The Day is Dark

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘You mean they might have accidentally disturbed someone’s grave?’ asked Thóra sceptically. ‘I highly doubt there was a cemetery in this area, and if there was it would have been a very long way from the beaten path. There was nothing here before the project started, and the documents that I’ve looked at say nothing about the company doing anything in the vicinity of the village, where you’d expect there to be a graveyard. Who would want to be buried here, far from everything?’

  ‘In these parts people aren’t actually buried in the ground, even in the graveyards – there’s no soil.’ The doctor crossed his arms and nodded at the skull. ‘Here they bury their dead under cairns; I don’t know how they prepare the bodies, although I imagine they’re either wrapped in something or placed in coffins. If they’d been wrapped in cloth, the bones would show more damage, which means that this skull probably wasn’t directly beneath a pile of rocks. It’s possible that it was in a coffin.’

  ‘It also seems doubtful that Berg employees dug this up accidentally,’ said Matthew. ‘Cairns must stand out in this landscape.’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘Maybe they needed to dig in the area where it was buried and didn’t realize what it was until after they’d started removing the stones.’

  ‘Could these bones date back to 1918?’ asked Thóra. Maybe the workers had found the remains of the people that disappeared from the original settlement.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Finnbogi stroked the skull’s crown. ‘This doesn’t look that old.’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I read in a book over in the cafeteria that there was a settlement here, but that everyone died of famine and exposure. I thought this might be one of those poor sods.’

  ‘That wouldn’t fit at all.’ The doctor heaved a sigh. ‘Shame, because it would be an incredibly convenient explanation.’

  ‘What about the tag?’ Thóra asked, pointing to a scrap of paper that had been lying beneath the skull in the drawer. The code G-57 – nothing else – had been written on it with a broad black felt-tip pen.

  ‘Do you think it’s related?’ asked Matthew. ‘Maybe it was in the drawer before the skull was put there.’ He looked at the name-plate on the door of the office. ‘It’ll all come to light, because the person whose desk this was is one of the ones who refuses to come back here. Maybe Eyjólfur and Friðrikka also know something about this. Maybe the skull was even found when one of them was here.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘I know this is a ridiculous question, but is it possible to know whether this person died of natural causes?’

  The doctor did not seem to find this ridiculous. ‘Well, she didn’t die from a head injury, that much is certain. The bones are whole and uncracked. The teeth suggest that she was a young person, so it wasn’t old age. The teeth are also in decent condition, so the individual took good care of them. However, it’s impossible to say whether she died through illness, injury or human intervention. Hopefully it’ll be explained when we know more about the origin of the skull. The fact that it’s here definitely points to her death occurring under unusual circumstances. In the normal way of things, the bones would have been interred in a graveyard, because they’re found in most, if not all of the settlements in this country, as they are elsewhere.’

  Thóra heard familiar footsteps approaching in the corridor. Bella appeared in the doorway, an unfathomable look on her face. ‘There are bones in all of the desks except for five,’ she said, not appearing overly surprised. Matthew had assigned her the task of exploring the other rooms in the office building in the unlikely event that more skulls could be found, or the rest of the skeleton. None of them had thought that anything would come of it. ‘The drawers were all locked, but Friðrikka told me that they all had the same lock – she gave me a key that she found in one of the rooms and it worked for all of them. I didn’t want to touch the bones, so you’ll have to come with me if you want to see them for yourselves.’

  ‘It appears to be a complete skeleton.’ The doctor clearly had no idea how to deal with this new discovery. ‘It’s possible, of course, that it’s missing something, but all the main bones are certainly here. Closer examination will reveal whether they are all from the same individual, but I would consider it likely.’

  ‘It will have to wait,’ Matthew said firmly. ‘We’re not going to touch the bones, and we will leave this to the police.’ He shut the drawer of the last of the desks that Bella had pointed out. ‘Actually, we should have left the skull alone, but we can’t undo that now.’ He watched the doctor place it carefully back in the desk and close the drawer.

