The Silence of the Sea (18 page)

When he was sure they had really gone, Brynjar finally braced himself to look over at the yacht. She was listing a little towards the dockside, presumably as a result of the damage she’d sustained when she hit the jetty. Was it possible that a drunk had climbed aboard without his noticing and was now wandering about on deck? He couldn’t see any movement, or hear any sound but the quiet lapping of the waves, but there was a chance someone might be standing out of sight. They couldn’t be below decks unless they had broken in, since all the doors were securely locked. Perhaps the drunk had left or passed out, if he or she was ever there in the first place. Still, Brynjar was duty bound to investigate, however little he relished the task. He started walking.

Recently the yacht had dominated conversation in the coffee breaks between shifts, so Brynjar had heard all the tales about her supposed curse. While he didn’t necessarily believe such nonsense, he couldn’t ignore the fact that there was an odd atmosphere about her, one which couldn’t be put entirely down to the lurid stories or the unknown fate of her passengers. He had witnessed with his own eyes the way the birds shunned her, never perching on her, not even flying over her if they could help it. Of course it could be – must be – coincidence. And yet. The night after she had been moved to her current mooring he had noticed several fish floating dead in the water by her hull. This was abnormal; he couldn’t remember ever having seen more than one dead fish at a time before. As his job demanded, he had made a note of the incident and learnt the following evening that a team from the Matís food research institute had collected the dead fish for testing. Brynjar’s informant had added that although some of the white coats put it down to pollution or poisoning, people in the know believed it was linked to the yacht.

There was no sign of any figure on deck. Switching on his torch, he shone it along the ship but could see nothing but fleeting shadows. ‘Hello!’ His shout pierced the stillness but faded instantly. The ensuing silence felt heavier, more tangible, as if it resented the disturbance. ‘Hello!’ Brynjar called again, wondering how often he would have to repeat this before he could be said to have done his duty. There was no answer. He took a step backwards to get a better view and began to shine his torch back and forth along the white aluminium hull, at which the shadows resumed their jerky dance. He tried to illuminate the waterline to check that the uninvited guest hadn’t fallen overboard but could see nothing unusual. A red Coke can was floating lazily beside the ship; otherwise the sea looked as if it had been vacuum-cleaned. When he directed the beam further away he noticed a narrow white ribbon of mist curling in over the surface of the water from the harbour mouth, only about a metre above sea level. While it was not particularly common, he had often experienced misty conditions in the harbour before without being alarmed. But this time it was different. He didn’t want to be standing beside this notorious ship if the mist thickened into a fog and closed in on him, reducing visibility to zero. Enough was enough.

He hurried back towards his hut, not looking round even when he thought he heard a whisper from the deserted yacht. He couldn’t make out the words but was fairly sure that, despite their similarity, there were two voices. Female, but not those of grown women; more like children. Two children. Twins. His mouth felt suddenly dry and the torch weighed heavy in his hand. He stopped and strained his ears, though his brain was screaming at him to keep moving. He could hear nothing now, yet that did little to lessen his terror. He hadn’t a clue what he was afraid of; until now children had roused little emotion in him, and certainly never fear. Perhaps it was the mental image of the dead sisters roaming the yacht in a vain search for their parents or a way out, forever trapped aboard the vessel that had robbed them of their future. Brynjar started walking again. One thing was certain: he wasn’t putting a word about this in his report, or people would think he had finally cracked.

He quickened his pace and once safely inside the hut locked the door behind him for the first time since he’d started the job. Then he rang the police and reported a possible break-in on the yacht, not mentioning the voices. If something untoward was happening, let the police sort it out.

He
really
needed a new job.

The young man on the other end of the line sounded subdued and distracted. He was the only Snævar Thórdarson in the telephone directory whose occupation was listed as ship’s engineer. Thóra had been running out of ideas about who to ask for background information on the yacht when she suddenly remembered the crew member who had dropped out, and Fannar had supplied her with his name. With any luck, she thought, his account of the accident that had caused him to be left behind might also come in useful for her report.

