The Day is Dark

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘What does this mean?’ Thóra stretched her back out. She’d been sitting bent over for too long.

  ‘I don’t quite understand it, but I’ve locked the room and we’ll simply leave it to the police to investigate as they see fit. We are neither equipped to conduct a police investigation, nor is it our responsibility. They’ve simply got to come out here. We can’t solve a case like this, so we should simply focus on the aspects of it that affect the progress and survival of the project. As soon as we get in touch with the police I’ll demand that they send a team here.’ Matthew looked at the screen in front of Thóra. ‘But how’s it been going for you?’

  ‘I don’t quite get all of this but I think I’ve found some documents that could make a difference,’ said Thóra, proudly tapping the small stack of papers on the table. ‘To go over all the files with a magnifying glass would take much longer than we have. I didn’t really look at anything in detail apart from the journals and part of the drillers’ files, and even that was rather haphazard. Of course I also checked some of the files belonging to Gísli Pálsson, who was responsible for security on site. I found his name on an organization chart in a folder of general files.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Matthew, ‘Eyjólfur is copying all the files for us, so it doesn’t matter if we overlook something now.’ Thóra was rather relieved to hear this. ‘Fine. I haven’t quite got my bearings but I decided to focus on the disappearance of the three employees while I’m learning the system. I didn’t actually find anything out yet, but I’m a little bit closer.’ She handed him a printout from the driller Bjarki’s journal. ‘Eyjólfur told me the geologist disappeared on the 31st of October last year, so I looked carefully at that month and November. I also went carefully over the preceding two months in the hope of discovering something that could explain the disappearance of the two men, but I didn’t find much. I also looked over the security guard’s journals for the same period because I thought it was odd that there wasn’t much in the drillers’ journals about the woman going missing. I don’t know whether her disappearance is at all related to theirs, but if it’s one of the reasons that the staff can’t be persuaded to return, it would be well worth spending some time exploring what actually happened to her. Who knows, maybe the staff can be convinced to return if we can find an explanation. Then the bank would be saved.’ She looked at Matthew. ‘The woman who disappeared was named Oddný Hildur.’

  He looked up from the journal. ‘What else did you find out about her?’ He put down the papers. ‘This is all so complicated.’

  ‘Not much. The drillers only noted down the number of hours spent searching for her. Judging from what I read, they didn’t take part in the search out of the kindness of their hearts, but because the security guard ordered them to. One of them, this Bjarki, wrote something suggesting that they called a halt to the search after a week – the weather had deteriorated so sharply that it had become hopeless. Then I tried looking at the same month in Gísli, the security guard’s journal.’

  ‘And?’ asked Matthew. ‘Did it reveal anything?’

  ‘His account is more detailed, at least. He says that the woman was last seen at supper on the evening of October 31st, and no one knew her movements after she left the cafeteria. No one saw where she went, and she didn’t let anyone know her plans. According to him, the documents she was working on were last modified just before midnight that evening, so she was most likely in her office.’

  ‘Almost certainly, surely, if her computer record said so?’ said Matthew. ‘Could someone else have worked on the documents?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘The text notes that she could also have been in her apartment, since there’s a wireless connection set up to enable the staff to work if they’re trapped in the residential wing by the weather. Eyjólfur confirmed that that could have been the case, although he can’t tell from the file whether she was connected remotely, or if she was actually in the office. He also said that he should have been able to see whether she’d been working at the desktop or her laptop, but unfortunately the security guard saved the files after opening them and in doing so deleted the information about their previous use.’

  ‘Damn, that was stupid,’ muttered Matthew.

  ‘From what I read in Gísli’s journal,’ continued Thóra, ‘she didn’t seem very outdoorsy, but she was accustomed enough to the area not to rush outside without good reason.’

  ‘Is he suggesting that she intended to die of exposure?’

  ‘No, that’s not how I understood it,’ she replied. ‘Quite the reverse; he mentions that this Oddný Hildur had been looking forward to going home to her husband and hadn’t been behaving at all unusually. He thought it more likely that there had been an accident. He writes that the measurements from the weather monitor showed that the weather had been quite bad that night, and if the woman had gone out after it worsened she could easily have lost her way among the buildings and wandered farther and farther out into the wilderness.’ Thóra couldn’t help but glance towards the window to check on the weather. ‘He had the other staff members search the area in groups of four, without any luck. After a week the search was called off entirely for fear that other people would get lost in the storm, which had got even worse.’

  ‘And there was no mention of bones or anything like that?’ asked Matthew. ‘I was wondering whether they might have come across any other human remains during their search.’

  ‘Not a word. This Gísli would have recorded it in his diary – he appears to have been very thorough in his entries and in his responses to situations. Among other things, he went to Kaanneq to see if the woman might have wandered down there, and he also phoned to request the assistance of the authorities, although understandably they couldn’t do much apart from take down the information.’

