The Creak on the Stairs Read online

  ‘Does that mean we can work on the basis that Elísabet was knocked down by the lighthouse?’ Elma asked.

  ‘No, not at this stage,’ Hörður said. ‘We’ll discuss it again after forensics have done a more thorough sweep of the area and, if we’re lucky, found some evidence to confirm what happened there.’

  Elma nodded and flicked a glance at Sævar. When he smiled at her, she felt inexplicably embarrassed and averted her gaze, though not before noticing that his brown eyes were like Davíð’s.

  ‘I’ve printed out Elísabet’s phone records for us to go over.’ Hörður picked up a few pages stapled together at the corner and laid them on the table in front of them. ‘Here we can see all the calls made to or from her mobile phone over the last few weeks.’

  Elma bent forwards over the table to try and read the telephone numbers and dates on the top page. It didn’t look as if there were that many numbers. And Elísabet hadn’t used her phone much during her last few days of life. Skimming the rest of the printout, Elma noticed that, in fact, her phone had been used very little during the entire period. The same two mobile numbers cropped up again and again. Elma guessed that one belonged to Eiríkur; the other was presumably the airline.

  Sævar came round to sit beside her, and she could feel the warmth radiating from his body as he leant over her to pick up the printout. ‘We need a computer,’ he said after a moment and left the room, returning almost immediately with a laptop.

  ‘Check these two numbers first,’ Elma said, pointing to the top page. Sævar tapped them into the directory. The first produced no results but when he entered the second, Eiríkur’s name popped up. Elma marked it on the list.

  ‘Could the other number be the airline?’ Elma asked. ‘If it’s a work extension that’s only for staff use, it’s unlikely to be listed.’

  ‘Let’s give it a quick check.’ Hörður took out his mobile and punched in the number. ‘Sorry, wrong number,’ he said when someone answered, and hung up. ‘Yes, that was the airline.’

  ‘Right,’ Elma said, marking that number as well. ‘So the records show that she rang the airline at nine on Friday morning. That’s shortly after Eiríkur left for work and the kids went to school.’

  ‘She doesn’t make any further calls after that,’ Sævar said. He was still so close to Elma that she could smell the faint tang of his aftershave. ‘It looks as if the last time she used her phone was on Friday.’

  Elma sighed. It would have been too easy if the records had shown the perpetrator’s number. But if Elísabet had got in touch with someone, she clearly hadn’t used this phone. Turning the pages, Elma checked the phone calls further back in time but couldn’t see anything of interest. There was also a list of text messages sent and received.

  ‘There are a few old messages here,’ she said. ‘Most of them your standard sort of stuff: a reminder about a dental appointment, messages from Elísabet’s friend Aldís and from Eiríkur. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘What are the messages between her and Eiríkur like?’ Hörður asked.

  ‘Just the usual,’ Elma said, reading them. ‘Can you collect the boys; when will you be home; I’ll pick up supper on the way. Nothing very personal. Nothing affectionate, no kisses.’

  ‘Text messages tell you very little about the state of someone’s relationship,’ Sævar interjected. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sent Telma anything but brief, impersonal texts. ‘Especially when couples have been together for years,’ he added, thinking that in fact they probably did tell you quite a lot about a relationship. After all, he couldn’t claim that things were particularly good between him and Telma.

  ‘Hang on, here’s something,’ Elma said. ‘A message from Eiríkur. Listen to this: “I love you far more than you realise. But I don’t believe you love me at all.”’

  ‘Well, well, well.’ Sævar gave a low whistle. Now he read aloud: ‘“If you leave, you’re on your own. The boys are staying with me.”’

  They exchanged meaningful glances.

  ‘So she was planning to leave him,’ Elma said. ‘Though if you look at the date, you’ll see that those messages are almost six months old.’

  ‘Maybe she only went through with it now,’ Hörður said. ‘Maybe something happened to help her make up her mind. The question is, did Eiríkur find out?’

