I Remember You

Chapter 28

The northern lights danced in the black sky. The long ribbon expanded and retracted dynamically, powered by forces that Freyr didn’t understand, sometimes looking as if it reached the ends of the earth. Occasionally pink waves passed through it but the green aura always returned in full force, holding Freyr’s attention. He was near the harbour, in the Lower Market, the oldest part of town, whose origin could be traced back to merchants operating under the Danish trade monopoly in the mid-eighteenth century. Most of the buildings dated from that period and if he ignored several modern memorials, he felt as if he could be a destitute farmer from a former time coming to make a deposit with his merchant. He sat on a large stone outside Tjöruhús, a charming restaurant in an old renovated warehouse that was more reminiscent of Denmark than of Iceland. Freyr had only managed to eat there once before the place had closed for the winter, but he would certainly be among those waiting on the doorstep for it to open again in the spring. It had been during one of his first evenings in Ísafjörður. Two colleagues of his from the hospital had suggested they have dinner together to get to know each other better. Freyr had been so taken by the ultra-fresh seafood that he’d added little to their conversation apart from compliments about the food. They hadn’t asked him to hang out with them outside work again, which was actually fine by him. He had little in common with these family men who had lives outside the hospital.

However, it wasn’t the memory of the excellent meal that had brought him down to Lower Market. An aimless walk had led him by coincidence to this historical spot; maybe he’d wandered here instinctively because of how few people were out and about in the area, assuring him peace and quiet to ponder things and compose his thoughts. He was amazed he’d managed to complete his working day without embarrassing himself. His hands had trembled so much that he could barely do anything requiring any kind of dexterity and he could hardly follow the thread of a conversation when speaking to others. The recording from his mobile phone had thrown him completely off balance, and although he’d previously thought he’d heard his son’s voice, and in the same place, it changed a great deal that now he had a recording confirming it. Maybe because it made it much more difficult to ascribe the incident to hallucination, stress or imagination. That alone, however, wasn’t enough, because of course he could still be convincing himself that he was hearing things that weren’t there. For this reason, when he’d heard the caretaker busying himself with changing the faulty fluorescent bulb, he’d rushed into the corridor and asked the flabbergasted man to tell him what he heard on the phone. ‘Tell the truth. Then you’ll find me, Daddy,’ the man had replied. The words had affected Freyr so strongly that he couldn’t care less about the bewildered look on the caretaker’s face. He’d received confirmation that he hadn’t misheard it, and he didn’t care if this injected new life into the gossip in the break room about the strange, antisocial psychiatrist from the south.

With his mobile phone in his hand, Freyr continued to stare at the northern lights, which had spread out even further and now covered most of the sky. The green colour fascinated him in some incomprehensible way; he had never pondered colours much and didn’t even have a favourite one. But there was something about this greenish flickering in the sky that captured his attention, and like everything else that day, the colour prompted a familiar feeling of sorrow. Sorrow over what had happened and what could have happened. He pushed aside all the ‘what ifs’ that would never find an answer and was surprised at how hard it was turning out to be, to follow the advice he gave to patients who remained stuck in if onlys. Until now he’d been able to hold these kind of thoughts at bay, largely by simply not letting his mind drift that way and refusing to allow regret to gain the upper hand. He was realistic enough to know that it would only have made things worse to be honest with Sara. On top of the sorrow that was already overwhelming her he would have added bitter anger, which would have done nothing to improve either her situation or his. The truth wouldn’t have changed Benni’s fate. So there was no justification to increase Sara’s burden or take the risk that she might seek revenge, which could have led to his being suspended from work or even fired.

By this rationale he’d managed to live more or less at peace with his own dishonesty for nearly three years. But after listening to the recording, this shaky reasoning had collapsed and guilt burst forth. He was probably reading more into the soft voice in the faint recording than he should, but it didn’t matter; he was convinced that his son expected him to come clean. Perhaps the point of Benni’s strange appearance was to help Sara and enable her to get on with her life. And in order for this to happen, Freyr needed to tell her the truth.

The phone rang and he answered it without looking to see who it was. He simply stared, hypnotized, at the green colour that refused to stay still long enough in his eyes for him to remember or work out what meaning the colour had or to what memory it was connected. ‘Hello.’

It was Dagný. ‘Lárus is dead.’ She waited for Freyr to say something, then continued when all she heard was silence. ‘He was found at home. The police in Reykjavík called and informed me. I don’t remember whether I told you, but I asked them to help find him.’

‘What happened?’ Freyr shut his eyes in order to tear himself from the aerial display and focus on the conversation. ‘They don’t know, but it looks as if he ingested poison. Maybe accidentally, maybe deliberately, though that has to be considered unlikely.’

‘Do they know what type of poison it was?’ The question actually didn’t have anything to do with the case, but Freyr needed time to digest the news and to think.

