The Commandments E-Book

Óskar Guðmundsson

• Herausgeber: Corylus Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 350

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Óskar Guðmundsson is the kick-ass breath of fresh air that Icelandic crime fiction has been waiting for – Yrsa Sigurðardóttir Former detective Salka Steinsdóttir finds herself unwillingly pitched into the toughest investigation of her life, just as she returns to the tranquil north of Iceland to recover from a personal trauma. The victim is someone she had pursued earlier in her career – and had never been able to pin down. Now a killer has taken the law into their own hands and meted out brutal retribution for ancient crimes. Salka is faced with tracking down the murderer of a stalwart of the church and the community, a man whose reputation stretches deep into the past, and even into the police team tasked with solving the case. As the killer prepares to strike again, Salka and her team search for the band of old friends who could be either killers or victims – or both. A bestseller in Iceland, The Commandments asks many challenging questions as it takes on some highly controversial issues.

Leseprobe

The Commandments

Óskar Guðmundsson

Translated by Quentin Bates

Corylus Books Ltd

Copyright © 2021 Corylus Books Ltd

The Commandments is first published in English in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Corylus Books Ltd, and was originally published in Icelandic as Boðorðin in 2019 by Bjartur.Copyright © Óskar Guðmundsson, 2019Translation copyright © Quentin Bates, 2021Óskar Guðmundsson has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.All characters and events portrayed in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or not, is purely coincidental.Layout and cover by Barry McKayCover image: Yuliia Chyzhevska/DreamstimeThis book has been translated with financial support from The Icelandic Literature CenterISBN: 978-1-917586-24-5

This book has been translated with financial support from The Icelandic Literature Center

‘It’s a remarkable thought. This is the person I made every effort to erase from my memory, to wipe it totally clean. I started to focus on this around ten years ago. But thinking it over now, then this is the one I think of the most, practically every single day.’

A victim

1995

1

Saturday 25th March, 1995

‘Congratulations,’ the director said to the company as he stormed into their smoke-filled dressing room, reaching for a wine glass. Anton looked at him, surprised that Helgi hadn’t been seen since the performance had ended. There had been four curtain calls, which had to be pretty damned good, as one of the bit-part players had said as they clinked glasses.

‘It’s all the cast’s families and friends out there. What did you expect?’ Anton said as he sank into a chair and poured beer from a can into his glass. He watched the cast as they laughed, high-fived, slapped each other's shoulders and hugged.

‘You worked like Trojans,’ Helgi said, pushing his hair, which had come loose from its ponytail, back from his forehead and behind his ears. He wiped his face with the towel he had draped over his shoulders, and which Anton realised had to be damp with sweat. The middle-aged director had himself played a modest part in the production, but that hadn’t been so physically demanding that it could account for all that perspiration.

‘And not just the cast. Every one of those who put a shoulder to the wheel, day and night, to make this all come true,’ he said, looking down at the company. ‘The lighting was immaculate, the sets have been impeccable, and you, Anton… The costumes are just magnificent. I mean, stand up and see for yourself,’ Helgi said, coming uncomfortably close, taking him by the hand and hauling him to his feet.

Anton didn’t meet his eye, instead concentrating his gaze on his coarse skin, which still carried the unmistakeable scars of a tough battle against youthful acne.

‘It’s fantastic. Here’s to you. And here’s to everyone!’ Helgi called out, turning around, glass in hand.

Anton took in the scene, looking at the angels and disciples, Jesus in person and Lucifer. The cast clapped and called out – Bravo! Hurrah! Whoo-hoo! Someone ruffled his hair and someone else slapped him on the back far too hard so that beer spilled from his glass.

He sat down again. In his eyes, all this was exaggerated and overplayed.

Anton had never managed to get a handle properly on this director person. More than likely there were others who felt the same, but nothing was said out loud. He was admired in the local community for his selfless youth work, and for playing a significant role in ensuring a bright future for the upcoming generation, as someone had written. One of those with a sharp eye for the underdog, and who has, with hard work and dedication, worked steadfastly to provide support for the younger generation which will undoubtedly pay dividends for the community in the future, according to the YMCA blurb.

