The Legacy

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  He and Börkur left the building, none the wiser about what had become of Halli. In a final attempt to account for his disappearance, they stood staring stupidly at his bike, clueless as to what information it could be concealing.

  Eventually, disappointed, they went back outside into the icy grip of winter.

  It was warm in the café and the air was fragrant with cinnamon. It was a popular spot with hipsters, though at present they all seemed to be otherwise engaged. Most of the customers were uncool types, so Karl and Börkur fitted right in. Only one person stood out, a glamorous young woman who had finished her coffee a while ago and sat flicking through magazines or staring out of the window. Karl knew what that meant: she’d been stood up.

  After their visit to Halli’s place, Karl had felt the obvious course was to go back to his house but he couldn’t face sitting there, acutely aware of the shortwave receiver in the basement. It exerted an uncomfortably strong pull on him; he alternated between wanting to smash it to pieces and take up his post to wait for the next message. He didn’t know which impulse was the more powerful, so it was better to stay away altogether. The worst part was his suspicion that Halli was mixed up in the broadcasts. When you only had two friends, you expected them to stand by you, even if you were beginning to drift apart.

  ‘They don’t know anything.’ After considerable effort he and Börkur had succeeded in tracking down Halli’s parents. Unfortunately he had one of the most common patronymics in the country: Jónsson. But they recalled that his parents lived up north in the village of Dalvík and this had reduced the number of men called Jón who could be his father from five thousand to thirty-seven.

  The third man Karl got hold of was able to tell him which Jón he wanted, based on Karl’s description of Halli and the fact he had a sister with Down’s syndrome.

  Börkur sipped from the absurdly large cup. It left a white moustache on his upper lip. ‘When did they last hear from him?’

  ‘His mum said she spoke to him on the phone several days ago. He’d sounded upbeat so she didn’t seem worried. Apparently his dad got a text from him the day before yesterday saying he was going to a holiday chalet with his mates and probably wouldn’t be in touch till he got back.’

  ‘When was he coming back?’ Börkur licked off his moustache and stirred the froth into his coffee.

  Karl hadn’t asked this and could have kicked himself when he realised his omission. ‘What does it matter? He hasn’t gone to any holiday chalet. I mean, who are these mates he’s supposed to have gone with? Can you name a single person he’s friends with apart from us? Are we at a holiday chalet?’

  ‘Chill out. I only asked.’ Börkur adopted the petulant expression that didn’t suit him. ‘Maybe he’s with Thórdur.’

  Karl couldn’t be bothered to point out that Thórdur hadn’t acknowledged Halli either when they ran into him at the cinema. It was unthinkable that their former friend would have changed his mind, called Halli and invited him to the country with him and his girlfriend. Unthinkable. Even so, he felt a creeping sense of doubt and envy. What if it was true? He could understand that Thórdur wouldn’t want to be lumbered with Börkur but what about him, Karl? If Halli had rekindled his friendship with Thórdur and his girlfriend, then Karl would be left with no one but Börkur. Perhaps they’d invite Börkur into their circle too and Karl would be all alone in the world. Depressed, he turned his cup round and round on its saucer. ‘Halli isn’t at any holiday chalet. Anyway, I doubt there’s a single chalet in the country that doesn’t have mobile reception.’

  Börkur shrugged. ‘There must be some hut in the middle of nowhere that doesn’t have coverage. Maybe he’s gone there. I mean, where’s he supposed to be otherwise?’ Suddenly he brightened up. ‘We could always call the police.’

  ‘I doubt that’d do any good. Not after their reaction when I rang about the shortwave broadcasts. They probably think I’m a nutter. If I call again, they’ll decide I’m one for sure.’

  ‘I could call. They don’t know anything about me.’

  Karl passed over his phone. As usual, Börkur had run out of credit. ‘Go ahead. One, one, two.’ While Börkur was making the call, Karl stared first at his cup, then at the other customers in the café. Most were around his and Börkur’s age but few appeared to appreciate being surrounded by their mates. They pored over their phones, only paying attention to their companions when they came across a particularly funny or cool picture or comment. To give Börkur his due, at least he was never buried in his phone, but then there wouldn’t have been much point since he never had any credit. Karl’s spirits rose a little and his mood had almost returned to normal when Börkur said thanks and hung up.

