Snowblind

by Ragnar Jónasson

  It was half-past five. A man who took life with equanimity and didn’t let himself get stressed, certainly not at Christmas, Tómas probably didn’t even have his suit on yet.

  Hell, Ari Thór thought and dialled Tómas’s number.

  ‘Hello?’ On the other end of the line was the familiar, powerful but amiable bass voice.

  ‘Tómas? It’s Ari Thór here … Sorry to call you at such an awkward time…’

  ‘Good evening,’ Tómas sounded distracted and distinctly less cheerful than his usual self. ‘Christmas doesn’t start until we’re ready and I’m not inclined to be hurried. We’re still wrapping presents here. The worst of it is that the priest always starts his service at six on the dot, but it wouldn’t be the first time that we showed up halfway through,’ he said, with a laugh that seemed forced.

  ‘I had a strange call, didn’t know what to make of it,’ Ari Thór said. ‘The caller, he or she, whispered something about being in danger, or that’s what it sounded like. Then when I called back it seems it had been a mistake.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tómas said absently. He sounded tired. ‘Every now and then we get these calls, someone playing a prank, normally youngsters. These kids.’ He hesitated before saying more. ‘So he, or she, pretty much admitted playing a prank when you called back?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so.’

  ‘Then don’t worry about it. It’s a nuisance being a cop at Christmas and there are people who just don’t have any kind of a conscience. Well, Reverend, don’t you have other things to think about? A sermon or something?’

  The laughter was again forced and Ari Thór tried to smile to shake off the disquiet the whispering voice on the phone had left him with.

  ‘I suppose so. Well, regards to the family.’

  ‘I’ll pass them on.’

  ‘And Merry Christmas,’ he added, but Tómas had already put down the phone.

  Ari Thór picked up the book he had bought, in spite of the promise he’d made to himself to save it until after dinner. He was eking out his small pleasures to keep the boredom at bay. Only a few pages into the book, he realised that he hadn’t taken anything in. Unable to concentrate, he stood up and opened the door, stepping out into the snow and looking up at the mountains. Man had beaten the mountains by tunnelling through them, and was doing his best to fend off the forces of nature with robust avalanche defences so big that they looked almost as if trolls rather than men had built them. But the darkness and the snow could never be defeated. Ari Thór lifted his face to the heavens and closed his eyes, letting featherweight snowflakes settle on his face, one at a time, offering them refuge.

  There was a sound from inside, and this time there was no doubt that it was coming from his mobile and not the work phone. A text message.

  Kristín!?

  He wiped the snow from his face and a few steps on wet feet that almost had him slipping on the floor returned him to his desk. Old and made from pale wood, it was probably the most elegant piece of furniture in this otherwise cheerless police station. His phone lay on the desk, its flashing red light indicating that a message was waiting for him; this tiny light was more welcome than any Christmas illuminations.

  Ari Thór forgot the earlier call, the whispering voice, the fear and the uncertainty, and snatched up the phone to see the message. And then there was disappointment. It wasn’t from Kristín. It wasn’t even a number he recognised.

  He read it with great surprise.

  ‘Merry Christmas! Enjoy your shift!’ he read, and beneath it was a name, Ugla.

  Had Ugla remembered to send him a Christmas message when Kristín hadn’t?

  He found his annoyance at Kristín’s oversight – her intransigence – gradually give way to his delight at Ugla’s message, and the thought of her brought a smile to his face. He imagined her: tall but not quite his height, and those delicate musician’s fingers.

  Ugla was probably at home with her parents, getting everything ready for Christmas, and she had still remembered him. He sent her a grateful reply, wishing her a happy Christmas, before sitting back down with his book, this time finding it easier to concentrate.

  The church bells rang Christmas in, echoing through the town and up to the mountains, but no further, as if they were intended for the town’s inhabitants only.

  Ari Thór laid the book aside and removed the candle from his bag, setting it in the window and putting a match to its wick. Then he pushed the piles of paperwork aside to make room for his meal and poured a can of Christmas ale into a glass. His thoughts turned to his mother, who had always had a smoked rack of pork at Christmas, and always played the same music from an old record, before Christmas was rung in by the church bells relayed over the radio at the start of the nationwide broadcast of the Christmas Mass.

  He took the CD from his bag and put it into the station’s old but serviceable CD player. He turned up the volume before the music started, and knew precisely what he wanted to hear at this moment; the largo from Vivaldi’s Winter.

  And with that Christmas arrived.

  13

  The mobile phone in her coat pocket – why hadn’t she tried to use it? Why hadn’t she tried to call the police? She could have done it easily enough, punching in the three numbers by feel alone … Dammit. It was too late to think of that now, with her phone ringing and the piercing ringtone shrieking from her coat pocket.

  He jumped, the razor-sharp blade that he had again rested against her neck nicking her. She put a hand to the wound and found that it was shallow.

  He snatched the phone, looked at the screen and showed it to her. It was her husband, undoubtedly wanting to have a word before boarding his flight.

  ‘Please, let me have the phone,’ she whispered. ‘It’s my husband. He’ll worry if I don’t answer.’

