The Day Is Dark

Chapter 27

Outside it was dark and windy, but that didn’t matter when it was warm and cosy inside the hotel. The breakfast was particularly good, especially in comparison to the hodgepodge that they had eaten over the last few mornings. Bella was the only one who complained about the conditions. She was extremely unhappy that there were only non-smoking rooms at the hotel. ‘I mean, we’re in Greenland. We can go out and kill the first thing we see and we can probably do everything we can think of inside this hotel, except for smoking. This is fucking lunacy.’ She stood up dramatically, grabbed her black jumper and dashed outside.

‘Has anyone heard from the police?’ The doctor wiped his mouth on a white napkin and laid it over his plate. ‘Will we receive permission to leave today?’

‘No, because they’re probably having the same problem as we did reaching the outside world. Unless they have satellite phones.’ Thóra looked at the large clock hanging on the wall of the dining room. ‘It’s only just eight o’clock, so I doubt they’ve started doing anything.’ Iceland was two hours ahead, which meant everyone there was at work. They could use the time to call people and make enquiries about the case, but of course they would have to proceed carefully. In general it was better to meet people face to face than speak to them on the phone; if the phone conversation went badly they might not have any further opportunity to extract information from the people they’d interviewed. ‘What’s this Arnar like?’ she asked, directing her question at Friðrikka, who sat opposite her. ‘How do you think he would take it if I called and asked him some questions? Maybe he could tell us something about these bones?’

‘Maybe,’ muttered Friðrikka into her cup. She took a sip and put it down carefully on the saucer. ‘I haven’t seen him since Oddný Hildur’s disappearance, but we weren’t close at all. He kept pretty much to himself.’ The woman rubbed her freckled forehead and shut her eyes, as if she had a headache. Even her eyelids were freckled. ‘He’ll probably answer your questions if he can.’

‘Where can I find his phone number?’

‘I don’t have a number for him.’ Friðrikka took out an old Nokia mobile from the pocket of her fleece jacket. ‘I’ll see if I put anything into my phone book, but I doubt it. We didn’t have mobile phones then, you see, and I didn’t know Arnar well enough for us to keep in touch in Iceland. The only person that I spent any time with was Oddný Hildur.’ She looked up from the phone and stuck it back in her pocket. ‘No, I don’t have anything.’

‘What about you, Eyjólfur?’

The young man was in the middle of a yawn but he suppressed it abruptly and shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t know him and I’ve never even known where he lives. Just look him up in the yellow pages on the Internet.’ Thóra had thought of that, but the name Arnar Jóhannesson was extremely common and she’d wanted to take a shorter route. Eyjólfur turned to Friðrikka and continued: ‘Maybe your ex-husband has his number?’ His voice was charged with nastiness. ‘They probably have the same group of friends. They seemed chummy enough at the Annual Ball back in the day.’

Friðrikka did not reply, nor did she look up. No one besides Thóra understood any of this, since Friðrikka had entrusted Thóra with the secret of her husband’s sexuality in private, and it was unlikely that she would have dropped hints about her husband to just anyone. Still, the story had presumably circulated among her co-workers while the divorce was taking place and Eyjólfur had clearly got wind of the reason for the divorce. Thóra narrowed her eyes at Eyjólfur. ‘Well, how do we know that you aren’t also a member of that group’s inner circle? Either way, I’d have thought a young man like you would be less prejudiced about something like that.’

‘Hey, I was just trying to help.’ Eyjólfur didn’t take offence at Thóra’s insinuation. ‘You don’t have to worry about me. If you want we can go to my room and I’ll prove it to you.’ He winked at her.

Luckily, Matthew was engaged in close conversation with the doctor and didn’t overhear this. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ At the same moment a young Greenlandic girl came to the table and offered them coffee refills. She had a warm, friendly smile and was very careful when filling their cups. ‘What are you doing here? Going up on the glacier?’ She spoke good English with a Danish accent.

‘We’re here because of the mine near Kaanneq. We’re on our way home to Iceland.’ The young woman nodded curtly. Her smile had disappeared as soon as she heard the name of the village. ‘Do you know the place?’

