‘No, how could you think that? I was telling you that I tried to stop Garðar. I tried to save you. We’re friends.’
Nausea overwhelmed Katrín. How could Líf think that she didn’t remember how the collapse of the brick wall had occurred? It was Líf who had urged her to peek in through the opening in the wall, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. If Garðar had pushed down the wall it had been with Líf’s full support and probably her encouragement. And when Katrín fell down the stairs, no one but Líf had been standing behind the door. ‘Liar.’ Katrín didn’t dare say more. The tremendous rage that had been keeping her going was diminishing rapidly, to be replaced by sorrow at her situation, the betrayal and the injustice. Adding in the pain in her foot and the biting cold, it all became a perfect cocktail of grief and misery. Katrín had never felt so powerless.
‘I’ll pretend you never said that.’ Líf’s teeth were chattering. ‘In the morning, after we’ve slept a little, everything will be better. Believe me, I can feel it. We’ve hit rock bottom and now the only way is up. The boat’s coming tomorrow and everything will be just like it was. Well, almost.’ She looked at the tattered cigarette packet on the table. ‘I’m thinking of smoking the last cigarette. I know you can’t come with me to the doorway, but I should be all right since everything’s gone quiet and the scary stuff seems to have stopped now.’ As if on cue, a creak came from a door hinge upstairs. Startled, they both stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, which revealed nothing. The creak came again, as if a door were opening slowly but surely. Then it was slammed with so much force that Katrín half expected to hear it fall to the floor. But this didn’t happen; instead they heard a malevolent chuckling and then the footsteps of someone running down the hallway. The ceiling trembled and loose flakes of paint fell onto the kitchen table and the packet of cigarettes.
Líf grabbed her chest. ‘He’s upstairs.’ As soon as she said this, a loud knocking came from the crawl space below. Katrín was so startled that her neck cricked painfully as she looked down. Adrenalin rushed through her veins and the pain in her fingers disappeared. Even her foot seemed to benefit from the shock, since the throbbing lessened, though without disappearing completely. Líf stared wide-eyed at Katrín. The knocking came again, now slightly softer, followed by a noise as if something were being dragged along the floor beneath them towards the opening. Neither Katrín nor Líf dared so much as breathe, and Putti made no sound. The noise grew clearer the closer it came and was accompanied by a vague mumbling that was impossible to make out. Katrín drew a deep breath and looked towards the window; her only thought was to get out of there and that was the shortest way out. She recoiled in horror, feeling hope drain away, for outside stood a boy who didn’t seem to be the same one they had seen before. This one, who was smaller, stared in with glazed eyes, his greyish face infinitely sad. Outside or inside. It didn’t matter. They were dead.
Líf followed Katrín’s gaze to see what had made her go so pale, and her scream was so forceful that it snuffed out the candle. She fell silent and started snivelling. Overwhelmed by darkness and despair, they had no choice but to listen to the scratching sound coming from the hole as something seemed to drag itself up through it. Then the floor creaked as the creature made its way over to them. The footsteps stopped behind Katrín, who sat nearer the hole. She felt an icy breath hover around her neck, accompanied by the familiar rank smell. She moaned involuntarily, though she’d resolved not to emit a sound in the hope that the creature would disappear or move on to Líf. In her anguish it didn’t cross her mind that if Líf and Garðar had been behind the attacks on her, the ghost might be good after all and wouldn’t do them harm. Two little hands, cold as ice, closed around her throat.
Chapter 32
It was as if Freyr were finally free from a drug-induced haze. He looked around his home, which he’d done nothing to brighten up the entire time that he’d lived in Ísafjörður. The outlines of everything had become sharper, and now for the first time the mismatched fittings got on his nerves. He clutched a photo of his son to his chest, as if he didn’t want Benni to see how his father lived now. He felt a certain consolation in holding his child so closely, even though the photograph in the frame was only ink on paper, a two-dimensional image of one moment in his far-too-short life. Freyr squeezed his eyes shut again and wished that the next few days and weeks would show him some mercy and pass by in a flash. Now when it seemed his sincere wish that Benni’s earthly remains be found was going to be fulfilled, he realized that despite all his attempts to be guided by logic he’d always held onto the faint hope that Benni was still alive. That hope was now gone. He was scared to tell Sara the news and so hadn’t even tried to call her; she wouldn’t answer him anyway, and he felt it would be useless to hit her with something that hadn’t even been positively confirmed. Which it would be shortly.
‘Drink this.’ Dagný had come into the room with a glass half full of golden liquid. ‘I found a bottle of whisky in the kitchen. I hope you don’t mind that I opened it.’
Freyr relaxed his grip on the photo frame and took the glass. He’d brought the bottle with him from Reykjavík; a parting gift from colleagues of his who didn’t know he wasn’t much of a whisky fan. The strong liquid stung his throat. ‘Thanks.’ He took another, bigger sip that went down more easily. ‘Is there any news?’
Dagný sat down in a chair facing him. ‘This is the car. I had the old case files looked over, and the driver bought himself something to eat at this petrol station. It was the last charge on his credit card before he used it again in Ísafjörður. The receipt was even in the glove compartment when we went through the car. The date and time fitted with the recording from the security camera.’
Freyr nodded numbly. He took another sip of whisky, hoping that he wouldn’t start feeling its effects until later. ‘No one knows what happened to him?’
‘No. He disappeared around the same time as your son. Three years ago.’ Dagný leaned back, but still seemed just as anxious. ‘After we were informed about a car that had been parked for more than two weeks at the harbour here in Ísafjörður, we made enquiries about the owner and subsequently initiated a search. He owned a house in Hesteyri and had gone over there along with the supplies he needed to renovate it, which were in his trailer. The skipper of the boat that took him over said the man was meant to call when he wanted to be picked up, but he hadn’t done so yet. He wasn’t worried about it, but from his description of the provisions that the man had taken with him, we thought it best to go over to Hesteyri and check on his situation. It was autumn and growing colder, so we had every reason to worry about him. As it turned out, he was never found.’
‘What could have happened to him? It’s not a big place, is it?’ Freyr refrained from asking what he longed to know most. It would take him a few more drinks to work up the nerve to do it.