The Fox Read online

  Thormóður let go of her as if his hand as if he had been scorched. He stared at her swollen face.

  ‘So the Hidden Lady cut your face,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘Is that the one who lives in the rocks up there, or one of these wretched Bröttuskriður ghosts?’

  ‘The Hidden Lady,’ Sajee repeated.

  ‘Is that so?’Thormóður said. ‘And what do you two have to say for yourselves?’ he snapped furiously at Selma and Ísak. ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  ‘Don’t be so foolish. I told you what happened,’ Selma told him, arranging doughnuts on a tray in a precise pattern. ‘The silly girl tumbled down the stairs. You know yourself how steep they are and the steps are so worn that they slope in all directions. You really need to get them fixed up,’ she said, running fingers through her grey hair, closing the tin of doughnuts and placing it in a cupboard. ‘I can tell you, Thormóður, that I had to clean up the blood myself and you know what an invalid I am.’ She took a damp cloth and wiped down the yellowed cupboard doors. ‘But I did it anyway.’

  ‘Is that so, Selma? That’s a burden for you, considering I brought her here to ease the load for you and give you a little company,’ Thormóður sneered, staring first at Selma and then at the clumsy stitches in Sajee’s face.

  ‘You mustn’t think I’m not grateful,’ Selma whined, like a cat looking for attention.

  ‘Haven’t I done enough for you? Well? Do you want to wreck everything?’

  Thormóður glared at Selma in despair and resignation.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Ísak said, awkwardly patting Sajee’s shoulder. She was huddled against the wall, her eyes closed and appeared to not be taking any notice of what was going on around her. The minutes ticked past.

  ‘Don’t you want coffee, boys?’ Selma said, breaking the silence, and went into the pantry. They watched her leave the room.

  ‘A word,’ Thormóður said. Sajee heard the kitchen stools scrape across the floor and when she opened her eyes, she was alone in the kitchen. They had gone out into the corridor.

  ‘You’ll have to stop the old woman,’ she heard Thormóður say.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on mother,’ Ísak said meekly.

  ‘You can’t keep her in order! Do you think I can’t see what’s going on?’ Thormóður grated. ‘The old bitch is mistreating the girl. What the hell do we do now?’

  ‘What are you trying to say? She’d never… I know she gets confused but … she…’ Ísak hesitated. There was no conviction in his protests. ‘Mother was upset when she found her down in the basement with the bone in her hands.’

  ‘Fuck! The old woman’s completely mad.’

  Thormóður’s voice was as sharp as a scalpel.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Ísak repeated. ‘I can look after my own people.’

  ‘You’re sure about that? There’s no knowing what she’ll get up to next. She’s getting worse by the day, going on about ghosts, elves and all sorts,’ Thormóður said in a voice as hard as steel. ‘That’s not to mention the obsession the pair of you have with that car and all the rest of it! I’ve heard her going on about fixing the girl’s face, and I’ve heard her say that she’ll make sure Sajee never leaves this place.’

  ‘You’ll never understand what Mother has been through,’ Ísak hissed. ‘And you were the one who brought the girl here. You and your brilliant ideas.’

  ‘Hold on. Let’s take it easy for a moment,’ Thormóður said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. ‘All this chaos jeopardises the work we’ve been doing, and we can’t let anything wreck that. All the same, good of you to stick up for the old lady.’

  ‘It’s for her and for Bröttuskriður that I’m in this business with you,’ Ísak said, the bitterness spilling over into his voice. ‘I’m not so thick-headed that I can’t tell you’re using us. You leave a trail of misery behind you. Poor Kristín spent pretty much two years in a mental ward and I’ll tell you right now that mother’s never going there. Leaving this place would be the death of her.’

