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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Dark Iceland
- Sprache: Englisch
Get ALL SIX books in Ragnar Jónasson's international, multi-million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series in one GREAT-VALUE Box Set! In the remote northern town of Siglufjörður, Icelandic police officer Ari Thór Arason is drawn into chilling murders and long-buried secrets that fracture a close-knit community. 'Chilling, creepy, perceptive, almost unbearably tense' Ian Rankin 'A modern Icelandic take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery' Ann Cleeves 'Jónasson's books have breathed new life into Nordic noir' Sunday Express 'Ragnar Jónasson writes with a chilling, poetic beauty' Peter James _____ Snowblind (Book 1) Ari Thór's first posting turns deadly when a young woman is found unconscious in the snow and a celebrated writer dies at the local theatre, while an avalanche cuts off the town. Blackout (Book 2) A man is brutally beaten on a summer night darkened by volcanic ash; Ari Thór and a young reporter uncover secrets someone is desperate to keep buried. Rupture (Book 3) A long-unsolved death on a deserted fjord resurfaces as a photograph raises new questions, and a missing child sparks panic in the quarantined town of Siglufjörður. Whiteout (Book 4) When a young woman is found dead below the cliffs of an abandoned village, Ari Thór uncovers a terrifying link to a mother and daughter's deaths decades earlier. Nightblind (Book 5) A police officer is murdered at point-blank range, and Ari Thór is pulled into tangled local rivalries and dark past crimes as the arctic winter deepens. Winterkill (Book 6) The death of a teenage girl on Siglufjörður's main street draws Ari Thór into his most dangerous case yet, as snow traps the town and even darker crimes come to light. ________ 'Traditional and beautifully finessed' Independent 'Outstanding … consummate crime writing' Publishers Weekly 'Icelandic noir of the highest order' Daily Mail
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The Dark Iceland Series:Snowblind, Nightblind, Rupture, Black Out, White Out, Winterkill
Ragnar Jónasson
Translated by Quentin Bates
Contents
Snowblind
RAGNAR JÓNASSON
Translated by Quentin Bates
For Kira, from Dad
9
PRELUDE
SIGLUFJÖRDUR: WEDNESDAY, 14TH OF JANUARY 2009
The red stain was like a scream in the silence.
The snow-covered ground was so white that it had almost banished the winter night’s darkness, elemental in its purity. It had been snowing since that morning, big, heavy flakes falling gracefully to earth. That evening there was a break in the snowfall and no more had fallen since.
Few people were about. Most people stayed indoors, happy to enjoy the weather from behind a window. It was possible that some of them had decided to stay at home after the death at the Dramatic Society. Tales travelled swiftly and the atmosphere was heavy with suspicion, in spite of the town’s peaceful outward appearance. A bird flying over the town would not have noticed anything unusual, would not have sensed the tension in the air, the uncertainty and even the fear, not unless it had flown over the little back garden in the middle of the town.
The tall trees surrounding the garden were in their winter finery, taking on shadowy shapes in the darkness that were reminiscent of clowns rather than trolls, decked in delicate white from the ground up, in spite of the snow weighing down some of their branches.
A comforting light shone from the warm houses and the street lights illuminated the main roads. This back garden was far from being hidden in gloom, even though it was late.
The ring of mountains protecting the town was almost entirely white that night and the highest peaks could just be glimpsed. It was as if they had failed in their duty these last few days, as if something unexplained, some threat, had stolen through the town; something that had remained more or less unseen, until that night.
She lay in the middle of the garden, like a snow angel.
From a distance she appeared peaceful.
Her arms splayed from her sides. She wore a faded pair of jeans and was naked from the waist up, her long hair around her like a coronet in the snow; snow that shouldn’t be that shade of red.
A pool of blood had formed around her.
Her skin seemed to be paling alarmingly fast, taking on the colour of marble, as if in response to the striking crimson that surrounded her.
Her lips were blue. Her shallow breath came fast.
She seemed to be looking up into the dark heavens.
Then her eyes snapped shut.
1
REYKJAVÍK: SPRING 2008
It wasn’t far off midnight, but it was still light. The days were growing longer and longer. It was the time of year when each new day, brighter than the day before, brought with it the hope of something better, and things were looking bright for Ari Thór Arason. His girlfriend, Kristín, had finally moved into his little flat on Öldugata, although this wasn’t much more than a formality. She had been staying there most nights anyway, except those just before an exam, when she liked to read in the peace and quiet of her parents’ house, often far into the night.
Kristín came into the bedroom from the shower, a towel around her waist.
‘God, I’m tired. Sometimes I wonder why I went for medicine.’ Ari Thór looked round from the little desk in the bedroom. ‘You’ll be a fantastic doctor.’
She lay on the bed, stretching out on top of the duvet, her blonde hair spread like a halo on the white of the bedclothes.
Like an angel, Ari Thór thought, admiring her as she stretched out her arms and then ran them gently down her torso.
Like a snow angel.
‘Thanks, my love. And you’ll be a brilliant cop,’ she said. ‘But I still think you should have finished your theology degree,’ she couldn’t help adding.
