Snowblind (3 page)

Her initial reaction wasn’t fear, but anger that she hadn’t realised something was wrong, that someone was standing there behind her in the dark. Then the fear overwhelmed her.

He shoved her hard against the door, a hand coming from behind to cover her mouth, turning the key in the lock with the other. The door opened and as he pushed her through the doorway she almost lost her balance; his hand still clamped hard over her mouth. The shock was so paralysing that she wasn’t sure she had the strength to yell, call for help, even if he did relax his grip. He closed the door carefully and the next few seconds were a blur, as if she was in another world and she had lost the strength to resist.

Unable to turn around, she still hadn’t had a chance to see him.

He stopped suddenly and for what felt like an entire lifetime, nothing happened. She sensed that it was up to her to do something. He was holding her with his right hand, not the left, and she tried to work out what her chances might be. She could take him by surprise with a punch or a kick, get free of him and run, scream for help …

But then it was too late. She had hesitated too long by thinking through the options, giving him time to act first, to unsheath the sharp hunting knife.

Unless visitors wanted to travel by sea or drive over the mountain pass, which was completely inaccessible during the winter, or unless they knew someone with an aircraft who could land at the small Siglufjördur airfield, which no longer had scheduled flights to or from the town, the narrow, old tunnel provided the only access to Siglufjördur.

Ari Thór had decided that he had no need of a car in such a small place, so the little yellow Toyota had been left behind for Kristín to use. She had been too busy with work and her studies to drive him to his new job in Siglufjördur, in spite of his best efforts to persuade her that a trip north would be a good opportunity for some peace and quiet together.

Kristín remained unhappy with his decision to move. She didn’t say much, but every time Siglufjördur was mentioned, a cold silence ensued and the subject was dropped. Both of them were occupied with their studies, and Kristín was working at the hospital alongside her usual lectures. Ari Thór was irritated that she hadn’t found the time to go with him, particularly because they would be apart for a month up to Christmas. He tried to avoid thinking about it, but his mind repeatedly returned to the same thing as he wondered just how high up her list of priorities he was. At the top? Or was he in second place behind medicine? Or maybe in third place behind her studies and work?

She had hugged him tenderly and given him a farewell kiss.

‘Good luck, my love,’ she said, with warmth in her voice.

There was a new barrier between them, a thin and invisible line that he could sense and maybe she too knew was there.

Tómas, the police sergeant in charge at the Siglufjördur station, arrived to pick him up at the airport in the northerly town of Saudárkrókur, about sixty miles to the south of Siglufjördur, the closest airport with scheduled commercial flights.

‘Nice to meet you in person,’ said Tómas, and his voice boomed even louder than Ari Thór had remembered from their initial phone call. Tómas appeared to be in his fifties, with a warm face bordered by white hair – or what was left of it; the top of his head was clear of even a stray tendril.

‘Likewise.’ Ari Thór was tired after the turbulent morning flight.

‘Usually it’s an hour and a half or so from here to Siglufjördur, but the roads are terrible right now so it might take a little longer – if we get there at all!’ said Tómas, laughing at his own gallows humour. Ari Thór said nothing, wondering quite how to take the man.

Tómas didn’t talk much on the way, apparently concentrating on the road, although he had most certainly driven this route often enough before.

‘You’re from the north?’ Ari Thór asked.

‘Born and bred, and not going anywhere,’ Tómas replied.

‘How do strangers get on there?’

‘Well … just fine, most of the time. You’ll have to prove yourself. There are people who will welcome you and others who won’t. Most of the townspeople know about you and they’re looking forward to seeing you.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Old Eiríkur’s retiring now and you’re his replacement. He moved north in 1964 if I remember right, and he’s been here ever since. But he’s still an out-of-towner as far as we’re concerned!’

Tómas laughed, but Ari Thór didn’t.

Was this the right decision? Moving to a small rural community where he might never fit in?

The last few kilometres of road before they reached the mountain tunnel were unlike anything Ari Thór had ever seen before. The
road snaked around the mountainside with precious little room for the car. On the right were the snow-white mountains, magnificent and formidable, while on the other side was a terrifying, sheer drop down into the broad storm-blown expanse of Skagafjördur. One mistake or a patch of ice, and there would be no tomorrow. Maybe it was as well that Kristín hadn’t come with him. He would certainly have been worried about her driving back that way alone.

