Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

‘If they want to talk to us,’ said Thóra. ‘It’s entirely up to them.’ She pulled herself together and pushed aside her pessimism. ‘That would be interesting, actually. I found various things in Oddný Hildur’s e-mail to confirm the harassment that Friðrikka mentioned. Maybe it played some part in this.’

‘How?’ asked Matthew. ‘Did Oddný Hildur suffer because of it? Or the drillers?’ His expression was one giant question mark. ‘Do you think that all these people committed suicide?’ Before Thóra could reply he interrupted himself: ‘I wonder if that would be sufficient grounds to absolve Berg of responsibility for what’s happened with the project?’

‘No, probably not. It’s up to the contractor to ensure that the atmosphere at the workplace is not harmful to the workers, either mentally or physically. No, I didn’t mean that. These three don’t appear to have been affected by the bullying. Oddný Hildur was concerned about one of the engineers and didn’t mention the drillers in this context, though I think they were more perpetrators than victims.’

‘What do you base that on?’

‘Nothing special. I scrutinized their computers and got the feeling that they were funny guys, the class clowns. I’m not saying they were the main perpetrators, but I can well imagine that they didn’t hold back, although they might not have realized it was harassment.’ Thóra rubbed her face. ‘Actually, I don’t know what I’m talking about. This probably had nothing to do with harassment. I’m just trying to fit what I came across with what we’re investigating. This was probably an incredibly normal workplace, at least given the circumstances. It makes more sense to focus on the natives’ stories about this place. At least they might shed some light on the question of the insurance, although they hardly explain everything.’

‘We’ll try to find the hunter,’ said Matthew. ‘Hopefully the snowmobile can be repaired. If not, then maybe that woman can find someone to take us by dogsled.’

‘Or maybe we’ll just wake up with wings and fly there.’ Thóra went to the window and drew the curtain. She didn’t know why she chose to do so – there was nothing but darkness outside. ‘How’s it been going otherwise?’

Matthew and the doctor had gone through the apartments of all the full-time employees one by one, in the hope of spotting something that hadn’t come to light before. They had originally investigated with torches, before the electricity was restored. ‘We found two strange things,’ replied Matthew. ‘I’ll show them to you on the way over to the cafeteria if you can bear to wait a few minutes before tasting Bella’s delicacies.’

They put on their jackets and boots and went out into the darkness outside. The cold was refreshing and the air so still that their frozen breath did not rise into the air, but rather hung there before their faces for a moment before evaporating. The sky was bright with stars, so much more numerous and so much brighter than those Thóra was used to that it seemed like Greenland was closer to outer space than to any other earthly country. The Milky Way itself could be seen clearly as it lay in a dense, broad streak across the heavens. Thóra held on to Matthew and let him lead her so that she could stare into the sky. She hoped that if there were life on other planets, it was gentler than what Mother Nature had created on Earth. And not as cold.

‘Careful, there’s a platform ahead.’ Matthew slowed his pace and Thóra looked down. They had arrived at one of the green units containing the workers’ apartments. They were built in a straight line, in two sets of four. In front of each was a platform, and they stepped onto the one before them and stood there as Matthew took out a key and stuck it in the lock. He jiggled it for a moment, then opened the door. ‘This is the apartment of one of the drillers, Halldór Grétarsson,’ Matthew said. ‘Be careful not to touch anything.’

They walked into the tiny vestibule, where they found a small coat rack upon which hung a yellow work coverall with wide reflective stripes and a fleece jacket, side by side. There wasn’t a single down jacket to be seen. On the frame above it lay a helmet that was both scratched and dirty. Next to the vestibule was a small bathroom with a shower. A shelf above the sink held a little electric razor, inexpensive-looking aftershave lotion, a toothbrush, hairbrush, deodorant and several cotton buds. Dental floss trailed from a white plastic box onto the shelf and halfway down to the sink. The apartment had a small kitchen that opened onto a rather austere sitting room with a two-seater sofa that looked extremely uncomfortable, a modern chair, a coffee table with a half-full ashtray and a shelving unit with a television and DVD player.

There were several books on the shelf above the DVD player and they appeared to Thóra to be all foreign crime novels. On one kitchen chair hung a down jacket, so the chances that the man had somehow made it out of the area looked rather slim. Off the sitting room was the bedroom, which was what Matthew had wanted to show her. Everything in there was a mess. There were towels and dirty clothes on the floor, along with a bucket that had been placed at the side of the bed. ‘Well, now,’ said Thóra. ‘Not exactly the tidiest person.’ In the poor man’s defence, he probably hadn’t expected anyone else to come into his apartment.

‘But look here,’ said Matthew, pointing at the bed. ‘It looks to me like this might be blood.’

Thóra drew nearer. Matthew was right: on the pillow she could see what were clearly bloodstains. They weren’t terribly large, but they were obviously more than dots from the man’s last shave. There were four in total they seemed to form a kind of face: two eyes, a nose and a wide smirking mouth. ‘Do you think the man was hit on the head as he slept?’ Thóra bent down to take a better look at the marks. There was something about them that bothered her. ‘Was there something similar in the other man’s room?’

‘No,’ said Matthew. ‘There were several small stains on the floor, but nothing like this. Maybe we can get the police to come now.’ He shook his head. ‘It may well be that the other driller killed the man who lived here, got rid of the body and ran off. The blood in the other apartment might have dripped off him after he did the dirty deed.’

‘You know what?’ said Thóra, standing up straight. ‘I need to show you something that’s just as frightening as this is.’ She pointed at the bloody pillow. ‘Either I’ve finally gone completely crazy or these stains are exactly the same as those on one of the beds of the first residents of the area that I saw in those old photographs. One of the original inhabitants who was supposed to have died of hunger.’

Arnar’s hands trembled. He sat on the bed and stared at the blank wall. It suited him just fine not to have anything else to look at. The uncontrollable movements of his hands bothered him only because the jerking prevented him from emptying his mind, from focusing only on the paint and the rough plaster behind it. As he concentrated on staring at the coarse surface he could push other, more difficult thoughts away. He changed from a man tormented by distress and pain into a body that only performed the most basic of functions. He stared angrily at his fingers, which had shaken more than ever in the cold in Greenland and had deprived him of the peace of mind that he’d desired so much. He had considered asking the doctor for pills that would reduce the trembling, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He doubtless needed to go through this, to meet the purifying fire completely exposed and without any assistance from the pharmaceutical industry. And there was no guarantee that he would get anything for it even if he asked.