The Silence of the Sea

Chapter 18

‘Did you always want to go to sea?’ Still furious with Ægir, Lára was ignoring him and focusing her attention instead on the young man who was sitting in the saloon with them, playing a game of patience. Thráinn had gone to find out if Loftur knew anything about the disappearance of the woman’s body, and Ægir suspected that Halli had been ordered to keep an eye on them in the meantime, in case Lára was implicated. Nobody had informed her of the woman’s fate as yet. It had been tacitly agreed that this should be Ægir’s job, but there was little he could do when she wouldn’t even look at him. He knew her well enough to understand that she was not angry so much as upset, as Bylgja had said, which was harder to deal with. What made it worse was that he knew she was in the right; he should never have taken a risk like that without consulting her. Even so, he felt it was unnecessary to kick up such a fuss about what might have happened, given that everything had turned out all right. As so often when they quarrelled, he had no idea how to behave; whether to try and bring her round or obey her command to leave her alone. On occasions like this she sometimes said one thing and meant another, but at other times she meant exactly what she said. He still hadn’t learnt to read the signs. Generally, whatever he said only made matters worse, so the best course was to hold his tongue and wait out the storm. Consequently, he was keeping unusually quiet now while Lára focused on Halli, who did not seem to be enjoying the unexpected attention. The conversation limped along, since all Lára actually knew about Halli was that he was a sailor and this imposed strict limits on her search for a suitable topic.

‘To sea? Uh, I don’t know.’ The hectic colour in the young man’s cheeks owed nothing to the temperature in the saloon, which was on the chilly side, though none of them had remarked on the fact or dared ask Thráinn to turn up the heating. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Are you from the countryside?’ Lára smiled, pretending not to notice his reluctance to engage with her.

‘Nope. Kópavogur.’

‘Oh.’ Lára fiddled with her hair and racked her brains for something else to say. ‘Are you a family man?’

‘No, not yet.’ Halli sneaked a look under one of the piles and risked taking off the top card. ‘It’d be difficult, what with me spending so much time at sea.’

Lára seized on the fact that his answers had become less monosyllabic, spying an opening to penetrate his shell. ‘Wouldn’t you like to change job then?’

Halli made a dismissive noise. ‘And do what?’ He gave Lára a puzzled glance. ‘It’s perfectly possible to work at sea without being away as much as I am.’ He immersed himself in his game of patience again, once more stealing glimpses under the piles. ‘The big trawlers pay better but then the tours are longer. And it depends what the catch is like too, of course; you can be lucky or unlucky. That’s true whatever the size of vessel.’

‘Are you saving up for something?’ Lára smiled encouragingly, though he didn’t seem to notice. ‘Are you maybe thinking of putting a roof over your head?’

‘What? What for?’ The colour in Halli’s cheeks deepened. ‘No. I’m saving up for something else.’

Ægir felt an urge to come to his rescue by changing the subject but all that came to mind was the question that had been consuming him ever since he had found the body. ‘If the British ship has reported the discovery of the woman’s body, won’t there be a big furore when we get home? Police interviews and all that?’

‘Probably.’ Apparently Halli wasn’t going to take advantage of this conversational lifebelt. ‘I guess we’ll soon find out.’

Ægir hastily interjected again, before Lára could pounce from the sidelines with further personal questions. ‘How can we let them know when we’re arriving in port if the radiotelephone can’t be repaired?’

‘We’ll show up on their radar as soon as we approach land. If they received the message I expect they’ll have a reception committee waiting. We won’t be allowed to go straight home, that’s for certain. So you can forget about smuggling your wine ashore.’

Ægir’s heart sank. This was not what he wanted to hear. He could think of nothing he wanted less than a homecoming marred by police interrogations and a customs clampdown. His dream of being greeted on the threshold by the familiar smell of home, of sleeping in their own bed, faded. Why the hell hadn’t they simply flown back? Taking advantage of his silence, Lára leapt in and returned to her line of questioning. ‘Anyway, what were you saying – what are you saving up for?’