He knew that well enough and didn’t need to hear it from her. First it had been philosophy, until he had given up on it, and then theology. He had packed that in as well, and found himself enrolling in the police college. Roots were something he had never been able to put down properly, always seeking something that suited his temperament, something with a little excitement to it. He reckoned he had probably applied for theology as a challenge to some god he was convinced didn’t 13exist; some god who had snatched away any chance he had of growing up normally when he was thirteen, when his mother died and his father had disappeared without trace. It wasn’t until he had met Kristín and – only two years earlier – been able to puzzle out the mystery of his father’s disappearance that Ari Thór began to achieve a little peace of mind. This was when the idea of the police college had first crossed his mind, with the expectation that he’d make a better cop than a clergyman. The police college had left him in fine physical shape, and the weight-lifting, running and swimming had made him broader across the shoulders than he had ever been before. He had certainly never been this fit when he was poring over theology texts night and day.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he replied, a little stung. ‘I haven’t forgotten the theology. I’m just taking a break from it.’
‘You ought to make an effort and finish it, while it’s still fresh in your mind. It’s so hard to start again if you leave it too long,’ she said, and Ari Thór knew she wasn’t speaking from experience. She had always finished everything she set out to do, flying through one exam after another. Nothing seemed capable of stopping her and she had just finished the fifth of the six years of her medical degree. He wasn’t envious – just proud. Sooner or later they would need to move abroad so that she could specialise, something that had never been discussed, but of which he was all too keenly aware.
She put a pillow behind her head and looked at him. ‘Isn’t it awkward having the desk in the bedroom? And isn’t this flat way too small?’
‘Small? No, I love it. I’d hate to move out of the centre of town.’
She lay back, her head sinking into the pillow. ‘Anyway, there’s no hurry.’
‘There’s plenty of space for the two of us.’ Ari Thór stood up. ‘We’ll just have to be cosy.’
He removed the towel and lay carefully on top of her, kissing her long and deep. She returned the kiss, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close.
2
How the hell could they have forgotten the rice?
She was livid as she picked up the phone to call the little side-street14Indian place that was five minutes from their sprawling detached house. With its two, stylish, brick-built storeys, orange roof and large garage capped by a sunlit patio on its roof, it was a dream home for a big family. They were still happy here, even though the children had all flown the nest and retirement wasn’t far away.
She tried to calm down as she waited for the phone to be answered. She had been looking forward to sitting down in front of the television to watch a Friday-night sitcom over a piping-hot chicken curry with rice. She was home alone, her husband away on business and probably now on his way to the night flight that would bring him home the following morning.
The infuriating thing was that the Indian place didn’t do deliveries, so she could see herself having to go out again while the rest of her dinner cooled. Bloody mess. At least it was warm enough outside that walking wouldn’t be any great hardship.
When someone finally answered, she came straight to the point. ‘Who has a curry without rice?’ she complained, her voice rising out of all proportion to the apparent offence.
When the waiter apologised and then hesitantly offered to prepare a replacement immediately, she slammed down the phone and, fighting back her anger, set off into the darkness.
It took her longer than usual to find the keys in her handbag when she returned ten minutes later, the rice in a bag, ready for a relaxed evening with something good to eat. It wasn’t until the key was turning in the lock that she sensed a presence, something that wasn’t right.
But then it was too late.
3: REYKJAVÍK: SUMMER 2008
Ari Thór came in from the rain. Coming home to the flat in Öldugata had always given him a warm feeling, but this past summer that feeling had never been warmer. 15
‘Hi, is that you?’ Kristín called from the desk in the bedroom, where she sat over her textbooks when she wasn’t on duty at the National Hospital.
He felt that the flat had taken on a new life when she moved in. The white walls, which had been neutral before, suddenly became bright. There was an aura about Kristín, even when she sat silently over a book at the desk, an energy that Ari Thór found captivating. Occasionally he had the feeling that he had lost control of his own life. He was twenty-four and the future was no longer a blank sheet. He never said anything to her; feelings weren’t the easiest thing for him to talk about.
He looked into the bedroom. She sat there with a book.
Why did she have to sit over these books all summer?
The sunshine didn’t seem to have tempted her.
‘Walking to work and back is enough for me. That’ll do for time outdoors,’ she teased, when he nicely tried to persuade her to walk downtown whenever he had a sunny day off. That summer he was in training with the police force at Keflavík Airport, while his final term at the police college approached.
He sometimes wondered what had prompted him, only a year ago, to give up on theology – although perhaps only temporarily – and test his talents elsewhere. He had never been one for spending a lot of time over textbooks. He needed to have some activity, a little variety. There was something about police work that fascinated him: the excitement and the drama. It certainly wasn’t the money. He had been accepted by the police college even though the term had been about to start.
He found he relished police work, enjoying the responsibility and the buzz of adrenaline.
Now his training was almost over; just one term to go and then he’d be qualified. It still wasn’t clear what the next step would be once he graduated. He had applied for several posts with the police, had been turned down a few times and still had no offers.
‘It’s me. What’s new?’ he called to Kristín, hanging up his damp coat. He went in to where she was absorbed in a book and planted a kiss on the back of her neck.
‘Hi.’ Her voice was warm, but she didn’t put the book aside.
‘How’s it going?’
She closed the book, having carefully marked her place, and turned to him. ‘Not bad. You went to the gym?’ 16
‘Yes, and feel better for it.’
His mobile phone began to ring.
He went out into the hall, took his phone from his coat pocket. ‘Ari Thór?’ said a booming voice. ‘Ari Thór Arason?’
‘That’s me,’ he answered, slightly suspiciously as he hadn’t recognised the caller’s number.
‘My name’s Tómas. I’m with the police in Siglufjördur.’ The tone was slightly friendlier now.
Ari Thór moved into the kitchen to be able to speak without being overheard. Siglufjördur was one post which he had applied for without telling Kristín. This was a place he didn’t know much about, only that one could hardly travel further north in Iceland; a place probably closer to the Arctic Circle than to Reykjavík.
