‘Faking her disappearance?’ The woman’s tone conveyed all that needed to be said.
‘It’s just a formality. No one’s seriously suggesting that she did. Might you be willing to provide one? You seem to have known her quite well.’
‘I certainly did. We sat at neighbouring desks, so you could say we knew each other better than anyone else in the company. Though actually there are only five of us in Accounts and Payroll.’ The software firm where Lára had worked was fairly large, so Thóra had been fortunate to be put through to such a close colleague. ‘Anyway, as I was telling you, I really don’t know what to say. Just when everything was going so well and Ægir was enjoying his job at last …’
Thóra interrupted: ‘Didn’t he enjoy it before?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, sort of. He used to work for the bank that collapsed – the one the committee was appointed to wind up – but he wasn’t too happy there; lots of the guys he graduated with had been promoted above him and had more money to play with. Lára told me he’d been held back by the twins; when the girls were small they used to take it in turns to fall ill and he and Lára had to split the child-minding between them. It wasn’t well regarded at the bank – unlike here. At our office it’s taken for granted that parents have to take time off when their kids are sick. What are the banks planning to do if people stop having children? That’s what I’d like to know. Lend money to people in their graves? What sort of bonuses would they get then?’
Thóra ignored this digression. ‘But you said he was happy in his new job?’
‘Yes, or at least Lára gave that impression. His work for the resolution committee was quite different. He didn’t have to listen to his colleagues endlessly boasting about their extravagant lifestyles. I only met him a few times, at work parties and so on, but he seemed a really nice guy. In my opinion he wasn’t the type to chase after money. But it was a good thing fate intervened when it did so he didn’t have to work there any longer; you never know what effect that kind of atmosphere will have on people in the long term. It’s bound to bring out their materialistic side.’
‘But he got away in time?’ Thóra prayed that the woman would agree. She really wouldn’t be able to cope if any doubts were raised about his honesty at this stage. Nor would his parents.
‘Yes, I think so. Luckily. They didn’t make any rash decisions and lived within their means, unlike many in his position. The only nonsense I heard about from Lára was the life insurance policy he took out.’
‘She mentioned that, did she?’ Thóra sat up.
‘Yes – that was several years ago. He was still working for the bank at the time and one of the things his friends were bragging about was the size of their life insurance policies. Can you imagine anything so ridiculous?’
Thóra couldn’t. She couldn’t picture herself boasting about anything like that to Bragi. Or Bella, for that matter. But this was good news. ‘So he took out the high insurance policy to save face among his colleagues?’
‘Yes. But then he could afford to. He’d have a fortune after his death.’
Chapter 25
Lára looked terribly small, lying face down in a black puddle on the cold steel deck. A trail of blood led back to the bridge. From the instant he had caught sight of her to the moment he discovered that she was breathing, albeit fitfully, Ægir’s world had lost its soundtrack. All noise was muted as if he were underwater; he could see Thráinn and Halli opening their mouths but he could neither tell nor did he care what they were shouting. All he could think of was how to get the blood back inside Lára. He crawled on all fours, trying to scoop it up, only to watch it trickle away with the violent rolling of the ship. ‘Hit him.’ The words sounded so remote that they might have come from beyond the grave; there was no way of knowing who was speaking. ‘Hit him!’ Ignoring the voice, Ægir continued trying to sweep the blood towards him with his hands. The words did not concern him; he had a job to do. Only when a hand grabbed his shoulder and dragged him roughly to a kneeling position did he come round and it was as if the volume had suddenly been turned up again. At least enough for him to hear when a flattened palm smacked against his cheek with full force.
‘Get out of the fucking way! You’re in the way. Either get a grip on yourself or move back.’ Halli shoved him violently aside. Ægir fell over, then propped himself up on one elbow and sat groggily on the deck with his legs sprawled out in front of him. Halli pushed his face so close that his features were a blur, though Ægir could see enough to register the man’s anger. Halli seized him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘I said pull yourself together.’
‘That’s enough. Give me a hand.’ Thráinn’s voice was not only weary but defeated, and it was that which finally shocked Ægir back to his senses. ‘Leave him alone and grab hold here.’
