Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

‘What the hell was that?’ Bella hung her coverall on a hook that was already overloaded and the bulky orange garment ended up in a heap on the floor. She didn’t bend down to pick it up, and no one made any comment. They had other things to think about.

‘That was an arm. Without a doubt.’ The doctor leaned up against the wall to kick off his boots. ‘I don’t know whose it was or where it came from, but it was an arm.’

‘I don’t think there are many candidates to whom it could have belonged,’ said Thóra. ‘It would be quite something if it did come from someone other than one of the people we’re looking for.’ She stepped from the floor up onto a wooden platform that remained dry while the floor was awash with melted snow. ‘But what was in the rest of the bags? Did anyone count them?’ No one had thought to do so.

‘What should we tell the others?’ Finnbogi held hesitantly on to the knob of the door to the corridor. ‘I’m not sure Friðrikka will take this well.’

‘We’ll say nothing. Simply that we didn’t see anything,’ said Matthew. ‘We’ll find out soon enough who this is and what happened and until then there’s no need to upset her any further. I think an animal must have attacked someone. Under normal circumstances people’s arms don’t fall off.’

Thóra was silent, but she thought about the frightening video that was the main reason for their expedition from Iceland. She remembered how the splayed feet had jerked abnormally and how before the jerking there had been a whistle that ended with a dull thud. This had been followed each time by a splash of blood. She remembered clearly thinking that it looked as if either a corpse were being dismembered or someone were being killed, and now she had the feeling that it hadn’t been a polar bear or a rogue walrus that had separated this arm from its body. The landing outside creaked, the main door opened and in walked three policemen. The first was the Greenlander who Thóra was certain was directing the investigation. ‘Well.’ His manner was dry, which was nothing new, but now his voice was tempered with anger. ‘I need to speak to each of you privately and then get one of you to come and identify some human remains. I understand that you’ve seen what’s going on and I must express my disappointment that you didn’t stay inside.’

‘We wanted to have a cigarette. The smokers’ room is too wet, from the snow that was in there when we arrived.’ Matthew had sidestepped the policeman’s accusation rather neatly, in Thóra’s opinion. ‘We had no idea what awaited us, or we’d have just smoked out of the window.’

It was impossible to tell whether the police officer believed him. ‘Well, it can’t be undone,’ he said. ‘I would simply ask that you don’t waste any time trying to read anything into it.’

His last statement obviously went in one of Bella’s ears and out the other, because she immediately piped up, ‘Did a polar bear attack someone?’

The police officer stared coldly at her. ‘No one has died here from a polar bear attack for seventeen years, and the last one happened by mistake. An old woman walked too close to a bear in a whiteout and it swiped at her, knocking off the top part of her head. The bear neither ate her nor tore off her limbs. She died in hospital from her head wounds. Polar bears don’t attack people except under very unusual circumstances.’ He turned to look at Finnbogi. ‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ Finnbogi replied that he was. ‘We were hoping to get your opinion on something we’ve found. No one can get here until tomorrow, weather permitting, and it would help us to get some confirmation on a few things.’ He didn’t elaborate any further.

‘Of course. There’s not much I can do here but you’re welcome to take advantage of my expertise. However, we won’t be able to do any autopsies. We don’t have the equipment for a procedure like that.’

Thóra seized her opportunity while the policeman appeared to be in a talkative mood. ‘Is this either of the men we’re looking for?’ She didn’t know whether she was hoping for a positive or a negative response.

The police officer did not look at her or answer her question directly. ‘We need one of you to come and identify…’ He hesitated, but then added: ‘It’s more than one person. Probably two.’

That made things clearer. It had to be Bjarki and Dóri.

Thóra and Matthew had a problem. They had successfully managed to behave as though everything were normal when they returned to the meeting room, as had Bella. Friðrikka, Alvar and Eyjólfur seemed to suspect nothing and had only asked once where the doctor was. They were told that he was going over to show the police where he had taken samples of water from, and that was all. None of them seemed to find that strange at all, so they had no idea yet that the investigation had reached a different level. However, this could change at any given moment, since it would fall to either Friðrikka or Eyjólfur to identify the remains if the doctor determined that they did belong to the drillers. This was where their dilemma lay. Which of the two would be better suited to the task? Eyjólfur seemed less stressed than Friðrikka; on the other hand, he appeared to be getting steadily more upset, while Friðrikka appeared to be recovering a little. Maybe it would be too much for him to see the dead men, whereas it might do her good. Friðrikka seemed less concerned about Bjarki and Dóri than about her friend Oddný Hildur, but the reverse was true for Eyjólfur. If the doctor concluded that these were the remains of a man and a woman, the choice would be simpler: Eyjólfur would have to go; but if it were two men, it would complicate matters somewhat. Thóra had read somewhere that it helped the bereaved to see their dead friend or relative; it was important for them in their coming to terms with death and in accepting what could not be changed. Otherwise, they might have difficulty accepting what had happened, and moving through the grieving process. In this case neither Friðrikka nor Eyjólfur could be considered a close relative, but this advice could still apply. Perhaps identifying the remains would help Friðrikka to shut off her flood of tears and Eyjólfur to calm down. But it might also throw them completely off-balance. The corpse in the freezer had certainly agitated Friðrikka enough.

‘Aren’t we ever going to get out of here?’ Eyjólfur was sitting on his haunches against the wall, beneath an erasable message board. Written on it were a few words connected with arrows that doubtless meant a great deal to those in the know, but to Thóra they were meaningless. ‘I’m in deep shit if I can’t get back to work soon. I heard we were supposed to go home on the 24th. And that’s tomorrow.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Thóra stood up and walked to the window. Personally she was going crazy hanging around like this. ‘I’m sure they’ll understand. It’s not as though you’re bunking off or pretending to be ill.’ She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Bella, who caught a mysterious flu every month, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. Bella acted as if she didn’t notice and continued playing Solitaire at the table.

Dr Finnbogi walked into the room. It looked to Thóra as if he’d changed his clothes, and his hair appeared wet. He said hello to everyone but asked Thóra and Matthew to confer with him privately. Friðrikka watched them as they went off to the corridor, her expression suggesting that she had an inkling they were discussing something more sinister than water samples.

‘It’s two men.’ Finnbogi ran his fingers through his hair and shut his eyes momentarily. ‘I managed to put the parts together, more or less, although I could reassemble them more comprehensively if I was working in better conditions than on a bunch of cafeteria tables. As far as I could see, it was the two drillers. They weren’t Greenlanders, at least.’