Blackout

by Ragnar Jónasson

  It wasn’t until a few months after he had come to Siglufjörður that he discovered that Jónatan was living in the town. The son of the farmer and his wife, he was the only member of the family at the farm who had not moved away from the north of Iceland. He saw him about the town several times, but never spoke to him. They had nothing to say to each other, no reason to share the misery of a past that was now so far away. Jónatan didn’t look well, a limping old man long before his time, his face thin and his back bent.

  Elías felt so much better for seeing the other man’s clear ill-health. Maybe he had come out of those summers in the country relatively unscathed after all.

  It wasn’t easy for Elías to cope with the hotel restaurant’s low table and he sat in awkward discomfort with his legs crossed. The girl sat opposite him, seeming more at ease. He ordered the six dishes the waiter recommended. The menu was in English, but Elías still found himself confused by exactly which of these unusual dishes was which course – a soup, a rice dish, spiced chicken, a pudding and something else that he wasn’t able to identify were all brought to the table at once.

  They didn’t speak during the meal. It seemed that she didn’t dare say anything, and he wasn’t interested enough to ask her anything about herself. He was just there to bring her to Iceland, where she would undoubtedly find out the stark truth of what was awaiting her.

  What he really wanted to do was take her up to his suite and get to know her in his own way, but he didn’t want to take any risks. It had been made distinctly clear to him that he must not touch her, just deliver her to Iceland. He’d get part of the payment on arrival at the airport and after that he’d have to hide the girl for a few days. Then they would take over. After that there would be more lucrative work for him.

  Not bad.

  He looked across the table at her and smiled. The temptation was hard to withstand.

  She smiled back at him, her eyes innocent and full of anticipation.

  She gazed out of the window of the little hotel room that she found so delightfully spacious. It was getting dark outside, with the lights switched on in the hotel grounds. She could see the outlines of the striped hotel chairs by the swimming pool and the magnificent trees.

  A new chapter in her life was about to begin.

  This would be an opportunity to make her contribution to the family and she felt profoundly grateful to her new employers who had gone so far as to send someone all the way from Iceland to bring her to her new job.

  She lay down on the wonderfully comfortable bed, closed her eyes and was soon asleep.

  PART II: DAY 2

  1

  She woke up in darkness. A faint gleam of light made its way in through a crack that also brought her air, but there seemed to be little difference between day and night. She had no idea how long she had been asleep this time.

  It was a long time since she had seen the man and she was past trying to understand what was happening. Had he brought her to Iceland to let her die, locked away in here?

  Why would anyone do such a thing?

  And he had seemed to be such a good man.

  She had been delighted when the aircraft finally landed in Iceland after the long journey. The landscape that greeted her was unlike anything she had ever seen before. They landed at midnight, but it was still strangely bright. She had the feeling that this strange country would be a good place for her.

  At the airport the man had had a short conversation with another man, who had handed him a sports bag. There was something about the way they approached each other that felt wrong to her; it was as if they were awkward around each other. However, she was so optimistic and excited that she didn’t feel suspicious at all, she had no reason to believe that there was anything to worry about.

  The trip in the car from the airport took several hours. She expected it to end at the hotel, where she would be put straight to work. But when they finally stopped, the building they were in front of didn’t look at all like a hotel to her.

  To her complete surprise the man grabbed her, pushed her through a door and locked her in, enveloping her in darkness. She tried to call him, to ask what was happening, to beg for mercy. But there was no response.

  It was then that she finally understood that she had not been brought to Iceland to work in a hotel.

  Later he returned with food and water. She tried to attack him, to break out, but they both knew that she was no match for a man so much bigger and stronger than she was.

  So she had no choice but to wait. She was ravenous when he finally appeared again with another portion of food. Again she tried to break out and get past him into the Icelandic daylight beyond. But by now she was even weaker with hunger. He pushed her back easily.

  ‘Stop it,’ he ordered in English. ‘Or no food.’

  She wondered now if he had meant it. Was he punishing her for resisting? How long was it since he had been here? A day? Two days? She had finished the food and water long ago.

  It was a cramped space – barely large enough for her to stand upright and a couple of steps from one end to the other. There were no windows and she sat in darkness with nothing more than a glimmer of light making its way in through the gap where the door did not quite meet the floor. Worst of all was there was no toilet; the smell of her waste was overpowering.

  She closed her eyes, and sat with her head in her hands, waiting, overwhelmed with fatigue. Cramped by the long confinement, there were shooting pains in her legs, and she was incredibly thirsty. There wasn’t a drop left in the bottle; she had tried to suck the last vestige of water from it more than once. She was surprised that she was no longer hungry. It was as if the thirst was all-consuming.

  She was sure now that if he didn’t return, nobody would come to her rescue. Nobody would come looking for her. She would die here, in a place she didn’t know, in a distant land.

  Her thoughts were of home. She knew that her family would not expect to hear from her for some time. She had promised to call or write when she could. It would be a week or more before they would start to worry about her, maybe several weeks, and by that time she would be long dead.

