Girls Who Lie Read online

  ‘Classic “window weather”,’ Elma retorted. ‘I thought everyone in Iceland had learnt their lesson from that kind of mistake. You know perfectly well that the weather changes every fifteen minutes.’ She pulled out of the car park, adding: ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Out of town, heading north.’

  ‘Do we know who it is?’

  ‘Not yet, but there aren’t many candidates, are there?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Remember the woman who went missing in the spring?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Maríanna. Do you think it’s her?’

  Sævar shrugged. ‘She lived in Borgarnes and the officer who was first on the scene was sure it was a woman. Apparently there’s still enough hair left.’

  Elma couldn’t imagine what state the body would be in if it was Maríanna. It was more than seven months since she had disappeared – on Friday, 4 May. She had left behind a note in which she begged her teenage daughter to forgive her. Maríanna had a date that night, so her daughter hadn’t been expecting her home. There was nothing strange about that as the girl was old enough to put herself to bed. But when Maríanna still hadn’t come home by the Saturday afternoon and wasn’t answering her phone, the girl had called her support family, a couple who looked after her every other weekend. They had rung the emergency number. It transpired that Maríanna hadn’t turned up for her date. After several days’ search, her car was discovered outside the hotel at Bifröst, an hour or so north of Akranes, but there was no sign of Maríanna herself. Her note gave them reason to believe she might have killed herself but, as no body had been found, the case remained open. There had been no new evidence until now.

  ‘Who found the body?’ Elma asked.

  ‘Some people staying in a nearby summer house.’

  ‘Where exactly was she?’

  ‘In a cave in the lava-field by Grábrók.’

  ‘Grábrók?’ Elma repeated.

  ‘You know, the volcanic crater. Near Bifröst.’

  ‘I know what Grábrók is.’ Elma took her eyes off the road to roll them at him. ‘But wasn’t it supposed to have been suicide? That was our assumption, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s still possible. I haven’t heard any different, though presumably we’ll need a pathologist to work out what happened. The body must be in a pretty bad state after all this time. It’s not that far from where her car turned up, so perhaps she crawled into the cave, hoping she wouldn’t be found.’

  ‘Strange way to…’

  ‘…kill yourself?’ Sævar finished.

  ‘Exactly.’ Elma put her foot down, pretending not to see the way Sævar was looking at her. It wasn’t that the subject was too sensitive for her to discuss. Not at all. Yet her thoughts couldn’t help flying to Davíð whenever suicide was mentioned.

  Elma had been in the second year of a psychology degree at the University of Iceland when she met Davíð, and had already decided that the course wasn’t for her. He had been taking business studies and had been full of big dreams and grand ideas about how he was going to build something up. Nine years later and nothing had come of those dreams, but in spite of that Elma had assumed things were OK. They both had good jobs, owned a flat, a car and everything they needed. Davíð seemed a bit down sometimes, but she hadn’t given it too much thought. She had just taken it for granted that he was asleep at night when she was, and that he would be there as usual when she came home that day in September. She had been wrong.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t her,’ Elma said, firmly pushing these thoughts to the back of her mind.

  ‘No, maybe not,’ Sævar agreed.

  They took the turning north to Borgarnes. Akrafjall, the distinctive dish-shaped mountain that formed Akranes’s main landmark, took on a completely different shape close up. The car in front of them slowed down and turned off onto a dirt track leading to the mountain. Probably someone planning to take advantage of the sun and clear skies to walk up to the summit at Háahnjúkur. Elma stole a look at Sævar. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he’d got in the car, even the smell of his aftershave and toothpaste couldn’t mask the alcohol fumes.

  ‘Anyone would think you were still a bit pissed from last night,’ Elma said. ‘Or that you’d fallen into a bathtub full of landi.’ Landi was the name Icelanders gave to illegally distilled spirits. ‘Have a good time, did you?’

  Sævar stuck some chewing gum in his mouth. ‘Better?’ he asked, exhaling in her direction.

