short time ago but had asked her to call back later, since he was driving. For some reason the sound of his voice made her feel rather sad; perhaps it was homesickness, perhaps it was seeing the lives of her children continue as if nothing had happened even though she was nowhere near them. But probably the main reason was that she felt death all around her in this place, pressing upon her as if it meant to trap her in a corner and then consume her. Now finally it had made its presence known when she discovered that the bones in the office building must be those of Usinna, the daughter of the strange hunter. It was too preposterous an idea that another woman had been buried with her necklace in precisely the same location where this young and apparently talented girl had her final resting place. However, this didn’t fit with the information that they had gathered in the village. She was supposed to have wandered to the notorious area and disappeared, not been buried. This didn’t necessarily mean she’d been murdered, but it was clear that someone had at least found her dead – if not worse. It was hard to tell who that might have been, or why that same person kept it secret – or whether the missing Icelanders rested in similar graves in the same area.
‘Gylfi! Hi, it’s Mum.’ Her words echoed down the phone. ‘Are you at home now?’ Her heart glowed as she pictured her offspring, Gylfi – with little Orri in his arms – and Soley.
‘Yes. Listen, I was thinking…’ Not a word about when she was coming home or how the trip had gone. ‘Sigga and I are thinking about going to Spain this summer and a brochure from a travel agency came with
‘Lend you money for a trip to Spain?’ Thora was slightly bewildered. She connected Spain with sun cream, bikinis and beer, and nothing was further from her right now.
‘Yes, it’s not expensive at all or anything. If you pay right away you get a discount too.’ Gylfi paused expectantly.
‘But what about work? How do you plan on finding a job if you’re just going to leave straight away? Usually, temps have to be found to cover employees who go off on holiday, to Spain or anywhere else. Have you not thought about that at all?’
‘Maybe it was like that when you were young. No one expects people just to stay in Iceland in the summer any more.’ Thora tried to look on the bright side. He hadn’t said
‘Can we talk about this when I get home?’ Thora stared at herself in the large mirror embedded in the surface of the bar. In the second that passed between seeing this person and realizing who it was, she discovered how other people saw her. A blonde, attractive but worried-looking woman who should frown less and try to dress more appropriately. Her bright, low-cut silk blouse didn’t belong here.
‘Yeah, but this offer is only valid for a few days. And the best trips will probably sell out immediately.’ Gylfi didn’t explain which trips those were and what distinguished a good trip to Spain from a bad one.
‘Let me think about it, then we’ll take a look when I come home.’ Thora heard the front door of the hotel open on the floor below. She could easily have craned her neck over the edge of the landing to see who had come in, but she didn’t feel like it. If they had to stay here much longer, she would definitely start taking a keen interest in people’s comings and goings, but things hadn’t got that bad yet. ‘You need to think about Orri, too. I doubt he’d enjoy that kind of trip, sweetheart. He’s far too little.’ She added silently to herself:
‘Ah, but we’re not going to take him with us,’ said Gylfi proudly, convinced that he’d trumped her. ‘He’ll be staying with you. Just the two of us will go.’
Thora opened her mouth to speak but closed it again immediately. Up the stairs towards her was walking the Greenlandic police officer who’d questioned her at the work site. ‘Gylfi, I’ll have to call you a bit later, when I know when I’ll be home.’ She hung up and stood up from her high bar stool. The man looked anything but pleased as he came towards her and greeted her with a terse nod.
‘Will you please gather your group and ask them to pack their things?’ Thora was filled with an unreal hope that they were about to be sent home. ‘You need to come back with us to Kaanneq.’
It had been good to have something to think about other than suffocating darkness, isolation and the lack of a shower, but now those thoughts reappeared in a flash. Thora looked at her loose three-quarter-length sleeves. If this blouse was inappropriate here at the hotel, it would be completely ridiculous at the camp. ‘Can I get changed first?’
Chapter 29
‘I can’t be here. I have to get home.’ Just as she had before, Fri?rikka was staring out of the meeting room window and mumbling to herself. The atmosphere in the group was tense and anxious. Outside it was dead calm, but worse weather was forecast. The pure white snow glittered in the gentle daylight, but as darkness began to descend the landscape displayed its true face: here the struggle for life was hard; the strongest survived and the weak were shown no mercy. ‘They can’t send me wherever they want. I’m an Icelander and I must be allowed to go home.’
Eyjolfur was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He was chewing gum energetically – apart from that one might have thought he was sleeping. Having to return to the work camp seemed to have hit him and Fri?rikka the worst. The others hadn’t exactly celebrated, but had accepted the news silently and had uncomplainingly packed up to leave. It’s not like they’d had a choice. The police had informed them that a travel ban could be slapped on them at short notice if they looked likely to try to leave or to get a plane to come and pick them up. They would have the court order in their hands before any flight from Iceland could even touch down. The only sensible thing to do was comply with the police and try as best they could to answer the questions put to them. Thora had spoken briefly to the group and emphasized that the most important thing to remember was that they had nothing to hide; they hadn’t been at the site when Usinna vanished or when her bones were found, nor had they been there when the drillers had disappeared. It would work in all their favours if Oddny Hildur’s fate were explained as soon as possible, and in that respect the police investigation was their best hope. They would simply have to accept this as a temporary inconvenience. When it was over they could go home proud that they had done all they could to try to determine the fate of these four individuals. Thora’s speech was received as most speeches are: it convinced those who were in agreement already, but did little to inspire Eyjolfur and Fri?rikka. Both of them were unhappy about having to go back out into the wilderness, he because he allegedly had other duties to attend to, and she because her nerves appeared unable to endure any more.
‘I’m not entirely sure what we’re doing here.’ Alvar wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. It was hot and stuffy in the meeting room and their attempts to turn down the radiator had produced no results. Outside it seemed to have warmed up a little, despite the poor forecast, but it seemed to take the building as long to adapt to rises in temperature as it did to drops. ‘I could help with the search if they want. It’d give me something to do.’ They had watched some of the men set out into the snow; they were wearing thick winter coveralls and had two dogs on leads. They were too far away for anyone to see who they were, but it was clear the group had expanded since the first three had arrived.
‘I doubt they care about receiving any direct assistance from us. They just want to talk to us,’ said Thora. ‘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 Petursson, 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 Thora 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. Thora gave them Petursson’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
