The Mist

by Ragnar Jónasson

  The parents of the girl who had vanished … The case that had been so much on her mind recently. Perhaps they wanted to know how matters stood, before everything shut down for the holiday.

  Hulda considered returning their call then and there, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She had enough to cope with at home. Instead, she decided to put it off until she was at work tomorrow, since it seemed she had no alternative but to go into the office.

  XV

  When Erla resurfaced, after going back to bed at her husband’s suggestion, her first thought was a fervent prayer that the events of the morning had been nothing but a long, unsettling dream; that Leó had finally left and Anna had arrived, so that Christmas could begin in earnest.

  To distract herself, she focused on the ordinary household chores she needed to do before evening, like getting dinner ready, which would mean boiling the smoked lamb on the gas cooker and making sure the house was spick and span by 6 p.m., when the Icelandic Christmas celebrations traditionally began. She found herself smiling in anticipation, but her smile faded when she remembered the power cut. What a nuisance: they would miss the carol service this year. They did have a battery-run transistor, but it had stopped working ages ago and Einar had never got round to taking it in to be fixed. At the time he had said he’d gladly do without news for a few days the next time they had a power cut: ‘It’s nothing but doom and gloom anyway. We’re better off without it.’

  The sound of Leó’s voice from the sitting room broke into her happy daydream and brought her crashing down to earth.

  ‘Hell,’ she muttered to herself, and checked the alarm clock. She had slept to midday. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. It must be because she’d lain awake so long last night.

  Anna. Surely Anna must be here by now. She always got here by lunchtime, Erla thought to herself, smiling again. And with Anna there to back her up, perhaps Erla would survive Leó’s visit after all.

  She climbed out of bed, pulled on some clothes and made her way slowly along the passage to the sitting room. There they sat, Einar and Leó, as if they hadn’t stirred since this morning. They had blown out the candles, and a pale, watery light was filtering in through the windows. Dawn, such as it was in winter, had broken, and it made sense to spare the candles and make the most of whatever daylight they got, since the darkness would close in again in just over three hours’ time. It had stopped snowing, thank God, so perhaps they would be able to get shot of Leó after all.

  ‘Where’s Anna?’ she asked.

  She was met by silence. Leó dropped his eyes, avoiding her gaze.

  ‘Why isn’t Anna here? It’s lunchtime, Einar. She should be here by now.’

  Einar rose to his feet. ‘It’s all right, love. Come and sit down; I’ll get some coffee.’

  He went into the kitchen and came back with a cup, which he put on the table and filled with coffee. She felt as if the morning was repeating itself, as if she were caught in some sort of nightmarish loop.

  ‘It’s not all right, Einar. It’s Christmas Eve, and she’s never been this late before. And there you are, behaving as if nothing was wrong!’ Erla made a sudden move towards him and gave him a shove. ‘What’s the matter with you? Why are you being like this?’ Even as she said it, she realized she was taking out her anger on the wrong man. She had only one ally here and that was her husband. She rounded on Leó instead.

  ‘It’s time you stopped lying to us, Leó!’ she said aggressively, taking a step towards him. He looked alarmed – the bastard was actually frightened of her! Serve him right.

  ‘I … I’m not lying,’ he stammered.

  She went over and sat down on the sofa beside him, although there wasn’t much room. She was going to get the truth out of him, whatever it took.

  ‘You claimed you found our house by chance, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, thank God … I reckon it saved my life,’ he faltered.

  He was nervous, there was no question of it.

  ‘You’re lying. That’s a lie. I saw your tracks in the snow. You followed the road here. Oh, yes, you told us that – that there were markers in the snow and you followed them.’ She was astonished at how firm she sounded, at the courage she was able to summon up now that the chips were down. But there was a cold, sinking fear in the pit of her stomach. She was afraid for her daughter, afraid that this intruder might have hurt Anna in some way.

  Leó was silent.