On top of all that, he was active in Dynheimar’s theatrical circle, served as a deacon, preached the occasional sermon and was a relief religious education teacher at the Síða school. Anton wasn’t the only one who found it unsettlingly tactless that Helgi should take such an active part in the first night celebrations, and that he should so enthusiastically clink glasses with them, the upcoming generation.

Anton had first encountered Helgi three years previously at the Síða school. He took religious education and confirmation classes through most of that winter as the local priest had been taken ill. During one lesson he had expounded upon creation with great conviction. Anton and his pal Rafn had rebelled, citing the theory of evolution.

That’s a load of crap, they had said.

They talked about the fish that had crawled onto dry land, and pointed to the well-known picture of the ape straightening its back, step by step, finally standing bolt upright in the image of the human being that we know today. Anton recalled that one of the girls had made a sarcastic point, asking if the ape had evolved only into a man, and the class was still laughing and chuckling over this for days afterwards.

Once they had made plain their heathen tendencies, Helgi had asked the pair of them to stay behind after the lesson.

That was when it had all started.

First sweets. Then money. Finally, there had been booze.

Everything changed.

Anton felt the anger swell inside him. He was about to stand up and walk away from the party, but changed his mind as the door opened and Rafn silently walked in. Anton watched as he went to the table, fetched himself a beer and folded himself into the chair next to him. He jerked his head sideways to toss his long, dark fringe away from his forehead.

Someone had turned up the music, GusGus’s ‘Chocolate’, and some of them took notice and began to sway to the beat.

‘Did anything happen?’ Anton asked. He had been waiting for the right moment. He glanced over at his friend a couple of times, noticing how he stared fixedly ahead through the fringe that had again flopped forward. His thoughts appeared to be far away. There was nothing to indicate that he had sensed the music, not even a knee moving to its rhythm. Anton wondered if this had been the wrong moment – or if he hadn’t been heard.

‘Rafn. Did the bastard…?’

‘Hey, shut your mouth,’ Rafn said as he got to his feet. Anton was about to do the same, but Rafn put out a hand, his palm in Anton’s face, pushing him back into the chair. Anton sat frozen in shock as he stared. He watched as Rafn disappeared into the crowd.

Anton was shaken from his daze when the show’s lighting manager suddenly appeared in front of him, a grin spreading across his face. He dropped to his haunches and held out his hands.

‘On the house,’ he said, offering him a shot glass of clear liquid.

Anton looked at the glass uncertainly, and then knocked back the contents. He could feel the heat in his throat as the spirit burned its way down his​ ​gullet.​

2

Kneeling, Anton opened his mouth. With kindness in his smile, the priest laid the wafer on his tongue and held the chalice to his lips. For a moment, Anton looked into it. There was none of Christ’s blood to be seen. The chalice was brimful of black sand. He hesitated and caught the priest’s eye. His smile widened a little, and there was an encouraging twinkle in his eye, telling him there was nothing to fear. Anton leaned his head back, opened his mouth wide, and felt the fine sand slip down his throat, easily, as if running through an hourglass. He stood up, walked across the church and opened the doors. Outside it was pitch black, without a breath of wind. The weak yellow glow from the light in the doorway showed him an open grave just beyond the church steps. Anton walked towards the grave, and without stopping at the edge, stepped forward and fell in. Instead of hitting the bottom, he felt himself float in a vacuum, as if he were in space. Then gravity suddenly took hold of him and he hurtled at a terrifying speed to land hard on the ground at the bottom of the grave.

Anton opened his eyes and put his hands to his head. Once his eyes were able to focus, he saw the wooden legs of a coffee table and realised that he had toppled from the sofa. He supported himself against the table, hauled himself up and looked around. He could feel the stale stench of beer and tobacco overwhelming his senses.

He saw Rafn asleep, mouth open and eyes half-closed, on the red sofa. Each breath he took echoed as if through a drain. His dark hair, long and tangled, obscured part of his face.

