The Day Is Dark

Chapter 25

The fourth step would be difficult this time. In his previous attempts to dry out Arnar had found this stage on his road to recovery fairly easy. But now things were different. ‘We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves,’ the step stated. Now he had to account for a far more serious issue than having defaulted on debts, disappointed his parents, betrayed his friends and colleagues and let his addiction negatively affect his work. To whom could he entrust this? God? Arnar was not convinced He existed. Yet he had accepted that there was some power that was superior to him, since it was impossible for him to become healthy again without believing that. Suddenly the thought struck him that perhaps there was no benevolent God in the universe, only evil. If so, Arnar had joined forces with the Devil and could have no hope of salvation, either in this life or in whatever might come after death.

He had once slaved his way through Dante’s Divine Comedy. Although he hadn’t understood the work thoroughly – or its strange title – it had had a great effect on him. Many of the poet’s images of life after death were still embedded in his mind; for example, the fate of false prophets. They had offended God by pretending to be able to foresee the future and their heads were turned in reverse; in addition to this they wept so much that they were blinded by their own tears. Arnar had admittedly never been guilty of that, but he felt he knew exactly where he would end up in Dante’s Hell. Until now he had thought it certain that he would be placed deep in the Seventh Circle of Hell, reserved for those guilty of sodomy; there he would wander a burning desert, trying unsuccessfully to protect himself from fire that rained from the sky. Now he realised he would end up even lower: in the Ninth Circle. This place was intended for those who had betrayed those closest to them. Arnar could not recall precisely how this circle was organised but he did remember that the souls there were trapped in a frozen lake; how much of their bodies was free of the ice depended upon whom they had betrayed.

As a mortal sinner he therefore had only two choices: fire or ice. At a glance he would prefer fire; though he trembled at the thought of either eternal cold or a sea of flames, at least in the latter he wouldn’t be as lonely as he’d be in the frozen lake, where no one could speak and the souls could only gaze helplessly at the other wretches stuck in the gleaming ice. Comedy was a strange name for a poem that was mostly so devoid of joy. Moreover, Arnar had trouble tallying this description of hell with Jesus’ having sacrificed himself on the cross for the sins of mankind. If Dante’s description had any truth to it, it would mean Christ’s sacrificial death had been for nothing. Perhaps the poet had felt like Arnar when he wrote the poem, certain that the sun would never rise again.

No, Arnar could think of no one to whom he could entrust this. In terms of who would be chosen to help him through the steps, it changed nothing. He detested himself when he thought about this, and he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that same disgust kindled in the eyes of someone else. He had painted himself into a corner; if he did not account for himself he would be unable to free himself from the claws of Bacchus. The memory of what he had done would eat at him from within and tear down his flimsy defences against his addiction. There were two choices remaining to him, both of them bad: to come clean and reap contempt and condemnation, or to go grovelling back to alcohol like a dog in the dirt. Whichever he chose, the reckoning or the bottle, it was clear he had many more sleepless nights to come. Once again the best solution seemed to be to kill himself, like a man. This gave him a third choice of location in Dante’s Hell: in the middle of the Seventh Circle, where he would become a thorn bush fed upon by Harpies, winged beings with the heads of maidens.

Arnar laughed out loud in his dark, lonely room. What was wrong with him? Did he really think that he would gain peace of mind by contemplating an old poem; free himself from guilt over his treachery and lust for revenge? He emitted a dry and mirthless laugh, turned on his side and adjusted his pillow. How far could one go in the name of revenge? Were there any unwritten rules or ethical guidelines he had missed finding out about? Hardly. Right now he could think of two proverbs in connection with revenge. One was in line with what he had done – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth – but the other was entirely the opposite; to turn the other cheek. The former had its origin in mankind’s first attempts to codify laws in writing, with the Hammurabi Code, while the latter was from the New Testament. Nearly 2,000 years separated these two approaches and another 2,000 had passed without any new options being provided. It must be high time to invent a new phrase. It was hard to tell how it would be worded, but Arnar suspected that his actions would nonetheless have contravened it.

Maybe everything had worked out and there would be no repercussions. The men had not necessarily met their maker. They’d always had options, though Arnar couldn’t see what they might have been. Unless God had intervened. Arnar relaxed a little. If God existed, saving the men was in His hands. Just as Arnar could have shown them mercy but chose not to do so. In that case, how could the Lord of Hosts judge him for exactly the same thing? Maybe there had been mitigating circumstances – what if he had been hurt by the men’s insults and bullying and therefore couldn’t help himself? Weren’t people sometimes acquitted because they rebelled against their persecutors? He needed to keep firmly in mind how his life had been ruined and make sure to emphasize that. Maybe then people would show him understanding and judge him leniently, even come to the conclusion that they would have done exactly the same in his shoes. Maybe. Maybe not. The words of the reader at the AA meeting earlier that evening echoed in his mind. You have no hope of recovery while you carry around your old sins. They will burden you with constant guilt and eventually you will give in to the cunning prompting of your addiction to have a drink. Account for yourself with full sincerity and you will feel how your burdens become lighter and life becomes simpler and more manageable. But your sincerity and honesty must be one hundred per cent. Not ninety-nine. One hundred per cent. Otherwise, this only works for short periods of time.

