In Flight and Isabella in Vigils, roles that had brought her to the public eye. But then she had met Dad, one evening in Reykjavík, and they had fallen in love the moment their eyes met across the dance floor. Or so they claimed.
Dad was from a wealthy family who owned and ran an egg farm called Fjarðaregg, here in Borgarfjörður district, and later a poultry slaughterhouse as well. He had moved to Reykjavík in an act of youthful rebellion, and, rather than reading law as his parents had wanted, he’d studied history, refusing to work for the family business. But he hadn’t even completed his first term at university, because my mother had got pregnant shortly after they met.
My grandparents couldn’t stand Mum. They didn’t think she was the right girl for Dad because her family wasn’t rich or posh enough; she was only the daughter of a single mother who had struggled to make ends meet and died before her time. But since Mum was pregnant, and she and Dad had decided to get married, his parents had no choice but to accept her. Or Grandma did, anyway. Mum said she barely exchanged a single word with Dad’s father, who died while she was still pregnant with Stína. Dad explained that Grandpa had been a stern, difficult man, who had taken out his own unhappiness on other people.
‘“I was worst to the one I loved best”,’ Dad said to me once when I was ten. ‘That’s a quotation from Laxdæla Saga, Marsí, and there’s a lot of truth in it.’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Shouldn’t you be nicest to the people you love best?’
‘Yes, but sadly we often allow ourselves to show our worst sides to our loved ones.’
I thought about this, then asked: ‘Was your daddy nasty to you?’
Dad’s smile didn’t leave his face but it changed in quality. ‘Darling Pipsqueak, there’s so much you don’t understand.’ 14
I still don’t know much about Dad’s relationship with his father, but I do know that one day Grandpa woke up, went down to the cellar at Nátthagi, put his shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. Years later, Stína whispered to me that there had been blood everywhere – up the walls and on the ceiling. Once, the two of us crept down to the cellar, holding hands, to search for traces of that blood. The walls were filthy, not red but brown, as if someone had smeared them with dirt.
‘That’s blood,’ Stína claimed. ‘Blood can be brown too. Especially when it’s old.’
‘You’re lying.’ I knew that blood was red, not brown.
Later, I went down to the cellar alone, licked my finger and ran it along the wall. My finger left a streak in the grime and I put it in my mouth, trying to work out if it tasted like blood. I couldn’t be sure.
After Grandpa died, Grandma was left alone at Nátthagi, grown old before her time. My parents were still living in Reykjavík, and the expectation seemed to be that they should move to Hvítársíða and live with Grandma. But Mum didn’t want to move out to the countryside. After all, there weren’t many opportunities for an actress in Hvítársíða. The town has a population of about nine hundred people these days, but I remember, when I was in the second year at school, celebrating the one thousandth inhabitant. The population has dwindled since then, mainly because the textile factory closed down and relocated nearer to the coast. Hvítársíða, locally known as Síða, is the biggest settlement in the district, lying in the wide grassy valley halfway between the church estates of Húsafell and Reykholt, on the banks of the Hvítá. Despite its name, the ‘White River’ is a milky-blue torrent that has its origin in the Langjökull and Eiríksjökull glaciers, which loom over the head of the valley.
Eventually Mum let herself be talked into the move, partly because she loved Dad, partly because she was already pregnant, so her dream of being an actress would have to be shelved for a while anyway. Stína was born in the spring, like the lambs, a year or so after our parents’ meeting at that Reykjavík dance hall. She had white hair and big eyes the same pale blue as the waters of the Hvítá.
Grandma only survived another year after Stína was born, and, on 15her death, Dad inherited both the egg farm and the house. When I came along a year later, Stína hadn’t begun to talk yet, but three weeks after my arrival she said her first word: ‘Marthí’. It was her version of my name, Marsibil. From then on, I was never called anything but Marsí.
