The Silence of the Sea (28 page)

‘How are you getting on?’ She walked past Matthew, barely glancing at the jet ski, and headed for the large sink on the wall behind him. ‘It looks to me as if there’s a box missing from Karítas’s dressing table. It contained nothing of obvious interest, so I don’t understand what the thief was up to. Perhaps he thought it was a jewellery case, but I checked inside the first time we came on board and found only personal papers.’ She rubbed her hand under the freezing jet of water and watched the sink fill as if the plug was down.

‘Perhaps he thought it was a jewellery case and grabbed it. All the same, it’s strange that he didn’t open it.’ Matthew frowned. ‘It doesn’t sound very convincing. Surely the police must have taken it when they were here this morning? Perhaps they wanted to empty the yacht of valuables in case of further break-ins.’

‘Then why only take that box?’ Thóra inspected her hand and decided it was clean. She watched the water slowly drain away and when the sink was almost empty, tried to pull out the plug to speed things up. The filter underneath was clogged with blond hairs. She showed it to the others. ‘Who on earth would have been shaving or cutting their hair down here?’

Snævar looked round and shrugged. ‘Anyone. One of the crew, maybe. It’s probably been there for ages. I doubt the guys who sailed her home would have come down here to use the sink. It’s not as if there’s any shortage of basins or bathrooms elsewhere.’

Matthew made a face; he was fastidious about hair in plugholes. ‘Put it back. It can hardly have anything to do with the burglar.’

Thóra did so, then dried her wet hands on her trousers. Her attention shifted to Snævar, who was attentively examining the hatch again. He unfastened the heavy steel catch, reached for the handle and eased the door out with a creaking sound. ‘What are you doing?’ For a split second Thóra almost thought he and Matthew were planning to go for a jet-ski ride.

‘I can’t quite work this out.’ Snævar pointed at a slender nylon rope, one end of which was tied to a ring on the wall, while the other ran out through the hatch. ‘This line can hardly have been hanging outside while the yacht was moving. I’m just going to check it out. Perhaps it’s attached to a float, or something connected to these jet skis.’ He waited until the hatch was almost horizontal, giving them a view out over the harbour where the surface of the sea was jumping under the relentless pelting of the raindrops. There was no float visible; the rope simply disappeared into the dark water. ‘Could you help me a sec?’ Snævar said to Matthew. ‘I’m having trouble bending. Let’s haul it in.’

Matthew hurried over and took a firm grip on the rope. A look of surprise crossed his face. ‘Either it’s stuck or there’s something heavy on the end.’

Snævar scowled. ‘There can’t be.’ He stooped, with difficulty, and gave the rope an experimental tug. ‘You’re right.’ He straightened up. ‘I don’t know what the hell it could be. The line must have been left outside the hatch by mistake and snagged on the keel or something.’ He scratched his chin. ‘We’d better not try and sort it out ourselves. They’ll find out what’s going on when they take the yacht to the shipyard for repairs.’

Matthew jerked the rope. ‘It’s not fixed. There’s something on the other end.’

Thóra craned her head out and stared down to where the line vanished into the water. ‘Could it be a net? Perhaps they were trying to fish.’

Snævar’s expression showed what he thought of this theory.

‘I think I’ve got it.’ Matthew heaved, coiling the slack around a low steel post as they hauled in the wet rope. Finally, they glimpsed a bundle of pale-green canvas attached to the nylon line with a steel hook.

‘What the hell is that?’ Snævar asked. Once Matthew had managed to drag it up to the hatch, Snævar reached out and seized the tarpaulin. With a concerted effort they swung the load on board and stood there panting, surveying their catch.

‘Do you think it’s advisable to open it?’ Thóra had taken two steps backwards when the entire bundle came into view. Of course, she could be wrong but all the signs pointed to its containing a body. As the seawater poured from the waterproof surface onto the gleaming metal hatch the canvas moulded more and more closely to its contents and the shape bore an ominous resemblance to the last thing they wanted to find.

Neither Snævar nor Matthew answered her. Instead they stared in shock at the dripping tarpaulin. Then Snævar broke the silence. ‘I’m going to take a look.’ He bent down, slowly and carefully, and tackled the rope and clasp with practised ease. Now nothing remained except to pull the folds of canvas apart. ‘Shit.’ He looked at them, exhaling. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. Do we want to see this?’ Neither Thóra nor Matthew replied. Snævar lowered his eyes to the bundle and breathed out again with determination. Then he whipped the canvas aside, only to throw up all over the body of his dead friend.

