Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

There was a little spot at the edge of the garden, directly across from the large living room window, where a concrete wall separated the garden from the pavement. Next to it was a handsome bush that had dropped its leaves before Freyr moved in. He had no idea what type it was. If pressed, he would guess that it was a rosebush, based on the thorns hidden in the dark mess of branches. They couldn’t be seen from where Freyr stood at the living room window, but he remembered them from when he’d fetched a ball there for some neighbourhood children. For some reason they hadn’t wanted to get the ball themselves, but had instead knocked on Freyr’s door and asked him if he would. When he thought about it, only one boy had stood on his doorstep. The others had hung back on the pavement and watched from a safe distance. At the time, Freyr had thought that they didn’t want to walk on the pale yellow grass without permission, or were afraid the house owner would give them an earful, but now he had the sneaking suspicion that the garden’s sinister history had been the reason. They were old enough to remember the accident and probably little else had been discussed in the area in the months after Védis’s sudden death. Freyr couldn’t be sure he wasn’t making things up to fill in the gaps, but now he recalled that when he’d gone over to the bush to reach for the colourful plastic ball, he’d experienced an uneasiness he couldn’t explain. In retrospect, he’d felt as if silence and darkness dwelt at the roots of the bush, and that a jaunty, colourful plastic ball had no business being there.

No doubt this memory had got scrambled in his mind, but that was irrelevant. In front of the bush was a dark spot, a dark brown area of bare earth in an otherwise tidy patch of grass that the winter had treated relatively mildly. Nothing had been there that could explain the absence of grass, and although Freyr had had little interest in the garden, he would probably have noticed if a rock or some other large thing had disappeared from the spot, not least because it was visible from the living room window. No, he was convinced that it was there the woman had bled to death, and that if he looked into it, a sensible explanation would be found for the absence of grass there. Maybe the saltiness of Védís’s blood had affected the soil, or neighbours or the clean-up team had unwittingly spilt toxic cleaning solution over the area. The woman must have bled copiously.

Freyr fidgeted irritably. He’d already eaten, and packed the few things that he wanted to take with him to Reykjavík the next morning, and although the late news was about to start he couldn’t bring himself to turn on the television. He felt ill at ease enough already without the state of the nation making things worse. Without consciously deciding to do so, he put on his tracksuit. At the front door he stopped and stared at his key ring, stamped with the emblem of the town of Ísafjörður. On it were four keys: two identical ones to the house, one to the garage and the fourth to a storage room in the basement, which he’d had no use for. He remembered feeling that the once-over he’d given it when he moved in was all he needed. He gnawed thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek before sticking the key in his pocket and strolling out into the cool winter evening. He would jog his usual circuit and no doubt feel better afterwards; at least he would be physically tired, which should make it easier for him to fall asleep. Then he resolved not to think of anything other than what he saw on his run.

When he got outside, however, he couldn’t resist the temptation to look at the spot where he now thought Védís had died. On this mild winter evening there was no particular smell of plants or flowers, yet Freyr could detect a faint scent of drowsing nature as he breathed deeply through his nose. However, when he stood over the dark spot, that scent gave way to a heavier, more powerful odour. Freyr felt a burning sensation in his nose and mouth as he inhaled the rank air, and he covered them with his hand. He bent down and picked up a thin branch from beneath the bush and poked a bit at the dark brown earth. It was moist and seemed warmer than it should have been, although Freyr couldn’t bring himself to place his palm on the spot. If it was a toxic material that prevented anything from growing there, he had no interest in getting it on his hands. He stood up halfway before stiffening as a grating metallic sound came from under the shrub.

At the same moment, an image of garden shears appeared in his mind.

Freyr took a deep breath and again smelled the powerful odour that emerged when he poked at the soil. He felt nauseous but forced himself to bend back down and peer beneath the overgrown, ragged bush. Of course there were no shears, and in fact it was remarkable how little he could see. It was dark outside now, certainly, but beneath the bush it was as if the darkness were even blacker, not even allowing a glimpse of the wall two metres behind it. Even without leaves the branches were dense enough to prevent the dull glow of nearby streetlights from penetrating them. Freyr shook his head, annoyed at himself for letting his imagination mess with his mind like that. He stood back up and walked determinedly towards the gate, acting as if he couldn’t hear the grating sound that followed him. He felt very relieved when he emerged from the garden and started running down the street.

Although he ran quickly, he hadn’t gone far before he heard another jogger approaching from behind at even greater speed. The jogger ran rhythmically, much lighter on his or her feet than Freyr. When the footsteps sounded as if the jogger were on the verge of catching him, he slowed down slightly to let this keen athlete go past. He felt a clumsy grip on his shoulder and Dagný asked him breathlessly to relax a bit. ‘Are you in a hurry?’ She stood with her hands on her thighs and exhaled. ‘I saw you start off just as I was finishing and I was going to say hello to you, but you ran off so fast that I started to think you were trying to get away from me.’

Jogging on the spot so as not to lose his pace, Freyr smiled at Dagný. It felt great to see her; she was the opposite of everything that he’d been mulling over and imagining in the past few hours. Her red cheeks and rapid breathing were a connection to life and everything the future had to offer, while the horrible furnishings and unkempt garden belonged to the past and a history that nothing could change. ‘Sorry. I would have stopped if I’d seen you.’

Dagný straightened up. ‘I’d be happy to jog a bit more with you if you promise to go just a bit slower.’

Freyr would have agreed to run backwards if she’d asked. ‘Absolutely. You have no idea how starved I am for some company.’ In fact, he would have been happy just to continue jogging on the spot there on the pavement, staring into Dagný’s grey-blue eyes. They weren’t entirely identical; one was set at a tiny bit more of an angle than the other, which was precisely what made her face irresistible.

‘I followed you because I was thinking of looking in on you,’ said Dagný after they’d set off again. ‘I figured you were probably wondering about all of this and I thought maybe I could help. I remember Védís well, which maybe isn’t saying much.’

‘Were you living round here when she died?’

‘No, I bought my house two years ago, after she’d already passed away. But she was certainly enough of a character to attract attention, even if you weren’t her next-door neighbour.’ Dagný stopped to catch her breath before continuing. ‘Is there anything in the house that could conceivably provide clues about her connection to the other cases? I must confess that I don’t understand what it’s all about.’