Ashes to Dust (18 page)

Thóra doubted that was the reason. It
seemed more likely that whatever had led Alda to ask Markus to hide the severed
head had made it impossible for her to imagine returning to the area.
‘This thing she wanted to discuss with you, did she say what it was
about?’ she asked.

 Jóhanna shook her head.
‘She was being a bit weird about it. She said she should’ve sat
down with me a long time ago to get it off her chest.’ She stopped,
seeming on the verge of tears. ‘That’s how I know she didn’t
kill herself; she wouldn’t have done it before we had a chance to talk.
She was so insistent that we meet face to face, she couldn’t tell me on
the phone.’

‘When did you hear from her
last?’ asked Thóra.

‘The day before she died she phoned to
tell me that she’d bought her ticket, and she seemed happier than
she’d been in the previous phone call.’  Jóhanna rubbed
at her right eye. ‘It was as if she’d received good news or had a
load taken off her shoulders. I don’t know what had happened.’

Thóra suspected that what had cheered
Alda up was the knowledge that Markus was going to remove the head from the
basement. She must have been nervous while the status of the excavation was
still unclear, which would explain her mental state in those conversations with
her sister. When it looked as if everything was going to work out she had felt
happy again, but this lasted only a short time before everything went as
badly as it possibly could. ‘Hopefully it will all become clear,’
she soothed.

‘She said one thing I didn’t
understand,’
said  Jóhanna
thoughtfully. ‘She asked me under what circumstances I would get a
tattoo. She was in such a good mood that it didn’t seem to matter to her
that I couldn’t answer the question. And then there was some rigmarole
about how one should be careful of judging others and that she wouldn’t
make that mistake again. She said she would explain it all the following
weekend, but I felt like the tattoo question was somehow connected to her
cheerfulness.’

‘Tattoo?’
Thóra frowned. How could something like that
be relevant to all this?

Tuesday 17 July
2007

Thóra was pleased with Bella. The
young woman stood at her side, her arms crossed over her chest and a thunderous
look on her face that was making even Inspector Leifsson squirm in his seat.
‘It absolutely beggars belief that one should hear of developments in a
police investigation out on the street,’ continued Thóra.
‘Since you’re in charge of the station, and since the information
must originally have come from here, I have no choice but to hold you
responsible for the leak.’ The thundercloud next to her nodded its head
emphatically.

Gudni was completely silent for a moment, as
was his wont. He rocked back and forth in his chair and then leaned forwards,
placing his elbows on the desk. ‘I haven’t leaked anything,’
he said calmly. ‘Six police officers work here in addition to me, not to
mention the receptionist and the cleaner. Any one of them could have blurted
something out without me having had anything to do with it. So you’d
better think twice before you start accusing me of a breach of
confidence.’

‘Accusing you?’ snapped
Thóra. ‘I’m not accusing you of anything. I’ve come
here to demand a copy of the autopsy report, which I understand you have. I
wish to inform myself of its contents first-hand rather than relying on street
gossip.’

‘I understand,’ said Gudni
quietly. He was clearly unhappy about this new development, but trying not to
show it. Thóra noticed some small muscles twitching around his mouth.

‘I don’t have any objection to
you seeing the documents. Should I check and see what the book says about such
things?’

‘Kindly do so,’ she replied,
knowing he wouldn’t have the first idea where to look for the laws
regulating access to files in a criminal case. She actually doubted that a copy
of the relevant regulations existed in Gudni’s office, and he probably
wouldn’t even know where to find them on the Internet.

‘But I don’t see what purpose it
will serve,’ said Gudni, as he stood up. He picked up some papers stapled
together in one corner and waved them at her. ‘No doubt you’ll get
hold of this soon enough, because I have trouble believing that Markus won’t
be arrested very soon. The autopsy does not look good for him.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked
Thóra. She longed to tear the report from the man’s hands and
start reading it.

‘I mean that it provides, for the first
time, clear evidence that these men were murdered. In other words, this is now
a murder investigation. In addition, the report contains indications of
the men’s nationality. They are probably British, and contact has already
been made with the British police, asking them to investigate who these men
might have been. So no doubt this case will soon be all over the British newspapers,
and when that happens I can promise you that the police department will be a
hive of activity, and the demand for answers will ensure that Markus will be
taken into custody. He is the only suspect we have at this stage.’ Gudni
stared straight at Thóra. ‘The autopsy does not implicate
Alda.’

‘No, we didn’t expect it
to,’ said Thóra. Although she was disappointed, Gudni did have a
point. She sighed deeply. The only people who could have explained things and
cleared Markus’s name were either dead or demented.

‘It doesn’t help that these
British men were murdered during the
Cod
War,’
said Gudni. ‘Certain individuals in particular social groups still
harbour a grudge over that dispute, both here and in Britain. The British press
are sure to play up that angle.’

‘Do you think that these men were
murdered because of fish?’ cried Bella.
‘Because
of cod?’‘

Gudni gave her a reproachful look. ‘The
codfish is money with fins and gills. You shouldn’t underestimate its
importance.’

Bella was about to defend herself so
Thóra hurried to interrupt her.
‘Were they
fishermen, then?’

‘That is not stated directly, but you
can read this at your leisure and draw your own conclusions,’ replied
Gudni. ‘It’s best that I go and make a copy of it.’ He walked
past them without another word.

Bella scowled at him,
then
looked around the little office. ‘Fucking idiot,’ she said,
seemingly more to herself than to Thóra. She went over to Gudni’s
desk and ran her eyes over the things lying on it.

‘For God’s sake don’t start
looking at anything,’ Thóra hissed exasperatedly.

