The Day Is Dark

Chapter 34

Thóra still hated injections just as much as she had at primary school. The only difference was that nowadays she was better at hiding it. She was thankful that progress in medical equipment meant she could be sure that the doctor wouldn’t have the same kind of giant-sized syringe that they had found in the drilling rig (and that had probably belonged to the long-gone doctor who had – in all likelihood – carried into the settlement the disease that killed all the original inhabitants). She exhaled heavily when the needle was withdrawn and all that remained was a little drop of blood that was gone shortly afterwards. She smiled happily but couldn’t see the doctor’s reaction, since his mouth and nose were hidden behind a mask. Thóra resisted the temptation to cough in his face. ‘And when do I find out the results?’ She pressed a cotton wool ball against the puncture wound made by the needle.

‘We’ll process it as speedily as possible, and as soon as we find out anything we’ll let you know.’ The man leaned forward in his chair and waited for Eyjólfur to come in and take Thóra’s place. He took the vial holding her dark red blood, labelled it and placed it carefully in a small box.

Eyjólfur sat down. ‘What if this is something serious and we’ve all been infected?’ He rolled up his sleeve and laid his hand on the arm of the chair. ‘Will we die?’

‘Of course you’ll die, like everyone else. However, I doubt it will be anytime soon, or because of infection.’ The doctor said nothing as he stuck the needle into Eyjólfur’s arm, then: ‘You’re probably as fit as a fiddle, but this is a necessary preventative measure.’ The face-mask and latex gloves suggested otherwise.

Friðrikka dropped her cotton wool ball into a small yellow plastic bucket where needles and other such things were thrown away. Thóra guessed that the red symbol on the bucket indicated that its contents might be infected, and needed to be destroyed under special conditions. Friðrikka turned to Dr Finnbogi as she rolled her sleeve back down. ‘How do they know that this is the Spanish Flu?’ Her voice was weak and although they were all alarmed, she was the only one who seemed unable to compose herself. The Greenlandic police force’s announcement that the man in the freezer was suspected to have died of this pernicious epidemic had been made just a short time ago, although it had long been clear to everyone that something serious was going on. Soon after Thóra and Matthew’s conversation with the policeman, the group was sent on foot in the direction of the hotel, but instead of going in through the familiar reception area they were led over to a row of buildings that resembled the work camp they had just left; these were the staff quarters for the airport in Kulusuk. They took seats on a sofa; Eyjólfur hurriedly turned on the television to try to find a news station in English. They stared at the television while waiting for further information. This soon became so tiresome that Thóra was on the verge of suggesting that they switch to the German porn channel for variety. Finally they were told that they would have to be ruled out as disease carriers before any decisions could be made concerning further travel on their part. By then they had watched the same news reports so many times that they had become immune to them. They were waiting for doctors from Angmagssalik, and so had to put up with several more rounds of the headline news. Then the doctors wished to consult with their colleagues at the hospital in Nuuk, since it was possible that a major epidemic was on the way. Now for the first time the group was seriously concerned, and their anxiety was not appeased when they were told that this looked like a case of Spanish Flu, and that it seemed likely to have killed both Bjarki and Dóri.

‘They don’t know for sure. They need to compare this virus with what they found recently in the grave of a woman who died of Spanish Flu in Alaska. She died around the same time as the settlers in Greenland, but was buried under a layer of permafrost. No sample of the virus has been found before, because the bodies of the victims decomposed in the ground. It is very unusual for a corpse to remain frozen for decades, as has happened here.’ Finnbogi watched as the other doctor lightly tapped Alvar’s inside arm. ‘But the timing of the epidemic fits in perfectly with the period when the original inhabitants of the area died, and the symptoms match the description of the drillers’ deaths. It’s likely that the doctor or his guide infected the villagers when he made his survey trip there during that winter so long ago. In the isolation that characterized a place like this, and in fact still does, fertile ground is created for infectious diseases in the event that they are brought in. In addition, the Spanish Flu was a deadly epidemic and could very well have decimated such a small and isolated settlement. Especially because the community’s survival was based on hunting. When people become ill or are disabled, they can’t provide for themselves. Some of the villagers died from the disease, others from starvation, so the story goes. Spanish Flu, unlike most other types of flu, affected the young and healthy rather than the elderly and little children.’