  ‘Do you really want me to answer that?’ She had every intention of rubbing his nose in the fact he’d overdone it. God knows, he did it to her every time she had a heavy night – most recently in the summer, when Begga, one of the uniformed officers, had invited her colleagues round for a party. Elma didn’t usually drink too much, but that evening something had gone wrong and she had ended up with her head down the toilet like a wasted teenager. She blamed the whisky that someone had brought out; at the time it had seemed such a good idea to try it. The bottle of red wine might have been partly to blame as well. She had a hazy memory of taking over the music and her DJing being greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm by her colleagues – well, apart from Begga, who had cheerfully bellowed along to the Backstreet Boys.

  Sævar opened the window a crack, with an apologetic glance at Elma. ‘Bit dizzy. Just need a quick blast of fresh air.’

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll be fine.’ He rolled the window up again. ‘Elma, next time I get it into my head to go to a dance, will you please stop me?’

  ‘I’ll try but I’m not making any promises.’

  ‘I’m too old for this.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  Sævar frowned. ‘You were supposed to say: “Come off it, Sævar. You’re still so young.”’

  Elma grinned. ‘Thirty-five’s not so bad. You’ve got plenty of time left.’

  ‘Thirty-six.’ Sævar groaned. ‘It’s all downhill from now on.’

  Elma laughed. ‘Rubbish. If you’re going to get all self-pitying every time you go out, I’ll do my best to dissuade you next time. Or at least steer well clear of you the day after.’

  Sævar’s only answer was another groan.

  It was an hour’s drive up the west coast from Akranes to Grábrók. Sævar fell asleep on the way. His head rolled sideways and jerked to and fro for a while, before falling back onto the headrest again. Elma turned down the music and turned up the heating, still feeling chilled from her walk on the beach. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of Alexander and the sweet thing he had said. If only she could pause time so that she could enjoy his innocence and candour for a little while longer. The years were passing far too quickly. It felt like only yesterday when she had first held him in her arms in the maternity ward, all crumpled and red, with that pure-white hair on his head. Since moving back to Akranes just over a year ago, she had been able to spend much more time with him and his little brother Jökull, who had turned two in September. As a result, they didn’t seem to be growing up quite so terrifyingly fast.

  She drove along the ring road, open sea to the west, mountains to the east, passing close to the brown, scree-skirted slopes of Mount Hafnarfjall, a notorious black spot for wind, where the road often had to be closed to traffic. Ahead, the landscape opened out into the flat, grassy country around Borgarfjörður, with its big skies and the odd white farmhouse reflected in the waters of the fjord. Halfway along, the road turned north across a bridge that brought them right into Borgarnes, a small town of mostly white buildings that nestled into the landscape, perching on low cliffs above the sea. Since the ring road ran straight through the town, summer and winter the local shops and petrol-station cafés tended to be crowded with tourists, giving it a very different feel to Akranes, which suffered from being a little off the beaten track, out at the end of its peninsula.

  After leaving Borgarnes, the road led them past red-roofed farmhouses and a few stands of trees, followed by endless fields of with
ered, tussocky grass. Directly ahead, a bump on the horizon marked the pyramidal form of Mount Baula, which rose out of the landscape just to the north of their destination, growing ever larger the closer they came. After twenty minutes, the grazing land gave way, first to rockier country clothed with pine plantations and native birch scrub, then to the lava fields with their piles of mossy stones, as they approached Grábrók. A collection of ultra-modern, geometric, black-and-white blocks and slightly older, red-roofed accommodation buildings marked the site of the university campus that had grown up here at Bifröst, its population swelling with students during the winter months. It was a popular area for summer houses too, and Elma could see cars parked outside most, suggesting that people were taking advantage of the good weather before the full weight of winter descended.