From Halli’s expression one would have thought Lára had asked him to strip off. Ægir was astonished that she should be oblivious to the fact that this diffident young man had no wish to talk to her at all, let alone answer such personal questions. Usually she was much more adept than Ægir at reading social situations. Perhaps her fury with him had blunted her instincts.

‘I’m saving up for a motorboat. With a mate of mine.’

‘Great.’ Ægir smiled encouragingly at Halli who had given up on his game of patience, in spite of his cheating. The yacht bucked and rolled, and Ægir doubted he would ever want a motorboat, even if he were offered one for free. He was fed up with the sea, with the constant wallowing and pitching, and was pretty sure that his former dreams of owning a share in a small sailing boat would never be resurrected now. The money would go towards something else: a new car, foreign holidays, some decent jewellery for Lára; anything really, so long as it had nothing to do with boats. It was ironic then that he seemed to have developed his sea legs at last, thanks no doubt to the captain’s pills, and the ship’s incessant rocking no longer bothered him the way it had for the first two days. He had begun to ride the waves instinctively, as if he and the yacht were one. Perhaps he would find that the land was moving up and down when and if they reached Iceland. The smile faded from his face as he tried to work out where that if had come from. Of course they would reach land safely. He forced his mind back to the conversation. ‘I’m sure you’ll be successful.’

‘Hope so.’ Halli stood up, walked over to the window and stared out, as if he expected to see something other than the infinite ocean. In profile he looked despondent and Ægir wondered if the young sailor also had his doubts about their chances of reaching home safely. ‘I sure hope so,’ Halli repeated.

Lára shifted impatiently on the sofa, annoyed with Ægir for butting in on the conversation. She licked her lips as was her habit when she was considering her next move. ‘Do you know what the weather forecast is like, Halli? I was thinking of taking the girls up on deck for some fresh air, so I was hoping this storm would die down soon.’

Halli didn’t look round. ‘I reckon it’ll stay like this all day. That’s what generally happens. It’s the good weather that changes quickly.’

Ægir reached across the sofa and tentatively took Lára’s hand. She didn’t reject him and that was the sign he had been waiting for, the sign that soon he would be forgiven. Exactly how the process worked remained a mystery to him; he was simply grateful that his punishment was over. The situation on board was disastrous enough without his having to tiptoe around Lára as well. He risked moving closer to sit beside her and was relieved when she didn’t object. Daring now to take the next step in the reconciliation process, he cuddled up to her and whispered an apology in her ear, adding that he needed to tell her something that was rather serious but not dangerous. This last comment went completely against his intuition; given recent developments, it looked as if they might indeed be in very real danger on board.

It had been bad enough that there was a body in the freezer, but at least its presence there had seemed to be unconnected to them. But now that an unknown person had taken the trouble to throw the body overboard, it was clear that the culprit was still on board and that he was trying to protect his interests. Perhaps he had needed to dispose of the body in case it carried traces of his DNA or some other evidence that could implicate him. The thought filled Ægir with such misgiving that, reluctantly, he had decided he would have to share it with Lára. Of course it would be better to pretend nothing had happened, but that would be neither right nor fair: he was so afraid she might unwittingly act in a manner that would cause the culprit to feel threatened. He met her wide, questioning eyes. ‘What?’ she asked aloud, and Halli glanced round, as if he thought she was addressing him. He turned back to the window when Lára ignored him and repeated her question. ‘What? Is anything wrong?’

‘Yes, actually.’ Ægir forced a wry smile. ‘The body’s disappeared. Someone tipped it overboard while I was diving and it floated past me. I thought I was seeing things but it turns out the freezer’s empty.’

Lára opened her mouth and shut it again. Her eyes implored Ægir either to retract his words or admit he was pulling her leg. Clearly, she overestimated his sense of humour. ‘How could that happen?’ Without waiting for an answer she leapt to her feet and tugged at him. ‘Where are the girls?’

