Ashes to Dust (12 page)

‘No, none,’ replied Kjartan
immediately, glowering at her.
‘Out of the
question.’

Thóra decided not to pursue this,
although she had hoped that a foreign boat might have been moored there.
‘Do you remember anything about Markus that night, or Alda, his
girlfriend?’

‘No,’ replied Kjartan, without
hesitation. He fell silent, clearly unwilling to elaborate.

‘Are you absolutely certain?’
asked Thóra, surprised at the swiftness of his response. ‘He
wasn’t there with his father, your friend?’

‘I must have seen his father, although
I don’t specifically remember it,’ scowled Kjartan. ‘He
worked on a rescue crew and was in the Islands during the days following the
eruption, although I don’t recall whether I met him that night. I
don’t remember the boy at all,
nor
Alda for that
matter. There was a crowd of people there. They all had their arms piled high
with whatever they had decided was most valuable at the moment they were forced
to head to the harbour, the most incredible collection of things. In most cases
what truly mattered was left behind; photo albums and other keepsakes were
forgotten in the mad rush to save new standard lamps or other worldly goods
that would soon become worthless.’

‘But are you sure you fully realize
which Alda I’m talking about?’ persisted Thóra. She thought
it peculiar that Kjartan hadn’t hesitated at all when she mentioned her
name. Perhaps he’d heard Markus’s explanation for the severed head
and had already remembered who she was. She hoped this wasn’t the case,
because it would mean Markus had been very indiscreet.

‘There was only one Alda in the Islands
at that time. She was the same age as Markus, and her father was one of our
friends. His name was Thórgeir and he died recently. He was one of those
who stayed behind to assist the rescue crews along with me and Markus’s
father Magnus.’

‘Did you know Alda died this week?’
asked Thóra.

‘Yes, I heard about that,’ he
replied. ‘Her mother and sister still live in the Islands, and I know
both of them. The whole thing is, in a word, tragic, and I don’t
understand what causes people to take such desperate measures. Her mother is
devastated, understandably.’ Kjartan glanced very quickly out over the
harbour before continuing. He seemed to wish to change the subject, clearly
finding it difficult to talk about sensitive issues, like so many men of his
generation. ‘But I don’t remember either Alda or Markus being
there that night. Try to imagine five thousand people milling about out here.
It was utter bedlam, and there was no time to talk to shocked teenagers.’

‘Markus said that he’d been
evacuated to the mainland on the same boat as Alda, and that they’d
spoken on board,’ said Thóra. ‘Is it possible to verify
this? In other words, are there records of who went on which boat to the
mainland that night?’

Kjartan shrugged. ‘I simply don’t
know. The Red Cross took down the names of those who landed and arranged for
people to be sent to Reykjavik from Thórlakshofn. I think they also
recorded which people were taken in by relatives and so on. Whether the records
say which ships people travelled on I don’t know, and if they did
who’s to say if such papers were even preserved?’

‘They’re probably in the National
Archive,’ cried Bella, suddenly. She blushed slightly when Thóra
and Kjartan looked at her in surprise. They had both forgotten her.
‘That’s where I would put them, anyway,’ she added, before
abruptly shutting up.

‘There’s also an archive here in
town,’ said Kjartan.
‘On the first floor of the
library.
They might have those papers there.’

‘If not, then they’re probably in
the National Archive, as you suggested, Bella,’ said Thóra, pleased
with her secretary’s interest. This was a possible assignment for
the girl while they were here, she thought. Bella could search for the
documents in the town’s archive and dig through them until she found
Markus and Alda’s names. If they didn’t show up in the search,
Bella could continue in Reykjavik later. There was a lot at stake, because
although such documents would not suffice in themselves to clear Markus of all
suspicion, they would at least provide some support to his story. He had told Alda
on the ship that the box had been left behind in the basement, and since Alda
was no longer living, Markus was in dire need of anything, no matter how small,
to help support his statement. Thóra turned to Kjartan. ‘The men
who remained behind to do the rescue work,’ she said, ‘could they
travel between the Islands freely, or was there some sort of system in
place?’