Now, twenty-four years later, my mother was standing in the curry-scented kitchen at Nátthagi, her acting career nothing but a distant memory. Yet she never tired of harking back to it, like some of the newspapers that would print articles from time to time, asking: ‘What ever happened to promising actress, Nína Sveins?’
‘You’re late, Marsí,’ Mum said. ‘I thought you were going to set off at lunchtime.’
‘I got held up.’
‘And look at the state of you! Whatever’s happened to your hair?’ Mum tipped her head on one side and studied me for a moment before coming and running her fingers slowly and assessingly over my scalp. My spine prickled as I felt her nails grazing my skull. Her hand paused at the back of my head and bunched up my hair, as if to check its thickness. Then she smiled faintly. Her smile was as red as her nails, but unlike her nails, which were glossy and immaculate, her lips were dry and the colour had bled into the fine lines around them.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘What’s bothering you?’
‘Nothing.’
Mum let go of my hair and went back to stirring the curry. ‘You can always talk to me, Marsí. You know that.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you still seeing your therapist?’
‘Yes,’ I lied. I had stopped seeing my therapist after he said he wanted me to go for ‘a more detailed evaluation’. I had nodded, pretending to understand; but I never went back.
‘You’re just like your dad; not one to wear your heart on your sleeve.’
‘Is that something everyone has to do?’ 16
‘No, not really. But sometimes it can help to talk about things.’
‘Maybe.’
Mum ladled curry into bowls and passed them to me to put on the table.
‘Ah, I’m famished,’ Dad said once we were all seated, and immediately began shovelling down his food, yellow curry sauce oozing out of the corners of his mouth.
‘I can’t remember the last time I ate meat in curry sauce,’ I remarked.
Mum’s curry dish was never the same twice and its contents were anyone’s guess. She made it whenever she cleaned out the fridge, and I could still remember encountering a lump of gristle that required endless chewing and gave me an upset stomach afterwards.
‘It’s chicken,’ Mum said. ‘We had so much that I decided to use that for a change instead of lamb. I’m sure it’ll be just as good.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ I said, but my stomach heaved. I couldn’t stand chicken, however it was cooked, a direct consequence of seeing all those rows of little pink carcases hanging on hooks in the abattoir once too often. I stirred the stew with my fork. It was a strange colour, midway between yellow and brown. I picked out a piece of potato and examined it carefully before putting it in my mouth.
Mum watched me chew. ‘You’ve got so thin, Marsí. Who would have believed it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were always so soft.’
‘Soft?’
‘And rounded. You developed womanly curves so young. Already had breasts and hips by the time you were twelve. You’d started your periods by eleven.’
‘Mum.’ I could feel myself blushing. When I started bleeding at eleven yours old, I thought at first that I was dying and confided in Stína, who merely laughed and asked if I was really that stupid.
‘Don’t be so squeamish,’ Mum said. ‘All women get periods.’
‘I wasn’t a woman. I was a child.’
‘Sometimes I feel as if you’ve never been a child,’ Mum replied. 17
‘Nonsense, Nína,’ Dad intervened. ‘I clearly remember Marsí streaking around the place half naked.’
‘You never felt the cold,’ Mum said. ‘Never wanted to wear any clothes.’
‘Even at the nursery,’ Dad added. ‘Once, your mother went to collect you and you’d disappeared, only to be discovered round the back of the house with some boy, both of you stark naked. What was the boy’s name again, Nína?’
‘That was Árni Jakob. The one who sometimes works at the petrol-station shop. Jonni and Ninna’s son.’
‘That was it. Remember him, Marsí? He was a year younger than you, wasn’t he?’
I nodded, took another mouthful, and racked my brain for a change of subject. Anything. When I tried to swallow, it felt as though something was stuck in my throat.
‘He once came round here and the two of you had a bath together,’ Mum continued.
‘Wasn’t he the one that…?’ Dad began.
‘Yes, exactly. He was the one who did a poo in the bath.’
Mum started laughing helplessly and Dad joined in, both showing curry-yellow teeth.