Anton stood up slowly so as not to aggravate his headache even more and looked over the coffee table, crowded with wine glasses and overflowing ashtrays. He shifted a few of the stubs around with the tip of a finger, found one that was half-smoked, and lit up. As he went over to the gable window, the floorboards creaked beneath him and his socks stuck where beer had been spilled. It was bright outside, but there were few people about. He tried to get his bearings.

He crossed the living room floor and came to a side room. After peering through the half-open door to see three naked people motionless inside, he finally found the toilet. He looked around in a daze. A shower cubicle with no curtain occupied one corner and in the other was a curry-powder-yellow basin where someone had vomited. A neat circular mirror hung over the basin. Anton almost fell as he slipped on the damp white floor tiles.

He threw the cigarette stub into the toilet and looked in the mirror. His body probably didn’t have the energy to summon a reaction to a shock.

Anton went right up to the mirror and looked long and hard at the face that had been painted white, apart from the black rings around each eye, with lines above and below.

He could hardly recognise the face that looked back at him that put him in mind of a spirit of the dead, or was it some rocker? What the hell is the guy’s name? One of those from Kiss? No… Yes, now the name came to mind. Alice Cooper, a singer his father had adored; he had once hung a poster of him on the living room wall back when Anton had been a boy. His indistinct memory was that his mother had torn it down that same day. His memory of the ensuing row was clearer – not that it could exactly be described as a row. It was more of a fight, with insults hurled, along with plates, glasses and ornaments. There were never half-measures. Afterwards they always came to him to talk, separately, once he had gone to bed. Year after year after year. Choose a team. Mum’s side, or Dad’s side. He managed to be on both sides without either of them knowing. They were the kind of people who were far too honest with their opinions and said plenty of inappropriate things, way too many of them and way too loud, whenever they disliked some aspect of his behaviour. They always believed that they had been able to keep the fury inside the walls of their own home. Maybe some people were taken in by all that, as he sometimes heard distant relatives telling him what kind and gentle people his parents were, and that he was the luckiest lad alive to get to grow up in a home full of such love and warmth. But most of the people around them were aware of what went on. Those people knew the truth, not that anyone said a word out loud, they all acted as if nothing was amiss.

He could see it in these people’s eyes. He had never once had the strength to tell anyone of the depth of hatred he felt for his parents; and how much he loathed the people who turned a blind eye.

Fuck, he said, deep inside his own thoughts.

He tried to recall the previous evening’s events. He could remember a few indistinct, mundane fragments. The gaps seemed to be huge, and the last thing he could be sure of was leaving the theatre with a couple of other people. Ah, that brought back another fragment of memory, the taxi. He had jumped in a taxi with someone or other outside Dynheimar, on Hafnarstræti where the amateur dramatics society was based. From then on his mind’s black eraser had wiped any further memory.

He glanced down to turn on the tap, and that was when he noticed what he was wearing – a grubby white shirt that reached half-way down his legs. Someone had used a felt-tip to sketch a cock and balls over his crotch. He turned sideways in front of the mirror and could make out the tattered angel’s wings at his shoulders. He could remember nothing of putting on any these things, all of which had been his own work in his efforts to prepare for the performance.

He turned on the tap, filled his cupped hands with water and splashed it on his face. He fumbled for soap in the dirty sink, but found none. He picked up a towel and, despite the smell of vomit clinging to it, dried his face. He looked in the mirror. There were shadows of his actual skin colour to be seen beneath the white face paint, and the black had dribbled its way down his cheeks. It was as if Alice Cooper was melting before his eyes. He didn’t have the energy to wash any more, and dropped the towel on the floor.

You’ve no idea how much I hate you, he said with quiet vehemence to the figure in the mirror. Just think how many people will be delighted when you’re gone. You’re a useless asshole.

His toe connected with something that rolled across the floor. He felt under the sink, unsure what it could be, and picked it up. Red lipstick. He snapped off the cap and screwed the waxy red cylinder up.

He stared in the mirror for a moment. He remembered the lipstick.

