The Silence of the Sea Read online

  ‘Could you give the workshop a ring about the photocopier? I’ve tried calling but they seem very relaxed about the parts that are supposedly on their way. If we keep bugging them maybe they’ll make more of an effort to chase them up.’ It went without saying that Bella was better qualified for that role than anyone else in the office. ‘If you can get the copier back by the end of the week, I’ll install that high-speed broadband you keep going on about.’

  Bella screwed up her eyes, apparently regarding this as an unfair exchange. But in that she was wrong; they’d had no plans to upgrade their connection, so Bella only stood to gain by making an effort. After all, she was the only employee who complained about the current connection speed and download capacity, and they all knew that the secretary’s desire for an upgrade had nothing to do with work. Indeed, that was why Thóra and Bragi had been dragging their feet: it would be extremely embarrassing if the firm ended up being investigated by the police for illegal downloads on an industrial scale.

  ‘Okay. Deal. But I haven’t been going on about it – only asking.’ Glowering, Bella took herself off, no doubt to seek out the most powerful upgrade on offer but hopefully also to launch a major campaign of harassment against the repair shop.

  Thóra had difficulty concentrating after Bella had gone. She still had to collate a lot of documents to enclose with the notification to the insurance provider but simply didn’t know where to begin. It didn’t help that if the newly recovered corpse turned out to be Lára or Ægir, this would render some of the paperwork unnecessary. There was a possibility the postmortem might reveal the cause of death to have been a disease, as it wasn’t out of the question that the crew had fallen ill or been poisoned. She picked up the phone to dial the number of her ex-husband, Hannes, then changed her mind. This was not because she thought he would take her request badly – on the contrary, he was usually helpful on the rare occasions she sought his advice on medical matters. Since the divorce this was about the only subject they could discuss without constantly having to watch their words as if negotiating a minefield. No, she was afraid of losing her temper with him over his ridiculous notion of sending Gylfi to an oil rig in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Even if she had deliberately sat down and made a list of all the ways Hannes could possibly screw up as a parent, this would never have crossed her mind. An oil rig. She sighed aloud and replaced the receiver. The conversation would only descend into a slanging match and she would never get round to asking about infectious diseases. Besides, it was unclear what good a list of them would achieve. They would still be left with the problem of why the passengers were unaccounted for, since surely there was no illness that triggered a longing to fling oneself into the sea.

  Thóra refreshed her browser and realised a new article had been posted about the body.

  It was high time Brynjar changed jobs, and no one knew this better than him. He was finding the night shifts no easier now than when he had started work as a port security officer five years ago, back when he still believed he would get used to them. It had never been his plan to get stuck in this job; he’d only meant to bridge the gap after dropping out of university, earn a little money before enrolling in a course that suited him better. He’d intended to use the nights to ponder his future, but now, some thousand night shifts later, the only conclusion he’d reached was that he didn’t want to work here any longer. The arrival of the yacht had opened his eyes: no doubt the people on board had believed, like him, that they had their whole lives before them, but they were wrong. He didn’t want the life he was living now to be his lot forever, but only he had the power to change it. He’d become socially isolated, as if he lived in a different time zone from his friends, and if he didn’t take action soon he would end up a lonely old weirdo, interacting only with the undesirables who roamed Reykjavík’s streets by night.

  Like these two. ‘You shouldn’t be here. This area is restricted.’ He walked briskly towards a couple who were staggering along the quay. The girl was wearing high heels, hopelessly inappropriate to the terrain, which made her walk like a zombie, at least when viewed from behind. Her companion was little better, though he couldn’t blame his footwear. Brynjar hoped he wasn’t the type who became violent when drunk. He’d had enough of those.

  The girl turned, bleary-eyed, her lipstick smeared. ‘Eh?’ She called to her companion who had continued walking. ‘Lolli! Talk to this bloke.’ Her tongue sounded thick and swollen in her mouth.

  ‘You what?’ The man appeared older than the girl, probably around Brynjar’s own age. He swayed as he tried to get his bearings. ‘Who are you?’ He paused to do battle with the forces of gravity. ‘Wanna party?’

