The Day is Dark (45 page)

The group fell silent and remained that way as it tried to come up with another topic of conversation. ‘Why do you think that guy killed Oddný Hildur? Is he completely mental, or do you think he raped her or something?’ Eyjólfur got top marks for changing the subject, but a fail for the subject matter.

‘She wasn’t raped.’ Friðrikka was nearly foaming at the mouth.

Eyjólfur turned to her, just as angry. ‘I wasn’t talking to you. What would you know about it?’

‘Women aren’t raped through their clothes. Her body was fully dressed, in case you managed to miss it.’ Friðrikka was beginning to shout.

The Danish doctor turned round and raised his eyebrows, and Thóra cut them both off brusquely. She couldn’t bear to think of the group being broken up and each of them shut in a separate room. Although the company wasn’t at its most entertaining right then, time did pass faster when something was happening besides them all staring out at the ice-bound bay below the town, no matter how beautiful it was. ‘Settle down. We don’t know Naruana killed Oddný Hildur. Maybe it was someone completely different. Stop yelling at each other and try to discuss something constructive instead.’

Thóra’s words calmed Friðrikka and Eyjólfur down a bit but they still couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. ‘Who could have killed her if not one of the villagers? One of the employees at the camp?’ asked Alvar. He had stood up and was now watching the final blood test, which was being carried out on Bella.

‘It was someone from the village.’ Friðrikka made this assertion like a stubborn child. ‘Anything else is out of the question. None of us would have wanted to do her harm, even if she did complain to the boss.’

Eyjólfur ignored her. ‘Maybe it was an outsider, but not someone from the village. Tourists who wandered into the area. A hiker, one of those fresh air freaks.’

‘Excuse me, but I doubt this woman was killed by a “fresh air freak”.’ Thóra couldn’t help but smile at his description.

‘Why not? The weather was bad and visibility was poor; maybe he thought she was a polar bear. She was wearing Arnar’s furry boots and hat.’ Eyjólfur appeared determined to convince himself of his own hypothesis.

‘Yes, that could be it,’ blurted out Friðrikka, in agreement with Eyjólfur for the first time. ‘The murderer will probably never be found, but that’s a possible explanation. She could very well have looked like some kind of animal.’

‘That explains it.’ Eyjólfur surveyed the group smugly.

‘No, come on, stop that.’ Alvar clearly didn’t appreciate the silence, or perhaps he thought it his duty to defend hikers. ‘She was attacked from behind, and people don’t try to sneak up on polar bears from behind. Nor are fresh air freaks, as you call them, prone to wandering about in a whiteout. They dig themselves down into the snow and wait for the storm to subside. They’d be even less inclined to start attacking polar bears under such circumstances.’

‘Does anyone know why she was dressed like that?’ Thóra hadn’t had time to ponder this point.

‘The weather was good that day and stayed that way into the early evening. Wouldn’t she have been wrapped up well enough when she went over to the office? Maybe she needed something a little more protective. Arnar would hardly have made a big deal out of her borrowing some of his clothing.’ Eyjólfur looked sad. ‘Just think – if only she hadn’t been wearing someone else’s clothes she would never have been mistaken for a polar bear. Those were the only garments on site that would have made her look like an animal.’

Thóra bit her tongue, wondering if his dramatics were going to extend to singing a sad song in Oddný Hildur’s memory. She allowed Alvar and Eyjólfur to continue debating the merits of the polar bear theory while she tried to get her thoughts in order. ‘Isn’t it more logical to assume that whoever came at Oddný Hildur from behind during the snowstorm actually thought she was Arnar?’ Friðrikka, Alvar and Eyjólfur stopped arguing and looked in surprise at Thóra.

‘What do you mean?’ said Eyjólfur stupidly, but then quickly added: ‘You mean the man intended to kill Arnar?’

‘Yes. Isn’t that more likely than your theory about the polar bear? Arnar wasn’t short of enemies, and his popularity hardly increased when management were informed about the harassment.’

Alvar was quick to agree to this.

Eyjólfur frowned. ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t so awful that people would have thought about killing him.’ He looked awkwardly at Friðrikka in the hope of support. ‘Right? It wasn’t like that, was it?’

Friðrikka looked from him to her lap. ‘No. Definitely not.’ She abruptly fell silent. It was as if all the air had gone out of her.