I took a mouthful of water, trying to clear my throat, but the lump wouldn’t shift.
‘Are you all right?’ Dad asked, as their laughter died away.
I began to gag and got abruptly to my feet. ‘Excuse me.’
Outside in the hall I gave way to a fit of violent coughing, but it wasn’t enough. The blood rushed to my head as I gagged and coughed in turn.
Dad emerged from the kitchen just as something flew out of my throat: a slimy, ochre lump that landed with a splat on the floor. But I could still feel something at the back of my tongue, so in the end I stuck my fingers down my throat.
And hauled out a long hank of hair. 18
After dinner, we relaxed in the sitting room. Normally, we’d have watched TV, but as there were no broadcasts on Thursdays, we listened instead to a Danish radio play called The Three Rogues, an open bottle of gin on the coffee table in front of us. As always, this annual reunion involved silently drinking together. It’s a family tradition we’ve established over the years.
Before long, Dad got a phone call and had to go over to the egg farm. Ever since I could remember, Dad had been called out at short notice like this in the evenings, often not coming home until everyone else was asleep. I could never understand why the chickens needed him so much this late in the day.
Shortly after that, Mum nodded off with her mouth slightly open, not snoring exactly but breathing loudly. As so often before, I studied her as she slept in her chair. I didn’t know quite how I felt as I watched her. As a child I had adored her and hated her, and everything in between, but now my main emotion was pity.
I turned down the radio, topped up my glass and got to my feet.
The house had changed little since I lived here, the same pictures hanging on the walls, the same ornaments on the shelves. My room, too, was exactly as I had left it. On the wall there was a corkboard with photos of actors and singers pinned to it, along with an air ticket from the trip we’d taken to Denmark, two years before Stína went missing. Now I pulled the desk chair over to the wardrobe and reached to the back of the top shelf. The shoebox was still there, full of the letters I had received ten years before.
About two weeks after my advert appeared in The Week, I received a letter in reply. It was my job to collect the post every day from the mailbox down by the road, which was how I had planned to intercept any potential replies, and that day I discovered an envelope addressed to Kristín Karvelsdóttir and marked The Week: Penpals. I took it up to my room, closed the door behind me and tore it open. 19
Hello Kristín,
I saw your advertisement in The Week and thought it sounded interesting, so I decided to write to you in the hope that we could become penpals. A bit about me: I’ve got a younger brother, I play the piano and I love animals, especially dogs. I’ll be seventeen in a week but I hate birthdays (weird, I know!). If you’re interested, it would be great to hear more about you.
Yours in hope,
Bergur
Bergur and I had written to each other every two weeks for nearly a year, so there were about twenty letters in the shoebox. I was glad not to have copies of the ones I wrote him, as they would have revealed how immature I was in those days. Although I’d used Stína’s name, the letters had been a mixture of us both. I copied the words she used and repeated her stories. Stína was always so melodramatic; she could never just like something, she had to adore it. She adored film stars and singers, teachers and friends, books and songs. At first, I was probably more Stína than me, but as time went on, I started telling Bergur more about myself. About Marsí. But I always polished the text until I came across as exactly who I wanted to be. It was easy: if I wrote something stupid or embarrassing, I simply rubbed it out. Yet I read the letters I received without suspecting for a moment that they too might have been carefully planned and edited, rather than being as impulsive and heartfelt as they seemed.
At first the letters were fairly short; we discussed our interests and hobbies and talked about our lives. But the more letters we wrote, the more personal and intimate they became. My eye fell on sentences like I feel as if I’ve never fitted in anywhere and I already feel like we know each other so well. At the time, I had taken the words to heart, but now I blushed to think how gullible I had been. Most teenagers experienced similar feelings, but I’d believed I was unique, that this boy understood me and that our relationship was special. Now I saw something quite different and much darker in his words.