  ‘But there’s nothing to suggest that Eiríkur saw Elísabet on Friday,’ Sævar pointed out. ‘We’ve already examined that possibility, and there’s no evidence that he followed Elísabet to Akranes. On the contrary, he has a pretty solid alibi for that day.’

  Hörður sighed and appeared to be thinking hard. ‘We can’t be sure about Friday evening or Saturday. We need to take a better look at his movements; get a water-tight alibi.’

  Next, he turned to Elma and asked her to report back on what her research had uncovered.

  Elma cleared her throat and glanced down at her notes. ‘Right. Most of what Eiríkur told us turned out to be correct. Elísabet attended Brekkubær School during her time in Akranes, and she and her mother were registered as living at eight, Krókatún. Apart from that, Elísabet had virtually no social-media presence. She wasn’t on Facebook, Twitter or any of the usual platforms, which fits with what we know of her character: that’s to say, she was a very reserved person. I got in touch with her maternal aunt, Guðrún, who’s agreed to meet me tomorrow. I also rang her friend, Aldís Helgadóttir. Although Elísabet doesn’t seem to have had many friends, she’d kept in touch with Aldís since they were at sixth-form college. I was thinking of going into Reykjavík tomorrow to meet both the friend and the aunt. Perhaps they might have some idea about what Elísabet was up to on Friday.’ Elma looked up from her notebook, adding: ‘Or who she was meeting.’

  ‘Fine, but wasn’t she estranged from her aunt?’ Hörður asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right – according to Eiríkur, anyway. But maybe the aunt will be able to flesh out our picture of Elísabet and give us some background. I think it’s important to get other opinions of her apart from her husband’s, but there aren’t many people we can ask. Eiríkur seems to know next to nothing about Elísabet’s childhood in Akranes. Perhaps Guðrún can fill in some of the blanks.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that makes sense,’ Hörður conceded, though he sounded unconvinced. ‘OK, you go and talk to Guðrún and the friend tomorrow. Take Sævar with you and have another chat with Eiríkur on the way. Try to get more out of him – ask what their relationship was like. He must know more than he’s letting on.’

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ Elma said. ‘I found out who Elísabet’s father was. His name was Arnar Helgi Árnason and he died when the fishing boat he was working on went down in a storm in 1989.’

  ‘In eighty-nine, you say?’ Hörður sat up. ‘I remember that. The whole town was in mourning. I was aware that one of the men had a child, though fortunately the other one was single and not that young. How strange.’ He was momentarily silent, as if thinking back to those days, then said: ‘As far as I remember, Arnar’s girlfriend was heavily pregnant. Was there no information anywhere about Elísabet having a brother or sister?’

  When she got home, Magnea saw that all the lights were off. Bjarni wasn’t back from work yet and their big house was devoid of life. She parked in the drive and hurried inside. She still hadn’t got used to living in a detached house. They’d lived in a terrace before, and there had been a degree of comfort in knowing that their neighbours were just the other side of the wall when she was alone at home in the evenings. She and Bjarni had long dreamt of building a place of their own, and their dreams had finally come true when they moved in during the summer. The house was exactly as they had planned, down to the last detail: it was light and airy, with big windows, high ceilings and a stylish white interior, furnished with expensive, quality pieces. In the summer Magnea had barely noticed how isolated she was, but now that the nights were drawing in, the house seemed suddenly cavernous. The keys echo
ed as she dropped them on the chest of drawers in the hall, and she quickly switched on the lights to banish her feeling of unease. Walking over to the high windows, she jerked the curtains across them, wishing they hadn’t opted for such a large expanse of glass. There were no trees outside to shield them from prying eyes and she constantly felt exposed, as if someone was standing out there, watching her.

