The Silence of the Sea (43 page)

‘We don’t want to stay here alone.’ Bylgja looked at her sister in hope of support. ‘What are we to do if someone comes in while you’re away?’

‘No one’s going to come in. You’ll lock the door behind me.’

‘But what if he pretends to be you?’

‘No one can pretend to be me. You know my voice.’ Reluctantly, they accepted this, though it was obvious from their expressions that it was the last thing they wanted. They needed him. He was their father. But it couldn’t be helped; he couldn’t take them with him when God alone knew what awaited him upstairs. ‘Perhaps you should hide in the wardrobe just to be on the safe side. If anyone looks in here, they’ll think you went with me and go away again.’

‘But then we won’t hear you when you knock.’

‘I’ll knock extra loud.’ He put his ear to the door again and listened intently. Still no sound. ‘And I’ll be very quick.’ He meant to seize the door-handle and leap into action before he lost his nerve but was filled with a powerful longing to kiss his daughters one last time before he abandoned them. Their cheeks were soft and warm and the scent of their young skin was the best thing he had ever smelt. What had he been dreaming of to think they needed more money for their life to be perfect? You couldn’t improve what was already perfect; you could only ruin it. His eyes fell on the briefcase that was still leaning against the wall where he had left it and he wanted to scream until his vocal cords gave way. Instead, he looked sadly at his daughters, so lost, so desperately fragile and vulnerable. ‘Hide in the wardrobe and wait there until I knock. I’ll call out my name so you won’t be confused.’ He gave them each a lingering kiss on the brow.

The corridor was deserted and Ægir met no one on his way up to the bridge. Every muscle, every nerve and sinew was tense, ready to confront the murderer, whether it was Halli or a stranger. Of course he hoped it wouldn’t happen, yet part of him desired nothing more than to find the man and beat him to a pulp. Although he’d never had any real experience of fighting, he was fairly sure he would succeed. No matter what was driving the other man, Ægir had hatred on his side. The sight of his face reflected in the pilot house window brought him to a standstill; rage had contorted his features. He hoped with all his heart that he hadn’t looked like that when he said goodbye to the girls; if anything happened to him, he didn’t want that to be their last memory of him.

Inside the bridge there was no one to be seen; all the lights were off but the glow from the computer screens and instrument panels provided enough illumination to preclude anyone hiding there. Nevertheless, it was with extreme caution that Ægir opened the door and went in. Closing it behind him, he headed straight for the GPS. According to this, the yacht was still worryingly far from land. Because the engine had been turned off, the data about their course, which had previously been displayed at the bottom of the screen, had now vanished. As a result, there was no information about how long it would take to reach their destination. But he didn’t really need it; he guessed they had approximately ten hours’ sailing time left, but every hour the yacht remained motionless was another hour at sea. Perhaps he should start her up again? He and the girls couldn’t abandon ship in these waters and he suspected they wouldn’t be allowed to remain undisturbed in their cabin for the rest of the voyage. On the other hand, if he started the engine, the killer would be aware of his presence and might take steps to deal with him. Ægir was terrified that the killer would head straight for the girls and get to them first. That was unthinkable.

Abandoning the console, he began to hunt for flares. If he did try to start the engine again, he would do it last, before racing back down to the girls. He soon unearthed the flares in a white cardboard box in a drawer; he would just have to hope they were in working order. But the axe had vanished from its place on the wall and the realisation reduced him momentarily to panic. Then, pulling himself together, he went back to the drawers and began searching for a possible weapon. Finding a suitably heavy spanner, he took it with him, though it wouldn’t be much use against an axe. The weighty metal bar felt so good in his hand that he actively looked forward to having a chance to use it. He wouldn’t hold back. He tightened his grip and resolved to go out on deck and check that the lifeboats were still in place. If he had time, he would work out how to launch them – should they be forced to escape in one, he would have to act fast and there would be no room for mistakes. Once he had done this he would return to the bridge and try to get the yacht back on course. Then he would fly back to the girls as if the devil were at his heels.