  The wind blew something against the side of the building and its foundations creaked. Thóra shuddered; the storm was about to hit – that was certain. The windows on the side of the office building facing into the wind shuddered at regular intervals, and each time Thóra was convinced that a shower of glass would rain over them. She realized she was, discreetly, keeping as far away from the windows as possible. Accompanying the whine of the wind was a regular knocking sound from the roof, which the doctor had thought was probably a loose piece of roofing. Thóra found the sound unpleasant and its regularity and pitch grated more and more on her nerves. She would rather the piece flew off and let a little snow in than have this sound constantly in her ears.

  Friðrikka and Eyjólfur had come over to the office building while Finnbogi was in the middle of examining the bones, but both of them denied knowing anything about them. They both seemed convincing and sincere in their amazement as they stood in the little vestibule and brushed most of the snow from their clothing. When Matthew had quizzed them about the discovery without finding out anything new, and they had been allowed to see the remains for themselves, it was decided that Eyjólfur should inspect the computer system and try to establish contact with the outside world. Friðrikka, in the meantime, would assess the status of the project. The bones’ discovery did not change the purpose of the trip.

  ‘Does anyone know how long the storm is supposed to last?’ asked Thóra, looking out into the heavy blizzard. It was starting to grow light, although visibility was still poor because of the snow. ‘We can’t investigate the area much if it keeps coming down like this.’ Just that moment another gust struck the window, making it wobble.

  ‘I think it’s supposed to subside tonight,’ said Matthew. ‘It can hardly continue much longer than that.’

  The doctor snorted loudly. ‘Storms here can last much longer than half a day. You might as well resign yourselves to this one lasting for days. Hopefully it won’t – but you never know.’

  Thóra scowled. ‘Oh, that’s just great.’ She put down her camera. Data collection had begun, and although it wasn’t entirely clear to her how photos of the bones in the drawers could help the bank and Berg Technology in their negotiations with Arctic Mining, it might. Admittedly, it could affect the status of the negotiations if the employees of the Icelandic company appeared at worst to be connected to a possible crime, and at best guilty of unseemly conduct with a corpse. ‘I think I’ll go through the office of one of the missing drillers,’ said Thóra to Matthew. ‘Shouldn’t we start with them, just in case there’s something there that could possibly help us find them? You can take the other one.’

  They both looked at the doctor. What should he do? Each of them was clearly reluctant to trust a stranger with their own project. The doctor, seeming to sense this, straightened up ceremoniously. ‘Well, I need to collect samples from the taps and elsewhere. We may very well find Legionella pneumophila in the pipes.’ Thóra and Matthew stared at him blankly. ‘Legionnaires’ disease,’ he explained. ‘The bacteria thrives well in little-used plumbing systems and may even have infected the men. The conditions here are ideal for it.’

  ‘And then they evaporated as a result?’ asked Thóra.

  ‘No, but they might have tried to seek help and then become too exhausted to reach their destination. Legionnaires’ is a dangerous disease and can even be fatal if left u
ntreated. Or perhaps they made it to a hospital somewhere and couldn’t get in touch with anyone due to their illness.’

  Thóra didn’t fancy coffee any more, even if the water came from melted snow rather than the camp’s plumbing system. She and Matthew went to search the offices of the two drillers and discovered quickly that they had shared one room. On the way they passed Eyjólfur, who was sitting in the corridor in a kind of makeshift computer lab. On the screen before him was an indecipherable menu and the young man’s fingers flew over the keyboard. ‘Is everything all right with the system?’ asked Thóra. ‘We’re going to have a look at some of the employees’ computers and we don’t want to damage anything.’

