The Day is Dark (37 page)

‘I doubt they care about receiving any direct assistance from us. They just want to talk to us,’ said Thóra. ‘Especially now they know who the bones in the drawers are likely to belong to.’ She had told the police about her phone conversation with Sigmundur Pétursson, and had gone with them to the coffeemaker in search of the necklace. The bulletin board was where he had said it would be, but the necklace was gone. That made his story slightly more dubious, but the investigators appeared to be content with the information nonetheless, even though Thóra understood from them that since Usinna had never been reported lost or dead it wasn’t a given that any of this was connected to her. Thóra gave them Pétursson’s name and phone number, in case they needed further confirmation. She didn’t actually understand why the police had chosen to bring them back to the area instead of just sending one or two officers to take statements from them at the hotel. Maybe something else had come to light that they wanted to explain to the group, or have the group show them. For instance, it was easier said than done to investigate the computer system. Thóra herself wouldn’t have found much there without the assistance of Friðrikka and Eyjólfur, who knew the system like the backs of their hands.

‘They’ve found something.’ Finnbogi seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to the others as he leaned on the table and stared into his lap. ‘They’re acting differently to yesterday.’

Thóra agreed with this, and from the look on Matthew’s face he did too. The policemen seemed much more serious, avoiding looking any of them in the eye and if they addressed them at all they did so in short sentences, stiffly polite. ‘I should hope they have,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘They’re not here for a holiday. With all these personnel, they must have come up with something. But it’s in our interests that their investigation succeeds. We’re all looking for the same answers, aren’t we?’ Christ, it would be good to get home and no longer have to constantly be the group’s cheerleader.

There was a knock at the door and a Greenlandic policeman walked in. At first Thóra thought he had a gun, but then she realized it was a black radio attached to his belt. The radio crackled for a moment, but no voice was heard. ‘I would like to speak to you two further.’ The man pointed at Friðrikka and Eyjólfur. ‘Am I right in thinking that you are employees here?’

Eyjólfur sighed but Friðrikka appeared not to have heard the man. ‘Does this have to do with anything in particular?’ asked Thóra. She did not trust them to help the investigation in their current states. ‘Neither of them was at the place where the bones were found. Friðrikka had stopped working here by then, and Eyjólfur was only here occasionally. Besides that, they’d never been to Greenland until after Usinna died.’ She hoped this was true. ‘I’m just wondering whether this is something Matthew or I could help you with. Those two are rather tired.’

The policeman opened his mouth and appeared on the verge of bawling her out when his radio started crackling again. An unfamiliar name was called and the officer brought the radio up to his mouth. ‘I’m here. Over.’ The officer turned his back on the group. ‘I’m not alone.’ Through the static they heard someone say in Danish: ‘I think you need to come. It’s impossible to describe this. I’ll send someone for you.’

‘There they are,’ Matthew called from the window. He was speaking to Thóra, but naturally everyone heard him and tried to see what was going on. A car drove extremely slowly along the track to the camp and entered the parking area. Thóra thought it resembled a funeral procession, and judging by how quickly the policeman had left them it was entirely likely to be one. He had rushed out but come back in to the meeting room almost immediately to get the keys to Berg Technology’s jeep, since there were too many people for one car. The jeep had then sped off. At least two hours had passed and everyone in the stuffy meeting room had been a bit bleary-eyed by the time he returned and informed them of what was going on.

The cars were parked outside the cafeteria, but their chrome bumpers and exhaust pipes could be seen from the meeting room, gleaming as they pumped their fumes into the cold, still air. ‘I’m going out.’ Thóra took Matthew by the arm. ‘Come on. The man didn’t say anything before he left about us being banned from getting fresh air.’

‘He just forgot to say it,’ said Friðrikka shrilly. ‘We shouldn’t go anywhere. What if they have body bags in the cars? I couldn’t bear it.’

‘Fine. Then you stay, but I’m out of here.’ Thóra yanked determinedly on Matthew’s arm. ‘Come on.’ After one final unsuccessful attempt to see into the cars through the window he followed her, but was clearly reluctant.

