‘We didn’t dare leave the cabin at first but when we finally went upstairs Mummy was panicking because she thought you’d fallen in the sea. We tried to tell her you were diving but she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to hear about the woman either.’ Arna looked doubtfully at her father. ‘Are you angry?’
‘Angry? No, not in the least. But do you know what? It was actually a good thing you didn’t mention it. Very good, in fact. I want to ask you to keep this a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone – anyone at all. It’s really, really important. Do you understand?’ He had been overwhelmed by a sudden terror that if it became common knowledge, the person who disposed of the body might think the girls had spotted him. He would have to be a complete monster to attack children, but Ægir wasn’t taking any risks. ‘Not Mummy. And not any of the crew. Okay?’
They exchanged surprised glances. ‘Why not?’ Bylgja had obviously detected something odd in his behaviour and her voice betrayed alarm.
‘Because this must be our secret. I promise to tell you why after we get home. I promise.’ He knelt down beside them. ‘We three know it happened, but nobody else must know. So we won’t tell anyone until later.’
But of course he was wrong: the perpetrator knew where and when it had happened. And he was one of them: Thráinn, Halli or Loftur. All equally implausible, yet all equally plausible. ‘What time did you come down here, Bylgja? Was it straight after you saw me lowered over the side?’ She nodded, worried that she had done something wrong. Ægir tried to work out what this meant. Bylgja must have left the window and told her sister what she had seen. Then they had spoken to their mother and told her they were going below, before coming down here and taking up position by the window. So about ten to fifteen minutes must have passed between his entering the sea and the body being thrown overboard. Which meant he couldn’t even rule out Thráinn or Halli. Although they had been out on deck with him to start with, he hadn’t been able to see if they were still there during the time he was underwater.
Ægir rose to his feet. He couldn’t stand this, couldn’t stand the sea a moment longer or the thought that he had placed his family in jeopardy. The decision to sail home was the stupidest of his life. His eyes strayed to the briefcase leaning against the wall by the desk, which reminded him of what felt almost like a previous existence; the daily grind that may not have put much in his pocket but was at least neither strenuous nor risky. He had been a fool. Looking down at the twins’ dark heads, he knew he had failed them. And Lára. And Sigga Dögg, who was waiting for them at home. He clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. They had to get back to Iceland – the sooner the better.
In his mind he kept reciting the names of the crew as if they were a nursery rhyme: Thráinn, Halli, Loftur. Halli, Loftur, Thráinn. Loftur, Thráinn, Halli. Which one had done this? Please God, don’t let them all be in it together.
Chapter 19
The discovery of the body had placed the mystery of the yacht in a whole new light. When Loftur’s corpse washed up on shore it had merely lent support to earlier speculation that the disappearance of the passengers must be due to a single catastrophe, but a dead man wrapped in a tarpaulin and left hanging on the end of a rope was quite another matter. This was Thóra’s third visit to the police station in the wake of the discovery; Matthew and Snævar had only been summoned twice. Perhaps they would be asked to come back too, but Thóra suspected the police were daunted by having to question Matthew in English, and Snævar doubtless needed time to recover from the shock of witnessing his friend Halldór in such a horrific state. Strong emotion presumably would not make for a clear statement.
Thóra followed the detective along a corridor that had clearly not been decorated with a view to pleasing the eye. He was the same man she had originally spoken to about the yacht, but this time she herself was a witness and the case had taken a far more serious turn. The officer looked tired and preoccupied; his nicotine gum was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. With cuts to the police budget putting extra pressure on her contacts, she imagined they would hardly welcome a complicated, time-consuming case like this. The man didn’t let it show, however, and Thóra was grateful. For some strange reason she felt as if she was to blame for the whole affair and kept having to stop herself from apologising for the nuisance.
The detective halted before the door to a small interview room that looked even less inviting than the corridor. Thóra sat down on a hard chair, feeling very upright and unrelaxed, not because of the chair so much as her own desire to get the conversation over with as soon as possible. The room was hot and stuffy. She undid the top button of her coat and loosened the collar a little so her face wouldn’t turn scarlet during the interrogation. ‘Have there been any developments?’
‘Yes and no.’ The man’s face was impassive as he placed a file on the table and took a seat himself. ‘We’ve finally had the initial results of the tests on the body samples. As you can imagine, things were considerably delayed by the fact that someone had vomited over the evidence.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Thóra was about to share her photocopier experience but caught herself in the nick of time; her cheeks turned pink at the thought that this should even have crossed her mind. ‘Have you been able to verify that it’s Halldór? Snævar was adamant but the body was such a mess that I don’t know how he could tell for sure.’ Pictures of the crew and passengers had just been published; their black-and-white faces had met her gaze that morning as she read the paper over her tea and toast. She had already seen photos of Ægir and his family but this was the first time she had laid eyes on the other three men and learnt about the families they had left behind. The captain was a widower with three grown-up children; the other two were unmarried and childless but had parents and siblings. The picture of Halldór had rung no bells.
‘Yes, we’ve received verification.’ He leafed through the file. ‘There’s no further doubt.’ He focused unusually intense green eyes on Thóra. Was he wearing tinted contact lenses? He didn’t seem the type. His irises were probably naturally that colour. ‘Just as importantly, we’ve also established the cause of death, though the postmortem results have only complicated matters. You see, it appears that the man drowned, regardless of how he ended up hanging on a rope. That’s why I called you in – to consult your opinion on a few details.’
Thóra was wrong-footed. It had never occurred to her that the man might have died in an accident. She had been convinced that he had been murdered and that the postmortem would reveal stab wounds or signs of violence. She hadn’t noticed any injuries on the part of his body that had been visible; her assumption had been based entirely on the way the corpse had been disposed of. Which is not to say that she had examined him very closely; she had merely gaped at the grisly vision for the instant it took her brain to register the badly decomposed head, then she had looked away to avoid following Snævar’s example. Her stomach turned over at the memory. ‘Ah. I was thinking something new must have come to light.’
‘Quite. We haven’t made this public yet. And I trust you won’t discuss the matter with anyone apart from those working on the case with you?’
‘No, of course not.’ She couldn’t exactly see herself posting the news on Facebook or gossiping about it with her friends.
‘I’m glad to hear it. The postmortem results are indisputable: the man drowned and there’s nothing to suggest coercion. His body showed grazing and contusions but not in the places you’d expect if force had been used. What’s more, he seems to have incurred these injuries at an earlier stage because they’d already begun to heal by the time he died.’