On A Small Island

by Grant Nicol

  I knew that if I didn’t keep moving I would die where I lay so I struggled through the dark and followed the riverbank south until I came upon the Ring Road.

  I forced myself to stand there in the dark waiting for someone to find me. I knew that if I were to lie down and wait for help, I would die. Eventually, a driver approached and as I stood frozen and naked in his headlights I knew that I was going to survive and that soon I would be home again. No one thought had ever made me so sick with worry before in my life.

  CHAPTER 28

  When I first opened my eyes in the bed at the National University Hospital in Reykjavík, I had no idea how long I had been there. The motorist who had discovered me on the Ring Road had wrapped me in a blanket and driven me back towards Selfoss. At some point I had been transferred to an ambulance but where that had happened, or when, I simply had no idea. I had pleaded with him not to leave me, convinced that Daníel would still be coming after me but he had assured me over and over again that there had been no one else in sight when I had been found. Once I had decided that I was safe, my body had effectively shut down. It had been in serious need of self-repair for some time.

  I still couldn’t really believe that I was still alive. Unlike my beautiful sisters. It hadn’t sunk in yet that I wouldn’t be seeing them again. It probably never would. As soon as I awoke in the hospital I began crying, unable to understand why I had survived and they hadn’t. There was nothing I could have done in Hella to prevent their deaths but I still blamed myself for what had happened to them. It would always be that way.

  There was a police officer inside my room, looking down at me with a confused version of what might just have passed for concern in her eyes. She held my hand until I stopped crying and then told me she would fetch a doctor. Apparently, they were going to be thrilled that I had woken up. Thrilled about what, I wondered. She smiled in a somewhat awkward fashion and told me I was a brave and lucky woman and then disappeared to find the doctor she had mentioned. When he finally arrived, he reiterated the fact that I was lucky to still be alive. Not simply because the police had retrieved three bodies from the hut I had escaped from but because I had managed to get so cold that I could have quite easily died before being found standing in the middle of the road.

  My wrists ached in a way that made me think they would never be right again and my hip and my calf, where I had been stabbed, felt as though they had sustained considerably more damage than I had originally thought. When I asked the doctor if I was going to all right, he smiled and told me that I would be but that it would be some time before I felt like my old self again.

  He said that the stab wound had done some serious ligament damage in my hip but that with any luck it should cause minimum discomfort in the years ahead. When I asked him exactly what that meant he said that I would able to walk just fine but that with an injury like that, there would always be the possibility of something of a limp. It would be impossible to know straight away; it would only become apparent in time. I would have a permanent reminder of my struggle to escape. A physical one to go with the rest of the other ones Daníel had left me with.

  There were, apparently, lots of people who wanted to talk to me but they had all been told that they would have to wait until I felt stronger and up to the task. My doctor gave me a mild sedative to help me sleep and kept saying over and over again that I needed my rest more than anything else. As if to prove that I was in complete agreement with him I fell asleep in the middle of our conversation and when I woke again my room was dark but I could occasionally hear soft voices just outside my door.

  Every time I closed my eyes I fell back into that sod hut and instantly felt the cold and the fear all over again. He would be back to get me again. I just knew it. While there was any breath left in his body, he would return for me. If he had drowned in the Ytri-Rangá they would have found his body by now and told me. If they had found him and arrested him, they would have told me by now. He was still alive and out there somewhere, plotting to come after me again.

  I wondered how badly hurt he was and how long it would be before I saw him again. I felt that we were destined to meet again; all that was left to be determined was where, and when.

  For the next day, maybe longer, I faded in and out of consciousness with alarming regularity. My doctor didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned that I would wake for a short while before returning to the sanctuary of sleep once again so I didn’t concern myself with it much, either. The only thing that caused me any real concern was that my slumber wasn’t quite as peaceful as it could have been. It was going to take some time before I could wake and not feel as though I had just been trapped in a cold, dark place waiting to die.

  Grímur was my first real visitor apart from the police officer, Binna, who never left my door. She would come into my room whenever she could tell I was awake to see if I needed anything. She seemed a little in awe of me, which made me uncomfortable. I felt like a failure, I felt alone.

  When Grímur arrived she took what may have been her first real break since my arrival and went to get herself something to eat. I had struggled to find anything remotely appetising since I’d woken up and told her so. She promised to bring something back that I might actually find tasty.

  Grímur took a seat at my bedside and looked at me with what could only be described as fatherly concern. I felt as though I was about to get told off for not taking proper care of myself or denting the family car. His look conveyed a mixture of anxiety and disappointment with me as if his favourite child had somehow let him down, but was at least glad she was still alive.

  ‘How are you feeling, Ylfa?’

  I shrugged, ‘I’ve been better but I’m still here so I guess that counts for something, right?’