  She had no idea how long she could survive without food or water. That was something that had not been taught at school. But she could feel her strength ebbing away with every minute that passed.

  To begin with she had been gripped by the terror of being locked away, being someone else’s prisoner, unable to escape, and without fresh air or sunlight. The feeling was oppressive. For a while she struggled to breathe, almost expecting to faint with fear. But gradually she had been able to steady her breathing by trying to think of something beautiful, directing her thoughts to a fine summer’s day at her parents’ home.

  Then she started to call for help, shouting as loudly as she could. The ensuing silence was deafening. It seemed that there was nobody to hear her. She rested her voice for a while, trying to conserve her strength, and then started again. By the time she had managed to sleep, her voice was so hoarse that it had almost gone.

  Now she had given up shouting. Her voice was spent. Her tongue so dry she could barely mouth a word.

  But she was determined to keep trying, to do her best to stay awake even though she longed to sleep again. She had a crystalline vision of what would happen if she let herself sink into slumber. And there was no way she was going to allow that.

  2

  In Akureyri, Ísrún was awake early, looking at a dilapidated old house.

  There wasn’t much to see. It was some distance from its closest neighbour and it looked as if a business of some kind had been run on the ground floor – a shop or a workshop, perhaps, but the big windows had now been boarded over. Elías’s apartment had to be on the floor above. There was no sign of life; the curtains were drawn across every window.

  She felt a chill. This was a house she wouldn’t want to live in; the whole place had a ghostly feel to it.

  It occurred to her that she should take a walk around
the house, look more closely and see if she could get inside. There could hardly be repercussions, considering the owner was dead. He wouldn’t be able to complain, anyway. But the prospect of poking around that man’s apartment was too uncomfortable, even if she did find something useful to the story. She pondered her options a moment and decided against entering.

  Back in the car she didn’t even look over her shoulder as she put her foot down and headed for Siglufjörður.

  Svavar had slept badly. All of a sudden he had found himself at the centre of attention, with visits from the police and that television woman. He reckoned he’d come out of both without having said too much, though. He hadn’t betrayed Elías or tripped over his own feet.

  During the night, however, he began to be assailed by doubts. How long would he be able to keep this up?

  He had managed to get off to sleep a few times, but had woken each time sweating with anxiety, thinking about her. The woman he had never seen. The woman from another country, from the other side of the world.

  All he knew was that she was young and pretty. That was how Elías had described her, although those weren’t the words he had used.

  Now though, since the moment he had heard of Elías’s death, Svavar had been unable to think of little else except her.

  He thought of her all day, and thought of her at night when sleep refused to come to him. And when he did sleep, he dreamed of her.

  Time must be running out.

  Maybe he was already too late?

  To begin with he tried to convince himself that she was not his concern. He couldn’t be responsible for every person in the world.

  People die all the time.

  What difference does it make if one unknown woman dies today?

  He sensed the emptiness of this argument as soon as he put it to himself. Elías wouldn’t have let it worry him, but Svavar wasn’t Elías. They were very different, even though they had been friends for so long. Svavar was well aware of Elías’s darker side. Sometimes he struggled to comprehend just how ruthless Elías could be.

  Svavar would have been the first to admit that he was no angel himself. Neither of them had been known for sticking to the letter of the law. Brothers in arms, they had been through thick and thin together.

  So when Elías had been given this assignment, it was natural that he sought Svavar’s help, telling him that he was in contact with people with a wide network of activities that stretched all around the world and back to Iceland. Their business included trafficking and prostitution, and there was a possibility of bringing women from Asia to mainland Europe via Iceland. They had established contacts with individuals in Asia and were preparing to transport young women who had expressed an interest in seeking work in Europe. Once they had arrived, the grim reality of what they had signed up for would become evident. Or that’s how Elías had worded it, with a grin on his face.

  ‘But that’s not my problem,’ he had added. ‘This looks like it’s going to be a profitable business, and I need someone I can trust to come in on it with me, someone who can do a few trips to bring them here and keep them somewhere quiet until we move them on. Are you up for it?’

  Svavar had nodded his head and thought of the pied-à-terre he dreamed of owning somewhere in southern Europe, maybe in Italy or Portugal, somewhere a long way south. There was nothing he could do to prevent human trafficking – it went on everywhere – so why not make a little money out of it?

  Now, thinking back on it, he wasn’t as convinced as he had been.

  Elías’s first assignment had been to fly to Nepal, fetch some young girl and bring her back. Then someone else would take over from there. It had been an easy, straightforward job, he said. Svavar half expected to be sent on the next trip himself, and he even looked forward to the opportunity of visiting a distant part of the world.

  But those dreams had now turned into a nightmare. He felt physically sick when he thought of Elías’s plans. He thanked God he hadn’t had to travel himself to fetch this unfortunate woman, who can’t have been expecting that anything so horrible would happen to her.

