She sat at the computer and opened Facebook. There was a message from her mother and a couple of pictures of Klemmi. She 140missed him so much that her heart felt fit to burst when she saw the boy’s apple cheeks and joyful smile. She replied with a couple of lines of thanks. She knew there was no need for them, as her mother was delighted to have the lad, but somehow it assuaged her guilt at sending him away. She opened her gallery to see more pictures of Klemmi. He was changing so fast that she could practically see him grow as she looked through the last year’s worth of pictures. Her eyes locked on to a picture of Jónatan with the boys and she clicked to open it. He sat in the garden with Klemmi on his knee and Kiddi in shorts standing beside him. It was strange to see how alike the boys and their father were in this picture. There were a few comments, including one posted by Katrín Eva.

Good-looking guys, she had written, and had added a little red heart.

Underneath, Jónatan had added a comment:

The old guy is the best-looking, though, isn’t he?

Yes, Katrín Eva had replied, adding a string of hearts.

‘Look at this,’ Marita said, pointing to the screen as Kiddi appeared in the kitchen, wearing nothing but underpants.

‘I know. Fucking whore. She told everyone at school that she thought Dad was hot.’

Marita felt sick. How on earth could she be hearing this for the first time now, not least after all the long conversations she and Jónatan had had about the possible reasons behind Katrín Eva’s accusations. This shone a new light on the whole thing; on everything.

‘Hang on…’ she stammered. ‘Don’t the police know about this?’

‘Yeah,’ Kiddi said. ‘When they came from Reykjavík to talk to Dad, they talked to me as well, remember? And Dad sat in as the responsible adult. You could tell Katrín Eva had been flirting with Dad for months on end, and we told the cops that. Are you completely clueless about what’s going on around you?’

He spat out the last few words angrily, turned to open the fridge, grabbed a carton of chocolate milk and disappeared into his room. 141

Marita’s thoughts seemed to be coming out of the daze they had been in, and now she felt that she could understand Katrín Eva’s manner when she’d left the house that evening, before she had lodged her accusations against Jónatan.

Maybe she had been in tears, as the police had said, when Marita had met her in the doorway. Could Katrín Eva have tried it on with Jónatan, and then gone home angry and hurt. Had she told her mother that he had raped her as revenge for his rejection?

58

‘You’ve dropped a few!’ Stella said, looking into Gréta’s fluttering eyes.

She had already taken one tab herself, but that was clearly nothing to what Gréta must have swallowed. Gréta had already been at the dinner at the Annas’ place when Stella arrived. As usual, she had taken care to be late, so that the women had softened up and she wouldn’t have to take part in the conversation over the dinner table. But she needn’t have worried, as Gréta and another woman took turns spouting monologues that the others listened to with rapt attention. It was amazing how a tab of Molly could make even the worst kind of bullshit sound inspired.