Why Did You Lie?

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘I didn’t lay a finger on him.’ Ívar breaks the silence. He is utterly deflated now, his momentary madness over. It was the writing on the wall outside that caused him to go berserk; he started yelling incomprehensibly, pointing at Heida and Helgi in turn in his fury. One minute he was blaming them for the graffiti, the next he suddenly seemed to think Tóti had written it. Then he sank down, utterly overcome. ‘I swear to you, I didn’t touch him.’

  ‘Nobody’s saying you did.’ Helgi removes his gaze from the sleeping bag and studies his companions instead. Ívar’s eyes are flickering around in a vain hunt for something to fix on.

  ‘He must have fallen,’ Helgi says. ‘Got up to relieve himself and lost his footing. If there’s anything else behind it, the police, or whoever investigates this sort of accident, will find out. Let’s think about something else.’

  ‘Like what? Hunger? The lack of water?’ Heida snaps and buries her face in her knees. She still hasn’t forgiven Helgi for allowing Ívar to come in. ‘And why’s there blood in the sleeping bag if he fell while taking a pee?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like I said, it’s not our job to find out. All we need to do is sit tight and wait.’ Helgi pauses and takes stock of what’s happened, still feeling faintly stunned at this turn of events. He seems to be the only one capable of thinking straight. Heida and Ívar are behaving as if they’ve lost the plot. Both complain of headaches; Heida blaming the lack of air inside, though she won’t be persuaded to stick her head out of the door. Ívar also refuses point blank to go outside, as if he’s prepared to spend the rest of his life in the lighthouse, if necessary. He seems to be under the impression that some dreadful fate awaits him outside. Clearly he can’t stop thinking about the name on the wall.

  Helgi avoids any mention of it, for fear the man might go berserk again, though there’s no denying that he’d like to interrogate him, watch him squirm. It’s an odd feeling, unlike him, and Helgi guesses it must be a consequence of finding himself thrust into the role of leader. His leadership abilities, limited though they are, seem to go hand in hand with other, darker qualities. But he resists the temptation to needle Ívar, reminding himself that in the circumstances he must shoulder the responsibility for their situation.

  If someone had told Helgi at the beginning of this trip that he would have to take charge and ensure the group held on to their sanity, he would have laughed in disbelief. He’s no leader and in the past the kind of people who possess such qualities have wanted little to do with him, no doubt because of his weight. In dodgeball practice, the kids always used to choose him second to last, ahead only of Regína who had glasses and a crutch. He was invited to parties by the other children in his class only because it was forbidden to leave anyone out. How is he to know what a real leader would do in this situation? Well, he can’t bail out now; he’ll just have to do his best. There’s no alternative. ‘Do either of you have a pack of cards? Maybe we could play whist or something to pass the time.’

  ‘You need four people for whist.’ Ívar has finally brought himself to look at the sleeping bag.

  ‘You want to play cards? Are you kidding?’ Heida raises her head and shoots Helgi a contemptuous look. But her face has at least lost its frozen expression. Perhaps Helgi’s leadership abilities consist of being useless enough to shake the others out of their despair.

  ‘It was just a suggestion. We can’t sit here in silence forever.’

  ‘I can.’ Heida clamps her lips shut and buries her face again.

  ‘What the hell happened? I just don’t get it. I don’t.’ Ívar shakes his head and it appears to Helgi that his eyes are wet. The man who only yesterday had seemed capable of tearing nails out of planks with his bare teeth.

  ‘You’re not fooling anyone, pretending to be surprised.’ Heida’s comment is almost inaudible.

  ‘Pretending to be surprised? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Ívar’s cheeks are burning and if any tears had crept into his eyes they are gone now.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Heida doesn’t look up.

  ‘How many times do I have to say it? I didn’t go anywhere near the guy.’ Ívar is back to his usual self and Helgi’s not sure this is an improvement. His voice rises ominously and his face is contorted with ill-concealed fury. Before Helgi can think of any means of pacifying them, Heida speaks up again.

