‘We don’t know. Even though Hesteyri is a small, abandoned village, there are vast areas all around it where he could have got lost. He probably went for a hike or set off thinking he could walk to town. His phone was found there, dead. Of course you never know; the battery could have drained after he disappeared, but it could be that his phone hadn’t worked when he’d needed it to and he thought his only choice was to try to walk back.’
‘That seems likely.’ Freyr took another sip of whisky, then threw his head back and downed the rest.
‘Yes and no. There were at least two days’ worth of provisions in the house. He could hardly have started panicking before he left it.’ Dagný pressed her lips together. ‘Are you tipsy enough to tell me how you got the information on your son’s whereabouts?’
Freyr wanted to smile at her but couldn’t. The muscles in his face refused to obey. ‘No. I promised not to tell, and I can’t betray that.’ He didn’t need to refer to her job. It would be impossible to expect her not to disclose the information when it came to writing a report on the conclusion of the case. He wanted to maintain confidentiality between himself and the boy, whose only mistake had been being young and reading the situation wrongly. He’d probably felt bad enough for deciding not to say anything. Of course it might turn out that when and if the discovery of Benni’s remains made it into the press, the boy would tell his parents, but he would have to decide that for himself. Not Freyr. He himself wasn’t certain if he would tell Sara the whole story, though she was entitled to hear it. There was a risk that she might view the matter differently to Freyr and consider the boy responsible for Benni’s death, which would be unfair, but at the same time very tempting. There was no way of knowing how she would react to the shock.
Freyr put the glass on the table and leaned his head back. How long had it taken Benni to die? An hour? Two? Three? He didn’t want to know the answer, yet the question burned inside him. It was completely pointless, as it would never be answered. He might just as well wonder what might have happened if this and that had been different. What if the boy who’d gone with Benni down to the petrol station in search of a hiding place hadn’t suddenly remembered that he was late for his cousin’s birthday party and gone home? What if the boy had stopped to talk to some of the other kids and let them know that Benni was planning to hide in the green container that they thought looked like a submarine, which was sitting on a trailer at the petrol station? What if he’d actually known what a septic tank was, and had said that instead of submarine? And then what if the driver hadn’t detached the trailer from the car to check for possible damage to the coupling; would Benni have found himself a different hiding place, realising that the trailer might be leaving soon? But none of this had happened. It was a series of coincidences. What if the kids hadn’t grown tired of their hiding places in the safe parts in the neighbourhood and decided to expand the hiding area all the way to the petrol station? And what if they’d decided to tell the police or their parents about it? What then? Would death have claimed Benni in some other way, and if so, how?
Freyr tried turning his mind to something else; he had so many questions. But it was difficult. Over and above all this speculation and regret, he was plagued by images of the final moments in Benni’s life. There was no room for any doubt; as the moment the car had driven off, it had been too late. The only thing that could have happened differently was that Sara might have learned the truth about Benni’s fate earlier if Heimir had told anyone what had actually happened. It would still have been too late to save Benni’s life, since the boy didn’t hear of his friend’s disappearance until the next day. When he heard from the policemen who came to his house that they were searching for Benni, he had tried to tell them, but the men looked so stern and disbelieving that he had second thoughts. He’d misread the situation and thought he might get into trouble for planning to hide with Benni in the petrol station. The children were strictly forbidden from crossing the street that lay between the neighbourhood and the garage. When the policemen’s faces turned serious at what he said, his child’s mind had been quick to tell him that Benni had probably left his hiding place before he vanished, and he’d changed his story.
Freyr told himself there was no point going over this endlessly; it was clear that Benni would already have been dead by the time the other boy finally heard the news. Had he been conscious he would have made his presence known when the septic tank was taken off the trailer and put on the boat that brought it over to Hesteyri. He’d probably had a diabetic seizure when he realized his situation as the car drove off, his panicked state calling for insulin that his weakened bodily functions were unable to supply, and after that there had been no hope. Why he hadn’t made his presence known when the trailer was hooked back up to the car was a question that would never be answered; maybe he’d considered it but feared a tongue-lashing from the trailer’s owner. But really, if there were anyone to blame, it was Freyr himself. If he hadn’t gone to meet Líf he wouldn’t have hit the other car, and then the trailer wouldn’t have been there when Benni and the boy turned up. Then Benni would have hidden behind something fixed, been found, and life would have continued as it was supposed to. ‘I’m such an idiot, Dagný.’ He didn’t explain this, and she didn’t press him.
‘I think we should get going. If you’re sure you want to come along.’ Her tone was embarrassed, as if she worried that their conversation would take a personal turn. He didn’t blame her. ‘I found a skipper who’s willing to take us over. Veigar’s coming too; I’m not on duty so it’s better for him to be there. But the sea is rough, so if you suffer from seasickness I’d advise you to think twice about it.’
Freyr looked at her. He hadn’t the slightest idea whether he suffered from seasickness, since he’d rarely ever been to sea. Nor did it matter; he was prepared to puke his guts out to get to Hesteyri. ‘I’m coming with you.’ His voice contained all the conviction that was lacking in his soul.
The torch was of little use against the dark, but from the boat’s deck Freyr could see the outlines of houses on the low ground between the beach and the mountains, whose upper reaches couldn’t be distinguished from the heavily clouded night sky. ‘I tried to warn them.’ The captain pulled tightly on the rope with which he’d tied the boat fast to the pier. The sea was choppy and it was best to make sure that the boat would definitely still be there when they turned back. ‘I didn’t want to scare the life out of them, so I didn’t go into too much detail, but I can tell you that this house doesn’t have a great reputation. You can see over the fjord from there and probably a lot of people have died looking across at it, the last thing they ever saw in this life. It must have had some effect. There’s nothing like the desperation of a drowning man; maybe it’s contagious.’
Veigar snorted. ‘We’ll look in on them; it’s their house we’re heading up to. Their phones are off and they haven’t called, you say?’
‘No, but I didn’t expect them to. We’d already agreed that I would come and fetch them tomorrow evening. I’m hoping they’ll be ready to leave right now, so I don’t have to make the trip tomorrow. The forecast is pretty bad, so they could be stuck here for another day or two. It isn’t strange that they’ve turned off their phones; I asked them to save the batteries in case anything came up. They probably took me at my word.’
Freyr turned off his torch to conserve the power. ‘The house looks empty. It’s as dark as the others.’