The office phone rang. On the line was the nurse he’d dropped in to see on the way up to his office, in the hope that the old teacher was awake and in a good enough condition to speak to Freyr. He hadn’t been, but she’d promised to let him know if he woke; he had a tendency to lie awake at night. She told him that the man was now sitting up and was even excited at the prospect of seeing Freyr, happy to have a visitor to help fill his sleepless night. As Freyr jumped to his feet he wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t called. He probably would have stared out of the window until the morning shift staff drove their cars into the car park, then gone to work for yet another day with bags under his bloodshot eyes. Which was of course still a possibility; it wasn’t at all clear whether he’d be able to sleep despite his overwhelming fatigue, which intensified by the hour. Hopefully he would feel the desire to go to sleep in his own bed at home after speaking to the old man.
He hesitated when he opened the door to the corridor. He was met by the familiar blinking and popping of the fluorescent light, despite the fact that the bulb had been replaced. The light fitting itself must be broken, and he determined to speak to the caretaker despite the man’s undoubted opinion that Freyr was a compulsive complainer, and an extremely odd one at that. He took a deep breath, thinking of the vision that had plagued him here a short time ago. Now, when he was overcome by tiredness, was when he could expect all sorts of nonsense to enter his head. Freyr gathered himself and went out, feeling a surge of relief when he saw only the linoleum floor and white walls. Nonetheless he got goose bumps as he walked down the corridor, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He looked over his shoulder repeatedly to assure himself that this was not the case, but he never saw anything, although he thought he heard a soft snickering behind him as he continued on his way. Of course he was hearing things, wasn’t he? Yet somehow he suspected that if he were to record the sound he would discover it was not a hallucination. He stopped, activated the recorder on his mobile phone and let it run as he walked slowly towards the staircase. When he reached it he turned off the device and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. It wasn’t until he entered the wing and looked into the friendly, smiling face of the nurse that his goose bumps disappeared. It was obvious from her surprised expression that his relief was written all over his face, and, embarrassed, he resolved to act as normally as possible.
‘He’s in his room. There’s no one in the other bed; we released the patient today.’ The woman hesitated. Freyr had always liked her, but unfortunately they hardly ever worked the same shift. She was extremely sharp and usually went straight to the point, as she did now: ‘Can I ask why you want to see him?’
‘I’m investigating the case of the woman who committed suicide in Súðavík. He taught at the school she attended as a child.’ He smiled at the nurse when he heard how far-fetched the connection sounded. ‘Believe me, this story is so strange that it’s too complicated to try and explain it coherently now. When it’s all sorted out, I’ll sit down with you over a cup of coffee and tell you the whole story.’
She smiled, revealing her even white teeth. ‘It sounds as though a glass of wine would be better than coffee. Something a bit stronger.’
Freyr wasn’t born yesterday and he knew she was flirting with him. He smiled back. She reminded him of a woman with whom he’d had a brief fling, which he had quickly come to regret. He’d had no business starting a relationship back then, but now he thought circumstances were not only different, they were better. Besides, this woman was a much more amiable version of the other one, and seemed to be a lot more grounded. It was high time he started living again, and Dagný seemed to be drifting away from him in terms of any sort of relationship, although their friendship was strengthening. This woman was gorgeous, smart and apparently willing. Maybe a decent relationship with a member of the opposite sex was what he needed to get him back on track. ‘Wine would work, too. Let’s do that.’ Feeling slightly more cheerful, he walked off in the direction of the only room casting a light into the corridor. He hesitated at the doorway and his cheerfulness dwindled a bit when he saw that the old teacher seemed to have fallen asleep again. His bed was in the upright position, but the man was leaning back against his pillow with his eyes closed and an earphone in one ear, probably to listen to a repeat of the day’s schedule on Channel 1. Freyr coughed softly to draw the man’s attention, in case he wasn’t actually sleeping but was just absorbed in the radio. Freyr was indescribably relieved when he opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d fallen asleep again. I hope I haven’t woken you.’
The man patted the edge of the bed. ‘No, you didn’t wake me. Come in. I don’t sleep much any more without the help of drugs.’ He took the earphone from his ear and lowered his voice as he did so. ‘What else can I do for you? I gather it’s connected to what we talked about the other day. I’ve been thinking about it a bit and recalling old times. It’s odd how some of your oldest memories are so vivid, but you can’t necessarily remember what you had for supper last night.’
‘If that’s something you want to remember, given the food here.’ Freyr sat down by the bed. ‘But you guessed my errand correctly. I’ve also been thinking a bit about the boy you told me about, Bernódus, who disappeared. His name keeps coming up in connection with a case that’s unusual, to say the least, and seems to have ties to the past.’
The man nodded. There was hardly any flesh left on his bony skull, and his skin looked like soft wax, as if his face were melting. ‘This thing with the boy was a great tragedy, but I can’t understand how his story could be connected to anything now.’ He looked at Freyr. Although his days were clearly numbered, the old teacher still had a gleam in his eye. ‘Not unless you’ve found his bones – is that it?’
Freyr shook his head. ‘No, nothing that simple, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s a shame. I’ve always thought that someone’s death was never settled until his bones were buried in consecrated ground.’ The little white bud of the earphones seemed somehow incongruous in his ancient hands. ‘Maybe because my father drowned at sea when I was a boy. I thought constantly about where his bones might be lying, whether they would disappear under the seabed over time or whether someone would set eyes on them before they vanished completely. You have to remember that I was just a kid. As I got older of course it became easier to bear, but I would still leave this world more contented if his remains had been found. They certainly won’t be now, any more than the bones of the other thousands lying in watery graves off these shores.’
‘Do you think the boy perished at sea? Drowned?’ Although Freyr was sorry for the loss of the old man’s father, he wanted to stick to the topic for fear that the memories would overwhelm him; one old story would lead to another, and so on.
‘Actually, I really don’t know. All I know is that the sea-god Ægir rarely returns those who end up in his icy embrace. So it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s no other place around here that could hide such a secret for long. It’s been nearly half a century since his disappearance, and no unidentified child’s bones have been found in these parts. It’s not as if the town is surrounded by lava and rocks, where no one can go to search.’