The Girl Who Died, Ragnar Jonasson [small books to read .TXT] 📗

the others were more experienced at coping with conditions like these, or at least Ármann and Helena were. They had been eager for the hunt, not just eager but excited. Daníel had never shot a ptarmigan before and now it didn’t look as if the weather gods were going to give him the chance to do so; not today, anyway. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever tasted ptarmigan. When he was younger, perhaps.

All of a sudden, he noticed that Helena, who was second to last in the line, had stopped just in front of him. Then Daníel saw through the thickly falling flakes that the whole group had come to a halt. Had something happened?

Ármann called back to them, but Daníel couldn’t catch a word through his woollen hat and the thick hood of his down jacket.

Helena turned to him and said something, but he still couldn’t make out a word. He loosened the knot on his hood and pushed it back from his face.

‘What did you say?’ he shouted.

‘Ármann says it’s here, just round the corner. At least, he’s pretty sure,’ she said. Pretty sure was not what Daníel wanted to hear right now and for the first time it came home to him that they could die of exposure out here. He could quite simply die, tonight, in this snowy waste. His thoughts flew to his girlfriend in London. For all she knew he was on a harmless adventure tour with his Icelandic friends. To be fair, she had warned him against it, asking whether it wouldn’t be more sensible to go on a trip like that in summer rather than in the depths of winter. She’d had a better instinct for the potential hazards in his native country than he had.

No, he mustn’t think like that. He was with a good group of people and together they’d find a solution. He had to keep these negative thoughts at bay. They never did any good, as he knew from bitter experience.

He had been staring into the void, into the falling snow, but now he glanced back at Helena. She smiled at him and seemed to be waiting for him to start moving again.

‘Ready?’ she called.

He nodded and put his hood back up.

The group set off again and Daníel waded through the drifts, thankful that he was wearing a good pair of boots.

If anything happened, if anyone got ill, they would be completely helpless. No one in the group had any medical experience.

They had each trodden their own path in life. Helena was an engineer and worked for some startup that was making waves—according to her, anyway. Gunnlaugur was a lawyer and Ármann a guide. Well, he didn’t actually want to call himself a guide any more, not since he’d set up his tour company. These days he was probably richer than all of them put together. There seemed to be no letup in the growth in tourism, and, if you believed Ármann’s tall stories, he was making money off every single visitor who came to Iceland.

Daníel liked them all well enough, that wasn’t the issue. He was even fond of them, in spite of their flaws. The problem was simply that whenever they met up it was generally to celebrate something—a birthday, a wedding—and on those occasions the booze always flowed freely. But he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to cope with spending a whole weekend with them, especially with no alcohol to smooth things over. He was certainly stone-cold sober now. Which was just as well, of course. But he remembered that Helena had stuck a bottle of whisky in her backpack, so at least they’d have something to warm themselves with and help calm their shattered nerves once they’d finally made it to the hut.

If they made it …

At that moment he saw a dim shape ahead.

Had they arrived?

His friends seemed to be slowing down and he felt briefly relieved.

Yes, it looked as if they’d found some sort of hut, however inadequate, out here in the wilderness.

Ármann had kept his word.

Daníel felt a rush of relief, as though he’d been saved from certain death. He pushed back his hood again to try to hear what the others were saying.

They each had a torch and the beams darted here and there, competing to light up the hut through the driving snow. It looked to Daníel as if it was painted red, but it was hard to be sure in these conditions. Anyway, it was at least shelter from the wind and weather, which was all that mattered now.

Gunnlaugur was standing by the door and appeared to be trying to open it, but it was taking its time and Daníel could feel the cold biting harder with every second that passed.

‘The door—uh—it’s sticking,’ Gunnlaugur called in a despairing voice. He seemed completely out of place out here, battered by the savage elements.

‘Let me try.’ Helena pushed him aside. ‘It’s only locked.’ Her voice was calm. It took a good deal to throw Helena off balance.

‘What, locked?’ Daníel exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be an emergency refuge?’

‘Some huts are kept locked,’ Ármann replied. ‘There should be a key box here somewhere.’ He directed his torch at the wall beside the door and, sure enough, there was the box.

‘Can’t we open it?’ Daníel could feel his heart pounding. He had to get inside, into shelter.

‘I don’t have the code,’ Ármann said. ‘I didn’t know we’d be coming here. Let me think for a minute …’

Daníel moved closer. ‘Shit. We must be able to break it open?’ He took off one glove and attempted to tear the box off the wall. But it wouldn’t budge and now he was more aware than ever of the merciless cold. Hastily he pulled his glove back on, but he’d already lost most of the feeling in his fingers. ‘We need a tool of some sort.’

‘Can’t we just break a window?’ Gunnlaugur asked, his teeth chattering.

Ármann gave him a look. ‘Break a window? And