Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

‘This is not a court of law. Tell me simply what the man told you, and then others will determine who should be blamed.’

‘It has to do with the “bone bingo” at the Midwinter Feast that I told you about during questioning yesterday. Bjarki and Dóri, the men who were found on the island, tried hard to win the skull to use as a decoration in their office. When they missed out on the main prize they were very disappointed and complained about it constantly. According to Arnar, the others put the bones they’d won in their desk drawers while they waited for these two to calm down, since they’d all had enough of their grumbling and didn’t want to provoke it by leaving the bones on display. Their disappointment probably explains what happened after the group left. It appears Bjarki and Dóri also found a body where they had been instructed to drill. They caught a glimpse of it beneath the ice at the mouth of a cave in the forbidden area and decided after a lot of head-scratching to dig it out and bring it to the camp to tease their co-workers, or even use it to make a whole skeleton that they could brag about to the others. They also found several old artefacts that they hoped were of some value, and started by digging those out. Among other things they found the objects that we gave to you, including the little statue that they thought was a genuine Tupilak. They were understandably very excited, since no such object has been found preserved before. They knew the history of the area well enough and thought that the man in the ice was one of the original inhabitants of the village who died of hunger, and that the Tupilak in question had called down the curse on the settlement.’

‘Did you hear this from Arnar?’

‘Yes, and it’s what Bjarki told him. I’ll come to that.’ Thóra went on with her story. ‘They had a hard time freeing the man from the ice so they decided to use the drill. After breaking up the ice around the body by drilling and chopping at it, the body was still stuck, since they couldn’t drill beneath it. That’s when they got the idea of drilling through the body and pulling it out with the drill shaft.’ Thóra hesitated. ‘Since they wanted to keep the bones intact they were careful to position the drill so that it wouldn’t damage the spine. That explains the hole penetrating one of the lungs.’

‘Why not the stomach or the abdomen? Then they would have kept the ribcage intact.’ The police officer asked the same question that Thóra had thought of. It was easier to accept the story by putting themselves in the shoes of these dimwits.

‘They had to sacrifice some of the ribs to get a hold on the body, according to Arnar. If they had gone through the abdomen the drill would just have jerked straight out and not pulled the body free. The ribs gave them some grip. This at least explains the hole in the corpse in the freezer – because obviously this is the same man. They took him there while they were deciding what to do with him.’

The policeman’s pen moved rapidly over the page and it quickly filled up. Before he turned to the next page he skimmed over what he had already written. ‘And then what happened?’

‘At first, nothing. They freed the corpse from the ice, brought it back with them and put it in the freezer. The next day Dóri felt a bit weak and two days later he was seriously ill. At first they thought it was just the flu and Dóri pumped himself full of painkillers, but he just got worse. Then Bjarki began to display the same symptoms, two days after Dóri first started feeling bad. He had begun to suspect that Dóri was seriously ill. He searched the Internet to try to find out what infectious diseases were going around but found nothing that fitted with their symptoms. In the end blood started pouring from Dóri’s eyes, nose and mouth, and his face turned dark blue. So Bjarki dragged him out of his apartment and over to their office. There, he put him in front of the video camera so that a doctor could see what was going on and give them some advice. It was late in the evening. Bjarki himself had a high fever and it didn’t help matters when Dóri lost consciousness in front of the computer. So Bjarki didn’t finish his filming, and he began to panic. He might have been delirious, but he apparently considered it possible that the Tupilak, or the curse that had been put on the area, was punishing them for tampering with the body. He left Dóri behind but the camera was connected to the computer, with everything set up for recording.’

‘And how does Arnar know all of this? Was he there, after all?’

‘No, Bjarki called him that night and told him everything I’m recounting to you right now, and doubtless other things that Arnar forgot to tell me about. Bjarki actually tried to call the emergency services in Iceland to get in touch with a doctor or the police, but the number doesn’t work if you call it from a different country. So he started phoning his colleagues one by one, after giving up trying to contact friends and acquaintances. That fits with his other co-worker’s story, which I’ve already told you. It had got late and the time difference wasn’t in his favour, so no one answered. No one but Arnar. In some ways that was deeply ironic. In his despair, Bjarki forgot that Arnar wasn’t exactly indebted to him; in his shock he described the situation to him and said that he thought Dóri was dying, and that he was too.’ Thóra stopped, and the policeman looked up at her. ‘That put Arnar’s conscience to the test. And he decided to keep quiet and do nothing.’

‘Did they both die that night? Why didn’t the man call someone in the morning when he realized that there was no help on the way from Arnar?’

‘He couldn’t; Arnar made sure of that. Instead of making an honest attempt to come to Bjarki’s assistance as he had promised him, Arnar called his friend Naruana and asked him to go up to the camp, disconnect the satellite dishes and remove the keys from the cars and snowmobile. He told him that this was a well-deserved prank, but didn’t let Naruana know his actual purpose. Naruana was quite drunk and didn’t question anything; he simply went up to the camp and did as he was asked, and more. Instead of disconnecting the satellite dishes he tried his best to destroy them, and since he couldn’t find the keys to the cars or the snowmobile he put sugar in the petrol tanks. In other words, in doing this Naruana became the reason – unwittingly – for the men not being able to get to a doctor to receive the help that might have saved their lives. Before Naruana did these things Arnar accessed the server via the remote connection and deleted all the images of the body in the ice, or so he believed, in order to throw those who would later want to know what had happened off the scent. He himself said that at the time he had been half-crazed with hatred and not thinking clearly.’

‘I see.’ The police officer looked up from his notebook at Thóra. ‘And Arnar didn’t have a change of heart straight afterwards, phone Naruana back and try to call him off? Sometimes people regret what they did in the heat of the moment and try to limit the damage they’ve caused.’

Thóra replied that she couldn’t speak for the man’s actions; she could only relay what Arnar had told her. ‘It may be relevant that as soon as he made his fateful decision he started drinking again. He said that he went to the liquor store the next morning and stocked up. The binge lasted until he enrolled in treatment. I would imagine his regret played a large part in his tumble off the wagon.’

‘So. The men died.’ The officer didn’t mince his words.

‘Dóri died first. He never regained consciousness and died in the office without Bjarki being able to drag him back to his apartment. Two days later Bjarki died.’