  ‘That was a disaster.’ Börkur handed the phone back to Karl. ‘They didn’t think I was the right person to notify them. I bet his parents would’ve had more luck. But even if they did call, apparently it’s too soon after he went missing for the cops to take any action. It would be different if he was a kid or ill in some way.’

  Karl became aware of a nagging pain in his head. ‘His parents won’t call. Not straight away. They obviously don’t have a clue how unlikely it is for him to be invited to a holiday chalet. I couldn’t bring myself to tell his mum. If they’re kidding themselves that he’s got loads of friends here in Reykjavík I’m not going to be the one to disillusion them.’

  ‘Maybe it was relatives who invited him. Or old friends from up north. He could have mates from there that we don’t know about.’

  Karl had to admit that it was possible Halli had a life outside their small circle. Just because he himself had virtually no cousins his own age, that didn’t mean other families were the same. That was a good point about old friends from Dalvík too. It was a pity Börkur hadn’t come out with that before Karl rang his parents, or he could have pumped Halli’s mum for the names of his old friends and spoken to them himself. He considered phoning back but decided it was a bad idea. If Halli didn’t get in touch, he needed to be able to call his parents again and urge them to contact the police, so it was essential not to give them the impression he was weird or paranoid. Karl had to accept that for the moment there was nothing more he or Börkur could do.

  Nothing but go home and sit in front of the shortwave receiver and wait for the next broadcast. The suspicion crept up on him that now he had the key to the code the messages would become darker. Instead of walking around feeling triumphant at his ingenuity, his accidental discovery of the solution had only increased his misery. It forced him to acknowledge that the messages were intended for him. First his ID number, then the link to chemistry, his subject. Though he couldn’t be entirely sure, he doubted it would have struck him at all if he’d skived off his lecture this morning. It had been the slide about the chemical element erbium that had provided the light-bulb moment. Erbium, atomic number sixty-eight, symbol Er.

  It hadn’t taken him long to read today’s message once he had worked that out. For every atomic number he simply had to find the relevant chemical symbol from the periodic table.

  74, 1, 68, 99, 1, 13, 3.

  W, H, Er, Es, H, Al, Li – Where’s Halli?

  The earlier broadcasts were also decipherable if they were converted into chemical symbols, and this banished any lingering doubts that he had found the key.

  75, 23, 63–92, 7, 32, 14 reversed, 16, 74, 63–92, 52 reversed:

  Re, V, Eu–U, N, Ge, Si reversed, S, W, Eu–U, Te reversed – Revenge is sweet.

  9, 92, 6, 19, 39, 8, 92:

  F, U, C, K, Y, O, U – Fuck you.

  70–5, 8, 92, 16, 65–5, 8, 71–92, 99–16, 87, 8, 25–7, 42–8, 99–16:

  Yb–B, O, U, S, Tb–B, O, Lu–U, Es–S, Fr, O, Mn–N, Mo–O, Es–S – You stole from me.

  But was he any better off for this knowledge? The messages didn’t make sense. What had he stolen? Nothing. The only thing he had ever ripped off in his life were downloads. It was inconceivable that someone would have gone to all this trouble over a f
ew downloads. Then again, Halli must be mixed up in it somehow. Could the broadcasts be in revenge for his arrest? Was he under the impression that Karl had grassed him up? Nothing could be further from the truth. He’d had absolutely nothing to do with it.

  And hadn’t listening to an incomprehensible string of numbers been preferable to a message he understood but would rather not hear? What could he expect next? On the one hand, he was itching to find out; on the other, he was desperate for the broadcasts to stop. Of course, the means were available to him; all he had to do was switch off the radio if he didn’t want to hear them. And he didn’t, yet part of him did.

  Karl stood up. He couldn’t hang around here for ever. He would have to go home eventually, so better get it over with. ‘Come on. I’m going home to listen to the radio. I want to know if there’s a new message.’ He was surprised by the confident ring to his voice. It was pure bluff.