  ‘So there’s nothing more to learn from this?’ Matthew said. ‘Actually, this is just a slightly more detailed description of everything we already knew. The geologist vanished from the camp and no one knows what became of her.’

  ‘Well, actually there’s a little bit more that could possibly make a difference,’ she corrected him. ‘On 1st November the security guard claims to have found a patch of blood or some other substance on one of the outside walls of the residential wing, where Oddný Hildur’s apartment was. He writes that he has no idea whether it was blood from a person or an animal, or how long the stain had been there, but he does say that he took a sample and was planning to bring it with him to Reykjavík for a DNA test. After that, he forbade the staff from going outside alone – he was afraid a polar bear might be in the area, and that Oddný Hildur had fallen prey to it.’

  ‘Did he tell the others about this?’ asked Matthew. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘No. He considered the group’s situation to be so bad that he didn’t want to cause any more unnecessary trouble and risk things boiling over.’

  ‘He was worried that people would start panicking?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t say that. His wording is rather odd. I don’t understand why he talks about “causing any more trouble” or things “boiling over” in a group that was out searching for a lost colleague. At least, I would have worded it differently. It’s as if he’s referring to a situation that existed before the woman went missing.’ Thóra clicked on the mouse to bring the screen back up. ‘I searched for the word “DNA” in the months that passed from the woman’s disappearance until the day the group returned home for the last time, and I found one entry in which Gísli calls the results of the test “disappointing”. The sample appears to have been contaminated during transport and no conclusion could be reached other than that it was blood – whether that of an animal or a human being isn’t known. I also searched for the words “polar bear” without result. If it was a polar bear attack, it must have been extremely unlucky, since the security guard’s journal never mentions that such a beast had been seen around here, and surely he would have recorded it if it had.’r />
  ‘Hopefully we’ll have a chance to speak to this Gísli when we get back to Iceland. He may very well have information that didn’t make it into that journal.’ Matthew picked up the papers again and thumbed through them. ‘What else did you find?’

  ‘The drillers’ last entries were rather curt.’ She took the stack of papers from Matthew and flipped through them. ‘Here’s a normal day, with the entries filling two whole pages and containing reports on geology, the weather, the equipment, etc. Here we have the days just before everyone left, with only three sentences: Weather good. Drilling rig on the south slope, L-3. No progress, need advice on an unusual find. Other entries up until the date they stopped filling in the journals are similar. No output, worked on the find.’ Thóra looked at Matthew. ‘It isn’t clear whether this find was geological or something entirely different.’

  ‘Such as?’ Matthew read over the journal entry.

  ‘Maybe the body of Oddný Hildur?’ replied Thóra calmly.

  ‘Isn’t that stretching things a bit?’ He gave her a sceptical look.

  ‘Yes, if I’d only had these daily reports to go on,’ she said. ‘However, I found something else that supports this theory.’ She didn’t waste any time describing what she meant, but instead turned to the screen and brought up an image file labelled D & G. Eyjólfur had assured her that it did not stand for Dolce & Gabbana, but Drilling and Grouting. She pointed out one of the images to Matthew. At first it looked like nothing but ice on the screen, but if you looked closer you could see clenched fingers in a block of ice. Before he could say anything Thóra hurriedly brought up the list of file names for the photographs taken that day. ‘Look here. Based on the file numbers, it seems as though the next twenty images have been erased.’ She looked at Matthew. ‘I don’t have a clue who would have done that or why, but one thing is certain – it’s a human hand, and whoever it belonged to is not alive.’

  Chapter 9

  20 March 2008

  Eyjólfur agreed with Thóra’s theory about the photos that appeared to be missing from the folder. However, he couldn’t tell whether the images had been deleted from the camera or the computer system. That actually didn’t matter, since the images were gone and there was no way of knowing what was in them, although it was safe to assume they showed the same ice-bound hand and perhaps other body parts belonging to this unfortunate person. He turned to Thóra and Matthew. ‘Of course I could go over the backup files to check whether the images are in there. If they were deleted the day after they were uploaded it’s possible that they are.’ He smiled resignedly. ‘If in fact the photos made it onto the system.’

  Matthew agreed to Eyjólfur’s plan and Eyjólfur went off to find the tapes. As he left he said that this work would be time-consuming, although there was little else for him to do for the time being; at least he wouldn’t be climbing up on the roof to fix the satellite dishes in this weather. ‘We could go and visit this place,’ said Thóra after he’d gone. ‘The journal described it quite oddly, and I’m sure Friðrikka will know what it means.’ Before they could go anywhere, however, the weather would have to improve.

  Matthew pointed at the image on the screen. ‘Do you think that’s the owner of the bones lying here in all the drawers?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Thóra. ‘It looks like there’s flesh on this hand and the photos are only just over a week old. Besides, there aren’t any bones in the desk drawers of the drillers, who are probably the ones who took the photos.’

  Bella stuck her head through the doorway. ‘It’s twelve thirty now and I’m ravenous. Is there anything to eat here, or did the trip include both starving and freezing to death?’ Thóra did not reply, but her own stomach was starting to rumble.

