Ashes to Dust (24 page)

They walked into a little office and the
nurse turned on the light with her elbow. ‘It’s my understanding
that you worked with Alda Thórgeirsdóttir and might be able to
help me,’ said Thóra after they’d sat down.

‘Yes, I can try,’ replied the
woman calmly. ‘There are of course limits to what I’m allowed to
talk about, but since I don’t entirely know what this is regarding,
we’ll just have to see whether I can help you or not. I should probably
point out that I’m meeting you as a favour to Hannes. We work together a
lot.’

‘I fully understand, and I’m very
grateful to both of you,’ replied Thóra. ‘I’m not
fishing for information about patients or anything else here in the hospital,
but I’m looking for someone with whom Alda might possibly have discussed
personal things.’ She levelled her gaze at the woman. ‘Alda left
behind secrets that can’t be bottled up any longer. My hope is that she
trusted someone with them, possibly a colleague of hers.’

‘That’s a good question,’
said Bjargey. ‘Alda wasn’t really the chatty type, although she was
always kind to everyone, staff as well as patients. But no one in particular
comes to mind.’ She smiled weakly at Thóra. ‘Alda only
worked here on weekends, but she also took extra evening shifts when she could.
They always needed staff then, because most people want evenings and weekends
off.’ Realizing she was still holding the stack of papers, Bjargey put
them down on top of a similar pile on the desk before continuing: ‘Alda
worked somewhere else during the day, she didn’t often share shifts with
the same people, so she wasn’t part of a group like the rest of
us.’

‘So she didn’t work with anyone
in particular?’ asked Thóra.
‘With you,
for example?’

Bjargey shook her head, causing the hair-clip
keeping her fringe out of her eyes to come slightly loose. Her hair was cut
short, but had grown out a bit. She lifted one hand to catch the clip, without
missing a beat. ‘I do the scheduling and other admin for the nursing
staff in the A&E, so I know it didn’t work like that. I worked with
Alda sometimes, and liked her.’ Bjargey pushed her hair back up and
refastened the clip. ‘To put it mildly, I was very surprised to hear that
she had killed herself. I didn’t think she would do that, to tell you the
truth.’

‘Hadn’t she stopped working
here?’ said Thóra. ‘I understood from the head nurse I
spoke to that Alda resigned shortly before she died.’

‘Yes, in fact she had,’ replied
Bjargey, clearing her throat. ‘That matter is actually still being
investigated, both here in the hospital and elsewhere, so I can’t say
much about it.’

‘Do you mean that Alda didn’t
leave on good terms?’ said Thóra. ‘That’s actually
what I was led to understand in my conversation with the head nurse.’

‘Good and not so good,’ said
Bjargey, enigmatically. ‘A particular situation came up that she and the
department couldn’t see eye to eye on, which led to an agreement that she
should take a leave of absence until the matter was resolved.’ She
fiddled again with her hair-clip, although it now appeared to be securely
fastened. ‘The decision was reached without acrimony. I’m convinced
that Alda would have come back if things hadn’t gone as they did.’

‘I see,’ said Thóra.
‘You said the investigation was ongoing both here in the hospital and
elsewhere. Are you talking about a police investigation, or a liability
claim?’ She tried to imagine crimes one could commit in a hospital.
‘Did Alda make a mistake in her work? Did she steal drugs?
Or…’

Bjargey had fallen silent
and appeared to be wondering how best to reply, if at all.
When she finally spoke again it was as if she were
weighing every word carefully. ‘Alda wasn’t accused of a work error
and she didn’t steal any drugs. The case wasn’t about anything like
that. It’s debatable whether she behaved in an appropriate manner, but
all the allegedly unusual conduct took place outside work hours, and therefore
should not concern this institution. However, circumstances arose that made it
wrong for her to continue working here during the investigation.’

Thóra could make no sense of this.
‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at,’ she said,
and smiled confidingly. ‘Is there any way you could explain more
clearly?’