As Anton opened the front door and stepped out of the flat, the chill immediately began to nip at his cheeks. There was deep snow on the ground and he carefully made his way along the slippery path to the pavement. Although he didn’t remember much of the evening or the night, he was fairly sure it hadn’t been snowing. For a moment he wondered if he had been there for a few days. Not necessarily, was his conclusion. A few hours of heavy snowfall could change everything.

Once he had enjoyed taking deep breaths of cold, fresh winter air, he took a gulp of Southern Comfort from the bottle picked up in the kitchen and lit a half-smoked cigarette. He stubbed it out after a few puffs. Ice-cold rays of sunshine pierced his eyes.

The Glerá church was there in front of him as he reached the next crossroads. The sight of a group of children having a snowball fight by the church doors brought a smile to his face. They tried to dodge each other’s snowballs, and sometimes even managed it – although not every time. They were some way from him, but their chatter and laughter echoed inside his head.

A man in a black suit stepped outside just as the church doors swung open. The sight was followed by the shock deep inside that follows an unpleasant surprise, stabbing right through him. It felt as if all his powers of concentration and self-awareness had been cranked up to the maximum when he heard the man laugh. He could almost feel the touch of the man's hand, as he patted the heads of some of the children, with a gentle stroke of the hand down to the neck. The bottle clattered from Anton's hand without his noticing it.

With slow steps he approached the church, and it wasn’t until he was close that the children all stood still, frozen like statues in the middle of a game. They stared at this lipsticked, filthy angel, complete with his scrawled cock and balls. The priest took a while to examine the appearance and face of this tattered angel, then told the children to be on their way home. Right now! he snapped as some of them failed to respond.

‘Good morning, my friend. Won’t you come inside?’ the priest said, opening the church door and extending a hand.

Anton’s thoughts flashed back to when he had sat with Rafn the previous evening after the performance, when Rafn had placed a hand on his face and forced him back into the chair. That was when Anton realised what had troubled him. He could feel it. It was a smell he knew; the smell of genitals, the smell of dick, the smell of spunk.

And as he looked down at the priest’s hand, his mind was filled with the same smell.

Rafn surfaced from sleep on the couch. He looked up, wiped the drool from his chin and touched his tongue gingerly, certain that it had morphed into the coarsest kind of sandpaper.

He struggled to keep his balance when he stood up. After a long pause, he looked around. He stepped over a sleeping body on the floor, went into the hallway and peered into the bedroom where someone was asleep. He spoke Anton’s name twice in a low voice, but nobody answered.

In the bathroom he was fairly satisfied at how smoothly he managed to get his dick out through his flies, and even more satisfied when he managed to aim most of the stream where it was meant to go.

He didn’t bother to flush, and leaned against the sink. He looked in the mirror. It took a few seconds to realise what obscured the reflection of himself. He took a step back and squinted. Then he saw her, the image in red. She was magnificent, or so he thought. A face, drawn in red lipstick, stared back at him. The artist had given the image lips by kissing the mirror. The face was one of concentration and threat, but there was also something erotic about it. Maybe it was the lips, Rafn thought, and then he read the three sentences written on the mirror in the same red​ ​lipstick.​

2014

3

Friday 22nd August 2014

Hróbjartur held the plate under the flow of hot water until it had washed away the worst of the remnants of curry sauce. He wiped the rest away with the tip of one finger and placed the plate in the drying rack. He took a cloth and dried splashes of water around the sink. He glanced thoughtfully out of the window that looked to the west, wiping the condensation from the pane. The sun hid behind Sauðaneshnjúkur and he gazed at a sky that seemed to be on fire.

As he switched on the kitchen light, a mirror image of himself appeared in the glass and he examined himself for a moment. Had he really aged that much in a day and a night? he wondered, running one heavy hand over his cheek. His fair hair had turned paler during that unusually sunny summer. The grey at his temples had become more prominent and he considered whether or not to go to the bathroom and apply some dye to his hair. Although he felt the colour suited him, he sometimes wondered whether people even noticed. He thought back to a conversation with a friend in the same position.

The worst bit’s buying the fucking dye. They look at you like you’re buying rubber johnnies, he had said with a laugh.

Hróbjartur had occasionally smiled to himself at the recollection. But not this time. He examined his own face carefully. He switched off the light and his reflection vanished.