  Chapter 30

  The pizza had fused to the cardboard box. Karl tried to pick off the melted cheese stuck to the bottom but all he got for his pains were greasy fingers that now also stank of pepperoni. The slice refused to budge without taking a layer of cardboard with it. Frustrated, he watched Börkur shovel a piece into his mouth, chomping and spitting out bits of cardboard before he swallowed. Karl gave up trying to prise the pizza loose. He had satisfied the worst of his hunger; he was just being greedy. Instead he drained his Coke and occupied himself with crushing the can against the edge of the table.

  They had ordered pizza when their hunger began to bite and they were fed up with hanging around in the basement, waiting for the numbers station to come to life. It remained stubbornly silent. Perhaps the Post and Telecom Administration had traced the broadcast and closed it down. Karl very much doubted that the broadcaster had applied for a licence, but the sporadic nature of the transmissions and their short duration would have made them hard to pinpoint. Unless they had begun long before he started hearing them. Whatever the reason, Karl felt relieved, yet in spite of everything some part of him missed them. Just a little. It wasn’t really loss so much as the sense of a void in his life now that this strange adventure seemed to be coming to an end. When it did, he would go back to being an ordinary, dull person who nobody cared about. Troubling though the broadcasts had been, they had at least made him feel important on some level; given his life a purpose that now seemed to have evaporated – if the station really had been silenced for good.

  Börkur took another mouthful and had only just started to chew when suddenly he spluttered as though he had just had a revelation. ‘Hey!’

  Karl was treated to a sight of half-masticated pizza that he could happily have done without.

  ‘I brought you the phone.’ Börkur stood up, wiped most of the grease off his fingers onto his trousers, then darted out into the hall. He reappeared looking triumphant with the mobile in his hand, banged it down on the table and helped himself to another slice, untroubled by the cardboard that came with it.

  Karl turned the phone over in his hands. He had only had a quick glimpse of it in the car the evening Börkur found it but it looked no more familiar now in the bright light of the kitchen. The pink case, covered in crystals, proved beyond doubt that it belonged to a woman or girl. ‘This thing isn’t cheap.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Having finally eaten his fill, Börkur leant back with a contented face. The tomato sauce at the corners of his mouth looked unsettlingly like blood, as if he’d bitten unawares into a piece of glass. ‘Maybe it belongs to some rich bitch who’s bought herself a new one because she can’t be arsed to look for it. Typical.’

  Börkur had a peculiar attitude to the rich – inherited from his parents, Karl suspected. On the rare occasions when wealthy people cropped up in their conversations he would blurt out sentiments like this that had little relevance to anything. As a rule Karl couldn’t be bothered to contradict him; after all, he didn’t exactly feel driven to defend those who were better off than him. ‘Yeah, maybe. Though I still reckon she’d be pleased to get it back. There’s bound to be all kinds of stuff on it that can’t be replaced. Photos and so on.’

  Börkur snorted, then frowned and rubbed his nose. ‘Is there a bad smell in here? Like something’s burning?’

  Karl sniffed. ‘No.’ He sniffed again. ‘Hang on, you’re right. Ugh. Is it burning or the smell of piss? It must be coming from outside.’ He closed the kitchen window. ‘Shit, a cat must have sprayed the wall or something. Gross.’ He turned on the phone and the screen lit up. ‘It’s asking for a PIN.’ Of course it was.

  ‘Try one, two, three, four.’

  Karl did, assuming no one would be idiotic enough to use such an obvious combination. ‘No good.’ He tried several other combinations without success. ‘This is pointless.’ He put it down. ‘I’ll take a photo of it and advertise it on Facebook. If no one recognises it, I can take it to the police.’ He had thirty-three friends on Facebook, most of whom were other chemistry students who had created a group to share homework and notes, which was the reason he had joined the site. Only time would tell whether he would acquire any other friends. But the chances were slim that any of these thirty-three would be able to solve the mystery of the phone.