‘I didn’t ask. I’ll probably get better information tomorrow. They’ll call back for sure; I didn’t go into any detail when I asked them to find him. It took me so much by surprise that I didn’t have a decent story ready, I just told them that I needed to reach him regarding an old case for which he could possibly provide information, and that he wasn’t answering either his home phone or his mobile. I didn’t need to explain any further, since they just assumed that the man simply didn’t want to be contacted.’

‘Was his back scarred?’

‘No one’s said so. I assume that it still hasn’t come to light. The police don’t undress people; that’s left to those who handle the dead.’ Dagný sighed softly. ‘It certainly won’t reduce the barrage of questions waiting for me.’

Freyr had nothing to add to this; he wasn’t in any condition to consider what it meant, and whether all speculation about the relationship between this doomed group of friends and the disappearance of his son was now invalid. Now there was no one left who could inform them of this first-hand, it felt pointless to ponder the matter further. Maybe that was a good thing. Until he’d got dragged into this he’d felt all right; not great, granted, but he could make it through the days without any particular mental anguish. But now it was as if he were returning to the same emotional rollercoaster as he’d been on when Benni had disappeared.

Freyr said goodbye, his tone of voice so sad and distracted that Dagný asked how he was feeling before ending their call. But instead of taking a load off his mind and telling her about the recording, he said she needn’t worry, he was just tired. He didn’t feel able to describe recent events well enough for her not to think that he’d completely lost the plot. That story would have to wait until he could hand her his phone and allow her to listen to Benni’s distant voice. A voice that Freyr had managed to capture despite the fact that it was made without vocal cords, tongue, central nervous system or any of the other things needed to form words. But in the sky there was nothing evident that Freyr considered necessary to ignite the northern lights. Who was he to judge what was possible and what was not?

In order to guarantee himself peace and quiet for what remained of the evening, Freyr was careful to turn off the ringer on his phone before he stuck it in his jacket pocket. Despite his sadness he smiled at the futility of this gesture; almost no one called him after work apart from Sara. But better to be safe than sorry. Freyr stood up and stared for the final time at the northern lights before setting off for home, still certain that the colour green mattered. A great deal.

The area was like a graveyard. He’d chosen to go there precisely for the quiet, but suddenly he felt uncomfortable at seeing no one else there. His every exhalation was accompanied by a hazy cloud that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but in the second that the haze passed before his eyes and evaporated Freyr thought he noticed movement in places where there was none. He quickened his pace but refrained from running, which he thought would be a sure sign that he’d lost all control of the situation. What, in fact, did he have to fear? If the unbelievable proved to be true and Benni’s spirit was haunting him, that could only be good. Benni was his child, no matter whether he was alive or dead. Freyr wasn’t especially concerned by all the medium’s talk about the dead growing malevolent over time. And even if they did, what would be the worst that could happen? That he would die? He had no desire to sleep the long sleep but had to admit that he didn’t fear it either; his life wasn’t worth much now and his future didn’t look very exciting. This simple fact made him stop. He looked up the alley that lay ahead; the streetlights and the strange glow from the sky weren’t able to illuminate it properly, and long shadows stretched up it from the streetlights as if they were pointing him to the shortest yet most hazardous way home.

Freyr was startled by laughter from a solitary great black-backed gull. His heart made its presence known with a dull pounding and he forced himself to breathe calmly in the hope of regaining his composure. Standing stock-still, he peered ahead, trying to spot any movement, but saw nothing except the deathly still buildings staring at each other with big black eyes. Freyr cursed himself for having felt the need for peace and quiet and wished he’d gone through the centre of town instead. Again he heard suppressed laughter, now more clearly. It sounded desolate, originating in malice or pleasure over others’ failures. Even though Freyr could never have described Benni’s laughter, could not even recall it in his mind, he knew that this was not his son. In his short life, Benni had never made such a spiteful sound. Freyr looked in both directions and wondered whether he should avoid the shadowy alley and walk along the sea, or take the next street along, which was much wider and brighter. He didn’t expect to be attacked, but neither did he want to go looking for trouble, and he wanted least of all to come any closer to the source of the laughter. Without pondering it any longer he chose to walk along the sea, turned right and set off slowly.

The lapping of the waves welcomed him as he approached the sea wall and Freyr’s mood lightened with each step that brought him closer to this pleasing sound and further from the alley. He sped up and distracted himself by guessing how many steps it would take him to reach the wall. The count fluctuated – but at least the task absorbed all his attention in the meantime. Then he heard the giggling again. Now it sounded as if it was coming from the other side of a nearby fishing boat propped on trestles, awaiting repairs and the spring. The sound was clearer than before, the voice bright and sharp, like a child’s. But not any ordinary child, that much was certain. His estimated step-count evaporated and he stopped some way away and looked at the area around the boat. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Freyr bent down and tried to see if there were any feet beneath the boat, but saw none. If the laughter came from there, whoever made it must be hiding inside the vessel. Freyr grew angry at the thought that this was maybe just a trick, some kids who’d decided to make fun of the strange man from the south who’d lost his son. Maybe the same little sods had been at work in the hospital. Before he knew it he was storming towards the boat and didn’t slow down when the same horrible giggle came from behind it.

