The Day is Dark (44 page)

‘So. The men died.’ The officer didn’t mince his words.

‘Dóri died first. He never regained consciousness and died in the office without Bjarki being able to drag him back to his apartment. Two days later Bjarki died.’

‘I don’t quite understand. How could anyone know that, since the men were disconnected from the outside world?’

‘Bjarki told Naruana about it.’ Thóra explained in more detail: ‘The day that Dóri died Bjarki set off for the village in the hope of either finding assistance or phoning for it. He was very weak and clearly seriously ill, but he made it to his destination on skis. But his fortitude didn’t pay off. None of the villagers would open their doors to him or listen to his cries for help. Only Naruana. He saw him from a distance on his way home from the pier and offered to take him back to the camp. The skis are probably still outside Naruana’s house, if that would help your investigation.’

‘Do we know why he did this? I’d have expected him to be the one most inclined to avoid the Icelanders, in light of the damage he’d done at the camp.’

‘You’ll have to ask him about that, but maybe he wanted to prevent Bjarki from speaking to anyone else. In any case, he took him back up to the camp on a snowmobile he borrowed from someone. He also probably lied to Bjarki about help being on its way. Naruana found Dóri dead in the office and realized that things were a lot more serious than Arnar had led him to believe. I understand that he thought he saw on Dóri’s body, and on Bjarki’s face, the same marks that had led his sister to her death. It frightened him. He was convinced that the curse on the area was manifesting itself again and he got out of there as quickly as possible. Bjarki had no strength to chase him and instead lay there alone and exhausted, and he seems to have died shortly afterwards. He was lying in the corridor near the coffee room.’

‘What about the dismemberment of the bodies? How did that happen?’

Thóra’s throat was dry from talking non-stop, but she continued. ‘Naruana called Arnar after returning home and told him that one of the men was dead and the other was going the same way. Arnar, who was totally smashed at the time, asked him to dispose of the bodies, throw them out on the ice, take them somewhere where they would be eaten by animals or just do something so that they wouldn’t be found. He hoped that people would think that Bjarki and Dóri had died of exposure, like Oddný Hildur.’

‘And it’s not really necessary to spell out what Naruana did,’ said Matthew. He seemed to sense that Thóra had had enough of talking.

‘No, you’re right.’ The policeman tried to determine what his next question should be. Apparently he wasn’t finding this any easier to digest than Thóra had. ‘But how did the video get made of Naruana cutting up the bodies, and what was that singing in the background?’

Thóra shrugged. ‘As I said, Bjarki was going to position Dóri in front of the webcam in the hope that a doctor would be able to diagnose him by looking at his symptoms. Whether that was a good idea or not, he was too weak to finish the task. When Naruana returned to the camp he brought along a helper. A child, in fact.’

‘He brought a child with him to cut up corpses?’ Matthew couldn’t hide his disgust. Since Thóra had given him only an overview of Arnar’s story, he hadn’t been aware of this particular detail.

‘He took along a girl who lived in the house next door. Again, I should say that I don’t know what motivated him, and he will have to tell you himself. I just know what Arnar told me, that this girl had been in an accident and never recovered properly; she doesn’t speak, for instance. Maybe that was the reason he took her along – she can’t tell anyone about it. Anyway, it’s so fucked up, I can’t even imagine what he was thinking. But in any case, the girl must have messed with the webcam and either knew how to work it, which is doubtful, or started it by accident. Bjarki had already set it all up, so she would only have needed to press maybe one or two buttons. You can check it yourself, because we didn’t touch the camera or anything else on the table. The original plan was to take the bodies out to the ice, as Arnar had suggested, but Naruana found his sister’s necklace on the bulletin board that I showed you, and flew into a rage. He was convinced that she had arranged this from the other side and was provoking him. So he hacked the men to pieces. That way they couldn’t do anything to him if they woke up while he was moving them.’

The policeman nodded. ‘This is going to take some sorting out.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘What about Naruana’s sister? If she died in a similar way to the drillers, it’s possible they had the same disease. I think we should drop all the talk about a curse and spirits. What did Arnar say about it?’