  ‘How do you sleep at night? Lightly? Deeply?’ Although her face is still buried, it’s obvious who she’s addressing.

  ‘Average. I don’t know. How should I know? When I’m asleep I’m asleep; it’s not like I can check.’ Ívar’s face darkens further and Helgi doesn’t like the way things are going. He may be a useless leader but clearly he’s an even worse peacemaker.

  ‘Listen to me. If you didn’t go near Tóti, it must have been one of us two. But do you seriously expect us to believe that you wouldn’t have woken up? Space is really tight on the gallery. I couldn’t have moved up there last night without risking treading on you, and as for Helgi …’ Heida rolls her head on her knees. ‘So that leaves only you.’

  ‘Stop it.’ Helgi is afraid this will end in disaster. ‘There’s no way we can establish what happened. Maybe Tóti started bleeding internally and vomited blood into his sleeping bag. Maybe someone else came here in the night. There are countless other possibilities. It doesn’t have to be one of us.’

  ‘Internal bleeding! Jesus wept,’ Heida shouts, exasperated.

  All right, the idea is absurd, Helgi agrees, but it was all he could come up with off the top of his head. Now Ívar nods at him with a conspiratorial wink: men against women.

  Heida ignores the provocation. ‘And who on earth could have been here? If anyone could land, we’d have been evacuated hours ago.’

  Helgi decides to stay out of it. All he’s doing is making things worse. Instead he tunes in to the wind that is buffeting the lighthouse from every side. The door bangs in its frame. What are they to do if it gives way? Taking out his phone, he checks the clock. It’s as if time has slowed down; as if the minutes are refusing to leave the rock to make way for new ones. The fact becomes glaringly obvious in the context of their repeated phone calls to the coastguard. Whenever one of them thinks it’s time to check if there’s any news of a rescue, it invariably turns out that they have only just rung. They are politely reminded not to waste their batteries. The coastguard will be in touch the moment there’s any news. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. The presence of the phone in Helgi’s hand makes him long to ring yet again in the hope that a time has been fixed, but yet again it turns out to be far too soon after his last call. He’s terrified the coastguard will decide not to fetch them at all if they become too much of a nuisance. Which is absurd, of course, but then the whole situation is absurd.

  ‘If we had a radio we could listen to the weather forecast. It’s about to start.’ Ívar has also taken out his phone to check the time. His face expresses the same disappointment as Helgi’s. ‘I’d have packed differently if I’d had any inkling we were going to end up in this bloody mess.’

  ‘I’d have packed a gun.’ Heida sounds as if she actually means it. Helgi thanks God she didn’t know in advance. When she speaks again, it’s on a less inflammatory topic. ‘If you want to listen to the forecast you can use your phones. There’s an internet connection here.’ All of a sudden her hatred and rage seem to have subsided. Helgi wonders if this is because she has resumed her professional role, now that the conversation has turned to communications, and this has brought her to her senses. After all, who would buy the services of a person whose strongest desire is to shove a gun barrel down your throat? Perhaps he should try and persuade her to finish testing and installing the equipment which is still sitting, shiny and new, in the corner, ludicrously redundant in their present predicament.

  ‘My phone’s so ancient it can’t connect to the internet.’ Ívar brandishes the pink Nokia handset, which back in the day boasted the innovative Snake game.

  �
�We can use mine. It may not be the latest but at least you can get online.’ Helgi toys with his phone; there’s no way of knowing if he’ll be able to connect here. He has only ever used it via his router at home or in his rented studio. ‘Do you know how to do it, Heida? Do you need a password?’ In fact, Helgi reckons he could work it out for himself but he’s hoping to distract her. Afterwards he’ll encourage her to do a bit of work. Once Heida’s focused on her task, it’ll leave him free to concentrate on Ívar.

