‘But why did you lift the plastic sheet?’ asked Thóra. ‘Wasn’t the brennivín kept on a shelf?’
Friðrikka closed her eyes and tears squeezed out of them. She stifled a sob; she was apparently reliving her moment of terror. ‘I thought that the cook might have hidden the bottle so that no one could sneak a drink from it. I saw the pile at the back of the freezer and peeked under the plastic to see if the bottle might be there.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I didn’t expect
this
.’
‘Hasn’t anyone looked there since we arrived?’ asked Eyjólfur. ‘When we were looking for Dóri and Bjarki, for instance?’ They all shook their heads.
‘It didn’t occur to us that we might find someone inside the freezer,’ said the doctor apologetically. ‘I looked in the kitchen, and completely overlooked that possibility.’
‘I think we should shut the freezer and go back,’ said Matthew. ‘The police will have to take over and it’s important that we disturb the scene as little as possible, things being as they are.’ They had all pushed into the freezer to see what had caused Friðrikka such agitation. ‘It was a mistake to go in there in the first place, and it’s best not to make a bad thing worse.’
‘Was it Oddný Hildur?’ Friðrikka looked inquisitively at Matthew. ‘I didn’t look. I couldn’t.’
Matthew shook his head. ‘No, it was a man, as far as I could see.’ Friðrikka let out a sigh of relief, then her expression became mournful again. ‘Dóri or Bjarki?’
‘No.’ Eyjólfur shook his head. ‘It was neither of them.’
‘What
happened
here?’ None of this had seemed to have any particular effect on Bella until now, but suddenly she seemed just as stunned as the others. ‘Three people missing, and when we finally find someone, it’s a completely different person.’
Thóra got goosebumps. What the hell was in the freezer? Who had taken the trouble to put the disgusting frozen corpse of this unknown man there? ‘Could this have been there the whole time?’ she asked. ‘Maybe it was put there before when the floodlights went on, and whoever did it might still be in here somewhere.’ She looked around instinctively as if she expected a madman to jump out of the large dishwasher.
Friðrikka screamed again, the scream of someone driven mad with fear.
Chapter 18
21 March 2008
Friðrikka had stopped crying. It was as if her tear ducts had finally dried up. She let out several sobs, and then appeared to have recovered. She said nothing for a long time, but then announced that she would not sleep in this building while there was a body in the freezer. Attempts were made to persuade her otherwise, without success. In the end it was decided that Thóra and Bella would sleep with her in the office building, since it wasn’t an option to let her stay there alone in the state she was in, especially while it was unclear what had happened there. They lugged their mattresses through the snow to the office building and although it was relatively calm outside, the breeze pushed hard against the thin foam pads. Their duvets were easier to carry through the wind and eventually everything was transferred and three beds set up on the floor of the meeting room.
Thóra tried and failed to imagine less exciting accommodation. She could feel the floor through the worn-out foam, and Bella’s heavy breathing reminded her constantly of the company she was in. Although it didn’t feel that cold in the building when they were standing up, it was quite chilly down on the floor. In addition, Friðrikka had demanded that the lights be left on, and the glare from the fluorescent bulb was so bright that you could still sense it with your eyes shut. One tube blinked, softly clicking, over and over again.
‘Are you awake?’ Thóra replied that she was – she and Friðrikka were clearly in the same boat. ‘Who could it be?’ The geologist’s voice was hoarse after all her crying.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Thóra. ‘It was so hard to see him, and I didn’t know any of the people here anyway. It could have been anyone.’ Nonetheless, Thóra tried to recall what she had seen. ‘It was definitely a man, and it looked to me as if he might have been a Greenlander. At least, he was wearing a jacket made of skins, though I only saw him from the shoulders up. We didn’t want to disturb anything unnecessarily.’ Thóra raised herself up on one elbow to see Friðrikka. She felt uncomfortable staring at the ceiling while Friðrikka spoke. ‘No locals worked here, did they?’