  ‘That’s what you told us yesterday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, er, sure, but I didn’t mean it like … I saw some markers, that’s right, but …’

  ‘And they lead here, but first they go past Anna’s house. The road comes up from the village. And that’s where you came from. You weren’t out shooting on the moors with your friends – whether there were two or three of them, or however many it is today!’ The thought that she might be fighting for her daughter’s life lent her an unaccustomed strength. For God’s sake, Anna should have been here by now!

  ‘I was shooting,’ Leó contradicted her, more forcefully this time. ‘We were, er, shooting ptarmigan.’

  Einar finally intervened. ‘Where’s your gun, then, mate?’ he asked quietly, a hint of steel in his voice.

  At last, at last, Erla thought, he was beginning to see the light. He’d realized there was something wrong.

  ‘My gun? Oh, my gun. I, er, I dumped it when I got separated from the others. I was getting tired and didn’t want to weigh myself down with unnecessary clobber.’

  Erla held back, leaving it to Einar to treat this explanation with the contempt it deserved.

  But Einar didn’t immediately respond and a fraught silence descended on the little room. The atmosphere was peculiar enough anyway, thanks to the power cut; a sort of twilit gloom prevailed, evoking the time of day that Erla always found most sinister: the hour when ghosts could emerge from the shadows and take on human form, without your being any the wiser.

  She shuddered; it was chilly in the room, as usual, but it wasn’t this that triggered her reaction so much as a fervent wish that this stranger had never turned up on their doorstep, never disturbed the precarious balance of their home life. Yes, she was unhappy here – in a way; she couldn’t lie to herself, but she longed to be left in peace with her unhappiness.

  She strained her ears, listening out for the sound of the door opening that would herald Anna’s arrival. Waiting for her to breeze into the room, her hair still crusted with snow from her walk, full of apologies for being so late. Once she was here, there would be no need to interrogate Leó. Because maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth. Her confidence wavered, but then she reminded herself that he could be lying to cover up the fact that he had done something to Anna.

  ‘So you left your gun behind, did you, mate?’ Einar asked at last, in a deceptively level voice.

  Leó nodded, his eyes darting from side to side as if it was dawning on him that the game was up and he had lost. That he wasn’t welcome here any more.

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a brief hesitation.

  ‘That strikes me as a bit of an odd thing to do. Guns are expensive toys – they cost an arm and a leg, as I’m sure you’re aware. I’ve never heard of anyone dumping their gun like that. Do you have any idea where you left it? Did you mark the spot?’

  ‘No, not really. Anyway, I didn’t have anything to mark it with.’

  ‘You’re obviously not short of money, then.’

  ‘What? No, of course I’m upset about the cost. I suppose the truth is I panicked – I was scared I was going to die of exposure out there.’

  ‘And you came up the road, you say. Didn’t you notice the other house on the way here?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘The other house?’ Leó asked hesitantly.

  ‘Yes, my wife was asking you about that last night, and again this morning.’

  ‘Oh, right, yes …’

  ‘You said you hadn’t seen any buildings a
part from our place, but there’s another house that belongs to us too, not that far off. The road from the village runs right past it.’ Einar sounded unusually stern.

  Leó didn’t reply.

  ‘So you didn’t follow the road? The markers?’

  ‘Yes … er, yes, I did.’

  ‘And yet you didn’t see the house. Or was it our place you were looking for?’

  The silence stretched out, heavy with tension. Einar had drawn back slightly, as if to put more distance between himself and Leó, and Erla leaned as far away from their visitor as she could, as if to underline the fact that it was two against one and he was on his own.

  ‘Look,’ Leó said, on the defensive now, ‘it’s possible I saw it. I … I did see a building in the distance, but all the lights were off, so I just kept going. It could have been the house you’re talking about, but I was knackered and feeling the cold so badly by then … I was looking out for signs of life, for a light –’

  ‘It’s our daughter’s house,’ Erla cut in, ‘and there’s no way she’d have refused you shelter if you’d knocked at her door. Do you know what I think?’ – she raised her voice – ‘I think you did go there and she took you in, and … and then you did something to her. That’s what I think! She’s not here yet, she still hasn’t turned up … Tell us the truth, Leó. For God’s sake, you have to tell us the truth!’