  She turned on the television to drown out the overwhelming silence that filled the house. Then, with the comforting sound of voices babbling away in the background, she went through the bedroom to the walk-in wardrobe. After running her fingers along the row of clothes hanging there, she eventually pulled out a red nightdress with black lace at the hem and neck. To go with it she chose a black silk negligee and hung both on a hook in the bathroom. While the bath was filling, she studied her reflection in the mirror. Her face had hardly changed at all over the last decade or so. Her eyes were still beautiful, though the creases at the corners had deepened over the years; nothing that obvious, just a fan of fine lines. Her full upper lip still jutted a little over the lower one in a sensual pout. And there wasn’t so much as a hint of grey in her long, blonde mane since she made sure she had the colour topped up regularly. She looked after herself and knew that Bjarni appreciated the fact. She loved it when he slipped his arm round her waist when introducing her to people, sensing his pride in having such a glamorous wife.

  Winding her hair up in a knot, she pinned it on top of her head then dipped her toes cautiously into the hot, foamy water. As she lay back, closing her eyes, she tried not to dwell on the thought of how alone she was in this big empty house. Sometimes she imagined what would happen if an intruder came in and dragged her out of the bath. She played out the entire sequence of events in her mind, feeling every nerve in her body grow tense. There were times when she was so afraid that she prowled around, checking that all the doors and windows were definitely locked. Of course, locks gave one a false sense of security, but she tried not to think about that. If someone was determined enough to get in, they could easily break a window and no one but her would hear the crash. They were too secluded here; too far from their nearest neighbours.

  After a while she heard the click of the front door opening, followed by footsteps. When she opened her eyes, Bjarni was standing there. He bent down and started kissing her, and she wrapped her arms round his neck, pulling him to her. Then she pushed him gently away and held him at arm’s length for a moment, studying him. He was still just as handsome as he had been at school; the same boyish face, same clear-eyed gaze.

  ‘I’ve got a little something for you,’ she said, pointing to the sink.

  He picked up the white plastic stick that lay on the bathroom unit beside the sink. The window in the stick showed two blue lines.

  ‘Does this mean…?’ He broke off to look at her.

  A small smile curved her lips and she nodded serenely. Those two dark-blue lines would change everything. She could already hear the sound of childish laughter filling the house.

  It was oddly peaceful wandering among the graves. The evening was foggy and the damp air hung perfectly still. The cemetery was situated on the opposite side of town from Akranes Church and had its own tall, pinkish-brown clock tower, built in the 1950s. This was a modern structure, designed to look like a spire pointing heavenwards, with jutting triangular windows on all four sides and, below each of these, three smaller windows with white frames. Rows of decorative pillars stood out in relief along two sides of the base. Elma could remember being slim enough as a child to squeeze into the gaps between them. The tower dominated the upper part of the cemetery, where the odd stunted tree grew in an otherwise bare field. The gravestones in this area were noticeably weathered and many of the names had been worn away by frost, wind and rain. The dates, where they could be read, were so old that the closest relatives of those lying there were probably dead themselves, which meant there was no one to tend to their graves.

  ‘I should do this more often,’ Aðalheiður panted at Elma’s side. She was wearing a white raincoat and a black woollen hat bearing the logo of the Akranes Football Association. The town was proud of its local team, though Elma could never be bothered to follow its fortunes like her parents did. They still loyally attended all the home matches, sporting their yellow-and-black scarves and hats, although the team’s heyday appeared to be behind it and recently it had been languishing near the bottom of the league.

  ‘Yes, it blows away the cobwebs,’ Elma agreed. She had been about to head over here alone on a specific mission, but when she opened her door she had come face to face with her mother outside, so she had invited her along for the walk.

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’ Aðalheiður asked breathlessly. Elma had set a brisk pace on the way to the cemetery.

  ‘We’ve not got very far as yet,’ Elma replied. Frustrated by their lack of progress, her mind was like a broken record, constantly going over the same facts without being able to make any sense of them.

  ‘It’s strange that no one reported her missing earlier. Was the woman a bit odd? Had she been suffering from a mental illness?’

  ‘No, not as far as we’re aware. She was a pilot. She was supposed to be on a flight but rang in sick instead.’