Friðrikka shook her head on the pillow. ‘No. They tried to persuade some to work here but as I recall no one was interested. The villagers have always been wary of the employees here. They had absolutely no reason to be, since we were nothing but kind to them, and they never used the land that was being taken over for the mine for anything. So it wasn’t resentment over the loss of the land that caused them to be suspicious of us. They simply believed the area to be evil, it seems.’
‘Maybe the locals don’t like outsiders very much? There can’t be many tourists here. Is there anywhere to stay in this area?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ replied Friðrikka, who seemed to be regaining her composure a little. Apparently it was doing her good to talk calmly like this. ‘Of course there are huts here and there where the hunters stay, but I can’t imagine they’d be good enough for tourists.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ve actually seen inside one of them and I won’t even try to describe the mess. I’d rather sleep in a snowdrift.’
‘Or on the floor of an office building?’ Thóra smiled at the woman, who looked over and smiled back.
‘Thanks for staying here with me. I couldn’t have slept over there.’ Friðrikka said nothing for a few moments. ‘Isn’t it strange what people will do for money? When I left here I swore never to return, but here I am. Just because the pay was tempting. I actually accepted the original job here for the same reason, so you can’t say I’m not consistent. I started at Berg several years before this project began but I never planned to go into exile like this. When I heard how high the salary was, things looked different. I won’t let myself be controlled by greed again, that’s for certain. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, but apparently not. My job here cost me my marriage, for example, but I still came back.’
‘Oh, that must have hurt.’ Thóra looked compassionately at her. ‘I’m divorced myself and I know it’s not easy. Still, I don’t regret it now, and as time goes on you’ll probably be happy to have made the decision.’
‘I didn’t make it. My husband left me. Saw his chance while I was spending a lot of time away from home, and hid behind the pretext that distance had come between us. Complete bullshit.’
‘Oh.’ By now Thóra knew most of the reasons for divorce and in this instance it sounded as if the husband might have tried his luck elsewhere. ‘Did he leave you for another woman?’
‘No.’ Friðrikka flushed. ‘For a man.’
‘O-kay.’
That
kind of divorce was yet to come across Thóra’s desk. ‘I imagine that was pretty painful.’
‘Horribly painful. Not to mention humiliating.’ Friðrikka held her head a little higher, perhaps to remind herself and Thóra that she still had her pride. ‘Oddný Hildur’s disappearance was the last straw, but I was quite depressed and not prepared to be the only woman in the group after she vanished. The money had lost its allure, but as I said, I seem to be able to push my principles aside if I’m offered enough of it. I actually find that fact the most depressing of all the things we’ve encountered on this trip.’
‘People need to live,’ Thóra replied. ‘That’s a fact of life, there’s not much point fighting against it. I can imagine plenty of worse things than surrendering that kind of principle.’ Thóra’s own wages would have to be increased significantly before she could be compelled to come back here. ‘Quite apart from the fact that no one could have foreseen what awaited us here – I have to say, I didn’t expect anything like this. The worst I imagined was that we’d find the two men frozen in a snowdrift. I doubt you would have considered returning here if you could have seen the future.’
‘No, that’s for sure,’ said Friðrikka fervently. ‘Actually, I always had a bad feeling about this place, so maybe deep down I knew how this would turn out.’ She turned her head abruptly to the side to look directly at Thóra. ‘I don’t believe in the supernatural or anything like that. I just mean that I’ve had a feeling simmering inside me without fully realizing what it was. When I think back, I know I never felt good about it, to say the least.’
‘So how did you feel, exactly?’
‘I don’t know, maybe it was the atmosphere of the group – something wasn’t quite right. Most of the men had worked out here, together in isolation, for years, and it was like their moods were collective. It can be unhealthy living and working so close together. It’s also a disadvantage to be a woman in this kind of group, it never feels cosy like a proper community. And it’s not just the lack of women, there are no older people or children, either. I don’t know what it’s like to be at sea but I can imagine that it’s similar.’
‘Are you talking about how Arnar was treated?’
