Page 49 of The Darkness
As soon as she walked into the station, preparing herself mentally for the coming storm, it struck her: something had changed. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. She made a beeline for Magnús’s office, looking neither left nor right, avoiding her colleagues’ eyes. For once, though, he wasn’t there. At a loss, Hulda looked around awkwardly, before deciding to try his second-in-command, who occupied the smaller office next door. Yet another young man whose rise through the ranks had been more meteoric than Hulda would have ever dreamed possible.
She was spared the effort of explaining her business. He started talking the moment he saw her, and it was plain from his expression that he didn’t envy her the impending encounter. ‘Maggi’s waiting for you in the meeting room.’ He told her which one, shaking his head as if to imply that the battle Hulda was about to engage in was already lost.
She made her way to meet her doom with dreamlike slowness, like a condemned prisoner on her way to the gallows, still completely in the dark about what was going on.
Magnús was alone in the room. From the look on his face it was painfully obvious that he was in a foul mood. Before she could even greet him, he asked curtly: ‘Have you spoken to anyone?’
‘Spoken to anyone?’ she echoed, confused.
‘About what happened last night.’
‘I haven’t a clue what happened, I’m afraid,’ she said.
‘Good. Sit down.’
She took a seat across the table from Magnús. There were some papers in front of him, but Hulda’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be and she couldn’t make them out.
‘Emma Margeirsdóttir,’ he said slowly, after a long pause, his eyes resting on the papers.
Hulda’s blood ran cold when she heard the name.
‘You know who she is, don’t you?’
‘Oh my God, has something happened to her?’ Hulda asked, in a voice close to breaking.
‘You’ve met her, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. But you knew that. I’d already told you.’
‘Quite.’ He nodded and allowed a silence to develop. And drag on. He was clearly hoping to entrap Hulda with her own tactics, but she wasn’t going to fall for that; she was determined to force him to make the next move.
In the end, he caved in first. ‘You questioned her, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And you told me, if memory serves, that nothing of interest had emerged from the interview.’
Hulda nodded, feeling herself break out in a sweat. She wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of an interrogation, and you could hardly call this anything else.
‘ “Nowhere near solving it” – those were your exact words, weren’t they?’
Again, she nodded. Magnús waited for her to answer and, this time, she couldn’t stand the pressure: ‘That’s right.’
After a further pause, Magnús said, on a slightly gentler note than before: ‘You know, I’m a little surprised at you, Hulda.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought you were one of the best in the business. In fact, I know you are. You’ve proved that repeatedly over the years.’
Hulda waited, unsure how to react to this, one of the first and only compliments he’d ever given her.
‘The thing is, she’s confessed.’
‘Confessed?’ Hulda couldn’t believe her ears.Was it possible?After all that had happened; after Hulda had risked her neck to spare the woman.
‘Yes. We arrested her last night and she admitted to having knocked down that man, that bastard paedophile. Naturally, she has my sympathy, but the inescapable fact is that she ran the man down – deliberately. What do you say to that?’
‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Hulda, striving, but no doubt failing, to strike a convincing note.