‘He wouldn’t have left us alone
if there was anything here he didn’t want us to see,’ said Bella as
she bent towards the desk. She turned one of the pieces of paper on the table
face up. ‘When did the volcano erupt, again?’ she asked.

Thóra moved closer. ‘January
1973. The eruption started on the night of the twenty-third. Why?’

‘This is an old report,’ said
Bella. ‘It’s dated the twentieth of January 1973. Don’t you
find it a bit odd that he’s got such an old report on his table?’

‘What does it say?’ asked
Thóra anxiously. She looked over at the doorway but there was no one to
be seen. How long did it take to photocopy ten pages? ‘Quickly!’
she whispered.

‘Wait,’ said Bella, as she picked
up the page to get a better look. ‘It’s a report about signs of a
fight or injury at the pier. The police were called out by the harbour-master,
who found a lot of blood on the pier on the morning of Saturday the twentieth
of January. He couldn’t think of any natural explanation for it and
called the police, thinking that a crime might have been committed. He said the
harbour had been unsupervised from midnight on Friday evening until he
turned up for his next shift, at eight o’clock on Saturday
morning.’ Bella ran her finger down the page. ‘The police officer
examined the evidence, which was compelling, and asked the harbour-master what
ships had been moored there. It turned out that no boat had been moored there
for several days. The police also checked whether anyone had gone to the
hospital with injuries that night, but no one had been admitted after midnight
except a married couple with a sick baby.’ Bella looked up at
Thóra. ‘Couldn’t this be linked to the bodies?’ she
asked.

‘I don’t know,’
Thóra half whispered. ‘Quickly, keep reading.’ She glanced
at the door out of the corner of her eye, but all was quiet. ‘The police
interviewed several people in the wake of this, and two witnesses reported
seeing Dadi Karlsson up and about early in the morning. One of them said that
he’d been docking in a dinghy, and the other that he’d been at the
place where the blood was found. The police officer spoke to Dadi but he denied
this and said he hadn’t been there. He claimed he’d been at home
sleeping and said his wife could verify that, which she did. The officer then
boarded the trawler that Dadi piloted but found nothing unusual there. The case
was considered unsolved, but plans were made to investigate whether the blood
could conceivably have come from an animal or an illegal catch that had
been landed under the cover of night.’ Bella looked up from the report.
‘That’s all there is.’

‘Which police officer wrote the
report?’ Thóra asked hurriedly, and waved her hand to indicate
that their time was running out. Footsteps could be heard approaching in the
corridor.

‘Gudni Leifsson,’ said Bella, and
hurried to put the paper back in its place. No sooner had she done so than they
heard Gudni walking through the door behind them.

Thóra turned to him, trying to look
innocent. She couldn’t be certain, but if this report wasn’t
connected to the case, why would he be looking at such an old document? She
also had a feeling that Gudni was not investigating a cold case in cooperation
with his colleagues from Reykjavik, but working on it alone. Whether that was a
good thing or a bad thing for Markus, she’d have to wait and see.
‘Well,’ she said, and walked up to Gudni. He handed her a copy of
the medical examiner’s report and looked inquisitively at Bella, who was
still standing very close to the desk.

‘Do you need something?’ he asked
her coldly.

Bella looked back at him, equally impassive.
‘No, why do you ask?’ Her glare dared him to accuse her of prying.

Gudni did not fall into her trap, but frowned
for a second before turning back to Thóra. ‘There’s more
there that will catch the attention of the media if and when the report’s
contents are made public,’ he said. ‘It’s about the head, and
the evidence is indisputable.’ He smiled nastily. ‘Which comes as a
surprise in a case I thought had already reached its dramatic peak.’

‘There are a lot of surprises still to
come in this case, it seems to me,’ said Thóra, against her better
judgement. There was something about this man that ruffled her feathers.
However, she avoided glancing at the papers on his desk as she said this. It
was better to leave him wondering what she meant.

Thóra put down the papers and drummed
her fingers as she tried to gather her thoughts. She’d finished going
through three of the four sections; a specific report had been written for each
of the bodies, as well as for the head. The sections she had read concerned the
three bodies, which turned out to be of two men in their thirties and a man of
around fifty. The men were Caucasian and all the bodies were extremely well
preserved, owing to the unusual conditions in which they had been stored. The
heat of the eruption was thought to have played a large part in protecting
them, along with the lack of humidity in the basement and the fact that heavy
toxic gases had destroyed all insect life down there.

Even though the text was hard to read, every
other word being an incomprehensible medical term, it was clear that the men
had not been killed by toxic gases. Although no conclusion was reached on
the exact cause of death, it was strongly suggested that the three men had all
been victims of violence. They all had peculiar wounds on their hands that
appeared to have healed long before, and which were therefore unconnected
to the events that had led to their deaths. They seemed to be scars from deep
scratches whose origin was unclear, but it was considered unlikely that they
had been made by tools or knives because of the irregularity of their shapes.
Two of the men were thought to have died from head injuries, since their skulls
had been smashed, seemingly by the same unidentified blunt weapon. The
nose of one of them had been so badly broken that the cartilage had been driven
into his brain, although the medical examiner could not determine whether he
had died from this injury or from his fractured skull. The report further
stated that while the third man’s head injuries were minor, he had both a
broken back and three broken ribs, which had punctured one of his lungs. The
report concluded that the latter injury had caused bleeding into the chest
cavity and lungs, which would eventually have caused the man to drown in his
own blood. Thóra shuddered, but it was clear to her that a teenage girl
on her own could not have done so much damage to a group of men.