  Heida puts out a hand for his phone. ‘Are you sure you can spare the battery? You don’t have much left.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Helgi doesn’t know who’s supposed to call him. There’s no one waiting for him at home. Not yet. He has received two calls during the trip, both from newspapers who had heard about their situation and wanted him to take pictures. Perhaps it would be better if his battery did run out once the news desks get wind of the fact that one of their group is missing. He doesn’t want to give in to the temptation to tell them about the photos he took of Tóti’s body when he went outside in the storm earlier, at the request of the coastguard, to check if it was still there. It hadn’t moved from where it was caught on a rock at the base of the stack. Naturally the pictures would never be published in any of the papers but that wouldn’t stop people fighting to get a look at them. The snow made them rather fuzzy but did nothing to detract from the horror. There’s no question what they show. When he took them he thought they might prove useful to the police if the body subsequently broke loose and vanished into the sea. But now he doesn’t know if he should own up; the police might regard him as a cold-blooded bastard. Which he isn’t. He’s just never been in a situation like this before.

  Heida fiddles with his phone, then hands it back. She seems to have recovered her composure but it probably wouldn’t take much to tip her over the edge again. ‘There you go. You should be able to listen now.’ She stretches, awkwardly so as to avoid touching the sleeping bag, but loses her balance and brushes against the yellow and blue material. She and Ívar both yelp; Helgi sighs under his breath. He feels an urge to yell at them both to behave like adults but instead concentrates on trying to bring up the news website.

  ‘What’s this?’ Ívar sounds horrified, but Helgi won’t grant him the satisfaction of looking up and instead carries on tapping at the far-too-small letters on his screen. Although the web address is short, it’s almost beyond him to enter it; his fat, sausage-like fingers tremble on the tiny keyboard.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ Helgi hears Heida shifting back against the wall but remains focused on trying to connect to the news. Serve them both right if he pretends not to hear them.

  ‘It’s only paper.’ Helgi sees out of the corner of his eye that Ívar is bending over the opening of the sleeping bag. ‘Only a piece of paper.’

  Finally Helgi manages to connect to the news server and raises his eyes from the phone. He sees Ívar pulling a bloodstained sheet of paper out of the sleeping bag. ‘What the hell are you doing? We weren’t going to touch anything!’ He should have known better than to take his eyes off them.

  ‘But what if it tells us what happened? Wouldn’t we feel better if we knew?’ Heida speaks as if she and Ívar have suddenly become allies.

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Helgi rises to his knees and moves closer to Ívar. ‘Put the paper back where it was. It can’t say anything that’ll help us. I don’t believe for a minute that it’ll explain anything.’

  ‘But what if it’s a suicide note? A goodbye letter?’ Ívar’s voice betrays a misplaced optimism.

  ‘Yes, let’s take a look at it now we’ve got it out.’ Heida inches closer, not even noticing that she’s got one knee on the sleeping bag. She watches Ívar as he unfolds the paper with his fingernails. Forensics won’t exactly be over the moon about this but it’s better than covering it with prints. He makes a clumsy job of it but finally succeeds in flattening it out.

  In the middle of the page are four words: The day of reckoning.

  ‘What does it say?’ The page is facing away from Heida. ‘Day of reckoning?’

  Helgi notices that Ívar is paralysed. He is staring at the page, his mouth working, as it did when he spotted the writing on the wall this morning. Helgi and Heida do not say a word.

  Now that they have stopped talking, they can hear the phone. The announcer is reading with the characteristically odd intonation favoured by newsreaders:

  Police in the capital area have yet to release a statement about their investigation into the deaths of four people in Skerjafjördur on Saturday night. According to sources, the incident is being treated as murder. The police are asking anyone with information to come forward without delay …

  ‘Turn that bloody thing off,’ growls Ívar.

  Chapter 19

  24 January 2014

  All day Nína had been keeping her side of the bargain. She had turned up to work in the morning, had a coffee, then headed down to the basement where she dutifully sorted through obsolete paperwork. She didn’t hunt for anything about Thröstur or the couple Thorbjörg and Stefán but gave thought only to whether the documents were worth keeping. She made such good progress that she managed to clear several more metres of shelving than expected. Now the corridor was full of black bags of rubbish and cardboard boxes containing material to be preserved. She didn’t envy whoever was landed with the job of scanning it all in. Better not to think about the fact that it would probably fall to her. Some things should just come as a nasty surprise. Really, she wondered why they hadn’t simply lugged a photocopier down to the basement to make her life easier. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to link it up to the computer system down here. The moment she saw a USB cable running down the stairs to the basement she would know what she was in for.

