The Silence of the Sea

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  This did little to raise Thóra’s morale. Looking round, she saw Bella picking her way gingerly across the deck towards them. ‘Did he happen to mention any theories about this incident?’

  The key seemed to have jammed in the lock and the young man jiggled it to and fro until finally it turned. ‘No, and I didn’t like to ask. But the opinion going round the office is that they must have freaked out – thought the boat was sinking and flung themselves overboard, thinking it was their only hope. But nobody can imagine what would have made them crack up like that. Sunstroke, maybe.’

  ‘Is that plausible?’ Thóra peered around. ‘I doubt people would jump into the sea if there were lifeboats available.’ She couldn’t see them anywhere, though they should still be in place according to the report Fannar had sent that morning. ‘Have they been removed?’

  ‘No, they’re still here. See the container that looks like a barrel lying on its side?’ Thóra followed his finger and nodded. ‘The life raft’s inside that. There are four of them. One on each side, this one, and then one in the bows. They haven’t been touched, as far as I know. Maybe they panicked and couldn’t work out how to launch them. It seems a bit odd, to say the least, that the yacht should have been deliberately designed to disguise the life-saving equipment. I suppose it didn’t go with the décor. And perhaps the passengers didn’t take the time to study the safety procedures before they left port.’

  Thóra turned to Bella. ‘Take some pictures of that barrel, would you? There are three more that you’ll find if you do a circuit of the ship. And photograph the instructions that should be displayed near them, and any lifebelts, that kind of thing.’ The presence of the life rafts on board was the clearest indication that something extraordinary must have happened. Thóra tried to envisage the kind of circumstances that would force her to abandon ship with her children in the knowledge that another child was waiting at home. Her own daughter, Sóley, was a similar age to the twin sisters who had in all likelihood perished with their parents. Her son, Gylfi, was almost twenty but still a child in her eyes, for all that he was a father himself.

  She tried to picture herself seizing the two of them by the shoulders, forcing them to the side and urging them to throw themselves into the icy waves with her. No, it didn’t make sense. You didn’t need much knowledge of the sea to realise that there would be little hope of survival. And she doubted sunstroke would make that much difference.

  ‘Come inside. That’s where things really get spectacular.’ Anyone would have thought Fannar was trying to sell her the yacht. ‘Check this out. Smarter than any hotel, don’t you think?’

  Thóra nodded distractedly. Rather than being impressed she was struck by the stale air inside, mingled, she thought, with a faint trace of perfume. ‘Is there a funny smell in here?’

  Fannar sniffed. ‘Hm, you may be right. Like soap or something. Maybe they’ve been cleaning in here, though I can’t think who would have arranged that without my knowledge.’ His nostrils flared as he inhaled. ‘Nope, it’s gone. But don’t take any notice of me; I haven’t got much sense of smell.’ He was right; the scent was no longer there.

  While she recognised that the interior was extremely stylish and finely crafted, Thóra’s attention was mainly drawn to the signs of human occupancy. An open paperback lying face down on the table beside an armchair upholstered in black leather; a DVD case and some magazines on a coffee table towards the back of the room. Beside them were a wine glass and an open bottle that had rolled over. The dried-up spillage had stained the glass table-top pink. Items of clothing lay in a heap on a chair, presumably placed there by the police during their search. ‘Can I touch this? Are the police coming back to conduct any further examinations?’ No sooner had she spoken than she noticed the white fingerprint powder coating the surfaces.

  ‘No, they’re not coming back; they spent almost an entire day here. You can poke around wherever you like. At least, nobody warned me not to touch anything. It’s not as if it’s a murder scene. I gather they’re treating it as an accident. Or at most, a missing-persons case.’

  The boat kept up a continual gentle movement and Thóra noticed the wine bottle rocking slightly without moving from its place. From the description of the yacht’s collision with the docks one would have expected the bottle to have rolled off the table onto the floor. The police must have replaced it there during their inspection. ‘Wasn’t everything sent flying when the yacht crashed into the jetty?’ Two paintings, one of which looked like it might be of Karítas, hung askew on the walls.