‘I visited it many years ago – I was there one summer to help my aunt. I found it fun as a child but I’m not sure I’d want to live there now.’ The woman shuffled her feet as she stood at the end of the table. ‘Are things progressing well with the mine?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard there’ll be a lot of well-paid jobs there once it’s finished.’

‘It’s still in its preparatory stages,’ said Thóra. ‘It’ll be some time before the actual work there begins.’ Finally, a talkative person who knew the area. She decided to pump the girl for information. ‘There was a small delay but hopefully they’ll be able to make up for the time lost. I understand some people are blaming the delays on the area they’ve chosen to work in. Doing any kind of work there seems to be frowned upon. Do you know anything about that?’

The young woman looked at Thóra and seemed to be in two minds. It was probably due to some language difficulty, because after a few moments of deliberation, she replied hesitantly: ‘I was told not to go to the area when I lived there and naturally I heeded that advice. And I’ve often heard and read about the history of the settlement that was there before Kaanneq was built, as well as what happened to the inhabitants.’ She resumed her friendly expression, causing three furrows that had appeared on her forehead to vanish. ‘We’ve always loved scary stories and that one certainly fits the bill. The fact that there are photographs to accompany it makes it even juicier. You do know the story, don’t you?’

Thóra said yes. ‘It’s no secret, is it? I imagine everyone who goes to the village gets to hear it?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. At least everyone in Tuku should know it.’ She saw that Thóra did not understand what she meant. ‘Tuku is what you call Eastern Greenland.’

This simply confirmed what Thóra already suspected. Everyone knew about it, so so what? If she wasn’t able to demonstrate that external factors had in some way contributed to the project being halted, it meant little to pull old stories out of a hat. ‘I understand that people have disappeared there,’ said Thóra, trying not to imply that she was connected in some way with the disappearances. ‘Have you heard that?’

‘When I was there all those years ago, I was told that people who went there were in danger of going missing. This was followed by a story about a man who ignored everything he’d heard about the area and went there contrary to all warnings. He was never seen again. I don’t remember any other examples, and I don’t know when he was supposed to have vanished or anything else about him. It was just a story about a young hunter from the northernmost settlements who thought he was a big man but was forced to bow down to the spirits.’

‘So it’s spirits, not dangerous wild animals, or crevasses in the ice, or anything like that?’ Thóra asked, although the answer was obvious.

‘Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. These are the spirits or souls of people who died there and can’t get away.’ The girl’s expression did not change and she appeared completely unembarrassed about this explanation. Somehow her face reminded Thóra of the young woman in the village who had allowed them to use her phone, except that this girl was younger and had followed another, straighter path in life. ‘I was told there were some marks connected with the place. Have you ever heard of these?’

‘Yes, the spirits mark the people that they intend to seize. I’ve never seen such a thing, just heard it said.’

‘What are the marks like?’ Thóra imagined a forehead branded with black, smoking crosses.

‘Something involving the facial features. I was told that the blood abandons the body through the eyes, mouth and nose – even the ears. And that the people turn blue. After a person has lost all his blood he disappears into the ice to be with the others.’ The girl placed the nearly full coffeepot on the table. ‘It must be a horrible way to die. That’s why the villagers are determined to keep people away from the area. They don’t want this to happen to anyone. They’re also obligated to those who died to enforce the ban.’

‘How?’ Now Thóra was expecting a story about ghosts who appeared to people in dreams. ‘Didn’t everyone die? How did they deliver the message about the ban?’

‘They didn’t all die. One escaped.’

‘One escaped?’ Thóra didn’t remember this from the book she’d read.

‘Yes, so I was told. He didn’t escape completely, but he managed to get far enough south to come across other people. They thought he was a ghost but they took him to someone in the village who declared him to be a living person. The two of them spoke and he supposedly told the angekkok – that’s a kind of shaman – which area was to be avoided, and made him promise that he would see to it that no one went there. I don’t know what else he said because only the chosen are allowed to hear it.’

‘Who are the chosen? Special people, or everyone over a certain age?’

‘No, no. Descendants of the shaman. His sons, and their sons after them. I think the most important hunter in the village was also involved. Later on the people there even moved farther north to be closer to the area, so that they could keep watch on it. That’s how the village of Kaanneq came to be, from what I understand. They’d heard that there were plans to encourage people to spread out northward along the coast, and they wanted to be sure that no one settled where the spirits were. Because the more souls the dead can seize, the more powerful they become.’

