Cage

by Lilja Sigurdardóttir

  The surprise was the wording on the tub: School Yoghurt, in Icelandic. But what was even more of a surprise was that instead of the usual blinding flash and a tray pushed through the door, the man stepped into the cell.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said in plain Icelandic.

  60

  Agla felt like she was putting on her old self as she pulled up her tights and tied a scarf under the neckline of her white silk blouse. The black Versace suit with its pearl-strung pockets maybe wasn’t the least eye-catching outfit, but these were the only trousers that weren’t baggy around her rear end; they had been too tight before she had gone to prison. She would have to replace her wardrobe and eat well. That would be easier now that she could have lunch wherever she saw fit. Dinner would have to be at Vernd, though.

  Make-up done, she packed some cosmetics into a case and put it in with the clean underwear and toothbrush. That was all she was going to take with her to Vernd. She put a grey overcoat on over the suit, even though it was a mild day. It was so long since she had worn a coat that there was a special feeling to it. Although the day had started badly, she was going to make sure to enjoy what she could of it.

  It was a shorter walk than she remembered to the hotel that housed her hair salon, and she was tempted to take another circuit around the block and take more lungfuls of fresh air. But the hairdresser was waiting and she couldn’t be seen walking around town with her hair like this.

  ‘Hello, my darling!’ Thorbjörg exclaimed. Agla was taken aback by her sincerity, as she hugged her close and drew a hand through her hair. ‘We’re going to have to do something about this,’ she said.

  For the next ninety minutes she sat in the chair and listened to one report after another about Thorbjörg’s children, grandchildren, daughters and sons-in-law and friends, without having to answer any questions other than whether or not the food in prison had been acceptable. This was what she had hoped the day would bring – that someone would be pleased to see her. Of course, she had hoped that person would be Elísa, but she decided that it was as well to take what was on offer.

  She inspected herself in the mirror while Thorbjörg put the cash away, and was satisfied with what she saw. Her hair was now an attractive sandy blonde and reached halfway down her neck, no longer lapping at her collar. She was ready to take on the world, dressed as her preferred persona and wearing the armour that hid the weak inner self she had discovered in prison – the opposite of the person she had believed herself to be.

  Maybe it was symbolic of that inner weakness that before she knew it, she was walking over to Bónus with a hazy idea that she would go up to Elísa, smile and ask for the Tesla’s keys. She would act as if nothing had happened, without showing the least sign of disappointment and without reminding her that she had been supposed to collect her that morning.

  Her intentions came to nothing, as Elísa wasn’t at work. The manager looked from Agla to the front page on the newsstand, and back. ‘Agla Margeirsdóttir on Probation at Vernd’, the headline read, below which was an old photo of her slapped on top of a photo of the Vernd building.

  ‘Elísa didn’t turn up for work this morning, and she hasn’t called in sick, so I don’t know what’s happened to her,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I remember now,’ Agla said. ‘She texted me to say she wasn’t well. Flu, or something.’

  ‘OK, I’ll put her down as sick. But if you see her, could you tell her that she needs to call in before ten in the morning to let us know?’

  Agla nodded, as the man’s eyes flickered once again, as if by accident, to the front page of the newspaper. She couldn’t understand why she was lying on Elísa’s behalf. She wasn’t even sure what on earth she was doing looking for her in Bónus.

  Elvar the lawyer got to his feet and came over to her the moment she walked into his office.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he asked, in the concerned tone of voice she had learned to appreciate over the years. ‘The prison said you’d left in a taxi. I could have come to get you.’

  Agla sighed. It would have been so much better if she had asked Elvar to collect her.

  ‘I went home and then had my hair done,’ she said. ‘And now I’d like to get my phone and to hear what’s new.’

  Elvar opened a drawer and took out her phone.

  ‘I’ve charged it up,’ he said. ‘And, forgive me, but I thought the girl who was to take your car was a little … what shall I say? Dubious? So I put a tracker in the car.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A small positioning transponder that connects to an app on your phone. Open the tracker app and you get a map that shows you where the car is. Here’s the spare key.’

  Agla took the key and swallowed down the shame that had tightened her throat. Elvar had seen through Elísa right away, while she had duped herself with rose-tinted dreams of something that didn’t exist in reality.

  To his surprise, she planted a kiss on Elvar’s cheek, and he squeezed her shoulder amiably. This handsome young guy always put her in mind of a tired old man, and she suspected that she and her affairs were sucking all the energy out of him.

  ‘I need you to do some organising for me,’ she said from the doorway. ‘As I’m not able to leave the country, I have to invite a French banker to a meeting here in Iceland. Can you send him an invitation if I send you all the details, and fix up a jaunt in a helicopter or a day’s salmon fishing for the old fellow?’

  Now it was all about aluminium.

  61

  María fought tooth and claw, but the man held her tight in his arms and didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat. She was sure she could hear him sniggering to himself, as if she were a naughty child who didn’t want to go home from play group and had to be carried by Dad out to the car. A naughty child with her head in a bag; a petrified child with her head in a bag and her limbs shivering after being cooped up for days in the dark, in solitary confinement.