‘Did you always want to go to sea?’ Still furious with Ægir, Lára was ignoring him and focusing her attention instead on the young man who was sitting in the saloon with them, playing a game of patience. Thráinn had gone to find out if Loftur knew anything about the disappearance of the woman’s body, and Ægir suspected that Halli had been ordered to keep an eye on them in the meantime, in case Lára was implicated. Nobody had informed her of the woman’s fate as yet. It had been tacitly agreed that this should be Ægir’s job, but there was little he could do when she wouldn’t even look at him. He knew her well enough to understand that she was not angry so much as upset, as Bylgja had said, which was harder to deal with. What made it worse was that he knew she was in the right; he should never have taken a risk like that without consulting her. Even so, he felt it was unnecessary to kick up such a fuss about what might have happened, given that everything had turned out all right. As so often when they quarrelled, he had no idea how to behave; whether to try and bring her round or obey her command to leave her alone. On occasions like this she sometimes said one thing and meant another, but at other times she meant exactly what she said. He still hadn’t learnt to read the signs. Generally, whatever he said only made matters worse, so the best course was to hold his tongue and wait out the storm. Consequently, he was keeping unusually quiet now while Lára focused on Halli, who did not seem to be enjoying the unexpected attention. The conversation limped along, since all Lára actually knew about Halli was that he was a sailor and this imposed strict limits on her search for a suitable topic.

‘To sea? Uh, I don’t know.’ The hectic colour in the young man’s cheeks owed nothing to the temperature in the saloon, which was on the chilly side, though none of them had remarked on the fact or dared ask Thráinn to turn up the heating. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Are you from the countryside?’ Lára smiled, pretending not to notice his reluctance to engage with her.

‘Nope. Kópavogur.’

‘Oh.’ Lára fiddled with her hair and racked her brains for something else to say. ‘Are you a family man?’

‘No, not yet.’ Halli sneaked a look under one of the piles and risked taking off the top card. ‘It’d be difficult, what with me spending so much time at sea.’

Lára seized on the fact that his answers had become less monosyllabic, spying an opening to penetrate his shell. ‘Wouldn’t you like to change job then?’

Halli made a dismissive noise. ‘And do what?’ He gave Lára a puzzled glance. ‘It’s perfectly possible to work at sea without being away as much as I am.’ He immersed himself in his game of patience again, once more stealing glimpses under the piles. ‘The big trawlers pay better but then the tours are longer. And it depends what the catch is like too, of course; you can be lucky or unlucky. That’s true whatever the size of vessel.’

‘Are you saving up for something?’ Lára smiled encouragingly, though he didn’t seem to notice. ‘Are you maybe thinking of putting a roof over your head?’

‘What? What for?’ The colour in Halli’s cheeks deepened. ‘No. I’m saving up for something else.’

Ægir felt an urge to come to his rescue by changing the subject but all that came to mind was the question that had been consuming him ever since he had found the body. ‘If the British ship has reported the discovery of the woman’s body, won’t there be a big furore when we get home? Police interviews and all that?’

‘Probably.’ Apparently Halli wasn’t going to take advantage of this conversational lifebelt. ‘I guess we’ll soon find out.’

Ægir hastily interjected again, before Lára could pounce from the sidelines with further personal questions. ‘How can we let them know when we’re arriving in port if the radiotelephone can’t be repaired?’

‘We’ll show up on their radar as soon as we approach land. If they received the message I expect they’ll have a reception committee waiting. We won’t be allowed to go straight home, that’s for certain. So you can forget about smuggling your wine ashore.’

Ægir’s heart sank. This was not what he wanted to hear. He could think of nothing he wanted less than a homecoming marred by police interrogations and a customs clampdown. His dream of being greeted on the threshold by the familiar smell of home, of sleeping in their own bed, faded. Why the hell hadn’t they simply flown back? Taking advantage of his silence, Lára leapt in and returned to her line of questioning. ‘Anyway, what were you saying – what are you saving up for?’

From Halli’s expression one would have thought Lára had asked him to strip off. Ægir was astonished that she should be oblivious to the fact that this diffident young man had no wish to talk to her at all, let alone answer such personal questions. Usually she was much more adept than Ægir at reading social situations. Perhaps her fury with him had blunted her instincts.

