The Polar Bear Killing Read Online Free PDF Page B

laugh at his own joke, an alarming rumble, like an approaching earthquake.
    ‘I am investigating Constable Halldór’s death.’
    The laugh stopped instantly. ‘Halldór is dead?’ The old man sat back to take in the news. ‘I didn’t know. I haven’t left the farm for a few days. What happened?’
    ‘He was shot. Murdered.’
    ‘No!’ Egill shook his head. ‘Poor man. How can I help you?’
    ‘I understand that you witnessed him shooting the polar bear last week?’
    ‘Yes, I did.’
    ‘What happened?’
    The old farmer sipped his coffee. ‘It was my fault.’
    Vigdís didn’t understand. ‘What was your fault?’
    ‘That Anna ran up to the polar bear. That was why Halldór had to shoot him.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    The old man’s many wrinkles rearranged themselves into a smile of surprising warmth and simplicity. ‘Anna and I are good friends,’ he said. ‘It’s important to make friends who are younger than you, you know?’
    He stared at Vigdís, demanding her agreement.
    ‘I am sure it is,’ she said.
    ‘Anna likes to play on her side of the river and I come down to mine and we talk. I tell her stories. She likes my stories.’
    ‘I see,’ said Vigdís, stifling her impatience. Shut up and listen, she told herself. If you listen, sometimes you learn something.
    ‘There was one story she particularly liked. You know I am anewcomer here? I arrived forty-eight years ago. From Grímsey, the island in the north. You know it?’
    ‘I know it,’ said Vigdís. It was a few kilometres north of Akureyri, bang on the Arctic Circle.
    ‘There is a famous story from there that I used to tell Anna. Shall I tell you?’
    ‘Please do,’ said Vigdís, putting down her notebook.
    ‘One day all the fires went out on the island. It was in the days before matches, and so three islanders had to try to get to the mainland to bring back embers to rekindle them. The sea was iced up, so they had to walk across the ice. One of the men got lost and drifted out to sea on an ice floe.’
    The farmer’s face became animated as he spoke. His voice was deep but clear. He was a good storyteller; Vigdís could understand why the little girl liked to listen to him.
    ‘The next morning, the man was cold and hungry and thirsty, but he was still a long way from land. His ice floe drifted towards another chunk of ice, on which there was a mother polar bear trapped with her cubs. The man was scared, but there was nothing he could do to steer his ice away from the bears. Soon they collided. But the mother polar bear didn’t eat the man: she allowed him to suckle her milk with her cubs and kept him warm. When the man had regained his strength, she swam over to the mainland, with him on her back. He gathered some embers and then returned on her back to Grímsey, and all the fires on the island could be rekindled. The man was so grateful, he gave the bear cow’s milk and two slaughtered sheep, and the bear swam off back to her cubs.’
    ‘That’s a good story,’ Vigdís admitted.
    ‘It was Anna’s favourite. Which was why, when Anna saw the polar bear, she wasn’t afraid of it. That’s why it is my fault that she went out to talk to it.’
    ‘I see,’ said Vigdís. The old guy was probably right. It was best to tell children to be scared of polar bears in this part of the world. ‘Did you see the bear?’
    ‘Not until I heard the sound of the police car arriving. It was afoggy day, but at that moment the cloud lifted and I saw the bear and Anna and the policeman. I still have good eyesight at distance. I need these for reading.’ He waved an old pair of spectacles that had been lying on the kitchen table, one arm wrapped with tape. ‘I could tell the bear was a youngster and in bad condition. Constable Halldór shouted something and Anna climbed into his car. The policeman took out his rifle from the boot. Then Anna jumped out of the car and started off towards the polar bear. I couldn’t believe it. Why would