‘You didn’t think this would be a walk in the park, did you? There aren’t murders and the like here, but it’s still no kindergarten,’ Tómas warned.
It made him feel very alone. He felt like a stranger who had come to Siglufjördur for a weekend, and then found his stay extended day by day; like a traveller who had forgotten to buy a return ticket.
He could chat to Tómas and Hlynur about everyday things over a coffee at the police station, but this was superficial stuff about politics and sport.
He saw right away that Ugla was different. She was warm and welcoming, gave freely of her time and could listen attentively when it was needed.
Ugla returned with her coffee and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to start the lesson.
‘Are you enjoying Siglufjördur so far?’ she asked, half-smiling.
‘Well, it’s OK,’ he said, rather hesitant.
‘I know. It’s difficult to begin with, it’s such a small community. People talk about you behind your back. I’ve been there …’ Her voice was comforting, soothing. ‘Coming here from Patreksfjördur was a help, as I knew just what these small places are like – although no two are the same. Living here is very different to being in the Westfjords, but I can’t put my finger on exactly how. I suppose every town has its own charm,’ she explained with a wry smile, as if she were trying to help him feel better.
There was something captivating about Ugla, something about her that invited trust.
‘I heard you are studying to be a priest,’ she said.
‘Not really. I gave up on that a while ago.’
‘You should finish it.’
Ari had no intention to be drawn into that discussion so he tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.
‘How about you? University?’
‘Yes,’ she answered quickly. ‘Eventually. I need to finish college first … I left Patreksfjördur in a bit of a hurry.’ Her words faded away.
Ari Thór sensed that there was something about her time in Patreksfjördur that she wasn’t sharing.
After a brief but slightly uncomfortable silence she continued: ‘Maybe I can go to university in Akureyri, or in Reykjavik, although I don’t think I’d like living in such a big city.’
‘It isn’t so big, you’d like it there. I have a flat in downtown Reykjavik, close to the harbour.’
He was surprised to find that he was already talking to her as if she were an old friend, but for some reason he didn’t mention Kristín, and the fact that they had been living together in the flat in Reykjavik. For some reason he didn’t want to bring up the fact that he had a girlfriend. And to be fair, Ugla hadn’t asked him directly, so he hadn’t lied.
‘So it must be quite a change,’ she said. ‘Although, you’re still close to a harbour, just a different one.’
There was still something about her that he couldn’t fathom. Of course, she was far from her family, but there was a deeper sadness about her than just that. Each smile was accompanied by a flash of darkness behind her eyes.
‘And the mountains, you know …’ He smiled.
‘It’s like they’re closing in on you, right?’
‘Exactly,’ he agreed. But then changed the subject to something less uncomfortable. ‘Will you be here over Christmas?’
‘Yes, my parents are coming to spend Christmas here. Christmas dinner isn’t my strong point so I’ll get my mother to cook something special.’ Judging by her voice she was looking forward to this.
’It’s not my strong point either,’ Ari Thór said with a little false modesty. ‘But I’ll still try and come up with something celebratory.’ He sipped his still-hot tea. ‘I have a shift on Christmas Eve. I’ll be on my own, so I’ll take my dinner and a couple of good books with me.’
‘That sounds miserable.’
Ari Thór liked her honesty. ‘You’re right. But I don’t have a lot of choice.’
‘Will your parents come up north for Christmas?’
It was an innocent enough question. He hadn’t made a habit of introducing himself as a man whose parents had died, but he wasn’t going to let her question upset him.
‘No … I lost my parents a long time ago,’ he said, looking into her eyes and then immediately dropping his gaze, as she looked awkwardly into her coffee cup.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said with sincerity in her voice. ‘I’m truly sorry, I had no idea.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You get used to it.’
‘Really?’ Ugla asked in surprise.
Ari Thór shrugged.
‘You really get used to it?’ she asked.
‘Yes … Yes, I think I can say so,’ he replied. ‘But it takes time. It took a long time to get over it and it’s not something that happens overnight. But it gets easier. You have to keep going, life goes on…’
Ugla sat silent.
‘Why do you ask?’ Ari Thór finally said.
She was silent for a while, staring into her mug as if it held the answer to every possible question.
Finally she looked up. ‘I lost … lost my boyfriend a few years ago,’ she said. ‘That’s why I moved here.’
Accustomed to being the one who had suffered loss – the one receiving the sympathy, Ari Thór didn’t know how to respond.
‘My condolences,’ he said, not knowing what else to say, but recognising that his words were empty of meaning and he could just as well have given her a standard flower-shop sympathy card.
‘Thank you.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Well … we were out on the town in Patreksfjördur. There’s a small bar there and he…’ Águst, she wanted to say, hesitating as if she couldn’t say his name out loud. ‘He got into an argument with someone from out of town, someone who was very drunk. He was punched, fell down and he never woke up… It was just that one blow,’ she added.