‘I simply didn’t think to ask him about it. He actually told me that Oddný Hildur was specifically interested in Usinna, or rather, her research, because Oddný Hildur wanted to convince herself that she wasn’t putting the health of her future children at risk by being there. He took her to visit Naruana and she got Naruana’s phone number, so she could call him and see if he’d discovered anything of interest to her among his sister’s things. Nothing came of it, because Oddný Hildur disappeared soon afterwards. I know that Usinna’s research involved taking blood samples; maybe she found this same body and took blood from it.’ Thóra didn’t want to make something out of nothing, but surely this was connected to the drillers’ illness in some way? She’d become a little unsure of what she’d told the officer and what she’d missed out, and there could very well have been some holes in her story. ‘What I mean is that flesh, or bits of it, even blood, got onto the drill . . .’ Thóra straightened up. ‘And bits of lung. They must have got some of it on them. According to Arnar, Dóri stood next to the body and directed Bjarki on the drilling rig, and Dóri was the one who fell ill first. I suppose he could have breathed it in?’ When she glanced at Matthew, he looked as though he felt that her theory made sense. ‘I don’t know whether viruses or bacteria can survive in such cold weather but I feel like it must be worth looking into it. Who knows, maybe Oddný Hildur was also infected and died from that, rather than from exposure.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting her head injuries? I’m no doctor, but those weren’t caused by a virus. And besides, no one else appears to have been infected, even though many others have come near the body.’ For the first time the police officer’s expression had changed; he now looked worried.

‘I wonder if we might not have already been infected? Dóri was bedridden the very next day, so hopefully it hasn’t affected us. It would be a good idea to make arrangements for the corpses to be autopsied, though, on the understanding that the disease might be transmittable even if the body is frozen.’

The police officer smiled bleakly at Thóra. ‘Don’t worry. Everything is secure at the crime lab. However, I think it’s advisable that you all undergo a medical examination before returning home.’ Still looking at her, he continued, ‘Did this Arnar give any explanation as to why he’s telling us about all this now? He’s had enough time to come clean.’

Thóra gazed back at him. ‘He said he decided to sacrifice himself for Naruana. When the investigation is finished and he has taken responsibility for his part in the case, he intends to commit suicide. Not before then.’

Chapter 34

24 March 2008

Thóra still hated injections just as much as she had at primary school. The only difference was that nowadays she was better at hiding it. She was thankful that progress in medical equipment meant she could be sure that the doctor wouldn’t have the same kind of giant-sized syringe that they had found in the drilling rig (and that had probably belonged to the long-gone doctor who had – in all likelihood – carried into the settlement the disease that killed all the original inhabitants). She exhaled heavily when the needle was withdrawn and all that remained was a little drop of blood that was gone shortly afterwards. She smiled happily but couldn’t see the doctor’s reaction, since his mouth and nose were hidden behind a mask. Thóra resisted the temptation to cough in his face. ‘And when do I find out the results?’ She pressed a cotton wool ball against the puncture wound made by the needle.

‘We’ll process it as speedily as possible, and as soon as we find out anything we’ll let you know.’ The man leaned forward in his chair and waited for Eyjólfur to come in and take Thóra’s place. He took the vial holding her dark red blood, labelled it and placed it carefully in a small box.

Eyjólfur sat down. ‘What if this is something serious and we’ve all been infected?’ He rolled up his sleeve and laid his hand on the arm of the chair. ‘Will we die?’

‘Of course you’ll die, like everyone else. However, I doubt it will be anytime soon, or because of infection.’ The doctor said nothing as he stuck the needle into Eyjólfur’s arm, then: ‘You’re probably as fit as a fiddle, but this is a necessary preventative measure.’ The face-mask and latex gloves suggested otherwise.

