The Day Is Dark

Chapter 33

After Thóra hung up she couldn’t bring herself to stand up from her seat in the farthest corner of the hall. She needed to digest what Arnar had told her at the end of their conversation. It was entirely possible that the man had completely lost his mind and that his story was total fabrication, but she doubted it. He was far too serious for that, and his descriptions too precise. It also explained so much that it was difficult to imagine any other explanation.

Thóra signalled to Matthew to follow her a short distance away from the group and told him everything she had learned, adding that Arnar wanted the Greenlandic police to be informed of his involvement in the case. It took Matthew a little while to absorb the story too, and he had to ask numerous questions before he could fully grasp what had occurred. They were forced to converse in low voices in the little waiting room so that their colleagues wouldn’t hear about any of this before the authorities did. The Greenlandic police were the only ones in any position to determine the validity of the story, and there could be grave consequences if the group went home with snippets of hearsay about such a serious matter.

It took them some time to convince the young policeman standing watch in the waiting room that they desperately needed to speak to his boss. The officer was supposed to ensure that none of the Icelanders left the terminal, and he obviously intended to carry out his task to the letter. In the end he saw that they would not give up and conceded to their demands. He said something incomprehensible into the radio and shortly afterwards they heard a car crunch to a stop in the gravel car park outside the terminal. The chief investigator strutted in and indicated that they should accompany him to the reception area. The others in the group watched in amazement, but none of them had asked yet what was going on. If they had, the answer would have been pretty succinct: None of your business. Dr Finnbogi did in fact call out after them and ask where they were going, but neither of them turned around or answered him.

They all sat down at a little table where Thóra informed the police officer what she wanted, choosing her words carefully so as to be taken seriously. She asked that the conversation take place in English, since she worried that her inexpert Danish could lead to misunderstandings.

‘So Arnar Jóhannesson says that he killed the two drillers?’ The policeman had pulled out a small notebook as soon as Thóra began speaking, and now he scribbled something in it as she continued her story. ‘But not the woman – is that right?’

‘Yes. He denies that, and he sounded very convincing. He thought she’d died of exposure. Just as everyone else seemed to believe.’

‘All except for one person, I expect. It’s almost certain that she was murdered. We’re transporting her body to Nuuk for an autopsy, but we sent photos of her injuries to the coroner and his conclusion was that she’d been struck with some sort of blunt instrument. Possibly even a hammer.’

‘Oh.’ Thóra tried not to let this throw her off-course. Oddný Hildur’s demise did not seem to be connected to those of Bjarki and Dóri, judging by what she’d learned from Arnar, so it was unnecessary to dwell on it now. So she began to tell the officer everything she knew about Arnar’s dealings with the drillers and the harassment that had taken place at the isolated work camp. She had only mentioned it to him in passing before, since she hadn’t realized how integral it was to the mystery of the drillers’ fate.

‘In other words, he lashed out in self-defence against their bullying and killed them?’ The officer did not seem overly surprised at this explanation, since no one reason for committing murder was better than any other.

‘Before I go on, I feel it’s only right to mention that I’m not entirely sure he can be directly connected with the men’s murder.’ Thóra smiled, feeling her cheeks flush in embarrassment. ‘In a legal sense, it’s not entirely clear, although Icelandic law may prove me wrong. Morally, there is no question of his involvement, although it’s difficult to know whether he has fully realized the consequences of his actions.’

‘This is not a court of law. Tell me simply what the man told you, and then others will determine who should be blamed.’