‘I find it absolutely extraordinary’ – Eyjólfur was still pressing cotton wool to his puncture wound – ‘that such an old disease can flare up again. As if we don’t have enough new epidemics.’

‘No one’s saying it has “flared up”.’ Finnbogi looked askance at the other two doctors, but they were not even trying to follow the discussion. ‘Although Bjarki and Dóri were infected, they came into a completely different type of contact with the man than we did. You might not all have seen the hole in the man’s chest, but something happened when it was drilled through. The men got bodily fluids on them and even breathed them in.’

‘But doesn’t the man who cut up their bodies need to be examined as well?’ asked Eyjólfur. ‘The same thing must have happened to him, since he was probably covered in blood droplets, or something even more disgusting.’

‘Not everyone becomes infected, but the man will certainly have to undergo the same sort of examination as us. If it’s the young man who came with us in the helicopter, he’s not ill, any more than we are. Those who were infected became ill very quickly, so he should be safe. The infected were at death’s door after twenty-four hours, which may be one of the things that pointed the investigators towards this particular disease. The drillers didn’t lie on their sickbeds for long.’

‘And we were made to sit with him in the helicopter?’ Friðrikka’s voice had risen to a shrill high C again. ‘We breathed the same air as him for almost an hour, didn’t we? Who knows, maybe we were infected then, which is why we haven’t become ill yet!’

‘We shouldn’t worry unnecessarily. We’re still asymptomatic, and we’ll probably remain that way,’ said Finnbogi determinedly. ‘I think we should talk about something more interesting and constructive; we’re not going to change anything with foolish speculation.’

The group fell silent and remained that way as it tried to come up with another topic of conversation. ‘Why do you think that guy killed Oddný Hildur? Is he completely mental, or do you think he raped her or something?’ Eyjólfur got top marks for changing the subject, but a fail for the subject matter.

‘She wasn’t raped.’ Friðrikka was nearly foaming at the mouth.

Eyjólfur turned to her, just as angry. ‘I wasn’t talking to you. What would you know about it?’

‘Women aren’t raped through their clothes. Her body was fully dressed, in case you managed to miss it.’ Friðrikka was beginning to shout.

The Danish doctor turned round and raised his eyebrows, and Thóra cut them both off brusquely. She couldn’t bear to think of the group being broken up and each of them shut in a separate room. Although the company wasn’t at its most entertaining right then, time did pass faster when something was happening besides them all staring out at the ice-bound bay below the town, no matter how beautiful it was. ‘Settle down. We don’t know Naruana killed Oddný Hildur. Maybe it was someone completely different. Stop yelling at each other and try to discuss something constructive instead.’

Thóra’s words calmed Friðrikka and Eyjólfur down a bit but they still couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. ‘Who could have killed her if not one of the villagers? One of the employees at the camp?’ asked Alvar. He had stood up and was now watching the final blood test, which was being carried out on Bella.

‘It was someone from the village.’ Friðrikka made this assertion like a stubborn child. ‘Anything else is out of the question. None of us would have wanted to do her harm, even if she did complain to the boss.’

Eyjólfur ignored her. ‘Maybe it was an outsider, but not someone from the village. Tourists who wandered into the area. A hiker, one of those fresh air freaks.’

‘Excuse me, but I doubt this woman was killed by a “fresh air freak”.’ Thóra couldn’t help but smile at his description.

‘Why not? The weather was bad and visibility was poor; maybe he thought she was a polar bear. She was wearing Arnar’s furry boots and hat.’ Eyjólfur appeared determined to convince himself of his own hypothesis.

‘Yes, that could be it,’ blurted out Friðrikka, in agreement with Eyjólfur for the first time. ‘The murderer will probably never be found, but that’s a possible explanation. She could very well have looked like some kind of animal.’

‘That explains it.’ Eyjólfur surveyed the group smugly.

‘No, come on, stop that.’ Alvar clearly didn’t appreciate the silence, or perhaps he thought it his duty to defend hikers. ‘She was attacked from behind, and people don’t try to sneak up on polar bears from behind. Nor are fresh air freaks, as you call them, prone to wandering about in a whiteout. They dig themselves down into the snow and wait for the storm to subside. They’d be even less inclined to start attacking polar bears under such circumstances.’

‘Does anyone know why she was dressed like that?’ Thóra hadn’t had time to ponder this point.

