Rupture

by Ragnar Jónasson

  Hédinn looked to be close to sixty and it wasn’t long before he confirmed Ari Thór’s judgement.

  ‘I was born there in 1956. My parents had moved there the year before, after the fjord had already been abandoned, because they wanted to keep it inhabited a little longer. They weren’t alone. My mother’s sister and her husband moved there with them; they wanted to try and farm there.’

  He paused and sipped his coffee cautiously and nibbled a biscuit from the packet on the table. He seemed slightly nervous.

  ‘Did they have a farmhouse or land there?’ Ari Thór asked. ‘It’s a beautiful place.’

  ‘Beautiful …’ Hédinn echoed, his voice distant, seeming to become lost in memories. ‘You could say that, but it’s not what springs to my mind. It has been a terribly hard place to live throughout the centuries. The snow lies heavy and it’s extremely isolated during the winter – no shortage of avalanches off the mountainsides. The fjord is entirely cut off during winter, with the ocean on one side and high mountains on the others; it was difficult enough to get to the next farm in an emergency, let alone to the next town, beyond the mountains.’

  Hédinn underscored his words with a shake of the head and a frown. He was a big man, somewhat overweight; his thin, greasy hair was combed back from his face.

  ‘But to answer your question – no, my parents didn’t own a farmhouse there. They were offered the opportunity to rent one that had been left empty, but was still in good condition. My father was a hard worker and had always wanted to be a farmer. The house was easily big enough for the four of them – my parents and my mother’s sister and her husband; he had actually been in some financial trouble at some point and he jumped at the chance to try something new. Then I came along a year later, so there were five of us there …’ He paused and scowled. ‘Well, that’s not entirely certain, but I’ll come to that,’ he added.

  Ari Thór said nothing, leaving Hédinn to continue his tale.

  ‘You said you’d driven through there. In that case, you’ve hardly seen anything of the fjord further out. What you’ll have seen from the new road is the Hédinsfjördur lagoon. There’s a narrow spit of land, Víkursandur, that separates the lagoon from the fjord itself, and that’s about as far as you can see from the road, not that it makes a difference to what I have to tell you. Our house was by the lagoon; it still is, what’s left of it. It’s the only house on the western side of the pool; there’s very little lowland there, you see. It’s in the shadow of a high mountain, right at its feet, so, of course, it was madness to try to live there, but my parents were determined to try their best. You know, it’s always been my belief that the conditions – the mountain and the isolation – played a part in what happened there. People can lose their easily minds, somewhere like that, can’t they?’

  It was a moment before Ari Thór realised that Hédinn was waiting for an answer to his question.

  ‘Well, yes. I suppose so,’ was the best he could manage. Although it could hardly be compared to the isolation of Hédinsfjördur, he had painful memories of his first winter in Siglufjördur. He’d hardly been able to sleep at night, feeling almost suffocated by the grip of the darkness and confinement, with the snow more or less closing Siglufjördur off from the rest of the world.

  ‘You’d know more about it that I would,’ he said, shivering at the memory. ‘What was it like living there?’

  ‘Me? Good grief, I don’t remember a thing. We moved away after … after what happened. I was barely a year old, and my parents didn’t say much about their time in Hédinsfjördur, which is understandable, I suppose. But it wasn’t all bad, I think. My mother told me I was born on a beautiful day at the end of May. After I was born she walked down to the pool and looked out over the water – perfectly calm on that sunny day – and decided that I should be called Hédinn, the name of the Viking who settled in Hédinsfjördur around the year 900. They told me stories about beautiful winter days, too, although my father would sometimes talk of how those high mountains could loom over you during the dark winter months.’

  Ari Thór was starting to feel uncomfortable again. He remembered vividly how the ring of mountains encircling Siglufjördur had affected him when he had first arrived there, two and a half years before. The claustrophobia was still inside him, although he did his best not to let it get the better of him.