Kjartan shook his head. ‘For the first
two or three days there was no organization at all. People just worked like mad
on their own initiative, salvaging what they could. And then it changed and
started becoming more orderly. Although attempts were made to control the
operations, it was actually nature that controlled everything according to
its whims. It also wasn’t long before more rescue crews came from the
mainland, but unfortunately I don’t have any precise numbers available on
their size or how they were organized. I do recall that there were three or
four hundred people here at the height of the rescue operation.’ Kjartan
looked Thóra in the eye. ‘If you’re asking whether any of
them could have gone into the house and put the bodies there, or killed those
people in the basement, the answer is absolutely yes. It wouldn’t have
been at all difficult. The houses that they’re digging up now weren’t
immediately buried by ash - at least two weeks passed from the start of the
eruption until the ash covered them. I wouldn’t have wanted to enter them
myself at that point because they were so close to the vent, but someone may
well have been desperate enough to take the risk. About four hundred houses
were covered by lava and obviously those couldn’t be saved. That row of
houses, on the other hand, was buried under ash, which doesn’t have the
same destructive power as molten rock. If I’d been hiding bodies I would
have put them in houses that clearly would have been covered by lava, but of
course that would have taken an enormous amount of courage. Lava doesn’t
flow that quickly, but there are few sights more terrifying. It doesn’t
spare anything. And it wasn’t just the burning lava that would have held
most people back, but also the toxic gases it produced.’

‘Do you have any idea who these people
were that were found in the basement?’ asked Thóra. ‘Do you
know whether anyone went missing?
From the rescue crews, for
example?’

‘I have no idea,’ replied
Kjartan. ‘As far as I know, they all returned home in the end. No one
died in the eruption.’

‘Except the man in the basement of the
pharmacy,’ said Thóra.

‘That wasn’t the eruption,’
he replied. ‘He was an alcoholic.’

Thóra was speechless. This was clearly
the accepted view in the Islands. Alcoholics didn’t count. She was
determined not to let this put her off. ‘But you must have wondered who
these people were?’ she continued. ‘The Westmann Islands
aren’t very large, so naturally it’s most likely that these men had
some kind of tie to them.’

‘Not a clue,’ said Kjartan, and
he tightened his lips. ‘From what I’ve seen in the news, no one
knows who these people are, or how they ended up in the basement.’

‘That’s correct,’ said
Thóra patiently. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to wonder. It occurred
to me that this might be connected to the Cod War, that they were sailors who
died in an accident at sea or in some quarrel between the Icelanders and
the British. I guess I’m assuming that they’re Englishmen.’

‘I doubt that,’ replied Kjartan.
‘There were various difficulties at the time, but they never
developed into anything like what you’re suggesting. Besides, it
couldn’t have been kept secret if something like that had happened. We
would never have been able to kill four Brits without it becoming a huge
incident. I have no idea who these people were, unfortunately.’

Thóra decided not to press any
further, but was surprised that the man might not at least have considered the
possibility that the dead people were foreigners. It was absolutely
indisputable — four Icelanders simply could not have vanished without
being missed. An uneasy feeling came over her. The man before her knew more
than he wanted to reveal. He’d been more than prepared to chat about
unimportant things. She looked at Bella and stood up. ‘Well, this was
informative.’ She shook Kjartan’s hand. ‘Maybe
we’ll get a chance to disturb you further, if anything else occurs to
me.’

On the way out she noticed a framed
photograph on the wall next to the doorway. It showed five people with their
arms around each other’s shoulders. They were all wearing helmets, while
in the background a jet of ash stretched to the sky. One of the men was clearly
Kjartan in his younger years. All of them looked exhausted, and none smiled at
the camera. ‘Is Markus’s father in this photograph, perhaps?’

Kjartan walked up to it and pointed at one of
the men. ‘That’s him.
Magnus.
And then there’s
Geiri, or Thórgeir.
Alda’s father.’

‘This is clearly you here, but who are
the other two?’ Thóra asked.