  ‘Sure, why not.’ Brynjar beckoned them over. ‘Come on, or you’ll end up in the sea.’

  ‘The sea?’ The girl didn’t seem to know where she was. ‘Whaddya mean?’ she slurred. ‘We’re going to a party.’

  ‘There’s no party here. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll have to head back into town – or home.’

  ‘No. There’s a party. We saw it.’ The man had reached the girl’s side and was leaning on her. They seemed steadier like that than separately.

  ‘Then you must be seeing things. There are no buildings here, just boats. And no parties.’

  The man smiled idiotically. ‘Yes, there is. We could see it.’ He turned and pointed into the air. ‘On that posh boat over there.’

  Brynjar realised at once which vessel he meant; the couple would hardly describe the fishing boats or trawlers as ‘posh’. He must be referring to the yacht that was berthed in the Coast Guard area. ‘There’s no party there. You’ll have to leave. Come back tomorrow when you’re in a better state.’

  ‘There is a party. I saw it. One of the guests was on deck.’ The girl sounded like a spoilt child who had got hold of an idea and wouldn’t let go. ‘You can’t ban us from going to a party.’

  ‘You’re mistaken. There’s no one on board and no party. That ship is damaged; no one would throw a party on board.’ Brynjar felt his heart begin to pound, pumping the blood round his body in readiness for danger. ‘I repeat, you’ll have to leave.’

  ‘There is someone there.’ The girl swung her head clumsily to her companion, stumbling as she did so. Brynjar put out a hand to prevent her from falling flat on her back, but the man didn’t notice. He seemed in an even worse state than when Brynjar had first spotted them. Initially he had contented himself with watching them from his hut, hoping they’d turn back and spare him the bother of dealing with them. He didn’t recall noticing any movement on the yacht, though come to think of it the couple had stopped and stared at it when they first entered the harbour area. The girl had nudged the man and pointed, but Brynjar had assumed she recognised it from the news. It went without saying that he would have shot out of the hut the instant he spotted an unauthorised visitor on board. It must have been an illusion.

  ‘I think I’d better go home.’ The man’s face had turned grey. ‘I don’t feel well. I reckon I’m seasick. Is the dock moving?’ Brynjar couldn’t be bothered to point out that they were standing on solid concrete. The man was leaning most of his weight on the skinny girl, who was not amused. ‘Thanks, mate, it was cool – be seeing you.’ He had forgotten who Brynjar was. They tottered away, in spite of the girl’s protests that they were missing out on a ‘wicked boat party’.

  When he was sure they had really gone, Brynjar finally braced himself to look over at the yacht. She was listing a little towards the dockside, presumably as a result of the damage she’d sustained when she hit the jetty. Was it possible that a drunk had climbed aboard without his noticing and was now wandering about on deck? He couldn’t see any movement, or hear any sound but the quiet lapping of the waves, but there was a chance someone might be standing out of sight. They couldn’t be below decks unless they had broken in, since all the doors were securely locked. Perhaps the drunk had left or passed out, if he or she was ever there in the first place. Still, B
rynjar was duty bound to investigate, however little he relished the task. He started walking.

  Recently the yacht had dominated conversation in the coffee breaks between shifts, so Brynjar had heard all the tales about her supposed curse. While he didn’t necessarily believe such nonsense, he couldn’t ignore the fact that there was an odd atmosphere about her, one which couldn’t be put entirely down to the lurid stories or the unknown fate of her passengers. He had witnessed with his own eyes the way the birds shunned her, never perching on her, not even flying over her if they could help it. Of course it could be – must be – coincidence. And yet. The night after she had been moved to her current mooring he had noticed several fish floating dead in the water by her hull. This was abnormal; he couldn’t remember ever having seen more than one dead fish at a time before. As his job demanded, he had made a note of the incident and learnt the following evening that a team from the Matís food research institute had collected the dead fish for testing. Brynjar’s informant had added that although some of the white coats put it down to pollution or poisoning, people in the know believed it was linked to the yacht.