  ‘Getting from Hédinsfjördur over to Siglufjördur or Ólafsfjördur was a tall order back then,’ Hédinn continued. ‘The best way was by sea, but it’s possible on foot – over the Hestsskard mountain pass and down into Siglufjördur. There’s a story from the nineteenth century, about a woman from one of the Hvanndalur farms going to fetch firewood; she went on foot, taking an extremely difficult route – under the scree on the east side of the fjord. She was pregnant at the time, and on top of that had another small child tucked inside her clothing – all that way. Anything’s possible, if there’s the will. That’s a story that had a happy ending. But mine doesn’t.’ Hédinn looked up with a bitter smile, and paused before speaking again.

  ‘Our old house isn’t far from the track where you’d come down into Hédinsfjördur if you arrived by foot from Siglufjördur, over the Hestsskard pass. People walk this route for the fun of it, now. Times change, don’t they? And so do people. My parents are both dead. Mother went first and father followed,’ he said ruefully and fell silent again.

  ‘The others are dead as well, are they?’ Ari Thór asked, to break the silence more than anything. ‘I mean, your aunt and her husband.’

  Hédinn looked astonished. ‘You’ve never heard about all this, then?’ he asked at last.

  ‘No, not that I remember.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just assumed you’d know the story. Back then everyone knew about it. But it fades away after a while, I suppose; it’s more than half a century ago now. Even the most terrible things are forgotten as the years go by. Nobody ever found out for certain what happened, whether it was murder or suicide …’

  ‘Really? Who died?’ Ari Thór asked with interest.

  ‘My aunt. She drank poison.’

  ‘Poison?’ Ari Thór shuddered at the thought.

  ‘Something had been stirred into her coffee. It took a long time to get a doctor to her. Maybe her life could have been saved if she had received help sooner. Maybe she did it herself, knowing that there would be little chance of getting an ambulance or a doctor there in time.’ Hédinn’s voice was even deeper and slower now. ‘The verdict was that it was an accident – that she had put rat poison in her coffee instead of sugar. That’s a little far-fetched, to my mind.’

  ‘You think someone may have murdered her?’ Ari Thór asked straight out, having long ago given up packaging awkward questions in tactful ways. He had never been particularly considerate in that regard, anyway.

  ‘That’s the most obvious conclusion, to my mind. There were only three possible suspects, of course: her husband and my parents. So the suspicion has always been looming over my family, like a shadow. Not that people mention it. The most common theory was that she had taken her own life. But people have little to say about it these days. We moved to Siglufjördur after she died, and her husband went back south to Reykjavík and spent the rest of his life there. My parents never discussed what happened with me and I didn’t fish for information. Of course, you don’t believe anything bad about your own parents, do you? But the doubt has always been at the back of my mind. I think she either committed suicide or she was murdered by her husband. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Men have killed their wives before; and vice versa,’ Hédinn said with a sigh.

  ‘I imagine you can guess what my next question is?’ Ari Thór said heavily.

  ‘Yes,’ Hédinn replied and was silent for a moment. ‘You’re wondering why I’ve come to you with this, after all these years, aren’t you?’

  Ari Thór nodded. He was about to sip the tea cooling in the mug on the table in front of him, but then the thought of the rat poison in t
he unfortunate woman’s coffee made him stop.

  ‘That’s a tale in itself.’ Hédinn squared his shoulders and thought for a moment, seeming to search for the right words. ‘First of all, to be quite clear, I got in touch with you before Christmas because I knew you were taking over from Tómas. He knows the town and all the stories far too well; I thought you’d come to it with fresh eyes, even though I’m a bit surprised that you haven’t heard the story before. But there’s another reason. A friend of mine lives down south, and in the autumn he went to a meeting of the Siglufjördur Association, where people who moved away from Siglufjördur meet regularly. They had a picture night.’

  Ari Thór raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, a picture night,’ Hédinn repeated. ‘They go through old pictures from Siglufjördur. Part of the fun of it is recognising people in the old photos and noting down their names. It’s a way of maintaining a record of the people who’ve lived in Siglufjördur over the years.’