  She kicked with her heels, hoping to land a blow to his balls so that he’d drop her and she could pull the bag off her head. But the man held her high so that her kicks connected with nothing but thin air. Steadily losing power, she gave up after a while and lay in his arms like a sack. She heard the creak of a door and the click as it shut behind them. She instantly felt the cold air envelop her. They were outside, and she renewed her efforts to fight back – outside there might be an opportunity to escape, to run and maybe get away from this man and whatever he meant to do to her.

  ‘Here’s the tape,’ she heard the man say, and at the same moment she felt someone grab her feet, tying them tightly together. So either there were two of them or the man had four hands. More than likely they were the same two men who had picked her up at the airport. They had been dressed like police officers and were driving a squad car – but she hadn’t been aware that the police put bags over people’s heads or tied them up with tape. This was all terrifying and impossible to understand; she had the urge to give way to tears and to wail into the bag, but she judged that she should hold herself back. She could hardly draw breath inside the bag, so tears and a blocked nose wouldn’t be much help. She felt the second man wrap tape around her midriff, so now her arms were tight to her sides and she was unable to move at all. She was lifted, felt herself laid on something soft, and then hands were placed on her ankles and her legs folded into place, followed by the familiar click of a car door closing.

  The car’s engine started then it moved off, its movement rocking her around. She was sure she was lying on the back seat. She could hear the indistinct mutter of the men’s voices, but as before, music played. She was certain that it was the same music as before – when it was played far too loud in the car that had taken her from the airport.

  At first the road they took felt smooth, and then the car shook and rattled for a good way, until they were on a proper road again. Finally they made a few tight turns, as if they were taking one roundabout after another.

  She was becoming sleepy now, a
nd was wondering if she was gradually being suffocated in the bag, when the car stopped. She held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest, as she listened for every tiny sound that might indicate what was to befall her. The car doors opened, her legs were straightened out, and she felt herself being pulled, ankles first, then by her legs. Finally she was placed upright. She felt something hard run down her back and heard one of the men speak.

  ‘Cut here.’

  Her legs were freed so that she could move them apart and get her balance. Then she heard footsteps and the sound of two car doors closing, one after the other. Last of all the sound of a car driving away.

  She wriggled and felt her arms coming free. Instinct made her immediately rip the bag from her head, and she gasped down a lungful of cold outdoor air, the sudden daylight dazzling her. At the same time a loud howl of a car sounded from somewhere and she crouched down. It seemed to be driving straight at her at great speed, but then it flashed past her. It was followed by another howl and another, and she realised that she had to be beside a main road. She rubbed her eyes and gradually her sight became clearer, although it hurt to do anything but squint. She ripped the tape from her feet and from around her middle, seeing that the thick wrapping had been sliced through.

  There on the road was her handbag, lying in a puddle as if it had been flung from the car. Her wallet, keys and other small items were scattered around it. She picked up her things and looked about. There were no people around, but there was loud traffic noise somewhere nearby and above her was a concrete bridge or road. She walked from under the bridge, holding a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes.

  Once she was clear of the bridge, her eyes had begun to adjust enough for her to take in her surroundings. She was standing by a little roundabout with slip roads leading to and from it up to the road the traffic noise was coming from. In the other direction there was nothing to be seen but jagged, moss-covered lava that stretched away as far as the eye could see.

  She realised that she had been dumped underneath Reykjanesbraut, the road leading from Keflavík airport to the city.

  62

  Anton had turned the detonator over and over, examining it carefully from every angle, and had come to the conclusion that it was convincing. He sat wearing his head torch in the boiler room, which was gloomy despite the daylight outside, waiting for Gunnar, who was supposed to be going to a builder’s merchant after maths class to buy fuse wire.

  He stretched for the little radio and switched it on, but there was only a fuzz of interference so he had to turn the dial to get Radio Edda. Their broadcasts often seemed to be poor quality, which was why he generally listened to the station online. There was nothing much to listen to now, just a discussion between the presenters about old-fashioned Icelandic cuisine. He had no interest in pickled rams’ testicles or blood sausage. That was the kind of food his father occasionally ate from a plastic tray as his mother scoffed. On this subject he was completely in agreement with her: this so-called ‘traditional’ food was disgusting.

  He heard a gentle knocking at the door and clicked off the radio.

  ‘Hæ,’ Gunnar said, removing his helmet as he came in. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Fine,’ Anton said and pointed at the old toolbox he had taken from the storeroom.

  ‘Hey, where did you get that from?’ Gunnar asked.

  ‘Nicked it from the cellar,’ Anton said. ‘The old man will never notice it’s gone. I didn’t want to use a new box for the bomb, because the fragments could be traced once the police start investigating.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’

  Gunnar sat down on a garden chair. Anton could see that he wasn’t at ease.

  ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Well, just … I was wondering if the police will be able to trace the fuse as well. I just bought it; I must be on every security camera in the fucking place, a big grin on my face.’

