‘You are the police, Helgi.’
This had to stop.
He could feel the fury boiling up inside him.
Bergthóra plainly had no intention of listening to him. Perhaps the only answer was to make good his threat and call the police. Thank God, neither of themhad raised their voice, so with any luck the neighbours wouldn’t have noticed anything yet. If only he could get rid of her.
Again, he scanned the street for Aníta.
‘Expecting someone?’ Bergthóra asked, in such an icy tone that her words sent a shiver through him.
He hesitated.
‘I’m… I’m expecting a guest. You’ve got to go.’
‘Well, well. A guest, is it? Who’s coming round?’
Making a superhuman effort to control his anger, he pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘I’m going to make that call, Bergthóra.’
‘Were you expecting Aníta?’ she asked, her voice dripping with spite.
‘That’s none of your fucking business, Bergthóra.’ He selected the number of the police and prepared to call it.
‘I know it was her,’ Bergthóra said. Helgi, momentarily confused, looked up and caught her eye. God, she could be evil.
‘Did you talk to her again, Bergthóra? Did you? You’d better leave her alone, or—’
‘Or what?’
‘Did you go and see her again? She told me you’d barged in on her at work, but…’
Bergthóra smiled. ‘No, I won’t be talking to her any more.’
Helgi felt a rush of relief.
‘Right, well, let’s keep it like that,’ he said firmly, feeling for a moment as if he’d achieved the upper hand again. Though he knew this was rarely the case in their dealings.
‘Yes, let’s,’ she said, disconcerting him.
Then she muttered something under her breath, the words drowned out by the noise of the rain.
‘What? What did you say?’
For a second Helgi thought Bergthóra had given up and was saying goodbye. That he would be able to continue his evening as planned, almost as if this intrusion had never happened. There was no way Aníta would hear about Bergthóra’s visit from him.
‘I said…’ She raised her voice: ‘Aníta won’t be coming now.’
‘What do you mean?’ His heart started pounding in his chest. ‘Of course she’s coming.’
‘I drove into her,’ Bergthóra said matter-of-factly. ‘Just up the street from here.’
The words caught in Helgi’s throat. He prayed he’d heard wrong. But he knew he hadn’t.
‘The visibility was so poor,’ Bergthóra added, her voice suddenly so clear and calm that it occurred to him that she might not be drunk after all. She might even be stone-cold sober.
He was hit by a tidal wave of memories, an inexorable flood of images featuring Bergthóra, not Aníta, and all the terrible things he had let himself be subjected to without ever speaking up for himself. He had let her get away with her violence month after month, and failed to get a grip on the situation until it nearly ended in disaster. There had never been a real showdown. He had simply shut her out and tried to dismiss the terrible experiences from his mind, vacillating between guilt and sadness, thenlater being filled with uncontrollable joy when he believed he was finally free and would never have to deal with her again.
Now, too late, he was beginning to get an inkling of how terrifyingly deep her character flaws went.
