‘He’s dead,’ she said tonelessly, and felt the tears trickling down her cheeks again. The words weren’t really for Leó’s benefit; she needed to say them aloud to remind herself that it had happened, to try to distinguish between reality and delusion. Einar was dead. That was real – she knew it now. And Anna … Anna … She was dead too. It was as if a veil had been lifted and she could remember everything with a sudden clarity. The tears were for both of them.
‘Yes, but it was an accident, Erla. I didn’t mean to hurt him. He had a knife and I was scared. The whole thing got out of hand. I was terrified he was going to stab me … I’ve never done anything like that in my life before but it was in self-defence, purely in self-defence…’
Erla nodded dully. Nothing would ever bring Anna and Einar back now.
She had to face up to the consequences of what she had done. Perhaps it would be best to answer the man’s questions while she could, while her memory was clear … Because now, all of a sudden, she could recall everything that she had done her best to forget. Standing there in the dark cellar, she had no choice but to face up to the truth.
‘Is it her you’re looking for – Unnur?’ she asked, her indecision suddenly gone.
‘Yes, yes! For Christ’s sake! I’m looking for my daughter. And you know where she is, don’t you?’
‘She came here, to work.’
‘I know. She sent me a letter, but it didn’t arrive until a couple of days ago. It must have been the letter your husband said he’d found and put in the post.’
Erla nodded and said: ‘That’s right. I didn’t know about it. I had no idea…’
‘What happened to her?’
‘Einar never knew. There was no need to kill him.’
‘It was an accident, I swear it!’
‘And I didn’t mean to hurt her, I –’
He grabbed her again, by the throat this time. She didn’t resist, even when she felt his fingers tightening until she was gasping noisily for breath. In a weird way, she welcomed the pain. She didn’t want to have to face up to anything any more …
‘Erla, tell me, tell me! Is she alive?’
Her gaze met his, although she was close to losing consciousness. There was a gleam of hope in his eyes. He loosened his hold slightly.
But she extinguished it: ‘No, she died. I’m sorry.’
His hands tightened again.
‘I didn’t want her to leave.’ Erla was choking in his throttling grip. ‘She was going to leave me, Leó. Again. Leave me again. My Anna.’
‘What do you mean, Anna? Are you crazy? Why would you think Unnur was her?’ He relaxed his grip again, enough for her to talk.
‘Anna was my daughter,’ she croaked. ‘Unnur was sent to me because my Anna had gone. They were so alike. I kept getting confused and thinking Anna had come back – in fact, I was sure of it. I thought I’d been given another chance and it made me so happy, though I couldn’t really understand what was happening. Einar was away, you see. And sometimes I can’t cope with being alone here, I lose my grip on things … so I thought she was my Anna. But then she told me she was leaving…’ Erla’s voice cracked. When she continued, the words emerged in a thin, mewing sound: ‘She was going to leave me again, but I couldn’t lose her a second time. I refused to let her go.’ She drew a gasping breath. ‘It just happened. There was a struggle, I remember that, and then, somehow, she was dead. She died and left me again. I seem to remember there was some blood, but everything’s so hazy … I threw her rucksack in the sea later, as soon as I got a chance. When I went to the village to borrow more books from the library…’
His fingers tightened convulsively again. Fighting for breath, she added, in a strangled voice: ‘I knew you were looking for her. I sensed it when you arrived. Although I’d buried the whole thing. Couldn’t bear to remember it…’
‘Where’s my daughter? How could you kill her? How could you?’ Leó’s voice broke and the last words came out guttural with tears: ‘Where is she?’
‘I buried her behind the house, in the vegetable garden. There was nothing else I could do. I had to stop Einar finding out.’
The deadly grip tightened round her throat again and she could feel her consciousness ebbing away.
She couldn’t take any more.
XVII
Hulda saw a man she didn’t recognize, in the orange uniform of the rescue team, come running through the thick haze of snowflakes towards the police vehicle. She nudged Jens, who hadn’t noticed him, then opened the passenger door and stepped outside.
The man’s voice sounded agitated when he could finally speak through his panting.
‘We’ve…’ He caught his breath and resumed: ‘We’ve found him, or at least I think we have.’
The first thought to pass through Hulda’s mind was: How can I tell his wife? How can I tell her that we’ve found her husband and her daughter – that they’re both dead?
She dreaded the conversation so much that it briefly occurred to her to ask someone else to take care of it. She couldn’t cope with any more tragedy or grief herself.
‘Dead?’ she asked, though it was obvious.
‘What? Yes, of course – the body of a man. I’ll take you there. It’s not that far from the farm so we reckon he must have got lost and gone in the wrong direction. Maybe walked in a circle. That’s common when people are inexperienced.’
Jens had got out of the car as well.
‘We’ll follow you,’ he said to the rescue team member, his voice unusually decisive.
Hulda stood, screwing up her eyes against the snow, intensely grateful that she was with the rescue team since, had she been alone, she would never
