The Mist

chance you … might have misinterpreted my footprints or something?’ His gaze shifted to the window. ‘Why don’t we go out and check? Because I’m telling you the absolute truth.’
‘Of course he’s telling us the truth, Erla love,’ Einar said. But she could hear from his voice that she had sown a seed of doubt in his mind. ‘Why don’t we turn the radio on again. We don’t want to miss the Christmas greetings to friends and family.’
Erla ploughed on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s far too late to go outside now, as well you know. All the tracks will have been buried under a fresh layer of snow. But there’s only one road leading here and it goes past Anna’s house, and I know … I know…’
At that moment the electricity went.

X
Hulda stood on the street corner in the raw winter weather, listening to a girls’ choir vying with the wind to sing about Christmas, Christmas everywhere. The girls were all thickly wrapped up, as Hulda was herself, and seemed determined not to let the miserable weather spoil things. Hulda was carrying two shopping bags, containing a book and a record, both for Dimma. It was past 10 p.m. and the shops would soon be closing for the holiday.
She was alone. It wasn’t how she had envisaged the evening. The plan had been to go out for a meal, then enjoy the festive atmosphere in town with Jón and Dimma, but nothing had come of it. Dimma had flatly refused to leave the house and once again locked herself in her room. Hulda and Jón had stood outside her door for a long time, trying to talk her round, arguing with her, even shouting at her, but nothing had worked. She wouldn’t hear of going out.
‘You go, Hulda love,’ Jón had said at last. ‘Relax, have fun. I’ll stay with Dimma. Go and buy her something nice from both of us.’
Hulda had hesitated before eventually giving in to his encouragement. Jón could be very persuasive. Besides, she reasoned to herself, the main purpose of going into town was to get something for Dimma. She would just have to try to make the best of a bad situation. This phase had to pass soon. Dimma was bound to be in a better, more cheerful frame of mind tomorrow. Back to her old happy, good-natured self.
Hulda walked up Laugavegur high street as if in a daze, trying but failing to get into the Christmas spirit. The jostling crowds pushed and shoved, and the dismal weather got on her nerves. Perhaps what the three of them needed was to get away, maybe even go abroad, somewhere warm and sunny. It might be worth discussing with Jón whether they could afford a holiday in the New Year, since, as far as she could gather, his business was going well. Perhaps a new environment would have a positive effect on Dimma and drag her out of her current downward spiral. And perhaps Hulda and Jón should work a bit less and devote more time to their daughter.
Hulda knew she got too engrossed in her job. But even as she acknowledged this, her thoughts returned to the missing girl, Unnur. The case she had failed to solve – so far, at least. It was almost certainly too late to save Unnur now, if it ever had been possible. But Hulda was troubled by niggling doubts about whether she had done enough. The police inspector in Selfoss had speculated about the possibility that the girl had got into a car with the wrong man and been attacked and murdered. If he was right, it meant her killer was still at large.
Hulda breathed in the chilly winter air and, turning on her heel, set off walking rapidly back down Laugavegur.
She had to try to get through to her daughter and help her pull herself out of this rut.


XI
Anna.
Erla thought about her as she lay there in the pitch-black bedroom, worrying that her daughter might not be able to walk over tomorrow if the weather was as bad as the forecast had said. She was still wide awake but could hear Einar snoring away at her side. He was always so untroubled; so different from her.
How could he sleep while that man was under their roof?
Leó – if that was his real name – had invaded the sanctuary of their home, and at Christmas too. The power cut had let him off the hook for now. There had been no point pursuing the conversation after the house had been plunged into darkness. Leó had been badly shaken – she could hear it in his voice – whereas she and Einar had reacted with prompt and practised ease, confident about where they could lay hands on candles and restore a little light to the sitting room. The upshot was that they had all retired to bed early. Once Einar had dropped off, she had got out of bed, tiptoed across the room and locked the door. They hadn’t done that for years, but fortunately the key was left in the lock out of habit.
Although she had pulled the curtains to shut out the night, she could feel the snow building up relentlessly outside. When they first retired to bed, she had lit a candle on her bedside table and pretended to read an old Agatha Christie while Einar turned his back and went to sleep. She had read the book before and her thoughts were distracted, racing around in her head, incapable of focusing on the black letters on the white page. She had let the candle burn right down until it went out with a hiss of hot wax and darkness closed in around her. For all she knew, the power might have come back on by now, but she doubted it.
It was more likely that they would have to do without electricity for the whole of the Christmas holiday – it had happened before.