Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

The other driller, Bjarki, seemed to have been something of a hypochondriac, since most of the web pages he had bookmarked were related to diseases. Thóra had asked Eyjólfur whether Bjarki had been ill at all, but Eyjólfur had shaken his head and said it had never come up in conversation. Bjarki had always appeared to be in good shape. Maybe he was obsessed with his health, thought Thóra, but maybe he also just had dandruff or something and wanted to get rid of it. She could not get onto any of his bookmarked pages to find out what had been troubling him.

The data thus came from all directions and there was no one particular thing that appeared potentially useful for extricating the bank from its predicament. On the contrary, Thóra was making no progress: there was no evidence that any kind of criminal activity had stopped work here, and it looked unlikely that they would be able to explain the disappearance of either the drillers or the geologist. Gísli’s journal entries had been non-committal regarding whether he personally suspected vandalism, though at one point he expressed doubt that the residents of Kaanneq would have had anything to do with any potential sabotage, and elsewhere he wondered whether it might have been the work of protestors. Thóra realized that that would certainly strengthen the bank’s position. But in any case, what was lacking was a definite conclusion; speculation was of little use.

All she had to show for the day’s labours were the bones in the desk drawers and the photograph of the frozen hand. Thóra drifted off to sleep wondering how long a corpse could stay suspended in ice.

Around midnight she woke to the creaking of the floor slats out in the corridor. Someone seemed to be trying to walk down it as carefully as possible. Thóra shuddered. Instead of checking who it was, she turned on her side and in a short time fell back asleep. In the morning she was unsure of whether it had actually happened or whether it had been part of the dream she’d been having: a dream about the people who settled this country a long time ago in the hope of a better life, but who had reaped only hunger, hardship and a sad death.

Thóra did not get out of bed until Matthew was gone. She wanted to lie in a little longer, and didn’t want to give him the chance to peek into her suitcase when she looked in it for clean clothes. She had been shocked the night before when she finally saw what was in it. On top were high-heeled shoes and other equally inspired choices: capri pants that she’d probably thrown in because they looked good on her, skirts, dresses and a glittery pashmina shawl her parents had given her after one of their numerous trips to the Canary Islands. She had never worn the pashmina and never would, least of all here. After a long search she finally managed to find her jeans and a thick jumper that she could wear without embarrassment. Under the jumper she wore a silk blouse. The weather appeared to have calmed down, so luckily they weren’t in too much danger. Even if a wild storm hit they would still be inside, and then Thóra could saunter over to the cafeteria in her high heels and glittery shawl.

She brushed her teeth with the water they’d boiled in one of the sinks in the shared bathroom. She stared at the showerhead hanging there provocatively, the steel bone-dry and shiny. She was met in the mirror by an ugly sight: her hair was greasy at the roots and she had black mascara circles under her eyes. She covertly used a few splashes of the boiled water to wash her face and, after smearing on cream that supposedly guaranteed eternal youth and applying mascara, she finally looked presentable. As she stepped into the corridor she met Eyjólfur, who had a toothbrush in his hand. He looked almost as bad as she had just now. Nevertheless he smiled and stopped her as they crossed paths. ‘I forgot to mention one thing yesterday,’ he said. ‘I actually noticed that Bjarki’s jacket and boots are in the vestibule of the office building. That seems ominous, unless he’s wearing someone else’s jacket.’

Thóra tried to recall which garments had been hanging in the vestibule. She remembered two identical down jackets hanging on a hook and several dirty work coveralls. The floor was covered with shoes, mainly insulated work boots with steel toes. ‘Are the clothes labelled?’ she asked. ‘I mean, how do you know his clothes from the others’?’

‘Yes, they’re labelled,’ said Eyjólfur, smoothing down his hair in a fruitless attempt to make it look better. ‘Berg provided us all with outerwear and protective clothing. Of course I didn’t need a coverall, but the jacket and cold-weather boots have come in handy. Since we all had exactly the same kind of outerwear we had to label every garment, and one of the jackets hanging on the coat rack is marked “Bjarki”. His boots are there too.’

Thóra nodded thoughtfully. ‘And it’s not possible that he took someone else’s jacket by mistake?’

‘No, definitely not. The ones who went on leave took their jackets with them so they wouldn’t freeze to death on the way back, and the only extra jacket in camp is still hanging on the coat rack. It was left behind when an employee resigned shortly after the work started.’ He saw from Thóra’s expression that she wanted to know more about this person and hurriedly added: ‘He was an old man who’d simply had enough of the weather. No great mystery there. In fact, it’s incredible how low the staff turnover has been here. It’s my understanding that people rarely last long in this kind of workplace.’ He smiled at Thóra again. ‘Despite what Friðrikka said, Berg Technology is an exceptionally fair employer and that’s why its employees are so loyal. It would have been impossible for the owner to rush out here to take part in the search for a lost person, so it’s no reflection on him or how he treats his staff.’

‘Still, they all quit.’ Thóra was watching him carefully. ‘Except for you, no?’

Eyjólfur’s smile evaporated. ‘I’m sure they regret it,’ he said. ‘Of course, I don’t work directly for the company; I was just hired through an employment agency. My employer is the company responsible for Berg’s computers.’

‘Did you notice the jacket or boots of the other driller, Halldór?’ asked Thóra, keen to get off to breakfast.

‘No. They weren’t in the office, and I didn’t find them in the vestibule.’ Eyjólfur bit his lip. ‘Hopefully it means Dóri made it out of here alive, but I didn’t check his apartment, so we’ll probably find them there.’

‘Hopefully he’s wearing them.’ It didn’t take a genius to conclude that without protective clothing the man had little hope. Eyjólfur didn’t respond, but his expression brightened abruptly. ‘Had you heard about the tracks?’

‘Tracks?’ Thóra was speechless.

‘Yes, I met Alvar here earlier and this morning he found tracks leading from here out to Oddný Hildur’s building. Someone dug the snow from around the walls of her building and it looks like they removed something from beneath the house.’

‘Like what?’

‘No idea. It happened in the night or early this morning, since Alvar was apparently the first one up and the first to go out and see them.’

Thóra recalled the noise in the corridor the night before. ‘Could he tell from the tracks what shoes were worn? We’re all wearing different types of footwear, so it might be possible to compare the tracks with the soles of our shoes.’

‘It’s my understanding that the wind has blown so much snow into them that that would be impossible. All you can see is that someone went over there and did something around the crawlspace under the hut. Who it was, or why, nobody knows.’