Taking a gasping breath, Ægir shifted until he could see what they were up to. For an instant he wanted to yell that they mustn’t tread in the blood – Lára needed it. Then the moment passed. Instead he concentrated on breathing, but the sounds and effort involved were more like gulping down water than inhaling oxygen. He stared at the black patches on the knees of the men’s jeans, then looked down at himself and saw that his own clothes were soaked in blood. ‘Oh, God. Oh, my God.’
‘Shut up.’ As Halli turned away from Lára to shout at him, Ægir saw what they were doing. They had rolled her over on her back and the captain was pressing down with both hands on her abdomen, with what looked like the full weight of his body. His hands were dark and still more blood welled up between his splayed fingers. Ægir felt faint but this time his collapse was not as total. He had to pull himself together. Halli turned straight back to Lára and Thráinn, blocking Ægir’s view. Not that he wanted to watch; the sight that met his gaze was so terrible that it hurt. It felt as if he were being torn apart; the longing to watch was equalled only by the desire to close his eyes and pretend this wasn’t happening.
Thráinn looked up from Lára for a moment. ‘Are you all right?’ Ægir wanted to answer in the affirmative but an unrecognisable rattle emerged from his throat. ‘For God’s sake, pull yourself together, man.’ Thráinn sounded furious and Ægir was filled with shame. He was failing his critically injured wife. ‘You go to the girls, we need to be here. They’re probably still on the bridge.’
Ægir staggered to his feet, slipped in the viscous blood and almost fell on top of the two men as they bent over his wife. He knew it was urgent that he go to his daughters but he couldn’t prevent himself from lingering briefly. Carefully keeping his balance, he craned over the men to catch a glimpse of Lára’s face. It was turned towards him but her half-open eyes did not seek out his. She looked grey rather than white, and a red bubble formed on her lips with every shallow breath; swelled, then burst, swelled, then burst. Ægir made a desperate effort to hold back his tears but one splashed onto Lára’s rounded cheek and ran down to mingle with the blood. Her eyes closed and he tore himself away before he broke down completely. For the girls’ sake, he couldn’t allow himself that. Two strides and Lára was out of sight.
His legs felt as heavy as lead, every step a dragging effort, as he approached the door to the pilot house. A succession of horrifying images ran though his mind: Arna and Bylgja lying on the floor in shiny pools of blood. In his vision the pools were identical; his daughters twins to the last. Nausea mingled with the agony in Ægir’s chest until he thought he might suffer a heart attack. If something had happened to the girls as well, he would welcome the chance to die.
But it hadn’t, and the tightness in his chest abated, giving way to a dizzying rush of relief.
Arna and Bylgja were standing huddled at the back of the room, their eyes huge with incomprehension and stark terror. They did not run into his arms as he’d expected, and as he longed for them to. He ached with the desire to hug them tight and bury his face in their soft hair, if only for an instant. To hide from what was happening, from what he simply couldn’t bear. Closing the door softly behi
nd him, he made a superhuman effort to stay calm. ‘Are you all right, girls?’ His voice sounded absurdly normal, as if they had fallen over while playing in the garden. Their eyes stretched even wider and he realised the effect his appearance must be having on them. ‘Thráinn and Halli are helping Mummy. It’ll be all right.’ It was the most terrible lie he had ever told them. ‘Are you injured?’
They shook their heads simultaneously, with a slight lessening of tension. ‘Where’s Mummy? Why isn’t she with you?’ Arna spoke as if she had hiccups, the tears not far away.
‘Mummy hurt herself and Halli and Thráinn are helping her.’ A bleak future stretched out before him. A future without Lára. He was assailed by ridiculous concerns; who would do the girls’ hair, or help them choose what to wear for birthday parties? It was almost impossible to assume a normal, reassuring manner. ‘But it’ll be all right. As long as you’re safe, everything will be all right.’ As he walked over to them, he realised they had not once looked up at his face; their eyes were fixed on his blood-soaked clothes.
