Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - The Silence of the Sea

They both spoke at once and in his present state he couldn’t tell who said what. The words emerged in a frantic gabble, punctuated by hiccups and the occasional sob. ‘Something banged against the door. Mummy pulled a gun out of her trousers and pointed it at the door. But it was only a piece of rubbish and she smiled at us and said she was just a bit stressed. We didn’t say anything, we just stared at the gun and then she looked all strange and went to put it back in her belt when… there was a bang. Mummy’s eyes opened very wide and we could see the whites all round them. Then she coughed and grabbed her tummy and told us to wait here. After that she went outside, and there was blood.’ They pointed to the trail that led to the door from the place where the accidental shot had been fired. Ægir had smudged the drops when he walked over them; he had seen so much blood outside that he hadn’t even noticed this light spattering.

‘My darlings, Mummy has injured her tummy.’ Ægir’s mouth was dry and his head felt hot. He came close to breaking down again and stopped speaking while he summoned his few remaining mental reserves. ‘Mummy hurt herself.’ He pulled them to him so they couldn’t witness his distress. His tears trickled into hair that smelt of the strawberry shampoo they had chosen in the Lisbon supermarket. If only they could be back there; if only he could reverse the irreversible. He snorted and did his best to get his emotions under control. He didn’t know how to cry; he’d never had any reason to since he was a little boy.

‘Did the gun shoot her?’ asked Arna as the sisters’ small arms slipped round his waist and clasped him tight, as if to force the right answer out of him. But the right answer was wrong.

‘Scratched her, sweetheart. It only scratched her. Not badly, and Thráinn and Halli are making her better.’ What had Thráinn been dreaming of to give Lára the revolver? And why on earth hadn’t he intervened? He should have known it would end badly; nothing could end well in this waterborne hell.

The door opened behind him and Arna and Bylgja tightened their grip convulsively. ‘Can I talk to you a minute, Ægir? In private.’ Halli’s voice was devoid of all feeling, which only made matters worse.

‘Wait here, girls. I won’t be a moment; I’m not going far. It’s all right.’ Ægir freed himself from their arms and left them, their faces distraught. ‘Please tell me you’ve stopped the bleeding.’ He wanted to get down on his knees, as if humility could help. ‘Please.’

Halli stared down at his feet. ‘We moved her into the saloon. You’d better go there. I’ll wait with the girls.’

‘No.’ Ægir straightened his back and discovered that his fists were clenched. He wanted to batter Halli’s face until it was unrecognisable and incapable of telling him what he didn’t want to hear. ‘You’re not staying with the girls.’ His mind raced, his thoughts dashing hither and thither so he couldn’t grasp any of them. Lára, the girls. It was his job to protect them. Not Halli’s. ‘I’m not taking my eyes off the girls. They’ll have to come with me.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ Halli continued to stare at the deck, as if fascinated with his shoes. ‘It’s really not a good idea.’

Ægir opened his mouth to speak, to shriek, but suddenly all the fight went out of him in the cold air. There was no point shouting or striking out; it would change nothing. ‘If anything happens to them, Halli, I’ll gouge your eyes out.’ He spoke without anger; it was a simple statement of fact.

‘I’ll look after them. I’d die rather than let anything happen to them.’ Halli was worldly enough to realise that the man in front of him was teetering on the edge. Awkwardly, he patted Ægir’s shoulder, then went into the pilot house, leaving him alone.

He should have stuck his head round the door to tell the girls to wait a little while with Halli while Daddy went to speak to Mummy, but he couldn’t do it. He was incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time, and now it was Lára who lay either dead or dying on a sofa on board a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles from the medical aid that might have saved her life. A great sob burst from his throat when he entered the saloon and saw her lying there.

In his headlong rush he bashed his shin violently against the coffee table, which the men had pushed to one side, and almost went flying. The girls’ colouring books were dislodged and some of the crayons rolled onto the floor but the captain managed to grab his arm in time to stop him falling. ‘Thanks.’ The courtesy was so incongruous in the circumstances that Ægir almost laughed. His mother’s childhood training was so ingrained that even the greatest calamity could not shake it.

‘She’s asleep.’ Still holding Ægir’s arm, Thráinn forced him to meet his eye. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. The bleeding’s slowed down; I bound the wound as tightly as I could but it may have nothing to do with the bandages: there may simply be very little blood left.’ He forced Ægir’s face back to his when he tried to look away. ‘I’m no doctor but I do know that it doesn’t look good. Sit with her and speak to her if she comes round. Tell her what she wants to hear, and remember that this may be your last chance to talk to her.’ Thráinn released his head, allowing Ægir to turn to Lára. ‘Let’s hope not – but it’s best to be prepared. I’ll wait outside.’

Ægir couldn’t give a damn whether Thráinn stayed or went. He fell to his knees beside his wife and clutched at the brightly coloured woollen blanket that they had probably used to carry her inside. He didn’t dare take her hand at first for fear of crushing it, for fear of being overwhelmed by rage at the unfairness of it all. Lára had never hurt a fly. She deserved better than this. Letting go of the blanket, he took her white hand in his. To his relief it felt hot and damp; he had been expecting her fingers to be cold. The blanket covering her looked disturbingly like a colourful shroud, so he pulled it off, revealing bare flesh and pink dressings that had no doubt been white when Thráinn applied them. The bullet appeared to have entered her abdomen beside the left hip. Ægir didn’t know if this was a good or a bad place, or if anything in the abdominal area was bad.

He squeezed his eyes shut and the tears spurted out. At first he stroked her hand blindly, then he forced himself to look at her again, concentrating on trying to speak, on groping for words that he would be reconciled to afterwards. He kissed her on the brow and temple and brushed the limp hair from her sweaty forehead. The fine lines that had distressed her so much seemed to have vanished, leaving her forehead unnaturally smooth. His mind blank of all else, he whispered this in her ear.

She opened her eyes, emitting a low croak that might have been a word, though he couldn’t make it out. Everything he had wanted to say came rushing to his lips and he poured out the words in case she could still hear him, though her spirit had departed. But she only stared at him with glassy eyes that would not close, giving no sign that she accepted his plea for forgiveness.

‘The blood turned out to belong to Lára.’ The detective shot a glance at his colleague who thumbed through the sheaf of papers he was carrying, then handed a page to his superior. This time there was no hint of cigarette smoke or chewing gum. Thóra hoped this wouldn’t affect his mood, but the alacrity with which his much younger subordinate jumped to obey him did not bode well. ‘The test results remove practically all doubt, though there’s always a small margin for error. You can have a copy if you like. I imagine this will be helpful for your case.’