  ‘Ísak, Kristín Kjarr was just a drama queen who wanted nothing more than to be all over the newspapers,’ Thormóður said with all the authority of the one with the upper hand. ‘She had more problems than you could possibly imagine.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Hey, calm down, will you? There’s no need to make even more of a drama out of this. To my mind the two of you are soul mates. Ísak, think of everything we’ve been through together,’ he said, his tone softer but firm. ‘So I reckon you’d better keep any knives away from the old woman while the girl gets better. After that I’ll find her work somewhere else. End of story.’

  ‘Where?’

  There was a note of concern in Ísak’s voice.

  ‘She can be put to work somewhere, but your mother’s efforts at plastic surgery haven’t exactly helped there. Who’s going to pay for a girl who looks like that?’ Thormóður asked. ‘But you don’t need to worry. I’ll sort this out, like everything else.’

  The mixer could be heard whirring in the kitchen. Selma stood in a cloud of flour, smiling at the young woman who tried to fight her way through the drugged haze as she tried to make sense of what she had heard. A nightmare vision of the grey Hidden Lady appeared before her eyes. Her worst fears were becoming a reality.

  Sajee’s hopes had all but faded when finally a thick envelope arrived, one that required a signature. An Icelandic family Hirumi knew were prepared to take her in as an au pair. The letter contained money and precise instructions of what she needed to do, and a month later she left. The last few days had been difficult, but the journey to the airport was hardest of all. She sat rigidly in the bus. Her feelings almost overcame her as she left her own country behind, unsure if she would ever see it again. At the airport she needed all her energy to follow the instructions and go to the right place. She had never been on an aircraft before and now there were to be more than ten hours in the air to London. While she trembled with fright during takeoff, she managed to stay awake until a meal was put before her. Overcome by exhaustion and weeks of tension, she slept until a steward gently prodded her awake to offer her breakfast.

  At the airport in London there were armed men everywhere, so she tried to be unobtrusive. People hurried past, some of them jostling her on their way. When a young woman with a child in her arms stopped, Sajee plucked up courage to speak to her and was relieved when she answered in the same language.

  ‘Can you tell me why there are so many soldiers here?’ Sajee asked.

  ‘Because of the terrorists,’ the woman replied. ‘There was a bomb in one of the underground trains. Many people died and many more were hurt.’

  ‘Is there a war here?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know much about Europe.’

  ‘Yes, the war on terror,’ the woman answered. ‘Be careful what you say and don’t leave anything lying around or you could find yourself in trouble.’

  The woman’s words frightened her so much that she was consumed with nerves during the flight to Iceland. She was no less apprehensive about what might be waiting for her in this new world ahead of her, but as she took her first steps she immediately felt a very different atmosphere to the tension of the airport in London. Hirumi was waiting for her and she had changed. She was plump, her hair brushing her shoulders, dressed in trousers and a fleece. Crying and laughing, they fell into each other’s arms. Sajee asked after her husband, but Hirumi told her to forget him – he was history.

  24

  ‘No,’ Sajee said thickly, her eyesight flickering as she looked at the soup dish in front of her.

  ‘You’re so difficult to please. Then go up to bed,’ Selma said, putting her spoon down. ‘I’ll bring you a vitamin drink.’

  The two men hardly looked up as she stumbled from the room.

  In her room she found her bottle of oil and rubbed some on her injuries to soften them. She took a gulp of it and retched. But she was determined that this would be the only nourishment that w
ould pass her swollen lips. She lay on the bed.

  The wind battered the roof and whined, and the electricity cables flapped against the wall outside. She listened for a sound, and by now she had become adept at working out what noises were due to the weather and which originated with the four walls of the building. She heard footsteps in the hallway, the sound of the toilet flushing and Ísak calling for his woollen socks to be fetched. Finally she heard the outside door slam and peered out of the window. Flakes of snow stuck to the top of the pane before sliding down to form a layer on the window sill. There was mist on the glass, but she clearly saw three people as they trudged along the track that lay down to the barn.

