The Silence of the Sea (26 page)

‘Was sleeping on board an option?’

‘Yes, why not? We had the keys and no one would have complained. We were supposed to start making her ready and running checks on the engines and equipment before the others arrived, so I can’t see why anyone would have kicked up a fuss.’

‘You didn’t ring the captain to suggest it?’

‘No. He was so pissed off that I couldn’t face talking to him. I’ve learnt it’s pointless trying to reason with people when they’re angry. Halli did mention it in passing but the captain wasn’t having it. Anyway, by then it had been decided that the family should go instead. I have to admit I’m glad I didn’t try harder – the pain in my leg is nothing compared to what Halli must have gone through.’

Thóra brought out a file containing the documents that the police had released to her late the previous day. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask your opinion on something.’ She showed him the file. ‘This is the route that was programmed into the yacht’s GPS.’ She ran her finger along a line that followed a rather circuitous course between Lisbon and Reykjavík. Then she turned over the next two pages, which showed, on the one hand, a blown-up picture of the route within Icelandic territorial waters and, on the other, some circles the yacht had made not far from her destination. ‘I can’t get hold of the man who gave me this but the way I understand it, the yacht started sailing in circles around about here.’ She pointed at the first blown-up page. ‘I take this to be the date, which would mean that she made these manoeuvres about twenty-four hours before she careered into the harbour. Have you any inkling what might be going on here?’

Snævar, looking surprised, studied the chart. ‘I suppose it’s possible that the autopilot developed a fault or the rudder jammed, though that’s pretty unlikely. The captain would never have let her sail round and round like that before he took action. It’s more likely that someone fell overboard and they were looking for him. Or her. Or them.’

‘That’s what occurred to me too. It’s a pity the printout doesn’t say who it was.’

‘The navigation system isn’t that sophisticated.’

‘I was joking.’ Thóra turned over to the enlarged chart. ‘What about the final part of the voyage? That looks odd too. If I have this right, there’s a change of course as the yacht approaches Iceland and she’s brought in very close to the shore at Grótta before heading back out to sea where she sails in another large circle before making a beeline for Reykjavík harbour. This is a blown-up picture of her final movements.’

Snævar pored over the chart. ‘What’s this?’ He pointed to the text at the top of each page.

‘I’m guessing they’re the dates which tell us when the course was plotted on the GPS.’

Snævar seemed to agree. ‘In other words, someone must have been alive on board as the yacht approached land?’ He pointed at the date on the second chart.

‘Yes. If my interpretation’s correct.’ Thóra ran her finger along the line of the ship’s course. ‘Is it possible that this person abandoned ship near Grótta and went ashore there? Do you know anything about the currents in that area?’

‘Jesus.’ Snævar ran both hands through his hair with such force that he pulled his eyes out of shape. ‘Jesus.’

‘I know.’ Thóra’s initial reaction had been the same, not least because it would considerably complicate her case. How was she to persuade a judge to rule that Ægir and Lára were dead if there was a chance they could have sneaked ashore? In fact, any of the people on board could probably have abandoned the yacht at that stage. All of them, even. Except Loftur, of course. Unless they had all lost their heads for some reason and drowned right by the shore. But that did not tally with the fact that Loftur’s body had turned up on the Reykjanes peninsula, some forty-five kilometres to the south. It could hardly have been carried all the way there from Grótta, which was a small isthmus crowned by a lighthouse that jutted out from the coast of Seltjarnarnes, Reykjavík’s westernmost suburb. ‘What’s the sea like off Grótta? Is it possible to swim ashore there?’

‘Yes. No. I really don’t know. It would depend how strong a swimmer you were and what the sea was like. You’d have to ask someone who’s experienced at swimming in the sea.’ Snævar was apparently still having trouble getting his head around this latest development. ‘Jesus. I wouldn’t trust myself to do it.’

‘How about in a diving suit?’

He smiled. ‘You’re asking the wrong man. I tried it once and it wasn’t for me. I’d never dive in the sea round Iceland, though maybe it wouldn’t be a problem for a pro.’

‘Another question. Is there any reason to sail close to land there? To avoid reefs, shallows or currents, that sort of thing?’

‘Nope. None at all.’