‘I’d like to offer you a job,’ said the man calling himself Tómas. Ari was slightly taken aback. He had never seriously considered Siglufjördur as an option. ‘Well…’
‘I need your answer now, lots of kids lining up for this one, people with more experience than you. I like your background – philosophy and theology. Just what you need to become a good copper in a small village.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Ari Thór replied, almost to his own surprise. ‘Thanks, this means a lot to me.’
‘Don’t mention it. We’ll start you off with two years,’ Tómas said. ‘A two-year sentence!’ he boomed, laughter echoing down the line. ‘And then I’m sure you’ll be able to stay on if you want. When can you start?’
‘Well, I have some exams this winter, so…’
‘You can do the final ones from here, I think. How about November, mid-November perhaps? Perfect time to get to know the town. The sun will be about to leave until January, and the ski slopes will be opening. We have great slopes here. Then perhaps you can take Christmas off.’ Ari Thór thought of saying that he didn’t really ski, but instead only said thanks again. He had a feeling that he would get along well with this loud but friendly man.
When he went back into the bedroom, Kristín was again deep in her book. 17
‘I have a job,’ he said abruptly.
Kristín looked up. ‘What? Really?’ She closed the book and turned quickly towards him, this time forgetting to mark her place. ‘That’s brilliant!’
There was pure happiness in her voice. Kristín was always softly spoken, as if nothing ever took her by surprise, but Ari Thór was starting to learn how to read her expressions. Those deep-blue eyes that contrasted so powerfully with the short blonde hair could have a mesmerising effect to begin with, but underneath there was someone naturally determined and assertive; someone who knew exactly what she wanted.
‘I know, it’s unbelievable. I hadn’t expected anything so soon. Loads of us are graduating in December and there aren’t many jobs to be had.’
‘So where is this job? Here in town? A relief post?’
‘No, it’s a two-year contract … at least.’
‘In town?’ Kristín repeated, and he could see from her expression that she suspected it might not be.
‘Well, actually, no.’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘It’s up north. In Siglufjördur.’
She was silent and each passing second felt like an hour. ‘Siglufjördur?’ Her voice had lifted and the tone gave a clear message.
‘Yes, it’s a great opportunity,’ he said mildly, almost pleadingly, hoping that she would see his side, that it was important to him.
‘And you said yes? Without even thinking to ask me?’ Her eyes narrowed. Her voice was bitter, verging on anger.
‘Well…’ He hesitated. ‘Sometimes you just have to grab an opportunity. If I hadn’t made a decision on the spot, then they would have taken someone else.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘They picked me,’ he added, almost apologetically.
Ari Thór had given up on philosophy and then he had given up on theology. He had lost his parents far too young and had been alone in a hard world since childhood. Then Kristín had picked him. That had given him just the same feeling he was experiencing now.
They picked me.
This would be his first real job, and one that would carry responsibility. He had made an effort to do well at the police college. So why couldn’t Kristín just be happy for him? 18
‘You don’t decide to move to Siglufjördur just like that, without talking it over with me, dammit. Tell them you need to think it over,’ she said, her voice cold.
‘Please, I don’t want to risk this. They want me there in the middle of November, I’ll take the last couple of exams there, and be back for a break at Christmas. Why don’t you see if you can come as well?’
‘I have to work here as well as studying; you know that perfectly well, Ari Thór. Sometimes I just don’t understand you.’ She stood up. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. I thought we were partners, doing all this together.’ She turned aside to hide her tears. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
She left with rapid steps, out of the bedroom and into the passage.
Ari Thór remained rooted to the spot, dumbstruck that he had completely lost control of the situation.
He was about to call out to her when he heard the front door slam shut.
4: SIGLUFJÖRDUR: NOVEMBER 2008
Ugla the owl perched on a stump.
Ágúst had always recited the old rhyme when they sat in the attic window at her parents’ house in Patreksfjördur, overlooking the road.
The memory brought a smile to her lips. Only recently had she found herself able to smile again when she thought of him. Four years had passed since she had moved – alone – to Siglufjördur.
It was also four years since she had last seen Patreksfjördur.
Her parents came to see her regularly and had been here as recently as October, staying with her for two weeks before travelling back west. Now she was alone again.
She had made some good friends here, but none were especially close and she never talked about the past. As far as they knew, she was just someone who had moved from the Westfjords.
She was aware that the town boys spread gossip about her that was pure fabrication. Not that it mattered now that she had grown a thick skin. As if she cared what the Siglufjördur boys said about her. There was only one boy for whom she had even the slightest care. 19
That was Ágúst, the handsomest boy in Patreksfjördur – as far as she was concerned, at least.
They had been friends from the age of seven, and their relationship developed into something deeper in their teens. They had been virtually inseparable ever since.
Ugla and Ágúst, names that were inextricably linked – in Patreksfjördur, anyway. But not here in Siglufjördur, where nobody knew anything about them.
That’s the way she wanted it and she decided that she quite liked being this mysterious young woman from the west, the one about whom tales were spun. Although, perhaps it wasn’t entirely true that she didn’t care about what was whispered about her. One story in particular was hurtful. Somehow word had got around that she was an easy lay and she failed to understand how that piece of gossip had found its way into circulation.
Immediately after the incident that had changed everything, she had made the decision to leave the Westfjords behind her. To begin with her parents had been completely against it. She hadn’t finished her studies; she was in her penultimate year at Ísafjördur College.
