It was becoming all too clear that Emma had shopped her, in spite of Hulda’s good intentions. The woman’s betrayal was so incomprehensible that Hulda felt wounded even thinking about it. Yes, Emma had been in a highly agitated state, but that wasn’t enough to excuse her behaviour. She must have had a complete meltdown when questioned by Magnús.
Only then did Hulda remember why she had switched off her phone yesterday evening. Why the hell had she drunk all that wine? Her hangover wasn’t helping her cope with the pressure now. She was on the back foot in everything she did today, just when she needed to be at the peak of her powers. Perhaps age was catching up with her, she thought, before angrily rejecting the idea. She knew she was as good an officer now as she had ever been.
Emma had rung her, late at night. That should have set off alarm bells, suggesting, as it did, that she had some urgent reason for trying to get in touch. But Hulda hadn’t been in the mood to talk to her. God, how she regretted that now. Perhaps Emma had wanted to consult her about turning herself in. Oh, Christ.
‘This is an extremely serious matter, Hulda,’ said Magnús after a weighty pause.
She still couldn’t work out how she ought to react and what the repercussions of her actions might be. Surely he wasn’t planning to sack her in disgrace on her last day at work?
‘Are you saying that she’s confessed now?’ Hulda asked, aware that her question contained an acknowledgement of her mistake, without being a direct admission of guilt. ‘Does it really matter what we talked about or how she interpreted the outcome?’ She bit back the shameful desire to whine: Please, be lenient. After all these years, after my long, successful career, couldn’t we overlook this one little mistake?
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head there, Hulda. In normal circumstances, I don’t suppose I’d have made a big deal out of this, seeing as you’re leaving anyway and it’s a difficult time for you. An error of judgement, no harm done.’
In normal circumstances? What was he trying to tell her?
‘But it gets worse. Emma went down to the National Hospital last night. I gather she’s worked for the health service in the past and is currently employed at a nursing home.’
‘The National Hospital?’
‘Yes, apparently, it wasn’t too difficult: there’s not much security, she knew her way around and, whenever she encountered a locked door, she managed to blag her way through by flashing her work ID.’
Suspecting now where this was leading, Hulda started to feel sick.
‘It didn’t take her long to track down the paedophile’s ward. They were keeping him in an induced coma, but I understand that he was making satisfactory progress.’ Magnús paused, no doubt catching the look of horror on Hulda’s face, then resumed his account: ‘She picked up a pillow and held it over the man’s face.’
Hulda was too terrified to ask what had happened next. She waited, caught in an agony of hope and fear.
‘He’s dead.’
‘She killed him?’ Hulda asked incredulously, though she had already guessed as much.
‘She killed him, Hulda. Then immediately turned herself in. Told us the whole sorry story. That she’d run him down in her car because of what he’d done to her son. She’d meant to kill him then, not just for revenge but to stop him doing the same thing to someone else’s child. You went to interview her at work, didn’t you? And immediately saw through her denials. She said you gave her the third degree and, in the end, she caved in and admitted what she’d done. It was a relief, she said. And she also said …’ He dropped his eyes to the papers in front of him and referred to Emma’s statement: ‘That she was relieved to get it off her chest. There was no way she could live with what she’d done. Following your visit, she expected to be arrested any minute, but later that evening you rang her up and told her you were going to let her off. She was stunned – grateful, of course, but at the same time disappointed. Her guilt was weighing so heavily on her that she decided she had no choice but to confess. So she rang your number.’
Hulda flinched. The late-night phone call.
‘But you didn’t answer.’
Hulda shook her head, shattered. ‘No, I was busy,’ she whispered. Why the hell hadn’t she picked up?
Magnús went on turning the knife. ‘She was in a bad state last night and couldn’t think straight. Felt she had no future, nothing but darkness ahead, so she might as well finish what she’d started. Achieve something worthwhile. You know, you could have stopped her last night, Hulda.’
She nodded, her throat too constricted to make a sound.
‘To say nothing of the gross misconduct you showed by covering up for her. More than misconduct – as you’re perfectly aware, Hulda, you broke the law, obstructed the course of justice.’
But my intentions were good, she thought to herself. The law wasn’t the sole arbiter of right and wrong. Sometimes you had to look at the bigger picture. She had no illusions; she was well aware of how dangerous it was for someone in her position to think like that. After all, she had sworn an oath to uphold the law. But this wasn’t the first time she had broken it on the pretext that, in certain circumstances, such behaviour was justified. The only difference was that, this time, she had been found out. A man was dead, and it was partly her fault. She suddenly felt violently sick, yet she couldn’t summon up any grief for the paedophile’s death. Perhaps saying he had deserved to die would be going too far, but she was certain that the world was a better, safer place without him.
‘Can’t we …?’ She broke off, unable
