The Mist

by Ragnar Jónasson

  There was nothing for it but to keep going and simply pray that he hadn’t wandered off the road.

  He had lost his sense of time; the truth was, he had no idea how long he had been walking. The whole thing was utterly hopeless. Should he maybe turn back? No, that wouldn’t achieve anything as the snow must already have covered his tracks.

  Perhaps the wisest plan would be to sit down and dig himself into a drift. Rest a little. Hope for a stroke of luck; an improvement in the weather, for example, though he knew this was unlikely.

  Yes, that would be best. To bunker down in the snow.

  He halted again and sank to the ground. It was a good feeling to be able to catch his breath and give his aching muscles a break.

  He took off his backpack and laid it down in the snow, then rested his head on it like a pillow. He wasn’t going to let himself fall asleep, just relax for a few minutes.

  He put his right hand over his jacket pocket where he kept Unnur’s letter – he had to protect that.

  Then he closed his eyes and his thoughts went homing to his daughter.

  XXI

  Hulda had found herself a seat at the back of the plane and was sitting alone, well away from the other passengers.

  She was on her way home.

  The noise was deafening but she tried not to let it get to her; she had to endure this flight in spite of the turbulence, the uncomfortable seat and the lukewarm coffee she was sipping carefully so she wouldn’t spill it all over herself every time the plane lurched.

  The coffee was disgusting, but then what could you expect on a plane? She had bought a newspaper at the airport to read on the way, but it had been a waste of money. She had hardly read a word because the moment she tried to focus on the print she started to feel sick, and the smell of the paper and ink, combined with the reek of fuel and the bitter coffee, made for a bad cocktail.

  Yes, she was on her way home.

  The trip had been an ordeal. The last thing she had needed was to find herself stuck with a bunch of strangers in unfamiliar surroundings in the depths of winter, trapped in the middle of a tragedy. As if she didn’t have enough trouble at the moment, coping with her own grief.

  She had been too quick to agree to take on the case, too quick to return to work. She hadn’t got over it yet. No sooner had she formulated this thought than she regretted it, since of course she would never get over it.

  She just had to learn to disguise her real feelings behind a façade, admitting no one, while at the same time behaving towards others as if nothing had happened, so she could carry on living her life – if you could call it a life.

  She supposed the case had, insofar as it was possible, been solved. They would probably never establish exactly how Unnur had died, poor girl, though it wasn’t hard to fill in the gaps now that they knew the background and had read the letter she had written her parents. The exact sequence of events that had resulted in the deaths of the couple from the farm was impossible to piece together too, though it seemed fairly clear that Haukur Leó had been responsible.

  Four people had lost their lives and three of them had almost certainly been murdered, yet no one would be punished.

  But then that’s what her job was like at times, a game played out in the grey borderlands between day and night. No victory was ever sweet enough; her work was never really done. She could expect no praise or reward. The riddle had been solved to general indifference. Perhaps, though, that applied more to her, a woman in a man’s world, than to her colleagues. She felt it so keenly, so repeatedly, the sense that some of her colleagues longed for her to make a mistake, to perform worse than them. It was the explanation for her deep need to prove herself, to constantly do better, but even that wasn’t enough.

  Yet small victories did bring her a degree of satisfaction. At least she herself could be proud of a job well done, even if no one else mentioned it.

  This time, she felt nothing but emptiness, though she had performed her role well, in spite of her inability to concentrate. In fact, she doubted anyone else could have done better. But there was a void inside her that nothing could fill, like a hole in her soul.

  She sat there on the bucking plane, gripping the cooling coffee, aware of the chill in her bones.

  She was on her way home, but what awaited her there? Could she even call the house on Álftanes a home?

  Not any more.

  It might as well have collapsed into rubble on Christmas Day, when the family had splintered for good. Nevertheless, that’s where she was heading, that’s where she had to live, for the present at least. She had nowhere else to turn.

  Of course, she could always knock on her mother’s door, but she had no intention of doing that. Their relationship wasn’t close enough, not on Hulda’s side, anyway.

  Hulda knew she would persevere with her job after this trip, although she wasn’t in any fit state to do so. Jón was working from home a lot these days, even more than he used to, and she had to get away from him. At least when she was at work she could think, now and then, about something other than Dimma.

  She could try to focus her mind on something she didn’t care about so much. Perhaps her investigations would suffer as a result of her distracted state, regardless of the assurances she gave her bosses, but that was just tough. From now on, she was going to learn to put herself first. She had to get through this on her own. There was no other way. Jón provided no support, and she would never have accepted any from him. It was as if he knew that she knew, though neither of them said a word.

  The silence between them was almost complete.

  She assumed he would move out after an appropriate interval and vanish from her life. But even then, she wouldn’t be free of him. There was still a risk she might bump into him in a small town like Reykjavík and, even if she didn’t, she would know that he was at large, that he was alive, enjoying himself while Dimma lay dead in her grave. There was no justice in that.