Ugla managed to get through the spring exams, and then she had applied for jobs in other parts of the country. Soon she had an offer from the fish processing plant in Siglufjördur. Like most people in Patreksfjördur, she had worked in the fish as a youngster and knew that, although her ambitions lay elsewhere, this was work she was used to. After working in the factory for a few months she had been told there might be a part-time position in the office. Having applied, and got the job, she had been able to reduce her hours on the factory floor and was now spending half her time doing clerical duties. She hoped that this miserable recession that now seemed about to blight Iceland wouldn’t affect her too much. She needed the work and the last thing she wanted to do was to lose her job and have to go back to Patreksfjördur to live with her parents.
The personnel manager at the fish plant had told her about a short-term lease on a small basement flat – a good place to lay her head while she decided how long she would be staying in Siglufjördur. She was escorted round the flat by Hrólfur, a spry gentleman who looked about eighty, although she later discovered that he was approaching ninety. 20
Before long she was told that old Hrólfur was Hrólfur Kristjánsson, the well-known writer. She remembered his book, North of the Hills, from her school days. The class was asked to read a book written in 1941 – probably some unbearably dreary, bucolic love story, she had thought. But she had been wrong. She read North of the Hills in a single evening, and was, even now, swept away by its beauty. As a whole, the class hadn’t been particularly enamoured of the book, any more than any of the other books on the reading list, but there was something about it that Ugla found captivating, undoubtedly the same something that had made the book sell by the truckload during the forties – at home in Iceland and all over the world.
It was a mild, clear day in the spring of 2004 when she found herself facing the author himself. There was a warmth to this slightly stooped man, who had clearly been exceptionally tall and imposing in his younger years. His voice was strong, but somehow paternal, although he had no children of his own. He was lean, his grey hair receding, and had about him an authority of the kind that comes with being accustomed to respect.
He lived in a magnificent house on Hólavegur, with a view out over the fjord. The house had been well maintained and next to it was a large garage containing his elderly red Mercedes. As far as Ugla could make out, the basement flat had been rented out now and again, mostly to working people newly arrived in the town, or to the occasional artist in search of peace and quiet amid the encircling mountains. But Hrólfur had apparently never been inclined to allow just anyone to stay there, making sure he met every potential tenant in person; he had been known to turn people down on the spot if he didn’t like the look of them.
‘Working in the fish, you said?’ he had asked, his powerful voice husky and with a force that made it carry throughout the flat. He looked her up and down, his eyes sharp and enquiring, with both joy and despair behind them.
‘To start with,’ she replied softly, speaking to the basement flat’s floor rather than to him.
‘What? Speak up, young lady,’ he said impatiently.
She raised her voice. ‘Yes, to start with,’ she repeated.
‘And your parents know about this? You look pretty damn young.’ 21He peered at her and his lip twisted oddly, as if he was trying to smile, but at the same time hold it back.
‘Yes, of course. But I can make decisions for myself.’ She was speaking clearly now, more assertively.
‘Good. I like people who make their own decisions in life. And you drink coffee?’ His voice was slightly friendlier now.
‘Yes,’ she lied, deciding that acquiring a coffee habit would be no more of a challenge than anything else.
It was obvious that he liked her. He accepted her as a tenant for the basement flat and she soon settled into a routine with Hrólfur, sitting together to share a pot of coffee once a week. There was no obligation to do this, and it certainly wasn’t a burden. It became a genuine pleasure to talk over the past with him: his time abroad until the outbreak of the Second World War had brought him home to Iceland; the years of the herring boom; his travels in later years overseas and the conferences in which he had taken part as a well-known author.
In turn, Hrólfur prised her out of her shell and she came to enjoy life a little more.
She rarely spoke about the past and never mentioned Ágúst. They talked mostly about books and music. She had studied piano since childhood, at home in Patreksfjördur. He encouraged her to play for him every time she visited. At the end of one such performance, a small piece by Debussy, Hrólfur said, rather surprisingly: ‘Why don’t you advertise for students?’
‘Students? I’m not a qualified teacher.’ She felt slightly embarrassed.
‘You play well enough. Really well actually. I’m sure you could teach the basics?’
She felt the support and belief in his voice. What had begun as an acquaintance had gradually developed into valued friendship.
‘You can use my piano,’ he added.
‘I’ll think it over,’ she replied, self-consciously.
One day when she felt that life was being good to her, she placed an ad in the Co-op window, a quickly written A4 sheet: “Piano lessons. Price negotiable”, along with her name and phone number written on five strips at the bottom that anyone interested could tear off for future reference. This initiative had delighted Hrólfur, although there had been no enquiries yet. 22
They didn’t discuss only music; she had admitted to having an interest in the theatre while she had been living in Patreksfjördur and at college in Ísafjördur, where she had taken part in amateur dramatics. The subject arose on a June evening when she and Hrólfur sat and talked over coffee and pastries by the window. The water of the fjord was as still as a mirror and the town sparkled, although the sun was dipping below the mountains, its light illuminating only the peaks on the eastern side of the fjord.
‘You know, I’m the chairman of the Dramatic Society,’ he said casually but with purpose.
‘A Dramatic Society? Here in Siglufjördur?’ She could not disguise her surprise.
‘Don’t be fooled by appearances. This town used to be big, and still is, despite the dwindling population. Of course we have a Dramatic Society.’ He smiled. She had become used to his slightly crooked smile, knowing that there was real warmth behind it.
‘It isn’t a large society, though. One production a year at most. I was thinking, perhaps I should mention your name to the director.’