  ‘Yes, it certainly was. There was stuff littered all over the place. I saw the pictures taken at the beginning of the investigation and it was a real mess in here.’ Looking round, he added: ‘Actually, the yacht’s furnishings are designed to resist fairly heavy seas before they start falling over or being knocked off the walls, but it’s a different story with the passengers’ own belongings.’

  Thóra ran her gaze around the room. ‘What happened to the pictures that used to hang here?’ The dark wood panelling on two sides bore traces of missing frames. ‘Might they have fallen off and not been replaced?’

  ‘No, the former owner took them down and had them valued when his money troubles began. The yacht was on the market with all her contents, but this was at the height of the crash and even the people who could afford expensive toys like this weren’t in the mood for buying. It didn’t help that the boat was mortgaged to the hilt and the bank hadn’t agreed to a sales price. The loan didn’t cover the pictures, though, so the guy was free to sell them and I gather they went for a small fortune. Apparently they included some serious art. But the sale didn’t raise enough cash, so towards the end he must have sold off paintings from his other homes too. It’s unbelievable how quickly even a vast fortune like that can vanish into thin air. Must be a traumatic experience.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Thóra may have lacked the imagination to visualise the lives of the super-rich but she had no trouble guessing what it would feel like to lose a fortune. It was easy to grow accustomed to money; quite another matter to lower your standard of living. One didn’t have to be rich to know that.

  ‘I took the pictures you wanted.’ Bella reappeared, her cheeks ruddy. She glanced round, evidently unimpressed. ‘God, this is tacky. I thought this boat was meant to be classy.’ She examined the portrait of Karítas. ‘Look at that bimbo. I went to school with her, she was a total moron.’

  Thóra couldn’t suppress a grin when she saw the indignant expression on Fannar’s face. But experience had taught her that it wouldn’t pay to allow Bella to make any further comments; she had a tendency to be foul-mouthed, especially when least appropriate, and Fannar didn’t seem the type to appreciate it. ‘Where are the guest quarters? Should we maybe look at them next? Bella, could you take some pictures in here, including the belongings left behind by the passengers?’

  Thóra and Fannar descended below decks to the cabin area. As he had pointed out, the bedrooms were more lavishly appointed than in any hotel, at least the type of place Thóra frequented. According to him there were four luxury staterooms, as well as five cabins for the crew and chambermaid, and another adjoining the engine room for the engineer. There had been no maid along on this trip, since it wasn’t a conventional cruise, so her cabin hadn’t been used. However, two of the staff cabins did show signs of occupancy, and Fannar told her the engineer’s quarters had also been slept in. Two of the guestrooms had clearly been used, while the other two had not been touched. Fannar confirmed that the married couple had occupied the master suite; not that Thóra had really needed to ask, since the clothes overflowing from the suitcase on the floor could only have belonged to Lára.

  Two identical colouring books and a jumble of wax crayons littered the unmade bed. Picking up the books, Thóra flicked rapidly through them. The girls had managed to colour in a fair amount. The first page of each was labelled with their names, Arna in one, Bylgja in the other, and both girls had taken a great d
eal of trouble over this mark of ownership. From what Thóra could tell, they had each begun with the first picture and progressed in order through the book, and both had finished twelve and embarked on the thirteenth. When the books were compared, it transpired that all the pictures had been coloured in almost exactly the same. The thirteenth stood out as neither girl had had time to complete it. It showed a jolly elephant balancing a large ball on his extended trunk, his childish appearance in shocking contrast to the unknown fate of the little girls who had begun to bring him so vividly to life. They had each coloured in the ball and half the cloth on the elephant’s back.