I drained the rest of my glass and continued skimming the pages, 20though I couldn’t actually stop and read them without breaking out in a sweat. The last letter was the hardest. He had brought up the possibility several times of us meeting, saying he’d got his driver’s licence and wouldn’t mind coming to Síða, but I had ignored his hints. The problem was obvious: I wasn’t sixteen-year-old Kristín but just-turned-fourteen Marsibil.
In his last letter, he had written: I feel like our letters have given us the chance to be sincere and open, and I really want us to meet. I could come to you, if you like, but I have to admit that I haven’t been entirely straight with you. I’ll explain properly when we meet face to face. There are some things you can’t say in a letter.
Those words had helped me make up my mind: I had agreed to meet my penpal. Ten p.m., Friday, 17 November, by the bridge over the Hvítá, I had written, and began counting down the days.
When the seventeenth dawned, I could hardly sit still for nervous excitement. Then … well, I didn’t get there in time.
It so happened that Stína had been visiting friends in town that evening and had decided, for reasons known only to her, to come home early. She had left shortly before ten, intending to walk the two and a half kilometres back to our house.
Around midnight on 17 November 1967, Stína’s blood-stained anorak was found by the bridge over the Hvítá. Stína herself never came home and was never found. No other clues as to her fate have ever come to light.
I closed my eyes for a moment as the ache in my chest seemed to contract and expand. Then I took out the letter that had dropped through my door a few days previously and compared it to the first letter I’d received from my penpal.
Yours in hope, it said in both. It was a little more mature, but still, unmistakably, the same handwriting. 21
3 Kristín – Autumn 1966
I want to disappear.
People are always disappearing. The world is so big and we are so small, it shouldn’t be that difficult to vanish and never be found again.
I want to disappear. The words echo in my head as my name is called, but here in the classroom there is no way out.
I walk with extreme reluctance to the blackboard at the front of the room. I’m not normally shy, but there are so many new faces looking at me that I find myself suddenly overcome with nerves.
The strange faces belong to the kids from Varmaland, Heiðaskóli, Kleppjárnsreykir and other schools in the Borgarfjörður area. Of course, there are familiar faces too from my old school in Síða, but they’re in the minority. We’ve all gathered here at the senior school in Reykholt. In two years, I’ll have taken my final exams and will be able to go to art college at last, something I’ve been dreaming about for what feels like forever. But at this moment I have to read out my Icelandic essay, which, since I scribbled it down in about five minutes flat, is absolutely abysmal.
‘Please begin, Kristín,’ the teacher says, encouragingly. His name is Thór and he’s new at the school – like us. He’s also extremely good-looking and quite young, only twenty-four. But, disappointingly, he’s married. I’ve seen his wife. She’s stunning – and heavily pregnant. That doesn’t prevent the girls in our class from having a crush on him though, especially Málfríður.
‘Thanks.’ I clear my throat and survey the watching class.
Málfríður knows I didn’t do my homework and I can see that she’s having trouble suppressing her giggles. Then I meet Guðrún’s eye, and she smiles and nods slightly, as if to encourage me, so I take a deep breath and begin.
‘You’re intolerable,’ Málfríður says afterwards, as we leave the classroom. ‘Seriously, Stína. You. Are. Intolerable.’ 22
‘Why?’ I’m finding it hard to suppress a grin. The reading went better than I had dared hope. After the first couple of minutes I got into gear, and it turned out that I knew far more about the subject than I’d thought. Who would have guessed?
‘You claim you haven’t done the work and don’t know anything,’ Málfríður says, ‘then you manage to rabbit on for hours.’
‘I hit my stride.’
‘Hit your stride? What are you? … Who are you?’ She stares at me, perplexed. ‘Even the teacher clapped at the end. Thór literally clapped.’
Málfríður mimes puking, but Gústi, who has come over to join us, pats me on the back. ‘I knew she could do it.’
‘Stína’s always been like that,’ Guðrún says. ‘Moans and moans beforehand, then does everything perfectly. Not only that, but she paints like Da Vinci and is actually going to study art.’