  The young man looked up from the screen and smiled at her. ‘You can’t do any harm,’ he said. ‘The system is all right, except that there’s no Internet connection. The servers were turned off, but they’re undamaged and working properly. You can get into them just fine and that’s where all the data relating to the project should be saved.’ He reached for a pen and paper lying next to the keyboard. Something was scrawled on the paper but he tore off a blank strip. ‘Which computers are you thinking of looking at?’

  ‘The drillers’, to start with,’ she replied. ‘We’ll probably end up looking at all of them but we want to start there.’

  ‘Then you need passwords.’ He clicked on the mouse to bring up another menu with the names of the system’s users. ‘I have no idea what passwords everyone had but I’ll change them all to the same one.’ He wrote 1234 on the piece of paper and handed it to Thóra. ‘Just use this; the username should pop up after you boot the computer but give me a shout if that doesn’t happen. This should get you into everything. Except the Internet, which is totally down. I’m starting to think the dish has malfunctioned.’

  ‘The dish?’ Thóra wasn’t particularly familiar with computer systems.

  ‘We connect to the Internet via satellite dish, but everything suggests it’s kaput. It’s up on the roof, but no one’s going up there in this weather. Hopefully there’s not much wrong with it, then I should be able to fix this. The phones are dead as well, which means the dish they’re connected to is probably also buggered. Bad weather might have damaged both of them, even though they were probably set up to withstand quite a lot.’

  The door of the drillers’ office was decorated with a printed-out photo of a fiery red Formula One car. One corner of it was torn and the paper was starting to turn yellow. Two dark stains had appeared on it from the Blu-Tack used to stick it up. Above it was a plate with the names of the two men, Halldór Grétarsson and Bjarki Elíasson. There was something strange about seeing their names there and knowing that things had probably ended badly for them. Thóra and Matthew went into the office, which was quite large and held two desks. The walls were covered with printed-out jokes and photographs of the two drillers grinning at the camera. As Thóra sat down at one of the computers the thought crept into her mind that the men weren’t laughing now, wherever they were. She booted up the computer.

  Chapter 8

  20 March 2008

  Arnar Jóhannesson bowed his head, and his neck cracked. He was starting to feel a bit better. The clearer the image had become in his mind, the worse he had felt. It suddenly occurred to him that he could put an end to this misery once and for all. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the idea, but it had become clear to him that he lacked the courage to do so, even though he knew that his reward would be eternal atonement. It was probably fear of failure that stopped him; the idea of waking up at the hospital paralysed or with brain damage was so unbearable that even the hell that was his life was better. He didn’t always feel this bad. He knew the discomfort would pass; the inevitable result of falling, of giving in to the temptation of alcohol that seduced him, promised to alleviate his suffering and dispel the unpleasant thoughts that plagued him. It wouldn’t really matter. The pain was still there, as well as the terrible thoughts, and now self-loathing had been added to the mix. He had given in like a miserable wretch, and for a while he had rejoiced in being a loser.

  He stood up and pulled the belt of his bathrobe tighter. He had lost a lot of weight on this days-long binge and he felt like a weakling. All his effort in recent months, weightlifting and running, had come to nothing. Why wasn’t it as difficult to get out of shape as into it? He had put a lot of energy into looking good and being in good condition, and it was no walk in the park. That was probably the greatest indicator of the influence of this disease that he had inherited from his mother. When he drank, he became completely apathetic about the things that mattered to him; the only thing that mattered was the next drink – maintaining the high and ensuring that it never diminished. It had been incredibly easy for him to take the first step in the Twelve-Step Programme: ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.’ The second step had proven much more difficult. He could thank his lucky stars for having been helped into treatment this time, before he did more damage to himself than excessive weight loss. Usually when he succumbed to temptation, more and more time would pass until he got back on the right track. It had actually been a good long time since he had last stumbled; he had been dry for four hundred and eighty-three days before letting himself be tempted again.