‘The weather was good that day and stayed that way into the early evening. Wouldn’t she have been wrapped up well enough when she went over to the office? Maybe she needed something a little more protective. Arnar would hardly have made a big deal out of her borrowing some of his clothing.’ Eyjólfur looked sad. ‘Just think – if only she hadn’t been wearing someone else’s clothes she would never have been mistaken for a polar bear. Those were the only garments on site that would have made her look like an animal.’

Thóra bit her tongue, wondering if his dramatics were going to extend to singing a sad song in Oddný Hildur’s memory. She allowed Alvar and Eyjólfur to continue debating the merits of the polar bear theory while she tried to get her thoughts in order. ‘Isn’t it more logical to assume that whoever came at Oddný Hildur from behind during the snowstorm actually thought she was Arnar?’ Friðrikka, Alvar and Eyjólfur stopped arguing and looked in surprise at Thóra.

‘What do you mean?’ said Eyjólfur stupidly, but then quickly added: ‘You mean the man intended to kill Arnar?’

‘Yes. Isn’t that more likely than your theory about the polar bear? Arnar wasn’t short of enemies, and his popularity hardly increased when management were informed about the harassment.’

Alvar was quick to agree to this.

Eyjólfur frowned. ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t so awful that people would have thought about killing him.’ He looked awkwardly at Friðrikka in the hope of support. ‘Right? It wasn’t like that, was it?’

Friðrikka looked from him to her lap. ‘No. Definitely not.’ She abruptly fell silent. It was as if all the air had gone out of her.

Thóra moved over next to Matthew and waited for him to finish speaking to the Danish doctor, who was packing up his things. ‘Do you still have the phone number for Oqqapia, Naruana’s partner? I need to have a word with her.’ Matthew found the slip of paper with the number on it, and Thóra stuck it in her pocket. While doing so she felt to make sure she had her mobile phone. Once she was certain she did, she asked the doctor whether she could go to the ladies’.

A young police officer followed her out into the corridor and informed her along the way that the toilet would need to be disinfected thoroughly after they left. Thóra thanked him for the information and shut the door behind her. She dialled the number and prayed silently that the woman was home. She was relieved when she heard her voice. ‘Hi, Oqqapia, this is Thóra from Iceland. I visited you a short time ago with my friend, whose name is Matthew.’

Oqqapia said she remembered her well. It sounded to Thóra as if she were completely sober. She seemed to be in a state of shock as she told Thóra the whole story of how Naruana had been arrested, and said that a group of men had come to the village to tell them that they’d possibly been infected with a serious disease. They were to remain in their homes while the investigators examined them, house by house. Thóra could hear clearly that she was frightened; the men had been wearing masks and strange outfits. It hadn’t crossed Thóra’s mind that perhaps all of the villagers had been infected by the hunter’s son. ‘Oqqapia, I’ve got to ask you to do me a favour that will probably help Naruana, and could even save his father as well.’

‘Anything. I know Naruana hasn’t killed anyone. He’s even stopped hunting.’

‘You’ve got to find Igimaq and ask him something for me. I suspect he has information that could help Naruana avoid a longer prison sentence than he deserves.’ She was met only with silence. ‘Oqqapia, this is extremely important. I’m not sure that Igimaq will tell the police anything – if they even find him. He’s much more likely to talk to you, and if you explain things to him then maybe he can be persuaded to speak to them later.’

Oqqapia spoke up hesitantly. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. I’ve never met him but I’m quite sure he isn’t happy with me as a daughter-in-law.’

‘You’re not unworthy of him, not at all. Igimaq realizes that, unless he’s very stupid. But that’s irrelevant. You simply need to make it clear to him that he can help his son. Him – and no one else.’ Thóra refrained from adding that it was possible even Igimaq couldn’t help. She continued while the going was good; Oqqapia hadn’t refused her request. ‘You’ve got to go to him and ask how he knew where the woman’s body could be found. Where was it lying? Did he see the person who killed her or does he know something that could explain who the murderer is?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. How can I reach him? I can’t go anywhere.’

‘You must be able to sneak away – borrow a snowmobile from your neighbours, if you have to. You’ve only been asked to stay there so you don’t infect anyone else – if you’ve even been infected. Be careful not to cough or touch Igimaq. I actually think he’s already come into contact with this disease and survived it, so he would be immune.’ He must have touched the body of his daughter when he buried her under the cairn. Usinna had more than likely died of the same thing as the drillers, whether it was the Spanish Flu or something else.

