Trap

by Lilja Sigurdardóttir

  ‘I’m going to go and live with Mum! And I’ll take Teddy with me!’ he yelled with all the energy he could muster after his father, who finally turned and took a few rapid steps back towards him.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, Tómas! You understand that?’ His face was close to Tómas’s, so he could smell the coffee on his breath. ‘Your mother is an unfit parent, so you’d better forget these daydreams once and for all,’ he hissed, spun around and slammed the car door behind him.

  For a moment Tómas felt as if his heart was going to stop beating. He had never before been afraid of his father. The car’s wheels screeched as it pulled away. Tómas watched the wind ruffle the surface of the puddle on the pavement in front of the house, sniffing and wiping away the tears that ran down his cheeks. The bruise in his belly contracted and tightened into a ball. He would never speak to his father again. He was going to be silent and not say a single word to him from now on.

  26

  Bragi fiddled with the boarding pass in his hands while he looked around the departure lounge at Reykjavík’s domestic airport. The little international lounge that served flights to Greenland and the Faroe Islands was securely separated from the arrivals hall for domestic flights, but the same security procedures took place here as at Keflavík, just on a smaller scale. It was like a tiny version of an airport terminal and Bragi was enjoying taking it all in. He remembered this building being extended – it didn’t feel like it had been such a long time ago; but now it seemed tatty, with the original woodwork repeatedly painted over and the linoleum flooring worn down by the footsteps of too many travellers passing through. This was one of the few places he had not worked during his long career. He had worked in the postal division, at the ferry terminal on the east coast and at the Reykjavík docks, but the longest spell had been at Keflavík.

  He watched passengers enter the departure lounge and paid attention to each of the men. A Fokker 50 didn’t carry that many passengers, so he should be able to use a process of elimination to narrow the candidates down to Axel Jónsson. A group of Greenlanders were already there when he had arrived, apparently on their way home from a conference or some kind of event. Then there was a family that had checked in at the same time as he had – a young couple with two sturdy children; Bragi crossed them off his mental list. After them came three middle-aged women travelling together, followed by two couples who appeared to be from central Europe. Another group of Greenlanders came in, and behind them was a man on his own who immediately attracted Bragi’s attention. He looked to be around thirty years old, dark haired, with three days’ worth of stubble and wearing jeans and a leather jacket. As soon as he had passed the security check, the man went to the toilet and Bragi wondered if he should follow him to see if he was doing anything suspicious. But he decided against it; it was better to stay where he was to get a full overview of the passengers getting ready to board.

  While people were still arriving in the departure lounge, Bragi moved to a less conspicuous position, conscious that he should not appear to be looking out for someone. There was no one-way mirror to hide behind now. A few minutes passed before the man Bragi had been waiting for arrived. He knew immediately that this had to be Axel Jónsson. He didn’t need any confirmation, as instinct told him he was right – he was like a sniffer dog following a scent. The man was around forty, slim with neatly cut dark hair and freshly shaved. He wore sporty, good-quality clothes, as if he was on his way to a game of tennis or a round of golf. There was nothing suspicious about him, and that in itself was suspicious. Bragi sat on one of the plastic chairs and felt himself relax. Now he knew who he would be tailing.

  27

  ‘Then we’re almost there,’ the bank manager said, shaking his computer mouse as if trying to bring it back to life. The atmosphere of strict legality had departed along with the witnesses, leaving only the issue of adding the transaction to the bank’s registration system. Agla sat back in her chair and admired the view below this modern, glass-walled financial fortress, looking down at the canal that was still as a mirror as it reflected the white-and-yellow three-storey buildings that rose straight up as if they had roots in the water.

  ‘The vendor is Nóri and Avance is the purchaser,’ the bank manager mumbled to himself, tapping at his keyboard with two index fingers. Agla knew him from her banking days. She had often used his services and found him to be exceptionally flexible, plus he had a talent for handling heavyweight customers with a real, luxurious, European flair. Lunch had been served at the office: oysters, champagne, and then Stilton in delicate chocolate shells was offered with the coffee that he spiced with a dash of fine cognac from the bottle in his desk drawer.