  ‘And something happened there?’

  ‘That’s right. He rang me up that night – said he’d seen the photo.’

  There was a sudden weight to Hédinn’s voice, a darker undertone that prompted Ari Thór to listen more carefully.

  ‘The picture was taken in Hédinsfjördur, right in front of where we lived.’ He took a sip of coffee, his hand trembling. ‘This was before my aunt’s death, in the dead of winter; it was a bright day, but there was deep snow.’

  The familiar feeling of unease gripped Ari Thór for a second; he pushed it to the back of his mind.

  ‘There was nothing all that sunny about the picture, though. I must have been a few months old at the time, and it seems to show five of us there.’

  ‘Well,’ Ari Thór said. ‘There’s hardly anything strange about a family picture, is there?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Hédinn said in a low voice, and stared deep into his coffee mug before looking up sharply and straight into Ari Thór’s eyes. ‘The photo was of my mother, my father and me, and my aunt. Her husband, Maríus, must have taken the picture, or so I imagine.’

  ‘So who’s the fifth person?’ Ari Thór asked, as a chill shot through him. His thoughts turned to old stories of ghosts appearing in photographs; was Hédinn about to imply something of that nature?

  ‘A young man I’ve never seen before. He’s there, in the centre of the picture, with me in his arms. The long and the short of it is that nobody at the picture night had any idea who this man was.’ Hédinn sighed again. ‘Who’s this young man and what happened to him? Could he have been responsible for my aunt’s death?’

  4

  Exhausted after a sleepless night, Róbert poured milk onto his cereal. Sunna sat opposite him at the kitchen table, looking like she’d slept well. The morning news muttered in the background; as far as he could make out, it was another mundane March morning, apart from the reports of the outbreak of a virus in Siglufjördur. A patient had died there during the night. Róbert felt a little anxious at the thought of a contagious disease; he hoped fervently that it would be possible to stop it spreading, that he would be able to keep his family safe. This morning, however, he had other, more pressing, matters than a distant outbreak on his mind.

  Their home, as clean and smart as it was, now felt dirty – contaminated by the unwelcome intruder’s night time visit. Who had been snooping around? Had he, or she, even, peeked through the bedroom window, seen them in the throes of passion and decided to break in? Was it some miserable Peeping Tom? Or was this something more serious? The back door had been locked; he was positive of that – absolutely positive.

  There was, of course, the fact that Sunna had managed to lose her house keys. Had someone simply found them, realised whose they were and decided to break in? Or had the keys been deliberately stolen? That was certainly a very unpleasant thought. In any case, it was clear what the first job of the day would have to be: to call a locksmith and change all the locks.

  He stretched for the radio and switched it off. For a moment there was silence in the cramped kitchen, apart from the rain continuing its relentless assault on the window. It was still coming down with a vengeance.

  ‘Haven’t found your keys, have you?’ he asked, trying not to let his concern show in his voice.

  ‘It’s weird,’ Sunna said, looking up from the paper. ‘I can’t understand where they are. I definitely had them at the rehearsal yesterday and I’m sure they were in my coat pocket. I’d left it in the lobby with everyone else’s. Nothing’s ever stolen there, but I suppose anyone could have put a hand in the pocket.’

  ‘Anyone?’ Róbert asked.

  ‘Yes, I guess.’

  ‘Someone coming in from off the street, even?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she replied, looking at him hard. ‘Why? Is everything all right?’

  He forced a smile. ‘Of course, sweetheart. I was just wondering …’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘I was wondering if we shouldn’t get the locks changed, just to be sure.’

  ‘Isn’t that going a bit far?’ she asked in obvious surprise. ‘I’m sure I’ll find them.’

  ‘You know what I’m like … maybe I’m being overcautious. But it needs to be done anyhow,’ he lied. ‘The locks are getting stiff.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Sunna said, glancing at the clock as she got to her feet. ‘But it’s up to you. I’d better be going before I’m late.’

