Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - I Remember You

Líf followed Katrín’s gaze to see what had made her go so pale, and her scream was so forceful that it snuffed out the candle. She fell silent and started snivelling. Overwhelmed by darkness and despair, they had no choice but to listen to the scratching sound coming from the hole as something seemed to drag itself up through it. Then the floor creaked as the creature made its way over to them. The footsteps stopped behind Katrín, who sat nearer the hole. She felt an icy breath hover around her neck, accompanied by the familiar rank smell. She moaned involuntarily, though she’d resolved not to emit a sound in the hope that the creature would disappear or move on to Líf. In her anguish it didn’t cross her mind that if Líf and Garðar had been behind the attacks on her, the ghost might be good after all and wouldn’t do them harm. Two little hands, cold as ice, closed around her throat.

It was as if Freyr were finally free from a drug-induced haze. He looked around his home, which he’d done nothing to brighten up the entire time that he’d lived in Ísafjörður. The outlines of everything had become sharper, and now for the first time the mismatched fittings got on his nerves. He clutched a photo of his son to his chest, as if he didn’t want Benni to see how his father lived now. He felt a certain consolation in holding his child so closely, even though the photograph in the frame was only ink on paper, a two-dimensional image of one moment in his far-too-short life. Freyr squeezed his eyes shut again and wished that the next few days and weeks would show him some mercy and pass by in a flash. Now when it seemed his sincere wish that Benni’s earthly remains be found was going to be fulfilled, he realized that despite all his attempts to be guided by logic he’d always held onto the faint hope that Benni was still alive. That hope was now gone. He was scared to tell Sara the news and so hadn’t even tried to call her; she wouldn’t answer him anyway, and he felt it would be useless to hit her with something that hadn’t even been positively confirmed. Which it would be shortly.

‘Drink this.’ Dagný had come into the room with a glass half full of golden liquid. ‘I found a bottle of whisky in the kitchen. I hope you don’t mind that I opened it.’

Freyr relaxed his grip on the photo frame and took the glass. He’d brought the bottle with him from Reykjavík; a parting gift from colleagues of his who didn’t know he wasn’t much of a whisky fan. The strong liquid stung his throat. ‘Thanks.’ He took another, bigger sip that went down more easily. ‘Is there any news?’

Dagný sat down in a chair facing him. ‘This is the car. I had the old case files looked over, and the driver bought himself something to eat at this petrol station. It was the last charge on his credit card before he used it again in Ísafjörður. The receipt was even in the glove compartment when we went through the car. The date and time fitted with the recording from the security camera.’

Freyr nodded numbly. He took another sip of whisky, hoping that he wouldn’t start feeling its effects until later. ‘No one knows what happened to him?’

‘No. He disappeared around the same time as your son. Three years ago.’ Dagný leaned back, but still seemed just as anxious. ‘After we were informed about a car that had been parked for more than two weeks at the harbour here in Ísafjörður, we made enquiries about the owner and subsequently initiated a search. He owned a house in Hesteyri and had gone over there along with the supplies he needed to renovate it, which were in his trailer. The skipper of the boat that took him over said the man was meant to call when he wanted to be picked up, but he hadn’t done so yet. He wasn’t worried about it, but from his description of the provisions that the man had taken with him, we thought it best to go over to Hesteyri and check on his situation. It was autumn and growing colder, so we had every reason to worry about him. As it turned out, he was never found.’

‘What could have happened to him? It’s not a big place, is it?’ Freyr refrained from asking what he longed to know most. It would take him a few more drinks to work up the nerve to do it.

‘We don’t know. Even though Hesteyri is a small, abandoned village, there are vast areas all around it where he could have got lost. He probably went for a hike or set off thinking he could walk to town. His phone was found there, dead. Of course you never know; the battery could have drained after he disappeared, but it could be that his phone hadn’t worked when he’d needed it to and he thought his only choice was to try to walk back.’

‘That seems likely.’ Freyr took another sip of whisky, then threw his head back and downed the rest.

‘Yes and no. There were at least two days’ worth of provisions in the house. He could hardly have started panicking before he left it.’ Dagný pressed her lips together. ‘Are you tipsy enough to tell me how you got the information on your son’s whereabouts?’

Freyr wanted to smile at her but couldn’t. The muscles in his face refused to obey. ‘No. I promised not to tell, and I can’t betray that.’ He didn’t need to refer to her job. It would be impossible to expect her not to disclose the information when it came to writing a report on the conclusion of the case. He wanted to maintain confidentiality between himself and the boy, whose only mistake had been being young and reading the situation wrongly. He’d probably felt bad enough for deciding not to say anything. Of course it might turn out that when and if the discovery of Benni’s remains made it into the press, the boy would tell his parents, but he would have to decide that for himself. Not Freyr. He himself wasn’t certain if he would tell Sara the whole story, though she was entitled to hear it. There was a risk that she might view the matter differently to Freyr and consider the boy responsible for Benni’s death, which would be unfair, but at the same time very tempting. There was no way of knowing how she would react to the shock.

Freyr put the glass on the table and leaned his head back. How long had it taken Benni to die? An hour? Two? Three? He didn’t want to know the answer, yet the question burned inside him. It was completely pointless, as it would never be answered. He might just as well wonder what might have happened if this and that had been different. What if the boy who’d gone with Benni down to the petrol station in search of a hiding place hadn’t suddenly remembered that he was late for his cousin’s birthday party and gone home? What if the boy had stopped to talk to some of the other kids and let them know that Benni was planning to hide in the green container that they thought looked like a submarine, which was sitting on a trailer at the petrol station? What if he’d actually known what a septic tank was, and had said that instead of submarine? And then what if the driver hadn’t detached the trailer from the car to check for possible damage to the coupling; would Benni have found himself a different hiding place, realising that the trailer might be leaving soon? But none of this had happened. It was a series of coincidences. What if the kids hadn’t grown tired of their hiding places in the safe parts in the neighbourhood and decided to expand the hiding area all the way to the petrol station? And what if they’d decided to tell the police or their parents about it? What then? Would death have claimed Benni in some other way, and if so, how?

Freyr tried turning his mind to something else; he had so many questions. But it was difficult. Over and above all this speculation and regret, he was plagued by images of the final moments in Benni’s life. There was no room for any doubt; as the moment the car had driven off, it had been too late. The only thing that could have happened differently was that Sara might have learned the truth about Benni’s fate earlier if Heimir had told anyone what had actually happened. It would still have been too late to save Benni’s life, since the boy didn’t hear of his friend’s disappearance until the next day. When he heard from the policemen who came to his house that they were searching for Benni, he had tried to tell them, but the men looked so stern and disbelieving that he had second thoughts. He’d misread the situation and thought he might get into trouble for planning to hide with Benni in the petrol station. The children were strictly forbidden from crossing the street that lay between the neighbourhood and the garage. When the policemen’s faces turned serious at what he said, his child’s mind had been quick to tell him that Benni had probably left his hiding place before he vanished, and he’d changed his story.