‘No,’ replied Bjargey, now
without any hesitation. ‘This has nothing to do with Alda’s death
and I can’t see how whatever you’re trying to dig up could
relate to this in any way. So I would prefer not to discuss it any
further.’ She avoided looking Thóra in the eye as she said this,
but then directed her gaze at her and added: ‘I’m sorry. It’s
a sensitive matter.’

Thóra realized it was useless to
pursue this any further. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘But to
return to my errand - can you think of anyone Alda might have known well on her
shifts, even if they weren’t actually friends?’

Bjargey gave Thóra a patronizing
smile. ‘Have you visited the A&E in the evening or at the
weekend?’

‘No, actually I haven’t, but I
came here several times with my children when they were younger. As it happens,
it was always in the daytime.’

‘There’s no comparison,’
said Bjargey. ‘Alda worked all the difficult and tiresome shifts, when
the A&E filled with puking pissheads who had injured themselves, or with
their victims, who came here either beaten up or cut up. Try to imagine
yourself working with such a demanding bunch.
Drunk
people are incredibly impatient and if a lot of them are made to wait, the
situation in the waiting room can be borderline dangerous, not to mention how
unpleasant it is to have to listen to all their arguing and complaining. So
there’s really no time or space for chatting or making friends, I can
tell you that much.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Thóra,
understanding only too well how horrible a workplace full of drunk people could
be. She had heard many stories from Hannes over the years, so what the woman
said didn’t surprise her. ‘Alda must have been an extremely hard
worker,’ she said. ‘Did she have any particular role, or did
she do all the general nursing duties?’

Bjargey looked again at Thóra as if
she were reluctant to answer. ‘Alda took on pretty much everything. She
was an outstanding nurse and had a great deal of experience in closings
because of her work at the plastic surgeons’. The doctors used to ask her
to assist them in stitching and such like. She was also very compassionate and
mature, which made her popular when there was a need to calm or comfort people
in distress, or to fill out incident reports. She was particularly good
with women
,‘
said Bjargey, glancing at her
watch. The message was clear: enough. She looked up again at Thóra.
’Luckily, there are fewer women than men here on the weekends, but
the gender ratio is balancing out more and more with every weekend that passes.
Unfortunately
.‘

Equality appeared to be making more strides
in the underbelly of human activity than in the workplace, but Thóra
refrained from saying so out loud. ‘Her sister told me she’d been
involved with a few rape cases, and among other things had to testify in court
because of it. Is that right?’

Bjargey hesitated for a moment,
then
replied: ‘As I said, Alda was here mostly in the
evenings and on weekends, and those are precisely the times most violent crimes
are committed. Since her manner was particularly kind and gentle, she often
took part in the examination and care of girls and women who had been subjected
to such appalling acts. She also participated a little in the follow-up care of
the victims in the cases where trust had developed between them and her.
It’s much better for the women not to have to discuss what happened with
too many people.’

‘Of course,’ said Thóra.
‘What form does this follow-up care take?’

‘It varies,’ said Bjargey.
‘It isn’t always possible to arrange counselling sessions, since
some of the women are psychologically unstable and have difficulty keeping
appointments. Of course attempts are made to proceed with face-to-face therapy,
but in worst-case scenarios the cases are discussed by telephone. Alda was one
of the few who didn’t mind giving her telephone number to the women, and
she often provided counselling and support by phone.’ Bjargey added
quickly: ‘Naturally she was paid for it, and she wrote down every phone
call and filled out the appropriate paperwork.’ Bjargey looked at her
watch again. ‘Is that everything?’

‘Yes, just one more thing before you
go
,’ said Thóra. ‘Did Alda ever talk
about the Westmann Islands or the volcanic eruption in 1973?’

Bjargey frowned thoughtfully. ‘No, not
that I recall,’ she said. ‘I actually worked with her over the Bank
Holiday weekend last year and the Islands came up in our conversation. She
told me that she was from there, I recall.’ She quickly added:
‘Unlike other weekends, the Bank Holiday is relatively quiet in
Reykjavik, as you know. So we had a peaceful shift and got to speak to each
other a bit.’