Tears rolled down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the dishcloth and tossed it onto the table. Next to it was yesterday’s paper. This was the paper that had kept him awake all night and ruined the following day, most of which he had spent pacing the floor. He had meant to pay a visit to a neighbour he hadn’t seen for ages, but decided against it. Instead, he had lurked indoors, his mood swinging from misery to anger and back again.

How could someone do this to him? He hadn’t done anything. He repeated it to himself in his mind. Every now and again he’d say it out loud. ‘I’ve done nothing!’

But every time the thought came to him, a voice deep inside his head whispered to him, that’s not quite true, is it, Hróbjartur? Or sometimes, what about the boys?

Try as he might to find where these thoughts came from, they had dug themselves so deep that he couldn’t reach them, as if these were the final remnants of conscience that did their damnedest to make themselves at home in the depths of his mind. There was no way to wash them away.

No way to drown them out.

He snatched up the newspaper, took it with him into the bedroom and lay on the bed. He looked over the front page and read the headline.

Yesterday he had been to the shop. He’d said hello to everyone as he pushed a trolley in front of him, greeting people as he went on his way. Hello, mate, morning, love. Nice to see you. Good to see you the other day. Usually there had been nothing but platitudes about nothing special. But this time people seemed to be going out of their way to avoid him. Once he had encountered the third person who had no wish to say hello, let alone stop and chat, he began to suspect that something wasn’t quite right. Every time he made eye contact, it was as if his gaze burned deep. People avoided catching his eye.

It wasn’t until he steered the shopping trolley up to the cash desk and was already placing his things on the conveyor belt that he glanced at the rack of newspapers. For a second it was as if he had been swept up and carried to a dark room where he stood alone. On the front page was a photograph of seven priests and he knew every one of them.

Including himself.

He put a hand on his heart. He could feel the pounding inside, as if someone had clambered up next to his heart, giving it a hammering.

The headline screamed out at him.

Church covers up child abuse

Victims tell all

That was all he could recall. He didn’t remember buying the newspaper, or leaving the shop. He didn’t even have any recollection of driving home.

As Hróbjartur lay in bed, he thumbed through the paper to scan the article for the fifth time. He muttered to himself under his breath as he read.

‘It has been shown repeatedly that the victims are not known to each other. Therefore, there is no conspiracy at play here, as some people have suggested. Although some of them have come forward anonymously, it is simply not possible to overlook the fact that here is a group of individuals who have spoken up, all with much the same story to tell, and the same accusations to make. This speaks for itself. The church ethics committee will examine these new accusations, as well as investigating older cases. As a society we have a duty to get to the bottom of this. We must bring everything out into the open, and there are people who must accept responsibility and take their punishment. We will leave no stone unturned as this matter will be treated with the utmost seriousness,’ said the reverend…

‘This is just bullshit… The case was thrown out,’ he said out loud, throwing the newspaper to the floor. He folded his arms and stared at the ceiling, sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

Hróbjartur was unsure when he opened his eyes whether or not he had briefly fallen asleep. He sat up. Had he heard something, or was it something he had dreamed? He listened and watched out through the open bedroom door into the living room.

He started as he heard it, a rattling sound.

Then silence.

He sat upright, listened and heard the rattle again.

Cautiously, he got off the bed and went to the door. He looked around and went slowly into the living room and from there to the kitchen. He could smell something, a smell that was out of place, because…

… the rattle was there again, louder than before. Now he realised what the smell was. The coffee machine was spitting the last few drops of hot water into the filter.

He saw his reflection in the window once more. Hadn’t he switched off the light?

Hróbjartur stared at the percolator and tried to think back, to recall if he had made coffee and then simply forgotten about it? It went without saying that he hadn't been his usual self after the shock of reading that article.

I’ve done nothing! he thought angrily.

That’s not quite true, is it, Hróbjartur? he heard his deep inner voice say, and he put his hands to his head. He stared at the coffee machine and the steam that dribbled upwards from it. He watched a tar-black drop as it dripped from the filter. He felt the world around him slow down to a crawl. The drop fell with immeasurable slowness and formed a circle as it hit the smooth black surface of the coffee in the jug.

