Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Katherine Manners, Hodder, Stoughton

throttle Ívar. ‘If they’ve hired out the helicopter until a certain date, they should damn well return it then. What the hell does it matter if the job’s behind schedule?’ She speaks without pausing for breath, then breaks off, panting, and gives Ívar a murderous glare. Then she seems to come to her senses, her fury evaporates and her expression relaxes. She drops her eyes and kicks at a stone that bounces a short way before shooting over the edge. ‘What about other helicopters? Couldn’t they borrow one to come and get us?’
    ‘Choppers with winching equipment are few and far between. And I, for one, have no intention of being pulled up by hand into some old rust bucket.’ Smoke pours out of Tóti’s mouth with every word. ‘It won’t be a problem. So there’s no point getting your knickers in a twist.’
    Heida glares at Tóti but doesn’t rise to this. Helgi admires her self-control; although quick-tempered, she’s clearly no fool. There’s absolutely no room to quarrel here.
    ‘Won’t we just have to resign ourselves? At least we’ve got phone reception. Couldn’t you get the babysitter to stay a bit longer?’ Helgi attempts a friendly smile.
    ‘I suppose so. Do I have any choice?’ The anger hasn’t entirely left her voice.
    ‘It’ll turn out all right in the end,’ said Ívar. ‘We’ll just have to tough it out. If the worst comes to the worst we can ask them to send a boat for us and hope the chain gets us to the bottom of the rock in one piece. Though I don’t recommend it, except in an emergency. The fastenings must be seventy years old. So I’ll let you lot go first.’ Ívar zips up his anorak in an effort to appear nonchalant but Helgi detects a hint of fear or uncertainty in the man’s manner. ‘We’d better go easy on the food.’ He accompanies this with a glance at Helgi, making no attempt to disguise the fact. Helgi flushes scarlet.
    Tóti chokes on his smoke. ‘Hang on a minute. How long do they reckon it’ll take to rescue us? Are we talking about one more night or two?’ He is staring intently at Ívar. ‘Three? Four?’
    ‘I’m not sure and neither are they, as far as I can tell. All I know is that they asked me about our supplies and when I told them roughly how much we had, that’s what they said.’ He breaks off and sucks his teeth, then takes his big knife out of its sheath and starts scraping imaginary dirt from under his fingernails. After that he lays down the knife on top of the cool-box and starts rooting aimlessly in the box beside it. ‘They also advised us to start collecting rainwater tonight.’
    ‘Jesus Christ.’ Tóti flicks his cigarette butt out into the darkness.
    Helgi is desperate to roll over on his thin sleeping mat and find a more comfortable position on the hard concrete floor but it’s impossible. It’s a miracle as it is that he and Heida have both managed to squeeze inside the lighthouse and lie so as to touch as little as possible during the night. If he so much as rolls over onto his back, it will mess up the arrangement. Perhaps, being so much smaller, Heida’s more comfortable.
    ‘Are you asleep?’ Heida’s voice is muffled, as though she’s pulled the sleeping bag over her head.
    ‘No.’ Helgi stops himself from adding: ‘You?’
    ‘I hate it here.’
    ‘Hopefully we’ll be able to go home tomorrow.’ Helgi feels like a teenager again. He doesn’t know quite what to say and can’t remember ever being in such an awkward situation with a member of the opposite sex. When the time came to split up for the night, Ívar ruled that Heida should sleep inside and choose who she wanted to share with. The other two would sleep up on the gallery, or narrow catwalk, that ran around the lantern room. Heida picked Helgi almost before Ívar had finished speaking, and he got the impression that Tóti was annoyed by this, though he tried to disguise the fact. Helgi had been surprised himself as he had assumed she would