The cold saltiness of the air is strangely invigorating. Now all Helgi need do is spin out the preparations for as long as possible. The chopper should be there in less than an hour, but even so it seems like an eternity to wait and the thought of it saps his energy again. Suddenly the cold filling his lungs has a soporific effect and the taste of salt makes him want to retch.
He mustn’t fail now.
‘There’s something going on. You can’t fool me.’ Ívar is standing beside him, zipping his anorak up to the neck. He pulls his hood over his head but Helgi hasn’t the energy to copy him, in spite of the biting breeze.
‘I’m not trying to fool you. Come on, let’s get cracking.’ Helgi’s voice is threadbare with tiredness now, which has the effect of making him sound sincere. At least Ívar seems to think so because he hesitates, and Helgi seizes the opportunity to pick his way round the corner to where their gear is piled in the narrow gap between crag and lighthouse. It means turning his back on Ívar but it can’t be helped. If he shuffled along in reverse, keeping his eye on the other man, that would give the game away immediately. ‘We need to shift this stuff onto the helipad. All the loose items are already packed in the boxes.’ He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to achieve this; he barely has the strength to lift a matchbox right now.
The door creaks as Heida comes out, and as his eyes meet Ívar’s Helgi is unable to disguise his fear any longer. Now Ívar knows for sure that something is wrong. He reaches quickly into the box that he has dragged out of the pile and whips out an object that flashes in the faint moonlight. Helgi can no longer think straight; all that occurs to him is to shut the door on Heida; make sure she doesn’t witness what is about to happen or put herself in danger.
‘Get inside. Don’t open up until I tell you. Hold the door shut.’ He shoves her back into the lighthouse, reaches for the door and slams it. Then he turns to confront Ívar and what is to come. Despite his overwhelming fatigue, he is looking forward to this. It’s nearly over. It’s all got to end, one way or another.
The heavy throbbing of the engine is a joy to the ears. Helgi is lying on his back on the rocky ground, his shoulders propped on the bottom step of the lighthouse. Above him is the small whitewashed tower with its red lantern casing, like a wedding cake plonked down incongruously in the middle of the ocean. His eyes close again and he hopes this is the image he will take with him into eternity. His throat rattles as he makes one final attempt to coax Heida outside. So far his feeble cries have had no effect and the closer the helicopter approaches, the less likely it is that she’ll be able to hear him. The sensation of cold seems to have gone; one minute he thought he was dying, the next he couldn’t feel anything. He doesn’t need a doctor to tell him what this means. Heida will have to come out and help him staunch the bleeding. He can’t wait for the chopper.
‘Heida!’ Helgi coughs and tastes iron. ‘Heida!’ He makes a desperate attempt to crane his neck to see the door and almost weeps when it moves. Only a tiny crack at first, but then Heida’s head appears. He realises that she has caught sight of his outstretched hand, which looks ready to grasp at whatever might fall from the sky. But his strength is waning and his head falls back on the hard step. Yet he can’t feel any pain.
He hears her gasp, then footsteps, and when Helgi opens his eyes again she is kneeling over him, gazing into his face. ‘Oh, God!’ She breaks down in tears. ‘What can I do? Please don’t die.’
Helgi coughs again and she flinches away. Blood must have come out of his mouth because Heida is trembling like a leaf and glancing around frantically, up into the air and out to sea. ‘Has Ívar gone?’
Helgi replies to the tremulous question with a weak nod.
‘I knew I should have opened at once to find out if it was you groaning out here. But I didn’t dare. What was I supposed to do if it had been …?’
Helgi doesn’t have the energy to answer this; he senses he had better not waste words.
‘Even when I looked out now I wasn’t sure. I had a crazy idea that Ívar might have put on your clothes to confuse me. But then I recognised your hair and saw you were bigger than Ívar. Oh, God, oh, God.’
Helgi is having trouble keeping his eyes open. More than anything he longs to close them and go to sleep. Just for a little while. Before his lids droop he sees again the words written in marker pen on the wall. Stefán Egill Fridriksson 1985. With all the strength he has left he gasps: ‘Did you hear what Ívar said?’ Of course the shouting and sounds of the struggle must have carried to her on the wind but he doubted she could have heard the actual words. That was what mattered.