‘Hello, Hróbjartur,’ a voice said behind​ ​him.​

4

Hróbjartur yelped and spun around. He stared at the figure in black standing in a corner of the kitchen.

‘Who are you?’ Hróbjartur's voice grated, once he had his breath back. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We don’t know each other,’ the stranger said in a voice so calm it was disconcerting. ‘But we’re going to get to know each other better. Not that much better, though. There isn’t time for that. We need to talk.’

‘Talk?’ Hróbjartur said in surprise. ‘Talk about what?’

‘Sit yourself down,’ the man said, stepping forward and drawing a chair from under the table. ‘I made coffee.’

Hróbjartur stood motionless, as if rooted to the spot. He glanced around and saw his phone lying on the worktop, plugged into the socket to charge the battery.

‘Ah,’ the man said, following Hróbjartur’s eyes. ‘I took out the SIM card,’ he continued, fishing it from his pocket and holding it up. ‘Sit down. Coffee.’

Hróbjartur took slow steps towards the man. He weighed the difference in size between then. He himself was brawny and in pretty good shape, apart from a slight paunch; one metre ninety, and a hundred and five kilos. But he was also sixty-six years old, with a bad back and suffering from osteoporosis. He quickly abandoned the notion of attacking the stranger. The man looked to be a good few years younger, beefy and fit.

‘What… What do you want?’ Hróbjartur asked as he sat down. He placed his hands on the kitchen table, and took in the sight of the black leather gloves the man had placed on it.

‘Don’t look like that, Hróbjartur. You seem sulky,’ the man replied after he had filled two mugs and taken a seat on the other side of the table. ‘Shall we begin with this? Is there something you want to tell me?’ he said as he turned the newspaper to face him.

For a long time Hróbjartur stared at the newspaper. He had failed to notice that it no longer lay on the bedroom floor where he had thrown it. He looked hard, but in fact he could see nothing more than some jumbled, unreal thoughts that flashed past his eyes.

‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked at last.

‘Up to you,’ the man said, almost cheerfully, and took an apple from the fruit bowl on the table. He looked at it for a while, turning it in his hands, and put it back. ‘But what happens in the next stage of this unexpected visit depends entirely on your answers.’

‘I don’t understand. What am I supposed to say?’ Hróbjartur said in sudden terror as he stared back at the stranger.

‘Take that look off your face. I already told you once,’ the man rasped and Hróbjartur winced. ‘But I’ll give you a clue: the truth.’ He pulled on one glove. ‘You tell me the truth, and everything will be fine.’

‘Yes… But. It’s… I don’t know how I… I haven’t done anything that…’

That was as far as Hróbjartur got. The man moved fast and a leather-clad fist crashed into his nose.

Hróbjartur howled and snapped back in his chair, but not so far that he was thrown to the floor. He put his hands to his face as blood spurted from his nose.

‘There, there,’ the man said gently, reaching for a dishcloth that lay by the kitchen sink. ‘Here you go. It wasn’t that much of a punch. The next one is going to hurt a lot more, and you won’t even feel the third one. The fourth one will be lethal. All the same, there’ll be some pain between the third and fourth. That’ll be something you don’t want to experience. So, the truth, Hróbjartur. If you tell the truth, then none of this will need to happen. There, wipe your nose and we’ll start again.’

The man waited patiently while Hróbjartur wiped blood from his face.

‘No doubt you’ve read more than a few times the article about the pervert priests and the cover-up perpetrated by the Church. All those accusations. And, after all that, most of those cases were dropped through lack of evidence or because the statute of limitations kicked in. But there are things that can still come to light if people tell the truth, Hróbjartur. That’s precisely the reason I’m here right now. I want to hear the truth, and you can start right away.’

Hróbjartur still had the dishcloth held to his face as his eyes flickered from the man to the newspaper and back.