‘They’re below. Where we left them.’ Ægir rose too, cursing himself for leaving them unsupervised. He had wanted to shield them from witnessing the tension between their parents. When he last saw them they had been sitting up in bed watching a film whose rating neither he nor Lára had had the presence of mind to check. The girls had been so absorbed, and hopefully still were, that it was unlikely any attempt to drag them away would have succeeded. Besides, there was a world of difference between disposing of a dead body and harming living children. ‘Wait here; I’ll check on them.’ He almost shoved Lára back onto the sofa. Though there was no reason to suspect any harm had come to them, he didn’t want her to be first on the scene.

Halli had cottoned on to what was happening and dragged his attention away from the window, which suggested that Thráinn had indeed ordered him to keep an eye on them. When they stood up, he looked around in confusion, as if he was considering forbidding them to leave the saloon. But once Ægir had induced Lára to sit down again, Halli seemed reassured. Plainly, she was the one under suspicion, since there was no way he himself could have thrown the body overboard when he was underwater at the time. Still, he found it so ludicrous that the captain could imagine for one minute that Lára had had anything to do with it that he almost burst out laughing. Then he realised that just as he had automatically assumed that a member of the crew must have been responsible, so the captain had almost certainly sought outside his own ranks for the guilty party. People never suspect those closest to them. But the captain’s relationship with his crew was completely different from Ægir’s with Lára. They had known each other for a decade, while the crew were strangers to one another who had been assembled to perform a specific task. Perhaps it was a sign of Thráinn’s leadership skills that he should automatically side with his men. Or perhaps it was a sign that he was a fool.

‘I’ll fetch the girls. Don’t worry – Halli will wait with you.’ Ægir walked calmly out of the saloon, quickening his pace as soon as the door closed behind him. He did not run, however. Rationally, he knew his worries were unnecessary. Under normal circumstances he would not even have been moving this fast, but the situation could in no way be described as normal. Only now did he truly acknowledge to himself that something was seriously amiss on board and that the corpse in the freezer was only part of it. This boat was quite simply a bad place. He breathed more easily as he approached the twins’ door and heard the sound of the film.

They were still sitting where he had left them, side by side with their backs bolt upright against the headboard. When he appeared in the doorway they muttered a barely audible greeting but did not raise their eyes from the screen. The film must be incredibly gripping since he usually merited at least a grin. ‘What, not even a hello?’ He pulled a sad face.

‘It’s a really good film. Don’t talk to us now.’

The yacht lurched suddenly and Ægir grabbed the door frame. ‘Sorry, girls. I’m afraid you’re going to have to turn it off and come upstairs to join me and your mother. You can pause it, can’t you?’

They turned their heads, their faces frightened. For the thousandth time he marvelled at the magic of genes. He took it for granted that they were identical in appearance but it was beyond him to understand how a cluster of cells could be arranged in such a way as to make the responses of two individual human beings so alike. At times they moved in unison, as if performing synchronised swimming on dry land. This was one of those moments. They even blinked simultaneously, under furrowed brows. ‘Why?’ Uttered with one voice, naturally. ‘It’s nearly finished.’

‘Because the sea’s so rough that we want to have you near us. You can watch the film any time you like; it’s not going anywhere.’

They ceased to act as one; Arna folded her arms mutinously while Bylgja drew up her legs and said with relentless logic: ‘If we can watch it any time why can’t we watch it now?’

‘You know what I mean. Don’t twist my words. Your mother’s waiting upstairs and she’ll be worried if we don’t hurry back.’ He picked up the remote control. ‘There’s a TV in the saloon, so you can carry on watching it there if you like.’ When he switched off the television, the room was plunged into darkness. ‘Why have you drawn the curtains? Was the light shining on the screen?’

‘No. We didn’t want to see out. It was gross.’ This time it was Arna who answered.

‘Gross? That’s hardly the right word, sweetheart. The weather may be rough or stormy, but it’s not gross.’

‘We’re not talking about the weather.’

‘Oh?’ Ægir was puzzled. ‘What then? The waves?’

