The Reckoning: Children's House Book 2 (Freyja and Huldar) by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Author:Yrsa Sigurdardottir [Sigurdardottir, Yrsa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2018-05-02T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The ticking of the clock on Sólveig’s wall was driving Freyja mad. She had a blinding headache after all the wine yesterday evening and was having to concentrate hard on every word to follow the thread. She still couldn’t work out what had happened, how the evening had ended like that, why Huldar had suddenly said goodbye and walked out just when she had finally wanted him to stay. She was glad she wouldn’t have to encounter him at work after sleeping with him. But it hadn’t been her decision. What was his problem?

‘So in other words he injured his sister?’ Freyja suppressed a sudden longing to cradle her head in her hands. ‘When he was eight?’ She had been surprised when Sólveig called out to her as soon as she walked in the door. Freyja had arrived half an hour late, looking as if she’d put on her make-up in the back seat of a car driven by a learner on their first lesson. Instead of saying that she was busy and would look in later when she was feeling better, Freyja had obliged. Now she was having to pretend nothing was wrong, despite feeling as if her head had sprouted a new heart that was throbbing in time with her old one.

‘Yes. That’s how he ended up with me.’ Sólveig was looking even scruffier than usual. The T-shirt visible above the neckline of her hippyish pinafore dress was on inside out, showing the label. She must have dressed in a hurry or in the dark. But her jewellery was in place: the bangles, necklaces and heavy earrings that stretched her earlobes by several millimetres. Surely they couldn’t be comfortable. ‘I don’t remember how it happened – if I ever knew – but the girl lost two fingers. Or three. I’m not quite sure. She was in hospital for quite a while, though, and there was even a risk she could have died.’

‘And you just suddenly happened to remember all this?’

‘Well, maybe not suddenly. I had to rack my brains, but with the help of some old diaries – I always make notes of the main points that emerge from my sessions – I was able to piece it together. I couldn’t find the reports, though.’ Sólveig met Freyja’s eye, only to look away immediately. ‘You can tell that to the police. If they’d rather speak to me in person I should be able to find a space in my diary, though I’m pretty booked up.’ This was accompanied by a short sigh so exaggerated that it belonged in a radio play.

‘The police don’t make appointments. They just turn up.’ Freyja couldn’t work out why she was so annoyed with the woman. Perhaps it was the hangover. But no, it wasn’t only that; it was her suspicion that Sólveig wasn’t being entirely straight with her. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. I’m more interested in the kids. The brother injures his sister, clearly not by accident. Then what? You’re drafted in to diagnose the boy and treat him.

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