‘They’ll herd us back in as soon as they see us. We’re getting dressed for nothing. It’s also blatantly obvious what we’re doing. Who goes out into this weather without having urgent business?’

Thóra had already thought of this. ‘Loan us some cigarettes, Bella. We’ll just say we came out for a smoke.’

‘Me too.’ The doctor had become just as excited as Thóra. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Bella held tight to her cigarette packet, just in case they tried to take it off her.

‘Okay, okay. Let’s go.’ The more time they wasted standing there bickering, the more they would miss. In the end four of them went outside, while Eyjólfur and Alvar stayed inside with Friðrikka, who was still lecturing them about what a bad idea it was as Thóra shut the door behind them. They beat all speed records putting on their coveralls and snow boots and showed the same swiftness in lighting their cigarettes on the landing outside, before walking in the direction of the cars. Thóra didn’t dare not smoke her cigarette properly, but it took all her willpower not to retch. She noticed that the doctor appeared to be having the same problem. Matthew, however, exhaled a grey cloud and beamed at her.

They stopped a short distance from the cars. From there they could see everything that was happening without running the risk that the police would herd them back inside. The police noticed the smokers but didn’t appear too worried about them, since they were busy unloading one of the pickup trucks.

Thóra was relieved when she saw that it was a number of bags each too small to contain the body of an adult individual, though they seemed heavy. The men were silent as they carried the grey bags into the cafeteria building. Their seriousness was compelling; the smokers all forgot to keep up the pretence of activity and even Bella’s cigarette burned up slowly and evenly. Finally the last two bags were carried towards the house. One of the policemen was careless and slipped on a patch of ice. He landed on his tailbone with a great shout, but it was not concern for his possible injuries that made the four ‘smokers’ gasp. When the man dropped the bag, an arm rolled out of it.

‘What the hell was that?’ Bella hung her coverall on a hook that was already overloaded and the bulky orange garment ended up in a heap on the floor. She didn’t bend down to pick it up, and no one made any comment. They had other things to think about.

‘That was an arm. Without a doubt.’ The doctor leaned up against the wall to kick off his boots. ‘I don’t know whose it was or where it came from, but it was an arm.’

‘I don’t think there are many candidates to whom it could have belonged,’ said Thóra. ‘It would be quite something if it
did
come from someone other than one of the people we’re looking for.’ She stepped from the floor up onto a wooden platform that remained dry while the floor was awash with melted snow. ‘But what was in the rest of the bags? Did anyone count them?’ No one had thought to do so.

‘What should we tell the others?’ Finnbogi held hesitantly on to the knob of the door to the corridor. ‘I’m not sure Friðrikka will take this well.’

‘We’ll say nothing. Simply that we didn’t see anything,’ said Matthew. ‘We’ll find out soon enough who this is and what happened and until then there’s no need to upset her any further. I think an animal must have attacked someone. Under normal circumstances people’s arms don’t fall off.’

Thóra was silent, but she thought about the frightening video that was the main reason for their expedition from Iceland. She remembered how the splayed feet had jerked abnormally and how before the jerking there had been a whistle that ended with a dull thud. This had been followed each time by a splash of blood. She remembered clearly thinking that it looked as if either a corpse were being dismembered or someone were being killed, and now she had the feeling that it hadn’t been a polar bear or a rogue walrus that had separated this arm from its body. The landing outside creaked, the main door opened and in walked three policemen. The first was the Greenlander who Thóra was certain was directing the investigation. ‘Well.’ His manner was dry, which was nothing new, but now his voice was tempered with anger. ‘I need to speak to each of you privately and then get one of you to come and identify some human remains. I understand that you’ve seen what’s going on and I must express my disappointment that you didn’t stay inside.’

‘We wanted to have a cigarette. The smokers’ room is too wet, from the snow that was in there when we arrived.’ Matthew had sidestepped the policeman’s accusation rather neatly, in Thóra’s opinion. ‘We had no idea what awaited us, or we’d have just smoked out of the window.’