‘Or like Mary Cassatt,’ I interject.
‘Who?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Where are you going to study art?’ Gústi asks.
‘At Kleppjárnsreykir. It’s only a twelve-week course, two evenings a week.’ Although I say this casually, I’m brimming with pride.
Halldóra, the art teacher, called me in to see her a few days ago. She teaches here at Reykholt as well as at my old school.
‘Do you remember Ívar?’ she asked. ‘The student who visited us last spring and sat in on some of my lessons?’
‘Oh, yes. He was studying to be an art teacher, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s right. Well, they’re going to offer various evening courses at Kleppjárnsreykir this autumn,’ she said. ‘Typewriting, Danish, English, and Ívar’s going to teach art. That would be ideal for you.’
‘For me?’
Halldóra added that I was a bit young for the course but that she would talk to my parents and was sure they’d agree to my taking part, as it would be a good basis for my further studies.
‘She’s only been specially invited to take part,’ Guðrún says now.
‘When do you start?’ Gústi asks. 23
‘This evening.’
‘Intolerable,’ Málfríður repeats, and lies down on the grassy slope beside the school building.
Guðrún and I sit either side of her, while Gústi settles a bit lower down and starts amusing himself by pulling up grass.
‘By the way, what are you lot doing this weekend?’ he asks.
‘There’s a party at Snorri’s,’ Málfríður says. ‘Everyone’ll be there.’
‘Who’s everyone?’ Guðrún asks, her hands pushed deep into the pockets of her jacket.
‘Everyone who matters,’ Málfríður says, not looking at her.
They don’t get on that well. In fact, they only put up with each other for my sake. It would probably be hard to find two people more different. Málfríður started at our old school in the spring when her father was appointed as the town’s vicar. Before that she lived in Reykjavík; she regarded it as a terrible comedown to have to move to the countryside. On her first day, she stood in front of the class wearing a mutinous expression, and when the teacher asked her to tell us about herself, she said her parents had forced her to move to this dump against her will. I was the only one who laughed and was rewarded with a flicker of a smile from Málfríður. We’ve been friends ever since.
Guðrún, on the other hand, has always lived here, like me, and often says she would never want to live anywhere else. She loves nature and the mountains, and we have countless secret haunts in the countryside around the town, where we used to go when we were younger. We’d take picnics and pretend we were going to live together in the wild, surviving on bilberries and sorrel plants and water from the Hvítá. Sometimes, unbeknownst to our parents, we even ventured all the way upriver to the dramatic Hraunfossar falls in the lava field, where we would sit by Barnafoss and stare into the torrent, picturing the two children who, according to legend, are supposed to have drowned there.
Málfríður is as dark as Guðrún is fair. As tall and slim as Guðrún is small and chubby. And, on top of that, temperamentally they’re complete opposites: Guðrún is always cheery, good-natured and 24smiling, while Málfríður is permanently at odds with the world. She has an acid tongue and likes to take risks, and things are never boring when she’s around.
‘And who are the people who matter, Málfríður?’ I ask now.
‘Oh, Gísli and Ómar and…’ Málfríður lists the boys she obviously regards as important, and when she runs out of names, she flicks back her hair and says: ‘We’ve got to go.’
‘What do you two think?’ I ask, looking from Guðrún to Gústi. ‘Have we got to go?’
‘Well, if everyone else is going,’ Guðrún says.
We smile at each other and I know exactly what she’s thinking.
‘What about you, Gústi,’ Guðrún asks. ‘Are you going?’
‘Naturally, I shall be in attendance,’ Gústi says with mock formality. Like Guðrún, I’ve known Gústi as far back as I can remember. He often used to walk to school with me and Marsí, always just happening to pop out of his house as we walked by. He’s actually our nearest neighbour, as his family’s house is just outside town too, about a kilometre and a half from ours.
‘Great,’ I say.
At that moment a window opens on the first floor of the school building, and a hand bell emerges and rings for us to come in. We don’t get up immediately but let the others go ahead, before following along as the last in the line.
