‘Tell me about Elena. How did she behave? What was her situation?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Did she have a lawyer working on her case?’
‘Yes, I assume so – though I can’t remember who it was, if I ever knew.’
‘Well, do you have any idea who it might have been?’
‘It tends to be the same people,’ Dóra said, and reeled off three names, which Hulda duly noted down.
‘Would it be possible to see her room?’
‘Why are the police looking into this again?’ Dóra asked.
‘Look, could you just show me her room?’ Hulda snapped, her patience running out.
‘All right, all right,’ Dóra said huffily. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to show some manners, you know. It’s no joke getting mixed up in this sort of thing.’
‘Are you mixed up in it?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean. Her room’s upstairs, but there’s someone else using it now. We can’t just barge in on him.’
‘Could you at least check if he’s in?’
Dóra flounced out of the office, along the corridor and up the stairs, with Hulda hastily following. After passing several doors, Dóra came to a halt by one and knocked. A young man answered and Dóra explained in English that the police wanted to see his room. Clearly alarmed, the man asked haltingly: ‘They want send me home?’ He repeated the question several times before Dóra could reassure him that the police visit had nothing to do with him. Almost tearful with relief, he nodded reluctantly, though Hulda knew he wasn’t legally obliged to let them in. Then again, it was unlikely the poor man would have dared to insist on his rights to the representative of a foreign police force. She felt a little ashamed of herself for putting him through this. Still, the ends justified the means. She didn’t have much time.
‘Did she speak English?’ Hulda asked Dóra, once they were inside the room. Its current occupant remained standing awkwardly outside in the corridor.
‘Sorry?’ Dóra glanced round.
‘The Russian girl. Elena.’
‘Very little. She could maybe understand a bit, but she couldn’t carry on a conversation in English, only in Russian.’
‘Was that why you didn’t get to know her?’
Dóra shook her head, looking amused. ‘Oh no, I don’t get to know any of them, regardless of what language they speak.’
‘There’s not a lot of room in here.’
‘I’m not running a luxury hotel,’ Dóra said.
‘Did she have the room to herself?’
‘Yes. And she wasn’t much trouble, as far as I can remember.’
‘Not much trouble?’
‘Yes. Didn’t make a fuss – you know what I mean. Not all of them can handle the waiting. It can be tough.’
The narrow, cell-like room contained a bed, a tiny desk and a wardrobe of sorts. There were few personal items, apart from a pair of tracksuit bottoms lying on the bed and a half-eaten toasted sandwich on the desk.
‘No TV?’ Hulda remarked.
‘Like I said, this isn’t a luxury hotel. There’s a TV down in the lounge.’
‘Any chance she might have left some of her belongings behind?’
‘Can’t remember, I’m afraid. If people vanish and don’t show up again, I usually chuck their things out.’
‘Or if they die.’
‘Yes.’
There was little to be learned from the room, at first glance, anyway. Hulda took another quick look around her, if only to try to put herself in the shoes of the dead girl; get an impression of what her life must have been like during those last few months, cast adrift in a strange country at an unfriendly hostel where no one spoke her language. Trapped within the four walls of a small room, just as Hulda sometimes felt like a prisoner in her own flat, all alone, no family, no one to care for her. That was the worst part – having no one who cared.
Just for a second, Hulda closed her eyes and tried to breathe in the atmosphere, but all she could smell was mushroom soup wafting through the building from the kitchen.
VII
Before she left, Hulda had a brief word with the two men from Iraq. The one who did the talking spoke quite good English. They had been living in Iceland for over a year and were obviously grateful for the chance to speak to a police officer, apparently regarding her as a representative of the authorities. Before she could ask the questions she wanted, Hulda was forced to listen to a stream of complaints about the way their cases were being handled and the treatment they’d had to put up with. When she was finally able to get a word in edgeways, she established that they did remember Elena, though mainly because of her sudden death. It turned out they had never actually spoken to her, as they didn’t know a word of Russian, so there was very little to be gained from the conversation.
On her way out through reception, Hulda thanked Dóra and asked her to get in touch when the Syrian woman turned up, in the faint hope that she might know something. ‘I’ll do that,’ Dóra promised, but Hulda wasn’t under any illusion that she would make it a priority.
Three quarters of an hour later, Hulda was back in Reykjavík. She parked outside the police station but had no real intention of going inside. Instead, she set about trying to find out which lawyer had been handling Elena’s case. It took no more than a couple of phone calls to establish that the man she wanted was a middle-aged solicitor who had worked for the police for several years before leaving to set up his own firm. He remembered Hulda immediately.
‘I doubt there’s much I can tell you,’ he said in a friendly voice, ‘but you’re welcome to drop by. You know where we are?’
‘I’ll find you. Can I come over now?’
‘Please do,’ he