In the end Oqqapia agreed to make an effort to find the old hunter and promised to call Thóra immediately when she returned home.

Four hours later, Thóra’s phone rang. Since Thóra’s first conversation with Oqqapia, Sóley had called twice; she had started really missing her mother. Thóra decided not to mention the disease, so as not to worry Sóley unduly. She spoke to her daughter about the cold in Greenland and the heaps and heaps of snow. Sóley immediately asked her mother to convert the amount of snow into snowmen and Thóra guessed it would make one million and fourteen of them – just from the snow that she could see out of the window. The conversation she was having now with Oqqapia had a much more serious tone. She had made it out of the village on a snowmobile, as Thóra had suggested, without being followed.

‘I found him. He was in his tent. The dogs didn’t want to let me near the tent door and I’m sure they would have torn me to pieces and eaten me if they hadn’t been tethered.’

‘But he spoke to you, didn’t he? How did he respond?’

‘He found the woman’s body where it was hidden beneath one of the buildings at the camp. He took it to a place where foxes couldn’t get at it.’

‘Beneath a building? Was it buried?’

‘No, he said it was possible to crawl under all of the buildings and that the body had been shoved down there. All you needed to do to cover it was to shovel snow over it. At least until spring.’

‘How did he know about it, then?’

‘He saw the body when it was moved there. He’d been at the camp earlier in the evening in the hope of preventing the mining operation from expanding into the forbidden area. He tried some ancient magic, put on a mask and called upon the spirits of his ancestors with blood from a seal flipper to help him, but it didn’t work. He waited there in the hope that something would change, but he didn’t get his wish. However, he saw someone from the camp sitting in a car outside the office building, keeping a low profile. Igimaq wanted to know what was going on so he stopped and waited there. When the woman came out of the office the car door opened, the person ran after her and hit her on the neck with a blunt instrument. A hammer or something like that. The wind had been blowing quite a bit and there was a storm, so Igimaq didn’t have a clear view. He did insist, however, that it wasn’t an accident.’

Thóra swallowed. ‘Did he see the attacker well enough to be able to give a description?’

‘Yes. The murderer stopped for a long time after turning the woman over, and then had a good look at her face. Igimaq thought that the woman would die of exposure there, but she suddenly seemed to pull herself together and started dragging the body towards the buildings; then she pushed it under one of them.’

‘Did you say the woman? Do you mean the woman who was killed or the murderer?’

‘The murderer. Igimaq said it was a woman.’

Thóra wasn’t sure how to end their conversation. She glanced over at the subdued group gathered around the television. No one paid any attention to her. Except for Friðrikka. She stared into Thóra’s eyes and had seemed to have taken in every word. Thóra thanked Oqqapia warmly and said the police would doubtless be getting in touch with her soon. She hung up without taking her eyes off Friðrikka, without so much as blinking. Apart from Oddný Hildur, there had only been one woman at the camp.

Friðrikka was a strange character. While they were at the camp she had been like a fragile little flower, unable to cope with anything, but in the end she appeared strong and serene. Of course the tears flowed as before, yet she showed no sign at all of breaking down. Thóra had offered to assist her in the police interrogation, until another lawyer could be found. The search for one was already under way, so Thóra was only present when Friðrikka was first questioned.

Arnar Jóhannesson had poisoned Friðrikka’s life so much that she was no longer in control of her own actions. She had difficulty explaining what had prompted the actual assault, whether she had intended to kill the man or just injure him. Thóra was quite sure that Friðrikka herself didn’t know the answer. Her hatred had simply overwhelmed her. She blamed Arnar for her divorce and had done so for a long time. He had come to her and wanted to confess, since it was one of the steps in his twelve-step treatment programme. He told her that he’d had a relationship with her husband around the time that the man came out of the closet. They had met at Berg’s Annual Ball, and Arnar had seen immediately that the man was pretending to be something he wasn’t. He had been drunk, and hadn’t had too many qualms about seducing the husband of his co-worker.