  Sometimes she considered screwing up her courage to bring charges against him. To go for it. Reveal the family’s dirty laundry for all to see, put up with all the whispering that would ensue, about them, about her, wherever she went; malicious tongues asking – aloud – the same questions she kept asking herself over and over again: Surely she must have known? Why didn’t she do anything before it was too late?

  Why the hell couldn’t Jón just face up to his own guilt?

  Why couldn’t the sick bastard just die? Do it as a favour to Hulda. Restore a little justice to the world. Do one good deed in his miserable, worthless life.

  In the old days, she would have looked forward to her homecoming after a journey like this. There had been nothing to beat returning to the embrace of her family, in their cosy house by the sea, the sanctuary where she was spared the daily grind in the city. But those days were gone and, if she were honest, the feeling had faded long before Dimma took her own life. It had been a long, painful process, during which all warmth had seeped out of the house. Now, she couldn’t wait for it to be sold. If Jón didn’t take the initiative soon, she would put it on the market herself. She couldn’t face walking past Dimma’s room day in, day out. The moment of discovery had been so traumatic that all she wanted was to obliterate the memory, but nothing worked. Her mind kept conjuring up the scene, whether dreaming or awake, and Hulda knew that the moment would stay with her for as long as she lived. It was her last memory of her daughter, though she would have given anything to be able to concentrate on remembering the happy times instead.

  She was on her way home to the cold. In her imagination, the house was now chilly and unwelcoming; grief shadowed her wherever she went in its rooms. She couldn’t even derive the old enjoyment from going into the garden and gazing out to sea. Instead, she stayed indoors, lying in her bed all evening, sometimes cooking something when she was starving, but only for herself. Otherwise, she made do with having a hot midday meal in the canteen at work. She slept alone. Jón had moved into the spare room.

>   Hulda took another mouthful of cold aeroplane coffee. The taste hadn’t improved. Somehow, she must pluck up the courage to face the day ahead.

  Try to soldier on, one day at a time.

  Go on working. Do her best. After all, she couldn’t sit idle.

  She hadn’t a clue whether she would succeed.

  She was nearly forty. Where would she be in ten years’ time? Or twenty, for that matter?

  Would the memory of Dimma have faded at all by then?

  And where would Jón be?

  They would no longer be together, that was certain, but he was bound to have made himself comfortable somewhere else, perhaps with a new wife, having carefully buried the memory of what he had done.

  Yes, he would be alive while Dimma was dead.

  Then again, the bastard had a weak heart – though the doctors had told him it was nothing to be alarmed about, as long as he took his pills.

  What a simple solution it would be if he stopped taking his medication. Yes, that would be best for all concerned.

  And Hulda’s spirits rose a little at this thought.

  Author’s note

  I read books all year round, but I especially enjoy reading at Christmas time. It is an old Icelandic tradition to give books as Christmas presents, and then to spend Christmas Eve reading into the night. And books with a holiday setting are among my favourites. From the top of my head, I can name a few excellent examples such as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938), Ellery Queen’s The Finishing Stroke (1958), Ngaio Marsh’s Tied up in Tinsel (1972) and Simon Brett’s The Christmas Crimes at Puzzel Manor (1991).

  When I started writing crime fiction, I always knew I would want to write mysteries set around the holidays. The first such book was Whiteout, a part of my Dark Iceland series, and the second is The Mist. I have also written a few short stories set on Christmas Eve, one of which is published in this book for the first time, ‘The Silence of the Falling Snow’.

  For my Christmas writing I have of course been influenced by my own traditions, but also stories told by my family, one of which I want to share with you, a brief memory written by my mother, Katrín Guðjónsdóttir, a few years ago, a glimpse into Christmas in Iceland in 1960, when she was ten years old:

  A Christmas with apples, 1960

  It was a cosy feeling when Dad bought the Christmas apples, and the box was in our house in Háagerdi, in Reykjavík. Then I felt Christmas approaching.

  We only had apples at Christmas time, so me and my sisters and brothers went, again and again, up to the top of the staircase to smell them. The box was open, but we only peeked; no one had an apple until Christmas Eve.

  I always looked forward to having a bite of one as soon as I started reading a new book at Christmas.

  I can still smell the apples …

  Katrin Guðjónsdóttir

  Read more

  Read on for an

  exclusive short story

  by Ragnar Jónasson

  Read more

  The snowflakes fell to earth, one after the other, in a majestic way, but Ari Thor Arason was the only one there to enjoy them. He stood by the living room window, listening to an old record of classical Christmas music. The Christmas Mass on the radio was an hour or so away, and he did not want to start his dinner until then, at exactly six o’clock on Christmas Eve. That’s how it had always been, ever since he was a young boy with his parents.

  The food was smoked Christmas ham, another tradition acquired from his parents. It had been difficult to find a ham small enough for one person, but at least he would have some leftovers to enjoy over the holidays. One of the perks of finally having a second-in-command – a young policeman named Ögmundur – was that Ari could take Christmas off, although it was usually a fairly quiet time anyway, and he didn’t even have anyone to enjoy it with.