‘Okay.’ Thóra ran her finger round the loop that extended from near the lighthouse at Grótta and out into Faxaflói bay to the north of Reykjavík. ‘What about this? Do you have any idea why the yacht didn’t make straight for port?’

Snævar shook his head. ‘No. I can’t make head or tail of it. It’s crazy. Completely crazy. Unless someone fell overboard again. But that wouldn’t explain this loop because the circle’s too wide and doesn’t go back over the same area. It’s just mental.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Thóra pulled the file back towards her. ‘Could someone who doesn’t know how to use the system enter the coordinates? Does it work like the GPS in a car?’

‘No. That is, the GPS works the same but you’d need to know how to set the autopilot – the specific system they had on board. If not, you wouldn’t be able to make it do tricks like that. Well, unless the strange manoeuvres were caused by the fact that the person fiddling with the system didn’t know how it worked. I suppose that’s possible.’

‘Yes.’ Thóra was thoughtful. ‘What about someone who has a pleasure craft certificate? Would he know how to use the system?’

Snævar snorted contemptuously. ‘No. They learn sod all on those courses. They don’t even teach them about magnetic variation when they’re plotting their coordinates on a chart.
You
would have as much chance of working it out as some genius with a pleasure craft certificate.’

That ruled out Ægir, as well as Lára and the twins, of course. Not to mention Loftur.

Which only left Thráinn and Halli.

Google Translate had its uses. Thóra had tried typing in the comments that the doctor or nurse had scribbled on what she took to be Snævar’s admission form for the casualty ward in Lisbon. One box turned out to be marked
Description of Incident
, and when to the best of her ability she typed the text it contained into the translation program, her curiosity was piqued. It emerged that, when being admitted, the seriously intoxicated patient had claimed that the person who pushed him had been an Icelander. He had not known who it was and when asked if it had been his companion, Halldór, he had denied it and begun to ramble incoherently. The doctor’s verdict was to postpone reporting the incident to the police until the patient was sober enough to make sense. Since there was no further mention of this in the accompanying documents, it was impossible to tell what the outcome had been. Snævar had not said a word about his assailant being an Icelander when describing the events to her.

Thóra rang when she guessed he would have reached home, to avoid catching him in a bus or taxi. People tended not to talk as freely on the phone when strangers were listening. After apologising for bothering him again so soon, she described the contents of the hospital report. ‘Do you remember it at all?’

‘Yes. Vaguely.’ Snævar sounded rather embarrassed.

‘Do they quote you correctly? That you were pushed by an Icelander?’

‘Well … That’s what I thought at the time, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. I was pissed out of my mind. But I’m fairly sure the man who pushed me said something in Icelandic just before the blow sent me flying.’

‘Surely it must have been Halldór? You were out together that evening, weren’t you?’

‘No way. He was inside paying the bill. I’d gone outside for some fresh air – I was totally wasted, like I said. So it definitely can’t have been him.’

Thóra was silent for a moment. ‘Was it reported to the police?’

‘No. I couldn’t face getting involved with the police in a foreign country, and nothing would have come of it anyway. What were they supposed to do? Take his fingerprints from my jacket?’

‘Was the hospital satisfied with that?’

‘Yes, they were just relieved to be able to discharge me. Halldór stayed with me overnight and in the morning I got him to lie to them that I was going home that day. I couldn’t be bothered to go back for a check-up either. They’d sorted out my leg and there was nothing more to do but wait until the bones knitted. They swallowed the story and gave him the forms to hand in at home.’

‘Then why have I got the originals? Haven’t you been to see a doctor since you got back?’

‘No.’ Snævar sounded even more sheepish than he had at the beginning of the conversation. Thóra felt like his mother. ‘I keep meaning to go.’

‘You should do it. I’ll photocopy these and return the originals to you. I could have them dropped off at your GP’s surgery if you like.’ But Snævar asked her to give the papers to him and Thóra suspected he would delay the doctor’s appointment as long as possible, probably until it was time to remove the cast. Or perhaps tough guys like him removed it themselves. ‘Tell me another thing: do you have any idea when Loftur and Thráinn arrived in Lisbon?’ Given that there were no direct flights between Iceland and Portugal, it was unlikely there would have been many Icelandic tourists around at that time of year. And it was extremely implausible that Ægir and his family would have attacked a fellow countryman who they didn’t even know.

