Of course, really, she was scared about her own future, about getting permission to stay in Iceland and what would happen if she didn’t.
She tried to relax, to breathe normally. She could worry about the future tomorrow, today she was determined to enjoy the trip. Everything would be just fine.
XVII
It was late summer, over a year after Jón had died.
Hulda was standing on top of Esja, the long, flat-topped mountain that reared up on the northern side of Faxaflói bay from Reykjavík. It wasn’t a very difficult hike – she was used to more challenging climbs in the highlands – but it was one she always enjoyed. It was close enough to the city that you could go there after work in the long, light evenings of spring and summer, and the brisk walk up the mountain took well under an hour.
She’d been feeling off-colour all day at work and had decided to go out and climb the mountain by herself. Of course, there were other hikers up there, but she was in her own private world, breathing in the fresh mountain air and taking in the amazing views of what felt like the whole south-western corner of Iceland, from the urban sprawl of Reykjavík across the bay, to the Reykjanes peninsula beyond it to the south and a great tract of the uninhabited highlands and ice caps to the east.
It was getting late, and she knew she had to start down again soon, but she wanted to postpone the moment as long as possible. Here, she was in her element; here, she could almost forget everything else. Almost.
But she knew that when she got home and fell asleep, the nightmares would close in again and she would be haunted as always by the same question: Should I have known?
XVIII
In the rear-view mirror, she caught a gleam of the low evening sun – or perhaps it was still the afternoon sun, peeping through the clouds. Evening came early in Iceland at this time of year, though they still had a little breathing space before darkness closed in.
The snow covering the road grew deeper and deeper until, finally, the moment she had dreaded arrived: the car got stuck in a drift, wheels spinning, engine screaming. He switched off the ignition, telling her not to worry; she should grab the chance to get out and stretch her legs. It was a relief to escape the overheated, stuffy atmosphere and fill her lungs with great draughts of pure, icy mountain air. Just as well he’d provided her with suitably warm clothes, so the intense cold was invigorating rather than painful.
She took a few tentative steps back and forth, staying close to the car, hesitant at first to step off the road, for fear of what the terrain might be like underneath the smooth, white surface. Seeing this, he grinned at her and gestured to indicate that it was perfectly safe. The snow crunched underfoot and the tracks she left behind were the only ones marring its perfection; the snow was hers and hers alone. As far as the eye could see, there was no other sign of humans, only the empty landscape stretching to the horizon. They were completely alone out here. But her initial apprehension had worn off. What was the worst that could happen?
She watched as he released some air from the tyres to lower the pressure and increase their surface area then jumped back into the driver’s seat and started easing the four-by-four out of the drift, inch by inch, until, finally, it was free. At almost the same moment, the first feather-light flakes of snow began to float down and land, ever so gently, on the sleeves of her coat.
XIX
On the day the little girl’s grandfather first raised the subject, Reykjavík was basking in unaccustomed sunshine. The mother was standing in a sheltered spot in the yard behind the house, watching her daughter play. The girl made a charming sight in the sunlight, happily absorbed in her game. Perhaps it was unfair to describe such a young child as unhappy, but she rarely looked contented like this.
The proposal knocked the mother sideways, coming as it did from her father, of all people, who had formed such a close relationship with his grandchild. From his voice, she thought perhaps his heart wasn’t in it, that he was only echoing the sentiments of the girl’s grandmother, who had shown nothing but disapproval from the start. She had left them in no doubt about her opinion that it wasn’t desirable for anyone to give birth to a bastard, however endearing the child turned out to be. It brought shame on the whole family – not only on the mother but on her parents as well.
As they stood in that sunny spot in the yard, the grandfather had tentatively suggested having the little girl fostered, maybe even adopted. He knew of a couple out east who were in a position to give her everything she needed, ensuring her a much better life than she could look forward to here in Reykjavík. Good people, he had said, but his voice lacked conviction. Perhaps they weren’t good, or perhaps it was the idea itself that wasn’t a good one. Nevertheless, his daughter listened, aware how hard it would be for her to say no to the man who had given them a roof over their heads. She couldn’t support herself and her daughter on her own; she had failed at the first attempt and needed more time to save up before she could try again.
As the tears welled up in her eyes, she had promised to think about it.
XX
The lawyer’s house in the leafy suburb of Grafarvogur reminded Hulda a little of her old home on álftanes. Though the neighbourhood was very different in character, there was something about the house itself that triggered a rush of nostalgia – the cosy, old-world air, perhaps. Not that it took much to set her off at the moment. Since receiving notice of her dismissal, her thoughts had been turning to the past with unusual frequency. Her budding relationship with Pétur had stirred things up, too, making her uneasily aware of all that she hadn’t yet told him.
She rang the doorbell and waited.
Though the man who answered the door was a much shorter, stockier figure than Albert, the family resemblance was unmistakeable. He appeared to be considerably older than his brother, maybe as much as a decade, Hulda guessed, and much thicker about the waist.
‘You must be Hulda,’ the brother said, smiling; his voice with its smooth radio announcer’s tones also giving away his relationship to Albert.
‘That’s right.’
‘Come in.’ He led her into a sitting room crowded with mismatched furniture, most of it deeply unfashionable to Hulda’s admittedly limited eye for such things. Taking pride of place was a boxy old television set with a large, extremely comfortable-looking recliner planted in front of it.
‘I’m Baldur Albertsson, Albert’s brother.’
Albert and Baldur: their parents obviously hadn’t leafed very far through the book of baby names before plumping for those two, Hulda thought. Next moment, she was struck by a fact she should have noticed straight away: Albert’s brother was a perfect match for the description Dóra had given of the man in the four-by-four – short and fat. She caught her breath, at the same time telling herself to get a grip. What was the likelihood that the lawyer’s brother could be the man she was after? Admittedly, he had a connection to the case, but only an indirect one. And, anyway, Dóra’s vague description could refer to any number of people. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to use this opportunity to ask the man a few questions. She toyed with the idea of asking him straight out if he had ever picked Elena up from the hostel, but something told her this would be jumping the gun. Better to let Dóra identify him first, then put him on the spot.
Recalling how jumpy she had felt in áki’s house, Hulda reflected on the contrast now. In spite of her awakening suspicions, Baldur Albertsson continued to come across as an affable, unthreatening presence.
‘I gather Albert’s not in,’ she said, in an attempt at small talk.
‘No, he’s at a meeting. Always on the go.’