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Ragna Bjartursdottir pulled the sleeves of her jumper over her frozen hands and stared across Reykjavik’s old harbour. How many more girls’ bodies would she have to examine? How many more lives would she have to pick apart trying to find out who did this to them?

She slipped her hand into her pocket and brought out a silver hip flask engraved with a crested grebe and wrapped in a plastic evidence bag. It had been next to the body of the last girl and Ragna knew she’d seen the emblem somewhere before. She’d wrapped it carefully and squirreled it away before forensics had arrived.

It’d come back to bite her on the ass, she knew, but she needed time to think. He was usually so careful. This didn’t make sense.

This was the fourth girl. All of them killed the exact same way. Bloody, brutal and slow. The killer enjoyed himself, took his time and Ragna knew it was a him. A man who liked to see women suffer. A man so meticulous that no trace of him was ever found.

If only she could think clearly. The cold was biting into her, dulling her thoughts; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than a few hours together. She thought back to the people she had spoken to. The fathers, the boyfriends, the weeping best friends. Did any of them stand out? Had anything they’d said seemed wrong? Why was the damned bird so familiar?

She needed to get inside. The darkness and the snow had begun to fall quickly, heavily, blanketing the harbour. She ducked into the nearest illuminated doorway. It was one of her regular drinking spots and Ragna sat at her usual seat at the bar. She nodded to Hjörtur, the barman, and he brought her two fingers of whisky with his customary silent bonhomie.

It was a dive. The floor was sticky with spilled beer and drunks nursed their spirits in filthy corners. Hjörtur pored miserably over a crossword, lank hair falling over his skinny face. But it was warm and there was whisky.

All the girls had been well off, from good families and young - no older than sixteen. Strangely the lab had reported that first three had all eaten the same meal, just before they died - white fish in a spicy sauce, potatoes and green vegetables. All had drunk champagne too - what sort of establishment would serve them alcohol? They were children for chrissakes and the rules in Reykjavik are strict, you could lose your license serving booze to under 20s.

Could they have been on a date? An older man with influence, perhaps? Ragna made a note to check the menus of every restaurant in Reykjavik to see who served this particular menu regularly.

When she stood up to go to the ladies Ragna didn’t see the Hjörtur’s eyes flick up from his puzzle and follow her with avaricious eyes. And when she returned to order a second double and ask for a packet of matches, he brought the whisky and lit her cigarette himself with a silver lighter, embossed with a crested grebe.

Everything was burning. Every inch of his skin felt alight. He lay on his back in the sheer dark of his cave, cool rock beneath his naked skin more soothing than any lotion. Every day he grew more sensitive to the light.

Moonburn?

He would have laughed but his throat was raw from the tendrils of light that had lanced deep into his body.

He slept for many hours. He slept as the sun drowned out the cries of the moon, reaching its zenith and then beginning its slow descent once more. It was a nagging grain of sand in his mind, millions of miles distant, and how many miles of rock now between them and yet still he could feel it. It did not matter which way he forced himself to sleep, when he awoke he was always facing the sun, as though some deep instinctual part of his mind knew to never turn his back on this enemy that seared his eyes and burned his skin.

From his bag he took the bottle of Crested Grebe and poured himself a measure. This was the one burn he enjoyed, because it was his choice to inflict it upon himself. He settled himself cross legged, took up his reader and connected the power cable. He lay it face down upon his thighs, waiting for that moment, that tingle, as the bonds of the interface formed themselves into the ridges and bumps of the living tactile interface.

He inserted the storage card and felt another tingle as the device quivered again. Another pattern traced itself against his skin, but this was unfamiliar, the meaning a mystery to the dull flesh of his body. He flipped the device, resting the rear of it on his legs, the screen open for his finger tips to trace the message

He smiled.

You smell.

Perhaps he did, of the cave, of the cold and the dark that were his normal.

She wrote him many letters each day, time on her hands because of her illness that shied her from the light, sent her screaming under the covers if the curtains were opened in the daytime. She put them on the memory card together with puzzles and crosswords and number games. When she felt able, on nights when the moon was behind the clouds her parents would take her to enjoy some fresh night air, under cover of the pergola they had blanketed with canvas.

It had been many weeks since he found a memory card stuck under one of the chairs with a piece of gum.

He began to read her earliest letter. She talked of Iceland, a country that sometimes only saw five hours of daylight, imagine it!

He had thought about places like that, longing for the cool and the dark, but five hours of daylight could not compare with his life down here in the always dark.

Poor Mike cannot ignore the snores. He endures them, restlessly, sleeplessly,

each stagger and lift, lilt and drift through the darkest bite of the moorland night.

Zero steps done and a head like a rock, it’s 3.48 on his fitbit clock.

A scary gasp, a snuffling rasp, and an exhalation of Olde Temptation laced with a hint of Sweet Chilli Sensation wafts to him softly on the air, from some loud nostril over there.