‘Oh, please don’t. I wouldn’t be any good.’
Her rejection wasn’t entirely convincing, and she knew that he would probably do it anyway. He eventually did, and the following autumn she found herself cast in a comedy.
She could hardly believe how easy it was to lose herself on stage.
As she looked into the footlights, it was like stepping into another world. The audience no longer mattered, they could be one, two or fifty, they all merged into one in the glare of lights. When she was on the stage she was no longer in either the Westfjords or Siglufjördur, as she concentrated on recalling the text of the play, and playing emotions that were not her own to the audience. Such was the intensity of her concentration that she even forgot for a moment to think of Ágúst.
She found the applause at the end of the play exhilarating, as if she was floating over the stage. She made a habit of sitting quietly after each performance to bring herself down to earth, and then the gloom would return once again; the memories of Ágúst. But with each performance it somehow became more bearable and every time it would take a little longer for the sorrow to return.
It was as if the stage had become her way out of the darkness. 23
Getting to know the old man was a source of great happiness to her, and she was also very aware that she would never have approached the Dramatic Society on her own.
That made it all the more difficult to tell him about her decision to move away from his basement flat. She had been offered a larger, fully furnished flat to rent in the centre of the town, on Nordurgata; what made her mind up was the fact that it included a piano. She was determined to move there, and it was time to find herself somewhere more permanent in the town to call her own. The basement flat, cosy though it was, was never going to be a long-term prospect. The Nordurgata flat was a step in the right direction. Not only was it more spacious and convenient, but it came with a small garden.
Ugla was still single. Of course there were a few men in the town whom she found attractive, but something held her back. Maybe it was the memory of Ágúst, at least to start with, or maybe she simply wasn’t ready to decide yet if Siglufjördur was the place she wanted to make her home. She wasn’t ready to put down roots, not right away. Her contact with Hrólfur continued after she moved and she walked up the steep hill from her apartment in the town centre to his house on Hólavegur every Wednesday afternoon for coffee with him, just as if she were still living downstairs. They chatted about this and that, his past and his travels, and her future. A fine old man, she thought frequently, always hoping that he had many years in front of him.
Now her life had taken yet another turn. Úlfur, the Dramatic Society’s director, had recently offered her a leading role in a new play. Rehearsals were about to start, with the play to open soon after Christmas.
Playing the lead? The butterflies began fluttering in her stomach. It was only an amateur society, but all the same, a lead is still a lead. It was a good part. The play had been written by someone local and with a bit of luck, it might even be shown further afield, maybe in neighbouring Akureyri, the north coast’s largest town, or even in Reykjavík.
It was November and she had settled well into her new apartment, proud to be standing on her own two feet, and in particular looking forward to her role in the play. It was snowing; she looked out of the window at the beautiful, pearl-white snow, which gave her such a deep sense of tranquillity. 24
She opened the door to the back garden to take a deep breath of chill night air, but the sharp north wind forced her to close it quickly, and suddenly she found herself thinking about Ágúst.
Why did this have to happen to her? Why did he have to die so suddenly? Why did she have to experience such tragic loss at such a young age? It wasn’t fair.
She closed her eyes and thought of the window seat at home in Patreksfjördur, reciting in her mind the old nursery rhyme.
Ugla the owl, perched on a stump.
Who’s next?
One, two,
And it was you.
5
Her initial reaction wasn’t fear, but anger that she hadn’t realised something was wrong, that someone was standing there behind her in the dark. Then the fear overwhelmed her.
He shoved her hard against the door, a hand coming from behind to cover her mouth, turning the key in the lock with the other. The door opened and as he pushed her through the doorway she almost lost her balance; his hand still clamped hard over her mouth. The shock was so paralysing that she wasn’t sure she had the strength to yell, call for help, even if he did relax his grip. He closed the door carefully and the next few seconds were a blur, as if she was in another world and she had lost the strength to resist.
Unable to turn around, she still hadn’t had a chance to see him.
He stopped suddenly and for what felt like an entire lifetime, nothing happened. She sensed that it was up to her to do something. He was holding her with his right hand, not the left, and she tried to work out what her chances might be. She could take him by surprise with a punch or a kick, get free of him and run, scream for help …
But then it was too late. She had hesitated too long by thinking through the options, giving him time to act first, to unsheath the sharp hunting knife.25
6: SIGLUFJÖRDUR. NOVEMBER 2008
Unless visitors wanted to travel by sea or drive over the mountain pass, which was completely inaccessible during the winter, or unless they knew someone with an aircraft who could land at the small Siglufjördur airfield, which no longer had scheduled flights to or from the town, the narrow, old tunnel provided the only access to Siglufjördur.
Ari Thór had decided that he had no need of a car in such a small place, so the little yellow Toyota had been left behind for Kristín to use. She had been too busy with work and her studies to drive him to his new job in Siglufjördur, in spite of his best efforts to persuade her that a trip north would be a good opportunity for some peace and quiet together.
Kristín remained unhappy with his decision to move. She didn’t say much, but every time Siglufjördur was mentioned, a cold silence ensued and the subject was dropped. Both of them were occupied with their studies, and Kristín was working at the hospital alongside her usual lectures. Ari Thór was irritated that she hadn’t found the time to go with him, particularly because they would be apart for a month up to Christmas. He tried to avoid thinking about it, but his mind repeatedly returned to the same thing as he wondered just how high up her list of priorities he was. At the top? Or was he in second place behind medicine? Or maybe in third place behind her studies and work?
