Thóra also left out the description of how Snævar had originally tried to hide Halldór’s body in his own cabin. When the smell of decomposition grew increasingly obvious, Snævar had to find a new place for the corpse. First he tried to disguise it with perfume that he had filched from Lára and Ægir’s room. But when that failed to mask the stench, he stuffed it into a freezer that was located in a storeroom adjoining the engine room. There the body remained until Snævar wrapped it in canvas and hung it over the side of the ship so that when he eventually chucked it overboard, it would look as if it had been immersed in the sea rather than deep-frozen. First he removed the legs using an axe that was kept in the pilot house, taking the precaution of putting his own shoes on the feet in case they got caught in a fishing net or washed up somewhere. This was to ensure that those who survived the voyage would identify the legs as Halli’s. Then Snævar turned off the ship’s main engine so that he could push Halldór’s body out through a hatch which couldn’t be opened while the vessel was under way. The navigation computer confirmed that by this point they were only a day’s journey from port.
But Snævar made a fatal mistake in the final stretch. After tethering the body outside the hatch, he locked the storeroom behind him in case Ægir thought of trying to escape with the girls on one of the jet skis. On his way back upstairs to dispose of Halli’s legs, he ran into Ægir and apparently murdered him, losing the key in the struggle. By the time he realised this he was too close to shore and had no time to search for it. As a result, he was unable to jettison Halli’s body as planned.
After his return home, the news of the police examination of the yacht and the collection of forensic evidence had driven Snævar frantic with anxiety that he would be betrayed by the presence of his DNA on Halli’s body. His chance of removing the evidence when he and Karítas went on board was thwarted by an inquisitive nightwatchman and they were forced to flee. So when Snævar was offered the opportunity to go on board with Thóra, he planned to pretend to stumble on Halli’s body by chance, in the hope that this would explain any forensic traces linking him to the corpse. As it was, his friend was in such a horrific state of decomposition that he didn’t need to force himself to vomit; the reaction was involuntary. And his plan had worked.
‘I want to hear the rest.’ Sigrídur jutted out her chin as if she could handle it, though her wet eyelashes told a different story. ‘Go on.’
‘Unfortunately, not much more can be established with any certainty. Snævar insists that he had no part in any other death, and is sticking to his story that all he did was deal with the bodies for Karítas. She, on the other hand, claims that he gave her a very different account after his return home, in a long phone call that his telephone company confirms took place. According to her, Snævar killed Loftur because Loftur had worked out that it must have been Snævar who threw the body of the woman in the freezer overboard. It wasn’t hard for him to guess, since only two people could have done it, him or Snævar – or rather Halli, as he was calling himself. When Loftur accused him of this, Snævar drowned him in the Jacuzzi, which Loftur was in the process of heating up at the time. After that Snævar invented a story about a mysterious stowaway but the others weren’t convinced, so when the net began to tighten around him he killed them too – the captain, Thráinn, when the poor man fell asleep on watch.’
‘How did he kill…?’ Margeir couldn’t finish the sentence but there was no need. Thóra was well aware of what he was asking.
‘According to Karítas, Lára died as the result of an accidental shot. No one knows if that’s yet another lie but the gun that should have been on board is missing. Snævar told Karítas that Ægir threw the weapon overboard, but I very much doubt that. The police believe that Snævar murdered her as well as the others.’
‘And Ægir?’
‘He supposedly killed him last. Karítas claims this was unintentional. Snævar had hoped that Ægir and the girls would stay out of the way below deck and that he himself would be able to keep a low profile once they reached Iceland. Ægir would believe that Halli, who had vanished, was the murderer and no one would ever find out that Snævar had been posing as his friend on board. However, I find it hard to believe that he’d have taken such a risk, so I’m guessing that he killed Ægir to save his own skin. If everyone on board disappeared, people would put it down to an accident and no one would suspect a man with a broken leg whose only connection with the yacht had been before the vessel had left harbour. Apparently he went around the ship and removed all the mobile phones and cameras he could find in case he appeared in any pictures. Then he flung them all in the sea. During his time on board he had taken care to touch as little as possible and to wipe away his fingerprints when no one was looking. So there weren’t many prints to give him away. In fact, his actions seem to have been carefully premeditated, which suggests that he wasn’t just Karítas’s innocent dupe as he would like us to think.’
‘How did he get ashore? He was waiting with us on the docks when the yacht put in.’ Sigrídur’s voice was angry, as if she had let herself be tricked and should have seen through him from the beginning.
‘He set the autopilot to bring the yacht close enough in for him to jump into the sea and swim to shore. He was wearing a wetsuit, which he apparently knew how to use, and reached land safely without being noticed. He had brought along a change of clothes, the splint and the plaster cast in a waterproof bag, along with the crutches that had been lent to Halldór in Portugal. Afterwards, the yacht continued on its pre-plotted course, sailing in a large circle in Faxaflói bay to give Snævar time to be waiting on the docks when she entered the harbour. The whole thing had been planned to prevent suspicion from falling on him. He even wore a woolly hat to hide his freshly shaven head; I don’t know if you remember that.’
‘Yes.’ They both nodded, but the woman still had reservations. ‘The harbour may not be far from Grótta but it’s still quite a distance on two feet, let alone on crutches. And he wasn’t out of breath.’
‘He waited until the last minute to put on the cast, which was only loosely fixed round his leg. As for his journey from Grótta; Karítas had ordered her mother to park her car in the neighbourhood with the keys under the seat, two days before the yacht reached land. It was the plan she and Snævar had originally made, when only Halli was supposed to go missing. She kept up her end of the bargain and claims she had no idea what lengths Snævar had gone to during the voyage. Her mother has since confirmed the part about the car; she was under the impression that some mechanic friend of her daughter’s, who supposedly ran a garage in the area, was going to service the car. But in reality it was for Snævar. He changed his clothes and fastened the sawn-off plaster cast round his leg with adhesive tape and string. Then he tied a plastic bag over it and drove down to the harbour where he took up position as if nothing had happened.’
‘God, I wish we hadn’t met him there. I wish we’d never gone to meet the yacht; that we’d never set eyes on that man.’ Margeir rubbed his forehead as if to obliterate the memory. ‘We were just so excited. I’d asked my cousin in the Coast Guard to give us a shout, whatever the time of day or night, when the yacht appeared on their radar. We were worried because we hadn’t heard from them, so we were immensely happy and relieved when we got his call.’