  All the same, she knew that wasn’t the truth. He had taken care to call her mobile and not the house phone, thinking that she could be asleep with her mobile set to silent.

  The black-clad man thought for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not she was telling the truth, while the phone continued to shriek, each ring louder than the last.

  Then he looked at her and deliberately dropped the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.

  ‘Give me the combination, now!’

  ‘I don’t have it!’ She was pleading, her heart pounding. ‘You have to believe me!’

  14

  SIGLUFJÖRDUR. THURSDAY, 8 JANUARY 2009

  Ugla stood up. She had been sitting on an old kitchen chair with a torn plastic seat. She stopped for a moment and looked deep into the eyes of the man standing in front of her. Karl. His thick, dark hair had not started to grey, even though he was a couple of years past forty. Ugla felt there was something odd about his expression, those eyes with a slight but permanent squint that seemed to be saying “come here” and “keep back” at the same time. She moved closer and he pulled her towards him, kissing her passionately.

  Úlfur, the play’s director, clapped and the sound echoed through the hall.

  ‘Brilliant! I think we’re almost ready for Saturday.’

  It was getting late and the rehearsal had been in progress since five.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said a deep but determined voice from the gallery, where Hrólfur, the chairman of the Dramatic Society, and the playwright, Pálmi, had been watching the rehearsal. ‘We’ll see about that,’ Hrólfur repeated.

  Ugla and Karl waited on the stage for further instructions from the director. Hrólfur’s remark seemed to have taken the wind out of Úlfur’s sails.

  The rehearsal was taking place in the theatre on Adalgata. Old black-and-white posters advertising performances back to the Dramatic Society’s early days in the fifties had been hung in the lobby.

  A corridor led from the main entrance to the auditorium, where the stage was set. A staircase to the left of the stage led up to the gallery, and chairs had been arranged in the hall, ready for Saturday’s opening night.
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  With a few quick steps, Karl strode down from the stage. Then he paused, waiting for the director to announce that the rehearsal was over. It wasn’t worth risking offending him with the play about to open. It was obvious that Úlfur enjoyed being in charge, and this was his show. The only one who didn’t respect his authority was the chairman of the Dramatic Society, old Hrólfur, who watched every rehearsal as keenly as a hawk, seated in the gallery. The few words he uttered were invariably negative.

  Karl got a kick from being on stage, looking down on the audience – the ordinary people – with the lights upon him. On this stage, he was the undoubted star, absorbing the attention and the applause. The male lead role gave him even more time in the spotlight.

  He fished his mobile phone from his pocket and keyed in a text message to Linda, who would be waiting for him at home. Still at rehearsal, another hour to go. See you later. He was taking a risk by lying. But he was a man who relished jeopardy.

  It was six months since he and Linda had moved north to a rented flat on Thormódsgata, which Linda’s salary as a nurse at the hospital paid for.

  There was no reply from Linda, but Karl knew that she was on duty and unlikely to have time to respond. All the better, he reasoned. He could use the rehearsal as an excuse for not answering, even if she did call him. She wouldn’t expect to hear back from him now. With a smile, he keyed in a second message, this time not to Linda.

  ‘That’s it for tonight, I suppose,’ Úlfur said in the portentous voice lent by authority. ‘See you all tomorrow – and be prepared for it to take all evening. It has to be perfect,’ he said. ‘Perfect,’ he added for extra emphasis.

  Karl quickly said his farewells and disappeared into the dark, winter night.

  Pálmi came down from the gallery and met Úlfur, and they headed towards the exit of the auditorium together. They were both pensioners who had found new outlets for their energies in the Dramatic Society; Pálmi a former schoolteacher, and Úlfur with a diplomatic career behind him.

  ‘Shall we sit down and go over everything one last time?’ Úlfur suggested, peering up the steps, apparently waiting for Hrólfur to come down. ‘Maybe Hrólfur will ask us in for a glass of wine and a good chat.’ He smiled and dropped his voice. ‘Or a glass of good wine and a chat.’ He grinned again at his play on words.

  ‘Unfortunately not on this occasion,’ Pálmi said lugubriously. ‘I have visitors who arrived from Denmark this morning.’

  ‘Visitors?’

  ‘Yes, an old lady called Rosa. She arrived with her son this morning and they’re staying for a week. I can’t think how I came to agree to it.’

  ‘All right. Will you be entertaining them every day?’

  ‘I don’t know about that … She said I shouldn’t go to any trouble. She just wants to relax and take it easy now that she’s finally here.’

  ‘A relative?’

  ‘No, but she knew my father well in Denmark.’ Pálmi regretted his use of words and emphasis. He hadn’t meant to imply anything romantic or inappropriate, although that was how he suspected his words might be interpreted.

  ‘Well? Do you mean …?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I have no idea. It was all over between him and my mother by the time he moved to Copenhagen. I’m not inclined to ask too many questions, although I suppose I ought to grab the opportunity while I can – find out what the old boy was up to before he contracted TB there.’ He paused for a moment.

  ‘I’ve sometimes thought of asking Hrólfur,’ he went on. ‘You know he was studying in Copenhagen as well at the time? But even though they were good friends back here in Siglufjördur, it seems he didn’t spend a lot of time with my father, not until close to the end, anyway.’

