It was quiet in the café. Unnur had treated herself to a coffee and a cold sandwich, both of which were pretty uninspiring. The coffee was at least hot, though, and the sandwich was edible, so it would have to do.
On the table next to her was a pile of advertising leaflets and a day-old newspaper. She began by leafing through the paper but soon gave up as there was something rather depressing about getting dragged back into the same old political bickering. She had deliberately avoided the news recently, paying no particular attention to what was going on in the world.
Laying aside the paper, she glanced absent-mindedly at the advertising brochures, some in colour, others in black and white, which were mostly aimed at Icelandic tourists exploring their own country. At the bottom of the pile was a photocopied sheet that Unnur paused to read, perhaps because it was so appealingly old-fashioned and amateurish. It turned out to be an advertisement for volunteers to work on a farm in return for board and lodging.
Like many Icelanders, she had spent a couple of summers on a farm as a little girl, helping out with the chores and experiencing traditional life in the countryside, but it had never occurred to her to do it again once she had grown up. Still, this was too exciting an opportunity to pass up; it was exactly the sort of experience she pictured as being both interesting and different – a glimpse into a vanishing way of life. And the free board and lodging would help to eke out her savings.
The photocopied sheet provided the basic facts, including directions for how to find the place, which involved taking a bus to a village in the east. The farm itself was quite a distance beyond the village; a bit of a trek on foot, it said, but a lift could be arranged. She immediately made up her mind to walk; what a dream that would be.
There was a phone number at the bottom of the sheet. It would be silly to travel all the way out east without ringing ahead, only to discover that the place was no longer available. Grabbing the advertisement, she went over to the counter, leaving her coffee and sandwich behind on the table, confident that no one would bother to steal them.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to the teenage boy who was on duty that evening on the till.
‘Mm?’
‘Excuse me, could I use your phone?’
The boy rolled his eyes. ‘There’s a payphone round the back – there, look…’ He pointed to the left. ‘Behind that wall.’
Unnur pulled out a hundred-krónur note. ‘Could you change this for me?’
The boy hesitated, as if thinking of refusing, then took the note with a long-suffering air, opened the till and gave her a shower of ten-krónur pieces.
Unnur quickly found the phone and dialled the number.
VII
They were sitting in the inspector’s office at the village police station.
The office was on the small side, like the station itself, but Jens had made it homely. There were family photos on a shelf and the room was notably tidy; the desk wasn’t buried in an avalanche of papers like Hulda’s. Perhaps this was the result of less pressure and fewer cases, or perhaps Jens was just naturally more organized.
Now that he was on home ground, comfortably enthroned behind his desk, while Hulda perched on the hard visitor’s chair, it seemed their roles had been reversed.
The media had got wind of the deaths, upping the pressure a little. A reporter from the State Broadcaster had rung the police station and Jens had chosen to field the call himself rather than passing it on to Hulda. She’d caught snippets of what the caller was saying but had been too slow to intervene. Her immediate reaction would have been to say ‘No comment’, but Jens was clearly enjoying the limelight. In fact, he was so busy basking in his five minutes of fame that he blurted out far too much information. Mercifully, it was too late to make the main evening news on TV, but the report would doubtless make it on to the ten o’clock radio bulletin. Hulda could only hope the papers wouldn’t get hold of it in time to make a splash tomorrow morning. She could do with a little more breathing space. To be fair to Jens, though, he hadn’t given away the fact that the police suspected murder, merely confirmed the discovery of two bodies. That alone was enough to generate a huge amount of interest but, in Hulda’s experience, when it came to cases like this, Icelandic journalists could usually be trusted to respect the interests of the investigation. Fortunately, Jens hadn’t revealed the possible link between the current incident and the mysterious disappearances of Haukur Leó and his daughter, Unnur, either.
They were waiting in his office for the head of the local search-and-rescue team, who was on his way to meet them.
Hulda heard a noise outside in the corridor and, glancing round, saw a lean, bespectacled figure appear in the doorway. ‘Hello there.’ She judged him to be around thirty, ten years younger than her. He entered the room briskly, held out his hand and introduced himself: ‘I’m Hjörleifur. I take care of search-and-rescue operations in the area.’
‘Hello. I’m Hulda, from Reykjavík CID,’ she said. ‘Thanks for coming. We need to organize a search for a man.’
‘Yes, so I gathered.’ Hjörleifur remained standing, as there weren’t any free chairs in the little office. ‘Jens mentioned that when he rang me. We’re talking about the man who went missing at Christmas, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Jens said, with self-conscious solemnity.
‘Sure, of course we can do it,’ Hjörleifur replied.
He looked from Jens to Hulda.
‘When can you start?’ she asked. ‘How long will it take to call out your members?’
‘Call out our members? That won’t take long, but it’s coming down heavily out there now and it’s dark too, so we won’t be going anywhere in a