Arnar knew that the man was right. One hundred per cent, not ninety-nine. So there was nothing he could do. In fact, he was in the same boat as Bjarki and Dóri. God had to come to his rescue. That is, if God existed and wasn’t too busy. The night would be long, just like other nights in the future.

Outside snowflakes fell lightly to the ground as if they didn’t really feel like doing so. Was it snowing in Greenland now? If so, wouldn’t Bjarki and Dóri’s bodies soon be entirely buried? Hopefully gone forever, but at least until the spring. What would happen then? How would Arnar feel if a child came across their remains? He had to do something. But it could wait. Maybe until spring. Then he would have time to adapt his story to gain a little sympathy.

‘Can you believe this?’ Thóra leaned back in her chair. ‘And then they put it on the Internet like it’s just another silly film.’

Matthew didn’t appear as shocked as she was. ‘Maybe it wasn’t as nasty as it looked. What led up to it? Sometimes the build-up reveals more than the event itself. And what happened afterwards?’

Thóra frowned at him. ‘How can anything that was done either before or after make this any better?’ She reached for the mouse and replayed the video. As they watched the scene a third time, Thóra felt as if she were as guilty as the pranksters. On the screen the image moved down the familiar corridor of the Berg office building in Greenland. The man holding the camera giggled and whispered to someone who was apparently following him. Thóra struggled to distinguish the words but thought that he whispered: Do you think he’ll start crying? This was followed by the uncontrollable giggling of his companions. Next the men started singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and their singing sounded false to Thóra. The camera stopped outside one of the doors in the corridor, which appeared to be closed, and as the singing grew louder the camera zoomed in on the door’s name-plate, on which stood the words Arnar Jóhannesson – Engineer. A hand appeared in the frame as the cameraman knocked hard on the door, then opened it almost immediately. Inside a man sat in a chair at a desk. At first his face displayed pleasant surprise, which quickly changed to suspicion.

The singing stopped and the man was handed a white shoebox tied with a large ribbon. The ribbon was made of yellow plastic and printed with a warning about underground cables. ‘What is this?’

‘A birthday present, or course! Isn’t it your birthday today?’ The two men outside the frame giggled again, now even more nastily than before. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘No, thank you.’ The man handed back the shoebox. ‘I remember what I got from you last year.’

‘Oh man, come on. We just didn’t remember that you’d stopped drinking. Most people would be very happy to get a bottle of schnapps.’

‘Yes, yes. Probably.’ The man shook the box at the camera in an attempt to return it. ‘Take this and get out of here with that camera. I need to work.’

‘Come on. Open it. We went to a lot of trouble to get it for you.’ He wasn’t laughing any more. ‘Open your present, man.’

The man looked into the camera, and the brutally honest lens captured the moment of his surrender. ‘What is this?’ The anxiety in his voice was clear, but he received no answer. He stared into the camera for a moment longer before violently tearing off the plastic ribbon. He was clearly upset about giving in to them, but was unable to toss the box at them and throw them out. It was as if this were inevitable; if he didn’t open the box now it would turn up again at the supper table, in the lounge or somewhere else. Thóra frowned; it must have been horrible to be in this man’s shoes in this kind of workplace. Before he took the lid off Arnar looked up nervously. Then he threw it on the floor with a quick flip of his hand and looked into the box. Thóra would have preferred to fast forward through the rest of it, but she forced herself to watch it again. The man cried out and looked at the others in bewilderment. ‘What is wrong with you two?’ His voice cracked.

‘What?’ The cameraman’s simulated surprise fooled no one and Thóra supposed that the expression on his face was just as false. ‘Aren’t you happy? We went to a lot of trouble to get it.’

‘Get out of here.’ The man didn’t throw down the shoebox, as he’d done with the lid, but let it lie in his arms and simply stared down at it as he spoke. ‘This is even lower than I would have believed you two could go.’

‘What?’ His voice was falsely incredulous. ‘Haven’t you been trying to get this for a long, long time? You can stop now. We’ve done it for you.’

The other man crowed: ‘Happy Birthday!’ The giggling began again.

‘Get out.’ The man was still staring into the box. ‘You’re disgusting.’ The camera zoomed in to reveal the box’s contents. It had been filled with paper from the paper shredder and in the centre of the pile was a tiny sparrow.

‘Now you can stop trying to lure it to you with breadcrumbs. Be happy.’