  In one place Bylgja had drawn something in the margin, perhaps while waiting for her sister to catch up. Thóra had trouble working out what the girl had intended to depict; she seemed to have drawn a ring around a long-haired woman with a gaping mouth and sprawling limbs. The lines were black but the woman’s dress was green and she was surrounded by blue. Giving free rein to her imagination, Thóra saw it as a person falling, viewed through a lifebelt. But no doubt she would have interpreted it quite differently if she had come across the book in other circumstances. Closing it, she laid it back on the bed with the other one.

  The door of one of the closets stood open, revealing a densely packed row of dresses. Thóra couldn’t resist a closer look, although the clothes could hardly have belonged to Lára. They were all designer pieces that probably cost more per garment than Thóra’s entire wardrobe. She thought about all the hassle involved in owning clothes like that; the endless trips to the dry cleaner and constant fear of damaging the expensive fabrics. Indeed, she noticed some stains on the skirt of one of the dresses; clearly even these exclusive garments were not immune to accidents. She thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to lug around a suitcase full of designer gear, however much she enjoyed looking at it.

  Something shiny caught her eye in the murky depths of the closet. Thóra removed a long dress from its hanger and saw that a pair of glasses was tangled in the fringe on the hem and hung from the skirt like an abstract ornament. The lenses appeared intact, but the glasses looked rather small to have been worn by the boat’s former mistress. ‘Do you know who these belonged to?’ She held up the dress to show Fannar her discovery.

  He shook his head. ‘Not a clue. Maybe Karítas wore reading glasses.’

  ‘They don’t seem quite her style.’ Thóra inspected the small red frames. She thought she had better return the dress to its place and leave the glasses where they were. They couldn’t be very important: people didn’t jump ship en masse on account of a lost pair of glasses. They had probably been dangling there long before the missing family even came on board. She shut the wardrobe door and continued her exploration.

  Again she came across an empty wine bottle, this time lying on the floor beside the bed. It appeared that someone had been drinking during the trip. Apart from that, the contents of the bedroom were very ordinary, at least those that belonged to the missing couple. The interior design was another matter, as imposing and ostentatious as the rest of the ship’s furnishings. The dark, polished mahogany gleamed in the glow of the spotlights recessed into the ceiling.

  The en-suite bathroom was in chaos, with cosmetics, towels, bathrobes and bars of soap scattered all over the place, presumably as a result of the collision. She made do with peering inside but saw no point in picking her way through the mess just to admire the bathroom suite and mixer taps. The cabin told her nothing except that the couple had been comfortably accommodated on board, at least for most of the time. Personally, however, she wouldn’t have chosen to sleep in the bedroom of a woman she knew, if only by repute. It felt uncomfortable, especially when the closets were still full of her clothes and there was a box on the pretty dressing table that could only have belonged to her. Ordinary people like Ægir and Lára did not carry heavy, elegant jewellery cases with them on holiday. But when Thóra took a quick look inside, it turned out that Karítas had filled it with photos, postcards and other mementos of her life and travels rather than valuables. Thóra closed the case again. The former owner’s young wife could hardly be implicated in the mystery, and while she may have been a favourite of the tabloids, Thóra did not have the stomach to snoop around in her private affairs. Even so, on her way out of the bedroom she couldn’t help staring at the giant mirror that covered most of the wall and picturing Karítas admiring herself in it. This was unfair, given that Thóra had no idea what she was really like, and she resolved to make an effort to be more impartial next time the young woman entered her thoughts.

  The two girls had slept in the smallest of the guest cabins, next to their parents. The instant Fannar opened the door they were struck by a pungent smell of strawberries, so sickly sweet that Thóra had to turn away. ‘A shampoo bottle burst in here,’ he explained. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want their hair to smell like that but maybe it’s not as overpowering once it’s been rinsed out.’

