‘At what time, do you suppose?’asked Stefán.
‘Around seven, a little earlier. I don’t know,’ replied Markus, then added in irritation:‘Can’t you see it on my credit card account? I pay for almost everything by card.’
Stefán did not reply, but Thóra knew that the use of a card in a self-service petrol station didn’t amount to an alibi. ‘Sorry,’ she interjected. ‘Couldn’t you show that Markus was present at the scene rather than make him struggle to remember an evening from eleven days ago? I’m sure he would have paid better attention if he’d known what that evening had in store.’ Now it was Thóra’s turn to give Stefán a sarcastic smile. It felt good, but not for long.
‘That’s precisely what we think we can do,’ said Stefán. ‘Prove that Markus was at the scene on the evening in question.’ He looked from Thóra to Markus.
‘What?’ gasped Markus, completely deflated. ‘That isn’t possible,’ he said simply. He seemed too astonished to be angry. ‘That just isn’t possible,’ he repeated.
‘And yet it is,’ said Stefán. Thóra hoped he was referring to the bottles of tablets in Alda’s home, or something else Markus had already explained. She was out of luck. ‘We have a witness who claims to have seen you there around the time that Alda was murdered, as well as biological evidence on her body. Comparison of this evidence and your DNA, which you gave willingly in connection with the corpses in the basement, provesit unequivocally.’
Markus was clearly not going to be heading home after this interview.
Tinna lay in bed, her eyes wide open. She was tired, but she knew that you burned fewer calories in your sleep than you did while awake, so it was out of the question to take an afternoon nap. Through the closed door she could hear her mother tidying up in the front room. Things were unbearable since she’d left her job to look after Tinna, because it made everything so difficult. When her mother had been gone the whole day it was easy to say that she’d eaten food that she’d actually thrown away. That wasn’t possible now, because her mother watched her so carefully. On a normal day, Tinna would have been out there drying the dishes or helping tidy up, but she didn’t feel like it. She was angry at her mother, and it would be boring. Her mother had found her at the computer earlier, reading one recipe after another in utter fascination. Mum had lost it, saying Tinna would be better off eating some food than staring at it on the screen. The exchange ended with her mother starting to cry, and Tinna had disappeared into her room. Her mum would never understand how she felt, and it was useless trying to explain. Tinna longed for the food on the screen, craved it even. However, she never gave in to the temptation of making or buying any of it, since she felt better denying herself than succumbing.
The vacuum cleaner started again outside, and Tinna put her hands over her ears to block out the noise. It was an old hoover that a friend of her mother’s had given her when the last one broke. Tinna tried to guess how long it would take for her mother to finish and leave. She always did the floors of the little apartment last, so she must be nearly finished. Then she would go to the shops, but before their falling-out she had asked Tinna to come with her. Tinna certainly wouldn’t be going now, and the thought actually made her extremely happy. Instead she could use the opportunity to have a long shower, and then wipe away the water in the bath-tub to cover her tracks. Her mother must never know that she had taken another shower, or she might call the hospital again and have Tinna readmitted. She knew now that Tinna took showers to wash off the calories and that the more often she washed, the more calories she got rid of. She felt the longing to start scrubbing herself grow stronger, especially since the disgusting drink that the doctor had given her was still in her stomach. What she wanted most was to puke it up, but she knew she wouldn’t get away with it. No, it was better to send this nasty nourishment down the plughole.
She knew it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d avoided showers like the plague in case the water allowed calories to pass through her skin. She pushed away this thought, since she found it uncomfortable to compare the two theories. Which was right? Was it a mistake to wash too often? She pressed her eyes closed again and lay with her hands over her ears. By neither seeing nor hearing she could clear her mind. Despite the noise of the hoover she managed to make herself feel as if she weren’t there. She would just lie here and lose weight. Maybe then she could finally become what she wanted to be: slim. Nobody else understood her, not her mother or the doctors. Her father was the best of them, because even though he often said she was too thin, he didn’t seem interested enough in her to force her to eat. So with him, she was able to choose for herself how much she ate. She’d often been able to stay with him a whole weekend without actually eating anything. He just didn’t notice. Her mother, on the other hand, was more observant, and it was after one such weekend that she got some sort of court order to prevent Tinna from staying with her father. Now she could never be with him for more than four hours at a time.
Images kept springing into her head. The lady visiting her father. The lady’shouse. The visitor who had sneaked out. The note. The lady carried out to the ambulance beneath a white sheet. The lady who could have helped her so much. The lady God had sent from Heaven to make Tinna slim. The lady who made others beautiful, and would have loved Tinna however she looked. The lady who would have understood her. Tinna tried to avoid thinking about it. She had to shut out everything. One, two, three…she focused on meaningless numbers and didn’t know whether she was saying them out loud or silently. She had counted up to thirty-four when someone grabbed her shoulder and shook her. She opened her eyes but kept her hands over her ears.
‘Come on, Tinna,’ she heard her mother say, and Tinna relaxed the pressure on her ears. ‘You’re coming with me to the hospital.’
Tinna shook her head and closed her eyes again. She felt her mother pull her clawed fingers away from her ears, forcing her to listen. Her mother was much stronger than she was, so resistance was futile. After Tinna became as slim as she planned to be, she would also be incredibly strong, and then no one would be able to force her to listen when she yearned for silence. ‘No,’ said Tinna quietly, but realized as soon as the word fell from her lips that she’d shouted it.
‘Yes,’ said her mother, her eyes sad. ‘You can come with me or I’ll be forced to call an ambulance. It’s up to you.’ She let go of Tinna’s hand and looked at her. Suddenly she ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair and several tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Get up, darling,’ she said, without doing so herself. ‘You’ve got to come with me.’
Tinna wondered whether she could say anything to change her mother’s mind, but realized almost immediately that it was no use. This was not the first time this had happened. Maybe her mother would let her stay at home if she told her what had happened between her father and the lady. Especially if she told her the lady was dead, and that her father might have played a part in it. Maybe he knew the visitor who had slunk out of the lady’shouse. It might be possible to use the note to find out. It had been blown out of the car. Tinna’s mother couldn’t stand her father and would definitely want to hear the story, but Tinna decided to say nothing. Even though her father didn’t pay much attention to her, he was generally good to her and had promised to buy her some clothes. He was expecting to come into a great deal of money, and then they could go shopping in town. If Tinna told anyone what she knew, he wouldn’t get any money and she’d get no new clothes. Her mother would never keep the secret, and it was no fun having a secret everyone knew. No, it would be better to get up and go to the car. She could act as if everything was fine and hopefully the doctor would just scold her mother for wasting his time. Tinna knew exactly what she was doing. If not, then she could point out again that it was her body and that it only belonged to her. Not to her mother and not to this doctor who peered so closely at her. She straightened up and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Her mother started crying even harder.