A bracing gust of sea air hit him as he emerged on deck. Oddly, it carried not the tang of salt but a waft of perfume, and Ægir paused inadvertently to sniff the air in the hope of detecting its source. The yacht was facing into the wind and he peered warily round the corner of the pilot house towards the bows to discover whether the smell emanated from there. The lights had been switched off on the foredeck, yet he could see enough to tell that there was nobody about. The perfume was unquestionably coming from there. Instinct warned him to leave well alone but his curiosity proved stronger. It was a woman’s scent; no man would wear such a heavy, sweet floral fragrance. And if it was a woman, two things were clear; one, that there was a stowaway on board and, two, that he would almost certainly prove the stronger should it come to a fight. If he tracked her down and overpowered her, they would be able to sail fearlessly to port, instead of having to risk their lives in a flimsy life raft.

Creeping stealthily round the pilot house, Ægir tried to follow the scent. But before he had gone far he was met by a sight that caused his heart to miss a beat. Two legs were protruding from under the white bench that ran around the bows. Instantly he recognised the shoes that Halli had been wearing throughout the voyage. And he could not be asleep, that much was certain. His legs were lying at such an unnatural angle that they must be broken. Forgetting all caution, Ægir sprang towards the bench and bent down for a better view. The stench of perfume was so sickening that he would never be able to smell it again as long as he lived without retching. It got worse when he tugged at one cold limb and realised that it had been severed from the body. When he finally forced himself to look, he discovered that the rest of Halli’s corpse was nowhere to be seen. He snatched back his hand and leapt to his feet. He was not safe here, whether the killer was male or female. This person was clearly insane.

All thoughts of starting the engines again evaporated as he ran for the stairs that would take him back to the twins. He wanted to scream out their names, to tell them to be careful, that Daddy was coming. But he was silent, saving his breath for the sprint. Even as he opened the door he realised he needn’t have bothered. He would never reach his daughters now. That thought was almost more agonising than the axe that sank into his belly. It was dragged out and driven in again, under his chest. As his muscles ceased to obey him he dropped the flares and spanner, which fell with a series of thuds onto the steel deck. His last rational thought was not of the pain or his daughters, now left on their own. Rather, it was puzzlement as to how on earth this could be happening. Perhaps, after all, the dead could rise from the grave?

‘So you knew nothing about this? Your friend Halldór didn’t say a word about meeting Karítas in Lisbon?’ Thóra had to raise her voice to be heard over the music that was blasting from the sound system behind her. She didn’t know the band and had no wish to become any more closely acquainted with them. The bass was turned up so high that her body seemed to throb with it and she was almost afraid her heart would start beating in time to the insistent drumming.

As soon as she and Bella left Karítas and her mother, she had rung Snævar and asked to meet him. She had taken care to reveal nothing about their errand, merely hinting that she wanted his opinion on a few small things. He had agreed and suggested she come round to his place as his leg was particularly bad that day, which made it hard to leave the house. If she wanted to see him at her office, it would have to wait until tomorrow. Thóra felt it was too urgent for that, so she and Bella drove straight from Arnarnes up to the suburb of Grafarvogur where Snævar lived in a long block of flats that could have done with some exterior maintenance.

Inside, Snævar’s flat was little better. Thóra hoped for his sake that the squalor could be blamed on his broken leg. As it was, he was lucky not to have tripped over the piles of rubbish that littered the floor and broken the other one. He apologised casually for the mess. It was obvious that he was glad of the company; perhaps it was a sign of his loneliness that he should be willing to receive guests in the midst of all this noise and chaos. But his pleasure visibly faded when Thóra accused him of having held back information. ‘Though to tell the truth, I find the whole thing rather far-fetched,’ she added. ‘And I’m fairly sure the police will too.’

Snævar stared blindly into an empty mug with a congealing ring of coffee froth around the inside. ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone. I was so afraid people would suspect Halli. None of you knew him so you’re bound to believe the worst of him. Even if he did speak to her, he didn’t do anything. I can’t and won’t believe it.’

‘You obviously don’t have much faith in the police.’ Thóra pushed a robot vacuum cleaner away with her foot in order to make more legroom. The poor thing had obviously run out of power and been prevented from reaching its recharging point by the obstacle course on the floor. ‘You can trust them to find out the truth.’