‘How do you know all of this? I’ve read a bit about it and I haven’t found anything saying that any more was heard of the people who died. Of course I read a description of how a hunting party saw one or two of the villagers out on the ice, but they supposedly fled and were never seen again.’

‘That was the same man; he was by himself. Then he disappeared after delivering his message. When this story was recorded there was a lot of secrecy around what the shaman had been told. People feared the revenge of the spirits if they talked about it. So outsiders were never told, nor was it spoken of publicly. Most people thought that it was connected with a Tupilak, that one of the original inhabitants of Kaanneq had created one in the spirit of vengeance but that it had turned against him: rebelled against its creator and then against everyone else there. In the old days you couldn’t even think about them without running the risk of dying, let alone discuss them out loud, so that could also explain why no one wanted to talk about this.’

‘A Tupilak?’ Thóra suddenly remembered the little statue that they had found in the cab of the drilling rig. ‘Are they those little scowling figures made of bone?’

‘Yes, you can read about them here in the lobby. There’s a display set up near the exit. Of course no one believes in them any longer but they’re popular souvenirs. That’s why the case seems different now; no one fears the Tupilak any more, so people aren’t afraid to discuss the story with each other. Maybe what you read will be corrected later, I don’t know. Here in Kulusuk no one has any particular interest in it; I just know the story because I’ve lived in Kaanneq. My mother wanted me to learn about the old-fashioned hunting culture. Kulusuk is quite old-fashioned enough for me, but it’s still far more modern than Kaanneq. At least here we have tourists.’

Thóra smiled at the girl. It was the same everywhere: the older one got, the more charming one found more old-fashioned ways of life. Thóra’s parents had made many attempts to send her to the countryside, determined that she would not grow up without having tried haymaking or feeding an orphaned lamb from a bottle. She was starting to feel this way herself, regretting that Sóley wasn’t outside in all sorts of weather, playing with skipping ropes or hopscotch or cat’s cradle. The old, vanishing way of life was more appealing than the new one taking over, not to mention whatever was waiting around the corner. Thóra thanked the girl, who left with the coffeepot. She decided to read the information about the Tupilak, since she needed to go down to the lobby anyway, to go online. Although old horror stories about magical monsters could hardly have anything to do with the case, she found it rather interesting.

Friðrikka had said nothing while Thóra was speaking to the girl, but had been listening carefully. She was pale and tired-looking and still seemed a little shaky after having discovered the corpse in the freezer. ‘Do you think they’ll find Oddný Hildur?’ she said now. It was clear that she’d been startled by the story about souls who pulled people down into the ice. No one wanted to imagine a loved one in those circumstances, no matter how far-fetched a notion it seemed.

‘Probably.’ Thóra said this with great conviction, though she was far from certain. The woman could have died out in the open in any one of a million different places – or been put anywhere, if she had died by human hand. There must be animals out in the wild who would take advantage of such an easy meal, though at that moment Thóra could not think of any scavengers native to the area. She had no idea whether polar bears and other indigenous fauna ate only freshly killed prey, or whether everything was considered edible in times of hardship. Considering how little food there was, she assumed the latter. It was extremely likely that neither hide nor hair of the woman would ever be found.

‘We’ve got to get her home and bury her. She can’t stay here.’ Friðrikka was gazing at the multicoloured tablecloth.

‘Aren’t you forgetting Dóri and Bjarki?’ Eyjólfur was sitting at the end of the table, staring out through the window at the choppy sea. ‘Don’t we need to find them too?’

Apparently these two couldn’t agree on anything. If one of them said the sky was blue, the other would say green. ‘Of course it also applies to them. It just came out that way.’ Thóra couldn’t believe she was starting the day by listening to more of their bickering. She looked back at the clock on the wall, irritated at the time difference. Her children had already gone to school by the time she’d woken up, so she would have to wait until later in the day to reach them by phone, and her longing to hear their voices had become almost unbearable. Little Orri could rarely be persuaded to come on the phone and talk to her, so she would have to wait until she came home to hear him. He only ever spoke to the television remote control, which he thought was a telephone. ‘I think I’ll go online and see if I can find Arnar’s telephone number.’ She removed the napkin from her lap and stood up. Now they could argue as much as they wanted.