When Freyr reached the side of the boat he realized it was higher than he’d thought and that it would be no easy feat to clamber into it. He leaned up against the gunwale and looked over the deck, but saw nothing except for rusted iron, decaying ropes and pieces of netting that appeared so badly tangled they would never have posed little threat to the lives of any fish. He walked around the boat and knocked on its sides, in case that would succeed in scaring the kid or kids up out of it. Heavy, hollow sounds, each blow taking its toll on Freyr’s bare knuckles. But no one stuck his head out or emerged from the boat; all that happened was that some yellow paint flaked off and fell to the ground. The outline of the boat’s name and registration number were still visible: Gígja Ólafsdóttir ÍS 127. Finally the drumming had a result when the laughter rang out again, now clearly from within the body of the boat. Freyr needed no more encouragement; he went to where the gunwales were lowest and swung himself up on deck.

The first thing that struck him was a strong smell of sea salt. Everything here had been so thoroughly drenched by the waves that the boat would have to remain on shore for many years before it lost the smell of the sea. The odour might also have come from the puddles of water lying here and there along the deck, gleaming softly in the moonlight. Freyr stared at them; it was so cold outside that such shallow puddles should have frozen, even if they were seawater. Probably whoever was on board the boat had brought the water with him. The deck creaked under Freyr’s every step and he hoped fervently and sincerely that the kid’s heart was now in his throat at the thought of being discovered. But what was he going to do after catching the snake by its tail? He could think of no sensible answer. He would probably drag him out into the open by his jacket, ask him what the hell he was doing and then give him a vigorous shake before letting go and allowing the kid to run home, scared out of his wits. The only thing he had to be careful of was giving in to his anger or taking revenge for the injustice of the past few years. The temptation to do so would be great.

Although the laughter had come from below deck, Freyr decided to look first in the little pilothouse to make sure that any possible accomplices didn’t take him by surprise from behind while he scared the shit out of their friend. But luckily no one was there, and Freyr turned to the wooden hatch at the prow. He stomped towards it as heavily as he could to increase the impact of his steps, which must be echoing throughout the enclosed space below deck. Then he waited a moment before loosening the latch, in order to heighten the kid’s nervousness even further.

Freyr bent down and took hold of the latch. His fingers had only just begun to loosen it when the giggle came again, now clearly beneath the hatch; the kid seemed to be trying to hold back his laughter. So he was less scared than amused, although his tone seemed as brutish as before and his laughter completely joyless. Freyr found the sound so unpleasant that he abruptly let go of the latch; his bravado had left him. But when anger was no longer the driving force behind his actions, common sense took over and Freyr stared at the latch. It was on the outside of the hatch. So whoever was down there hadn’t entered through this opening. He looked back over his shoulder but couldn’t see any other way in.

‘Open it.’

Freyr froze. It was a child’s voice, but nothing about it reminded him of Benni.

‘Do you want to play hide-and-seek?’

Freyr was breathing so fast that he didn’t know whether he was inhaling or exhaling. He leapt to his feet and stood there as if nailed to the spot, staring at the hatch. He took a step backwards as the woodwork shook and the voice repeated: ‘Open it. Let’s play hide-and-seek.’ Then the giggling began again and it followed Freyr as he leapt over the gunwale, it was at his heels as he stood up again after landing in the snow-covered shingle and it followed him as he sprinted towards the centre of town. When he got there he slowed down and breathed easier, free of the echo in his mind.

What had Sara’s psychic friend said? That he was in danger? He didn’t doubt it and suddenly realized that he had no desire to end up suffering some unspeakable fate. Freyr headed towards the hospital, determined to go over every scrap of paper, every record and every single tiny detail that could possibly help him solve this puzzle and find his son. He took out his mobile phone and selected his ex-wife’s number. Without apologizing for how late he was calling and how breathless he was, he went straight to the point. ‘You need to send me the computer files the police gave us dealing with Benni’s disappearance. Every single one of them; the video recordings from the petrol station as well. Send them to me a few at a time; the files are large and they won’t all fit in one message.’

‘I’m not a complete idiot, Freyr. I know how to send e-mail.’

Freyr exhaled resolutely through his nose. ‘And I need to tell you something, Sara. I wasn’t working when Benni disappeared. I was with another woman. That’s why I arrived so late. You probably don’t want to hear how awful I feel about it, but—’

Sara hung up. Freyr prayed to God that she would still send him the files.