  ‘The debt package is based on the basic investment,’ he muttered to himself, ticking boxes on the screen. Then he looked at Agla. ‘I’ll enter a note to state that the chairman of Avance Investment’s board will arrive later today. He can simply make himself known to the desk staff downstairs and they’ll know what this is about.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Agla replied. ‘Jean-Claude sends his kindest regards, but he’s terribly busy today.’

  That was a half-truth. Jean-Claude was certainly busy as Friday was the day for mopping the stairs and Agla had no wish for him to meet the bank manager. She was pretty sure that Jean-Claude’s style would have been to knock back far too many oysters, turn his nose up at Stilton with chocolate, hold out his glass for more cognac and crack a few coarse jokes. It was better that he could come into the bank while the taxi waited outside with its engine running, sign on the dotted line and head straight for the door. She would be there to hurry after him and discreetly point out where his signature was wanted, as any efficient secretary would.

  ‘We do our best to make business as smooth as possible for our customers,’ the bank manager said.

  Agla nodded in agreement. ‘You certainly do that,’ she said. ‘It’s always a particular pleasure to do business here.’

  She admired the view beyond the window and it occurred to her that she had once dreamed of an office like this; a spacious, bright room with a view – maybe out to Reykjavík’s slate-blue harbour. But by the time she had got what she wanted, she had been so overwhelmed by stress that she hadn’t been able to appreciate it. That had been a few months before the financial crash, when the bank’s share price was in free fall, lines of credit were closing one after another and every strategy they could come up with to the fix the situation, such as transferring more debt to the dwarves, were just short-term measures.

  The bank manager pushed his reading glasses a little higher up his nose and continued to tick boxes on the registration form.

  ‘LIBOR interest rates,’ he muttered. ‘And the usual Deutsche Bank fee, if I remember correctly?’

  ‘Yes,’ Agla replied. ‘The same terms as usual.’

  ‘And what industry sector should I enter for this transaction? Which sector did the initial investment come from?’

  ‘Heavy industry,’ she said. ‘Aluminium.’

  28

  The approach to Nuuk was captivatingly beautiful. Bragi gazed at the town nestling by the jagged-edged fjord with its myriad hues of blue, from the cobalt of the sea to the grey-blue steel sheets on the roofs of the houses that looked like little toys from this height, and the light, almost luminescent, blue of the snow covering the ground.

  For a moment the sad thought came to him that Valdís was unable to enjoy this with him. Such thoughts came to him more rarely now that he had accepted Valdís’s situation, but on the occasions that they did, he felt a pain deep inside himself, as if a heavy rock in his chest was weighing down on his internal organs. He wasn’t here to admire the view, however, so he shook off such sentimental thoughts and stretched out of his seat a little to check on the man who sat on the other side of the gangway, three rows ahead of him.

  Axel Jónsson sat still, apparently asleep, with his head back against the seat. He clearly had no interest in the view over Nuuk. Other p
assengers leaned over their neighbours to see out of the windows, but not him. Bragi thought to himself that, if the man preferred not to see out because he might be afraid of flying, then one hand would be clasped around the armrest, but that wasn’t the case. His hands lay idle in his lap, and from where he sat, Bragi could see no indication that he might be stressed. Maybe he was wrong about the man. Maybe it wasn’t Axel Jónsson. Maybe the man was just an innocent traveller. Or perhaps this was the right man and he’d become used to the view of Nuuk having seen it so often. According to Bragi’s thinking, that was exactly the way it was.