  Just beyond the university buildings rose the distinctive brown form of Grábrók, a small volcano that had last erupted a thousand years ago. It wasn’t high enough to be called a mountain but had a pleasingly conical shape and a large crater in the middle. In fact, there were three craters, but the two either side of the main cone were smaller and less conspicuous. Grábrók had smooth flanks of grey and rust-red cinders, with pale grass extending up the lower slopes here and there, in contrast to the surrounding jumble of moss-covered stones that made up the lava field. Elma caught sight of a police vehicle parked at the foot of the crater and turned off just before she reached the car park, which was usually full of tourists and buses. They bumped up the narrow gravel track and drew up beside the other police car.

  She nudged Sævar, who blinked several times and yawned.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Elma asked as she opened the door.

  Sævar answered with a nod, but his appearance suggested otherwise. If anything, he looked even more tired and drained than before.

  A uniformed officer from the Borgarnes police force was standing by the other car, a middle-aged man who Elma didn’t remember seeing before. He had arrived at the scene before them and spoken to the people who’d found the body. These turned out to be two young boys, who were staying at a nearby summer house. They had been playing hide-and-seek in the lava field when they came across the remains. The policeman was shielding his eyes against the sun. Although there was hardly any wind, the cold was biting enough to make Elma shiver. She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Sævar was hugging his thin jacket to his body.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ the policeman said. ‘But I suppose you’re used to anything in CID.’

  Elma smiled. Most of the cases that landed on her desk were traffic offences or burglaries. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times she had laid eyes on a corpse. When she left Reykjavík to join West Iceland CID, she had been prepared for a quiet life, despite the size of the region, but no more than a week had passed before a body had turned up by the old lighthouse in Akranes. The ensuing murder case had gripped the nation.

  ‘The terrain’s tricky up there,’ the officer continued. ‘The cave itself is pretty deep and narrow. You have to bend down to get inside. It gave the poor boys a horrible shock – they thought they’d seen a black elf or a goblin or something.’

  ‘A black elf?’ Elma raised her eyebrows, puzzled.

  ‘You’ll understand when you see it.’

  The scramble over the rough lava proved harder than it looked. It took all Elma’s concentration not to trip on the jagged snags of rock. She kept her eyes fixed to the ground in front of her, searching for safe footholds, but twice the moss gave way beneath her and she came close to losing her balance. She paused to catch her breath and take in the magnificent landscape. They were to the south of the crater, higher ground hiding them from the ring road and the members of the public using the car park.

  The officer from Borgarnes had marked the spot where the body had been found with a yellow hi-vis jacket, which was just as well, since it would have been impossible to locate it otherwise, given that every rock looked identical to the next. Even when they came to a halt, Elma couldn’t work out where the body was. It wasn’t until the officer pointed that she spotted the narrow opening concealed among the moss. In fact, she wasn’t sure whether to call it a cave or a fissure. The opening slanted down and didn’t look particularly large, but when she squatted in front of it, she saw that the cavity was much deeper and wider than she had initially thought. Once through the entrance, there would be room for a fully grown man to stand, if he ducked his head.

  Sævar borrowed a torch from the policeman and directed it into the gloom. The beam lit up the dark rock walls and roof as Elma squeezed through the opening, picking her way carefully over the uneven floor. The moment she was inside, all sounds faded to a hum. Perhaps it was just the noise of her own breathing, echoing from the rocky walls. She glanced back at Sævar, feeling a moment of shrinking fear in the cramped space. Then she steeled herself and peered towards the back of the cave. When the torch beam lit up the space, she gasped.

  No wonder the boys thought they’d seen a black elf. The body was dressed in dark clothes, its head lying a little higher than its torso. The skull wasn’t black but pale grey and brown, with tufts of hair here and there. There was nothing left of the face; no skin, just gaping eye sockets and grinning teeth.

  Sævar ran the torch beam down the body to reveal a black coat, blue top and jeans, all ragged looking and darkened by moisture from their long stay in the cave. Without warning, the circle of light vanished. Elma jerked her head round and saw Sævar’s chalk-white face for an instant before everything went dark as he turned away, took a few steps to one side and doubled over. Next moment she heard retching, followed by the sound of him vomiting into the lava.