She had hugged him tenderly and given him a farewell kiss. ‘Good luck, my love,’ she said, with warmth in her voice.
There was a new barrier between them, a thin and invisible line that he could sense and maybe she too knew was there.
Tómas, the police sergeant in charge at the Siglufjördur station, arrived to pick him up at the airport in the northerly town of Saudárkrókur, about sixty miles to the south of Siglufjördur, the closest airport with scheduled commercial flights.
‘Nice to meet you in person,’ said Tómas, and his voice boomed even louder than Ari Thór had remembered from their initial phone call. Tómas appeared to be in his fifties, with a warm face bordered by white hair – or what was left of it; the top of his head was clear of even a stray tendril. 26
‘Likewise.’ Ari Thór was tired after the turbulent morning flight.
‘Usually it’s an hour and a half or so from here to Siglufjördur, but the roads are terrible right now so it might take a little longer – if we get there at all!’ said Tómas, laughing at his own gallows humour. Ari Thór said nothing, wondering quite how to take the man.
Tómas didn’t talk much on the way, apparently concentrating on the road, although he had most certainly driven this route often enough before.
‘You’re from the north?’ Ari Thór asked.
‘Born and bred, and not going anywhere,’ Tómas replied. ‘How do strangers get on there?’
‘Well … just fine, most of the time. You’ll have to prove yourself. There are people who will welcome you and others who won’t. Most of the townspeople know about you and they’re looking forward to seeing you.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Old Eiríkur’s retiring now and you’re his replacement. He moved north in 1964 if I remember right, and he’s been here ever since. But he’s still an out-of-towner as far as we’re concerned!’
Tómas laughed, but Ari Thór didn’t.
Was this the right decision? Moving to a small rural community where he might never fit in?
The last few kilometres of road before they reached the mountain tunnel were unlike anything Ari Thór had ever seen before. The road snaked around the mountainside with precious little room for the car. On the right were the snow-white mountains, magnificent and formidable, while on the other side was a terrifying, sheer drop down into the broad storm-blown expanse of Skagafjördur. One mistake or a patch of ice, and there would be no tomorrow. Maybe it was as well that Kristín hadn’t come with him. He would certainly have been worried about her driving back that way alone.
Thoughts of Kristín brought his doubts surging back. Why hadn’t she taken a few days off to be with him? Was that too much to ask?
He relaxed as the tunnel entrance finally approached. They had made it all the way in one piece. But his relief was short-lived. He had expected a broad, well-lit, modern tunnel, but what lay in front of him looked forbidding. It was a narrow single track. Ari Thór later learned that it had been carved through the mountainside more than forty years ago when there were only a few tunnels in Iceland. It didn’t help that water 27dripped here and there from the unseen rock ceiling above. Ari Thór suddenly felt himself struck by a feeling he had never experienced before – an overwhelming claustrophobia.
He shut his eyes and tried to shake it off.
He didn’t want to begin his acquaintance with Siglufjördur like this. He planned to spend two years here, maybe more. He had driven through tunnels many times without any discomfort. Maybe it was the thought of this isolated fjord that was affecting him like this, rather than the tunnel itself?
He opened his eyes and as he did so a corner was turned and the tunnel’s mouth appeared ahead of them, leading to the open air. His heartbeat slowed and he had calmed down by the time Tómas said, ‘Welcome to Siglufjördur.’
The fjord greeted them with the oppressive grey of an overcast day. Cloud and squalls hid the ring of mountains, preventing it from showing off its full magnificence. The roofs of the town’s houses were rendered dull by the gloom and a light covering of snow lay over its gardens.
Odd stalks of grass stuck their heads defiantly out of the snow, refusing to accept that winter had arrived, while the mountains towered overwhelmingly high above them.
‘You think it’s going to be a heavy winter?’ Ari Thór asked, as if he needed to reassure himself that there were brighter prospects ahead. Maybe this was just a particularly drab day?
Tómas laughed at the newcomer’s question and answered in his deep bass voice, ‘Every winter is a heavy winter in Siglufjördur, my friend.’
There weren’t many people to be seen and there was little traffic. It was approaching midday; Ari Thór expected there to be more activity during the lunch hour.
‘Very quiet here,’ he said to break the silence. ‘I suppose the financial crash is going to affect you up here just the same as the rest of us?’
‘Crash? There’s nothing like that here. The crash belongs in Reykjavík and it won’t stretch up north. We’re too far away,’ Tómas said as they drove into the square in the centre of town. ‘We missed out on the boom years up here in Siglufjördur, so the crash doesn’t worry us either.’
‘Same here,’ Ari Thór said. ‘There weren’t many boom years for students.’
‘If there’s a recession here, it comes from the sea,’ Tómas continued. ‘This place hummed with activity in the old days, before the herring 28disappeared. There aren’t that many people here these days, something like twelve or thirteen hundred.’
‘Not many speeding tickets here, I suppose? There don’t seem to be many cars.’
‘Listen here,’ Tómas said solemnly, his voice becoming grave. ‘This job isn’t about handing out tickets. Quite the opposite. This is a small community and we’re more than the local coppers. It’s more about handing out as few tickets as you can! You’ll find out soon enough that we work very differently from down south. It’s a tightknit community. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.’
Tómas drove along the main street, Adalgata, which was dotted with small restaurants, shops and some venerable houses that looked as if they still had occupants.
‘Your place is down there a little way to the left, on Eyrargata,’ Tómas said, pointing the way without taking his eyes off the road. ‘I’ll take you past the station first, so you can get a sense of what’s where.’
