Far North - Michael Ridpath [30]
Magnus grunted as he skimmed Árni’s notes on the interview with Björn Helgason. That too was brief.
‘Did Björn corroborate what Harpa said?’
‘Yes,’ said Árni. ‘And he was much more convincing. You are not suggesting we should go and see him in Grundarfjördur, are you? That’s at least two hours away. It would take a whole day to get there and back.’
Magnus knew that they should. There was a hole in Harpa’s story and Björn was a natural place to start looking for it. But Grundarfjördur was a fair distance away, on the Snaefells Peninsula on the west coast of Iceland. He had his own reasons for not wanting to go anywhere near that area if he could avoid it.
‘Maybe later,’ he said.
The Kría was heading home. It had been a rotten day and tempers were frayed. The crew couldn’t wait to get back to harbour and unload what little there was of the day’s catch, a couple of disappointing hauls of small haddock.
It was dark. To the right, Búland’s Head rose in massive blackness against the lighter darkness of the cloud-torn sky. Ahead was Krossnes light, the rhythm of its winking so familiar. The crew stood in silence. Gústi, the skipper, had screwed up. He had misjudged the effect of the tide on the seine net and it had drifted on to a known wreck on their third haul of the day, snagging. When Björn had seen where they were fishing, he had suggested they were too close, but Gústi had ignored him. Then they had spent the whole of the rest of the day trying to free the net, before eventually kissing goodbye to two hundred thousand krónur’s worth of equipment. Björn had suggested cutting it after an hour or so, at least then they could have used the spare net to salvage something of the day.
It was difficult being the skipper of a fishing boat. You had to be able to find the fish. And you constantly had to weigh up the risks of different courses of action. Björn had a knack for it. Gústi didn’t. And it was almost as if Gústi was determined not to take Björn’s advice.
Björn was as much a threat as a help to Gústi. Since Björn had lost his own boat he went out with any of the skippers he could either from Grundarfjördur or one of the little ports that lined the north coast of Snaefells Peninsula: Rif, Ólafsvík, Stykkishólmur. The Kría didn’t belong to Gústi, but to a fishing company, and although Björn was ten years younger than the skipper, everyone in Grundarfjördur knew what a good fisherman he was. Gústi was afraid for his job. Björn had to be careful or there was a good chance that Gústi wouldn’t take him on as crew again.
Still, the small catch meant it wouldn’t take long to unload the boat and clean up. Then he could be on the road down to Reykjavík to see Harpa.
She was getting to him in a way that no woman had ever got to him before. She wasn’t his type at all, and he was beginning to realize that that was the reason why she had such an effect on him. He liked self-assured women; women who knew what they wanted and what they wanted was sex with him. He was happy to oblige, and when things got a little complicated, a little heavy, a little emotional, as they inevitably did, he moved on. Some were upset: most had always known that was the deal. He had lived with a woman for two years once, Katla, but that had only worked because they had managed to keep their emotional distance despite sharing the same bed and roof. As soon as the relationship had developed into something more, it finished.
But Harpa was different. She was smart – he actually liked talking to her. Like him, she had been screwed by the kreppa, even if in an entirely different way. She was vulnerable and there was something about the vulnerability of such a capable woman that Björn found appealing. She needed him in a way that no woman had needed him before, and rather than running a mile, he responded to it.
He didn’t have to ride the best part of two hundred kilometres to see her that night, but he was happy to do it. It was