  The girls had shared a double bed. Two cuddly toy rabbits lay abandoned amidst the tangle of bedclothes. Thóra was overwhelmed with sadness at the sight. To enhance the poignancy still further, it appeared that the twins had stuck a photo of their little sister on the headboard; a child who would one day grow up to thank her lucky stars that she hadn’t been old enough to accompany them on the voyage. Lifting the corner of the picture, Thóra saw that it had been fixed up with blu-tack, which suggested her guess was right. Karítas did not seem the blu-tack type. She picked up a pink Hello Kitty sock and put it on the bed. ‘God, this is harrowing.’

  ‘I know.’ Fannar sounded sincere. ‘It would be best if they were found alive. Adrift at sea. Or maybe they’ve done a bunk to another country.’

  ‘Done a bunk?’ The possibility hadn’t even occurred to Thóra. ‘Has anyone seriously suggested that?’

  Fannar turned pink, obviously regretting having blurted it out. ‘No, not really. I’ve heard whispering at the office but it’s nothing. Someone was talking crap about Ægir, saying maybe he’d been embezzling funds from the committee and had done a runner. That he’d faked his own death and was living it up abroad.’

  ‘Is that likely? I’d have thought you kept strict tabs on the assets the committee repossesses or has at its disposal.’

  ‘Of course we do. It’s just gossip. Ægir didn’t embezzle any money, that’s for sure. The management will have carried out a thorough check, and if any misconduct had come to light it would have been all over the office. It would be impossible to hush it up – it would have leaked out somehow.’

  Thóra looked back at the photo of the little girl on the headboard. ‘Irrespective of the money, I would stake my life on the fact that they didn’t deliberately disappear. People don’t leave a child behind – they either take all or none of them. And what about the crew? Is he supposed to have dragged three men into exile with them?’

  ‘It was just a stupid theory, as I said. Firstly, Ægir didn’t steal anything and secondly, as you say, it doesn’t make sense.’

  Thóra peered under the bed and, spotting the other sock, felt an impulse to pair them. As she bent down, she took the opportunity to change the subject. She didn’t want to discuss the family’s tragic fate with a big-mouth like Fannar. ‘What’s the committee going to do with the yacht? Won’t the repairs cost a fortune?’ The sock was just out of reach, so she had to contort herself still further.

  ‘Yes.’ From where she was kneeling, Thóra saw Fannar come two steps closer. ‘The way things have turned out, it would have been better to leave her berthed in Portugal. They’d get a better price for her on the other side of the Atlantic these days, but even so the amount wouldn’t be enough to cover the repairs.’

  ‘Why do you think you’d get more for her in America than Europe?’ Thóra glanced round in search of a pen or some other implement.

  ‘There’s a chance her reputation won’t follow her over there. Most European brokers know her history and that affects the price. In their eyes what’s wro
ng with her can’t be mended. Whereas in the US and Central or South America, she’d have a clean slate.’

  ‘I don’t suppose this latest incident has helped at all.’ Having failed to find anything with which to hook the sock, Thóra almost wrenched her arm out of its socket stretching under the bed. She brushed the sock with two fingers. Now all she needed was to reach a tiny bit further and pinch it between them.

  ‘No, that’s clear enough. And now that Ægir’s not here, the problem’s landed on my desk. I should be grateful really, as it represents something of a promotion for me.’

  Thóra stretched her fingers out in vain. ‘Did you take over from him, then?’ She was now so obsessed by the idea of retrieving the sock that she couldn’t give a damn what Fannar thought of her crawling around on the floor. She had to pair those socks and wouldn’t leave until she’d succeeded.

  ‘Yes. I’d just finished a sale, so it was perfect timing. At least it’ll be interesting. The curse may sound ridiculous to us but sailors are notoriously superstitious and if her reputation carries across the Atlantic, I’m in deep trouble.’

  At last Thóra got hold of the sock. The muscles in her armpit were burning but she didn’t want to lose it again, so she looked under the bed to make sure of her grip.

  What she saw caused her to start back so violently that she bashed her head. The pain was excruciating but her attention was distracted by the pounding of her heart, which felt as if it would burst its ventricles. ‘Christ.’ She rubbed the sore spot.