He took a turn to the right, and then right again, into Gránargata, which ran parallel to Adalgata, and slowed down.
‘You want to take a look, or do you want to go home first?’ he asked amiably.
Home?
That discomfort again, claustrophobia and homesickness. Would he really be able to see this strange place with its impressive fjord as home? His thoughts flashed back to what Kristín would be doing right now, in Reykjavík. Home.
‘I suppose I’d best make myself at home,’ he said, suppressing a gulp.
Moments later Tómas parked the car in Eyrargata outside a house that stood in a tight knot of other imposing houses dating back a generation or more.
‘I hope this’ll suit you, at least to start with. The town bought this place a few years ago and it hasn’t been looked after as well as it might have been, although it’s mostly the outside that needs some attention. It should be comfortable enough. It’s been up for sale for ages. It’s far too big for you, but maybe your girlfriend will move north as well at some point. It’s perfect for a big family,’ Tómas said with a grin.
Ari Thór tried to smile back.
‘You don’t get a car but, believe me, in a place like this you won’t need 29one,’ Tómas added. ‘When you need to go down south one of us will run you over to Saudárkrókur Airport, or we can find someone going that way.’
Ari Thór stepped back and looked at the house more carefully. It had last been painted in a pale red colour that had started to come off in flakes. There were two storeys, the upper level built into the eaves. The roof was a vivid red, mostly hidden under a blanket of snow. The dwelling had been built on a low-slung basement and two windows could be seen on the bottom level. A large shovel had been propped by the door to the basement.
‘You’ll need that,’ said Tómas, his laughter dark but good-natured. ‘It’ll be useful when we get some real snow and you have to shovel your way out. You’re no use to us if you’re snowed in!’
The discomfort grew inside Ari Thór and his heart beat faster. They made their way up the steps to the front door, where Ari Thór hesitated.
‘What are you waiting for, young man?’ Tómas asked. ‘Open the door – we’ll catch our death out here.’
‘I don’t have the keys,’ Ari Thór said awkwardly.
‘Keys?’ Tómas asked, grasping the handle, opening the door and stepping inside. ‘Nobody locks their doors. There’s no point, nothing ever happens around here.’
But he fished a bunch of keys from his pocket and handed them to Ari Thór. ‘I thought you’d like to have a set of keys anyway, just to be sure.’ He smiled. ‘See you later.’
Ari Thór was alone. He shut the door. In the kitchen he looked out of the window that gave him a view of the houses across the street and hopefully a view of the mountains on a good day.
Tómas’s words echoed in his mind.
‘Nothing ever happens around here.’
What have I got myself into?
What the hell have I got myself into?
7
She had seen hunting knives before. Her husband had several. But nothing could have prepared her for this moment. She stiffened, and then felt the30strength draining from her limbs. Darkness spread before her eyes. He lost his grip, or let her drop, and she fell to the floor.
Then she saw him for the first time. He was dressed all in black – a shabby leather jacket, dark jeans and trainers, and a balaclava hiding everything but his eyes, nose and mouth. She was positive that it was a man, had been since she first sensed his presence, and the strength in his hands told him that he had to be young. She knew right away that she would never recognise him again, even if she did manage to escape with her life.
She heard him hiss, telling her to keep quiet, otherwise she’d feel the knife and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She had to believe him. For the first time she was aware of her own mortality, and the thought that these could be her last few moments of life brought a cold sweat to her forehead. Questions darted back and forth across her mind. What comes next? A black eternity, or heaven? She lay on the floor, every part of her wracked with pain from the fall, watching him standing there in the middle of the living room floor, dressed for action, the weapon in his hand.
For the first time in years she found herself praying.
8: SIGLUFJÖRDUR. DECEMBER 2008
The ceiling was low in the room in which Ari Thór had chosen to sleep. This wasn’t the largest room upstairs; for some reason he had chosen the smaller room with the single bed over the double in the larger bedroom. It was as if he was emphasising to himself that this was a solo venture.
He had shifted the bed around so that it gave him a view straight out of the skylight when he went to sleep and when he woke up, although there was rarely anything to be seen, other than pitch darkness.
The alarm clock buzzed for the fourth time. Ari Thór stretched for the button that would give him a precious extra ten minutes of dreams. He dropped back into sleep each time, and each time there was a new dream, different from the last. It was like watching a series of short films, in which he was all at once the writer, director and leading man.
It was getting on for ten o’clock and he had a shift that started at midday. The first couple of weeks had flashed past. The persistent feeling 31of discomfort had weakened; he had kept it at bay by concentrating on revising for his final exams and working long hours, taking every extra shift that was offered. The claustrophobia normally made an appearance towards evening when he lay alone in bed, gazing out of the skylight into the darkness. All the same, he preferred to look out through the glass, rather than at a bare ceiling. Sometimes the days with bad weather were overwhelming, especially when it snowed heavily. He hadn’t even got round to organising an internet connection, as much by intention as for any other reason. He could check his email at work and appreciated being able to come home in the evening – yes, home, almost a new concept – and find himself in peace and quiet with little contact with the world outside. He could cook himself something delicious to eat. In one week, Ari Thór had almost become a regular customer of the local fishmonger, whose delightful shop by the town square always seemed to be filled with fresh fish. Ari Thór had tried the familiar haddock, which his mother had always cooked on Mondays, and the more savoury halibut. But his favourite so far had been freshly caught trout. He seasoned it ever sparingly, wrapped it in foil and baked it in the oven, just long enough for it to fall off the bone without losing any of its flavour.