  I tried to smile but it felt phony and weak, just like the rest of me. As far as I could see, I didn’t have too much to be happy about. I still remembered insisting that the man now standing in front of me do something more when Elín went missing and being told, in not so many words, that I was making it all up.

  ‘Yes, it does. As you will have noticed, we’ve put a guard on your door and there are extra officers in and around the hospital as well. There’s an alert out for the arrest of Daníel Lauguson and we hope to get our hands on him soon.’

  The look on my face must have said it all. He had survived my attack and got away. I was sure that he would stop at nothing to complete his revenge. Once begun, he was not the kind of man to leave a game unfinished.

  ‘With the injury you described him as having received it is unlikely he will make it on his own for very long before having to seek medical attention of some sort.’

  I couldn’t for the life of me remember telling anyone about what had happened during my escape but it was entirely possible that I had told anyone who would listen.

  ‘At some point I am going to have to question you at length about what happened in Hella but I have been told to wait a while until I do that and so that’s just what I intend to do.’

  ‘There’s a lot I don’t remember; I was pretty out of it for most of the time,’ was my way of making sure he understood he may not get all the answers he was looking for. I was in no particular mood to help the man who had refused to help me. That may have been overstating it somewhat, but that’s how it felt.

  ‘That’s entirely understandable, Ylfa. You were pumped full of Ketamine for much of the time. To be honest, I’m amazed you remember anything at all. We found your sisters’ bodies in the hut along with Stefán Jón’s. I’m very sorry for your loss.

  ‘We’ve talked to your father and he is very much looking forward to seeing you again. The doctor tells me it won’t be much longer before you can go home. That will be good, won’t it?’

  Home? I couldn’t answer that one for him, not honestly, anyway. I just stared at him wondering for a minute if by some chance he could possibly know the things about my father that Daníel had told me. I was being silly. That information, be it real
or make-believe, was mine and mine alone. I lay back on my pillow as if I couldn’t continue with the conversation. It wasn’t far from the truth; I didn’t know what to say to anyone any more.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do when they released me from hospital. My little flat on Vesturgata was going to feel like a cell and not the oasis that it had been for so many years. And as for going to see Dad, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready for that. It was going to take some time to assimilate what Daníel had told me. Quite some time. What to believe, what not to believe and how to tell the difference between the two. That was the game still to come.

  ‘It will be good to get out of here,’ was as much as I could muster. ‘As soon as I feel up to it, I’ll come and see you but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.’

  ‘When you’re ready I’ll need to hear everything you can recall. Four people are dead and the only real link we have to the murderer is you.

  ‘We are confident of getting hold of him one way or another but you may be able to help us speed up that process. I understand that you’ve been through a great deal, Ylfa. God knows, I can only imagine what it must have been like for you but this won’t be over for any of us until we have Daníel Lauguson in custody.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re planning to do when you’re released but my advice, for the time being anyway, would be to stay with your father.’

  ‘Safety in numbers?’ I suggested.

  Part of me wanted to tell him everything I knew. Or at least, everything I had been told. I couldn’t truly believe anything Daníel had told me until I knew it to be fact; merely suspecting it wasn’t good enough. It was extremely unlikely he had made the whole thing up but I had to be absolutely certain before tearing what was left of our family apart. And there wasn’t that much left of it to tear apart. If what he had told me was in fact true, then I no longer had a family.

  ‘Exactly. You’ll be safer there for now. Just until everything reaches its inevitable conclusion.’

  Grímur smiled for the first time that I could remember. It made him look completely different. As he walked out of the room the female police officer walked back in, looking much happier for having had her short break. She was carrying a pizza box with her, which she dropped in my lap with a grin.

  ‘If you tell anyone where you got that, I’ll deny it all.’

  When the time finally came for me to leave I actually had to dodge a reporter on the way out of the front door. I had become famous in the most disgusting way possible. They had arranged for a taxi to be waiting for me and I got the driver to drop me off at my flat on Vesturgata. I wanted to see what the place felt like first before I decided on returning to Hafnarfjörður or not. I guess I had to be sure in my mind that it was the right thing to do. At some point I was going to have to address Daníel’s version of events with Dad but I was pretty sure that I wasn’t ready for that yet. I stripped out of the clothes I had been given to wear home and jumped straight under the shower. It was the longest soak I had ever had under running water and by the time I was finished all I wanted to do was go to bed. Whatever else I had to take care of in the near future was just going to have to wait. The doctor had been right all along. All I needed right now was sleep, and lots of it.

  CHAPTER 29

  As I approached the driveway that led to what I had once thought of as our family home I was stopped by a young police officer, who had been entrusted with the job of guarding our property. He braced himself against the cold wind as he emerged from his vehicle and signalled that I should stop for him. He seemed concerned enough with the identity of anyone who might be paying the house a visit but with nearly a mile of unguarded boundary-line around the farm, I had to wonder if anyone with evil on their mind would use the front entrance. I thought not, but what did I know?