Kjartan snorted rudely. ‘That’s
Dadi,’ he said, pointing at a rather ugly man who was a good deal shorter
than the others.
‘A boring bastard who was married to
an even more boring woman.’
He moved his finger. ‘And this
is Gudni.’

‘The policeman?’ asked
Thóra, turning to Kjartan. ‘Was he one of the friends that you
mentioned?’

‘
Was is
the operative word,’ replied Kjartan.

Sunday 15 July
2007

Bella relaxed with a cigarette as they stood
outside Café Kró, a little harbourside restaurant they had come
across in their search for supper. Thóra stood next to her, which was
against her natural instincts, but the weather was so good that being in a bad
mood seemed impossible. She felt completely relaxed after the meal, and the sea
breeze had perked her up. The air had grown colder in the evening, even though
the sun was still in the sky as if nothing were more normal. Even Bella’s
smoke, which drifted over Thóra’s face every now and then, could
not ruin the beautiful evening. A small boat sailed out of the harbour, several
seagulls following it from the jetty. Otherwise the wharf was calm, except for
two men who were repairing the pilothouse on a small fishing boat tied to the
pier just below where they stood. The repairs were proceeding at a leisurely
pace since the men spent more time chatting than working, and Thóra
admired their relaxed attitude. Perhaps it was the extreme beauty of the
surroundings that had this effect on people. As Thóra watched the lively
bird life around the steep sides of Heimaklettur Peak she could feel her stress
dissolving, and she thought she could have sat there sipping her drink for the
rest of the evening.

‘So, how many bodies were there?’
said Bella, rudely interrupting her reverie.

‘In the basement?’ said
Thóra, even though Bella could hardly have meant anything else.
‘Four.
Or more correctly, three and a quarter.
One of the corpses was just a head. Haven’t you followed the story in the
news?’ she asked, astounded.

‘No, I don’t read that
rubbish.’ Bella put her cigarette in one corner of her mouth and exhaled
a great cloud of smoke. She watched thoughtfully as it floated upwards, spread
out and disappeared. ‘Who kills four people at once?’ she asked,
frowning. ‘One I can understand, maybe two. But four is too many. Is it
possible that this wasn’t murder?’

Thóra had to admit to herself that
they were thinking along the same lines. ‘I haven’t got the results
of the autopsy yet; maybe it isn’t finished. It could well be that three
of them died by accident, or poisoning, or by some means other than human
hand.’

Thóra breathed in the scent of the
sea, which still overpowered the smell of her secretary’s cigarette.
‘The head, on the other hand, is harder to explain. If the men
weren’t murdered - what about this head? Who would decapitate a corpse,
and why?’

Bella shrugged. ‘Maybe he was in an
accident and the body was separated from the head. It does happen.’

‘But how did the head end up in the
box? And the box, along with three bodies, down in Markus’s
basement?’ Thóra was surprised to find that she was enjoying
talking this through with Bella. She had no way of knowing where the case was
heading, and she wondered how to make the most of her trip to the Islands. She
might as well head back to Reykjavik if there was no useful information to be
gained here.

Bella frowned, and Thóra was relieved
to realize that it was a sign of deep thought rather than anything Thóra
had said to insult her. ‘This woman who gave your client the box,’
she said, taking a drag on her cigarette, ‘do you think she killed those
people?’

‘No, I can’t see it,’
replied Thóra. ‘She was a teenager, hardly capable of killing four
men.
Not alone, anyway.’
She leaned against the
wall and basked in the mild evening sun. ‘I’ve got to find a way to
meet her mother, because she’s the one most likely to know something
about where the head came from - if not more. It’s rotten luck that her
father’s dead. I imagine that he’s probably involved somehow.
But whether Alda’s family is connected to the case or not,
they must know something.
Teenage girls are good at hiding all sorts of
things from their parents, but I don’t see Alda strolling casually around
town with a man’s head in a box. If nothing else, her mother could tell
me who she spent time with after the disaster. Maybe she confessed to a friend,
or friends, later on? Markus lost all contact with her after they came to the
mainland, so he’s no use.’