Thoughts of Kristín brought his doubts surging back.
Why hadn’t she taken a few days off to be with him? Was that too much to ask?

He relaxed as the tunnel entrance finally approached. They had made it all the way in one piece. But his relief was short-lived. He had expected a broad, well-lit, modern tunnel, but what lay in front of him looked forbidding. It was a narrow single track. Ari Thór later learned that it had been carved through the mountainside more than forty years ago when there were only a few tunnels in Iceland. It didn’t help that water dripped here and there from the unseen rock ceiling above. Ari Thór suddenly felt himself struck by a feeling he had never experienced before – an overwhelming claustrophobia.

He shut his eyes and tried to shake it off.

He didn’t want to begin his acquaintance with Siglufjördur like this. He planned to spend two years here, maybe more. He had driven through tunnels many times without any discomfort. Maybe it was the thought of this isolated fjord that was affecting him like this, rather than the tunnel itself?

He opened his eyes and as he did so a corner was turned and the tunnel’s mouth appeared ahead of them, leading to the open air. His heartbeat slowed and he had calmed down by the time Tómas said, ‘Welcome to Siglufjördur.’

The fjord greeted them with the oppressive grey of an overcast day. Cloud and squalls hid the ring of mountains, preventing it from showing off its full magnificence. The roofs of the town’s houses were rendered dull by the gloom and a light covering of snow lay over its gardens.

Odd stalks of grass stuck their heads defiantly out of the snow,
refusing to accept that winter had arrived, while the mountains towered overwhelmingly high above them.

‘You think it’s going to be a heavy winter?’ Ari Thór asked, as if he needed to reassure himself that there were brighter prospects ahead. Maybe this was just a particularly drab day?

Tómas laughed at the newcomer’s question and answered in his deep bass voice, ‘Every winter is a heavy winter in Siglufjördur, my friend.’

There weren’t many people to be seen and there was little traffic. It was approaching midday; Ari Thór expected there to be more activity during the lunch hour.

‘Very quiet here,’ he said to break the silence. ‘I suppose the financial crash is going to affect you up here just the same as the rest of us?’

‘Crash? There’s nothing like that here. The crash belongs in Reykjavík and it won’t stretch up north. We’re too far away,’ Tómas said as they drove into the square in the centre of town. ‘We missed out on the boom years up here in Siglufjördur, so the crash doesn’t worry us either.’

‘Same here,’ Ari Thór said. ‘There weren’t many boom years for students.’

‘If there’s a recession here, it comes from the sea,’ Tómas continued. ‘This place hummed with activity in the old days, before the herring disappeared. There aren’t that many people here these days, something like twelve or thirteen hundred.’

‘Not many speeding tickets here, I suppose? There don’t seem to be many cars.’

‘Listen here,’ Tómas said solemnly, his voice becoming grave. ‘This job isn’t about handing out tickets. Quite the opposite. This is a small community and we’re more than the local coppers. It’s more about handing out as few tickets as you can! You’ll find out soon enough that we work very differently from down south. It’s a tight-knit community. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.’

Tómas drove along the main street, Adalgata, which was dotted
with small restaurants, shops and some venerable houses that looked as if they still had occupants.

‘Your place is down there a little way to the left, on Eyrargata,’ Tómas said, pointing the way without taking his eyes off the road. ‘I’ll take you past the station first, so you can get a sense of what’s where.’

He took a turn to the right, and then right again, into Gránargata, which ran parallel to Adalgata, and slowed down.

‘You want to take a look, or do you want to go home first?’ He asked amiably.

Home?

That discomfort again, claustrophobia and homesickness. Would he really be able to see this strange place with its impressive fjord as home? His thoughts flashed back to what Kristín would be doing right now, in Reykjavík.
Home
.

‘I suppose I’d best make myself at home,’ he said, suppressing a gulp.

Moments later Tómas parked the car in Eyrargata outside a house that stood in a tight knot of other imposing houses dating back a generation or more.