‘Do you remember what you talked
about?’ asked Thóra cautiously. She was certain that the woman
would end their conversation there and then if she started talking about a
lopped-off head. ‘Did she mention at all why she never went back to her
home town?’

Bjargey shook her head. ‘No, I
don’t think so,’ she said. ‘She was simply reminiscing about
what the festival was like for the residents of the island. Told me about the
Islanders’ white tents, and things like that. I don’t remember her
saying she rarely went there.’ Bjargey seemed to be on the verge of
standing up when she suddenly stopped. ‘Actually,’ she said,
‘I asked her whether she wanted to go, since I could easily have found
another nurse to fill in for her.’

‘And?’ asked Thóra.
‘What was her reply?’

Bjargey’s brow furrowed. ‘I
remember I found her reply and the tone of her voice quite peculiar and very
unlike her,’ she answered. ‘She said her heart wouldn’t let
her go even if her head wanted her to.’ The nurse looked at Thóra.
‘Then she laughed as if it were some hilarious joke.’ She stood up.
‘I didn’t get what was so funny.’

Stefán found the song on the radio
quite inappropriate, so he turned it off. He was sitting in his office, but
should have been on his way home. One more day in which he didn’t make it
home on time. He sighed deeply. Tomorrow it would happen again. His promotion
within the police department demanded more of his time than he had originally
expected, and it was starting to take its toll. His wife thought he was messing
around in his office all evening, and was in a bad mood every night.
Stefán was getting very tired of the situation at home,
particularly the fact that it seemed to take at least an hour to get his wife
going in bed on the occasions when he was in the mood. Tomorrow he would be
home by five at the very latest.
Definitely.
Yet it
seemed that whenever he entertained thoughts like this he would suddenly be hit
with a flurry of urgent business. Where were all these people with all their
burning issues between nine and five? Just earlier, for instance, the forensic
pathologist had phoned at five sharp with the results from the second drug test
on the dead nurse. He had asked Stefán to wait a little while he took
care of something in the autopsy lab, but promised that he would phone again
when he was back up in his office, where he had left the report. So
Stefán had waited, but as experience advised he had phoned home and
explained why he would be late. His explanation fell on deaf ears. He did not
expect to be welcomed home joyfully tonight. It was six thirty when the doctor
finally rang and Stefán noticed that the same cold tone had crept into
his own voice as he had heard in his wife’s.

‘Keep it short,’ he said.
‘It’s getting late.’

‘You don’t need to tell me
that,’ replied the doctor, just as irritated. He paused and there was a
brief riffling of papers on the other end of the line before he got straight to
the point. ‘As you recall, the first test revealed nothing to indicate
the cause of death so another test was performed. I don’t know how
familiar you are with these cases, but the lab first tests only for the things
that are specifically requested. Of course we asked them to test for the active
ingredients in the tablets found on the bedside table,
then
we also had them look for several common substances, but with no result.
However, for the current test we widened the scope. I also took several tissue
samples and had them tested.’

‘Which tissues?’ asked
Stefán.
What he knew about forensic pathology could
fit on the back of a stamp, but he didn’t want the doctor to realize
this. He hoped it wasn’t too stupid a question.

‘I mainly took samples from the usual
areas, but I was most eager to see the results from the woman’s
tongue,’ replied the doctor, who Stefán could hear was still
flipping through his papers. ‘I’ve never seen a corpse with a
tongue like that and I suspected something unnatural was going on.’

‘And?’ asked Stefán
impatiently. The tone of the doctor’s voice told him that he was going to
say something important and he wanted to relish the moment. Stefán
had no time for games.

‘And, I was right,’ said the
doctor triumphantly. ‘This woman was murdered and the proof is in her
tongue.’ The rustling stopped suddenly.
‘Very
unusual.
Very.’