‘There’s… There’s… a lot that could have been so much better,’ Hróbjartur said, almost choking on his own words. ‘But please believe me when I tell you that I’ve done nothing wrong … and there’s not a shred of evidence to say I have. Nothing has come up that says I’ve done anything. At any rate, the case was thrown out and…’

A heavy blow struck Hróbjartur’s hands that were still covering his nose, and something could be heard cracking.

He howled, louder than before, falling to one side and landing on the floor. The man stood up and went to his side. He took hold of him under the arms, lifted and placed him on the chair.

The stranger took a roll of kitchen paper from beside the sink and placed it on the table in front of Hróbjartur before again taking a seat facing him.

Hróbjartur’s face was flushed red and tears of pain coursed down his cheeks. He tore a few sheets of kitchen roll and held them to his nose, where they were immediately saturated with blood.

‘Remember? You won’t even feel the third one. Now then,’ he said brightly, and opened the small knapsack he had brought with him. He extracted a bundle of papers, put them on the table and pushed them towards Hróbjartur.

‘What’s that?’

‘These are diary extracts. You can go to where I put the markers and read from there.’

Hróbjartur looked at the stack of paper in terror, as if it were a contagious disease there in front of him.

The man banged the table with a fist and Hróbjartur looked up in alarm.

‘Read!’

Hróbjartur thumbed through the bundle to the first of the five marker notes the man had placed between the pages.

He read in silence.

As he read, he shook his head or groaned. He couldn’t be sure if the words that came to mind, this is dreadful, or good Lord, were in his thoughts or spoken out loud.

In the meantime, the man had stood up and filled their coffee cups.

Hróbjartur finished reading and looked down at his hands.

‘I can understand that telling the truth is likely to be a painful ordeal for you,’ the man said in a low voice. ‘But that’s what I’m here for. So let’s try again, ​Hróbjartur​.’​

5

A falcon with wings outstretched rode the wind over the Lax River in the Mývatn district. The river flows from the lake at Mývatn and along the Laxá valley, above the Brúár falls and the Laxá hydro-electric plant. No doubt the falcon was scanning the ground below for prey. It probably wouldn’t have to search for long, since the bird population along the banks of the river is among the most varied to be found anywhere in Iceland, with many species on the menu that are found nowhere else.

The river slipped gently around Salka as she stood in the middle of the stream. She had never before experienced such a strong connection to the natural world, bursting with life all around her along the banks of the river – considered by those in the know to be the best in the country for trout.

Salka tried to cast her mind back to the last time she had been to the Lax River. Yes, fifteen years ago. She had been twenty-three and it was as clear in her memory as if it had been yesterday. Her boyfriend – or rather, aspiring boyfriend – had pursued her and invited her to go with him. Eysteinn had taught her the art of fly fishing, and she had fallen for the whole package, the river and him. She wasn’t exactly sure, but she had long ago convinced herself that their daughter María had been conceived during that very first fishing trip, down there among the tussocks in the most beautiful spot by the river. Born prematurely, she had been such a tiny piece of life, with her thick mop of hair as red as fire. Salka laughed as she recalled lying for the first time with her in her arms after she had been taken from the incubator, and how she had made a tiny plait of her hair.

Three years later they had walked up the aisle together.

It hadn’t been just the fishing trips that had tipped the balance while he was pursuing her. Eysteinn was quite simply one of the good guys. He was reliable, and he could be as funny as hell. And he’d been dynamite in the sack. As time passed, it hadn’t done any harm that he did well in business and they never had to worry about money. She had never been acquisitive, had never been one for piling up earthly possessions or splashing out. Maybe they had been different in that respect.

Four years ago they had moved to Britain. Eysteinn had landed a position leading the design department of a fairly new and adventurous tech company, partly owned by people in Iceland who had set up a branch in London. She had found a civilian niche with the Metropolitan Police as a crime analyst working with a CID team. The sun shone on the little family. The thought made her smile. But the smile wilted as she recalled what had changed everything: the arguing, the yelling. The time she walked out, slamming the door behind her, driving away from the house. Then she…

She was startled out of her thoughts as a fish jumped downstream. Salka lifted the rod and flicked it back and forth. She gradually let out the line as it swirled above her head like a ballerina stretching her limbs back and forth. The dry fly landed gently on the surface exactly where she wanted it. She had planted the fly for a fish in exactly this spot before now. The fly was carried by the soft current, leaving fine lines of a wake behind it. She dipped a hand in the water to wet her fingers and ran them through her hair.