‘It has to do with the “bone bingo” at the Midwinter Feast that I told you about during questioning yesterday. Bjarki and Dóri, the men who were found on the island, tried hard to win the skull to use as a decoration in their office. When they missed out on the main prize they were very disappointed and complained about it constantly. According to Arnar, the others put the bones they’d won in their desk drawers while they waited for these two to calm down, since they’d all had enough of their grumbling and didn’t want to provoke it by leaving the bones on display. Their disappointment probably explains what happened after the group left. It appears Bjarki and Dóri also found a body where they had been instructed to drill. They caught a glimpse of it beneath the ice at the mouth of a cave in the forbidden area and decided after a lot of head-scratching to dig it out and bring it to the camp to tease their co-workers, or even use it to make a whole skeleton that they could brag about to the others. They also found several old artefacts that they hoped were of some value, and started by digging those out. Among other things they found the objects that we gave to you, including the little statue that they thought was a genuine Tupilak. They were understandably very excited, since no such object has been found preserved before. They knew the history of the area well enough and thought that the man in the ice was one of the original inhabitants of the village who died of hunger, and that the Tupilak in question had called down the curse on the settlement.’

‘Did you hear this from Arnar?’

‘Yes, and it’s what Bjarki told him. I’ll come to that.’ Thóra went on with her story. ‘They had a hard time freeing the man from the ice so they decided to use the drill. After breaking up the ice around the body by drilling and chopping at it, the body was still stuck, since they couldn’t drill beneath it. That’s when they got the idea of drilling through the body and pulling it out with the drill shaft.’ Thóra hesitated. ‘Since they wanted to keep the bones intact they were careful to position the drill so that it wouldn’t damage the spine. That explains the hole penetrating one of the lungs.’

‘Why not the stomach or the abdomen? Then they would have kept the ribcage intact.’ The police officer asked the same question that Thóra had thought of. It was easier to accept the story by putting themselves in the shoes of these dimwits.

‘They had to sacrifice some of the ribs to get a hold on the body, according to Arnar. If they had gone through the abdomen the drill would just have jerked straight out and not pulled the body free. The ribs gave them some grip. This at least explains the hole in the corpse in the freezer – because obviously this is the same man. They took him there while they were deciding what to do with him.’

The policeman’s pen moved rapidly over the page and it quickly filled up. Before he turned to the next page he skimmed over what he had already written. ‘And then what happened?’

‘At first, nothing. They freed the corpse from the ice, brought it back with them and put it in the freezer. The next day Dóri felt a bit weak and two days later he was seriously ill. At first they thought it was just the flu and Dóri pumped himself full of painkillers, but he just got worse. Then Bjarki began to display the same symptoms, two days after Dóri first started feeling bad. He had begun to suspect that Dóri was seriously ill. He searched the Internet to try to find out what infectious diseases were going around but found nothing that fitted with their symptoms. In the end blood started pouring from Dóri’s eyes, nose and mouth, and his face turned dark blue. So Bjarki dragged him out of his apartment and over to their office. There, he put him in front of the video camera so that a doctor could see what was going on and give them some advice. It was late in the evening. Bjarki himself had a high fever and it didn’t help matters when Dóri lost consciousness in front of the computer. So Bjarki didn’t finish his filming, and he began to panic. He might have been delirious, but he apparently considered it possible that the Tupilak, or the curse that had been put on the area, was punishing them for tampering with the body. He left Dóri behind but the camera was connected to the computer, with everything set up for recording.’

‘And how does Arnar know all of this? Was he there, after all?’

‘No, Bjarki called him that night and told him everything I’m recounting to you right now, and doubtless other things that Arnar forgot to tell me about. Bjarki actually tried to call the emergency services in Iceland to get in touch with a doctor or the police, but the number doesn’t work if you call it from a different country. So he started phoning his colleagues one by one, after giving up trying to contact friends and acquaintances. That fits with his other co-worker’s story, which I’ve already told you. It had got late and the time difference wasn’t in his favour, so no one answered. No one but Arnar. In some ways that was deeply ironic. In his despair, Bjarki forgot that Arnar wasn’t exactly indebted to him; in his shock he described the situation to him and said that he thought Dóri was dying, and that he was too.’ Thóra stopped, and the policeman looked up at her. ‘That put Arnar’s conscience to the test. And he decided to keep quiet and do nothing.’

‘Did they both die that night? Why didn’t the man call someone in the morning when he realized that there was no help on the way from Arnar?’