‘No.’ Bylgja shook her head, frowning. ‘The woman. She fell past the window into the sea. We both saw her when we came downstairs earlier. I’d seen you getting in the water and we wanted to watch you dive. We weren’t allowed out on deck so we had to come down here to watch out of our window. Upstairs you only get a view of the deck. But it turns out that our window faces the other way, so we couldn’t see you – only the woman falling. We thought it was Mummy at first but when she was lying in the sea we got a better look and realised it wasn’t her.’

Ægir swallowed a lump in his throat. ‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’ Now at least it was possible to establish that the woman had been thrown from the deck above the girls’ cabin. He had been lowered into the sea on the other side of the ship, so for him to have caught sight of it the body must have been pulled under the keel by the current.

‘No, we weren’t,’ they replied in chorus.

‘There’s no woman on board apart from your mother and she’s sitting upstairs in the saloon.’ Perhaps this was the wrong thing to say; they might have to give a statement to the police later and it was unfair to confuse them like this.

‘It wasn’t Mummy, it was the woman in the painting. Wearing the same dress and everything.’ Bylgja shuddered. ‘Her face looked horrible. Then she sank.’

Ægir took a deep breath, making a heroic effort to control his features. If this was true, the woman in the freezer must have been Karítas. He recalled the material of the garment that had been billowing about the gruesome body and conceded that it may well have been the same dress. The colours had looked duller but then the sea would mute them, as it did sound.

‘I told you they wouldn’t believe us.’ Arna got up from the bed. ‘You never believe us.’

‘Of course I do.’ Ægir groped for the right words, for some way to distract their attention. His mind was blank. ‘Why didn’t you fetch your mother? Or someone else?’

‘We didn’t dare leave the cabin at first but when we finally went upstairs Mummy was panicking because she thought you’d fallen in the sea. We tried to tell her you were diving but she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to hear about the woman either.’ Arna looked doubtfully at her father. ‘Are you angry?’

‘Angry? No, not in the least. But do you know what? It was actually a good thing you didn’t mention it. Very good, in fact. I want to ask you to keep this a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone – anyone at all. It’s really, really important. Do you understand?’ He had been overwhelmed by a sudden terror that if it became common knowledge, the person who disposed of the body might think the girls had spotted him. He would have to be a complete monster to attack children, but Ægir wasn’t taking any risks. ‘Not Mummy. And not any of the crew. Okay?’

They exchanged surprised glances. ‘Why not?’ Bylgja had obviously detected something odd in his behaviour and her voice betrayed alarm.

‘Because this must be our secret. I promise to tell you why after we get home. I promise.’ He knelt down beside them. ‘We three know it happened, but nobody else must know. So we won’t tell anyone until later.’

But of course he was wrong: the perpetrator knew where and when it had happened. And he was one of them: Thráinn, Halli or Loftur. All equally implausible, yet all equally plausible. ‘What time did you come down here, Bylgja? Was it straight after you saw me lowered over the side?’ She nodded, worried that she had done something wrong. Ægir tried to work out what this meant. Bylgja must have left the window and told her sister what she had seen. Then they had spoken to their mother and told her they were going below, before coming down here and taking up position by the window. So about ten to fifteen minutes must have passed between his entering the sea and the body being thrown overboard. Which meant he couldn’t even rule out Thráinn or Halli. Although they had been out on deck with him to start with, he hadn’t been able to see if they were still there during the time he was underwater.

Ægir rose to his feet. He couldn’t stand this, couldn’t stand the sea a moment longer or the thought that he had placed his family in jeopardy. The decision to sail home was the stupidest of his life. His eyes strayed to the briefcase leaning against the wall by the desk, which reminded him of what felt almost like a previous existence; the daily grind that may not have put much in his pocket but was at least neither strenuous nor risky. He had been a fool. Looking down at the twins’ dark heads, he knew he had failed them. And Lára. And Sigga Dögg, who was waiting for them at home. He clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. They had to get back to Iceland – the sooner the better.

In his mind he kept reciting the names of the crew as if they were a nursery rhyme: Thráinn, Halli, Loftur. Halli, Loftur, Thráinn. Loftur, Thráinn, Halli. Which one had done this? Please God, don’t let them all be in it together.