‘No. I had my hands over my ears, I was so terrified. I closed my eyes and tried to think about my little girl. I thought I’d never see her again.’ Heida’s nose is running and she sniffs. ‘When I listened I heard such horrible yelling and screaming that I put my hands over my ears again. But I heard enough to realise that one of you was injured, maybe even dead, and the other had fallen off the cliff.’
The noise had been anything but pleasant: Ívar had uttered a bloodcurdling scream as he plummeted, howling so the rock echoed every time he crashed into a sharp jutting stone. If Helgi had been able to he would have covered his own ears. He closes his eyes. He wants to sleep. Just for a moment.
The racket of the rotor blades draws closer and he senses that Heida is smiling, although she’s still in shock and must be as weak with exhaustion as him. ‘What will the men in the chopper think of me when they hear I did nothing to help you?’
Helgi tries to groan out a few words, though he has resolved to spare his energy. It’s not her fault. Quite the opposite. ‘You did nothing wrong. Everything’s OK.’ Opening his eyes, he peers up at the lighthouse, as if expecting to see a figure standing on the little gallery, waiting to accompany him. Perhaps the apparition he thought he’d seen in the fog: the harbinger of doom. But there’s nobody there; he’s not being pursued by any mysterious shadows, only a growing lassitude. He must close his eyes. ‘Did you hear what Ívar said? Any of it?’
‘No. I heard nothing.’ She bends over him, stroking his forehead gently. ‘It doesn’t matter. You can tell the police yourself. The chopper’s coming. Everything’s going to be OK.’ Heida looks skywards and sees the helicopter approaching, shining and beautiful in the pale morning light. Helgi’s eyes close and he feels her warm hand stroking his face. Then she whips back her hand and he wonders if it’s because she can’t bear to touch him.
‘Helgi,’ Heida whispers, as if she thinks he’s asleep and doesn’t want to wake him. He can’t move, though he wants to. Finally he summons the tiny amount of strength he has left and fumbles for the knife sticking out of his side. He hears her cry as he gropes with his fingers at the bloodstain surrounding the blade. His anorak is already soaked through. He feels blood welling up the handle from the wound.
‘Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!’ Heida’s cries do nothing to help. ‘What should I do? What should I do?’ The events of the last twenty-four hours seem to have addled her brain. ‘Should I pull it out?’
Helgi tries to protest but can’t utter a word. The knife is at least blocking the wound; it’ll open if she pulls it out. Then he hears a sucking sound, feels a tremendous pressure in his side and his mouth gapes in a silent scream. He opens his eyes wide and stares into Heida’s face. She looks bewildered; Ívar’s bloody knife is in her hand. Helgi’s head falls sideways and he sees blood pouring from the wound, shiny red and viscous. With a desperate effort he manages to turn his head back and look up; he doesn’t want to see what’s happening. The rock mustn’t drink his lifeblood.
As his lids droop once more he sees Heida open her mouth and lean backwards. Knife in hand, she shrieks as loudly as she can in a desperate attempt to be heard above the thunder of the helicopter.
He sees two faces staring down at them from under white helmets. One of the men seems to be speaking to them and Helgi smiles at the idea that he should think they can hear. Then the long-desired slee
p overwhelms him.
Chapter 35
31 January 2014
The vending machine refuses to accept the fifty-krónur piece. Whatever Nína tries – force, cajoling, indifference – nothing works. She could kick the machine or shake it, but she’s not that angry. Besides, there are too many people around in visiting hours and she doesn’t want to attract any attention. She feels conspicuous enough as it is, dolled up in a red dress and high heels in honour of the occasion. It had seemed wrong to turn up looking as if she were going straight home after this visit to flop on the sofa and watch a film. But the only dresses she owns remind her of cocktails and dancing. The red one seemed the least inappropriate; it’s not low cut, at any rate, and almost covers her knees. Even so, Thröstur’s sister couldn’t hide her disapproval when they ran into one another earlier; she herself had been wearing a grey suit that might have been designed with a deathbed in mind.