‘I hope this’ll suit you, at least to start with. The town bought this place a few years ago and it hasn’t been looked after as well as it might have been, although it’s mostly the outside that needs some attention. It should be comfortable enough. It’s been up for sale for ages. It’s far too big for you, but maybe your girlfriend will move north as well at some point. It’s perfect for a big family,’ Tómas said with a grin.

Ari Thór tried to smile back.

‘You don’t get a car but, believe me, in a place like this you won’t need one,’ Tómas added. ‘When you need to go down south one of us will run you over to Saudárkrókur Airport, or we can find someone going that way.’

Ari Thór stepped back and looked at the house more carefully. It had last been painted in a pale red colour that had started to come
off in flakes. There were two storeys, the upper level built into the eaves. The roof was a vivid red, mostly hidden under a blanket of snow. The dwelling had been built on a low-slung basement and two windows could be seen on the bottom level. A large shovel had been propped by the door to the basement.

‘You’ll need that,’ said Tómas, his laughter dark but good-natured. ‘It’ll be useful when we get some real snow and you have to shovel your way out. You’re no use to us if you’re snowed in!’

The discomfort grew inside Ari Thór and his heart beat faster.

They made their way up the steps to the front door, where Ari Thór hesitated.

‘What are you waiting for, young man?’ Tómas asked. ‘Open the door – we’ll catch our death out here.’

‘I don’t have the keys,’ Ari Thór said awkwardly.

‘Keys?’ Tómas asked, grasping the handle, opening the door and stepping inside. ‘Nobody locks their doors. There’s no point, nothing ever happens around here.’

But he fished a bunch of keys from his pocket and handed them to Ari Thór. ‘I thought you’d like to have a set of keys anyway, just to be sure.’ He smiled. ‘See you later.’

Ari Thór was alone. He shut the door. In the kitchen he looked out of the window that gave him a view of the houses across the street and hopefully a view of the mountains on a good day.

Tómas’s words echoed in his mind.

‘Nothing ever happens around here.’

What have I got myself into?

What the hell have I got myself into?

She had seen hunting knives before. Her husband had several. But nothing could have prepared her for this moment. She stiffened, and then felt the strength draining from her limbs. Darkness spread before her eyes. He lost his grip, or let her drop, and she fell to the floor.

Then she saw him for the first time. He was dressed all in black – a shabby leather jacket, dark jeans and trainers, and a balaclava hiding everything but his eyes, nose and mouth. She was positive that it was a man, had been since she first sensed his presence, and the strength in his hands told him that he had to be young. She knew right away that she would never recognise him again, even if she did manage to escape with her life.

She heard him hiss, telling her to keep quiet, otherwise she’d feel the knife and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She had to believe him. For the first time she was aware of her own mortality, and the thought that these could be her last few moments of life brought a cold sweat to her forehead. Questions darted back and forth across her mind. What comes next? A black eternity, or heaven? She lay on the floor, every part of her wracked with pain from the fall, watching him standing there in the middle of the living room floor, dressed for action, the weapon in his hand.

For the first time in years she found herself praying.

The ceiling was low in the room in which Ari Thór had chosen to sleep. This wasn’t the largest room upstairs; for some reason he had chosen the smaller room with the single bed over the double in the larger bedroom. It was as if he was emphasising to himself that this was a solo venture.

He had shifted the bed around so that it gave him a view straight out of the skylight when he went to sleep and when he woke up, although there was rarely anything to be seen, other than pitch darkness.

The alarm clock buzzed for the fourth time. Ari Thór stretched for the button that would give him a precious extra ten minutes of dreams. He dropped back into sleep each time, and each time there was a new dream, different from the last. It was like watching a series of short films, in which he was all at once the writer, director and leading man.

It was getting on for ten o’clock and he had a shift that started at midday. The first couple of weeks had flashed past. The persistent feeling of discomfort had weakened; he had kept it at bay by concentrating on revising for his final exams and working long hours, taking every extra shift that was offered. The claustrophobia normally made an appearance towards evening when he lay alone in bed, gazing out of the skylight into the darkness. All the same, he preferred to look out through the glass, rather than at a bare ceiling.