Or so we think.
Sólveig appears behind us, carrying a thick tome. She usually finds a deserted spot in the school grounds and reads there alone during break.
‘Sólveig,’ Málfríður says, in an exaggeratedly gentle voice.
Sólveig smiles but seems suspicious at being addressed like this.
‘Are you going to the party?’ Málfríður asks.
‘What party?’
‘The party this weekend. Haven’t you heard about it?’
Sólveig shakes her head.
‘You should come,’ Málfríður says.
‘No, I…’ Sólveig begins, but Málfríður puts a hand on her shoulder. 25
‘Seriously, it would be great to see you there.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Böðvar was asking if you were coming.’
Sólveig’s eyes light up, pink spots appear on her cheeks and she nods. ‘OK. Maybe I will come along.’
Sólveig has been in love with Böðvar for as long as I can remember, and everyone at our old school was aware of her feelings, even the teachers. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s obvious to everyone except Böðvar, who’s so absent-minded that he doesn’t notice anything unless it’s related to engines or cars. His dad repairs cars in their garage at home and Böðvar helps him out. He used to come to school with his hands, and even his face, black with oil.
‘Great. Look forward to seeing you there,’ Málfríður says, and there’s something in her voice that gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
‘What was all that about?’ I whisper to her once we’re inside. ‘Why did you invite her?’
‘She’s always alone, and I just thought she’d enjoy it.’
I fold my arms. ‘Really.’
‘Yes, really.’ Málfríður tucks a hand under my arm. ‘See, I can be nice.’
I burst out laughing. ‘Yes, sure. You’re all right.’
Although Málfríður can be sarcastic and a bit sharp, at heart she’s a good person who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s just a pity that more often than not she keeps that side of herself so hidden.
4 Marsibil – Friday, 18 November 1977
I didn’t exactly fall asleep, but dozed over the letters and passed the whole night drifting in and out of consciousness. At some point I dreamt about Mum. She was standing over me in a white nightie; then, reaching out a hand, she cut a hole in my stomach with a sharp fingernail. ‘Lie still, Marsí,’ she said. ‘Mum will fix you.’
Somewhere a bell was ringing. 26
I surfaced to hear someone banging on the door.
‘Marsí?’
‘Yes?’ I was still clasping my stomach but loosened my grip when I realised where I was.
Dad opened my door a crack. ‘I’ve got to go out for a bit but I’ll be back this evening. Will you still be here?’
‘I’ll be here,’ I said. ‘Is Mum home?’
‘No, she went out somewhere, but I’m sure she’ll be back soon.’
The moment Dad had gone, I lay down again and tried to get more sleep, but when that didn’t work, I decided to get up.
By daylight, you could see what a state the house was in; not messy, exactly, but there was a layer of dust on the shelves and the windows were opaque with grime, making it hard to see out. I ran my finger over the white china figurine of a girl with blue hair that used to mean a lot to Stína and me. My finger turned grey.
The bathroom was particularly bad. Mum loved having baths, filling the tub with bubbles until they foamed over the sides, then lying there with her feet propped on the tap, smoking. She never bothered to lock the door, so I got used to going to the loo with Mum lying there. Now there was a brown ring of dirt in the tub, as if it hadn’t been cleaned for God knows how long, and there was a strong odour of mouldy towels. I splashed my face with cold water and went into the kitchen.
My stomach was constricting with hunger, so after carefully inspecting the bread for patches of green mould, I made myself some toast. On the kitchen table was a newspaper with a photo of Stína in the top corner of the front page, apparently left out for me to find. I sat down with my toast and coffee and opened it up.