Her expression was desolate, but Ari Thór had the feeling that telling him the story had been a relief for her.
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ he said. ‘Very sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured again.
She put aside the coffee mug and looked at the clock.
‘I don’t want to keep you here all evening,’ she said, with a clearly artificial cheerfulness in her voice. ‘Isn’t it time we made a start?’
‘Certainly. I need to go over what we did last week. It’s not going to be pretty!’
He sat at the piano and placed his hands on the keyboard.
‘No, that’s not right,’ Ugla corrected him, lifting his right hand and moving it. He flushed at her touch, feeling an agreeably warm energy from her.
‘Thanks. That’s better,’ he said, and suddenly it was as if Kristín were a thousand miles away.
11
His voice louder this time, he asked again where the money was, loud enough to frighten but not loud enough to be heard outside in the street. Still wearing the coat she had put on to fetch the rice, she had handed him her purse the first time he asked.
The rice. Had she forgotten about that? She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, surprised that she could worry about takeaway rice at a moment like this.
He had taken a quick look in her purse, seen there was little cash, and demanded again where the damned money was hidden.
She shook her head and he asked about a safe.
Again she shook her head but her eyes probably gave her away. Like a cat with prey on his mind, he seemed to have found the scent.
He took a step closer, putting the knife to her throat.
‘You get one chance. Make it count.’ His voice terrified her.
He continued: ‘If you tell me that there’s no safe, I’ll kill you right here, right now. I have zero tolerance for bullshit.”
She answered him instantly, showed him the way down the stairs, along the passage leading from the hall and into the study. He switched on the light and the low-powered bulb illuminated the room, including the heavily built safe in front of th
em.
He looked at her.
She was quick to reply before he asked the question.
‘I don’t know the combination. You have to believe me!’ she almost shouted. ‘You have to wait for my husband to come home.’
He raised the knife and her heart pounded.
It was probably the phone that saved her life at that moment – or at least prolonged it.
12
SIGLUFJÖRDUR. CHRISTMAS EVE 2008
‘Merry Christmas, my boy!’ Tómas called cheerily, as he set off into the cold night. Ari Thór was going to reply when he heard the door shut and he decided there was little point in calling out Christmas greetings that only he would hear. He sat alone at the police station’s computer. Red-and-white paper chains had been hung, and a plastic Christmas tree, adorned with cheap baubles, stood by the entrance; that was the full extent of Christmas at the police station.
Maybe that was enough; the place wasn’t exactly going to be crowded over the holiday period. Ari Thór was the only one who would be there, with a shift from midday on Christmas Eve to midday on Christmas Day itself. It was going to be a lonely but well-paid shift and the overtime was welcome. He reminded himself that with the state of the country as it was, he could be thankful that he had work at all.
He had admitted to himself that it wasn’t the Christmas he had been expecting – the first one since he and Kristín had begun living together. At the same time he was struck by the thought that it was, perhaps, doubtful that they would be living together much longer at all. He had moved to the other side of the country and it didn’t look likely that she would follow him. It wasn’t much consolation that she was still living in his flat in Reykjavík. The flat wasn’t any more his home at the moment than Siglufjördur was Kristín’s.
He longed to send her an email or call her, but something held him back. She should be calling him. He was the one who was alone and abandoned in an isolated town, miles from anywhere, far from all his friends and surrounded by nothing but absurd paper chains.
Outside it snowed relentlessly and Ari Thór’s attention alternated between the computer screen and the deepening snow. This was going to be a lonely shift. He went to stand on the pavement outside for a breath of fresh air – no question that it was fresher than Reykjavík air – and to shovel snow from the door. He had no intention of being snowed in, and, of course, he’d need to be able to get out if there were an emergency.
Ari Thór remembered Tómas’s words.
Nothing ever happens here.
His work so far had been increasingly monotonous, with patrols and minor call-outs. The only serious incident that had landed on his desk was when a seaman had broken a leg on board ship and it had fallen to Ari Thór to take the crew’s statements. He had done his conscientious best to write down their descriptions of the accident, but found himself struggling to fully understand what had happened. He suspected that the crew were going out of their way to use nautical terms that would confuse a youngster from down south with no experience on board a ship. But he refused to play along with them by asking for explanations.
He gazed out at the tranquil town.
The day before he had stopped off at the little bookshop and bought a newly released novel that was on his Christmas wish list, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to rely on anyone but himself to purchase it. In fact, the wish list existed only in his head and even Kristín hadn’t been able to guess what was on it when she had bought him a book last Christmas. His parents had always given him a book for Christmas. The Icelandic tradition of reading a new book on Christmas Eve, and into the early hours of the morning, had been important in his family’s home. When his mother and father died and he was left an orphan at the tender age of thirteen he had gone to live with his grandmother. From then on he had made a point of buying himself a book at Christmas, something that he particularly wanted to read.