Friðrikka dropped her cotton wool ball into a small yellow plastic bucket where needles and other such things were thrown away. Thóra guessed that the red symbol on the bucket indicated that its contents might be infected, and needed to be destroyed under special conditions. Friðrikka turned to Dr Finnbogi as she rolled her sleeve back down. ‘How do they know that this is the Spanish Flu?’ Her voice was weak and although they were all alarmed, she was the only one who seemed unable to compose herself. The Greenlandic police force’s announcement that the man in the freezer was suspected to have died of this pernicious epidemic had been made just a short time ago, although it had long been clear to everyone that something serious was going on. Soon after Thóra and Matthew’s conversation with the policeman, the group was sent on foot in the direction of the hotel, but instead of going in through the familiar reception area they were led over to a row of buildings that resembled the work camp they had just left; these were the staff quarters for the airport in Kulusuk. They took seats on a sofa; Eyjólfur hurriedly turned on the television to try to find a news station in English. They stared at the television while waiting for further information. This soon became so tiresome that Thóra was on the verge of suggesting that they switch to the German porn channel for variety. Finally they were told that they would have to be ruled out as disease carriers before any decisions could be made concerning further travel on their part. By then they had watched the same news reports so many times that they had become immune to them. They were waiting for doctors from Angmagssalik, and so had to put up with several more rounds of the headline news. Then the doctors wished to consult with their colleagues at the hospital in Nuuk, since it was possible that a major epidemic was on the way. Now for the first time the group was seriously concerned, and their anxiety was not appeased when they were told that this looked like a case of Spanish Flu, and that it seemed likely to have killed both Bjarki and Dóri.

‘They don’t know for sure. They need to compare this virus with what they found recently in the grave of a woman who died of Spanish Flu in Alaska. She died around the same time as the settlers in Greenland, but was buried under a layer of permafrost. No sample of the virus has been found before, because the bodies of the victims decomposed in the ground. It is very unusual for a corpse to remain frozen for decades, as has happened here.’ Finnbogi watched as the other doctor lightly tapped Alvar’s inside arm. ‘But the timing of the epidemic fits in perfectly with the period when the original inhabitants of the area died, and the symptoms match the description of the drillers’ deaths. It’s likely that the doctor or his guide infected the villagers when he made his survey trip there during that winter so long ago. In the isolation that characterized a place like this, and in fact still does, fertile ground is created for infectious diseases in the event that they are brought in. In addition, the Spanish Flu was a deadly epidemic and could very well have decimated such a small and isolated settlement. Especially because the community’s survival was based on hunting. When people become ill or are disabled, they can’t provide for themselves. Some of the villagers died from the disease, others from starvation, so the story goes. Spanish Flu, unlike most other types of flu, affected the young and healthy rather than the elderly and little children.’

‘I find it absolutely extraordinary’ – Eyjólfur was still pressing cotton wool to his puncture wound – ‘that such an old disease can flare up again. As if we don’t have enough new epidemics.’

‘No one’s saying it has “flared up”.’ Finnbogi looked askance at the other two doctors, but they were not even trying to follow the discussion. ‘Although Bjarki and Dóri were infected, they came into a completely different type of contact with the man than we did. You might not all have seen the hole in the man’s chest, but something happened when it was drilled through. The men got bodily fluids on them and even breathed them in.’

‘But doesn’t the man who cut up their bodies need to be examined as well?’ asked Eyjólfur. ‘The same thing must have happened to him, since he was probably covered in blood droplets, or something even more disgusting.’

‘Not everyone becomes infected, but the man will certainly have to undergo the same sort of examination as us. If it’s the young man who came with us in the helicopter, he’s not ill, any more than we are. Those who were infected became ill very quickly, so he should be safe. The infected were at death’s door after twenty-four hours, which may be one of the things that pointed the investigators towards this particular disease. The drillers didn’t lie on their sickbeds for long.’

‘And we were made to sit with him in the helicopter?’ Friðrikka’s voice had risen to a shrill high C again. ‘We breathed the same air as him for almost an hour, didn’t we? Who knows, maybe we were infected then, which is why we haven’t become ill yet!’

‘We shouldn’t worry unnecessarily. We’re still asymptomatic, and we’ll probably remain that way,’ said Finnbogi determinedly. ‘I think we should talk about something more interesting and constructive; we’re not going to change anything with foolish speculation.’