Thóra moved over next to Matthew and waited for him to finish speaking to the Danish doctor, who was packing up his things. ‘Do you still have the phone number for Oqqapia, Naruana’s partner? I need to have a word with her.’ Matthew found the slip of paper with the number on it, and Thóra stuck it in her pocket. While doing so she felt to make sure she had her mobile phone. Once she was certain she did, she asked the doctor whether she could go to the ladies’.

A young police officer followed her out into the corridor and informed her along the way that the toilet would need to be disinfected thoroughly after they left. Thóra thanked him for the information and shut the door behind her. She dialled the number and prayed silently that the woman was home. She was relieved when she heard her voice. ‘Hi, Oqqapia, this is Thóra from Iceland. I visited you a short time ago with my friend, whose name is Matthew.’

Oqqapia said she remembered her well. It sounded to Thóra as if she were completely sober. She seemed to be in a state of shock as she told Thóra the whole story of how Naruana had been arrested, and said that a group of men had come to the village to tell them that they’d possibly been infected with a serious disease. They were to remain in their homes while the investigators examined them, house by house. Thóra could hear clearly that she was frightened; the men had been wearing masks and strange outfits. It hadn’t crossed Thóra’s mind that perhaps all of the villagers had been infected by the hunter’s son. ‘Oqqapia, I’ve got to ask you to do me a favour that will probably help Naruana, and could even save his father as well.’

‘Anything. I know Naruana hasn’t killed anyone. He’s even stopped hunting.’

‘You’ve got to find Igimaq and ask him something for me. I suspect he has information that could help Naruana avoid a longer prison sentence than he deserves.’ She was met only with silence. ‘Oqqapia, this is extremely important. I’m not sure that Igimaq will tell the police anything – if they even find him. He’s much more likely to talk to you, and if you explain things to him then maybe he can be persuaded to speak to them later.’

Oqqapia spoke up hesitantly. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. I’ve never met him but I’m quite sure he isn’t happy with me as a daughter-in-law.’

‘You’re not unworthy of him, not at all. Igimaq realizes that, unless he’s very stupid. But that’s irrelevant. You simply need to make it clear to him that he can help his son. Him – and no one else.’ Thóra refrained from adding that it was possible even Igimaq couldn’t help. She continued while the going was good; Oqqapia hadn’t refused her request. ‘You’ve got to go to him and ask how he knew where the woman’s body could be found. Where was it lying? Did he see the person who killed her or does he know something that could explain who the murderer is?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. How can I reach him? I can’t go anywhere.’

‘You must be able to sneak away – borrow a snowmobile from your neighbours, if you have to. You’ve only been asked to stay there so you don’t infect anyone else – if you’ve even been infected. Be careful not to cough or touch Igimaq. I actually think he’s already come into contact with this disease and survived it, so he would be immune.’ He must have touched the body of his daughter when he buried her under the cairn. Usinna had more than likely died of the same thing as the drillers, whether it was the Spanish Flu or something else.

In the end Oqqapia agreed to make an effort to find the old hunter and promised to call Thóra immediately when she returned home.

Four hours later, Thóra’s phone rang. Since Thóra’s first conversation with Oqqapia, Sóley had called twice; she had started really missing her mother. Thóra decided not to mention the disease, so as not to worry Sóley unduly. She spoke to her daughter about the cold in Greenland and the heaps and heaps of snow. Sóley immediately asked her mother to convert the amount of snow into snowmen and Thóra guessed it would make one million and fourteen of them – just from the snow that she could see out of the window. The conversation she was having now with Oqqapia had a much more serious tone. She had made it out of the village on a snowmobile, as Thóra had suggested, without being followed.

‘I found him. He was in his tent. The dogs didn’t want to let me near the tent door and I’m sure they would have torn me to pieces and eaten me if they hadn’t been tethered.’

‘But he spoke to you, didn’t he? How did he respond?’

‘He found the woman’s body where it was hidden beneath one of the buildings at the camp. He took it to a place where foxes couldn’t get at it.’

‘Beneath a building? Was it buried?’

‘No, he said it was possible to crawl under all of the buildings and that the body had been shoved down there. All you needed to do to cover it was to shovel snow over it. At least until spring.’

‘How did he know about it, then?’