‘He couldn’t; Arnar made sure of that. Instead of making an honest attempt to come to Bjarki’s assistance as he had promised him, Arnar called his friend Naruana and asked him to go up to the camp, disconnect the satellite dishes and remove the keys from the cars and snowmobile. He told him that this was a well-deserved prank, but didn’t let Naruana know his actual purpose. Naruana was quite drunk and didn’t question anything; he simply went up to the camp and did as he was asked, and more. Instead of disconnecting the satellite dishes he tried his best to destroy them, and since he couldn’t find the keys to the cars or the snowmobile he put sugar in the petrol tanks. In other words, in doing this Naruana became the reason – unwittingly – for the men not being able to get to a doctor to receive the help that might have saved their lives. Before Naruana did these things Arnar accessed the server via the remote connection and deleted all the images of the body in the ice, or so he believed, in order to throw those who would later want to know what had happened off the scent. He himself said that at the time he had been half-crazed with hatred and not thinking clearly.’

‘I see.’ The police officer looked up from his notebook at Thóra. ‘And Arnar didn’t have a change of heart straight afterwards, phone Naruana back and try to call him off? Sometimes people regret what they did in the heat of the moment and try to limit the damage they’ve caused.’

Thóra replied that she couldn’t speak for the man’s actions; she could only relay what Arnar had told her. ‘It may be relevant that as soon as he made his fateful decision he started drinking again. He said that he went to the liquor store the next morning and stocked up. The binge lasted until he enrolled in treatment. I would imagine his regret played a large part in his tumble off the wagon.’

‘So. The men died.’ The officer didn’t mince his words.

‘Dóri died first. He never regained consciousness and died in the office without Bjarki being able to drag him back to his apartment. Two days later Bjarki died.’

‘I don’t quite understand. How could anyone know that, since the men were disconnected from the outside world?’

‘Bjarki told Naruana about it.’ Thóra explained in more detail: ‘The day that Dóri died Bjarki set off for the village in the hope of either finding assistance or phoning for it. He was very weak and clearly seriously ill, but he made it to his destination on skis. But his fortitude didn’t pay off. None of the villagers would open their doors to him or listen to his cries for help. Only Naruana. He saw him from a distance on his way home from the pier and offered to take him back to the camp. The skis are probably still outside Naruana’s house, if that would help your investigation.’

‘Do we know why he did this? I’d have expected him to be the one most inclined to avoid the Icelanders, in light of the damage he’d done at the camp.’

‘You’ll have to ask him about that, but maybe he wanted to prevent Bjarki from speaking to anyone else. In any case, he took him back up to the camp on a snowmobile he borrowed from someone. He also probably lied to Bjarki about help being on its way. Naruana found Dóri dead in the office and realized that things were a lot more serious than Arnar had led him to believe. I understand that he thought he saw on Dóri’s body, and on Bjarki’s face, the same marks that had led his sister to her death. It frightened him. He was convinced that the curse on the area was manifesting itself again and he got out of there as quickly as possible. Bjarki had no strength to chase him and instead lay there alone and exhausted, and he seems to have died shortly afterwards. He was lying in the corridor near the coffee room.’

‘What about the dismemberment of the bodies? How did that happen?’

Thóra’s throat was dry from talking non-stop, but she continued. ‘Naruana called Arnar after returning home and told him that one of the men was dead and the other was going the same way. Arnar, who was totally smashed at the time, asked him to dispose of the bodies, throw them out on the ice, take them somewhere where they would be eaten by animals or just do something so that they wouldn’t be found. He hoped that people would think that Bjarki and Dóri had died of exposure, like Oddný Hildur.’

‘And it’s not really necessary to spell out what Naruana did,’ said Matthew. He seemed to sense that Thóra had had enough of talking.

‘No, you’re right.’ The policeman tried to determine what his next question should be. Apparently he wasn’t finding this any easier to digest than Thóra had. ‘But how did the video get made of Naruana cutting up the bodies, and what was that singing in the background?’