But after taking account of his life, it was clear to Arnar that he had betrayed a trust that under normal circumstances should have been worth more to him than one night’s fun. Nothing had come of the relationship; nevertheless, after listening to Arnar ask for forgiveness, Friðrikka blamed him for the end of her marriage. Arnar hadn’t been the first man in her husband’s life, but when someone is hurting it is so tempting to find a scapegoat for all the sorrow, disappointment and anger. Hence Friðrikka felt nothing but hatred towards Arnar, and when it appeared that her friendship with Oddný Hildur would be ruined because of him, it was the last straw.

They had argued bitterly over the harassment that Arnar was suffering. Oddný Hildur felt her friend simply turned a blind eye to the bullying, lacking the courage to condemn it. She just looked the other way and smiled at those who treated him the worst. Friðrikka hadn’t entrusted anyone with the truth about what Arnar had done to her, so she was unable to defend herself against her friend’s accusations. Her feeble objections did little more than pour oil on the fire. When she went to the office building she was thinking of taking revenge once and for all against the man who had destroyed her life twice. Arnar had said that he was going to work after supper, but Oddný Hildur hadn’t told anyone that she was planning to do the same. Friðrikka stewed over her plans in her apartment but at some point, which she could not properly recall, she stood up, dressed, went to sit in the car outside the office building and waited for Arnar. She said that while waiting she’d felt as if she were in a trance; her mind had been completely empty. The die had been cast. She recalled seeing a sled dog sitting near the car, staring at her, but she’d been too upset to wonder why it was looking at her like that. She had seen the dog walk calmly round behind the building, and some time later the light had gone off in Arnar’s office. Suddenly the entire workplace went dark. The front door opened. Friðrikka climbed out of the car and shut the door quietly behind her. She saw Arnar bend his head down against the wind. He turned his face from the car, and so had no idea she was there. Until it was too late.

Friðrikka swung her rock hammer at the back of Arnar’s neck. She didn’t feel anything. Neither satisfaction nor fear. She felt nothing at the first blow. And she felt nothing at the second blow. Then she rolled Arnar over at her feet and discovered her mistake. Finally her emotions overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees and tried to shake her friend awake. She described in a low voice how it became clear to her that Oddný Hildur was dead and the tears that streamed from the glazed, staring eyes of her friend were merely melted snowflakes. Despair seized her. She decided to hide the body underneath her apartment building. That would give her a chance to assess the situation and decide what to do next. She shovelled away the snow, pushed the body beneath the building and pushed the snow back over it. The wind and snowfall would cover her tracks.

Circumstances allowed her to avoid having to cover up what she’d done, as everyone at the camp was convinced that Oddný Hildur had been lost in the storm. Search parties were sent out. Friðrikka’s strange behaviour was ascribed to her concern for her lost friend. No one suspected that she had anything to do with it. The blood on the side of the building where the women’s apartment was located had come from when she had leaned against the building as she struggled to dig away the snow, but even that evidence was not seriously examined. Nor did anyone comment on how she offered to search the camp area. She said that she had experienced her first major shock when she saw that the body was gone. Then she’d started wondering whether she had maybe dreamt the whole thing; Oddný Hildur had actually gone missing and hadn’t died of head injuries inflicted in a blind rage. She understood none of it and was constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She decided to leave her job and again no one made any comments. Everyone just thought that she was feeling unwell after losing her best friend.

In fact, Friðrikka still seemed to be in two minds as to what had actually happened. She asked whether it were possible that the man who now claimed to have moved the body might even have killed Oddný Hildur. Her connection with reality was tenuous at best. She had even slunk out into the night once, to check one more time beneath the house to see if Oddný Hildur was perhaps still there. Doubt about what precisely had happened had gnawed at her ever since, and still did. She had reactivated the floodlight system when she was terrified that the person who had removed the body might return and attack her.

When the interrogation was finished and Thóra was hoping to rejoin the others, Friðrikka grabbed her arm frantically and asked what had become of her cat. The neighbours who had been looking after it hadn’t been happy about having to carry on doing so and probably wouldn’t take it. When Thóra reassured her that there was no shortage of good homes for a beautiful cat, Friðrikka gave her an imploring stare. Before Thóra sat a woman who had effectively banished herself from civilized society, and she doubted Friðrikka would now ever obtain what she desired so much, the friendship and love of another individual. Thóra would not return home with a polar bear cub, but a cat would do just as well. ‘I’ll take your cat. My daughter will take good care of her.’