  He would have to dig up one of his mum’s friends on Facebook and send her the photo to share. He didn’t relish the prospect as it was bound to elicit a flood of questions about how he was doing. Still, he could spare a few minutes to invent answers that would paint a rosier picture of his life than the reality. He couldn’t stand their fake solicitude. On the rare occasions that he bumped into one of them he could tell they were itching to go and ring the others and gossip about how wretched and peaky poor Karl had been looking.

  Suddenly his own phone rang. Karl checked the screen, dreading a call from Arnar but hoping it might be Halli. The number that flashed up belonged to neither. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good evening. Who am I speaking to, please?’

  Karl didn’t recognise the voice. ‘My name’s Karl. Have you got the wrong number?’

  ‘No. My name’s Ríkhardur and I’m calling from the police. I gather you rang us in connection with the murder investigation that’s in progress.’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’ Karl mouthed the word ‘police’ and Börkur seemed to cotton on, though you never could tell: he was notoriously slow on the uptake. ‘Do you want me to come in and give a statement?’

  ‘No, no need for that. Let’s start by establishing what it is that you feel we ought to know.’ The man’s delivery was oddly robotic, reminding Karl of the readers on the numbers stations. Every syllable was given equal weight. If the man ever quit the police he could get a job as the speaking clock. ‘I understand the radio has been talking to you.’ The man’s voice betrayed no hint of contempt or incredulity. A dry delivery had its advantages. When Karl had originally contacted the police, the person he’d spoken to had found it hard to suppress his laughter.

  ‘Where do you want me to begin?’ Karl tried to order the events into a coherent narrative in his head but it was no good; he didn’t need to put it into words to realise how absurd it sounded.

  ‘At the beginning, if you would.’

  ‘Well. I own a shortwave radio receiver and I came across an Icelandic numbers station.’

  ‘Numbers station?’

  ‘A station broadcasting series of numbers. In code. For spies and smugglers mainly.’

  ‘I see. Someone’s spying on you, are they?’

  ‘No. Not on me. They can be broadcast between continents. They originate abroad. They’re nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Didn’t you say it was Icelandic?’

  ‘Yes. This one is. Which is really unusual. That was where I heard them read out the ID number of the woman who I saw on the news was murdered last week. And my ID number too. That’s how I worked it out.’

  ‘So this Icelandic station is spying on you.’

  ‘No.’ Karl paused and made an effort to collect himself. If he ble
w his top the man would lose interest and ring off. The conversation was going badly enough as it was. ‘Nobody’s spying on anyone.’

  ‘Why have a spy station then?’

  Karl took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m not crazy. It’s a method of communicating messages so they can’t be traced. It’s more secure than phone calls or e-mails.’

  ‘Have I understood you correctly that you’re talking about a radio broadcast?’

  ‘Not just one. Lots. On shortwave.’

  ‘In what way are radio broadcasts more secure than phone calls? Surely anyone can listen in? Or are you the only person who can hear them?’

  The man kept forcing him into a corner. ‘No, of course I’m not the only one who can hear them. Anyone with a shortwave radio can tune in to these stations. What makes them secure is that the broadcasts are unintelligible.’ Karl didn’t need Börkur’s look of horror to tell him he was making a hash of this. Unless his friend’s expression was a reaction to the unpleasant smell that still lingered, despite the closed window. ‘I’m telling you, I heard this woman Elísa Bjarnadóttir’s ID number read out, then mine, then the ID of a woman called Ástrós. I can’t remember her patronymic but I could dig it out.’ He omitted to mention Jóhanna Hákonardóttir as that information belonged to him alone. If the police started investigating her link to the affair, there was a risk the information would get back to Arnar. On no account must that be allowed to happen. Karl had even taken the precaution of tearing the form with her name on it to shreds and throwing it away in a dustbin on the university campus. Along with the birth certificate. He didn’t need it to remember the names. However absurd it was, he wanted to ensure that Arnar wouldn’t find anything if he turned up out of the blue. He was perfectly capable of jetting over to Iceland to comb the dump for the papers Karl had thrown out.