The third room appeared to be a spare room, containing a single bed and a wardrobe, but there was no sign that anyone had been in there, and the air that met Hulda when she opened the door was stale and dry, as if no one had used it in a very long time.
The last room. Another spare room, she guessed, but something felt different about this one; she immediately sensed that someone had been there. There was a dressing table and a chest of drawers with a crowd of photographs on top, but Hulda didn’t have time to pay any attention to these because her gaze was fixed on the bed. Somebody had slept in it: the pillow was dented and the bed hadn’t been properly made.
Hulda turned round. The inspector was hovering in the passage, trying not to disturb her concentration. ‘This is where their visitor slept,’ she told him, feeling compelled to share the information as evidence of her theory. ‘Someone’s used the bed, see? There was a third person here over Christmas. Otherwise, I can’t believe the bed wouldn’t have been made. It seems out of character when the rest of the place is so tidy.’
He nodded, then a thought struck him. ‘Unless the couple slept in separate beds … But, assuming you’re right, where is he?’
‘That’s the question.’
Hulda went back outside, the inspector close on her heels. She needed to fill her lungs with cold, clean air to get rid of the sickening odour of decomposing flesh and clear her mind of the images of the dead: the farmer, his wife … and Dimma …
II
Erla got the shock of her life when she saw who it was.
It felt as if her heart had stopped beating, as if she were already dead. Then she came to her senses and felt genuinely afraid that this was the end. There was an unhinged look in his eyes; the mask had fallen.
It wasn’t Einar.
It was the intruder, Leó.
Einar? Oh God, where was he?
Leó grabbed her roughly, without a word, a violent hatred in his eyes, and, strangely, despair.
Then it came back to her. She remembered where Einar was – lying in a dark pool of blood in the attic; dead, gone. She had been so sure she’d been hallucinating and that he was still alive; that it was just the two of them here. But now, horrifyingly, she knew she had been wrong.
Leó had her arm in an agonizing grip. He took a few steps into the darkness, dragging her with him. It came back to her with a sudden clarity that she had fled down to the cellar to hide from him. She’d had some mad idea of using the spades or other tools for self-defence.
But now she was utterly powerless, unable to move, unable to do anything to prevent what was about to happen.
III
Hulda was sitting in the big police vehicle with the inspector, who had turned on the engine to get the heater going full blast. Her colleagues from Forensics were inside the house, conducting their painstaking investigation.
‘We have to work on the basis that someone else was there with them,’ Hulda said in a level voice, making an effort to be polite. She needed to cooperate with this man if she were to benefit from his local knowledge.
‘Mm, yes, right,’ he said warily.
‘How far is it to the nearest neighbours? Is it possible that one of them could have come round for a visit … and that it ended badly?’
‘Neighbours?’ The inspector smiled. ‘They didn’t have any neighbours.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The couple’s nearest neighbours were the villagers, including me. All the other farms in this valley have been abandoned.’
‘Well, supposing someone had come up from the village?’
‘Like I said, no one came out here in winter, not a soul. No one had any business here and the couple didn’t mix much with the villagers. They were well suited, Einar and Erla. They looked out for each other, if you know what I mean?’
Hulda was irritated by his presumptions. ‘We can’t rule anything out,’ she said sharply. ‘There are always exceptions.’
‘Yes, of course, of course…’
‘And the person in question could have driven – what – at least halfway here, from what you said earlier?’
‘Yes, or maybe more, but they’d have had to walk the rest of the way. And the weather’s unpredictable in these parts.’
Hulda thought about the parcels, the tree … The tragic events must have happened shortly before, or even during, the festivities. ‘What was the weather like at Christmas?’
The inspector didn’t even need to think. ‘We had a violent storm right through the holiday, a complete whiteout. The power went in the village, which means it must have gone up here too. It wasn’t fixed until 26 December.’ He sighed.
‘A power cut, you say? Do you remember exactly when it happened?’ Hulda pictured the darkness, wondering if it had fallen after the events, or whether it could have played a part in what had happened here. It was a chilling thought.
‘Yes, I certainly do. It was on the twenty-third. The worst possible timing. We had a bloody nightmare trying to cook Christmas dinner the next day and missed the radio greetings, the carol service and everything. Old Ásgrímur at the Co-op had to open up on the evening of the twenty-third so people could buy batteries, candles and matches, and so on. I believe he completely ran out of batteries.’
‘And the storm? When did that hit?’
‘The weather was pretty bad during Advent – with a heavy snowfall but no actual blizzard. It was manageable, you know. Then a severe storm blew up at around the same time as the electricity went.’
‘Could anyone have reached this place on foot in those conditions?’
‘No, I’m absolutely sure they couldn’t,’ he said with conviction. ‘It would have been impossible. There