  Kristín had moved to Sweden with their son, Stefnir. Today was actually Stefnir’s third birthday and Ari acutely felt the pain of being so far away from him. He had indeed suggested to Kristín that he would spend Christmas with them in Sweden, and she had given it considerable thought but in the end decided against it. ‘We are just getting settled, it might be too upsetting for him, he is so small. We will spend Easter in Siglufjörður and then you can come over next Christmas, I promise. Let’s take this step by step, if that’s OK?’ He had wanted to say that it wasn’t, but he hadn’t wanted to start an argument over the phone.

  The holiday music was disturbed by the ringing of his mobile phone. He walked over to the piano where he had put it down. It was Ögmundur, his deputy.

  ‘Yes?’ Ari Thor said, rather brusquely. He could not imagine any reason important enough for Ögmundur to be disturbing him on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Ari, there was this woman who was trying to contact you,’ Ögmundur said, getting straight to the point.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘An elderly lady, living on Hólavegur.’

  ‘Someone I know?’

  ‘No, not really. She is called Halla, around eighty or so.’

  ‘And what’s the emergency?’ Ari Thor asked, still quite annoyed.

  ‘I don’t know really. She just said she wanted to speak to you directly.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to deal with this yourself?’

  A slight pause.

  ‘No, I knew you were all alone anyway, with nothing to do. Do you want her number, then?’

  Ari Thor sighed. ‘Why not …’

  Ten minutes later he was sitting in Halla’s large living room. He had left the ham in the oven and figured he could spare half an hour meeting the old lady, planning to be back to his house in time for the mass. It had also been quite refreshing to take a walk in the snow, the village was almost completely quiet, and up in the mountain he could see the traditional New Year’s Eve decorations, where the lights showed the current year. At midnight on 31 December, the lights would change, from 2015 to 2016.

  He had never met Halla before, but she obviously knew who he was. She was not very tall, but quite statuesque nevertheless. Dressed up for Christmas, she bore her age well, an intellectual gleam in her eyes.

  ‘Very nice of you to take the time, Ari,’ she said in a kind voice. ‘I don’t know why I felt the need to call you now, but, you know, it was such a strange letter.’ Then she added: ‘Also, I know you used to study theology, so I imagine you understand these things.’

  He didn’t ask what she was referring to by ‘these things’. Instead, he said: ‘Tell me more about the letter.’ She had mentioned that briefly over the phone.

  She stood up and walked slowly out of the living room, returning with a letter in her hand.

  ‘This is not the only one, you know. Just the latest one.’ She handed the letter to Ari Thor.

  It was not very long, one page, handwritten, fairly illegible writing. Addressed to ‘Dear Halla’, and signed by a man called Einar. There was nothing suspicious or disturbing about the contents, a few memories of years gone by, and then at the end best wishes for a merry Christmas.

  ‘Do you know this man? Einar?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And it’s not the first letter from him?’

  ‘No, I get one every Christmas. Shall I show you?’ And without waiting for a reply, she was off again. When she returned she had a small wooden box in her hand. She put it on the table and opened it. It was filled with letters. Ari Thor browsed through the stack. The writing was always the same, and all the letters he glanced at were all addressed to Halla, signed by Einar.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t really understand the problem. Is this man …’ He chose his words carefully. ‘Is this man harrassing you in any way?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ She shook her head forcefully. ‘We were married, you see.’

  ‘You were married? Not any more.’

  ‘No. We got married soon after the war, I was very young, only nineteen. He was older.’

  ‘And did you always live here,
in Siglufjörður?’

  ‘Yes, I was born here. We both were, actually.’

  ‘And you divorced?’

  She stayed silent for a while, and then said: ‘No, he died.’

  ‘He died?’ Ari Thor had not expected this, although it was in a way a likely answer. The woman was in her eighties, according to Ögmundur’s information at least, and she had just told Ari Thor that she had married an older man. ‘When?’

  ‘Thirty years ago,’ she replied. ‘That’s when the letters started to arrive.’

  Ari felt an uneasy shiver down his spine.

  ‘Did he die or … go away? Disappear?’ His thoughts drifted to his own father, who had disappeared without a trace when Ari Thor was still a boy.

  She didn’t reply right away.

  ‘He most definitely died,’ she said, decisively.

  ‘So someone is sending you letters in his name? And has been doing so for thirty years.’

  She just stared at him, not really acknowledging his logic. Perhaps she really and truly believed that the letters came from beyond the grave …

  ‘Do you have any idea who might want to scare you in this manner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you reported this to the police before?’

  Again: ‘No.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I can do at this point, though,’ he said. ‘We can revisit this in the new year, if you are still concerned.’ Then he added: ‘Are you afraid someone might be out to harm you?’

  She smiled. ‘No, not at all. I am too old to be afraid. I don’t have very long to go.’

  ‘Are you OK to stay by yourself here for Christmas, then?’

  ‘Of course, I think I just needed someone to talk to. Thank you for coming.’ She stood up.