‘I’m saving up for a motorboat. With a mate of mine.’

‘Great.’ Ægir smiled encouragingly at Halli who had given up on his game of patience, in spite of his cheating. The yacht bucked and rolled, and Ægir doubted he would ever want a motorboat, even if he were offered one for free. He was fed up with the sea, with the constant wallowing and pitching, and was pretty sure that his former dreams of owning a share in a small sailing boat would never be resurrected now. The money would go towards something else: a new car, foreign holidays, some decent jewellery for Lára; anything really, so long as it had nothing to do with boats. It was ironic then that he seemed to have developed his sea legs at last, thanks no doubt to the captain’s pills, and the ship’s incessant rocking no longer bothered him the way it had for the first two days. He had begun to ride the waves instinctively, as if he and the yacht were one. Perhaps he would find that the land was moving up and down when and if they reached Iceland. The smile faded from his face as he tried to work out where that
if
had come from. Of course they would reach land safely. He forced his mind back to the conversation. ‘I’m sure you’ll be successful.’

‘Hope so.’ Halli stood up, walked over to the window and stared out, as if he expected to see something other than the infinite ocean. In profile he looked despondent and Ægir wondered if the young sailor also had his doubts about their chances of reaching home safely. ‘I sure hope so,’ Halli repeated.

Lára shifted impatiently on the sofa, annoyed with Ægir for butting in on the conversation. She licked her lips as was her habit when she was considering her next move. ‘Do you know what the weather forecast is like, Halli? I was thinking of taking the girls up on deck for some fresh air, so I was hoping this storm would die down soon.’

Halli didn’t look round. ‘I reckon it’ll stay like this all day. That’s what generally happens. It’s the good weather that changes quickly.’

Ægir reached across the sofa and tentatively took Lára’s hand. She didn’t reject him and that was the sign he had been waiting for, the sign that soon he would be forgiven. Exactly how the process worked remained a mystery to him; he was simply grateful that his punishment was over. The situation on board was disastrous enough without his having to tiptoe around Lára as well. He risked moving closer to sit beside her and was relieved when she didn’t object. Daring now to take the next step in the reconciliation process, he cuddled up to her and whispered an apology in her ear, adding that he needed to tell her something that was rather serious but not dangerous. This last comment went completely against his intuition; given recent developments, it looked as if they might indeed be in very real danger on board.

It had been bad enough that there was a body in the freezer, but at least its presence there had seemed to be unconnected to them. But now that an unknown person had taken the trouble to throw the body overboard, it was clear that the culprit was still on board and that he was trying to protect his interests. Perhaps he had needed to dispose of the body in case it carried traces of his DNA or some other evidence that could implicate him. The thought filled Ægir with such misgiving that, reluctantly, he had decided he would have to share it with Lára. Of course it would be better to pretend nothing had happened, but that would be neither right nor fair: he was so afraid she might unwittingly act in a manner that would cause the culprit to feel threatened. He met her wide, questioning eyes. ‘What?’ she asked aloud, and Halli glanced round, as if he thought she was addressing him. He turned back to the window when Lára ignored him and repeated her question. ‘What? Is anything wrong?’

‘Yes, actually.’ Ægir forced a wry smile. ‘The body’s disappeared. Someone tipped it overboard while I was diving and it floated past me. I thought I was seeing things but it turns out the freezer’s empty.’

Lára opened her mouth and shut it again. Her eyes implored Ægir either to retract his words or admit he was pulling her leg. Clearly, she overestimated his sense of humour. ‘How could that happen?’ Without waiting for an answer she leapt to her feet and tugged at him. ‘Where are the girls?’

‘They’re below. Where we left them.’ Ægir rose too, cursing himself for leaving them unsupervised. He had wanted to shield them from witnessing the tension between their parents. When he last saw them they had been sitting up in bed watching a film whose rating neither he nor Lára had had the presence of mind to check. The girls had been so absorbed, and hopefully still were, that it was unlikely any attempt to drag them away would have succeeded. Besides, there was a world of difference between disposing of a dead body and harming living children. ‘Wait here; I’ll check on them.’ He almost shoved Lára back onto the sofa. Though there was no reason to suspect any harm had come to them, he didn’t want her to be first on the scene.