Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

‘Like who?’ Dagný’s initial doubts about Freyr’s theory seemed to be dwindling.

‘A close relative, for example. Apparently Halla’s father was also a drunk. Perhaps he had a propensity for violence too.’

Dagný nodded thoughtfully. Her hair, sticking up where she had tousled it, echoed the movement a moment later, as if it had needed an instant to collect itself. ‘That would explain a few things, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to keep that kind of thing a secret all my life.’ She rocked in her chair and crossed her legs. ‘Do you think she might have suppressed her memory of it only to have it spring up in her head later and drive her to kill herself?’

Freyr smiled. ‘It’s extremely rare for that kind of thing to occur; in fact it’s fiercely debated in the literature whether it happens at all, even though repressed memories are often discussed in the media – in connection with sex crimes against children, for example. It’s never been proven either way. I’d be really surprised if that were the case here.’

‘Have you given any more thought to how this could be connected to your son?’ Dagný looked him in the eye. She seemed slightly nervous and as a result maintained the eye contact a little too long. Freyr felt a bit like he was taking an oral exam. ‘I mean, have you come across anything that might explain Halla’s interest in him? He seemed to be on her mind as much as Bernódus.’

‘I didn’t think of anything, and I don’t believe she had anything at all to do with me, my son or my family.’ Freyr pulled the photocopied reports towards him. ‘Her relationship with Benni was only in her mind and it’s anyone’s guess why she imagined it.’

‘It’s still a bit weird. Don’t you think?’ Dagný continued to hold his gaze. ‘Your son disappears, you move here, and then an old case turns up in which a boy disappears in a similar manner.’

It would have been simplest to deny it, write it off as an incredible coincidence and then steer the conversation onto something else. But instead he decided to take the opportunity, since Dagný had brought it up, to say what was on his mind. ‘I think it’s more than strange. It’s crazy, in fact. If I weren’t so freaked out by it I might be able to gather my thoughts and work it out. It’s just so bizarre that I don’t really know where to begin.’ Freyr took a sip of his coffee, which was now lukewarm, and continued: ‘My son and Bernódus don’t seem to have anything in common except for their disappearances. There are decades between them. They don’t appear to be related; I checked on it in the Book of Icelanders just now. It’s been too long since Bernódus disappeared for the same person to have taken them away. Of course everything points to these cases being entirely unrelated, but I still can’t bring myself to accept it. Especially given that the names Benni and Bernódus both appear in the letter that Halla left behind, and in the text messages filling her phone. Those two things can’t be coincidence in my opinion, though I can’t stretch my mind enough to connect them.’

Dagný gave him a faint smile. ‘I couldn’t agree with you more. Of course I was hoping you would notice something we’d missed in the files, but I’m not really surprised you didn’t. I assure you, we’ve continued to investigate every angle concerning Halla: we’ve spoken to her widower, her children, her former colleagues, but no one knows anything and everyone is equally surprised when we bring up your son, let alone Bernódus.’ She reached for some papers that she’d brought with her to the meeting room but hadn’t touched since putting them down. ‘Both her husband and her daughter say that she had little or no communication with her friends in recent years, so there’s not much to be had from them. But she had been trying to rekindle childhood friendships. Some from that group had moved away, so she spent a lot of time on the phone and her husband complained bitterly of the high phone bill. One of the women lived in Ísafjörður, but she died shortly before all this started with Halla. The widower and his daughter are fairly certain that this woman’s death was what prompted Halla to seek out her old friends – she realized that she didn’t have that long. He also said, after you spoke to him about it, that he’d thought a lot about the religious reawakening she’d experienced and thought that the woman’s death had inspired it as well. Halla had wanted to ensure a place for herself in heaven as death drew nearer.’

‘And how does this all relate to her having sought out old friends?’ Freyr hoped Dagný was just telling him details from the police investigation. The mystery was complicated enough without adding senior citizens from all over the country.

Dagný handed him two of the pages. One was a copy of the school photo that he was now all too familiar with, and the other was a list of the names that had been scribbled in. He went over it. Lárus Helgason, Védís Arngrímsdóttir, Silja Konráðsdóttir, Jón Ævarsson and Steinn Gunnbjörnsson. ‘As you can see, Halla’s old friends are the same as the ones defaced in the photo all those years ago. And as we know, most of them are now dead. After Halla started tracking them down they all passed away, one after another.’

Freyr pushed the list back over to Dagný. The photo remained there in front of him, Bernódus’s pitiful face looking out at him. ‘Did you speak to this Lárus, the one who’s still alive?’

‘Yes and no.’ Dagný folded the paper. ‘He hung up on us when we told him our business, and since he lives in Reykjavík we can’t check whether he would give us a warmer welcome in person. I’d prefer not to get the police down south involved in this for the moment. I’m simply not sure how I could describe the case to them in a way that made sense.’

Freyr looked away from the photo, which was on the verge of hypnotizing him. ‘How did the others die? It’s not entirely unexpected when people are over seventy, but all the same, it’s a pretty high mortality rate in such a short amount of time.’

Dagný cleared her throat. ‘Well, none of them died of health issues – neither long nor short illnesses. Védís bled to death after an accident, Jón died from complications from burns, Silja died of exposure, Steinn was run over, and Halla was a clear case of suicide.’

Freyr let Dagný’s words sink in as he tried to draw conclusions about the group based on these sad statistics. He wished he had a piece of paper and a pen to make some notes. ‘Has anyone investigated these incidents? Found out whether there’s reason to assume they’re connected?’

‘No, they haven’t. You need a special warrant to ask for that kind of information, and since it involves a number of different police authorities, it would take ages. These people lived all over the country. I also don’t think we can really pursue it. It would be difficult to explain why we need this information; nothing suggests that any crimes were committed and we’ve got no reason to be asking questions.’ Dagný stopped for a second and took a deep breath. ‘Plus there’s one more thing.’

This didn’t sound good, but he asked nonetheless. ‘What?’

‘The first person from the group to die, Védís…’ Dagný didn’t finish her sentence, instead handing Freyr yet another sheet of paper that appeared to be the preface to an autopsy report. ‘She lived here in Ísafjörður, so I was able to find out how she died. As you can see, she died three years ago in an accident in her garden.’ Dagný licked her dry lips. ‘She fell onto some open garden shears, with the result that the major artery in her neck was cut, along with her oesophagus. Don’t ask me how it’s possible to be so unlucky, but it’s all described in the report and no one disputed that it was an accident.’