‘Why did Mummy have a gun, Daddy?’ Bylgja began to weep. The tears were not accompanied by sobs but slid down her face in two rivers of silent grief and fear.
‘In case a bad man came, darling. The gun was for protection. To protect you and Mummy.’ He had reached them now and crouched down to their level. Unable to bear the bewilderment in their eyes, he struggled to make himself meet their gaze rather than hiding from it; they did not deserve to be let down like that. ‘What happened? Did you see what happened?’
They both spoke at once and in his present state he couldn’t tell who said what. The words emerged in a frantic gabble, punctuated by hiccups and the occasional sob. ‘Something banged against the door. Mummy pulled a gun out of her trousers and pointed it at the door. But it was only a piece of rubbish and she smiled at us and said she was just a bit stressed. We didn’t say anything, we just stared at the gun and then she looked all strange and went to put it back in her belt when … there was a bang. Mummy’s eyes opened very wide and we could see the whites all round them. Then she coughed and grabbed her tummy and told us to wait here. After that she went outside, and there was blood.’ They pointed to the trail that led to the door from the place where the accidental shot had been fired. Ægir had smudged the drops when he walked over them; he had seen so much blood outside that he hadn’t even noticed this light spattering.
‘My darlings, Mummy has injured her tummy.’ Ægir’s mouth was dry and his head felt hot. He came close to breaking down again and stopped speaking while he summoned his few remaining mental reserves. ‘Mummy hurt herself.’ He pulled them to him so they couldn’t witness his distress. His tears trickled into hair that smelt of the strawberry shampoo they had chosen in the Lisbon supermarket. If only they could be back there; if only he could reverse the irreversible. He snorted and did his best to get his emotions under control. He didn’t know how to cry; he’d never had any reason to since he was a little boy.
‘Did the gun shoot her?’ asked Arna as the sisters’ small arms slipped round his waist and clasped him tight, as if to force the right answer out of him. But the right answer was wrong.
‘Scratched her, sweetheart. It only scratched her. Not badly, and Thráinn and Halli are making her better.’ What had Thráinn been dreaming of to give Lára the revolver? And why on earth hadn’t he intervened? He should have known it would end badly; nothing could end well in this waterborne hell.
The door opened behind him and Arna and Bylgja tightened their grip convulsively. ‘Can I talk to you a minute, Ægir? In private.’ Halli’s voice was devoid of all feeling, which only made matters worse.
‘Wait here, girls. I won’t be a moment; I’m not going far. It’s all right.’ Ægir freed himself from their arms and left them, their faces distraught. ‘Please tell me you’ve stopped the bleeding.’ He wanted to get down on his knees, as if humility could help. ‘Please.’
Halli stared down at his feet. ‘We moved her into the saloon. You’d better go there. I’ll wait with the girls.’
‘No.’ Ægir straightened his back and discovered that his fists were clenched. He wanted to batter Halli’s face until it was unrecognisable and incapable of telling him what he didn’t want to hear. ‘You’re not staying with the girls.’ His mind raced, his thoughts dashing hither and thither so he couldn’t grasp any of them. Lára, the girls. It was his job to protect them. Not Halli’s. ‘I’m not taking my eyes off the girls. They’ll have to come with me.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ Halli continued to stare at the deck, as if fascinated with his shoes. ‘It’s really not a good idea.’
Ægir opened his mouth to speak, to shriek, but suddenly all the fight went out of him in the cold air. There was no point shouting or striking out; it would change nothing. ‘If anything happens to them, Halli, I’ll gouge your eyes out.’ He spoke without anger; it was a simple statement of fact.
‘I’ll look after them. I’d die rather than let anything happen to them.’ Halli was worldly enough to realise that the man in front of him was teetering on the edge. Awkwardly, he patted Ægir’s shoulder, then went into the pilot house, leaving him alone.
He should have stuck his head round the door to tell the girls to wait a little while with Halli while Daddy went to speak to Mummy, but he couldn’t do it. He was incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time, and now it was Lára who lay either dead or dying on a sofa on board a yacht in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles from the medical aid that might have saved her life. A great sob burst from his throat when he entered the saloon and saw her lying there.