  ‘Yes, I guess it’s best to round everyone up and go over to the cafeteria,’ said Matthew. ‘Since the weather is so bad we ought to stick together.’ They went and found the others: Eyjólfur was working on the Internet servers, Friðrikka sat absorbed at a computer in one of the geologists’ offices, and the doctor was busily marking little plastic cups half full of water in the coffee room. They found Alvar in the security guard’s office, bent over a pile of ropes. Alvar saw the surprise on Eyjólfur’s face and his cheeks grew even redder as he muttered something about making a line between the houses that they could follow during blizzards. They put on their outerwear and walked in single file over to the cafeteria, without the safety line. Naturally, the wind had turned and it blew in their faces.

  ‘It looks to me as if everything fell apart after I quit,’ said Friðrikka, putting down her fork. They were sitting in the cafeteria, having just munched their way through grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. It was certainly no feast, but the sandwiches were quick and easy to prepare and left little to wash up afterwards. ‘I went over a chart they used to keep track of the progress of the project and that they sent weekly to Arctic Mining, but little seems to have happened. The work schedule is completely messed up and I totally understand why the mining company got worried. They were very insistent that we follow it.’

  ‘Do you know what caused the disruption?’ asked Thóra, considering whether she should have a third sandwich. There was only one left, and Bella was quicker to grab it.

  ‘I went over some of the journals and it looked to me as if there were a lot of possibilities.’ Friðrikka became a bit bashful when all eyes focused on her and she appeared to regret having said anything. ‘It seems as though they experienced significant mechanical failures, besides the havoc wreaked by the weather. This winter was much more severe than last year’s, when I was here.’

  ‘Didn’t those bastard Greenlanders just sabotage the equipment?’ asked Eyjólfur immediately. ‘They’d certainly be capable of it.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, boy?’ snapped the doctor. ‘Why would they want to sabotage anything here? I’m certain I know more about the natives in this country than you do, and I can tell you for sure that they’re the kindest of people and wish no one ill.’

  ‘Except for their women,’ interrupted Friðrikka. ‘They’re not particularly kind to them.’ Again she seemed to regret having spoken, and pressed her lips shut.

  The doctor harrumphed, then said. ‘The way that a particular people or race handles alcohol says nothing about its disposition. Alcohol doesn’t really bring out the best in Icelanders either. What if we were deprived of our sustenance, like these people have been because of bleeding-heart liberal Westerners banning the hunting they depend upon?’ He paused for a moment. ‘These people are innately good but they have suffered badly. I also think that conditions here on the east coast are the worst of anywhere in Greenland. The society on the west coast is more like what we’re used to.’

  Finally Thóra joined in. ‘Why do you think that the natives had something to do with the machinery?’ she asked Eyjólfur. ‘Were you here when any of this happened? That kind of thing could matter as far as the insurance is concerned.’

  Eyjólfur seemed to have calmed down a bit. ‘Yeah, I’m not making it up; I know a bit about what happened,’ he answered, happy to have the opportunity to defend himself. ‘I’m not prejudiced or anything.’ No one bothered to contest this feeble excuse. ‘But I was here once when the drilling rig failed, and the drillers said someone had contaminated its fuel, poured sugar into it or something. It took them a long time to fix it and I can promise you that none of our people would have done such a thing. We all knew what was at stake.’

  ‘Is it possible that this Oddný Hildur, the one who disappeared, might have been involved?’ asked Matthew. ‘Maybe she was mentally unbalanced, and upset with the workplace or with Berg Technology.’

  Friðrikka cleared her throat, her face red with anger. ‘The equipment failed after she disappeared. And besides, the very idea is ridiculous. Oddný Hildur was my friend; she was quiet and reserved by nature and I can guarantee you that she didn’t sabotage the equipment or anything else. And I won’t listen to this nonsense about her
mental condition; she simply died of exposure, it was an accident and any talk about anything else is fucking bullshit. I was here when she vanished and there was nothing wrong with her. I found the insinuations that she committed suicide tasteless, and they were only made to cover the fact that those who were supposed to be taking care of us did not deal with the matter appropriately.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Thóra. ‘I read through the journals and it looked to me as if your security guard, Gísli, was completely on the case. Are they not to be trusted?’ She had already decided to go back over his data, making note of the time period when the vandalism to the drilling rig had taken place, in order to get a clearer view of the bigger picture. If the man had been making things up in his journals, she might not need to spend much time on them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Friðrikka. ‘Gísli tried a bit but he called off the search too early, and he could have done more in my opinion. And there were others who could also have done better as far as the search is concerned. The owner of the company seemed not to take her disappearance particularly badly and didn’t even make the trip out here. The same goes for the police in Greenland; they never came. Oddný Hildur might even have still been alive somewhere, maybe with a broken leg, and unable to make it back to camp. If we had searched better, we might have been able to save her.’ She looked close to tears.