Thrándur had been withholding information, that much was clear, but Hulda wasn’t going to let this deter her. Among her few friends on the force there was one person who had the necessary contacts in the shady world in which Thrándur spent his days.
Since Hulda had absolutely no desire to set foot in CID, she arranged to meet her friend in the café at Kjarvalsstadir, an art gallery just outside the centre of town. The case was certainly keeping her busy. Although she felt a sense of duty towards Elena for some reason, she also knew that the case was a means of deflecting the gut-wrenching sense of rejection that flooded her every time she relived her conversation with Magnús.
There was hardly anyone else in the café apart from a young couple – tourists, judging by their backpacks and camera – who were tucking into slices of apple pie. They were so obviously in love, like her and Jón back in the day. Her heart wasn’t easily won, but she had fallen deeply in love with him once and the memory was still painfully vivid. No such powerful emotion stirred in her breast for Pétur, but that was all right: she genuinely liked him and could envisage some sort of future with him. That was enough. She’d probably lost the capacity to love – not just probably; definitely – and she knew precisely the moment at which that had happened.
The apple pie looked so tempting that Hulda ordered a slice while she waited and was just finishing the last mouthful when her friend walked into the gallery café. Karen was twenty years younger than her, but they had always got on well. Hulda had taken her under her wing – not in a maternal way, since she could never have thought of Karen as a daughter, but like a teacher with a pupil. Seeing herself in the younger woman, she had tried to guide her through the labyrinthine world of the police patriarchy. Karen had proved an apt pupil. She was now on a fast track up through the ranks, getting opportunities and positions that Hulda could only have dreamed of. Hulda had watched her protégée’s meteoric rise with a pride not unmixed with envy, a little voice inside her asking: why didn’t you rise any higher yourself?
It was a question to which she hadn’t found a satisfactory answer. No doubt there had been all kinds of contributing factors, including attitudes to women back in the day, but the truth was that she’d always found it difficult to bond with her colleagues, always kept them at arm’s length, and had paid the price for that in her career.
‘Hulda, hon, how are you? Is it true you’re leaving? Have you already left?’ Karen slipped into the chair opposite her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay long – rushed off my feet at work, you know how it is.’
Karen used to work for Thrándur in the vice squad, but now she had taken the next step up the ladder.
‘Won’t you have a coffee?’ asked Hulda. ‘And some cake?’
‘Definitely no cake, I’m gluten free these days, but I’ll have a coffee.’ Karen stood up again. ‘I’ll fetch it myself.’
‘No, please, let me –’
‘No, I won’t hear of it,’ Karen interrupted, in what sounded to Hulda like a pitying tone. Like one cup of coffee would bankrupt her, now that she was retiring. If there was one thing Hulda couldn’t stand, it was being pitied. Still, she wasn’t going to waste her time arguing over something this trivial, so she let it go.
‘We really must do lunch from time to time,’ said Karen, returning with a cappuccino, ‘so we don’t lose touch. Of course, I knew you were older than me, but I didn’t realize you were that old.’ Astonishingly, Karen seemed to regard this as a compliment. She beamed, not the least embarrassed by her faux pas. Perhaps she thought Hulda would be flattered by this reference to her youthful appearance.
Hulda tried to shrug off her irritation, but it was dawning on her that they had never really been friends after all. Karen had needed her support and friendship while she was clawing her way up through the hierarchy, but now, clearly, Hulda had served her purpose and could be tossed aside. She silently cursed herself for not having realized this before, but right now she needed Karen.
‘I’m retiring,’ she said.
‘Yes, I heard. We’ll all miss you terribly, hon, you know that.’
‘Yes, right. Same here,’ Hulda said insincerely. ‘Anyway, there’s a little matter Magnús asked me to clear up before I go; something he needed an experienced officer to cast an eye over.’ This was being economical with the truth, but then Hulda was getting used to that.
‘Really, did Maggi do that?’ Karen sounded unflatteringly surprised.
It would never have occurred to Hulda to refer to her boss as ‘Maggi’.
‘Yes, he did. It concerns a young Russian woman who died a little over a year ago. She may have been working as a prostitute here, under cover of being an asylum-seeker.’
Karen’s face had taken on a vacant look. She glanced at her watch and smiled in a perfunctory way, clearly impatient to be off.
After a short, rather awkward silence, she said: ‘Sorry, I don’t think I can help you there. I’ve never heard of the case and, anyway, I’ve moved on.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ Hulda said calmly, ‘but I was under the impression that you were quite well informed about that world – familiar with the main names and faces. But maybe I’ve misunderstood the kind of jobs you were …’ She left it dangling. It had crossed her mind to ask bluntly if this meant that Karen hadn’t been entrusted with anything important, but she reckoned she’d got the message across loud and clear.
‘No, you were right. Shoot,’ said Karen, taking the bait.
‘Are there any characters we still haven’t managed to nail who are suspected of … well, of being in that line of business?’
‘I’m not sure what the scene’s like today, but there is one candidate who springs to mind. Though …’ Karen dried up, but Hulda wasn’t about to let her off the hook. She waited … then waited a little longer: that was one thing she knew how to do. Sure enough, Karen soon felt compelled to continue: ‘But it was difficult to pin anything on him, so we more or less gave up. His name’s áki ákason – you may have heard of him. He runs a wholesale business.’
The name was familiar, all right, though Hulda couldn’t put a face to it. ‘Young or old?’
‘About forty. Lives in the west of town, in a flashy house that must have cost a packet.’
‘The wholesale business can pay well.’
‘Not that well, believe me. He’s up to his neck in it. But sometimes you just can’t get anything to stick, so you have to let it go and move on. For Christ’s sake, don’t spread it any further, though; officially, the man’s squeaky clean.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself,’ Hulda assured her. ‘It’s interesting, but I doubt it’ll help me directly. What I need is a link to the dead girl.’
‘I hear you. Anyway …’
And so they parted, with no warmth on either side. In spite of what she had said, Hulda had every intention of paying this wholesaler a visit. After all, what did she have to lose?
VI