In his headlong rush he bashed his shin violently against the coffee table, which the men had pushed to one side, and almost went flying. The girls’ colouring books were dislodged and some of the crayons rolled onto the floor but the captain managed to grab his arm in time to stop him falling. ‘Thanks.’ The courtesy was so incongruous in the circumstances that Ægir almost laughed. His mother’s childhood training was so ingrained that even the greatest calamity could not shake it.
‘She’s asleep.’ Still holding Ægir’s arm, Thráinn forced him to meet his eye. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. The bleeding’s slowed down; I bound the wound as tightly as I could but it may have nothing to do with the bandages: there may simply be very little blood left.’ He forced Ægir’s face back to his when he tried to look away. ‘I’m no doctor but I do know that it doesn’t look good. Sit with her and speak to her if she comes round. Tell her what she wants to hear, and remember that this may be your last chance to talk to her.’ Thráinn released his head, allowing Ægir to turn to Lára. ‘Let’s hope not – but it’s best to be prepared. I’ll wait outside.’
Ægir couldn’t give a damn whether Thráinn stayed or went. He fell to his knees beside his wife and clutched at the brightly coloured woollen blanket that they had probably used to carry her inside. He didn’t dare take her hand at first for fear of crushing it, for fear of being overwhelmed by rage at the unfairness of it all. Lára had never hurt a fly. She deserved better than this. Letting go of the blanket, he took her white hand in his. To his relief it felt hot and damp; he had been expecting her fingers to be cold. The blanket covering her looked disturbingly like a colourful shroud, so he pulled it off, revealing bare flesh and pink dressings that had no doubt been white when Thráinn applied them. The bullet appeared to have entered her abdomen beside the left hip. Ægir didn’t know if this was a good or a bad place, or if anything in the abdominal area was bad.
He squeezed his eyes shut and the tears spurted out. At first he stroked her hand blindly, then he forced himself to look at her again, concentrating on trying to speak, on groping for words that he would be reconciled to afterwards. He kissed her on the brow and temple and brushed the limp hair from her sweaty forehead. The fine lines that had distressed her so much seemed to have vanished, leaving her forehead unnaturally smooth. His mind blank of all els
e, he whispered this in her ear.
She opened her eyes, emitting a low croak that might have been a word, though he couldn’t make it out. Everything he had wanted to say came rushing to his lips and he poured out the words in case she could still hear him, though her spirit had departed. But she only stared at him with glassy eyes that would not close, giving no sign that she accepted his plea for forgiveness.
Chapter 26
‘The blood turned out to belong to Lára.’ The detective shot a glance at his colleague who thumbed through the sheaf of papers he was carrying, then handed a page to his superior. This time there was no hint of cigarette smoke or chewing gum. Thóra hoped this wouldn’t affect his mood, but the alacrity with which his much younger subordinate jumped to obey him did not bode well. ‘The test results remove practically all doubt, though there’s always a small margin for error. You can have a copy if you like. I imagine this will be helpful for your case.’
‘It certainly will.’ Thóra took the paper and scanned the figures, though she understood little beyond the summary of results. ‘How did you get hold of Lára’s blood or DNA for comparison?’ She passed the paper back to the younger officer and accepted the offer of a copy.
‘They took a blood sample from her youngest daughter and also found some hairs in a brush in her make-up bag on the yacht. The results aren’t a hundred per cent conclusive, as I said; they never are. But they’re good enough for me and any judge.’ The detective was grave today and the only hospitality on offer was a glass of water, which Thóra had refused. It was just as well; the bitter police station coffee would have ruined the memory of the superior brew she had enjoyed earlier at the committee offices. ‘Rest assured that we’ve prioritised the analysis to make up for the fact that the murder inquiry got off the ground rather late in the day.’ He folded his hands on the desk before him. ‘Of course, that’s because we were originally under the impression that we were dealing with an accident; we can’t afford to launch costly investigations unless we’re certain that a crime has been committed.’
The Silence of the Sea Page 30