‘You’re welcome to go home around six for dinner if you feel like it, as long as you take the phone with you,’ Tómas had told him before he left. But with nothing but silence and four walls waiting for him, it hadn’t taken him long to decide that there was no point in going home to eat dinner alone. That morning he had cooked himself a traditional Icelandic Christmas dinner – smoked pork – wrapped it in foil and brought it with him, along with a couple of cans of Christmas ale, a large white candle, the new book, and a CD he had borrowed from the library.
He wouldn’t be getting any Christmas presents this year, not even one from Kristín.
He tried to think of something else, but his thoughts kept straying back to Kristín, and he felt an inexplicable, burning resentment. But to be fair, he hadn’t sent her a present either. He knew he had made a mistake in leaving her behind – taking the job without discussing it with her – but he felt too proud to admit it. They hadn’t spoken since he told her he couldn’t make it to Reykjavík for Christmas. He felt ashamed that he had let her down and he was afraid that she was still angry at him. Deep down, he hoped that she would take the first step, reach out to him, tell him that everything would be all right.
All day long he had waited for the post, hoping that she had sent him something. A small gift, a Christmas card. Finally something dropped through the letterbox, a single Christmas card. He impatiently ripped the envelope open, his heart in his mouth.
Hell.
It was a card from a childhood friend. Nothing from Kristín. He tried to shake off his disappointment and be happy that his old friend had thought of him.
Every now and again he picked up the phone to call Kristín, as if some voice were whispering in his ear to let the spirit of Christmas do its work, overlook their disagreements. But he was scared what her response might be. Better to avoid disappointment and not call.
Tómas adjusted his tie in front of the mirror. His eyes were tired and heavy.
He couldn’t understand why his wife wanted to move away from Siglufjördur. He just couldn’t get to the bottom of it. Was it something he had done?
They had been married for thirty years. She had started dropping hints last autumn; she wanted to move, leave town, go south and enrol in university. He couldn’t understand it, why she felt the need to go back to school at this point in her life. She said that he could join her in Reykjavík if he wanted to – not that that was really an option, as he couldn’t bring himself to leave either Siglufjördur or the job. Hopefully she would change her mind, but it wasn’t looking likely.
‘Divorce? Is that what you’re talking about?’
‘No … I want you to come, too,’ she said, her tone making it clear that he didn’t have a deciding vote in this. ‘I need a change.’
He didn’t feel that he needed a change.
They still needed to discuss all this with the boy. Not that their son Tómas was a boy any more, rather a grown man of fifteen and set on college in Akureyri next winter. The elder boy was long gone, leaving home over ten years ago, and rarely venturing back up north.
She would wait until the spring to make the move.
Change.
He could tell from the look on her face that she wouldn’t be coming back. Then their son would be off to college and he’d be left on his own.
He tried to concentrate in front of the mirror; the tie was still too short.
Bloody tie, he thought.
She had given it to him last Christmas.
She’s not coming back.
It was getting on for six that evening when the phone at the police station rang, making Ari Thór jump. The silence had been complete, with nothing but the hum of the computer and the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Claustrophobia had sneaked up on him, a feeling that had deepened as the as the snowfall around the station had become increasingly heavy. It was as if the weather gods were trying to construct a wall around the building that he would never be able to break through. He saw things around him grow dim and suddenly he found himself fighting for breath. But this time, the feeling
quickly passed.
He wondered hopefully whether it was Kristín calling when he heard the phone’s ring break the silence.
He looked at his mobile phone’s blank screen and then he realised that it wasn’t his phone ringing, but the one on his desk.
Nothing ever happens here.
Ari Thór hurried to answer.
‘Police.’
There was no reply, although there was clearly someone on the line. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was a mobile number.
‘Hello?’
‘… he …’
It was no more than a faint whisper, and difficult to guess if it was a man or a woman calling, young or old.
Ari Thór shivered and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the call or the seeping chill of snow. The unremitting snow.
Would it ever stop snowing, he wondered?
‘Hello?’ he asked again, trying to deepen his voice and give it some authority.
‘… I think he’s going to hurt me …’
Ari Thór was now sure he could hear fear in the voice, fear and despair. Or had he perhaps only transferred his own feelings of dread – his claustrophobia and loneliness – onto the caller?
‘What did you say?’ he asked, as the line went dead.
He tried to call back but there was no reply. He looked the number up in the police database. There was no registered user, so presumably it was a SIM card that had been bought in a kiosk somewhere, maybe even the kiosk in Siglufjördur. But the phone call could have come from anywhere in the country.
He had no idea what he should do, so he waited a moment and called the number again.
It rang, and this time there was a reply, the same whispering voice. ‘I’m sorry … I shouldn’t have … sorry …’ And the line went dead again.
Perplexed, Ari Thór stared out into the darkness.
This bloody darkness.
‘Just call if there’s anything,’ Tómas had said, conscience touching his voice; an awareness that it was unfair to leave the new recruit alone at the station over Christmas.
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