  Ísak went first, holding his mother’s hand as she followed close behind him. Thormóður followed and Sajee quickly drew back from the window as he suddenly glanced behind him and up. She felt faint, but she was fairly sure he hadn’t seen her. A moment later she saw the lights come on in the barn. She waited a few minutes before making her way down the stairs.

  There was no phone at Bröttuskriður, only the mobile phone that Ísak used, and that was what she was looking for. Or Thormóður could have left his phone behind as they three of them went down to the barn. She knew how to call the emergency number, and that was her plan, to call for help even though it was difficult for her to speak. She hoped that whoever took the call would be able to trace it, even though she had only one vital word ready to use. She would have to put her faith in that. This was her only hope.

  There was no sign of Ísak’s phone in the kitchen, and Thormóður had obviously also taken his with him. She searched high and low without success and her desperation grew with every passing minute. There was no phone to be found in the house. Looking around in despair, she noticed Thormóður’s car keys lying on the chest of drawers in the hall. For a moment it occurred to her to sneak out unseen. She could hide in the back of Thormóður’s car, aware that people left them unlocked. The she realised that Thormóður might well stay long enough for her disappearance to be discovered.

  She decided to prepare to flee. On the way upstairs she picked up gloves and a hat, but didn’t dare move her coat and boots, knowing that Selma noticed everything and would see straight away that her things were missing from their usual hook.

  She suddenly felt an aching pain in her belly and hurried back down the stairs, where she retched, bent over the toilet. Although the bile burned her throat, it was nothing compared to the agony of opening her mouth. She struggled to her feet and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her face was covered in scratches. Two deep cuts running from upper lip to nose had been amateurishly patched together with a few stitches. Her face was swollen and she could see as she leaned close to the mirror that the cuts were infected. She rooted through the bathroom cupboard and found surgical spirit in a plastic bottle and some cotton wool. She splashed spirit onto a ball of it, and cleaned her injuries with hands that trembled. The pain ate deep into every nerve. She held tight to the sink with both hands while the shock rippled like fire through her face. When the worst had passed she cleaned the cuts again with greater care. She felt dizzy, but fought it off. On the way up to her room she took a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer.

  She collected everything she dared take and put it all in a bag. Warm clothes were vital. Anything else missing would trigger suspicion and the room had to look as it usually did. She still had the torch Selma had lent her and that went into the bag. She paused by the shelf in the corner where Buddha sat. After a moment’s thought she squatted on her haunches and poured a little oil into the saucer on the lowest shelf. Before lighting an incense stick and praying, she held her mother’s ring tight in her hand to bring herself strength. As she rose to her feet again, her composure had returned, along with a certainty that she would escape this terrible place.

  She had escaped before. When every door had slammed shut in her face back home in Sri Lanka, new hope had appeared and she had overcome all the obstacles. Sajee twisted the fine gold ring around her finger. She'd do this again.

  The door banging and voices downstairs told her that they had returned. Selma was clearly cheerful as she laughed long and loud. She seemed happier than Sajee had ever imagined she could be. They appeared to be celebrating the repairs to the burgundy-red Ford being finished, and their conversation revolved around the car.

  Her intentions changed with the weather and the goings-on in the house. At one point she was determined to go outside and hide in Thormóður’s car, and a minute later she changed her mind, deciding to wait a little longer. She heard the blows of a hammer, and laughter. Then there was the smell of meat cooking and she heard Ísak say he’d go down to the basement to fetch a bottle and a decent smoke. As the evening passed, she realised that Thormóður was going nowhere. The company downstairs seemed to be enjoying themselves, or else the reason for his extended stay was that the weather worsened with every passing hour. The wind’s strength grew and out of the window she could see a furious sea battering the rocks.

  She pulled a nightdress over her head and hurried to get in to bed as she heard the howl of the juicer, a bulky machine that Thormóður had heaved on to the table a few days ago. Then she heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. She had kept a warm shirt and tights on under the nightdress. If Selma were to say anything, she would explain that she had felt a chill. The old woman would surely believe that.