The article about Stína filled a whole page and, as Mum had said, it was accompanied by a photo of our family on the sofa in the sitting room: Mum with her blonde hair in waves, Dad in a dark shirt, and me beside him, looking almost unrecognisable. Mum had dressed me up and done my hair specially for the reporter’s visit; with my short bunches, and wearing a polo-neck jumper and pinafore dress, I resembled an overgrown child. 27
Most readers will be familiar with the name of Kristín Karvelsdóttir, who went missing while walking home from a friend’s house on the evening of Friday, 17 November 1967, her bloodstained anorak being found by the bridge over the Hvítá later that night. Kristín’s case has attracted more public interest than any other in recent years, apart from the disappearance of Guðmundur and Geirfinnur in 1974.
Kristín’s parents, Karvel Kristjánsson and Jónína Helga Sveinsdóttir, own and run the Fjarðaregg poultry farm and slaughterhouse in the Hvítársíða district of Borgarfjörður. Kristín was only sixteen when she vanished. A promising artist, she had been hoping to go to art school abroad. On the evening in question, Kristín had been visiting friends and decided to walk the two and a half kilometres home. She set off shortly before ten p.m., and when she wasn’t home by midnight, her parents began to get worried. The police and a group of volunteers conducted a search for Kristín, and before long her anorak was discovered by the road, not far from her home. The coat was stained with blood, believed to be Kristín’s, indicating that a struggle had taken place. Even now, ten years later, no trace has ever been found of Kristín Karvelsdóttir.
The article went on to provide a dramatic account of how the little community had been paralysed by shock as the search continued over days and weeks without success.
I couldn’t actually recall much about that time, though the morning after was still vivid in my memory; Dad’s voice waking me as he sat by my bed: ‘How are you feeling, Pipsqueak?’
My head had been heavy and I had felt sick when I sat up, sensing immediately that something was wrong. Dad didn’t usually sit on the side of my bed in the mornings like this, and he was still wearing last night’s clothes.
‘Has something happened?’ I asked.
After a brief hesitation, Dad nodded. ‘We can’t find Stína. She … 28she didn’t come home yesterday. We’ve been out looking for her all night.’
I don’t remember how I answered or even whether I answered at all, but I do remember that all I could think about was Bergur. Our plan to meet had been all set up, and I’d got myself ready to sneak out without being seen, but somehow I’d fallen asleep and missed my chance.
Dad stroked my hair and I noticed that his eyes were red. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right, Marsí love,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we’ll find her.’
If his voice hadn’t been so robotic, I might have believed him.
Later that day, having learnt what time Stína had set off home and where her anorak had been found, I joined the dots. I pictured her walking home, only to stop when a car came along and slowed down. Pictured her shielding her eyes against the blinding glare of the headlights, the window being rolled down and a man’s face appearing. ‘Are you Stína?’
Now, as I stared at the newspaper in front of me, my hand started scratching at the back of my head, I could feel my cheeks coming out in red blotches and my head was echoing with self-recriminations; that spiteful voice telling me it was my fault she had vanished. I was used to it and normally allowed it to go on reverberating in my mind as long as it wanted. I felt I deserved it. When I was younger, I had gone through a period of punishing myself in various inventive ways: clawing at my skin until I bled, tearing out my hair and drinking to excess. I was still full of self-contempt, but these days my drinking was under control and my atonement consisted of being unhappy. It was the least I could do.
In my better moments I managed to convince myself that Stína’s disappearance had had nothing to do with me. That someone else had taken her, not my penpal. Just some random stranger who happened to be passing. Deep down, though, I didn’t believe in this kind of coincidence. And now, in the letter I received last week, I had the proof. My penpal, the man who had taken Stína, had sent me a new letter after ten years of silence, and it was clear that he knew I had lied about my name. Though I still couldn’t work out the purpose 29of his letter, I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he simply wanted to resume our friendly correspondence.
Judging by the way Stína’s door creaked, it was a while since it had last been opened. I had gone inside regularly over the years, lain down on Stína’s bed and fantasised that she would be home any minute, but since I’d moved to Reykjavík, it was clear that no one came in here anymore. Now I sat down at her desk and surveyed the room where time had stood still.
