Rupture by Ragnar Jónasson

Author:Ragnar Jónasson [Ragnar Jonasson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781910633588
Publisher: Orenda Books Ltd
Published: 2017-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

The police four-by-four headed out of town with Ari Thór at the wheel, making for the Hédinsfjördur tunnel. He had appropriated the priest’s philosophy, deciding that there would be no harm in venturing beyond the town’s limits as long as he only went as far as the uninhabited fjord.

He glanced up at the peak of Hólshyrnan, looming over the town. As so often before, he found the ring of mountains encircling Siglufjördur overwhelming. There were certainly higher mountains elsewhere, but compared to the little houses on the spit of land, these sometimes seemed breathtakingly vast. The church was the most prominent building in the landscape, sheltering under the mountains, and the other houses, with their colourful roofs, made up the final but essential part of this glorious painting.

Hédinsfjördur welcomed him with bright sunshine. The previous visit in the dark was a distant memory. But Delía’s ghost story still troubled him. What had the boy seen that was so ‘abnormal’?

Ari Thór parked the four-by-four off the road and walked towards the lagoon, conscious of the difference between this and his previous night-time visit. He stopped at the water’s edge, where the path came to an end, enjoying the cold, fresh, ocean air, which rejuvenated him every single day up here in the north.

The ruins of a building stood on a spit of land that jutted out into the water to his left. Ari Thór worked out that he was standing roughly where Delía had stood with her camera decades before, when Jórunn was still living and had all her life before her; back when the two families were living together in harmony. Or were there tensions beneath the surface even then – difficulties or disputes that led to Jórunn’s mysterious death on that ordinary March day in 1957?

He decided to walk out to the ruins, picking his way between tussocks and holes, as there was no path, and reaching his destination with difficulty.

There was not much to see. The years and the forces of nature had not treated the place well. The whispering surf in the distance blended into the chatter of the brooks finding their way down the mountainsides. He gazed out over the water, which at this moment was so tranquil, it was hard to imagine that this remote place could ever be anything other than a spot where beauty thrived. Ugly brutality was far away. Or was it?

His thoughts turned again to Jórunn and he wondered if she had been so unhappy as to take her own life. He closed his eyes and was sure that he could sense her presence. He quickly shook the feeling off, determined not to let his own imagination run riot.

Almost imperceptibly, like a ghost appearing in broad daylight, the thought that he now realised had been at the back of his mind all along seemed to step forward. Could Jórunn have been the only one to meet her death in this lonely, abandoned fjord; or had the nameless, unknown youngster met the same fate?

He stared out over the water.

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