Instead of beating up the vending machine, Nína sits down on a bench and watches time passing on the clock on the wall. Thröstur’s father and sister asked to be alone with him for an hour – their last hour with him in this world. She is intending to give herself slightly longer. The doctor who’s going to switch off his life support is not due until eight, so she will have plenty of time to cry her eyes out at Thröstur’s bedside. She suggested the hour herself, because she doesn’t want it to happen during daylight. She feels the process should be as much like going to sleep as possible. That way she can convince herself that Thröstur is following his dreams into an everlasting night, rather than being obliterated like a text being deleted. The doctor wasn’t particularly pleased at having to do it in the evening but was too kind to object.
Nína puffs out her cheeks and exhales slowly. The action seems inappropriate in a woman dressed up like this and she’s glad no one can see her. Before choosing the date she had checked that it held no special significance for Thröstur’s family; she didn’t want to spoil some relative’s birthday or wedding anniversary by associating it with the day Thröstur died. But it turned out that today’s date belongs to no one, and now there’s no turning back.
‘Hi! It’s Nína, isn’t it?’ The voice is familiar but Nína can’t immediately place it. Lowering her eyes from the clock, she sees that it’s a journalist who used to work with Thröstur. He beams at her, running his eyes over her party dress. ‘Fancy bumping into you here. What are you …?’ The man suddenly twigs. ‘Sorry. God, of course. What news of Thröstur? Any change?’
Nína prepares to lie. She can’t tell the poor guy that after today Thröstur will finally be at peace. She wishes she could, if only to explain why she’s got up like a dog’s dinner, but resists the impulse. It would be too embarrassing for them both. ‘No. No change, I’m afraid.’ She adds hurriedly, to change the subject, ‘Were you visiting someone? Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘Oh, no. Not really. I was visiting a photographer who’s done a bit of work for the paper. Did an interview with him and got some of his pictures. He was in the lighthouse with that bloke. He’s the one who was very nearly killed. Luckily for us he survived. It’ll be an exclusive.’
Nína isn’t particularly interested in the case, so merely nods as if she agrees that it’s a mercy their photographer escaped with his life so they can interview him for their paper. The man, insensitive to her indifference, carries on regardless. ‘It’s a shocking story. Have you been following the news?’
‘Er, yes. A bit.’ Nína hopes he won’t start testing her. She hasn’t been able to make herself follow the coverage ever since she read the first article in which Thröstur’s name cropped up uncomfortably often. New revelations have been splashed across the front page of his old paper every day. His former colleagues have firsthand access to the story since their own office was involved. She particularly avoided the issue with the photo of Thröstur on the cover. The editor obviously didn’t have a very clear eye as to what would sell the paper as you could hardly see Thröstur for the headlines, which was some compensation.
‘It’s a shocking business – and the story’s ours, of course. Two of our own guys! We’ve trampled all over our competitors, as you can imagine.’ The flow of words stopped abruptly and he looked at Nína as if seeing her for the first time. ‘Hang on a minute! Would you be up for an interview?’
‘Me? What about?’
‘This business with Thröstur. I never believed he could have done something like that. There had to be an explanation.’ He smiles expectantly. ‘Plenty of people would be eager to hear your side. Suicide that turned out to be murder. Sensational stuff.’
‘Er, no, thanks.’ Nína regrets not having told the man what is happening today. If she had, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to ask – though you never knew. ‘I don’t want to discuss it in public.’
‘We can close it to comments if that’s what’s worrying you.’
Nína shakes her head. That doesn’t bother her; the whole thing is too awful for other people’s comments to change anything. But the man is only fishing. He smiles again. ‘Think about it, anyway. Though not for too long. People have a limited attention span when it comes to news.’ He seems undeterred by the fact that Nína doesn’t answer. ‘What can you tell me about the investigation? Have they managed to confirm that Ívar murdered Thröstur? It would be fan-bloody-tastic if we could break the news.’
