Page 57 of The Darkness
Then he lunged.
Had the axe hit her on the head? She experienced a split second of bewildered disbelief, still too numb with the cold to register what had happened.
Then, raising a hand to her scalp, she felt the hot blood seeping out.
XX
‘An A?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t mean …?’
‘That was my immediate thought, too,’ said Bjartur with a nod, looking dismayed.
Hulda said it out loud: ‘Albert?’
‘Yes.’
‘But maybe, maybe it was all perfectly harmless. Something to do with preparing their cases. Could he have been Katja’s lawyer, too?’
Bjartur shrugged. ‘It doesn’t sound harmless, though. She’s hinting at some kind of violence – this reads like an excerpt from a diary. Maybe she wanted to put it down in writing in case something happened. At least, I’m assuming Elena wrote this. She spoke very little English so, naturally, she’d have written in Russian.’
‘What, and Albert came across it, ignorant of what it contained, and passed it on to me?’
‘The irony,’ said Bjartur. ‘You know, I feel as if I’m in the middle of a whodunnit. I used to read a lot of those when I was younger.’ He grinned, as if relishing the role of detective’s assistant.
‘Christ …’ Hulda muttered. Which way was she to turn on this one? Was it conceivable that it was Albert himself, not his brother, who had something to hide?
‘Let me finish it,’ said Bjartur, and bent his head over the page again, nodding as he read: ‘Yes, yes.’ He was really getting into the role. ‘You know what?’ he said, raising his eyes from the paper. ‘I reckon I know where they went. It’s a bit of a way, about an hour and a half’s drive from Reykjavík.’ He mentioned a valley that Hulda hadn’t heard of, but then she was more into mountains herself: valleys didn’t hold the same thrill.
Bjartur went on: ‘It’s odd, though, because she mentions a house, but as far as I know, the valley’s uninhabited.’
‘Could you point to it on a map?’ Hulda asked.
‘I can do better than that: I can take you there,’ he offered eagerly. ‘I’ve got nothing else on.’
‘Yes, OK. Thanks. I’ll talk to Albert afterwards. Could you translate the document for me, word for word?’
‘Sure, I’ll tell you what it says while we’re driving. Er, could we go in your car? I don’t, er, I haven’t got quite enough in my tank to get us there.’
Life as a translator clearly meant only just scraping by, Hulda thought, feeling a twinge of pity for the man.
She got behind the wheel of her trusty old Skoda. Bjartur climbed into the passenger seat, where he acted as navigator, in between filling her in on the contents of the handwritten account. Elena had gone on a trip to the valley in the company of two other people, a woman whose name began with a K and a man whose name began with an A. They had spent the night in a summer cabin, but the weekend had ended prematurely when the man had physically assaulted the other woman.
Although Hulda found it hard to believe that Albert could be involved, she couldn’t entirely rule it out. Was it conceivable that he could have murdered both women, both Katja and Elena? And where did his brother come into it?
When her phone started ringing, she sent up a fervent prayer that it wasn’t Magnús yet again. She was still in shock after their last two conversations, still hadn’t managed to piece everything together. Really, she could have done with another day to wrap up this case, a day when she was feeling more herself. And perhaps, she caught herself thinking, loath though she was to admit it, perhaps she could have done with being ten years younger.
Pulling over to the side of the road, she took out her phone and answered, although the caller ID was unfamiliar.
‘Hulda? Hello, this is Baldur, Baldur Albertsson. Albert’s brother.’
‘What? Oh, yes. Hello.’ The timing seemed uncannily apt.
‘Albert said you wanted a word with me …’ He sounded nervous.
‘Yes, I do. It’s about Elena, the Russian girl your brother was representing.’