  The door opened and Thormóður came in, a glass in one hand and a straw in the other. There was something green in the glass and Sajee was sure that something to knock her out had been mixed in with it.

  ‘I’ve brought you a spinach smoothie to keep your strength up, made with celery and all sorts of good stuff. Thought I’d bring it up myself so we don’t have to worry about any hidden ladies, especially when they’ve had a glass or two!’ He laughed at his own joke and bumped against the door frame. ‘Whoops! This place really is a dump…’

  Sajee shifted a little and mumbled as if she had been asleep. She sensed that he hesitated before taking a seat on the bed.

  ‘Or are you out for the count?’ he asked without expecting a reply. ‘Drink this anyway.’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. She moaned in pain and turned over. She could smell the strong reek of alcohol and something else.

  ‘Can you help me sit up?’ she mumbled, pretending to struggle to open her eyes. He placed a hand under one arm to lift her up and she took care to let her hair fall clear of her face so he could see how she had been treated. As she felt the hand of the man she had thought of as her saviour, she knew that now she was back where she had been and she promised herself that in future she would never again use her hair to hide her face. If she were to survive, she would no longer hesitate to look the world in the eye exactly as she was. After this, no person or thing would be able to harm her.

  ‘Fucking hell, the state of you,’ he grunted, handing her the glass. ‘Here. Drink this. It’ll do you good.’

  ‘You are a good man,’ she tried to say, appealing to his conscience. This time he seemed to understand her and grinned.

  ‘I sure am. You’ve no idea how good I am. I’ve helped heaps of people, helped them on their way out of this miserable life. There you go, drink up.’

  Sajee swallowed a little and pretended to take another sip. He failed to notice as she spat it back into the glass. He had never been in this room before and was too occupied with looking around him to notice the liquid going back down the striped straw.

  ‘Fairy lights and all sorts,’ he said, smirking as he inspected the shrine in the corner. ‘You people are so weird… Now, finish that drink and you’ll feel better. Your face’ll be better than it ever was after all this vegetable shit mixes up and you’ll sleep like a baby.’

  He put glass down on the table, got to his feet and looked ready to be on his way, bored with her company already.

  ‘You understand what I’m saying? Well?’

  She pretended to be too drowsy to keep he
r eyes open, muttering agreement. Her heart beat fast and she could hardly draw a breath until the door had closed behind him. She felt her inner strength grow now that she had managed to deceive him, and she would have to take the next step before it was too late. For long minutes she lay as still as stone in bed, listening to the loud argument that broke out in the kitchen over a TV programme, until peace returned, punctuated by gurgles of laughter. Sajee slipped from the bed. The pain in her stomach had abated, her mind was fairly clear and now she would have to work fast. She poured what was left of the green drink into a bag and put it in the cupboard. She rolled up the bed cover and pushed it under the duvet, shaping it to resemble a sleeping body. The nightdress went into the same place, with a little cloth showing here and there from under the bedclothes.

  She looked up as a shower of hail battered the roof and felt that it was giving her strength as the unpredictable weather was working with her. Without any hesitation she cut a couple of long locks of her own hair. The scissors were blunt and she had to saw at her hair until she had enough of a handful. She arrayed the hair on the pillow, making it look as if she had pulled the duvet up over her head. A few stray hairs fell to the floor and she picked them up before she pulled on her outdoor clothes, picked up the bag from under the bed and made her way unsteadily down the stairs. The key to the car was still in the bowl on the chest of drawers. She held it tight in her grasp and opened the door that would lead to freedom, out into the darkness and the howling wind. The hail greeted her, battering her already damaged face, but she didn’t care.

  The 4x4 stood behind the barn and she walked the track towards it with confidence in her slippery-soled boots. The dim light high on the wall of the barn showed her the way to the car. She gripped the handle and squeezed the key as she put it where she thought it should go, but nothing happened. She felt along the curved metal in the gloom, but found nothing that looked like a lock. The key was a strange shape, she had noticed that earlier in the day.