Salka leaned slightly forward and peered, not sure if she could make out something watching the fly in the sunshine. She finally caught sight of it glittering on the surface as it approached the catch point, just below an outcrop of rock to one side. She could feel a rush of adrenaline and prepared to pull the line in as the fly reached the rock. It passed the outcrop – and nothing happened.

She straightened up and was about to reel the line back in when her phone rang in one of her waistcoat’s many pockets. She sighed. She was sure that she had left the phone back at the chalet. She patted her pockets and found the phone.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello, my dear. It’s Mum,’ a gentle voice announced. ‘Am I disturbing anything?’

‘Well… hey. You don’t have to introduce yourself, Mum. You and your voice are very familiar,’ she said with a laugh.

‘What are you up to?’

‘I’m actually a bit busy right now. Is it all right if I…’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Feeling?’ she asked, and fell silent.

‘Are you still there?’ her mother asked after the silence had hung for too long in the air.

‘I feel fine. Was there anything in particular? Is everything all right?’

‘Sure. Your dad’s better. He’ll start treatment after the weekend, I hope.’

‘You hope?’

‘Oh, you know what the health service is like these days. But we’re hopeful.’

‘Well, that’s good,’ Salka said, and could hear that she’d had a drink. She was about to ask her mother how she was, when it all happened. It was as if someone had pulled at her hand with all their strength. The rod bowed and the line whined as it was hauled off the reel. Drops of water were cast from it as it spun, landing on her freckled face.

‘I’m sorry, Mum, I’m a bit busy right now. I’ll have to call you back. Is that all right?’

‘No problem,’ her mother assured her.

The hook in its mouth, the big fish had twice danced on its tail across the river’s surface before she managed to put the phone away and get a grip on the rod.

The feeling of wading against the flow to follow the fish was similar to when she put her exercise bike on its hardest setting.

The fish shot upstream and down again, and after ten minutes it seemed to have taken the decision to dive to the deepest point in the middle of the river, and to stay there, motionless.

Salka breathed fast and stood stock still with as much tension as she dared on the rod. She could feel the rush of adrenaline. She noticed a duckling by an islet in the river. It must have been separated from its family and Salka knew it wouldn’t survive long. It would quickly become prey for the falcon, or else for a trout that was nothing but an underwater predator. Several times she had gutted fish that had gulped down whole ducklings or field mice.

The duckling twittered ceaselessly and she watched it dart again and again from under the high grassy bank of the island, as if in confusion.

She thought of her mother, who probably felt much as the duckling did. Salka’s father had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and he simply vanished, as if at the wave of a wand. He retreated inside himself, taking with him most of the characteristics that marked him out as a person, his opinions, determination, initiative, his smile and his sense of fun. And her mother was left alone and at a loss.

Salka glanced at the curve of the rod and watched the line, leading away under tension into the depths where the trout had sought refuge.

She jerked the rod with all her strength. The line whistled as she saw it zip past her face, minus the fly. She waded ashore, sat on the grass and felt for her phone.

‘Hi, Mum, I’m free now. How are you?’

‘Sorry. Did I interrupt you while you were fishing?’

‘No, it’s all right,’ Salka fibbed. She took the thermos from her fishing bag and poured coffee into the lid.

‘I worry about you, Salka.’

‘There’s no need to. I feel absolutely fine here and I’m going to make the most of being here for a couple of days.’

She managed to untwist the cap of the half-bottle of cognac she had bought especially for this trip and poured a slug into her coffee.

‘You used to go so often to Lax River…’

‘Well, we did,’ Salka said, cutting her off. ‘But I’ve seen plenty of fish about, and the food at the house is much better,’ she said, realising that she had just delivered a couple of non sequiturs as a way of changing the subject. It was all to no effect, as her mother simply continued.

‘Heard anything from Eysteinn?’

‘No.’

‘He hasn’t called?’