It was impossible to tell whether the police officer believed him. ‘Well, it can’t be undone,’ he said. ‘I would simply ask that you don’t waste any time trying to read anything into it.’

His last statement obviously went in one of Bella’s ears and out the other, because she immediately piped up, ‘Did a polar bear attack someone?’

The police officer stared coldly at her. ‘No one has died here from a polar bear attack for seventeen years, and the last one happened by mistake. An old woman walked too close to a bear in a whiteout and it swiped at her, knocking off the top part of her head. The bear neither ate her nor tore off her limbs. She died in hospital from her head wounds. Polar bears don’t attack people except under very unusual circumstances.’ He turned to look at Finnbogi. ‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ Finnbogi replied that he was. ‘We were hoping to get your opinion on something we’ve found. No one can get here until tomorrow, weather permitting, and it would help us to get some confirmation on a few things.’ He didn’t elaborate any further.

‘Of course. There’s not much I can do here but you’re welcome to take advantage of my expertise. However, we won’t be able to do any autopsies. We don’t have the equipment for a procedure like that.’

Thóra seized her opportunity while the policeman appeared to be in a talkative mood. ‘Is this either of the men we’re looking for?’ She didn’t know whether she was hoping for a positive or a negative response.

The police officer did not look at her or answer her question directly. ‘We need one of you to come and identify . . .’ He hesitated, but then added: ‘It’s more than one person. Probably two.’

That made things clearer. It had to be Bjarki and Dóri.

Thóra and Matthew had a problem. They had successfully managed to behave as though everything were normal when they returned to the meeting room, as had Bella. Friðrikka, Alvar and Eyjólfur seemed to suspect nothing and had only asked once where the doctor was. They were told that he was going over to show the police where he had taken samples of water from, and that was all. None of them seemed to find that strange at all, so they had no idea yet that the investigation had reached a different level. However, this could change at any given moment, since it would fall to either Friðrikka or Eyjólfur to identify the remains if the doctor determined that they did belong to the drillers. This was where their dilemma lay. Which of the two would be better suited to the task? Eyjólfur seemed less stressed than Friðrikka; on the other hand, he appeared to be getting steadily more upset, while Friðrikka appeared to be recovering a little. Maybe it would be too much for him to see the dead men, whereas it might do her good. Friðrikka seemed less concerned about Bjarki and Dóri than about her friend Oddný Hildur, but the reverse was true for Eyjólfur. If the doctor concluded that these were the remains of a man and a woman, the choice would be simpler: Eyjólfur would have to go; but if it were two men, it would complicate matters somewhat. Thóra had read somewhere that it helped the bereaved to see their dead friend or relative; it was important for them in their coming to terms with death and in accepting what could not be changed. Otherwise, they might have difficulty accepting what had happened, and moving through the grieving process. In this case neither Friðrikka nor Eyjólfur could be considered a close relative, but this advice could still apply. Perhaps identifying the remains would help Friðrikka to shut off her flood of tears and Eyjólfur to calm down. But it might also throw them completely off-balance. The corpse in the freezer had certainly agitated Friðrikka enough.

‘Aren’t we ever going to get out of here?’ Eyjólfur was sitting on his haunches against the wall, beneath an erasable message board. Written on it were a few words connected with arrows that doubtless meant a great deal to those in the know, but to Thóra they were meaningless. ‘I’m in deep shit if I can’t get back to work soon. I heard we were supposed to go home on the 24th. And that’s tomorrow.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Thóra stood up and walked to the window. Personally she was going crazy hanging around like this. ‘I’m sure they’ll understand. It’s not as though you’re bunking off or pretending to be ill.’ She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Bella, who caught a mysterious flu every month, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. Bella acted as if she didn’t notice and continued playing Solitaire at the table.

Dr Finnbogi walked into the room. It looked to Thóra as if he’d changed his clothes, and his hair appeared wet. He said hello to everyone but asked Thóra and Matthew to confer with him privately. Friðrikka watched them as they went off to the corridor, her expression suggesting that she had an inkling they were discussing something more sinister than water samples.