‘How can they, when there’s no one left to tell the tale? Surely you must see that?’ Snævar shoved an embroidered cushion behind his back for support. It looked like an heirloom from his grandmother’s house. ‘Anyway, nothing happened. I broke my leg and Halli had his hands full coping with me and preparing the yacht for departure. There’s no way he would have had time to help Karítas, so I didn’t think it was relevant.’

‘It’s not up to you to decide what is or isn’t relevant. Not as far as the police are concerned, at any rate. But you don’t have to answer
my
questions unless you want to.’

‘I do want to.’ Snævar seemed agonised by this turn of events and kept glancing from Thóra to Bella in the hope of eliciting sympathy. ‘I can’t begin to describe how much I regret not having mentioned it before.’

‘You didn’t mention it now either.’ Far from being irritated by all the mess with which she was sharing her chair, Bella seemed extraordinarily at ease. ‘You’d have kept quiet about it if Karítas hadn’t said anything.’

‘Look, surely you can understand? Once you start telling lies or leaving things out, it’s difficult to stop. And I can’t see how it changes anything.’

‘Would you please just tell me what happened?’ Thóra had lost patience with his excuses. ‘The police are interviewing Karítas as we speak and I expect they’ll come on here straight afterwards. Then you’ll have to talk, so why not tell us first?’

Snævar turned pale and the dark shadows under his eyes became even more marked. ‘Of course I’ll talk to them but there’s no harm in telling you as well. It would be better to hear your questions before I meet them.’

‘You mean you want to practise your story on me?’

‘No. I didn’t mean that.’ He seemed wounded by this but continued nonetheless. ‘Karítas was in Lisbon all right, but there’s no way Halli knew that beforehand or that she went there because of him. He ran into her completely by chance.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Yes.’ The colour was slowly returning to his cheeks. ‘It was on our first evening. We went on a pub crawl and she was sitting in one of the smarter, more expensive bars. We’d have walked out again if Halli hadn’t spotted her and wanted to say hello. I didn’t mind; we weren’t having any luck pulling girls and I thought we might be more popular if we were seen in the company of a classy bird like her. She was friendly too. Very friendly. She seemed over the moon to see Halli again; she remembered him well.’

‘Did she know what had brought you to Lisbon?’

‘Yes, Halli told her before we sat down. I remember because I thought she’d be pissed off to be reminded of her husband’s bankruptcy but not a bit of it. She didn’t seem bothered. She just thought it was a funny coincidence.’

‘So when did she bring up her request and what exactly did she say?’

‘We’d just got our drinks, so it must have been pretty soon. She asked Halli if he could do her a little favour and he reckoned it shouldn’t be a problem.’ Snævar paused, as if searching his memory, then carried on: ‘She said she needed to get into the yacht to fetch some stuff and wanted to borrow the keys.’

‘So you lent them to her?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

‘Really?’ Bella exclaimed, earning a sharp look from Thóra, though she tried not to let Snævar see. She didn’t want him to find out straight away that his story was inconsistent with Karítas’s admittedly rather vague account. People were often caught out by the small flaws in their statements.

‘Yes, as far as I recall. Though I could be wrong.’ He gave Bella a questioning look. ‘Why, did she claim she never got them?’

‘She didn’t mention it,’ Thóra intervened hastily. ‘We were discussing the matter from a different angle. Let’s just assume that you’re right.’

Snævar seemed confused for a moment. ‘Well, we sat there for a bit, then we left. She took our phone numbers and said she’d be in touch the following day. Halli told her she’d have to go on board before the captain and the fourth crew member turned up. Loftur, I mean.’ He hesitated but when neither Bella nor Thóra commented, he went on: ‘Then nothing happened except that she rang next day and spoke to Halli, though I don’t know exactly what she said. All he told me was that they’d arranged to meet up the following day. I broke my leg that same evening, so I don’t think they can have done. Halli was busy helping me all the time that he wasn’t carrying out preparations on the yacht. Thanks to me, he had to manage all that on his own. He wouldn’t have had time to run around for Karítas, that’s for sure.’