He had no need to say any more: Hulda had been shown the photographs from the crime scene. She had spent most of the journey worrying about whether she was in any fit state to cope with this case. Worse, she could sense that her colleagues also had their doubts about her state of mind. When they’d stopped at a petrol station earlier to buy hot-dogs and Coke, she had noticed her two companions from Forensics conferring in low voices and could tell from their expressions that they were talking about her. Goodness knows, it was understandable.
Mostly, she was aware of their sympathy, but even that made her uncomfortable. She felt as if her colleagues had discovered her weak spot, and the thought was unbearable. She hated the idea of letting her guard down for fear they would think of her as an emotional woman who wasn’t tough enough for the job. But none of this really mattered; it was rendered utterly trivial by what had happened at Christmas. Then another voice in her head kicked in, telling her that if she didn’t pick herself up again soon, she never would.
She would have to do it alone. Although she and Jón were still living under the same roof, in her eyes he might as well be dead.
There had been an awkward silence in the car for much of the way. Hulda was sure it was because her companions didn’t know how to act around her after what had happened. Their behaviour got on her nerves. Surely it should be up to her to decide when she was ready to come back to work? Anyway, like it or not, she was here. If taking on the case had been a mistake, that was her business. She couldn’t stand having people tiptoeing around her, even though it was entirely well meant. She couldn’t stand being a victim.
It had begun to snow, quite heavily, the thick flakes clogging the windscreen wipers. ‘It’ll be fine,’ the inspector said, reading her mind. He was about ten years older than her, overweight, with a deep voice and thin, wispy hair. ‘We’re used to it here. A bit of snow doesn’t bother us – this is nothing compared to what it was like up here at Christmas.’
He got no response from the back seat, where the two Forensics guys were sitting, so it was up to Hulda to reply, rather curtly: ‘Right.’
Inspector Jens took this as an invitation to carry on talking: ‘It looks to me like some kind of tragic domestic. Of course, I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I don’t see how it could have been anything else. Anyway, I sent two strong lads to the scene after I found the bodies, to secure the place until you could get here. They’re still up there in the cold, poor boys. I hope they’ll have the sense to wait indoors.’ He seemed unable to stop talking now that he had started. ‘I just don’t understand how the couple could have clung on up there for so long. Of course, it was Einar’s family home, but it was the only farm left in the whole valley. All the other inhabitants gave up trying to scrape a living out here and upped sticks a long time ago.’
‘Right,’ Hulda repeated shortly, hoping this would deter him from continuing.
‘It’s unbelievable how long some people hold out, though. I reckon it’s a kind of bloody-mindedness. But then Einar’s family had a reputation for being stubborn. Determined not to give in but to go on battling the elements until the day they die.’ After a brief pause, he added: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean literally.’
Hulda decided not to encourage him by responding to this.
‘I sometimes wondered if it was to do with money, you know? Maybe they just couldn’t afford to move. I doubt the property would fetch much if it was sold, it’s such poor grazing land. It wouldn’t occur to anyone to start a farm there now. They would have to be crazy even to consider it. And the house is in a pretty dilapidated state, to be honest.’
‘We’ll soon see for ourselves,’ Hulda said, a little sharply.
‘Of course, it’s been nothing but tragedy with that family –’
Hulda’s patience was running out. She wanted to form an opinion of the case herself without having to listen to the inspector’s theories. ‘Are we nearly there?’ she interrupted him.
‘Nearly, not far now,’ he answered in a rather subdued tone, having finally grasped that silence might be what Hulda was after.
In the event, though, the silence Hulda had been longing for brought no relief. Instead of providing her with the peace and quiet to clear her head in preparation for the investigation, it merely gave her more time to brood on thoughts of Dimma and her suicide, the gut-wrenching discovery of her body, the hazy ensuing hours and days, and the corrosive feeling of hatred for Jón, although she hadn’t accused him of anything and he hadn’t confessed.
That, and the questions that plagued her mercilessly: Why didn’t I do anything? Why didn’t I see what was coming? Why didn’t I stop him?
Anyone would have thought Hulda the policewoman was a completely different person from Hulda the wife and mother: the former a tough nut who fought her corner; the latter a soft touch, gullible, passive. It was her cowardice, her sheer bloody cowardice, that had cost her so dear. She had never had the courage to tackle the situation head on. If she had done so, she might have realized what was going on behind closed doors.
‘So, here we are,’ the inspector said, trying to sound upbeat. Ahead of them, a house took shape through the falling snow. It was a traditional whitewashed Icelandic farmhouse, sitting huddled on its mound, the oldest part a low-rise wooden building clad in corrugated iron; the newer annex built