‘They were supposed to arrive three or four days after us, I think.’

‘When was that?’ Thóra dug out the copy of Snævar’s flight ticket to Lisbon and compared the date with that of his hospital visit. They were three days apart. ‘The day after your accident?’

There was a pause as Snævar apparently searched his memory, then he replied: ‘Yes, I have a feeling it was the day after.’ He paused again. ‘I can’t remember the dates for the life of me. Wait a minute. Yes, they were supposed to arrive on the afternoon of 3rd March. So that was probably the day I broke my leg.’

Thóra checked the date on the hospital admission forms: 3rd March. So it was conceivable that either Thráinn or Loftur might have been involved. She decided to ask Bella to type the hospital report into Google Translate in case the nursing staff had recorded any further details about Snævar’s statement. Since his own memory of the events was hazy in the extreme, they might have more luck in finding out the story there. She thanked him and rang off.

All this was very bad news for her case; there would be no call now to refer to the hospital report or attach it to her summary as she had intended. In fact, she would be better off persuading Snævar to go to his GP and get a signed letter stating that his leg was broken and avoiding all mention of the mysterious Icelander who might have caused his fall. If the insurance company got their hands on the report, they could well use it to concoct an explanation for Ægir and Lára’s disappearance. It would be a simple matter to claim that they had planned it all in advance and that their decision to take the boat home was no coincidence: Ægir must have pushed the man deliberately in order to take his place on board. Highly improbable as it sounded, the theory couldn’t be ruled out entirely. Oh, why was nothing ever simple?

Thóra sat up and stretched. Perhaps there were jobs for lawyers on the oil rig.

A twitching tail was the only sign of life from the cat on the windowsill. She glared out into the garden where the gale was flattening everything in its path. Storms and rain were beneath her dignity; she might have been lashing her tail to show her disgust at the elements for daring to behave in this way.

‘Cats are rubbish.’ Sóley watched the animal, bored. Mother and daughter were lying on the sofa together, Sóley with a library book open on her stomach. ‘They never do anything.’

‘They do lots of things.’ Thóra felt compelled to stand up for their pet. ‘But only what
they
want to do, not what you want.’ She gave Sóley a gentle kick. ‘Don’t be mean to the poor kitty. It’s not her fault the weather’s like this.’ Sóley was supposed to be playing in a football match later that day against a team from Egilsstadir, in the east of Iceland, but their flight had been cancelled. She and her friends had been convinced they were going to thrash the other team, so they were crushed by disappointment. ‘In fact, I’m sure she’s as disappointed as you. She wanted to go exploring but I was afraid she’d be blown out to sea.’

‘I can’t stand the wind either. Why does wind have to exist?’ Sóley seemed to be burdened by all the world’s injustices today.

‘Perhaps it was invented to drive sailing ships in the old days – or windmills,’ Thóra suggested. Sóley rolled her eyes to indicate that these were nothing compared to a match in the junior girls’ fourth division. Thóra sat up and hugged her daughter. ‘Well, it’s lovely to have you here even though you’re in a grump.’ She disengaged and stood up. ‘And don’t you dare dream of applying for a summer job in Norway.’

‘Talking about me?’ Gylfi came in yawning. Sigga had taken Orri to a birthday party at a relative’s house but the youthful father had announced that he had a cold and didn’t want to infect the horde of children. Thóra had bitten back a comment, recalling how Matthew had been driven to distraction by the children’s parties they had held for Orri. She didn’t know which annoyed him most, the noise of the kids or the chattering of the mothers. So she could well understand Gylfi. More to the point, she had recently taken the decision not to interfere in his relationship with Sigga. Although they all lived under the same roof, the young couple had to learn to sort out their own affairs without her constantly acting as referee.

‘No, we weren’t.’ Thóra smiled at him. ‘Norway can come up in conversation without its having anything to do with you.’ She studied him, aware that he was transforming with terrifying speed from the child she had brought into the world. There were still glimpses of the old Gylfi in the young man before her, but the next stage in his development to adulthood would doubtless be even more dramatic, and Thóra realised that if he did go abroad for a year, he’d probably be unrecognisable when he returned. Perhaps that was why she was digging her heels in. She wanted him to grow up, to live his life, take risks. But she didn’t want to miss it, any more than she would want to watch him walk the tightrope without a safety net.