  He vaguely recalled having rung the Alcoholics Anonymous emergency helpline, but he had no idea what had inspired him to do so. He had been a slave to alcohol since he took his first sip as a teenager, and could only ever recall flashes of what happened while he drank – and those scraps of memory generally caused him hellish torment. What little he remembered was always utterly humiliating. He tried to forget about why he might have called and content himself with being grateful that he had. Who knew where he would have been at this moment if he had never made the call – and he didn’t want to know. Every drink pushed him further and further into a dark corner of society, and the space between drinks had been reduced to almost nothing by the time he picked up the phone. He looked around the Spartan room. He had sworn never to have to visit such a room again, but that vow had been washed away with his first sip of beer, along with his self-respect. There was nothing else to do but renew the vow. One day at a time, go to the meetings, listen to the others and eventually open up. However, he would not, for the time being, speak up. Right now his self-esteem was too low for that. The last thing he wanted was to start bawling like a little girl in front of others who were in the same boat. That would be just ridiculous. He could not feel sorry for himself; he had managed to make a mess of things entirely unaided. He had held his life in his own two hands, but instead of nurturing it he’d decided to squeeze his fists and crush it. He would settle for listening to stories of families falling apart, missed opportunities and junkies’ hard-luck stories.

  Arnar was dying for one sweet little drink. Just one glass. One fucking glass. This was costing him enough as it was and one glass now and then could hardly make a difference. What a fucking idiot he was, calling AA. If he’d skipped it, he’d be sinking a cool one right now. Detox and rehab were maybe not the way to go. There were probably other types of treatment, aimed at teaching compulsives like him how to get to grips with drinking less. It wasn’t the first glass that caused the problem, but the many more that inevitably followed. As this thought subsided, he recalled what had inspired him to pick up the phone. He had done something unforgivable. His business with the AA people had not been a cry for help, but rather a chance to talk to someone about the interpretation of Steps 8 and 9: ‘Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all . . . Made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.’ Too late. It was far too late for that. A chill crept through his heart and it seemed as if the blood in his veins had thickened. He waited until it was totally frozen and he felt like he had when he was in Greenland. Then he left his room to join the meeting, with its flickering promise of redemption.

&nbs
p; Thóra had been at the computer for hours and felt no closer to discovering anything. Like any other IT system, it was characterized by numerous files that were impossible for strangers to figure out; it didn’t help that most of them existed in many different versions. So she had called on Eyjólfur to help get her going, and he had willingly granted her a little insight into how the system was arranged. It was broadly divided into four areas: photographs, journals – which everyone was required to keep – records related to the project, and finally employees’ personal documents.

  Thóra decided to start with the journals, which were most likely to contain decipherable information. She thought it best to wait with the project and work files, as well as the personal documents. Eyjólfur had told her the latter category had caused system problems, since the music and video files the staff liked to download took up so much disk space. Out of curiosity Thóra opened one folder entitled ‘Doddi’ and in return got a dauntingly long list of files of various kinds. Before he left her, Eyjólfur informed her that the staff had been discouraged from saving non-essential files onto the hard drives of their computers. They wouldn’t make a backup of all the files from each machine – only from the central server.

  Thóra pored over the files, promptly copied what she considered important and sent it to the printer that Eyjólfur said was located in the corridor. He promised to make sure that no one took the pages, and even regularly brought her the printouts. After rushing through the journals, she nosed around a bit in the other categories and found a file or two that also appeared meaningful, so she would have something to show Matthew when he came back. He had gone to inspect the offices for traces of blood, leaving her alone in the drillers’ room. ‘I found one office that I’m almost sure is the one in the video. When you look at it closely you can tell someone has tried to clean up after an absolute bloodbath. There are splotches on the folders and signs that the walls and floor have been wiped down with a rag or something. Obviously I don’t have any ultraviolet equipment to illuminate biological material, but I don’t think there’s any doubt what the stains are. There’s a video camera on the desk, still connected to the computer. I didn’t dare mess with the camera, but it’s fairly obvious that it’s the one that took the video.’