Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - The Silence of the Sea

Instead of answering, Margeir started opening drawers at random and shutting them again immediately without even examining their contents.

Using a clean knife she found on the kitchen table, Thóra opened the envelope containing the credit card bill. The transactions covered two sides but the total was within normal limits, neither strikingly high nor low. If their debit card and cash transactions showed the same pattern of spending, the couple’s outgoings could be deemed relatively modest. She ran her eyes quickly down the payments, most of which were to supermarkets or petrol stations. There were also several to a company whose name Thóra didn’t recognise, but the amounts were small. A separate summary of overseas transactions was printed at the bottom. Thóra couldn’t identify any of the recipients so she had no idea what the payments entailed but it seemed fair to assume that they all involved food and drink. None of them was particularly high, except the payment that was processed the day they left port, which was almost certainly the hotel bill. ‘I don’t know if you’d like a look but their credit card bill is pretty modest. You’ll need to contact the bank about paying it off, as well as covering the interest on any loans they have. If you like, I can talk to them. I’m sure they’ll be amenable, despite the fact that they refused to release the bank statements. All you need to know is whether there’s enough money in their accounts to cover the payments. I can speak to the resolution committee too and find out if they’ll be paying Ægir’s salary as usual next month.’

‘Thank you, that would be helpful. I don’t really know what to do if there isn’t enough. We haven’t got any savings; they ran out a long time ago.’

‘I doubt it’ll come to that. This is an unusually complicated situation and I’m sure everyone will be willing to take that into account.’ Thóra walked over to a large white fridge covered with a motley assortment of drawings and notes, among which were two bank giros, one for a magazine subscription, the other for the dentist. ‘The girls liked drawing, didn’t they?’ She detached a picture signed by Bylgja and showed it to her grandfather. It was the typical offering of a contented child, depicting the five family members all smiling broadly and holding hands, standing on a line of green grass. ‘Do you think I could borrow this? It’s useful evidence that they were a happy family, though naturally it wouldn’t be sufficient on its own.’

‘Take it. Take anything you think will help. Of course, it would be nice to have it back afterwards but we’re not intending to sort through their things any time soon. It’s still too upsetting.’ He reached out for the picture and studied it. ‘They both loved drawing. Used to occupy themselves for hours with their crayons, ever since they were tiny. Sigga Dögg’s the same, though she’s too unsettled at the moment. The poor little thing, she can sense that something’s terribly wrong.’

‘Have the child protection authorities been in touch at all since I had a word with their lawyer?’ Thóra looked back at the picture, which Margeir had put down on the kitchen table. The figures’ black eyes were staring at the ceiling, their scarlet mouths grinning crazily. The sight was somehow disturbing and she felt an impulse to cover it up with the credit card statement. But they would continue to smile and nothing would change. She tried to rekindle the hope inside her that the girls would be found alive; perhaps they’d been taken ashore at Grótta and hidden away, or secretly conveyed abroad. The hope was faint, but it was there, nonetheless.

‘Yes, I think so.’ The old man took hold of another drawer handle and dithered, unable to remember if he was opening or closing it. ‘Sorry, my memory’s not working at the moment. They keep ringing. My wife’s on the verge of collapse and I feel as if I’m heading the same way. I keep being overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness; we’re not capable of raising her in the long term, and we should just force ourselves to accept it. The money won’t make much difference. There’ll come a point when we open the door to those people and hand her over. It’s so hard when your love for someone harms the very person it’s supposed to protect.’

Thóra laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I do think it’s true that she would be better off with a younger couple. But it’s equally clear that it would be in her best interests to have as much contact with you as possible. You’re her only link to her family and it’ll be incredibly important for her to have you there.’ She withdrew her hand and continued, ‘I’ve been promised a meeting this week with the head of the relevant social services department and I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to arrange things to be as painless as possible for you and Sigga Dögg, while being for the best in the long run. The authorities would have to be heartless to deny you access. Not only heartless: stupid.’

After that they said little. Margeir sat down at the kitchen table, excusing himself on the grounds that he needed to rest for a moment. Thóra continued to search the kitchen but without finding any paperwork relating to money matters. It was the rotten food in the larder that caught her attention; half a loaf of bread covered in green mould and two flat-cakes in the same condition. She closed the door at once but the sour smell lingered in her nostrils. ‘I wonder if it would be okay to chuck out the old bread and stuff?’ She opened the fridge. The situation there was less grim; nothing looked obviously mouldy, though the date on the milk cartons didn’t exactly whet the appetite. ‘I let the police know we’d be looking in and they didn’t object. Apparently they haven’t been round yet and it didn’t sound as if they were planning a visit any time soon. But it would be unfortunate if we threw away something that turned out to be important.’

‘Why should they want to see the house? It’s not as if there’s anything of relevance here.’ Margeir sounded as if he had rallied again; his anger at those who were trying to cast aspersions on the family blazed up, momentarily overshadowing his grief. ‘Anyway, I can’t see what difference an old loaf of bread could make.’

Thóra closed the fridge again and smiled. ‘No. It’s not immediately obvious. Unless to prove that they haven’t been here recently, or to confirm when they left the country.’ Her words sounded so lame that she wished she could add an intelligent comment, but nothing sprang to mind. ‘I’m going to take a quick look upstairs. There’s nothing here.’

Margeir nodded but made no move to stand up. ‘I’ll be here when you come down.’ Thóra suspected that if she left the house without telling him, he would remain sitting at the table for hours, alone with his thoughts and memories.

Upstairs the carpeted landing muffled her footsteps, making it seem even quieter than the floor below. She walked past four open doors, peering into the rooms as she went. There were two fairly tidy children’s rooms, one with bunk beds, presumably the twins’ room, the other full of baby things, which must belong to Sigga Dögg. It contained no bed, only an old chest of drawers and a white-painted table with two small matching chairs. She saw no reason to enter the children’s rooms as it was highly unlikely that she would find what she was looking for in there. The clothes and toys she had promised to fetch for the little girl’s grandmother would have to wait until her main search was over. It wouldn’t help to have to lug around two bursting shopping bags.

She also left out the large bathroom that had apparently been shared by the whole family. It was a mess, which seemed to furnish the most convincing proof that the family had intended to come home. Personally, if she had been planning to abscond she would have washed all the dirty laundry, not left the basket overflowing with socks, T-shirts and underwear. She would also have tidied up the shampoo bottles and thrown away the empty toothpaste tube that lay by the sink, its top on the floor. All the indications were of life being carried on as normal.