  Two Months

  They said it was normal; that the feeling would go away with time. The baby blues, the curly-haired midwife said as I lay weeping in hospital for days after the birth. Most women get them, she added, looking at me sympathetically through her ugly chrome glasses. I felt an urge to rip them off her face, throw them on the floor and stamp on them. But I didn’t do it. I just dried my tears and smiled whenever the midwives came in. Pretended everything was fine and that I was over the moon about the child that I had never meant to have.

  They were all taken in. They stroked my daughter’s chubby cheeks and hugged me goodbye. They didn’t see how the smile vanished from my lips the instant I turned my back. How the tears trickled unchecked down my cheeks as I got into the taxi.

  Since I got home from hospital the darkness in my head has become ever blacker until I’m afraid it might swallow me up. There’s none of the promised joy or contentment, only emptiness. I sleep and wake. The days pass in a monotonous blur, and all the while she lies there, this little, dark-haired girl, who appeared after so many hours of pain. Even her crying has receded into a distant buzzing that I hardly notice.

  For the first few weeks I struggled with the desire to shake her when she cried. I just wanted her to stop so I could hear myself think. When her screaming was at its most ear-splitting I had to leave the room or I would probably have gone ahead and done it. I would have shaken her like a rag doll.

  It sounds terrible, but that’s how I felt. I was angry. Mostly with her for demanding so much from me, but also with the world for not caring. I pictured myself accidentally dropping her on the floor or putting a pillow over her face, and how it would all be over. I would be doing her a favour. The world is an ugly place, full of hateful people. These thoughts and visions came to me during the night when I hadn’t slept for days and felt as if I was neither living nor dead, just existing in some limbo state in between. Like a different person. Like there was nothing left of me.

  And to be completely honest – if such a thing is possible – I didn’t find her beautiful. She just wasn’t. Her face didn’t belong on a baby. Her features were too strong, her nose too big and her eyes so watchful that I was sure that inside the baby lurked an adult; someone who watched me all the time, jus
t waiting for me to make a mistake. This couldn’t be my daughter, the child I had carried for nine months. During the pregnancy I had told myself it would all be worthwhile when she arrived, but I still don’t feel that. I just don’t.

  That’s why I avoid her eyes. I soon stopped breastfeeding and started giving her a bottle instead. I didn’t like the feeling of her sucking her nourishment from my body. I found it uncomfortable having her too close to me, seeing those little grey eyes flick open and stare up at my face while she was drinking. When she cried, I put her in the pram and rocked her to and fro until she stopped. Sometimes it took minutes; sometimes hours. But she always shut up in the end.

  Then I would get into bed and cry myself to sleep.

  By the time forensics arrived at the scene, Sævar had more or less recovered and was sitting in the police car. After a few minutes the interior had begun to smell like a nightclub at five in the morning so Elma had got out. She leant against the door, gazing over the lava field to where forensics were at work. The day turned abruptly darker. The sky, which had been blue only a short time ago, was now grey and overcast. A great bank of cloud overshadowed the sun and a chilly gust of wind swept across the landscape.

  Elma buried her nose in her scarf, trying not to dwell on how cold she was. Eventually, she spotted her boss Hörður’s SUV approaching up the gravel track towards Grábrók. He and his family had been at their summer house by the lake in Skorradalur, some forty minutes’ drive away, when the phone call had come in about the body. He greeted her briefly, donned his Russian fur hat, then set off to join forensics. To Elma’s surprise, Hörður negotiated the lava field with the swift surefootedness of an experienced hiker. When he came back, he opened the boot of his SUV.

  ‘Gígja insisted on sending this along for you two,’ he said, taking out a thermos flask and some disposable paper cups.

  ‘Darling Gígja. Do thank her from me,’ Elma said, gratefully accepting a cup. Hörður’s wife was the opposite of him. Where he was inclined to be stiffly formal, she was easy-going and friendly, treating Elma from the very first as if they’d known each other all their lives.