‘I wasn’t trying to lure it. I was feeding it. To keep it alive.’ The man looked up and now anger radiated from his face. ‘It’s obviously too much to ask, expecting imbeciles like you to notice that there aren’t any birds here. It ended up here and simply needed to be fed until the spring. Then it would have survived.’

‘My dear man, don’t be so sentimental.’ The men snickered and now the camera was turned towards them. They were similar despite not looking at all the same, and to Thóra’s eye they were the incarnation of boorishness – schoolyard bullies, all grown up. One of them was starting to lose his hair but tried to make up for it with his beard, which was ragged and discoloured. The other was dirty blond and could have seriously used a haircut. He was chubbier than his balding partner, but they were both wearing dark blue fleece jackets marked Berg Technology, which they should have thrown into the washing machine long ago. They jeered and made faces into the camera, repeating ‘Happy Birthday!’ before shutting it off.

Thóra turned to Matthew. ‘What utter, utter bastards.’

‘Yes, they don’t seem to be particularly nice people, judging by this video.’ Matthew was always cautious, so Thóra didn’t push him for a stronger reaction. ‘I assume that these are Bjarki and Dóri, the drillers, the ones we’re searching for, along with other things.’

‘Yes, and I’m on the verge of believing that the world is better off without them. I want to show you something else on this page.’ She scrolled down. ‘Total nonsense, and most of it seriously nasty. I’d bet my right arm that if the bones in the drawers are Oddný Hildur’s, then these men were involved in cleaning the flesh from them. I’m certain they wouldn’t have thought anything of it.’

‘Have you watched all these clips?’ said Matthew as she scrolled from one media player window to the next.

‘Yes.’ Thóra let go of the mouse. On the screen was yet another clip waiting for her to click on ‘play’. ‘This is typical of the rest: the two of them thinking they’re funny. I don’t know who shot the video, or whether they set up the camera to record automatically. Usually only one of them is in the frame at a time.’ On the screen the men sat and smoked cigars with great enthusiasm. The joke was based on the decision to allow all the workers to decide for themselves whether smoking would be allowed in their individual offices. The corridor would be a smoke-free zone, and the smokers’ room as well, since its function was now obsolete. Speculation on what it could now be used for took over and the lameness of the humour increased exponentially.

‘I don’t understand half of what they’re saying but it seems fairly innocent.’ Matthew yawned. ‘Shouldn’t we just go to bed? We might very well have to wake up early tomorrow morning if the police have got anywhere in their investigation.’ Thóra stopped the video. ‘I doubt they’ve found anything. We were there for days and we didn’t make much progress.’

‘They have better equipment than us. They can detect blood and handle everything that we didn’t want to touch. And you never know, they might have sent additional personnel from the crime lab, and even sniffer dogs. I know that’s what I would do if I were conducting the investigation on behalf of the police.’

Thóra sighed. ‘Let me cling on to the hope that I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow. Please.’

Matthew bent closer to the computer. ‘What is this?’ He pointed at the clip that had been stopped on the screen. ‘Is this a part of the joke?’

Thóra also moved closer to see what he meant. The two men were frozen in strange positions, one with his eyes closed and his cigar raised, the other reaching for the ashtray, revealing dark sweat stains in his armpits. However, it wasn’t either of the men that had drawn Matthew’s attention, but something in the dark window behind them. ‘Is it possible to enlarge this?’ Matthew had got as close as he could without blocking the screen in front of Thóra. ‘That looks like some kind of weird figure outside the window.’

Thóra peered at the image. ‘Oh? I don’t see anything.’ She squinted to try to get a better look. ‘Oh yes. Is that a mask or a helmet?’

‘Maybe a snowmobile helmet.’ Matthew pointed at the area directly above the vague figure. ‘There’s something else. He seems to be dragging something along the window.’ He looked at Thóra and hurriedly added: ‘Or she. There’s no way to tell.’

Thóra tilted her head back a little and looked at the date of the clip. ‘This was made on the same day that Oddný Hildur disappeared.’ She set the clip in motion again and they watched the strange being move quickly past the window and out of sight. Whatever it had been dragging behind it left an irregular dark streak on the windowpane. ‘Could this be related to her disappearance? If it’s not an employee, then it’s possible that it might have been someone who wished to do them harm.’

‘Isn’t that rather far-fetched?’ Matthew straightened up as the clip finished. ‘It’s probably something related to the joke, or an employee of Berg.’

‘We can find out.’ Thóra stood up. ‘It would be best to have Friðrikka and Eyjólfur look at it. Since it was uploaded on the same day that Oddný Hildur disappeared, they would both have been on site, and I’m guessing that everyone followed this blog.’

‘Everyone but Arnar,’ said Matthew. ‘He would hardly have been waiting with bated breath for the next entry.’

‘No, hardly. We have to speak to him. It seems to me that if he tells us what could get him to return to work, it would be child’s play to persuade the other workers to do the same.’