‘Actually, Thröstur’s still alive.’ Casting round for an escape route, she stands up. Anything she says about the investigation will find its way into the paper: according to a source close to the events … ‘I’ve got to go. I know nothing about the investigation as I’m on leave, and I don’t hear anything.’
‘I understand.’ The man can’t hide his disappointment. ‘One more thing before you go. We were talking about how terrible it was when this whole thing came out. I just wanted you to know that it never occurred to anyone at the paper that Thröstur’s article might have these kinds of repercussions. He kept the contents to himself and the editor was ready to do his nut when Thröstur refused to discuss the piece before it was finished. He should have forced it out of him. But it’s easy to be wise after the event.’
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything.’ Nína picks up her bag. ‘Say hello to everyone from me. I’ve got to go – someone’s waiting for me. And good luck with writing up the interview with the photographer.’ She says goodbye and walks off. She’s only taken a few steps when it occurs to her to turn and ask him something that’s been bothering her ever since she learnt about Ívar and his probable responsibility for the death of all these people. But the information she wants may have already appeared in one of the articles she has avoided reading. She doesn’t like to reveal to the journalist that she hasn’t actually read any of the coverage. She’ll follow it up later; she can’t be the only person who has wondered how Ívar got hold of the names of the other two witnesses, Vala and Lárus. She knows Thröstur well enough to be certain that he would never have revealed them. She just hopes no one will think he blabbed. If so, she’ll make damn sure she corrects that misapprehension.
Nína wonders where to go. It’s too cold to wait out in the car and she doesn’t want to sit alone among the patients and visitors in one of the hospital lounges. Then she remembers Thorbjörg. She will have heard by now that they believe her husband was murdered. It must have meant a great deal to her to receive confirmation at last that she was right. Even though the knowledge has come thirty years too late, Nína wants to congratulate her. Probably nobody else will bother; certainly no one has patted Nína on the back yet. She would also appreciate a chance to talk to the woman, even if only briefly, since she doubts anyone else understands her as well at this moment. And it’s mutual.
In the corridor outside Thorbjörg’s room, Nína encounters a nurse who apparently recognises her from her previous visit. She comes over to inform Nína that Thorbjörg has a visitor and asks her to wait a moment. The woman’s estranged son, who she hasn’t seen for years, is in th
ere with her now, and it would be a pity to interrupt their reunion.
Thorbjörg’s head is spinning. It’s not unlike the feeling you get when you lie down on a pillow and sink into alcohol-induced oblivion. She should know. But this time the world is not receding; this time, unfortunately, she’s completely with it. She doesn’t want to think about what her son has just told her; doesn’t want to wonder if he could have invented the whole thing or if she’s experiencing the DTs. The happiness she felt when he walked in was short-lived. It was fantastic that he had come to see her. Did it mean he had finally forgiven her, little though she deserved it?
She had been overwhelmed with self-pity at the time of Stefán’s death; she hadn’t been able to see what was under her nose – the little boy whose suffering was even greater than hers, who had no one else to turn to but his wreck of a mother. A tear runs down her cheek and she catches it with the tip of her tongue. The visit had begun well; Helgi was just like he always used to be, placid and likable. Perhaps he hadn’t completely forgiven her but at least he didn’t snap at her or make any snide remarks. Then all of a sudden he changed. Said he wanted to tell her a secret. His voice had taken on a mechanical quality and all feeling vanished from his face, as if Helgi the person had been switched off. She doesn’t know what replaced him and isn’t sure she wants to know. ‘Could you repeat that, please, Helgi dear? I’m not sure I understood.’
He doesn’t sigh or show any other sign of irritation, merely begins his account again in an emotionless monotone. ‘At the end of November a journalist called Thröstur asked me to go round and see him. He wanted me to take some photos for an article he was writing. I sometimes work for his paper, so I agreed. The address was pretty familiar – our old house in the west end. He even asked me to meet him in the garage where Dad was supposed to have hanged himself all those years ago. I didn’t say anything, just turned up at the appointed time, feeling very curious. Thröstur was waiting inside the garage and he began to tell me all about the article in the hope that it would give me ideas for suitable pictures.’
Why Did You Lie? Page 33
