The Doll

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  Tristan opened the door to the hallway and called into the sitting room: ‘Mum?’

  Chapter 25

  Sunday

  The young man rooted around in the metal wall cabinet, searching for Salvör’s keys. He hadn’t commented when she’d shown him her photo ID, saying that she couldn’t remember the number of her storage unit. Nor did he seem remotely surprised that she was coming to check on her belongings for the first time since she had shut the door on them ten years ago and asked reception to keep the keys. He had looked her up without a word and given her the number of the unit. Presumably she wasn’t unique in this. Apart from the two of them, the big warehouse on Grandi was empty and so was the car park in front of it, though there must have been more than a hundred storage units on the site. But then, by its very nature, the storage facility was used for things people no longer needed, and the level of activity around them was correspondingly low.

  The man closed the cabinet and handed Salvör two keys on a metal ring. ‘It’s on the second floor. The lift’s at the front, by the stairs. There are plenty of trolleys if you need to move anything heavy to your car. Just take what you need,’ he recited, as if he’d said it countless times before. His dealings with the rare customers who came by were no doubt limited to these few standard phrases.

  Salvör selected a good, heavy-duty trolley that looked as if it would have room for all the boxes in the unit. She’d packed them so long ago that she couldn’t remember exactly how many there were, only that it had been quite a lot. She hoped she was wrong. One’s memory has a tendency to exaggerate, making snowfalls heavier, summers warmer, slopes steeper and road distances longer in times gone by.

  She hauled the trolley to the lift and pressed the button for the second floor. The place was a maze but with the help of the signs she eventually tracked down her unit. Heaving a deep breath, she inserted the key in the padlock on the bright-yellow door and undid the latch. But instead of pulling the door open, she stood quite still for a moment or two, bracing herself. She knew she was about to be hit by the smell of her old life with Binni, which wasn’t a prospect she relished. However much she had grown to hate the man and the direction his life had taken, the fact was that she had loved him once. With all her heart. Or at least that’s how she remembered it, though it wasn’t only tangible things that the memory had a tendency to distort, amplify and shower with glitter.

  When Salvör finally steeled herself to open the door, she was met by nothing but a stale, enclosed smell. The odour of dusty cardboard. She stared at the stack of boxes and sighed, conscious of the irony that Binni’s later existence should have ended only a few hundred metres from the remnants of his old life.

  She picked up the first box and loaded it onto the trolley. But the silence in the warehouse got her thinking that maybe it would be simpler to go through the contents there and then. Otherwise she would have to lug all the boxes out to her car, then unload them and cart them into her flat, then, once she’d gone through them, she’d have to carry them back out to her car and drive them down to the police station. Whereas if she got the job over with now, she would save herself a considerable amount of effort. She was unlikely to be disturbed or in anyone’s way here. The worst that could happen was that the receptionist might wonder what had happened to her, but in that case he could just check that she was all right. He would have no reason to comment when he saw what had delayed her. She decided to get the task over with.

  The first two boxes contained clothes: jackets, shirts and trousers that she remembered well. She had even bought some of them herself for her ex. He had never been keen on clothes shopping. Overwhelmed by a sudden rush of nostalgia, she had to remind herself sternly that she hadn’t come here to finger his crumpled garments and indulge in reminiscences. Her purpose was to make sure there was nothing in the boxes that could cause her children grief. That was all.

  Salvör removed the garments one by one, checked all the pockets, then folded them neatly before putting them back. At the time she had been so overcome with bitterness and rage that she had ripped the clothes out of Binni’s cupboards and drawers and stuffed them into the boxes any old how. She’d just wanted to get rid of everything in the flat that reminded her of him. But she found nothing in the pockets apart from a half-empty packet of dried-out cigarettes, fifty-three krónur in change and a few old receipts. She hastily replaced them so the police wouldn’t suspect her of having gone through the clothes. She would have liked to drive the boxes straight to the recycling bins at the dump and spare the police the thankless task of going through them. But she had mentioned clothes when she told them about Binni’s belongings, so she would have to make sure they were there, to avoid arousing suspicion.

  At the bottom of the last box of clothes she found a plastic bag, knotted at the top. Salvör vaguely remembered finding it at the back of Binni’s wardrobe and chucking it into the box. At the time, she hadn’t cared what was in the bag; anger had sucked all the oxygen from her blood vessels, smothering all other feelings, including curiosity.

  Now, she untied the knot and peered into the bag. More clothes. She shook the bag and a pair of jeans, a checked shirt and a white T-shirt tumbled out onto the painted concrete floor. When she picked up the jeans, she saw that there was a large stain on the crotch and at the top of the thighs, and dropped them involuntarily on the floor. Ugh. Urine. That’s why Binni had hidden them from her. Then she narrowed her eyes, frowning at them thoughtfully. Binni had never owned a pair of jeans like that. Let alone a checked shirt. She picked it up by pinching the fabric between finger and thumb, and held it at arm’s length. If there was urine on the trousers, God knows what there might be on the shirt front.