  Apart from half an hour off for lunch, she had worked flat out until her arms were aching. She had gone to the canteen to fetch some food but eaten it in her office. It was easier than sitting alone, watching her colleagues pretending not to see her. So what if the odd crumb spilled onto her keyboard? Although physically tired, she felt as happy as if she had just spent a summer’s day at the hot-water beach in Nauthólsvík. At last she had succeeded in purging her mind; it was the first day in ages she hadn’t spent hours on end brooding over her wretched situation. Thröstur’s case was being reviewed and soon there would be news, for better or worse. There was no need to worry about it for now. All of a sudden she felt wonderful.

  This lasted right up until she ran out of bin bags and went upstairs to fetch more. Coming face to face with Örvar in the corridor, she asked if he’d had time to look at the case. The only reason she did so was to avoid having to walk past him in awkward silence. But his reaction opened her eyes: the long-drawn-out umming and ahing, followed by a series of excuses and explanations as to why he hadn’t had a chance to get round to it yet.

  Plainly the man had no intention of lifting a finger.

  He had been hoping to be able to put it off indefinitely. Well, if that was the case Nína regarded their agreement as null and void. If he had no intention of revisiting the cold case and its putative connection to Thröstur’s suicide attempt, she would resume her own investigation. She made up her mind while Örvar was still in the middle of explaining how behind he was with his reports, and an inadvertent smile crept over her lips as she nodded and pretended to understand. He frowned as if he sensed that some aspect of their relationship had shifted fractionally, although he couldn’t put his finger on what. Beaming at him, she said she’d look forward to hearing from him later.

  The question was how to proceed now. Firstly, she would have to pursue her inquiry outside working hours as far as possible, since it was none of her employers’ business what she got up to in her leisure time. Secondly, she would have to track down Stefán’s widow Thorbjörg. The woman had been waiting thirty years to meet someone who believed that there was more to her husband’s death than met the eye, and with any luck she would welcome
Nína. If, that is, she hadn’t drunk herself into an early grave. What would happen after that was anybody’s guess.

  Thorbjörg Hinriksdóttir wasn’t in the telephone directory. But she was alive. According to the national register she was probably homeless, but Nína was fairly sure she wasn’t sleeping rough since she knew most of Reykjavík’s homeless by name from working as an officer on the beat. That meant she must be under a roof somewhere, but where? Judging by the descriptions of her problems with alcohol, she was probably either at a treatment centre like Hladgerdarkot or in some other institution. For all Nína knew she could have been in a car crash or had a brain haemorrhage and been admitted somewhere permanently. Her thoughts flew to Thröstur lying there in his coma and she hoped to goodness the woman hadn’t been reduced to the same state. If she had, it would be futile to try and ask her anything.

  Several phone calls, during which Nína shamelessly introduced herself as a police officer, revealed that Thorbjörg had until recently lived at a halfway house in the Vogar district, but was now in the National Hospital in Fossvogur. It was uncertain what would become of her afterwards as she required constant care, but she would probably be moved to a nursing home.

  According to her ID number, Thorbjörg was sixty-one years old. If her husband Stefán had been alive, she would no doubt have been taken up with golf or boasting about her grandchildren to her sewing circle. Not lying in death’s waiting room.

  Nína wondered how best to approach her. Should she ring the hospital and give advance warning of her visit, or just show up? The woman at the halfway house had been reluctant to disclose what was wrong with Thorbjörg, perhaps sensing that Nína’s enquiry was not strictly work related.

  In the end Nína decided a surprise visit would be best; that way the woman would have no chance to refuse to see her if the intervening years had dulled her interest in the circumstances of Stefán’s death.