The online yellow pages turned out to have ten Arnar Jóhannessons listed, and although many of them had middle names that didn’t help Thóra at all. None of them was listed as being an engineer. She asked Matthew to try to dig up his number through the bank, and then went over to the exit to read about the Tupilak. The display had just a few paragraphs of text and a photograph of a hideous creature that did not look anything like what they had found, but more like a rather bony dog carcass with the face of a man. According to the display this was a being that shamans created from various parts of dead animals, birds and human bones. It was further noted that the most powerful ones were made with bones from a child. The Tupilak was created in a secret place out in the wilderness, where the shaman bestowed life on the monster by allowing it to suck semen from his penis. Thóra shuddered slightly at that, but forced herself to continue. After this, the Tupilak was cast into the sea to seek out its victim and kill it. Of course there was a catch: the being was unpredictable and liable to turn on and attack its creator – or anyone else that it met – especially if the enemy was a more powerful shaman than the one who had sent it out. The Tupilak could also cause illness and decimate entire communities, either with epidemics or by killing individuals one by one. This would have fitted in very neatly with the story about the dead settlers of Kaanneq, thought Thóra. The display further revealed that the phenomenon inspired real fear in the natives of former times, even though now it was considered just an entertaining story for tourists; and that since no original Tupilaks had been preserved, at the turn of the twentieth century the locals had started creating things that they thought resembled the creature for the benefit of Europeans. It was uncertain whether the imitation resembled the original version that people feared so much, because the Tupilak was considered so dangerous that it was always destroyed after it had done its job. Or, as legend had it, sometimes it was also buried in the ground or the ice.

Thóra went back over to Matthew. ‘I think I have an explanation for the bone figurine we found in the cab of the drilling rig,’ she said. ‘It could be a Tupilak that the original villagers made and then buried. That would fit with the story the girl told us earlier.’

‘Is that good or bad?’ Matthew seemed somewhat distracted as he stabbed at the keyboard.

‘Bad for the bank’s case. It would be silly to refer to force majeure and then hold up a little statue made of bone. No matter how ugly it is.’

Matthew stopped typing. ‘I don’t think I’ll be mentioning it, then.’

‘The only thing I can think of is that it might be necessary for archaeological excavations to be conducted in the area. That way we’d buy ourselves a little time. If it is a Tupilak, then it’s potentially the only specimen to have been preserved in its original form.’

Matthew suddenly looked interested. ‘That would be better than nothing, at least.’

‘Did you get an answer to your query about Arnar?’ Thóra looked at the long list of unopened e-mail messages in Matthew’s mailbox. Hers had looked the same the night before, but she had decided not to open them until she got home.

‘Not yet – I was sending this. I also found the e-mail address of the director of Berg Technology and sent him an enquiry. He has to have some information about his employees. I asked him to name others in the group whom he considers might be able to help us, too, but he hasn’t responded yet.’

‘Is there no office that you can call?’ Thóra took her phone out of her pocket.

Berg Technology’s phone was answered by a polite but firm woman who did not introduce herself, and Thóra spoke briefly to her to explain her business and its connection with the bank. When she had finished she asked for the phone number of Arnar Jóhannesson.

‘That figures,’ said Thóra when she hung up. ‘We have to wait for a response from the director or your friends at the bank. Arnar is undergoing treatment at Vogur and it’s not possible to reach him.’

‘That’s no good.’ Matthew seemed to take this even worse than Thóra. ‘It would have been nice to be able to explain the bones in the drawers to the police when they contact us again. I’m not sure we’ll get out of here until that matter is settled.’

‘But what about the man in the freezer? Even if we were to wheedle an answer out of someone about the bones, it doesn’t seem very likely that people would be willing to discuss the discovery of the body with us over the phone.’

‘Hopefully the police will conclude that the body was put there recently. I doubt it’s been stored there for very long. It must have been put in the freezer after the group left the area.’

Thóra did not reply to this. What did she know? Whoever stored the human bones in the desk drawers could just as well have put the body in the freezer. Just then, a new message appeared in Matthew’s inbox.