Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

‘Isn’t that a really big project?’ Katrín longed to toss the plank she was holding into the fire, and if she had her way, the leftover floorboards and the rest of it would all go the same way. ‘We can’t even finish what we’ve already started, let alone add new projects to the list.’

Garðar stared at his feet as if in a trance and didn’t answer immediately. ‘There’s something about the state of this floor that’s making me sure we need to fix it. I feel like it could spread throughout the entire house if we don’t do something, and then it’ll all be ruined.’

‘The stain hasn’t got any bigger since we last saw it. Why would it start spreading now?’ Katrín peered at the mark. Was she right? To her it appeared not to have changed at all, although she hadn’t exactly memorized its outline. ‘Isn’t it weird that it’s so square?’ Now as she looked at the floor she found the edges of the affected area abnormally straight, the corners almost sharp. ‘Could something under there be causing it?’

‘Like what?’ Garðar knew about as much about damp and rot as Katrín did. ‘If that’s the case, ripping up the floorboards will expose it.’

Líf came over to stand between them, staring at the spot. She hadn’t said anything until now and it was clear that her interest in the topic was limited. ‘I think we should hurry if we’re going out for a walk. Let’s bring the water over so you can wash your hair, Garðar, and then let’s get going. Otherwise it’ll be dark before we’re even halfway there.’ Garðar opened his mouth as if to say something, but Líf interrupted. ‘You promised, Garðar. We’re going to the factory.’

Instead of agreeing to this or mumbling a protest, Garðar looked for a second into Katrín’s eyes before turning and going back out to get the pot he’d left behind. Despite the warmth, Katrín felt a familiar chill pass through her. She had the feeling Garðar also suspected something bad was about to happen. But who knew what it might be?

Freyr fell asleep before the plane took off and didn’t stir until an embarrassed flight attendant shook his shoulder lightly, after all the other passengers had alighted. He hadn’t been very sleepy during the night; exhaustion and his vivid imagination had played games with him. He’d heard all kinds of noises in the house, as if someone were wandering around in the basement. He couldn’t persuade himself to get up, dress and go down to have a look; it wasn’t the cold outside that stopped him, but rather the image of his son he’d seen in the hospital corridor. He was convinced that something similar awaited him downstairs. When he forced himself to get up, he saw dark rings under his eyes in the mirror, and although a cold shower should have made him feel better, he looked worse than he would have liked. He’d toyed with the idea of saying hello to some old colleagues at the National Hospital or even dropping in to see Sara. He would have enough time to do so between his meeting with the forensic pathologist and the departure of the afternoon flight, even if he also met up with Lárus Helgason. Now he wasn’t so sure this was how he wanted to spend the day; he flinched at the thought of his former colleagues thinking his unkempt appearance meant that he was losing his mind, and speculating that it wouldn’t be long before they heard news of his taking indefinite sick leave. Anger, paranoia, slander; he could handle most things, but he couldn’t bear pity. There was no way to respond to it; anything he did or said would only make matters worse, and possibly even serve to further convince them of his decline. No, it was better to avoid his colleagues and leave Sara be.

Now the forensic pathologist was telling him, ‘The weirdest thing about it is that I vaguely remembered similar injuries in other cases, which led me to do a little research. And it appears that most of them were scarred on their backs in precisely the same way.’ The man spoke through a white paper mask. Little could be seen of his face behind that and his clunky safety goggles. Freyr would have had trouble recognizing the man out on the street, since he didn’t even know his hair colour; the doctor had greeted him with a green surgeon’s cap on his head, and had then pulled the mask up from his chin and pushed his glasses down onto his nose. ‘I find it very strange that this didn’t find its way into the woman’s medical records, since the scar seems to have been created over a long period of time. Although the cross is fully formed, it was made from many different wounds that healed at different times; the last one rather recent.’

Freyr stared at Halla’s bluish-white back. He’d been asked to wear the same sort of protective garments as the pathologist and was finding it hard to resist ripping the goggles off his face, as he found it hard to see through them clearly. ‘Did she do this herself, in your opinion? Inflict all these wounds to form a cross?’ Up along her entire spinal column lay a tight row of white and pink vertical scars of various sizes. In some places they’d run together and many of the lines were far from straight, though they looked that way from just a short distance. Beneath her shoulder blades a similar collection of scars ran perpendicular to the other, forming a cross. It was clear which of these scars were the newest: those located at the end of the perpendicular line on Halla’s left side were redder than the others.

‘It’s difficult to see how most of them could be self-inflicted.’ The pathologist pointed with his gloved hand at the area in the middle where the lines of the cross met. ‘She could have done it with some sort of sharp implement, but considering the precision – none of the scars lies outside the cross itself – she would have had to use two mirrors as well. It would be very hard to concentrate properly under those circumstances, I would imagine.’ He removed his hand from Halla’s back and stuck it in the pocket of his gown. ‘I would guess that she had help, if you can call it that. Or maybe this was done against her will, but for some reason she didn’t put up a fight.’

‘How did it look in the other cases you mentioned? Did the victims inflict the wounds themselves, or did someone else?’

‘They were never sure.’ The doctor pulled the white sheet back over the body. ‘It was two individuals, a woman and a man, but I didn’t handle either of their cases so I don’t know all the details.’

‘Who were they?’ Freyr looked at the white lump that now constituted Halla’s earthly remains. She was to be sent back west on the afternoon plane, her funeral scheduled for two days later. He never failed to be struck by the sight of what a person left behind; where before a heart had beaten and a ceaseless torrent of thoughts had poured out, now there was nothing but dead flesh on white bones. And in time, only the bones would remain.

‘The first was the body of a man who’d died in a car accident, and the second, the woman, came to light at the funeral parlour. I was on my summer holiday when the first one came up, so I first heard of it just recently when I started asking around for you, but photos were taken and reports were filed. Someone from the funeral parlour told me about the other case, but the coroner who autopsied the first one had also heard about it.’ The doctor pulled off his rubber gloves and dropped them into the shiny steel rubbish bin. ‘Counting our friend here, these three deaths occurred over a period of just over two years. It makes me wonder whether it was some sort of religious ceremony, some cult that keeps far enough under the radar for no one to have heard about it.’

Freyr pulled off his own gloves, rather clumsily. ‘Halla was religious, but her husband didn’t mention any cult. She helped with relief work for the church in her home town. I suppose there’s no chance the other two lived in Flateyri?’