‘He saw the body when it was moved there. He’d been at the camp earlier in the evening in the hope of preventing the mining operation from expanding into the forbidden area. He tried some ancient magic, put on a mask and called upon the spirits of his ancestors with blood from a seal flipper to help him, but it didn’t work. He waited there in the hope that something would change, but he didn’t get his wish. However, he saw someone from the camp sitting in a car outside the office building, keeping a low profile. Igimaq wanted to know what was going on so he stopped and waited there. When the woman came out of the office the car door opened, the person ran after her and hit her on the neck with a blunt instrument. A hammer or something like that. The wind had been blowing quite a bit and there was a storm, so Igimaq didn’t have a clear view. He did insist, however, that it wasn’t an accident.’

Thóra swallowed. ‘Did he see the attacker well enough to be able to give a description?’

‘Yes. The murderer stopped for a long time after turning the woman over, and then had a good look at her face. Igimaq thought that the woman would die of exposure there, but she suddenly seemed to pull herself together and started dragging the body towards the buildings; then she pushed it under one of them.’

‘Did you say the
woman
? Do you mean the woman who was killed or the murderer?’

‘The murderer. Igimaq said it was a woman.’

Thóra wasn’t sure how to end their conversation. She glanced over at the subdued group gathered around the television. No one paid any attention to her. Except for Friðrikka. She stared into Thóra’s eyes and had seemed to have taken in every word. Thóra thanked Oqqapia warmly and said the police would doubtless be getting in touch with her soon. She hung up without taking her eyes off Friðrikka, without so much as blinking. Apart from Oddný Hildur, there had only been one woman at the camp.

Friðrikka was a strange character. While they were at the camp she had been like a fragile little flower, unable to cope with anything, but in the end she appeared strong and serene. Of course the tears flowed as before, yet she showed no sign at all of breaking down. Thóra had offered to assist her in the police interrogation, until another lawyer could be found. The search for one was already under way, so Thóra was only present when Friðrikka was first questioned.

Arnar Jóhannesson had poisoned Friðrikka’s life so much that she was no longer in control of her own actions. She had difficulty explaining what had prompted the actual assault, whether she had intended to kill the man or just injure him. Thóra was quite sure that Friðrikka herself didn’t know the answer. Her hatred had simply overwhelmed her. She blamed Arnar for her divorce and had done so for a long time. He had come to her and wanted to confess, since it was one of the steps in his twelve-step treatment programme. He told her that he’d had a relationship with her husband around the time that the man came out of the closet. They had met at Berg’s Annual Ball, and Arnar had seen immediately that the man was pretending to be something he wasn’t. He had been drunk, and hadn’t had too many qualms about seducing the husband of his co-worker.

But after taking account of his life, it was clear to Arnar that he had betrayed a trust that under normal circumstances should have been worth more to him than one night’s fun. Nothing had come of the relationship; nevertheless, after listening to Arnar ask for forgiveness, Friðrikka blamed him for the end of her marriage. Arnar hadn’t been the first man in her husband’s life, but when someone is hurting it is so tempting to find a scapegoat for all the sorrow, disappointment and anger. Hence Friðrikka felt nothing but hatred towards Arnar, and when it appeared that her friendship with Oddný Hildur would be ruined because of him, it was the last straw.

They had argued bitterly over the harassment that Arnar was suffering. Oddný Hildur felt her friend simply turned a blind eye to the bullying, lacking the courage to condemn it. She just looked the other way and smiled at those who treated him the worst. Friðrikka hadn’t entrusted anyone with the truth about what Arnar had done to her, so she was unable to defend herself against her friend’s accusations. Her feeble objections did little more than pour oil on the fire. When she went to the office building she was thinking of taking revenge once and for all against the man who had destroyed her life twice. Arnar had said that he was going to work after supper, but Oddný Hildur hadn’t told anyone that she was planning to do the same. Friðrikka stewed over her plans in her apartment but at some point, which she could not properly recall, she stood up, dressed, went to sit in the car outside the office building and waited for Arnar. She said that while waiting she’d felt as if she were in a trance; her mind had been completely empty. The die had been cast. She recalled seeing a sled dog sitting near the car, staring at her, but she’d been too upset to wonder why it was looking at her like that. She had seen the dog walk calmly round behind the building, and some time later the light had gone off in Arnar’s office. Suddenly the entire workplace went dark. The front door opened. Friðrikka climbed out of the car and shut the door quietly behind her. She saw Arnar bend his head down against the wind. He turned his face from the car, and so had no idea she was there. Until it was too late.