  ‘Really?’ Aðalheiður exclaimed. ‘Do you think it was the husband? Sadly, an awful lot of them batter their wives. Which reminds me: did you hear about Tómas Larsen? But what am I saying? Of course you’ll have heard. Apparently, he beat the girl he’s living with to a pulp. Do you think that kind of behaviour’s acceptable?’

  Elma shook her head. Given the Akranes rumour mill, the incident would be all over town by now.

  ‘But then it was hardly unexpected,’ Aðalheiður continued. ‘That couple are nothing but trouble. Tómas has driven at least three families out of the block they’re living in. Apparently, it’s impossible to live next door to him, what with the rubbish and the constant noise. I’m surprised Hendrik didn’t do something about it years ago.’

  ‘Hendrik? Why should he intervene?’

  ‘Because Tómas is his brother. Didn’t you know? They’re partners in the family business – the estate agent’s – though I doubt Tómas has been involved in the management, not directly, anyway. He used to be responsible for collecting the rent, in his own unscrupulous way.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I don’t remember ever having seen Tómas,’ Elma said. Her mind conjured up the bruised face of Ásdís, the young woman she’d met at her grandmother’s house a few days earlier. But she didn’t mention this to her mother, having trained herself to be discreet about her job.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll recognise him when you see him. He’s very like his brother,’ Aðalheiður said. Elma nodded, preoccupied. She had found what she was looking for. There it was, the grave of Elísabet’s baby brother. A simple search had confirmed what Hörður had said: Elísabet’s mother had been pregnant when Arnar died at sea, and had given birth to a boy a couple of months later. But the baby hadn’t lived long. Elma had found the whereabouts of his grave by searching the cemetery website. He had been called Arnar Arnarsson and only lived for two weeks. She located the torch on her phone and shone it on the cross.

  ‘It’s always so tragic,’ her mother said. ‘Still, luckily there are very few cot deaths nowadays.’

  Elma didn’t answer. She bent down and picked up a small, black lantern that had been propped against the white cross. It looked fairly new: the glass was still clear and clean. ‘He only lived two weeks,’ she murmured, as if to herself.

  ‘Is it anyone you know?’ Aðalheiður asked.

  Shaking her head, Elma straightened up. They moved on, making for the gravel track above the cemetery and the cluster of historical buildings belonging to the open-air folk museum, which were floodlit in the winter darkness. The first they reached was a yellow, late-nineteenth-century vicarage, which, despite its traditional appearance, had been the first residential house in Iceland to be built of conc
rete. Just beyond it was a red house, dating from around the same time, which was the oldest surviving timber building in Akranes. It used to be known as ‘the Crystal Palace’ on account of the unusual amount of glass in its windows, in contrast to the dark, poky turf houses in which most Icelanders had lived at the time. Although it was a little ironic to refer to such a tiny house as a palace, it was a charming building nonetheless. Mother and daughter walked on in the direction of the golf course, then turned into a street called Jörundarholt.

  ‘Do you remember living here?’ Aðalheiður asked as they passed a row of terraced houses, then immediately answered her own question: ‘No, of course you don’t; you were so young, you can’t have been more than two.’

  ‘I was seven when we moved out.’ Elma smiled at her mother. She had good memories of the neighbourhood and had continued to play there even after they moved. Their new house wasn’t far away, and this area had long been a popular spot for kids to congregate for outdoor games like ‘it’ or baseball, until they outgrew such pursuits and preferred to rove around town or hang out at the shops.

  Her mother seemed to read her mind. ‘It was a good place to live,’ she said and Elma nodded. ‘It’ll be New Year soon, Elma love,’ Aðalheiður went on, sounding suddenly serious. ‘Time to put the old one behind you.’

  Elma nodded again, well aware of what her mother was getting at. If only it was that simple. If only she could just forget, everything would be so much easier. But, although she had no intention of burdening her mother with the fact, she doubted she would ever be happy again.