Snævar readily admitted that he was meant to have sailed with the
Lady K
to Iceland but his replies to Thóra’s questions, though so swift and to the point they almost seemed rehearsed, were not actually much help since his involvement in the preparations for the voyage had been minimal. At first she found it odd that his answers should be so fluent, but it turned out that he had already given the police three separate statements.

When Thóra persisted, Snævar became more uncomfortable, especially on the subject of how Ægir had come to take his place on board; but then, it can’t have been much fun to be the indirect cause of a whole family’s disappearance. He started off trying to give a sober, factual account, but as he progressed he became increasingly choked with emotion.

‘I’m still in shock, to be honest. I’m not usually easily upset, but when I saw the yacht sail straight into the docks with none of the crew doing a thing to prevent it, I knew something was seriously wrong. I was so nearly on board myself. It should have been me, not that couple and their poor little girls.’

‘Disasters are impossible to predict; you can hardly blame yourself for what happened. This time you were lucky, and others less so.’ Thóra was aware of the futility of her words; his conscience would continue to gnaw at him whatever she said. ‘Why were you on the docks when the yacht was due in? Surely that wasn’t by chance?’

‘I’d come to pick up Halli. We were mates; he’s the one who sorted out the job for me. We were both between tours on the trawler and he thought it would be a good idea to take me along. They were dead keen to hire him because of his previous experience, so he had no trouble fixing it for me. Personally, I wasn’t that bothered, but I didn’t mind going. You know – the pay was all right and I reckoned it might be a laugh if Halli was going too. We could have a bit of an adventure; the flight was free and we could hit the nightlife in Lisbon. But even that went wrong, though the first couple of days were awesome.’

‘Because of your accident?’

‘Yes. Breaking a leg is no joke. And it was a real bummer for Halli to have to go through it all with me.’

‘May I ask what happened?’ Silence greeted her question. ‘You don’t have to tell me unless you want to, but if you don’t I’ll simply have to find out by other means. It’s vital for me to know why Ægir ended up on the boat if I’m to sort out his and his wife’s affairs. May I remind you that they have another little girl, and for her sake it’s essential that the settlement of their estate goes through as smoothly as possible. Which means we need to clarify the sequence of events.’

‘All right, I can tell you what happened.’ He briefly turned his head away from the receiver to cough. ‘Though I don’t really like talking about it because the accident was so stupid.’

‘Most accidents are, so you needn’t worry about that.’

‘Maybe not.’ He took a deep breath, then the words came out in a rush as if to give them less time to leave a bad taste in his mouth. ‘I was drunk. Totally off my face, and I tripped and fell down one of those really steep streets in Lisbon. Actually, I was lucky it didn’t turn out worse because I rolled quite a long way and nearly ended up getting run over. If I had, it might have changed everything for the better. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.’

Thóra could think of nothing to say. If Snævar had been killed, his friend Halldór would almost certainly have pulled out of the voyage, and then the captain wouldn’t have been able to get away with using Ægir as a replacement. The committee would have been forced to hire two new crew members instead. Still, it was no use crying over spilt milk.

‘And there’s another thing,’ Snævar continued. ‘I don’t know if it has any bearing on this case, but I was pushed. The Portuguese doctors didn’t want to hear it – no one was listening to me because I was totally out of it. But I
was
pushed. It all happened very fast, but I’m almost a hundred per cent positive.’

‘If you could give me some proof of the accident, I’d be very grateful. Regardless of whether you were pushed.’

‘What, you want my leg?’ It must have been meant as a joke, though Snævar did not sound particularly amused.

‘Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of hospital notes or maybe a signed statement from you.’

‘I can give you a statement but I might need your help to put it together. I don’t have any documents, though; the whole thing was handled by the Social Insurance office. If you like, I can ring them and ask if they have the papers. It’s not as if I have much else to do at the moment. If they can’t help, you’ll just have to contact the hospital in Lisbon.’