  ‘Erla …’ Einar intervened. ‘Erla, love …’

  ‘I swear I didn’t meet her, I didn’t even knock at the door – the house looked … there were no lights on that I could see. I really don’t know what I was thinking. It’s hard to think straight in a situation like that.’

  Einar abruptly took a step closer to Leó and raised his voice: ‘What do you want from us?’

  ‘What … what do I want from you? Nothing, I just needed shelter. This is all some kind of terrible misunderstanding.’

  ‘What have you done to Anna?’ Erla cried, feeling the tears sliding down her cheeks. ‘What have you done to her?’

  ‘I’ve never met Anna, I swear to you …’

  ‘My wife tells me you were snooping around in our bedroom yesterday,’ Einar said, keeping up the relentless inquisition. ‘Is that true?’

  Leó was visibly thrown by the accusation. ‘No. No, I don’t know why she’d think that.’

  ‘I saw you when I came in. I’m positive,’ Erla said flatly.

  ‘You saw me in the corridor, you mean. You must be imagining things,’ Leó shot back.

  ‘Let’s just watch what we say here,’ Einar said steadily, but still with that steel in his voice. ‘It’s possible my wife made a mistake, but it seems to me there are a number of things that need explaining.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ their visitor protested with a sigh. ‘I haven’t lied about anything and I don’t understand why you’re accusing me like this. If you don’t want me here, I’ll leave right now.’

  ‘Just hold your horses. No one’s saying that,’ Einar told him. ‘We just want you to be straight with us.’

  ‘But I have been straight with –’

  Erla jumped in again: ‘What about last night? What were you doing prowling around?’ Even as she said it, she experienced a momentary doubt, wondering if it had been a dream. Maybe she hadn’t actually heard the stealthy noises or the squeaking of the door in the attic. But when she saw the faint twitch of a muscle in Leó’s cheek, the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, she knew it hadn’t been her imagination. She threw a quick glance at her husband and saw that he had caught it as well, the betraying signs of guilt.

  Leó sat there in silence.

  ‘I heard you, you went up to the attic.’

  ‘How on earth –?’

  ‘… do I know that? Because I know this house.’

  ‘So, yet more questions for you to answer, Leó.’

  ‘I …’ their visitor said, and stalled. Erla sensed that he was trying to make up his mind whether to keep lying to them or to admit the truth. ‘All right,’ he went on, ‘as a matter of fact I was up and about last night. I couldn’t sleep. I was feeling a bit claustrophobic, to be honest. I’m not used to being snowed in like this. I put my head out of the door for a breath of air, but it didn’t help, just made me even more aware than before of how … well, how isolated this place is.’

  ‘And the attic? What were you doing up there? And don’t bother lying to me, Leó – I heard you open the door up there.’ She added for good measure: ‘And so did my husband.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t really know what I wanted. I just thought I’d try the bed up there, see if I’d feel any less claustrophobic upstairs …’

  Einar walked over to the sofa and laid a heavy hand on Leó’s shoulder. ‘And how did that work out, mate? Did you go back to the spare room after that?’ There was a warning note in his voice.

  Leó lowered his eyes, answering after a moment or two: ‘Yes, I managed to get to sleep in the end. I’m sorry if I kept you two awake.’

  ‘Come along,’ Einar said. It was an order, but a polite one. His hand was still resting on the guest’s shoulder.

  ‘Where? What do you mean?’

  ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘Up … to the attic?’

  ‘Yes, come with me. I just want to make sure nothing’s been damaged or stolen,’ Einar said firmly, adding, when Leó didn’t react: ‘Unless you’d rather I didn’t check?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘Right, then, let’s go upstairs. You lead – after all, you already know the way.’