Sometimes the days with bad weather were overwhelming, especially when it snowed heavily. He hadn’t even got round to organising
an internet connection, as much by intention as for any other reason. He could check his email at work and appreciated being able to come home in the evening – yes, home, almost a new concept – and find himself in peace and quiet with little contact with the world outside. He could cook himself something delicious to eat. In one week, Ari Thór had almost become a regular customer of the local fishmonger, whose delightful shop by the town square always seemed to be filled with fresh fish. Ari Thór had tried the familiar haddock, which his mother had always cooked on Mondays, and the more savoury halibut. But his favourite so far had been freshly caught trout. He seasoned it ever sparingly, wrapped it in foil and baked it in the oven, just long enough for it to fall off the bone without losing any of its flavour.

After his meal he would immerse himself in his textbooks and other books he’d chosen for pleasure. That first week he had gone to the library during his coffee break, borrowing a handful of books that he had always meant to read but had never had the time to; it was these that he picked up when the textbooks became heavy going.

He had also borrowed a few classical music CDs, listening to these when he wasn’t reading or working, sometimes simply sitting in the darkness in the living room, thinking about Kristín, his late parents, how alone he felt. One evening he had spent listening to the radio, a live broadcast of a concert by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra – a name which never failed to conjure up memories of his mother, who had died in a road accident when he was a child. She had been a violinist in the orchestra.

He tried to avoid watching television as much as possible; occasionally catching the news. As far as he could make out, Reykjavík was descending into chaos after the crash of the big banks, with impassioned anti-government protests that seemed to become louder by the day.

After every shift he made a point of choosing a roundabout route home, passing along the shore, where he would stand for a while.
There was something about being by the sea that was calming, helping him feel at ease in this distant and isolated town. Watching the often turbulent waves he was almost able to imagine that he was standing by the shore in Reykjavík. The sea had also been within walking distance from his flat on Öldugata. And at night, thinking of the sea helped him avoid the suffocating feeling of claustrophobia that he would sometimes feel engulfing him.

He liked his work well enough. The police station occasionally seemed to be more of a canteen than a workplace, almost a social centre. There were regular visitors who stopped off for a coffee – some of them several times a week – to chat about this and that; the crash, the protests and the government were the main subjects for debate, and then there was the weather. There had been a noticeable increase in traffic in the police station’s coffee corner during the first few days after his arrival, as everyone wanted the opportunity to take a look at the new boy from down south.

One day, over coffee at the station, Tómas had mentioned that Ari Thór had qualified with a degree in theology.

‘No, that’s not quite right,’ Ari Thór was quick to correct him.

‘But you studied theology, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Ari Thór hesitated. ‘But I never qualified. Took a break to go to the police college instead.’

Hearing himself say the word “break” took him by surprise. Deep inside he knew that he would probably never finish the theology degree.

‘Well! That’s quite something!’ said Hlynur, a colleague who had worked alongside Tómas for several years.

Ari Thór knew that Hlynur was in his mid-thirties, but he looked older. His hair was starting to thin and he wondered if Hlynur was in good enough physical shape to meet the police force’s fitness standards. He also came across as distant, as if to discourage anyone from getting too close to him.

‘A priest in the making among us!’ Hlynur went on.

Ari Thór forced himself to smile, although he was far from amused.

‘Are you going to solve the cases we mortals can’t handle?’ Hlynur asked. ‘With a little help from upstairs?’

He and Tómas laughed.

‘The Reverend Ari,’ Hlynur said. ‘The Reverend Ari Thór solves the mystery!’

After that the most unlikely people took to calling him “the priest” or “the Reverend Ari Thór”. He played along with it, even though he had never liked nicknames, least of all a nickname created on the basis of studies that he had started only half-heartedly, and then given up.

That first day at work he had tried to call Kristín, but she hadn’t answered. He sent her an email describing the trip to the north, providing details about Tómas and the house. He left out anything about how he felt; he didn’t mention that this isolated place had greeted him with gloom and darkness, that he was still unhappy with her reaction to his getting a job there, or his disappointment that she hadn’t seen fit to take some time off to go with him – or at least spend a weekend together there. Maybe she didn’t want to make things too easy for him? Or maybe she was hoping he’d be back in Reykjavík in a few weeks, having given up on the snow and isolation of the north.