After his meal he would immerse himself in his textbooks and other books he’d chosen for pleasure. That first week he had gone to the library during his coffee break, borrowing a handful of books that he had always meant to read but had never had the time to; it was these that he picked up when the textbooks became heavy going.
He had also borrowed a few classical music CDs, listening to these when he wasn’t reading or working, sometimes simply sitting in the darkness in the living room, thinking about Kristín, his late parents, how alone he felt. One evening he had spent listening to the radio, a live broadcast of a concert by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra – a name which never failed to conjure up memories of his mother, who had died in a road accident when he was a child. She had been a violinist in the orchestra.
He tried to avoid watching television as much as possible; occasionally catching the news. As far as he could make out, Reykjavík was descending into chaos after the crash of the big banks, with impassioned anti-government protests that seemed to become louder by the day. 32
After every shift he made a point of choosing a roundabout route home, passing along the shore, where he would stand for a while.
There was something about being by the sea that was calming, helping him feel at ease in this distant and isolated town. Watching the often turbulent waves he was almost able to imagine that he was standing by the shore in Reykjavík. The sea had also been within walking distance from his flat on Öldugata. And at night, thinking of the sea helped him avoid the suffocating feeling of claustrophobia that he would sometimes feel engulfing him.
He liked his work well enough. The police station occasionally seemed to be more of a canteen than a workplace, almost a social centre. There were regular visitors who stopped off for a coffee – some of them several times a week – to chat about this and that; the crash, the protests and the government were the main subjects for debate, and then there was the weather. There had been a noticeable increase in traffic in the police station’s coffee corner during the first few days after his arrival, as everyone wanted the opportunity to take a look at the new boy from down south.
One day, over coffee at the station, Tómas had mentioned that Ari Thór had qualified with a degree in theology.
‘No, that’s not quite right,’ Ari Thór was quick to correct him.
‘But you studied theology, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Ari Thór hesitated. ‘But I never qualified. Took a break to go to the police college instead.’
Hearing himself say the word “break” took him by surprise. Deep inside he knew that he would probably never finish the theology degree.
‘Well! That’s quite something!’ said Hlynur, a colleague who had worked alongside Tómas for several years.
Ari Thór knew that Hlynur was in his mid-thirties, but he looked older. His hair was starting to thin and he wondered if Hlynur was in good enough physical shape to meet the police force’s fitness standards. He also came across as distant, as if to discourage anyone from getting too close to him.
‘A priest in the making among us!’ Hlynur went on.
Ari Thór forced himself to smile, although he was far from amused.
‘Are you going to solve the cases we mortals can’t handle?’ Hlynur asked. ‘With a little help from upstairs?’
He and Tómas laughed. 33
‘The Reverend Ari,’ Hlynur said. ‘The Reverend Ari Thór solves the mystery!’
After that the most unlikely people took to calling him “the priest” or “the Reverend Ari Thór”. He played along with it, even though he had never liked nicknames, least of all a nickname created on the basis of studies that he had started only half-heartedly, and then given up.
That first day at work he had tried to call Kristín, but she hadn’t answered. He sent her an email describing the trip to the north, providing details about Tómas and the house. He left out anything about how he felt; he didn’t mention that this isolated place had greeted him with gloom and darkness, that he was still unhappy with her reaction to his getting a job there, or his disappointment that she hadn’t seen fit to take some time off to go with him – or at least spend a weekend together there. Maybe she didn’t want to make things too easy for him? Or maybe she was hoping he’d be back in Reykjavík in a few weeks, having given up on the snow and isolation of the north.
Ari Thór had read her reply the following day. She wrote about work and her studies, mentioning as well that her father had lost his job at the bank where he had been for years, one among many who had been let go. He knew that she would be feeling distraught over this, and that her mother worked at an architect’s practice where the financial crash would doubtless also make itself felt soon enough. Kristín didn’t seem inclined to discuss anything in detail. It was a short message, lacking in any kind of emotion. As was his to her.
The next day he was able to reach her on the phone. He was just home from a long shift and not as ready as he would have liked to discuss what was troubling him. They talked for a while about superficial things, but nothing in any real depth. Kristín had always been calm and quiet, and was rarely inclined to let minor, everyday things upset her. So he wasn’t able to decide if he was the only one unwilling to delve into things that affected them both.
As the weeks went on, they talked every day, but Ari Thór still avoided bringing up his disappointment that she wasn’t supportive enough of his new job, and Kristín seemed to avoid the subject as well, probably still annoyed that he had left Reykjavík. Still, it didn’t seem fair, he thought. She had her parents and her friends in Reykjavík. He was all alone in a new place and would certainly have appreciated some 34reassurance. But instead of tackling these issues, they kept their conversations short – friendly but trivial.
But now he needed to call her. It was already mid-December, he had been in Siglufjördur for over a month, and Christmas was approaching. He was going to have to let her know about Tómas’s decision to assign him shifts over the holiday period, and it wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Tómas had actually phrased it as a request, but, realistically, Ari Thór couldn’t say no: he was in no position to refuse and he wanted to prove himself.
He started the day with cereal, ice-cold milk and yesterday’s newspaper. He had started to get used to seeing the papers late, as the morning editions didn’t reach this far-flung fjord until at least midday. Not that it mattered. The rhythm of life was different here, time passed more slowly and there was less bustling hurry than in the city. The papers would be here when they were here.
He called Kristín and had to wait a moment before she answered. ‘Hi, I’m at work, couldn’t get to the phone right away. How are things?’