  ‘Grab the chance with both hands – you may not get another. I hope the old lady doesn’t find herself snowed in.’

  ‘I’m certainly hoping that as well!’

  Pálmi briefly placed a hand on Úlfur’s shoulder and left.

  Leifur, the Dramatic Society’s handyman, put the props away quickly, hurrying out to the Co-op and just reaching it as the shop was about to close. He was the only customer. He looked through the chiller cabinets without much interest. A sign for beef mince on special offer caught his eye; it looked more tempting than the sorry range of chicken drumsticks and flabby chicken breasts that surrounded it.

  Leifur was in his mid-thirties and quite enjoyed his role at the Dramatic Society. There were just two days to go before the opening night. The theatre was a perfect way to smother memories and Leifur was particularly relieved that the first night would take place on a date when he would most definitely need a distraction. The fifteenth of January.

  It was a date etched on his memory, just like another date – New Year’s Eve more than twenty years ago.

  He had been eleven years old. A child not much impressed by Christmas, but entranced by the idea of New Year’s Eve – watching the fireworks and now old enough to help his father and elder brother set them off. He’d been looking forward to the day for weeks. His brother Árni, almost seventeen, was in charge that year and he’d saved up specially to buy more fireworks than usual. And then flu struck – his parents flatly refusing to let Leifur out of the house to take part, condemning him to watch the display through the window instead. It would be nothing like the excitement of seeing them live in the dark of a winter’s night. Too old to shed tears, and filled with self-pity and frustration, he shut himself in his tiny bedroom at the back of the house, peeking out of the window as a few fireworks streaked past, but resolutely refusing to leave his room to look out the front where the festivities were taking place.

  In the days that followed, Leifur’s family mentioned more than once how well Árni had done, but Leifur refused to engage, still trying to convince himself that shutting himself away in his room was the right thing to have done. Of course, Árni saw through the pretence and tried to cheer him up, promising that they would see to the display together the following year. But this had been their final New Year’s Eve together.

  Leifur was a carpenter, according to his listing in the phonebook, although in truth the title was a mixture of wish and reality. He had always been clever with his hands and one way or another had expected to become a carpenter. When he was only ten, he and Árni had decided that they would one day run a big workshop of their own in Siglufjördur. It was an exciting prospect for a boy who knew no greater pleasure than spending his time in the garage with planks, a hammer and a saw, knowing that he had an older brother who would never break his word.

  But like so much else, these fine intentions came to nothing.

  After leaving school, Leifur had enrolled at the technical college and, after that and having returned to Siglufjördur, he set up a small workshop in his flat. The house was divided into two and Leifur had purchased the upstairs. It was about the right size for a single man and his faithful labrador. He fitted out one room as a workshop and took occasional jobs. His hourly rate was certainly fairly low, but there wasn’t a great deal of demand either. Things were quieter here than in bigger places, and people chose to take the time to do things for themselves instead of employing a proper carpenter. But Leifur didn’t give up, continuing to run the workshop in his spare time. His late brother would have wanted that.

  When it came to a regular income, Leifur had to rely on the filling station where he had worked since leaving college and moving back to Siglufjördur. Settling elsewhere had never been an option, even though his prospects there would have been far brighter; he couldn’t entertain the idea of leaving his parents and it had never even been discussed. It wasn’t as if they had exerted any pressure on him to return, but he felt he couldn’t let them down by leaving.

  They didn’t deserve to lose a second son.

  The small flat in Thormódsgata, was his home and he felt comfortable there. He enjoyed working with wood whenever there was an opportunity, and it was at these times that he felt happiest – in another world,
a world of his own, where nothing could trouble him. The theatre was a godsend, providing him with plenty of opportunities to make the most of his talents, even though the work was voluntary. As far as he knew, nobody was paid to take part in the amateur productions, but there was a certain prestige attached to being a part of it.

  Over the years, his fine handiwork had attracted increasing praise, and he was now tasked with building the sets for every production – given carte blanche within the limits set by Hrólfur and Úlfur, a colourful pair of characters who knew what they wanted. Leifur was never one for argument, preferring to let others have their way.

  Alongside the carpentry, he had been given a chance to play a part in every performance in which he had been involved. In a small company everyone had to pull their weight and he was the understudy for the leading role, as well as having a few lines in other parts. He practised endlessly until he knew them inside out. Although Leifur suffered badly from stage fright, he was in his element in the Dramatic Society, even if his biggest part was always behind the scenes.

  He started most days by walking the dog. When he finished at the filling station he would go to the swimming pool – not for a swim, but to use the gym there to lift some weights. He would often run into a few other regulars, though there weren’t many who kept to a routine as strictly as he did. There were normally lads from the football team working out, younger than him, of course; and his downstairs neighbours, Karl – from the theatre group – and his wife Linda were frequent visitors. It was a good place to forget the rigours of the day, relax and gather his energy for another walk with the dog and some time in the workshop. He spent every evening in there, whether he had a job to work on or not; if nothing else, he would make something for his home, or to give away.