  Ólafur was still staying with Dad and they were both overcome with emotion to see me again. I had become something of a celebrity in my absence; it was not something I was keen on cultivating so I decided I was going to ignore the newspapers and the television until it had all died down, no matter how long it took.

  They seemed a little confused at first when I told them I wanted to take one of the horses out for a ride but when I explained that I just needed some time to myself they did their best to pretend they understood, even though they obviously didn’t. What I needed was time to prepare myself for talking to Dad.

  Now I was back home with him again the task suddenly appeared insurmountable. All I wanted was for someone to comfort me but he was the last person on earth I wanted touching me right now. For a while I actually toyed with the idea of not saying anything at all and just letting it be. Of course, it wasn’t a realistic option but I was just so keen for the whole traumatic episode to be behind us that I was almost willing to ignore everything, no matter how unhealthy that might seem.

  Nothing was going to bring Kristjana, Elín or Stefán Jón back; no apportioning of blame or regrets, no matter how sincere, would ever change the simple fact that they were all gone. I was going to have to get used to it, whether I liked it or not.

  There would be no good way to go about what had to be done and the outcome was going to be a lose-lose situation no matter which path I chose to walk down. If Daníel had been right, then my father was as good as dead to me. Worse, even. If he had been making it up, then my father would never forgive the accusations I was about to make. Either way, Daníel had won. He had destroyed the part of my family that I had let him get his hands on, and he had ruined the rest. There would be no enjoying each other’s company ever again; those days were gone.

  When Dad voiced his concerns about me riding the property on my own I quickly suggested that Ólafur accompany me. It seemed to satisfy him even if he made no attempt to understand my choice of companion. Ólafur played the good sport and I saddled up Alvari and Leppatuska for us to ride. Dad went back to pottering about in Jóhannes’s flat. He had been clearing it out and trying to decide what it would become next.

  I let half a mile or so of path pass underneath us before I made any attempt at conversation. I decided to just ask Ólafur exactly what I wanted to know.

  ‘Not so long ago you told me it was your fault that Dad wound up in that home.’

  ‘Lönguhólar?’

  ‘Exactly. Tell me about it. I need to know everything if I’m to understand what has happened to us.’

  ‘You think that there’s some connection with what happened at that place all those years ago?’

  I looked across at Ólafur but he was well versed at playing his cards close to his chest. He wasn’t about to make eye contact with me, not yet. He was waiting to see what I had first before he made any sort of move.

  ‘I don’t think you’d be here otherwise. You didn’t come all this way just to pay us a social visit. If you made all this effort, it must have been for a reason.’

  This time he looked over at me. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was I was accusing him of but he didn’t seem to like it one bit. The look he gave me confirmed my suspicions.

  ‘It was 1952. We were very young. Neither of us was particularly stupid, but then again, neither of us was particularly smart. One night we both sneaked out of our respective houses and were prowling the streets looking for something to do. Like many children, we were simply bored.

  ‘There was a NATO radar station near Höfn in those days. It closed some twenty-two years ago. They watched the skies with their electronics for bombers coming over the North Pole to bring destruction to the Americans in those days. It was the Cold War back then and their paranoia knew no bounds. The place is used to track civilian aircraft these days.

  ‘Some of the staff at the base were foreigners, probably mostly American but I don’t really remember. They would occasionally get up to their shenanigans after hours in town, which was what they were best remembered for. This particular night we found a car parked on an otherwise deserted street with its windows all fogged up. Being curious and a little misch
ievous we sneaked up to get a look at what was going on inside. All we could see was one of these servicemen with his military haircut and his hat still on with his backside going up and down like his very life depended on it.

  ‘As amusing as that was to a couple of young lads, what we really wanted to see was more of the girl that he had underneath him. She was the daughter of one of the local fishermen and she was a fine-looking young thing. While your father was transfixed with what was going on through one of the rear windows I made my way unnoticed around to the driver’s door and to my amazement, found it unlocked. They hadn’t been expecting company. I carefully opened the door and looked inside. I could see their clothes piled on the front seat and the other thing that caught my eye was the handbrake. The cold air I had let into the car alerted them to my presence and the man yelled at me to get out. Of course I did just that but not before I had stolen their clothes and given that handbrake a good old twist.

  ‘As the serviceman lunged across at me from the back seat the young lady caught a good look at your father peering in through the window at her. She screamed like someone had set her on fire and the two of us ran for our lives as the car set off of its own accord down the hill.

  ‘As valiantly as the naked American tried to bring the car under control the odds were stacked against him. By the time he had untangled himself from Helga and got back into the front they had crashed into someone’s house. Nobody was hurt in the accident but the owners of the house were fairly aggrieved, especially as it belonged to Helga’s parents.