  As the aircraft’s doors opened and the bitter cold swept into the cabin, Bragi silently thanked Valdís for the woollen sweater he was wearing. It was the last one that she had knitted for him; the pattern had been taken from a book, as, once she had been taken ill, she had no longer worked from her own patterns. It wasn’t the finest sweater she had made, but all the same, it was tightly knitted and thick, and here in the Arctic cold it would keep him warm. In a strange way, he felt that with this sweater on, he had Valdís’s arms around him and there was more than just warmth to such an embrace.

  The man Bragi was sure was Axel Jónsson stood up and took his bag from the overhead locker, while Bragi did the same. He had taken hand baggage with him, with little more than a toothbrush and a change of underwear. He didn’t expect to spend long in Greenland. From the log of past passenger lists he had been able to get hold of, he had seen that Axel Jónsson usually spent one or two nights here. There was every chance that he would do the same this time.

  29

  Agla and Jean-Claude laughed all the way up the stairs to the first floor, where he lived.

  ‘I’m never comfortable in a suit,’ he said, and Agla patted his shoulder.

  ‘Yes, but now you’re the chairman of the board of Avance Investment,’ she said. ‘And turning up to sign documents in janitor’s overalls won’t do.’

  Jean-Claude extended a hand and shook hers heartily.

  ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you. Nothing’s too much trouble after everything you’ve done for me.’

  Agla nodded. ‘I appreciate your help,’ she said.

  It was quite true. He was her representative in Avance and another company she owned, plus he had signed for three of the dwarves in which the bank had its debts. On top of that, he looked after the flat for her, forwarded her mail and in fact made it possible for her to be a legal resident of Luxembourg. For a variety of reasons, that was a real convenience. It also helped that he had no concept of numbers; he had once commented that ‘there are so many zeroes’.

  Jean-Claude disappeared through the door to the janitor’s flat, having already taken off his tie and loosened the neck of his shirt. Agla went up the stairs to the second floor and opened the door to her flat. For a second she closed her eyes and imagined Sonja running to her. She had bought Sonja’s favourite perfume at the airport and sprayed it throughout the flat, so the mirage was strong and for a moment she almost believed her own fantasy. She could see Sonja, in a dress and heels, hair piled high, throwing her arms around her in welcome. Damned stupid. Agla opened her eyes and shook off her sentimentality. She had bought this flat a couple of years ago, shortly after she had first kissed Sonja, and somehow, stupidly, she had always had an image in her mind that she would someday be here with her. Even though she had never invited her here before, the high ceilings in the living room, with rosette mouldings around the light fittings, and the dark hardwood floors had seemed to her to be something that Sonja would like. So she couldn’t deny she had chosen the apartment with her in mind. Left to herself, Agla would probably have chosen a more modern-looking home.

  She punched Sonja’s number into her phone, and was deeply relieved that she answered. But it didn’t take long for Agla to sense that Sonja was not in the best of moods, and that it wouldn’t be long before she said goodbye and ended the call.

  ‘And how’s the bank stuff going?’ Sonja asked.

  Although Agla knew the question was being asked out of courtesy, she decided to answer in some detail, if only to keep Sonja on the line. ‘It’s going well, but it’s quite complex. It all revolves around billing a company in Iceland to get the payments past the currency restrictions,’ Agla said.

  ‘And I guess it isn’t completely legal?’ Sonja suggested.

  Agla laughed. ‘Don’t be silly!’ she said.

  She would have liked for Sonja to be in a better mood, for her to give some indication of whether they were to meet again, and when.

  ‘How long is this business going to keep you over there?’ Sonja asked.

  That was the hint, the clue. She wanted to know when Agla would be back so they could meet.

  ‘I’m going to Paris on Monday and finish in London at the end of the week. That should wrap things up.’

  ‘So this is something big?’ Sonja asked, again as if this were a courtesy question to keep the conversation alive and not because she was particularly interested.

  ‘Very big,’ Agla said. ‘The biggest deal I’ve been involved in.’