It was cost sparing, all four sharing, A walking weekend with the old, old friends. Garry, Harry and Tall Paul Ball in the cottage by the Hall.

Garry, once the classroom fool, uses the nicknames they had at school. Some oblique and some unfair, (like Mike’s “Foureyes” which they all now share!). But Garry’s own life is made less tragic by summoning up this ancient magic, and, reconstituting the old hierarchy with a steady barrage of lame malarkey. What all the old friends know of course is, you can’t hit back with “Four Divorces!”

Since school they’ve sort of stayed in touch, in part for touch’s sake. Now they are here again…..drinking beer again…….fighting fear again, and keeping Mike awake.

Harry gives a loud uncaring snort, Mike jumps aboard another train of thought. What’s our future after Brexit? Over 50, no more sex? It all moves on too fast to measure, the certainties he used to treasure are wrong, or worse, don’t bring him pleasure. Shut the fuck up snoring will you? Honestly I want to kill you.

Zero steps done, awake a while, it’s 3.59 on the Fitbit dial.

About to drop off til Tall Paul coughs, and suddenly work! Did he sent that vital mail? He feels they’re waiting for him to fail. Monday’s briefing unprepared, 55 and still shit scared.

It is a spooling mess this useless brain, how many thoughts can a head contain? Technology that he can’t master, years that pass by ever faster, but seconds that seem to crawl, try to think of nothing at all.

And quickly creeping tiredness overtakes him, begone you cunning wakeworms and forsake him! Gentle waves of calm unconscious seep and welcome Mike into the world of sleep.

Zero steps done and the Fitbit screen tells no one that it’s 4.19.

---

Morning, and yellow-green hillsides are dappled in thin March sunlight,

Two Crested Grebes do their extraordinary dance of love on the Reservoir.

A flock of Tufted Ducks sweep overhead in the direction of Iceland.

In the pub Harry does the crossword, despite much impotent ridicule by Garry, a nice man but somehow desperate, Harry doesn’t care, He does what he likes nowadays.

Mike smiles at the comforting jokes being passed between his oldest friends. The Spring and the exercise pours him a thrilling pint of weightlessness and happiness. They’re not a bad crowd.

A walk in the country always sorts one out. He’s a bit tired after the snoring mind, Next time he’ll pay for a room on his own.

26534 steps! Result!

Ah but I did know better didn’t I. I told her it wouldn’t be that simple. Never trust the title; it’s the little words that matter. But she didn’t listen did she. No. Typical. And now she’s in the dark and she can’t say I didn’t warn her. Who wins a trip to Iceland for free? I said to her, don’t be so bloody stupid. It’s probably a scam. Read the small print; two week cruise round the fjords? More likely we’ll turn up and it’ll be a rusty fishing boat and a mugging. Well, see how it turned out?

Oh to be honest I’m glad. I couldn’t take it much longer. He just kept going on and on and on. Always knew better. Always in the right. Well who was right this time? Me. I said I was good at crosswords, it’s always worth entering. Gotta be in it to win it and all that. Well ha. Proved that idiot wrong didn’t I? What a boat. You should have seen it? Beautiful and the ice, oi! just mountains of it glistening. So peaceful and so powerful. Too bright. That’s what he said. Make you blind. Can you believe it? I tell you.

And I told her. Don’t go off the path I said. We only had a few hours stop for photos. And she was just garbling on about a Crested Grebe or something. Well I said, come on now at your age you can go running of into the dark. But of course, there was no telling that one.

That man would have made us sit at home and watch the smart meter for entertainment if he had his way. Well there is a world out there that is made to be beautiful and he was going to see the light it if it was the last thing I did. Ha, well, thats funny isn’t it.

She was always running around, dragging me around. Sometimes I think she should have just left me behind. I said there’s not a lot out there I can’t see in a good book. But she had to ‘shine a little light’ on the world for me.

I mean, one little slip. Oh I bet he’s loving this. He can dine of this one for years. I told her not to go he’ll be saying. I told her it would end in disaster he’ll say. Oh the silly buggers probably overjoyed to have some rest and a bit of quiet. But i’m sure he’ll find something to moan about.

The touble is, it’s so quiet now I can’t sleep. She was so noisy, rolling around and snoring. And now, it’s just so quiet. And it’s darker somehow. Too dark; like the suns just been turned down a notch. It’s probably just my eyes going.

No he’ll be fine. He can sit at home and watch the telly. Grumble at the news. Watch countdown without trying to hide the real reason he’s watching it has something to do with a certain presenter in a short dress. Sleep better too without me snoring. It’ll be quieter of course. But still, he knows I loved him.

Oh no I’ve not been abroad since. Get all my adventure on countdown if you know what I mean. I mean. Well still, it’s not the same is it. But I’ve started doing crosswords. Who knows maybe I’ll win a competition too.

Can you tell her I miss her?

Can you tell him I miss him?