‘No, hardly. We have to speak to him. It seems to me that if he tells us what could get him to return to work, it would be child’s play to persuade the other workers to do the same.’
Chapter 26
Fri?rikka and Eyjolfur watched the video without a word until the very end, when the figure appeared outside the window. ‘What was that?’ said Eyjolfur.
‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ said Thora. They were all grouped together in front of the computer. Alvar and Bella were standing at the back but tried to peek over the others’ shoulders. ‘Haven’t you seen the video before? It looks as if it was made the day that Oddny Hildur disappeared.’
‘I vaguely remember it but I don’t think I watched it all the way to the end.’ Eyjolfur rubbed his forehead as if to reactivate his memory. ‘If I remember correctly this came in an e-mail from either Bjarki or Dori, but it was sent just before supper so I didn’t open it until the next day. There was so much going on because of Oddny Hildur’s disappearance that I only looked at it for a second. At least, if I did watch the whole video I didn’t notice that thing in the window. And I didn’t feel inclined to watch the clip on their blog because I don’t look at every single post.’
‘How about you?’ Matthew turned to Fri?rikka. ‘Do you recognize this?’
‘No. Like Eyjolfur said, I had other things to think about when I got the e-mail. And I didn’t even open it when I saw it was just more of their nonsense. They were always putting up some rubbish or other and I was in no mood for their childish humour. I certainly remember receiving the e-mail, because it struck me how inappropriate their jokes could be at times.’
‘Well, obviously they didn’t know what was around the corner when they sent this out,’ said Eyjolfur sharply. ‘It would have been different if they had sent it out the next day, when we’d discovered that Oddny Hildur was gone.’
Thora interrupted in order to prevent yet another argument between Eyjolfur and Fri?rikka. ‘But do you have any idea of what this is in the window? Is it one of you who worked there, or an outsider?’ She added quickly: ‘What I mean is, do you remember the video being discussed the day after it was sent; maybe someone mentioned having taken part in the joke?’
They both shook their heads. ‘We didn’t talk about it,’ said Fri?rikka, ‘and I sincerely doubt that any others were in on it. It was always just the two of them.’
Eyjolfur seemed put out that Fri?rikka was doing the talking. ‘None of us was at the window and the smokers’ room was a long way from any paths. You’d only be approaching that window if you specifically wanted to look in, for some reason. Actually, you can’t see the person very clearly but I would be very surprised if it was one of us. We appreciated the heat indoors too much to be messing around outside in the cold. Also, it looks as if this person has something weird on his head and covering his face and that doesn’t fit either. I mean, why would any of us do that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe to scare the men?’ Thora rewound the video slightly and stopped it at the point where the figure had gone and the streak was left behind on the windowpane. ‘Do you remember maybe seeing this streak on the window?’
Both Fri?rikka and Eyjolfur moved closer. ‘No, not when Oddny Hildur disappeared.’ Eyjolfur straightened up. ‘Bjarki said he’d found dried blood on the window, but that was a bit later. Of course we would have wanted to take a look at it if it had been connected with her disappearance. He noticed it when he went into the room to smoke and thought it had been made by a bird that had flown into the window. He was asking us whether we’d heard some sort of thud. I can’t remember exactly when that happened but it wasn’t while we were searching. That was when we spent the least amount of time in the office building.’
‘So that streak could well be the same one that appeared in the video,’ said Matthew. ‘If you weren’t in the office building much, the smokers’ room would have been empty. And if the window is far from the paths between the buildings, as you were saying, then the streak couldn’t have been seen except from inside.’
Fri?rikka paled. ‘Do you think that it’s blood from Oddny Hildur?’
‘Hardly, if the e-mail was sent before supper. Wasn’t she with you at supper?’ As far as Thora could recall, Oddny Hildur had last been observed when she ate with the others. After that she’d either gone to her apartment or over to the office building and never been seen again.
‘Yes, but I couldn’t say whether the e-mail had come by then. It could just as well have gone out later in the evening. Sometimes people went over to the office building to work or surf the Internet in the evenings.’ Eyjolfur sat down at the computer and brought up some information about the video, including when it was created. ‘If you want, I can ask someone at my company to look at this and check whether the image can be sharpened. Then maybe we can see better what it is.’
‘Who would do that? We don’t really want to draw attention to this,’ said Matthew.
‘We’ve got dozens of programmers working for us and they’re not in the habit of running to the media with the work assigned to them.’ Eyjolfur shrugged. ‘It was just an idea; it would cost something, naturally, and it’s not one hundred per cent certain that it would work.’
Thora looked at Matthew. ‘Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?’ Matthew agreed.
‘No problem, I’ll get someone on it tomorrow.’ Eyjolfur turned back to the screen and the information that he’d brought up about the video. ‘It was indeed made the day that Oddny Hildur disappeared, but before supper.’ He closed the window on the screen. ‘So this couldn’t be her blood unless someone was able to change the settings on the video camera to make it look as if it were an older file.’
‘That sounds like a stretch.’ Thora couldn’t see why anyone would bother. It wasn’t as if this was spectacular evidence and if the intention was to cover up a foul deed it would be peculiar to smear the woman’s blood on the window.
‘What about the blood? Was it from a bird?’ Fri?rikka was becoming more and more agitated. ‘And if not from a bird, then from whom? That’s no bird in the video. Maybe this person killed someone else. A villager or something, and then ambushed Oddny Hildur.’
‘We shouldn’t let our imaginations run away with us,’ Matthew said soothingly to her. ‘What we’ve seen is entirely unclear and there’s no reason for us to imagine the worst. It’s still most likely that Oddny Hildur got lost and that this clip has nothing to do with her disappearance. The natural environment at the work camp poses considerably more danger than anyone living there. By which I mean both you and the locals.’
‘I’ve always said that they were involved in this somehow. This is definitely one of them.’ Fri?rikka pointed to the screen and her finger trembled. ‘What do we know of the strange reasons they might have for smearing blood everywhere? It could be anything. Maybe even a sacrifice, or something.’
‘The Inuits don’t offer sacrifices. In these kinds of cultures and communities people can’t afford to waste food or anything else on such nonsense.’ Alvar swayed slightly as he stood next to Bella, causing him to bump into her shoulder. She shoved him back irritably, making him rock on his feet even more. ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with sacrifices.’
Matthew cleared his throat. ‘How about you all go back to the bar and we postpone this discussion until tomorrow. We won’t come to any conclusions now and there’s no need for us to lose ourselves completely in speculation that has no basis in reality.’
‘You can refuse to discuss this as much as you want.’ Fri?rikka was the only one who seemed to be completely sober, apart from Matthew. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that until Oddny Hildur is discovered and an explanation found for what happened to her, I will continue to express my opinions. You can’t forbid me from doing so.’ She looked as if she were going to storm off.
‘How is it,’ asked Thora, who had had enough of her fellow travellers, ‘that on the blog we saw another video that appears to have been created only to make fun of Arnar? Was Oddny Hildur really the only one who stuck up for him? Did the rest of you find that kind of behaviour acceptable?’
‘No, of course not.’ Eyjolfur looked into her eyes. ‘I wasn’t there much, otherwise I might have done something. At least, I think I would.’