Ari Thór had read her reply the following day. She wrote about work and her studies, mentioning as well that her father had lost his job at the bank where he had been for years, one among many who had been let go. He knew that she would be feeling distraught over this, and that her mother worked at an architect’s practice where the financial crash would doubtless also make itself felt soon enough. Kristín didn’t seem inclined to discuss anything in detail. It was a short message, lacking in any kind of emotion. As was his to her.

The next day he was able to reach her on the phone. He was just home from a long shift and not as ready as he would have liked to discuss what was troubling him. They talked for while about superficial things, but nothing in any real depth. Kristín had always been calm and quiet, and was rarely inclined to let minor, everyday things
upset her. So he wasn’t able to decide if he was the only one unwilling to delve into things that affected them both.

As the weeks went on, they talked every day, but Ari Thór still avoided bringing up his disappointment that she wasn’t supportive enough of his new job, and Kristín seemed to avoid the subject as well, probably still annoyed that he had left Reykjavík. Still, it didn’t seem fair, he thought. She had her parents and her friends in Reykjavík. He was all alone in a new place and would certainly have appreciated some reassurance. But instead of tackling these issues, they kept their conversations short – friendly but trivial.

But now he needed to call her. It was already mid-December, he had been in Siglufjördur for over a month, and Christmas was approaching. He was going to have to let her know about Tómas’s decision to assign him shifts over the holiday period, and it wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Tómas had actually phrased it as a request, but, realistically, Ari Thór couldn’t say no: he was in no position to refuse and he wanted to prove himself.

He started the day with cereal, ice-cold milk and yesterday’s newspaper. He had started to get used to seeing the papers late, as the morning editions didn’t reach this far-flung fjord until at least midday. Not that it mattered. The rhythm of life was different here, time passed more slowly and there was less bustling hurry than in the city. The papers would be here when they were here.

He called Kristín and had to wait a moment before she answered.

‘Hi, I’m at work, couldn’t get to the phone right away. How are things?’

‘Not bad,’ he said and hesitated as he stared out of the kitchen window. There was a thick layer of snow over the town. This was no place for cars other than heavy 4×4s. What you needed here was a good pair of boots, or skis. ‘Any snow where you are? It’s coming down non-stop up here.’

‘No, none at all here. Just cold and there’s no wind, but it’s icy underfoot. It looks like it’ll be a snow-free Christmas in Reykjavík. You’ll miss out on all that Christmas snow up north.’

Ari Thór was silent for a moment as he carefully thought about the words he was going to use.

Kristín continued, ‘I’ve spoken to Mum and Dad and we’ll have Christmas dinner with them like last year, so we can get away with not buying a Christmas tree, unless you feel like having one at home …’

‘Listen… There’s something I need to tell you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Tómas had a word with me yesterday, and I have to work a few shifts over Christmas…’

There was a silence.

‘A few?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Just what does that mean?’

‘Well. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and a couple more days before New Year.’

The continued silence became deafening.

‘So when are you coming south?’

‘It’s probably best if I come at the beginning of January when I can get a week off.’

‘Next year? You’re joking? You’re not coming for Christmas?’ Her tone was icy, but Kristín didn’t raise her voice. ‘We decided we were going to discuss everything at Christmas, sort out plans for next year. So I’m not going to see you until January? Or maybe even February?’

‘I’ll try and come in January. I’m the new man here so it’s not as if I can throw my weight about. I ought to be thankful that I’ve at least got a real career opportunity here.’ He was slightly annoyed, but tried to hide it, not wishing to add to the tension.

‘Opportunity? You need to take the blinkers off, Ari Thór … Is this an opportunity to … to build a relationship, or start a family? There are five hundred kilometres between us. Five hundred, Ari Thór.’

Roughly four hundred, not five hundred, he silently told himself, realising that this wasn’t the time to correct her.

‘I can’t do anything about it. The others have both been here longer than I have and they both have families…’ he said, regretting the words the moment he had said them.

‘So what? Don’t you have a family in Reykjavík? What about me? And what about my parents?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Silence again.

‘I have to go.’ Her voice was lower, with a hint of a sob in it. ‘I have to go. I’m being paged. We’ll talk later.’