Part 24 (1/2)

'All I want to know is what's happening. What's going on? What's the truth?'

'Kristin, Kristin, you ask too much,' Carr said. 'Truth and lies are nothing but a means to an end. I make no distinction between them. You could say we are historians, trying to correct some of the mistakes made during a century that is now coming to its close. This has nothing to do with any truth, and anyway what's in the past is irrelevant now. We reinvent history for our own purposes. The astronaut Neil Armstrong once visited Iceland we know that. But who can say for sure whether he ever landed on the moon? Who knows? We saw the pictures but what proof do we have that they weren't staged in a US air force hangar? Is that the truth? Who shot Kennedy? Why did we fight the Vietnam War? Did Stalin really kill forty million? Who knows the truth?'

Carr stopped.

'There's no such thing as truth, Kristin, if ever there was,' he continued. 'No one knows the answers any more and few even care enough to ask the questions.'

It was the last thing Kristin heard.

She felt a pinch on her neck. She had not noticed anyone behind her and never saw the needle. All of a sudden she went limp, a feeling of utter tranquillity spread through her body and everything turned black.

ToMASARHAGI, REYKJAViK

Who was Ratoff? A name in her head.

She was lying on the sofa in her living room at home in Tomasarhagi. She felt unable to move, as if pole-axed. Slowly, gradually, she resurfaced from the depths of unconsciousness. She was vaguely troubled by the thought that the shop might have closed, but sleep still held her in a powerful grip. She must have overslept. She usually drank her coffee with hot milk but had forgotten to buy any when she came home from work. The name kept resurfacing in her mind, like a cork bobbing in a stream. It frightened her somehow. She pondered this but still could not summon any energy. All she wanted was to go back to sleep. She had got up far too early that morning.

But she had to buy some milk, she must not forget. That was the first thing she remembered.

That and Ratoff.

Slowly she opened her eyes. Their lids felt heavy as lead. It was pitch dark in the flat. She just wanted to lie there, letting the tiredness flow out of her body. A jumble of unconnected thoughts swam through her mind but she made no attempt to lend them any order. She was too comfortable; she did not want to spoil it. She had not felt so well in ages. G.o.d, she was tired.

For the first time in as long as she could remember she thought about her parents and her ex-boyfriend the lawyer, and about Steve she had always regretted dropping him the way she did. One day she would have to put that right. She would like to see him again. In fact, she felt a powerful urge to talk to him. Her thoughts drifted to that madman Runolfur and her colleagues at work, and she wondered idly if it might not be time to look for another job. Perhaps open her own legal practice with a friend. They had discussed the idea. She did not particularly enjoy working at the ministry and now that people had started threatening her it was even less appealing. The thoughts flitted through her mind without her being able to fix on any of them, fleeting, gone in a flash, snapping at her unconscious.

She had been lying on the sofa for half an hour before she tried to move and only then did she become aware of the throbbing ache in her side. She gave a startled cry as the pain lanced through her, and slumped back, waiting for the spasm to pa.s.s. Her overalls were filthy but she did not even stop to wonder why she was wearing outdoor clothes. Undoing the zip, she pulled up her jumper and found a dressing below her ribs. She stared blankly at the plasters and gauze, then gently lowered the jumper over the dressing again. When had she hurt herself? She could not remember going to hospital to have the wound dressed, nor did she know where the injury had come from, but clearly she must have been to hospital.

She made another attempt to sit up and this time managed, in spite of the stabbing pain. She did not have a clue what time it was but a.s.sumed that all the shops must be shut by now. When she glanced around the flat, the little she could see of it, everything looked normal, yet she could have sworn she had left the kitchen light on when she lay down. And where had the injury come from? It must have been serious because the dressing was quite large and her whole side was bruised dark blue.

Rising to her feet with difficulty, she limped into the kitchen, turned on the light, went over to the fridge and fetched a can of c.o.ke. She was dying of thirst. She gulped it down where she was standing by the open fridge, and having emptied the can, went to the sink, ran the cold water for a while and drank greedily straight from the tap. It was stiflingly hot in the flat. She went to the big kitchen window and opened it, breathing in the cold winter air.

Her briefcase was in its place and the papers she had brought home from work lay untouched on the kitchen table. She looked at the clock; it was just past seven. She had slept far too long for a whole hour and missed the shop. She swore under her breath. Groggy, devoid of energy, she slumped into a chair and stared into s.p.a.ce. Something had happened, something terrible, but every detail of it was shrouded in an impenetrable fog in her mind.

Ratoff?

Kristin jumped as the phone started to ring, the sudden noise splitting the silence. She stared at it dumbly, as if she had no idea what to do with it. It rang and rang. Her first reaction was not to answer it. What if it was Runolfur? Then she remembered that Elias was going to call from the glacier. But had he not called already? Was there not also something wrong with Elias?