  ‘I need to hide her for a few days,’ Elías had said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to keep her in your cellar,’ he added when he saw Svavar’s expression.

  Svavar got out of bed and looked out of the window.

  It was a beautiful day in Dalvík, a place he still regarded as a temporary home until he could realise his dream and migrate southwards, like the birds in autumn. Once he had moved, he was certain that he’d never return. Maybe he’d already left it too late, though, missed the bus? Maybe he ought to be on his way as soon as he could; sell the house and use the savings he had put by, get hold of some foreign currency and find himself work somewhere warmer. It was not quite the lifestyle he had dreamed of, but it was a step in the right direction. At any rate, he’d be free of the miserable daily grind in Iceland, and even though he wouldn’t be able to retire right away, he’d be somewhere warmer and brighter.

  The sky outside was a clear blue. He missed his friend; but at the same time he was relieved to be free of him. It was as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. In a flash of insight he saw more clearly than ever the lines between right and wrong. His conscience was making its presence felt in the most uncomfortable way.

  Thinking of the girl was painful.

  He wanted to save her, but he also had no desire to go to prison.

  Hell and damnation.

  Should he save the woman’s life and clean up the mess his friend had left behind; or stop thinking about it and leave her to die?

  How many more sleepless nights would he be able to endure?

  Svavar didn’t know much about the girl other than that Elías hadn’t told his foreign collaborators exactly where he was keeping her hidden. Elías had never been a man who found it easy to trust others, and he wanted to be sure of his final payment. But Elías had been murdered more than twenty-four hours ago. God only knew when the girl had last had anything to eat.

  Wracked with doubt, Svavar did his best to convince himself that she was no concern of his.

  They didn’t know each other. They were two different people; one would die and one would live.

  Was this part of what Elías had described as the ‘grim reality’? Things like this could happen to people like her.

  The worst part was, he had no idea where the girl was.

  On the other hand maybe it was just as well. Maybe it was best, after all, to let things take their course.

  3

  Ísrún had driven out along the coast, taking the Eyjafjörður road past farms where the summer’s haymaking was in full swing and the air was full of the scent of newly mown hay being gathered for the winter. She drove through the quiet fishing village of Ólafsfjörður, which clung to the shore of the bay, the houses clustered around the harbour. From there she took the Low Heath route, a poorly made gravel road that called for constant vigilance. She drove slowly to spare her old car the worst of the potholes, expecting it to give up the ghost at any moment. The mountains here were close, looming high over the road. There was still no shortage of snow to be seen. She wanted to stop by the side of the road, walk the short distance to where a sheet of snow, brilliant white in the sunshine, covered the side of a mountain, and lie in it to rest her tired bones. These days it was so difficult to find time to relax. And yet a pressurised trip like this was still better than listening to Ívar’s constant droning in the newsroom.

  She also felt her revenge was long overdue. There was no way around it – she was fascinated by the case and what had actually happened to Elías.

  The driving didn’t improve much when she finally reached the end of the mountain track and the Siglufjörður road took over. Although this was a surfaced road, it was still too dangerous for Ísrún’s liking. She didn’t feel completely safe until she had finally made it through the Strákar tunnel and the fjord beyond opened up in front of her, the town itself welcoming her into i
ts embrace.

  Her intention was to use the day to talk to Elías’s workmates, Logi and Páll, and to visit the woman who, according to the national registry, had shared her house with him. Ísrún slowed down as she tried to get her bearings, and, looking at a street sign, realised that she was on Hvanneyrarbraut, the street where Elías had lived.

  It didn’t take long to find his place, a striking detached house down by the water. This was just the kind of house Ísrún could imagine living in if she were ever to decide to leave Reykjavík for somewhere smaller. A view like this, over the water, would be one of her key requirements.

  There was something restful about the proximity to the clear, cobalt-blue sea; maybe it was something in her genes, a little salt water flowing through her veins. Her Faroese grandfather had been a seaman, as his forefathers had been before him. Ísrún herself had no interest in seamanship and avoided covering news stories about quotas and fishing. So maybe it was the sea itself that held an attraction for her, rather than the fish that lived below its surface.

  Ísrún rang the bell, which was marked with Nóra Pálsdóttir’s name in neat, decorative lettering. Nothing happened. She waited and rang the bell a second time, knocking on the door as well to be sure of being heard. Finally, behind the tissue-thin curtains obscuring the little window in the door, she saw signs of life.

  The door opened and a woman swathed in a bright-yellow dress gave her a welcoming smile, her teeth a perfect white. A too-perfect shade of white, Ísrún thought, for a woman who looked to be around sixty.

  ‘Good morning, and apologies for keeping you waiting,’ said the woman smoothly.

  ‘Hello, I’m Ísrún. You’re Nóra?’

  ‘Yes, quite right.’ The broad smile returned and she pointed to the name under the bell. ‘Nóra Pálsdóttir. And you’re from the TV news, aren’t you?’