‘Okay. When would suit you? Is there any chance you could come to my office tomorrow or the day after, so I can type it up? And it would be helpful if you could have a word with the Social Insurance people first.’ Thóra was pleased with the way this phone call had panned out, though she hadn’t had high hopes beforehand. ‘On a tangent, since you knew Halli, I wanted to ask if you have any idea why he originally quit after working on the
Lady K
for such a short time. Could it have had anything to do with inadequate safety procedures? Or a problem with the yacht’s engine?’

‘Oh, it was nothing like that. According to him, everything was fine. All the equipment was present and correct, and the engine was as good as new; he had no complaints on that score.’

‘So what was it?’

‘I gather it was to do with the captain. Halli said he was a complete tosser and really tight-fisted. I haven’t crewed any yachts myself but according to Halli, the way it works is that at the end of every tour the captain is given a tip that he’s supposed to share with the crew. But there are two kinds of captain – those who divide the money equally between all the crew members, and those who take sixty per cent to share with the mate and chief engineer, then give what’s left to the rest of the crew. It might not sound so bad but when you’re working for the jet set there can be as many as twelve employees sailing the boat, cooking, cleaning and working as waiters. Then it really matters how the tip’s shared out. The
Lady K
usually had a staff of ten and the officers took twenty per cent of the tip each, leaving the rest of the poor sods to share the other forty per cent. Halli was employed as an engineer, so he was one of the unlucky ones. We’re not talking peanuts either. The tip was often higher than the wages – and tax-free, too.’ That sounded a bit dodgy to Thóra, but she refrained from commenting. ‘Under normal circumstances Halli would only have done two tours with a captain like that. But he stayed on a bit longer because he got the impression that the Icelandic woman who owned the yacht liked having him around so she could chat to him in Icelandic – you know, take the piss out of the guests without them understanding. But of course that wasn’t enough in the long run, so Halli left. Quit as soon as he found another position.’

‘Did he stay in touch with Karítas afterwards?’

‘Are you joking?’ Snævar laughed, genuinely this time. ‘It wasn’t that sort of relationship; you’ve got it all wrong if that’s what you think. The crew doesn’t really mix with the owners and guests on vessels like that. Halli may have enjoyed a laugh with Karítas, but not every day. As far as I can remember, he only saw her once after that, from a distance. He caught sight of her on the deck of the
Lady K
when she was moored off some island in the Med just after he left – he was working on another yacht by then. Not long afterwards he quit the luxury yacht business and went back to the trawlers.’

‘So he wasn’t in contact with her on Facebook?’

‘He wasn’t on Facebook.’ Of course not.

‘Tell me something.’ She hesitated for fear Snævar would lose patience and refuse to come to the office if she kept him on the phone too long. ‘What do
you
think happened? You’ve been on board, so you must have more insight than most into what might have become of them.’

Snævar hesitated before answering; perhaps he was trying to run through all the alternatives he’d considered. ‘Look, if one or two or even three of them had vanished, there would be all sorts of possible explanations. But all of them? There aren’t many answers to that. The only sensible theory I can come up with is that they believed the yacht was sinking and thought their only chance was to abandon ship. Maybe they were afraid she was about to blow up, though it’s unlikely the crew or captain would have thought that. They would have known better. In fact, they’re trained in risk assessment, so I’m guessing the crew weren’t around when it happened. I have no clue what became of them – I still can’t come up with a plausible explanation.’

‘Let’s just say they did believe she was sinking – why wouldn’t they have launched a lifeboat?’

‘How would I know? Maybe they didn’t think they had time. Maybe there was another boat nearby that picked them up.’

‘One final question. What could cause a crew or passengers to misread the situation so badly? Is there an alarm that would go off if the hull was holed, for example? I’m wondering if the system could have malfunctioned and given them the wrong message.’

‘Naturally, there’s an alarm system on board, but even if it went off by mistake, the crew wouldn’t just jump overboard. The passengers, maybe – but not the sailors. They’d check what was up and wouldn’t abandon ship unless she was literally in flames. Either somebody forced them to leave the yacht or they died by some other means. Nothing else makes any sense.’