She cursed under her breath. Maybe she should just drop it. Get this journey over and done with.
She missed Pétur, and suddenly realized that she was almost happy to be retiring after all, that she was excited at the prospect of spending her golden years with him. They could do so many things together, travel around Iceland, abroad even, and enjoy life in each other’s company. She would keep up her hiking, now with Pétur, but she could discover new hobbies, too; she was still fit and needed to stay active. She might even take up golf, the hobby of choice for so many of her colleagues. Only sixty-four, and so many things to look forward to; maybe she could try – with Pétur’s help – to put the darkness of the past behind her. She hadn’t seen things so clearly in a long while.
She was very much looking forward to going home to bed and starting a new life when the sun came up tomorrow: a new life with Pétur.
XXI
After a moment, he groped for one of the head torches on the table and switched it on. Then stared down at her, trying to come to terms with what he had done. He’d been in love with this woman, and now she was lying dead at his feet. He had killed her. It was all so bizarre, somehow.
He would have to salvage what he could of the situation. Think logically. Try to prevent too much blood from spilling on to the floor of the hut.
Think. The most important fact was that no one else had known about their trip. And no one would dream of looking for them here or of searching the hut for evidence of the crime.
It was still dark, which meant he had plenty of time. All he had to do was keep a cool head and act methodically.
It was the first time he had ever killed anyone, and, in truth, it had been disturbingly easy.
XXII
‘I think we’re on the right track,’ Bjartur said. ‘This is the valley Elena mentioned, though I’m not aware of any buildings here. But then it’s a long time since I last visited the area.’ Then he added: ‘Are you sure we should go here? I’m not really used to – you know, tracking a killer …’
‘We can’t turn back now we’ve travelled this far,’ Hulda said. ‘It’ll be OK. I don’t for a minute believe we’re in any danger. Is this the right direction? Do we keep heading up the valley?’ The road had dwindled to a gravel track, its surface deteriorating with every kilometre.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
As they continued their juddering progress up the valley, Hulda spared the odd fleeting thought for her Skoda, anxious that it might not be able to cope with the potholes, but other worries were crowding for attention in her head: the death at the hospital; the mother on her way to jail; the potential repercussions of this tragic incident for Hulda herself; the way she had ruined everything in one spectacularly horrible week. Elena was increasingly fading from view, pushed out by these other concerns.
It was a beautiful evening, the sun hung low in an almost cloudless sky, and a group of newly planted saplings cast long shadows over the pale grass of the valley. The slopes had yet to turn green, as spring was not as advanced up here as it was down in the city. For a moment, looking round at the wide-open spaces and boundless blue sky, Hulda experienced a feeling of freedom, that her potential was limitless. But then her tiredness reasserted itself and she would have given anything to be enjoying the weather somewhere else: preferably looking out over Pétur’s garden in Fossvogur.
‘Perhaps we should call it a day,’ she muttered, after five more minutes of bone-shaking progress.
‘Yeah, I agree,’ said Bjartur. ‘There’s a better turning spot just a hundred metres or so up ahead.’ Next moment, he shouted triumphantly: ‘House! Look, there’s a building. That’s new. It wasn’t there the last time I came up here.’
Hulda slowed down and followed Bjartur’s pointing finger.
‘Shall we check it out?’ he suggested. ‘I bet it’s the house Elena was referring to.’
‘Absolutely,’ Hulda said.
‘House’ was a bit of an exaggeration. As they drew nearer, it was revealed as a primitive hut or cabin, next to what appeared to be a building site. Although there was no sign of anyone at work, it was clear that these were the foundations for a larger house that was currently under construction. Hulda parked in front of the hut and, from habit, scanned the surroundings carefully before getting out of the car. It would have been impossible for anyone to hide out here in this open, grassy landscape, in the light summer night. There weren’t even any rocks. The only potential hiding place was the hut itself.
Hulda met Bjartur’s eye. ‘There’s nothing to see here.’
‘Shouldn’t we at least take a quick look inside?’ he asked.
‘We don’t have a warrant,’ she objected, though she felt sorely tempted to flout the rules. After all, what had she got to lose? Especially now they’d come all this way.
‘We could look in through the windows,’ Bjartur suggested.
Hulda shrugged. She could hardly stop him.
He made a circuit of the little hut, peering in at the windows. Then, without warning, he tried the handle and the door opened. ‘It’s unlocked,’ he called, and before she could react he had stepped inside.
‘Oh, what the hell,’ Hulda muttered, and set off unhurriedly after him, reflecting that, even if someone found out, she couldn’t be sacked twice.
As she entered the hut she could feel her heart beating faster in anticipation, the old adrenaline pulsing through her veins, and with that her brain suddenly seemed to awake from its torpor: Amena’s elusive comment, which had been niggling at her for the last couple of hours, came to her in a flash. The evening before she died, Elena had sat talking for ages on the phone in the hostel lobby. But Hulda now clearly recalled the receptionist telling her that international calls were blocked. And Elena only really spoke Russian. Was it possible that she had been talking to Bjartur?
Bjartur.
Where had he got to? She couldn’t see him anywhere inside the tiny hut. Before she could look round, she felt a heavy blow land on her head.
XXIII
It took a while to clean the hut, hampered by the dark, and even then it was clear that he would have to come back as soon as possible with stronger products to try to obliterate any remaining traces. He felt oddly detached, as though some other man had hit the woman over the head with the axe and he was saddled with the job of cleaning up after him. In a way, he felt sorry for Katja, yet at the same time he was furious with her for behaving so foolishly. She didn’t deserve to die but, in the circumstances, his reaction had been the only one possible.
A glance at the hut’s guestbook confirmed that days, even weeks, tended to pass between visits at this time of year, so he should be able to get away with it if he came straight back this evening.
But right now, the priority was to dispose of the body.
He had zipped it into her sleeping bag then dragged it all the way back to his car, confident that the falling snow would cover his tracks fairly quickly. In the dark hours before dawn, in the dead of winter, far from civilization, he was confident of being able to act without being seen or interrupted. The problem was how to get rid of the body. All the solutions he came up with would entail a risk, some greater than others.
In the end, he made up his mind to drive into the interior, heading for the nearest ice cap. He knew of a belt of crevasses that would be ideal for his purpose. The final stretch was inaccessible by car, but in these freezing, snowy conditions it would be safe to cover it on skis. Such a thing would never have been possible in summer, when the glaciers were crawling with tourists, but at this time of year it was worth the risk. So that’s where he was going now, and that’s where he would make sure that Katja disappeared for ever.
XXIV