‘That was part of it, but it’s certainly not the whole story. Although it pains me to admit it, Eyjólfur was right about him to a certain extent. He was too single-minded in his sobriety and quite hard on us, since we weren’t as virtuous. But that doesn’t really justify how they treated him. As I said, it’s difficult to describe the atmosphere. It was subtle stuff, talking behind the guy’s back, that sort of thing.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I know it sounds strange but that’s how it was. I can’t explain it more clearly, unfortunately. The actual harassment was almost better, because at least it was out in the open. Most people didn’t like him and made it obvious. They made fun of everything he said. If they went anywhere in their free time, there was never any room for him. Taking more cars was out of the question, and the few times that Arnar settled for driving on his own behind the others, they ignored him completely. So he started going off by himself on his days off.’
‘That sounds pretty cold.’ Thóra had heard many ugly stories of bullying by children, but fewer involving adults. ‘Was it like that from day one?’
‘No; he was never exactly popular, but it wasn’t too bad at first. But isolation didn’t have a good effect on anyone and it got progressively worse. At first it was just dirty looks when Arnar said or did something the others disliked, but in the end the persecution was obvious to everyone. He always ate alone in the cafeteria. If he sat down with the group who couldn’t stand him, they moved to another table. The rest of us didn’t want to end up in the same situation, so we did what cowards do and avoided sitting near him too. Oddný Hildur was the only one who seemed not to care. She actively chose to sit with him, if only because she couldn’t bear to see what was going on. I wasn’t so kind and I only thought about myself, although I tried to be as friendly to him as I could. I never took part in any of the bullying, but I was a silent witness, which is hardly better. I deeply regret it now but it’s too late to say sorry, as is so often the way.’
‘She informed the managing director about it,’ said Thóra. ‘Just before she disappeared, she got in contact with him and asked him to do something about it. Did that have anything to do with what happened later?’
‘Not while I was there. I resigned just over a month after Oddný Hildur went missing and nothing was done during that time. Actually the group was quite despondent after that, as you can imagine, so the harassment came down a notch or two.’
‘Could Oddný Hildur have been harmed because she let the MD know about it?’ Thóra tried to put this gently so as not to upset Friðrikka. Although she appeared calm at the moment, she clearly didn’t have her emotions completely under control. ‘Could some of the perpetrators have found out about the e-mails and wanted to play a nasty trick on her? Maybe not intending to make her disappear, but somehow it accidentally turned out that way?’
‘What do you mean?’ Friðrikka’s pale cheeks turned red. ‘That she was killed?’
‘No, that’s not really what I’m saying.’ Thóra deeply regretted her last remark. ‘More like whether this might have been a prank that got out of control.’
Friðrikka took her time responding. ‘No. That can’t be what happened. I remember it as if it were yesterday, and they were all just as stunned as I was. None of them was a good enough actor to feign ignorance if they were involved.’ She was quiet again. ‘I did wonder if someone from the village might have harmed her. You know that violence against women is relatively common in Greenland.’
Thóra didn’t know what to say to this. It could very well be that locals had played a part in Oddný Hildur’s disappearance; however, it was more likely that the woman had simply got lost in a snowstorm or been killed by someone closer to her. There was just something implausible about the idea of people journeying from the village to the camp in the hope of meeting a woman who was out alone. There would have been a much higher chance of them coming across a man. ‘Isn’t it the same here as elsewhere, that it’s mainly wives and girlfriends who are being abused?’ Thóra looked enquiringly at Friðrikka. ‘Did you know that Oddný Hildur had complained to the director?’
‘Yes, she told me about it. We were friends. I doubt anyone else knew, though. She obviously didn’t broadcast it, and I doubt the MD told anyone about it without her knowledge.’
‘How did she take it when he did nothing in response to her reports?’
‘She was angry, clearly, but she didn’t let it get to her too much.’
‘Do you know why she didn’t do anything about it earlier? You’d been here for over a year before she reported it.’
‘The harassment got worse, as I said; and another factor was that we were facing a longer winter residency than we’d originally expected. Instead of going home for several months for the Christmas holiday, we suddenly had to return in mid-January and be here at the worst time of the year. She thought that made matters worse, and she was probably right. I actually believed at the time that the decision would be revoked but that’s not what happened, unfortunately.’