  Quite right. There was a dark patch on the shirt as well. She forced herself to hold it by the shoulders and spread it out. A large, round, brown stain was revealed, reaching from the waist to just below the breast. Salvör peered at it, puzzled. What was it? Not vomit, and certainly not urine. Possibly gravy or red wine. Or blood. Looking back at the jeans, she realised that of course the stain on them wasn’t urine. It was as dark as the one on the front of the shirt. She put the shirt down and examined the T-shirt. There was a similar stain on that, in more or less the same place. If it was blood, it had seeped through the material, either from the inside out or the outside in.

  Where had these clothes come from? Salvör put down the T-shirt and picked up the jeans again, making a face as she did so. She poked her fingers into both back pockets without finding anything. In one of the front pockets, however, there were some folded scraps of paper that she smoothed out. A credit-card receipt and a bill. At the bottom of the bill was the same kind of dark stain as on the clothes, while the top part was clean like the receipt and legible. It was a bill from a restaurant in Akureyri for the purchase of a hamburger, chips, and two beers, one large, one small. The name of the person who had placed the order was printed at the top. Table five, Thröstur. She checked the date.

  Salvör threw it down in horror.

  The date fitted with the fateful trip Binni had made with his friend to the north-east of Iceland. If she wasn’t mistaken, Thröstur had died that very day. She had been holding a receipt for the man’s last meal. The clothes at her feet were the ones he had died in, which was extremely odd given that he had drowned. Salvör stared thoughtfully at the blood-stains. It was possible that he had suffered a major wound to his stomach as he was floating down the rocky river. Perhaps that explained it. She shuddered.

  How the hell had his clothes ended up in Binni’s possession? Were people stripped at the scene of an accident? If she remembered right, he had been dead by the time help had arrived. What reason would they have had to undress a dead man?

  There were no answers to be found in the heap of clothes. She stuffed the garments back into the bag and knotted the top again. But she didn’t put it back in the box. These clothes definitely weren’t going to the police. The last thing she needed was for them to start
asking questions about a ten-year-old accident.

  Salvör rolled up her sleeves. Her efforts hadn’t been completely pointless after all. She got down to examining the rest of the boxes.

  These took rather longer to go through. They were full of papers and other bits and bobs from Binni’s study. She had to pore over every page and inspect every item, just to be on the safe side. But she didn’t find anything apart from a credit-card statement that she laid to one side, then tucked into her wallet. She and Binni used to have a joint account and the statement showed all her transactions as well. However innocent, they were none of the police’s business. Besides, Binni’s payments couldn’t be of any significance to his murder investigation. Every other transaction was at the state off-licence and if they needed proof of his drinking, they would have to be satisfied with her word for it.

  The stack of boxes was mounting up on the trolley. How on earth could she have thought they would all fit in the car? Admittedly, she was in an estate car and it was possible to put the seats down, but it was still unrealistic to think she could squeeze this lot into the back. Perhaps she should make two trips and take some of the clothes boxes to the dump on the way. The police needn’t know, and she was doing them a favour really. They wouldn’t ask any questions, as long as they got a couple of boxes of clothes, if they even remembered that she’d mentioned clothing. They would hardly need the whole lot.

  Yes, that would be the best solution. They could hardly expect her to rent a van to transport the boxes to the police station. She had already done more than could be expected of a member of the public. She deliberately ignored the fact that the police had offered to fetch Binni’s effects themselves. All this effort was to serve her own interests – hers and her children’s.

  She wasn’t going to put the plastic bag in the recycling bin. There was something revolting about giving away clothes that the owner had died in. And it wouldn’t be worth the expense of getting them cleaned. Yet, strangely, she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. If Thröstur’s daughter was after information about how her father died, you never know, the clothes might be important to her. She was too young to be given them now, but perhaps Salvör could see that she got the bag later, when she was older. By then, the inquiry into Binni’s death would hopefully have faded into just one more upsetting memory of her ex-husband. It wasn’t a decision Salvör wanted to make now, though. She laid the bag aside to prevent it from getting mixed up with the stuff that was to go to the police or the dump. Her basement storage unit at home may have been rather full, but there was room for one more dirty little plastic bag.

  The decision filled her with renewed energy. She was almost done. There were only a few boxes left on the floor of the storage unit and it looked as if she might even make it home in time for the news. But the boxes turned out to be full of papers, files, receipts and statements which would take ages to wade through. She probably wouldn’t get to see the news after all.

  By the time she got to the last box, her back was aching from all the bending and her bag was stuffed full of papers she’d rather the police didn’t get their hands on. Since most related to her and Binni’s finances, there was nothing in them that could possibly be of interest to them anyway.

  Her spine cracked as she stretched. The sound was unnerving but she felt better afterwards. Then she rubbed her sore shoulder and tried to summon up the energy to finish the task.

  The last box was lying on its side at the back of the unit, as if it had been chucked inside, over the other boxes. Or had it perhaps been teetering on top of the stack and fallen down behind them? It was different from the others she had sorted through. They had all been identical as she had bought a job lot from IKEA and assembled them herself for the clear-out. But the remaining box was smaller and more battered-looking. It was from the state off-licence, labelled front and back with the name of a cheap red wine. Salvör frowned, puzzled, then remembered that Binni had rung her up years ago and asked if she could store a few things for him. Her initial reaction had been a flat refusal, but then she had taken pity on him and directed him to the storage unit. He had thanked her and she had let the company know that he was to be given access to the unit. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would actually take her up on the offer, but apparently he had.

