‘I followed you because I was thinking of looking in on you,’ said Dagný after they’d set off again. ‘I figured you were probably wondering about all of this and I thought maybe I could help. I remember Védís well, which maybe isn’t saying much.’
‘Were you living round here when she died?’
‘No, I bought my house two years ago, after she’d already passed away. But she was certainly enough of a character to attract attention, even if you weren’t her next-door neighbour.’ Dagný stopped to catch her breath before continuing. ‘Is there anything in the house that could conceivably provide clues about her connection to the other cases? I must confess that I don’t understand what it’s all about.’
‘It doesn’t look to me as if any of her belongings are still there. They might have gone to her relatives, though the hospital inherited the house itself.’ Freyr lessened his speed slightly; he mustn’t forget that she’d already done her share of jogging for the day.
Dagný seemed happy to be able to slow down a bit. ‘The hospital got everything, naturally, but after the assessor went over the household inventory it turned out that it had some value, since a lot of it came from her parents’ estate, including some antiques. I was told that the bulk of it was sold in Reykjavík, but that her most personal effects were kept back in case a relative came looking for them later. And of course a lot of stuff was thrown out.’
‘I still haven’t had a proper look at the storage room in the basement. Maybe the stuff they kept is there. At least I know it’s not anywhere else in the house, or in the garage. I’ve never given much thought to the house’s former residents until now; I don’t even know much about the guy who lived there before I moved in. I just know he was a doctor from Reykjavík, like me.’
‘Yes, he moved out a few months before you arrived.’
Freyr knew nothing more about the man than what he’d heard at the hospital, which was that he hadn’t completed his contract and that he didn’t seem to have been very popular – possibly as a result, although it might also have been down to his personality. ‘But if the things are in the storeroom now, is it okay to look through them, or open boxes? Obviously I don’t own the stuff, though it is in the house I live in.’
Dagný slowed down even more. ‘I can promise you that no one here in Ísafjörður is going to start snooping around to find out what you’ve been up to in your house. You were given a key and if it opens the storeroom containing some of the deceased owner’s things, then it’s entirely up to you if you take a look at it.’
They jogged in silence for another short stretch before Freyr noticed that Dagný was really starting to tire and suggested they turn back. He could have carried on running for a good while longer but preferred to jog back with her rather than continue on alone. When they got to the house he decided to invite her in for a glass of red wine, soft drink, tea, beer, coffee, or whatever she wanted. She looked down, exhaled, and then accepted his offer, on the condition that she first be allowed to go home and shower; she would come back in half an hour or so. Four minutes later he had finished showering himself, having invented a quick method of doing so during his student years, when he was always in a rush and it felt as though every minute could make a difference. He dried himself and dressed with the same speed, and in order to shorten his wait for Dagný he decided to go and have a look in the storeroom. The evening was so tranquil and the neighbourhood so still that he would no doubt hear her when she opened the old steel gate.
It was darker in the back garden than the front. He was very careful to support himself with his hand on the wall as he went down the basement stairs. Visibility was poor and he didn’t want to fall or trip up, especially not when he was expecting a visitor. The hinges creaked loudly as he opened the door. He reached for the light switch inside and looked around at the nearly empty basement.
There was as little to see as there had been last time. Dust danced in the beam of light. Freyr decided to look behind the little partition towards the back of the basement, something he hadn’t done before when he’d merely peeked in. There he found a cardboard box, upon which was written in large letters, with a black marker: Védís Arngrímsdóttir. Without thinking about it too much, he lifted the box, worrying that he might not hear Dagný.
He was going to wait to open it until Dagný was gone, but he couldn’t contain his curiosity and looked inside. The box contained mainly books, and on top was an old, worn-out notebook with a handwritten title: Dream Diary 2001–
Chapter 17
The clouds all seemed to have given up at the same moment, probably from the weight of their burden; one minute everything was calm, and the next the night air was filled with heavy, gusting snow. It swallowed every sound, muting the babbling of the stream and the rush of waves at the seashore. This transformation didn’t make them feel any better, although initially it had been a definite relief to lose the surrounding sounds and the need to start in alarm every time they heard a creak in the rickety house. It didn’t help that the windows were all boarded up, meaning they were now entirely deprived of two of their five senses, making it difficult to know whether someone was outside.
‘I want another cigarette.’ Líf was restless, passing her index finger through the flame of a candle standing on the old dining room table where they sat. She’d found an open pack of Winstons in the kitchen and taken one, to the noisy protests of Katrín, who didn’t want to steal anything from strangers. It was bad enough that they were burning down one of the candles that stood in low copper holders here and there throughout the house, and there was an overwhelming likelihood that they would continue to do so until only the stumps were left. Their urgent need, however, might justify the thievery – unlike Líf’s smoking, a bad habit that she should long since have given up. ‘Do you want to go and have a look with me again?’
‘No.’ Katrín certainly wasn’t going to start doing Líf any favours after she’d run off and left her alone to face what was hidden around the corner of the house. In fact, nothing had happened; after making his threats the owner of the voice had disappeared, leaving Katrín sitting there trembling to her marrow in the silence of the evening, Putti next to her, until Garðar came running to her with Líf at his heels. Líf had stumbled into his arms as she fled up the path, meeting him on his way back to them with the keys. Panting and breathless, she’d told him what they’d encountered and he ran ahead immediately to find Katrín, unsure what he would encounter at the doctor’s house after hearing Líf’s description. When it became apparent that Katrín was unhurt he strode angrily and resolutely round the corner in the hope of finally catching the delinquent child and giving him a thrashing. But there was no one there, which was no surprise to Katrín; the boy had left some minutes before and since he knew the area a thousand times better than they did, it was useless to try to go after him. Nor did the darkness offer much opportunity for heroic deeds.
‘I don’t understand how we managed to forget to bring candles.’ Garðar had been muttering this same sentence at regular intervals ever since Líf had set eyes on them. ‘I swear I must have forgotten candles even existed when we were buying supplies.’
‘Please, come with me. I can’t go alone.’ Líf jerked back her hand after forgetting what she was doing and passing her finger too slowly through the flame. She shook her finger and stuck it in her mouth to cool it down. ‘It’s definitely warmer there than here.’