She was all too aware that there was no guarantee her position with the police would still be waiting for her if she stayed away too long.
Her thoughts returned to the sleeping child. Was the name too gloomy, she sometimes wondered.Dimma, ‘darkness’: rather a sinister name for such a beautiful little girl. At the time it had struck Hulda and Jón as an excellent choice, original and memorable. The idea had been his; he’d got it from a book, apparently.
He was already talking about having more children, but, whenever he did, Hulda tried to change the subject. Of course, she adored Dimma, but she wasn’t ready for another child, not yet, perhaps never, though she didn’t say this to Jón. He was so happy with their daughter. He revelled in being a father, that was undeniable, took an active part in bringing up their child and made an effort not to prioritize work, unlike many men they knew.
Meanwhile, Hulda was ambitious. She was determined to break through the glass ceiling that prevented her from aspiring to the highest ranks in the police.
She was fascinated by the puzzles she encountered at work, stimulated by the drama, the pressure and the darker side of her job.
But she left the darkness behind at work. At home with Dimma, all was sweetness and light.
2012
Thursday, 1 November
‘Of course, I don’t think there’s any particular reason to be alarmed,’ Rut, Elín’s publisher, said. ‘No call to be seriously worried.’
Helgi was at this moment seated in her living room. Like Elín, Rut was around seventy, and looked good for her age. Helgi noticed a faint smell of stale cigarette smoke in the house, unusual these days, and wondered which of the couple smoked. Both of them, perhaps. Beside the television were two school-leaving photos, of a boy and a girl, a little faded, but recent enough to suggest they were the couple’s children. Rut was married to an accountant called Thor.
She was sitting on a maroon sofa by the window, and Helgi, facing her, had a view over the leafy Laugardalur valley. The house was so neat and clean that he found himself wondering if they’d tidied up specially for this visit from the police. The only thing that didn’t seem tobelong in the room was the manuscript of a book, placed right in the middle of the coffee table like a prop in a drawing-room drama.
Rut had asked Magnús if Helgi could meet her at her house rather than her office, explaining that she didn’t want to prompt unnecessary questions from her staff.
‘There’s no reason to be alarmed, you say,’ Helgi echoed. ‘Rut, could you tell me in more detail what’s happened? I know you’ve spoken to my colleague, Magnús, but I’d like to hear it from you. It goes without saying that we’re hoping for the best.’
‘Well, it’s just that no one’s heard from her for more than a week. Of course, I don’t talk to her every day – and she doesn’t have a mobile phone, which is infuriating.’ Rut smiled. ‘But we’ve been close friends for many years, and business associates too, ever since she started writing and decided that I should publish her books.’
‘I gather that she’s definitely not at home?’
‘No. Oh dear, perhaps I should start from the beginning,’ Rut said apologetically. ‘I tend to get ahead of myself. My husband, Thor, is an old schoolfriend of Elín’s. They regularly meet for lunch once a month. It’s all arranged well in advance because it’s so difficult to get hold of Elín. But she didn’t show up when he was expecting her yesterday. Naturally, Thor told me, and I gave Lovísa a bell – she’s Elín’s best friend. They’ve known each other since school as well. Lovísa’s a lawyer – a judge, actually, or rather she used to be a judge, but she’s retired now. The two of them are so close they’re pretty much inseparable. They meet once a week, alwayson a Tuesday, for coffee at Kaffivagninn down by the harbour. Maybe you know it?’
Helgi said he did, though he wasn’t actually sure. He’d grown up in Akureyri and spent little time in Reykjavík’s cafés, but he made a mental note of the name.
‘It’s a very cosy place, with picturesque views of the fishing boats. I hear – though I’m sure Lovísa will fill you in better – that the tradition has become even more established since she gave up work. It’s a fixture in both their lives. But Lovísa tells me that Elín didn’t show up on Tuesday. She didn’t want to make a fuss about it, though, as anyone can forget things.’ Rut paused for a moment and Helgi seized the opportunity to scribble down some points, though he didn’t usually need to refer to notes as he’d always been able to rely on his memory.
‘Elín usually tells us or Lovísa if she’s going away for any length of time, to the countryside, for example, or abroad.’
Helgi nodded. ‘I see,’ he said, but privately he was afraid he might have been dragged all the way back to Reykjavík to waste his time on a non-story. A woman in her seventies forgot to go to a lunch and didn’t feel like meeting an old friend…
‘Is it possible she’s deliberately disappeared?’ he asked.
Rut seemed taken aback by this suggestion and hesitated for so long before answering that the silence became awkward. ‘I can’t picture her doing that,’ she said at last. ‘I really can’t. Why would she want to?’
‘Hard to say, though I can imagine a few reasons. Not that I’m an expert in missing-persons cases,’ he saidwithout thinking, then caught the look of displeasure that crossed the publisher’s face. She must be wondering what he was doing here if he wasn’t an expert in this area.
He added hastily: ‘Sometimes people are running away. Trying to escape debts or avoid someone—’
‘Elín had no reason to be afraid of anyone,’ Rut interrupted, ‘and she didn’t have any debts. At least, not to the best of my knowledge. She doesn’t have any financial worries as she’s comfortably off. Her books still sell well, especially abroad. I work hard to promote them here at home too, and sales picked up again a few years ago when German TV began showing a series based on her novels. That kind of thing provides a real boost. She’s never had money troubles, she’s always been organized about her finances, and the TV series put quite a bit of cash in her pocket, as you can imagine.’
‘It was only a theory, just one possibility of many. Maybe she needed some time to herself, for private reasons…’
Rut shook her head vehemently.
‘Or,’ Helgi said, ‘perhaps she wanted her name in the news again, to attract publicity. Revive interest in her books—’
‘What rubbish,’ Rut said, affronted on her author’s behalf. ‘Honestly, I find that a preposterous idea. Why would she go to those sorts of lengths to attract attention to her books? It would never even cross her mind to try to boost her sales with a tasteless stunt like that.’ Rut shook her head. ‘Besides, she’d never do that to us, herfriends… We’re genuinely worried about her. She’s got nobody else in the world: we’re her family.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, though he wasn’t convinced that his theory had been as far-fetched as the woman was making out. Perhaps Elín’s decision had been an unconscious one: a trip to the countryside, to the uninhabited highlands; the feeling of freedom associated with not letting anyone know, the sensation of being missed and simultaneously becoming part of the national conversation. After all, Elín lived in the shadow of her earlier works, in spite of the TV dramas.