  There was no sign of any figure on deck. Switching on his torch, he shone it along the ship but could see nothing but fleeting shadows. ‘Hello!’ His shout pierced the stillness but faded instantly. The ensuing silence felt heavier, more tangible, as if it resented the disturbance. ‘Hello!’ Brynjar called again, wondering how often he would have to repeat this before he could be said to have done his duty. There was no answer. He took a step backwards to get a better view and began to shine his torch back and forth along the white aluminium hull, at which the shadows resumed their jerky dance. He tried to illuminate the waterline to check that the uninvited guest hadn’t fallen overboard but could see nothing unusual. A red Coke can was floating lazily beside the ship; otherwise the sea looked as if it had been vacuum-cleaned. When he directed the beam further away he noticed a narrow white ribbon of mist curling in over the surface of the water from the harbour mouth, only about a metre above sea level. While it was not particularly common, he had often experienced misty conditions in the harbour before without being alarmed. But this time it was different. He didn’t want to be standing beside this notorious ship if the mist thickened into a fog and closed in on him, reducing visibility to zero. Enough was enough.

  He hurried back towards his hut, not looking round even when he thought he heard a whisper from the deserted yacht. He couldn’t make out the words but was fairly sure that, despite their similarity, there were two voices. Female, but not those of grown women; more like children. Two children. Twins. His mouth felt suddenly dry and the torch weighed heavy in his hand. He stopped and strained his ears, though his brain was screaming at him to keep moving. He could hear nothing now, yet that did little to lessen his terror. He hadn’t a clue what he was afraid of; until now children had roused little emotion in him, and certainly never fear. Perhaps it was the mental image of the dead sisters roaming the yacht in a vain search for their parents or a way out, forever trapped aboard the vessel that had robbed them of their future. Brynjar started walking again. One thing was certain: he wasn’t putting a word about this in his report, or people would think he had finally cracked.

  He quickened his pace and once safely inside the hut locked the door behind him for the first time since he’d started the job. Then he rang the police and reported a possible break-in on the yacht, not mentioning the voices. If something untoward was happening, let the police sort it out.

  He really needed a new job.

  Chapter 11

  The young man on the other end of the line sounded subdued and distracted. He was the only Snævar Thórdarson in the telephone directory whose occupation was listed as ship’s engineer. Thóra had been running out of ideas about who to ask for background information on the yacht when she suddenly remembered the crew member who had dropped out, and Fannar had supplied her with his name. With any luck, she thought, his account of the accident that had caused him to be left behind might also come in useful for her report.

  Snævar readily admitted that he was meant to have sailed with the Lady K to Iceland but his replies to Thóra’s questions, though so swift and to the point they almost seemed rehearsed, were not actually much help since his involvement in the preparations for the voyage had been minimal. At first she found it odd that his answers should be so fluent, but it turned out that he had already given the police three separate statements.

  When Thóra persisted, Snævar became more uncomfortable, especially on the subject of how Ægir had come to take his place on board; but then, it can’t have been much fun to be the indirect cause of a whole family’s disappearance. He started off trying to give a sober, factual account, but as he progressed he became increasingly choked with emotion.

  ‘I’m still in shock, to be honest. I’m not usually easily upset, but when I saw the yacht sail straight into the docks with none of the crew doing a thing to prevent it, I knew something was seriously wrong. I was so nearly on board myself. It should have been me, not that couple and their poor little girls.’

  ‘Disasters are impossible to predict; you can hardly blame yourself for what happened. This time you were lucky, and others less so.’ Thóra was aware of the futility of her words; his conscience would continue to gnaw at him whatever she said. ‘Why were you on the docks when the yacht was due in? Surely that wasn’t by chance?’

  ‘I’d come to pick up Halli. We were mates; he’s the one who sorted out the job for me. We were both between tours on the trawler and he thought it would be a good idea to take me along. They were dead keen to hire him because of his previous experience, so he had no trouble fixing it for me. Personally, I wasn’t that bothered, but I didn’t mind going. You know – the pay was all right and I reckoned it might be a laugh if Halli was going too. We could have a bit of an adventure; the flight was free and we could hit the nightlife in Lisbon. But even that went wrong, though the first couple of days were awesome.’

  ‘Because of your accident?’