  Anton laughed.

  ‘The fuse burns up, you idiot. But the metal from the box will break up and there’ll be splinters everywhere.’

  At any rate, that was what he expected to happen. He had read somewhere that a stronger box would magnify the power of the explosion, which meant a metal box would be better than a cardboard one. He didn’t know what his grandfather’s tool box was made from – probably some rubbish metal like aluminium – but it had to be better than cardboard or plastic.

  ‘Yeah, all right. Of course.’ Gunnar giggled awkwardly. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  That was one of Gunnar’s good points. He took it well when his errors were pointed out to him and wasn’t fussed about having things explained.

  ‘You brought the scales?’ Anton asked, and Gunnar patted his backpack.

  Anton’s mother had thrown their bathroom scales out in a fit of fury and neither he nor his father had seen any reason to replace them. He had no worries about his weight and, anyway, it was mostly girls who thought about that kind of thing. So he hadn’t needed scales until now … when he wanted to weigh the bomb.

  63

  María could smell the stink coming off her body as she opened the door into her hallway. Her clothes reeked of stale sweat. She was so ashamed of the smell, she had had to apologise to the lady who had picked her up on Reykjanesbraut. The woman had asked repeatedly if there was anyone she could call for her or if she should take her to A&E, but María had just shaken her head and said that she needed to get home for a bath.

  Going by the stench that erupted from her as she took off her sweater, there was no doubt she needed one.

  She unzipped her trousers and kicked them off in the hall, along with her socks. She really wanted to throw these clothes away, but they had been her favourite jeans; they had cost more than she would usually spend on clothes. She decided to see if she could live with them once they had been washed.

  She hadn’t even got as far as the bathroom door when she was startled by a cough – the sound of a throat being cleared to let her know that she wasn’t alone in the flat. She instinctively folded her arms over her breasts and slowly turned to see Ingimar Magnússon sitting on her old Ikea sofa with a smile on his face.

  ‘You look like shit,’ he said with what was obviously false concern. ‘It looks like you didn’t get much of a welcome when you came home from your little research trip.’

  ‘Get out of my house,’ María hissed, aware of how powerless she was, standing in her underwear, with a barely suppressed sob in her throat. Things were coming together in her mind, but she had been taken too much by surprise to work it out properly.

  ‘I can understand that someone in your position would call this a home,’ he said, glancing around. ‘But we could do something about that,’ he added.

  María forgot that she was wearing nothing but underwear, her rage overpowering any sense of caution.

  ‘It’s disgusting how people like you and Agla try to arrange everything the way you want it by throwing money at people. It’s as if you think the whole world is for sale.’

  ‘Show me someone who isn’t,’ said Ingimar.

  María felt an overwhelming shame. This little research trip, as Ingimar had described it, had been at Agla’s bidding, so it wasn’t as if she could offer herself as an example.

  ‘Get the fuck out,’ she yelled.

  Ingimar got to his feet and strolled towards the door.

  ‘Interesting that you mention Agla,’ he said.

  María felt her stomach lurch. She was losing track of reality, was desperately tired and her thoughts were whirling through her mind. She knew that she certainly should not have mentioned Agla’s name to Ingimar, but that would hardly matter. Ingimar took her phone from his pocket and placed it on the kitchen table.

  ‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I wiped it clean. Not too many personal memories, I hope.’

  María kept herself in control until the door had shut behind Ingimar. Then she leaped at it, hooking the chain across it in a vain attempt to keep the world
and everything that went with it at bay, including this vile man with his polished shoes.

  She just managed to drop to the floor by the toilet before she vomited, and once she had finished retching, she hung onto the seat and wept into the bowl. Not only had the bastard had her abducted and held against her will for days on end, then broken into her flat and offered to bribe her, he had also wiped from her phone all the pictures she had left of Maggi.

  64

  The tracker showed her precisely where the car was: it was parked outside a shabby detached house in Fossvogur. This was one of the white, neo-modern houses built at the tail end of the twentieth century that had at one time meant money. But now the paint was flaking off and the garden had turned into a wasteland.

  She could hear music blaring from the house as she stepped out of the taxi. She stood still on the street for a moment, wondering whether to just take the car or to knock on the door and ask for Elísa. Maybe she should let her know she was taking the car; and she could also ask why she hadn’t come to fetch her that morning.

  ‘Are you looking for your daughter as well?’ asked a middle-aged woman, walking away from the house, leading a dead drunk teenage girl by the arm.

  ‘Yes and no. Not my daughter. But I’m looking for a girl called Elísa,’ Agla said.

  ‘There are more girls in there,’ the woman said. ‘She’ll be with the rest of his harem, no doubt.’

  The girl seemed ready to pass out so Agla took her other arm and helped the woman walk her over to a red jeep parked on the pavement.

  ‘His “harem”?’

  ‘That bastard in there: the filthy lawyer who preys on junkie girls. It’s like the arsehole hangs around for them as they come out of treatment to get them back on the drugs again. Do you want me to come in with you to find your daughter?’