He reached for his alarm clock and turned it towards him. It was the clock radio his brother had given him as a Christmas present, thinking it appropriate since Margeir worked at a radio station. It was now nearly 9.30 a.m., which was about what he’d expected. He felt so rotten that he couldn’t even tell if he was still tired. But the fog in his head was starting to clear and he could finally remember when he’d gone to sleep and what he’d been doing. There had been no drinking involved. He had rented a film from the corner shop, and when that had finished he had sat for two hours watching trashy TV. He hadn’t gone to sleep until nearly three, which was not that late for him. Most single men his age were probably awake longer than he was on weekends, and the thought bothered him. This winter had been different to all the previous ones, and his desire to go out and have fun had vanished slowly but surely. All the good feelings alcohol used to stir in him now seemed so hollow and false; smiling and laughing ran completely contrary to how he felt. His job undoubtedly contributed to his misery; he had the whole disappointed, disillusioned nation on the line. When he felt this crappy, he simply had no desire to try to enjoy himself. He felt nothing but relief the first time he declined to go out on the town with his friends, and from that point on there was no going back; it became easier and easier just to stay at home. They had long since stopped calling him.
The alarm on the bedside table suddenly went off and Margeir stared at the device as his own voice blared out of it. It was a repeat of his show from the day before. For a second he felt as if he’d turned on the radio with his mind, but then he realized what had actually happened. He knew it was pathetic, but until things got better and he found a day job he didn’t want to get into the habit of sleeping late. So he got up and attempted to occupy himself with something, every day of the week. Eight o’clock on weekdays and nine thirty on weekends.
His head felt lighter and the throbbing pain in his neck had dulled. He raised himself onto his elbows and sat up. The sooner he opened the window, the better. With the same technique that he used when jumping into a cold pool, he got to his feet without thinking or hesitating and took the two steps to the window. The latch was stiff but he finally managed to wrench the window open and suck in the pure, ice-cold air.
‘Who is this?’ His voice sounded lifeless in the worn-out mono radio behind him. ‘Don’t call if you’re just going to breathe into the receiver.’
Margeir felt a chill run through his body but he didn’t know whether it was because his lungs were now full of fresh, cold air or whether the repeat of the telephone call from the previous night’s show was making him uncomfortable.
‘Just wait. Just wait.’ If he sounded a bit lacklustre on the radio, the voice of the person he was speaking to was completely lifeless. Hearing it now, he was certain it had been tampered with, probably via some sort of program that could be downloaded from the Internet. There was a particular mechanical tone to the voice that was even more apparent on the little radio than it had been through the station’s telephone the previous evening. His own voice sounded again and his agitation was obvious to him, although others would hardly have noticed it… hopefully. He sounded arrogant and offhand: ‘For what? For you to get to the point? What’s on your mind, friend?’
‘The reckoning.’
‘What reckoning?’ Now the fake toughness was gone from Margeir’s voice. It had become clear to him that this was the weirdo who had started calling in on almost every show. If this continued, it could be called harassment, but Margeir wasn’t certain the police would agree, nor could he see how a telephone restraining order would be implemented. Especially since Margeir would never involve the police in this. Not if the nutter on the telephone was insinuating what Margeir suspected he was.
‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Justice finds everyone in the end.’ Loud inhalation, long exhalation. ‘And there’s no escape.’ The caller hung up and a loud dialling tone followed, until the engineer realized Margeir wasn’t going to add anything clever and put on a song.
His headache was growing steadily more intense. Margeir sat carefully back down on his bed. Sinking slowly into his pillow, he turned off the radio, though he actually longed to push it off the table. As he did so, he spotted his mobile phone lying next to the radio and reached for it thinking perhaps he remembered the phone having woken him in the night. As he fiddled with the buttons in search of calls that he might have missed he suddenly remembered what had happened: he had received a text, a message from ja.is that had disturbed his pleasant sleep and troubled him enough to make him get up, go to the window and shut and lock it. Although he was in no mood to read the message again, his fingers ran over the keys and opened the text, completely against his will.
The reckoning is coming. Is there someone outside?
CHAPTER 11
Monday, 11 January 2010
Monday mornings were frequently chaotic at the office. It was as if they all had difficulty registering that the weekend was over and a new work week was starting. They wandered in and out of their offices as if they were trying to remember what they were supposed to be doing, or hoping that one more cup of coffee would get their brains in gear. Thóra was no exception, least of all this Monday; work was the last thing she wanted to do.
She had realized when she started awake at the sound of the alarm that she was alone in the bed. That hadn’t particularly surprised her; generally Matthew woke long before she did, went out for a run and was nearly halfway through it by the time she came to her senses. Today, however, he had not only already returned but had also taken a shower and was neatly dressed and ready for the day. He stood at the end of the bed, staring pleadingly at her. ‘You have to take me with you to work. I’ll do anything. I’ll even help Bella.’ Thóra rubbed the sleep from her eyes and muttered something garbled that could have been interpreted as neither yes nor no. ‘I simply cannot bear another minute of your father’s whistling. I’ll get used to it, I know, but right now it’s driving me nuts.’
She let him come with her to work. Thóra’s parents saw to getting the kids up, giving them breakfast and sending them to school, so she managed to get ready more quickly than usual. The expansion of the household did have its advantages, and Thóra bid her parents goodbye with a kiss, feeling exceptionally happy with life despite the whistling that drifted out after them as they left the house. It didn’t hurt that Matthew had already got the car ready. This was one of Thóra’s least favourite jobs, maybe because she usually ended up with her arms full of snow. Although the garage had been full of boxes and there had been no immediate plans to tackle the clearing-out project, she’d always held onto the notion of parking the car in it one day. This distant dream, which frequently popped into her head on cold winter mornings, was now a thing of the past – for the next two months at least.
Thóra’s restlessness couldn’t, therefore, be attributed to the morning having started badly. She simply hated the fact that the weekend had somehow unexpectedly turned into a new work week. Until she could properly get into gear, she would just have to occupy herself with something; the only question was what that might actually be. She couldn’t get started on any of the cases awaiting her so she scrolled through her e-mails in search of messages that she’d forgotten or had left to answer later. But even that was problematic and in the end she gave up and shut down her e-mail altogether. She still had to go over the firm’s unpaid bills, but that would have to wait until the afternoon, or even tomorrow morning. She needed to do something more creative, or more exciting, until midday, by which time she would have regained her vigour.