Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

‘What does it matter?’ Igimaq spat, displaying more anger than he had intended. ‘If our people want to live their lives in the same way as those in the cities then there is no reason for them to keep living here. There’s enough work to be had in Nuuk for everyone who lives here.’

Sikki had no answer for this. ‘It will be all right. Trust me.’ ‘Like I trusted you with Usinna?’ said Igimaq softly. ‘It cost her her life. How many more people need to die before the price of these mining jobs of yours will be considered too high?’

‘That’s enough for now.’ Sikki stood up, his cheeks red. ‘It’s impossible to discuss this with you. You don’t understand.’

Igimaq followed the example of his former friend and stood up as well. ‘I understand perfectly. It’s you who understands nothing.’ He walked out of the room, refusing to greet Sikki’s wife who stood wide-eyed in the hallway. She had probably been listening in but he couldn’t care less about that now. Sikki followed him to the vestibule, which could hardly be crossed for the pairs of shoes covering the little floor. As Igimaq opened the door Sikki spoke again, wanting to get in the last word.

‘It was in your power to save her, Igimaq,’ he said slowly, without much emotion. ‘She even thought right until the end that you would, but you chose your honour and your dusty old obligations to our ancestors over her. Don’t forget that when you condemn me.’

As if the hunter would ever forget.

‘The snowmobile and the cars didn’t break down by themselves. Who could have tampered with them?’ Alvar directed his words at a flower pot on a windowsill in the lounge. The plant had certainly seen better days and it now lay on its side, brown and withered. All minds now focused on the theory that something had been added to the petrol tanks: sugar, or something else that had damaged the engines when they were started. ‘Wasn’t there also a suspicion that the drilling equipment had been tampered with?’ Alvar turned to the team, looked at them without meeting any of their eyes, then started examining his hands. ‘That’s what I thought, anyway.’

‘I need you to come with me and photograph this, Alvar,’ said Thóra as cheerfully as she could without sounding idiotic. ‘It would also be good if you could prepare a short report on what you’ve found out.’ She turned to Matthew. ‘We’re even wondering whether we should make arrangements to transport the vehicles to Iceland to have them looked over by mechanics, or get someone to come here.’

Matthew nodded and made an unsuccessful attempt to suppress a yawn. He had been silent since the end of supper. It looked as though the lack of sleep the last few nights had started to take its toll. The simple food had scarcely increased his stamina: pasta with tinned sauce that had so little flavour that they might as well have used milk. He wasn’t alone in being tired: Dr Finnbogi had found it difficult to swallow his food between yawns, and it looked to Thóra as if Friðrikka had dozed off. Eyjólfur had gone straight to his room to sleep after supper, while the others had gathered in the lounge, with the exception of Bella, who had been assigned the task of washing up. Perhaps this strange herd mentality could be attributed to fatigue; Thóra didn’t know about the others, but she always felt sleepy after being out in the open for a long time and breathing in too much oxygen. ‘Can’t we move the return journey forward?’ Friðrikka appeared more than just tired; her face was grey and she had dark circles under her eyes. ‘It was a mistake to come here.’

‘It won’t be long now,’ muttered the doctor. He looked back towards the window where the potted plant stood, and stared at the pitch-black glass. ‘That is, if the weather stays decent.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ said Thóra, with false optimism. She ignored the vague whistling of the wind that carried in from outside. ‘In any case, won’t you be able to finish all your work?’

Friðrikka nodded miserably. ‘Of course, of course. I’ll be finished with most of it tomorrow, and then I’ll make copies of what I can’t go over and look at it back in Iceland.’ Talking about work seemed to cheer her up a bit. ‘It hasn’t been that much work; they didn’t accomplish much after I left, so going over the data has been relatively easy. They should never have tried to work here beyond the New Year.’ She added, smugly: ‘As I actually pointed out more than once.’

Thóra vaguely recalled seeing it mentioned in the documents accompanying the contract that conditions at the work site made it almost impossible to work there during the first four months of the year. It had been left to Berg Technology to decide when the work would be done, but this had been pointed out to ensure the company realized that it could not aim for full-capacity production all year round. ‘Why did they keep working after the New Year?’ she asked. ‘Was it because of the delays?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Friðrikka. ‘This came up before I resigned and understandably the idea of carrying on was not very popular. Part of the reason the employees were willing to take on this job was the long winter break. That was the last straw for me; after Oddný Hildur’s disappearance there was no way I was going to take on extra responsibilities for such a crappy employer.’

Alvar stood up dramatically. It was as if he had been insulted by Friðrikka’s negativity and could not bear any more of this dreariness. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said.

‘Oh, hell,’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘I was going to offer you a nightcap.’ He slapped the arm of his chair with both hands. ‘Is everyone going to bed?’

Alvar stopped awkwardly in his tracks. It was abundantly clear that he was dying for a drink and would happily have taken back his previous announcement. ‘Well, I guess bed-time could wait a bit,’ he said, sitting down again gently. ‘I’m not in that big a rush.’

Thóra tried not to smile at the poor man, mindful of his purchases at the duty free shop. ‘Good idea.’ She smiled at the doctor. ‘I have a bottle of Opal liquorice schnapps if anyone is interested.’ Matthew frowned, but stood up nevertheless to go and get the drink, which Thóra knew he could only have found less appealing if it were popcorn-flavoured. The doctor followed him and Thóra hoped that while walking down the corridor they would take the opportunity to discuss the bloodstains on Dóri’s pillow.

After examining them thoroughly Thóra had dragged Matthew back over to the office building to show him the old photographs and convince him of how oddly similar they were to the stains on the beds of the unfortunate first settlers. Matthew had had to admit that the similarities were striking, and before they sat down at the supper table they had got the doctor to examine the evidence as well as the photos. Finnbogi couldn’t actually say anything about the stains or why they appeared to have doppelgangers from the past, but he felt that it was probably coincidence. Thóra found this rather unlikely and tried to convince him that for unknown reasons someone had tried to imitate the ugly scene in the tents. However, he and Matthew both seemed adamant that this did not prove the original inhabitants had died of anything other than starvation, let alone been murdered – their main reasoning being that no one would have had any incentive to want these people dead. They could hardly have been engaged in disputes with others and they were certainly not in conflict with neighbouring settlements, since there were none around. The men relented a bit when Thóra asked whether death by starvation caused bleeding from the head, but they warmed to their theme again when the doctor said that the stains in the photographs were likely to be something other than blood; shadows, or some sort of dirt that could be explained by something other than violence. If they were bloodstains, they would be both larger and more widespread. However, although it was difficult to reach any conclusion about the old photographs, it seemed pretty clear to Thóra that the stains on the driller’s pillow could only be blood, although it wasn’t clear how it had got there.