  The box was taped shut, top and bottom. Salvör struggled slightly as she tore it open, then immediately put a hand over her nose. The contents stank like fish slime or a dirty beach. She assumed it must be old fishing tackle; hooks maybe, or a priest – a club for stunning salmon – with rotten bits of flesh still attached to it. Perhaps Binni had got hold of some fishing gear after he’d taken to sleeping rough and started catching his own food, then lost enthusiasm for it but hadn’t wanted to throw the valuable tackle away. When Salvör looked inside, however, it turned out to be nothing of the sort. After lifting a layer of crumpled paper out of the top, she was confronted with something totally unexpected.

  It was a doll, if you could even call it that any more – all she could see was matted hair on a partially bald head, and shoulders and legs covered in small barnacles and dead worms. It belonged under a jetty, not in a child’s toy box.

  Salvör used the paper as a glove to lift the doll out. It must be the source of the nasty smell and she had no wish to touch it with her bare hands.

  Laying the doll on the floor, she stepped back a little, raising an arm to cover her nose and mouth, though the smell wasn’t quite as strong as when she had first opened the box. Perhaps it had dispersed among the shining-clean aisles between the units. Hopefully it would be gone before the next person had any business on this floor.

  She stared at the doll in bewilderment. Where had this horrible thing come from? And what on earth had Binni been doing with it? Why hadn’t he just thrown it in the dustbin? All she could think of was that he must have been drunk, caught the doll on a hook or in a net and shoved it in a box, taping it shut to keep in the stench. Sometimes there was no rational explanation for people’s behaviour, especially when alcohol was involved. One thing just led to another.

  Once Salvör was sure the worst of the smell had dispersed, she bent down to take a closer look at the doll. There was a fine chain of what appeared to be tarnished silver hanging around its plastic neck and down over its chest where it vanished from view under a thick layer of barnacles.

  Salvör shook her head and straightened up, feeling suddenly uncomfortably aware that she was the only person on the whole floor, in this maze of endless aisles. It was time to get moving. In any case, there was nothing to be gained from standing there, gawping at the doll. She could do that for hours, days, months even, without being any the wiser. Binni had taken the story of the doll with him to his grave.

  Salvör stuffed the vile thing back in the box and shut the flaps, then put it on top of the other boxes on the trolley and set off in the direction of the lift.

  Chapter 26

  Sunday

  The food tasted like cardboard. There was nothing actually wrong with it, but distress and a paralysing fear tended to affect the tastebuds. Frikki put his fork down after pushing the food around his plate to make it look as if he had eaten more than a single mouthful.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ His brother Fjalar met his eye across the table, his loaded fork poised halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Yeah. Just a bit tired.’ Frikki tried to force his stiff lips into a smile. Lowering his gaze, he reached for his glass and took a gulp of beer. He had asked for a sparkling water but as usual, Fjalar wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘There’s a bug going round,’ their father chipped in, and the brothers waited for the inevitable: ‘You two should get flu jabs.’

  It was pointless reminding him that they hadn’t started the latest round of flu vaccinations yet and were unlikely to do so until after New Year. Sometimes their father had to be allowed to talk bullshit if he wanted to. The brothers owed it to him, especially now that he was a lonely widower. Frikki just hope
d he wouldn’t start boring on about the hog roast parties he and their mother used to attend in Spain in the good old days. There were limits and Frikki had heard the stories more times than he could remember. But if Fjalar went on topping up their father’s glass like that, there would be no escaping the tide of reminiscences. Their father tended to come over all nostalgic once the booze went to his head.

  ‘No one’s got flu, Dad. Frikki’s just dying of frustration because he hasn’t got a bird.’ Fjalar winked at their father without making any attempt to hide it from Frikki.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ This was a bit near the knuckle from their father. Frikki felt briefly cheered, perhaps because the comment had annoyed Fjalar. His brother was in no position to take the piss out of Frikki’s love life. Sure, Fjalar hooked up with a woman from time to time, but they rarely stuck around. ‘Have you heard about something called Timber?’ their father went on. ‘I’m told that’s where people look for partners these days. Maybe I ought to give it a go. You two definitely should.’

  Frikki and Fjalar caught each other’s eye and silently declared a truce. They had no intention of taking dating tips from their father and this overcame their irritation with each other.

  Their father didn’t notice anything. He shovelled a forkful of food into his mouth, swallowed and went on talking. Fortunately, though, he had changed the subject. ‘Eat up, Frikki. Your brother’s gone to the trouble of making a meal for us and if you’re coming down with something, it’s important to eat well.’

  Since their mother had died, their father had taken over the role of doling out maternal advice that neither of them followed, any more than they had when their mother had done it.

  Frikki put a tiny morsel of food on his fork and stuck it in his mouth, to show willing. Anything to stop them nagging. ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay long.’