  ‘That’s good for you,’ Sonja said, and Agla somehow detected a note of sarcasm in her voice. And suddenly this spacious flat felt too empty and too white. She walked to the window and looked out at the canal below. Two people were paddling a double kayak, but they seemed to be struggling to keep their strokes synchronised – the boat seemed to tip and tilt on the same spot without moving forwards.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m not suggesting anything.’

  Agla wanted to turn the conversation around, take it in a more personal direction, ask when they would next be able to see each other, but before she could do it, Sonja had somehow quickly ended the conversation and put down the phone.

  30

  It was just as well the Gulf Stream was there to keep Iceland warm. Without it, the island’s winters would undoubtedly be more like those in Greenland. The cold had Bragi shivering, in spite of the woollen sweater, his coat and the thick scarf he had wrapped twice around his neck. It was hard to believe that Nuuk and Reykjavík were on the same latitude. The air was fresh and still, not the damp atmosphere that he was used to at this time of year back home. And the view of Sermitsiaq – the mountain that loomed over the town – was magnificent. Reykjavík’s Mount Esja was a molehill in comparison.

  He had been right behind Axel Jónsson when they both checked into Hotel Hans Egede. He had even stood next to him in the lobby for a while, taking care to remain unobtrusive. Now he was hurrying after him along a street that had a long name that included at least three q’s and which he had been unable to commit to memory. Axel had his bag with him, hanging from one shoulder, and it was obvious that there was some weight to it. It was made from pale-yellow canvas and looked like a school bag, of the kind that Bragi had seen more men than he could count carrying after the old-fashioned satchels had dropped out of fashion.

  Axel had only just got into his stride when he took a right turn down a street with an even longer name: Samuel something-or-other. He passed a man sitting on the pavement selling fish from a little cool box. Bragi slowed down to take a look at the fish, but didn’t dare stop, for fear of losing sight of Axel and perhaps missing him disappearing into one of the houses. It was as well he hadn’t paused, as Axel took another right turn and Bragi had just turned the corner as he saw him go into a restaurant.

  Leaving it a minute, Bragi followed him in and took a window seat, from where he could keep an eye on Axel, who had chosen a table further inside. This was a fast-food place. The menu was decorated with a Danish flag but the food looked to be American. Bragi ordered a burger and chips, rather than the pork ribs that he would have preferred, as he was concerned they would take longer to eat. He wanted to be quick so that he could follow Axel when he set off again.

  Axel had to wait longer for his order, allowing Bragi to eat his burger at leisure while Axel fiddled wi
th his phone. Bragi watched the world pass by outside and smiled to see children playing on the round, palegrey rock across the street, which was partly covered with a layer of ice. They clambered up the slope again and again so they could slide down on their backsides. Children were the same the world over.

  His interest quickened as the restaurant’s door opened and a man came in. He was not an Inuit, and neither did he look to be a European; his complexion indicated that he came from somewhere a long way to the south. He went directly to the table where Axel was sitting and took a seat opposite him. Now Bragi was regretting having placed himself too far away to overhear any of the conversation between them. But he had little time for regret, because the man stood up almost immediately and made for the door. Bragi took a handful of chips to munch on the way and left a generous payment on the table. The yellow canvas bag was now slung over the departing man’s shoulder.

  31

  Agla’s hands explored the bed but she didn’t have to open her eyes to know that Sonja wasn’t at her side. And she could no longer detect the scent from the pillow that she had almost soaked with perfume the previous night, in order that, while her eyes were closed and before she let reality take over, she would be able imagine that Sonja had just got out of her bed.

  She ran yesterday’s phone conversation through her mind and swore at herself for not having said the right thing at the right moment. Somehow this was the way it so often played out between them. It was as if they could never reach a conclusion they were both satisfied with on how their relationship should be. It was always so damned miserable when things were dry and cold between them, especially now, after such a long and lonely break from each other. She stretched for her phone on the bedside table and scrolled through to Sonja’s number, but the call went straight to voicemail, so her phone had to be switched off. She could try again that evening.