  ‘Yes. Breaking a leg is no joke. And it was a real bummer for Halli to have to go through it all with me.’

  ‘May I ask what happened?’ Silence greeted her question. ‘You don’t have to tell me unless you want to, but if you don’t I’ll simply have to find out by other means. It’s vital for me to know why Ægir ended up on the boat if I’m to sort out his and his wife’s affairs. May I remind you that they have another little girl, and for her sake it’s essential that the settlement of their estate goes through as smoothly as possible. Which means we need to clarify the sequence of events.’

  ‘All right, I can tell you what happened.’ He briefly turned his head away from the receiver to cough. ‘Though I don’t really like talking about it because the accident was so stupid.’

  ‘Most accidents are, so you needn’t worry about that.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ He took a deep breath, then the words came out in a rush as if to give them less time to leave a bad taste in his mouth. ‘I was drunk. Totally off my face, and I tripped and fell down one of those really steep streets in Lisbon. Actually, I was lucky it didn’t turn out worse because I rolled quite a long way and nearly ended up getting run over. If I had, it might have changed everything for the better. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.’

  Thóra could think of nothing to say. If Snævar had been killed, his friend Halldór would almost certainly have pulled out of the voyage, and then the captain wouldn’t have been able to get away with using Ægir as a replacement. The committee would have been forced to hire two new crew members instead. Still, it was no use crying over spilt milk.

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ Snævar continued. ‘I don’t know if it has any bearing on this case, but I was pushed. The Portuguese doctors didn’t want to hear it – no one was listening to me because I was totally out of it. But I was pushed. It all happened very fast, but I’m almost a hundred per cent positive.’

  ‘If y
ou could give me some proof of the accident, I’d be very grateful. Regardless of whether you were pushed.’

  ‘What, you want my leg?’ It must have been meant as a joke, though Snævar did not sound particularly amused.

  ‘Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of hospital notes or maybe a signed statement from you.’

  ‘I can give you a statement but I might need your help to put it together. I don’t have any documents, though; the whole thing was handled by the Social Insurance office. If you like, I can ring them and ask if they have the papers. It’s not as if I have much else to do at the moment. If they can’t help, you’ll just have to contact the hospital in Lisbon.’

  ‘Okay. When would suit you? Is there any chance you could come to my office tomorrow or the day after, so I can type it up? And it would be helpful if you could have a word with the Social Insurance people first.’ Thóra was pleased with the way this phone call had panned out, though she hadn’t had high hopes beforehand. ‘On a tangent, since you knew Halli, I wanted to ask if you have any idea why he originally quit after working on the Lady K for such a short time. Could it have had anything to do with inadequate safety procedures? Or a problem with the yacht’s engine?’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing like that. According to him, everything was fine. All the equipment was present and correct, and the engine was as good as new; he had no complaints on that score.’

  ‘So what was it?’

  ‘I gather it was to do with the captain. Halli said he was a complete tosser and really tight-fisted. I haven’t crewed any yachts myself but according to Halli, the way it works is that at the end of every tour the captain is given a tip that he’s supposed to share with the crew. But there are two kinds of captain – those who divide the money equally between all the crew members, and those who take sixty per cent to share with the mate and chief engineer, then give what’s left to the rest of the crew. It might not sound so bad but when you’re working for the jet set there can be as many as twelve employees sailing the boat, cooking, cleaning and working as waiters. Then it really matters how the tip’s shared out. The Lady K usually had a staff of ten and the officers took twenty per cent of the tip each, leaving the rest of the poor sods to share the other forty per cent. Halli was employed as an engineer, so he was one of the unlucky ones. We’re not talking peanuts either. The tip was often higher than the wages – and tax-free, too.’ That sounded a bit dodgy to Thóra, but she refrained from commenting. ‘Under normal circumstances Halli would only have done two tours with a captain like that. But he stayed on a bit longer because he got the impression that the Icelandic woman who owned the yacht liked having him around so she could chat to him in Icelandic – you know, take the piss out of the guests without them understanding. But of course that wasn’t enough in the long run, so Halli left. Quit as soon as he found another position.’