She stood up, went slowly over to the phone and lifted the receiver. The voice was foreign, the words English, the speaker almost certainly American. Could it be Steve? But no, this man sounded older.

'Never cross Carr,' said the voice on the phone, then hung up. The receiver was not slammed down but replaced gently, as if the caller was in no hurry.

'h.e.l.lo?' Kristin said, but could hear only the dialling tone. She set the receiver down. Never cross Carr Never cross Carr. Meaningless. Must have been a wrong number.

G.o.d, she felt lethargic, as if she were coming down with something flu, maybe. It was rampant at this time of year. She went back into the living room, the sentence spoken over the phone still echoing in her head.

Never cross Carr. Never cross Carr. Never cross Carr.

What did it mean? She stood in the middle of the living room, alone in the gloom, in dirty outdoor clothing, the sentence lodged in her head. Then she remembered something rather odd; an absurd incident something she had surely dreamt. Holding her side, she peered into the hall. She stood quite still before moving closer to the door. It felt so vivid, so genuine, as if she had experienced it for real. She stood hesitantly by the door, before opening it and peering cautiously out into the dark entrance hall. Then she turned on the light and examined her door.

Her gaze fell on a small, neat black hole, unmistakably made by a bullet. She raised her finger to it, touching it gently, and the tears welled up in her eyes. All at once she knew the truth that it was not a dream, nor was this the day she had believed she had woken up on. It was much later, far too late. It was all over.

She remembered Ratoff. Remembered Steve. Understood the voice on the phone.

Never cross Carr.

Kristin closed the door. A mirror hung in the hall and when she caught sight of her reflection in the gla.s.s on her way back to the living room, she did not recognise the figure in it: a gaunt-faced stranger with dark circles under her eyes and dirty hair, matted around her ear which was now red with fresh blood where the wound had reopened. She was wearing the thick snowsuit which was still stained with Steve's blood. She did not know this woman. Did not know where she had come from. She stared at her, shaking her head with incomprehension.

Steve. She remembered Steve.

And then she watched the woman in the mirror crumple as she broke down in tears, felled by an overwhelming grief.

ToMASARHAGI, REYKJAViK

That first half hour while her senses were returning was a blizzard of memories flooding back. She understood the phone call only too well now. Remembered Ratoff's words on the plane and all that Miller had said. Remembered the body-bags, and Steve, and Jon, the old farmer who lived at the foot of the glacier, the shooting outside the pub, being hunted all over the US base. The Jehovah's Witnesses, and Elias calling her from the glacier. Oh G.o.d, Elias!

There were two major hospitals in the Reykjavik area, the National and the City Hospital. She rang the National Hospital, the larger of the two, and was put through to the information desk where she asked about her brother and after a short wait was told that there was no one by that name among the patients. Next she called the City Hospital, told them her brother's name and waited, holding her breath, while the girl who answered checked the admissions list.

'Yes,' came the confirmation at last. 'He's here.'

It transpired that he was in intensive care but off the critical list and would soon return to a general ward. She could visit him whenever she liked.

'Though it's unusual for visitors to come this early,' the nurse remarked.

'Early?' Kristin said.

'So early in the morning.'

'Sorry, what day is it?'

'It's Tuesday, madam.'

Kristin hung up. It had been Friday when the Jehovah's Witnesses tried to kill her. Only four days ago. A whole lifetime compressed into four short days. Pulling on a coat, she ran out of the flat, then on second thoughts turned back and called a cab to come to the house.

'To the City Hospital,' she said, once she was in the back seat.

The city was coming to life. People were getting up, seeing to their children, leaving for work. Large flakes of snow spun lazily to earth. She felt oddly disconnected, as if she were detached, watching herself from outside; as if this was not her world and her normal life were going on peacefully in some other parallel dimension. As she paid for the taxi she had a strong intuition that she should not be using her debit card. Why, she did not know.

The nurse who took her to see Elias handed her a mask and made her don a paper robe and blue plastic shoe-covers. They walked down a long, brightly lit corridor and entered a dark room where a man lay motionless, connected to a ma.s.s of tubes which in turn were attached to a variety of machines that hummed or beeped at regular intervals. His face was obscured by an oxygen mask but Kristin knew that it was Elias. She stopped beside his bed and at last rested her eyes on him, unable to hold back the tears. Only his head was visible above the covers and she noticed that he had a bandage over one eye.

'Elias,' she said quietly.

'Elias?' she repeated slightly louder. He did not move.

She longed to gather him up in her arms but held back, inhibited by all the tubes. The tears spilled over and ran down her face, her body trembled and shook. Elias was alive. He would live. He would recover and before long he would be able to come home. She remembered being in the same position when he was. .h.i.t by a car all those years ago: but she no longer felt guilty. That at least had gone. She knew she could not be held responsible for Elias's life or anyone else's. It was beyond her power to decide life or death.