Thóra shrugged. ‘As I said, Bjarki was going to position Dóri in front of the webcam in the hope that a doctor would be able to diagnose him by looking at his symptoms. Whether that was a good idea or not, he was too weak to finish the task. When Naruana returned to the camp he brought along a helper. A child, in fact.’

‘He brought a child with him to cut up corpses?’ Matthew couldn’t hide his disgust. Since Thóra had given him only an overview of Arnar’s story, he hadn’t been aware of this particular detail.

‘He took along a girl who lived in the house next door. Again, I should say that I don’t know what motivated him, and he will have to tell you himself. I just know what Arnar told me, that this girl had been in an accident and never recovered properly; she doesn’t speak, for instance. Maybe that was the reason he took her along – she can’t tell anyone about it. Anyway, it’s so fucked up, I can’t even imagine what he was thinking. But in any case, the girl must have messed with the webcam and either knew how to work it, which is doubtful, or started it by accident. Bjarki had already set it all up, so she would only have needed to press maybe one or two buttons. You can check it yourself, because we didn’t touch the camera or anything else on the table. The original plan was to take the bodies out to the ice, as Arnar had suggested, but Naruana found his sister’s necklace on the bulletin board that I showed you, and flew into a rage. He was convinced that she had arranged this from the other side and was provoking him. So he hacked the men to pieces. That way they couldn’t do anything to him if they woke up while he was moving them.’

The policeman nodded. ‘This is going to take some sorting out.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘What about Naruana’s sister? If she died in a similar way to the drillers, it’s possible they had the same disease. I think we should drop all the talk about a curse and spirits. What did Arnar say about it?’

‘I simply didn’t think to ask him about it. He actually told me that Oddný Hildur was specifically interested in Usinna, or rather, her research, because Oddný Hildur wanted to convince herself that she wasn’t putting the health of her future children at risk by being there. He took her to visit Naruana and she got Naruana’s phone number, so she could call him and see if he’d discovered anything of interest to her among his sister’s things. Nothing came of it, because Oddný Hildur disappeared soon afterwards. I know that Usinna’s research involved taking blood samples; maybe she found this same body and took blood from it.’ Thóra didn’t want to make something out of nothing, but surely this was connected to the drillers’ illness in some way? She’d become a little unsure of what she’d told the officer and what she’d missed out, and there could very well have been some holes in her story. ‘What I mean is that flesh, or bits of it, even blood, got onto the drill…’ Thóra straightened up. ‘And bits of lung. They must have got some of it on them. According to Arnar, Dóri stood next to the body and directed Bjarki on the drilling rig, and Dóri was the one who fell ill first. I suppose he could have breathed it in?’ When she glanced at Matthew, he looked as though he felt that her theory made sense. ‘I don’t know whether viruses or bacteria can survive in such cold weather but I feel like it must be worth looking into it. Who knows, maybe Oddný Hildur was also infected and died from that, rather than from exposure.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting her head injuries? I’m no doctor, but those weren’t caused by a virus. And besides, no one else appears to have been infected, even though many others have come near the body.’ For the first time the police officer’s expression had changed; he now looked worried.

‘I wonder if we might not have already been infected? Dóri was bedridden the very next day, so hopefully it hasn’t affected us. It would be a good idea to make arrangements for the corpses to be autopsied, though, on the understanding that the disease might be transmittable even if the body is frozen.’

The police officer smiled bleakly at Thóra. ‘Don’t worry. Everything is secure at the crime lab. However, I think it’s advisable that you all undergo a medical examination before returning home.’ Still looking at her, he continued, ‘Did this Arnar give any explanation as to why he’s telling us about all this now? He’s had enough time to come clean.’

Thóra gazed back at him. ‘He said he decided to sacrifice himself for Naruana. When the investigation is finished and he has taken responsibility for his part in the case, he intends to commit suicide. Not before then.’