  Erla saw the confusion in Leó’s eyes, but he obeyed and walked slowly up the stairs in front of Einar. The door to the attic room was locked from the outside and, when Erla heard the squeak of the key, she realized that this had almost certainly been the noise she had picked up on last night.

  ‘Ah, it’s dark up here, of course,’ she heard Einar say. ‘The window’s covered with snow. Hang on a minute. I’m going to fetch a candle.’

  Erla jumped when she heard the sound of the door shutting and the key turning in the lock. The seconds seemed to pass as slowly as minutes while it gradually dawned on her that her husband had locked their guest in.

  Then she heard the first shouts. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Leó’s voice carried clearly down to where she was standing. He shook the handle, then started banging on the door, but Erla knew it wouldn’t give way that easily. This was a solid old house and most of the doors were correspondingly thick and sturdy. ‘Let me out, for fuck’s sake! Let me out! This is against the law. Let me out!’ He started pounding on the door again.

  Einar came downstairs, looking unperturbed.

  ‘Right, love, let’s take a quick look through his things. I’m not quite sure about this fellow. I think you might have been right about him all along.’

  He called back over his shoulder: ‘Just be patient a minute, mate. I’ll be back shortly.’

  Erla could hardly believe what had just happened, relieved though she was that Einar had apparently decided to take her fears seriously. ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, going over to him.

  ‘There’s something fishy about all this, love. Let’s find out if he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘But what … what are you going to do? Are you planning to keep him locked up … right through Christmas?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Einar replied, as Leó kept up his violent assault on the door upstairs. ‘That wouldn’t do. Besides, this may all turn out to be a big misunderstanding, in which case we’ll let him out at once. But we need to be careful. I’m not putting you at risk from some stranger.’

  ‘But what –?’

  ‘I’m just going to take a look through his things. I’ll soon see if he’s been lying to us.’ He shook his head and snorted contemptuously: ‘Going shooting without a gun, can you beat that?’

  Had that been the tipping point? Little by little, the clues that something wasn’t quite right had been piling up. B
ut maybe Einar had only started putting two and two together now, because this was something he knew about, as a keen hunter who had shot quite a few ptarmigan himself that winter – that no real hunter would have left his gun behind.

  Einar’s gun … Suddenly Erla had a horrible thought. ‘Einar,’ she whispered, ‘your gun! Could he have broken into the cabinet last night? Could that have been what he was looking for?’

  Her husband frowned. ‘It’s locked, and I always keep the key on me, you know that.’ He patted his pocket. ‘Still, that’s a good point. I’ll go and check.’

  He disappeared down the passage and returned shortly afterwards, shaking his head. ‘No, the gun’s still in the cabinet and there’s no sign that anyone’s tried to tamper with the lock. Right, let’s have a look at his things.’

  Erla stood, rigid, watching as he went into the spare room, and suddenly, incongruously, found herself thinking about the smoked lamb. To distract herself, she started trying to work out what time she would need to put it on to boil and when she would have to start on the side dishes to accompany it. Christmas dinner was the most important meal of the year and it always required a countdown to make sure everything went smoothly. They normally had a light snack at midday too, but it had completely escaped her mind in all the fuss.

  She closed her eyes, trying to block out the hammering and yelling from upstairs and focus on these mundane concerns, as if they could transport her to another world where all was well. Where the light hadn’t fled before the darkness of a power cut; where no visitor had turned up unexpectedly out of the snow; where Christmas carols were playing softly on the stereo in the background; where only the familiar phantoms went on the prowl at night and not a sinister stranger, and where Anna had turned up to lunch on Christmas Eve …

  Anna?

  The thought of Anna jolted Erla out of her daydreams and back into the harsh present. There was still no sign of their daughter.

  XVI

  Hulda’s mother was comfortably ensconced on the sofa with a glass of malt brew. She said little, but every now and then helped herself to a chocolate from the bowl on the coffee table. Hulda had done her best to pretend everything was fine. On the radio in the background, greetings were being read out from the families of fishermen who were away at sea over the holiday.