  She hurried from the kitchen, turning in the doorway, to ask, ‘Will you be here at lunchtime?’

  Róbert had a lecture to attend, but he was determined not to leave the house until the locks had been changed. It had been no lie when he told Sunna that he was cautious by nature.

  ‘I expect so,’ he said.

  ‘Breki will be bringing Kjartan. Is it all right if I’m not back by then?’ she asked awkwardly.

  He didn’t have a high opinion of Sunna’s ex.

  ‘No problem,’ Róbert replied. ‘But, one thing …’ he began as she was about to close the door behind her. ‘He’s been leaving you in peace, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Breki?’

  ‘Yes. You know what the lawyer said – that you shouldn’t be in touch with him about the dispute. From now on it’s all between the lawyers.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Breki, I can handle him,’ she added with a smile.

  5

  A knot of fear deep seemed to take up residence in Ísrún’s belly as she took her seat in the aircraft that would take her home from the Faroe Islands to Iceland. The flight to the Faroes had been fine, but the landing was one that she would never forget, the plane on the approach threading its way between towering mountains that were terrifyingly close. Closing her eyes had only made things worse, boosting her imagination to new heights as sudden turbulence made the landing even more dramatic. As she left the plane, one of its crew wished her a pleasant stay, clearly noticing how pale she was.

  ‘The flight was fine,’ Ísrún had stammered. ‘Apart from the landing.’

  ‘The landing?’ he had asked, sounding surprised. ‘It was absolutely fine today. Good conditions and only a bit of turbulence.’

  Now, as she strapped herself in, she told herself that the take-off had to be better than the landing.

  Her few days in the Faroes hadn’t been for pleasure – quite the opposite, in fact. She was deeply fond of the people she knew here, and had visited several times with her parents. This time, though, she had come by herself, to meet her mother, Anna.

  Anna had been born in the Faroe Islands, into a fishing family. Her parents were both dead now, but she maintained close contact with her two sisters, who still lived on the islands. Anna had gone to Iceland at the age of twenty, having met an Icelander, Orri, who had been working in the Faroes one summer. Anna had told Ísrún that it had been love at first sight. They built a house in Kópavogur, moving much later out to the suburb of Grafarvogur. Anna had studied literature at the University of Iceland and Ísrún was born a few years after her mother had gra
duated.

  Orri drove trucks and coaches for a living, while Anna, once her studies were over, had set up a small publishing business, with the intention of making Faroese books available in Icelandic. After a few of these translations had been published, she then expanded into children’s books. And in the last few years she had tried her hand at travel guides, and these had also been highly successful.

  While the books had made them financially secure, Anna and Orri’s marriage proved less solid. Orri had decided to become involved in the travel business, aiming to make some money in foreign currency. This was particularly attractive at a time when most of Iceland was stuck with the currency controls put in place after the financial crash of 2008, which limited access to foreign cash. He was also hoping to hitch a ride on Anna’s travel guides – using them to promote his own venture. He had bought a modest coach and had since added another one. The second coach was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Anna was approaching sixty and had arranged to sell the publishing business on good enough terms for her to retire. Orri was seven years older than she was, but had no interest in slowing down, and was less than pleased by Anna’s decision to sell her business. Ísrún had sat by and watched as the argument between her parents had escalated to a new level.

  ‘Bought a new bus,’ he had muttered over Sunday dinner.

  ‘Isn’t one enough?’ Ísrún had asked innocently.

  ‘Yep. But I’ve bought another one, ordered it from Germany.’

  ‘Another coach?’ Anna had asked sharply, staring at her husband and clearly trying hard to control her anger in their daughter’s presence.

  ‘Got it for a good price,’ he had continued. ‘A hundred thousand on the clock, but that’s nothing. And it comes with air conditioning,’ he said, exaggerating the last two words in English with the American accent he had picked up during a year in the US in the eighties.