Ashes to Dust (29 page)

When she’d spoken to him after the
detention ruling Leifur had repeated that he wanted to help, and she had
promised to let him know if he could assist her in any way.

Leifur answered on the second ring.
Thóra allowed him to ask her all about the appeal to the High Court before
she turned to the task at hand and asked about their ex-neighbours. His reply
surprised her: ‘Ugh, those old bores.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Why
are you asking about them?’

‘Valgerdur’s name came up in
connection with Alda and I’m trying to find out what they had to do with
each other. Were they related, perhaps?’ she asked.

‘Not that I know of,’ he replied.
‘They were our neighbours, but I don’t know much about them.
Valgerdur was from out of town and I don’t know how she met Dadi, but he
was from here. They stayed on the mainland after the evacuation, so I
don’t know how you can track them down if that’s what you’re
after.’

‘Actually, she’s dead,’
said Thóra. ‘But I don’t know about him. As a matter of fact
I didn’t call to try to get in touch with him, but I was wondering
whether there had been any contact between Alda and this Valgerdur. What
crossed my mind first was that they were related, but maybe it was something
entirely different.’

‘I don’t know whether there was
much contact between the two households,’ said Leifur. ‘Valgerdur
was no particular friend of Alda’s mother, as I recall, nor were the
husbands friends. That pair were so tedious that I can’t imagine any sane
man seeking out their company willingly. Dadi was never called anything other
than Dadi Horseshoe — with good reason. Picture one upside down on his
face. And Valgerdur was nicknamed Horseshoe Two after she entered the
picture.’

‘I see,’ said Thóra,
baffled. ‘I was thinking Alda might have become a nurse to follow in
Valgerdur’s footsteps, but that seems unlikely in the light of what
you’re saying.’

‘Valgerdur was a school nurse among
other things, and I doubt she aroused any great passion for the job in any of
the students. She was famous for refusing to send kids home; they actually had
to faint right in front of her or puke on the floor to be considered sick. If
Alda did know her, I very much doubt she would have been the inspiration
for her future career.’

This didn’t help explain Alda’s
interest in the woman’s death. ‘There’s one more thing you
might be able to help me with,’ said Thóra. ‘It’s to
do with some files I’m having trouble getting hold of.’ She wished
she didn’t have to ask Leifur for help. ‘I’ve been trying to
see a copy of the log of objects removed from the excavated houses.’

‘And who has those records?’
asked Leifur briskly, sounding confident that he would be able to get hold of
them.

‘The archaeologist in charge of the
excavations is named Hjortur Fridriksson,’ she replied. ‘He was
going to see if he could get them for me, but I haven’t heard from him
since.’

‘I’ll take care of it,’
said Leifur, and Thóra had no doubt that he would.

However, she was no closer to a connection
between Alda and Valgerdur. She went through the autopsy report Dís had
copied for her, but understood almost none of it, other than that Valgerdur had
been admitted to the hospital in Isafjördur with a severe streptococcus
infection and had been given antibiotics intravenously, causing a bad allergic
reaction which had led to her death the very same night. Alda had neither
marked the text nor made notes in the margins, making it difficult to see what
had sparked her interest in the death of this woman.

Once again Hannes came to
Thóra’s mind. He might be able to see something in this that she
couldn’t. She knew she would have to seek out his help sooner or later,
although she would have preferred it to be later. It would have to wait until
evening, though, as Hannes didn’t take his mobile to work and she
didn’t feel like having him paged just to listen to him complain that
she’d called him out of an operation.

One person she could call during office hours
was the sex therapist Alda had been seeing. Of course she was unlikely to tell
Thóra much, but it was worth a go. After calling and trying
unsuccessfully to get the woman to tell her about Alda, Thóra gave up.
All she got for her pains was a vehement denial that Alda had been a sex
addict, as the websites had suggested, and the claim that she had been looking
at them on the therapist’s recommendation. The woman could not be enticed
to reveal what purpose this might have served, and the phone call ended at
that.

Next, Thóra decided to go to the
police station in the hope of seeing which photos had been shown to the leaflet
delivery boy who’d fingered Markus as the man at Alda’s house on
the night of her murders. Hopefully the police would also give her a log of the
phone calls between Markus and Alda that same night.

‘You’ve got to be joking’,
said Thóra, as she put down the photos. She prodded the one resting on
top. ‘This appears to be a woman, and I can’t be sure but it looks
as though at least two of these people are over ninety, and one is barely out
of adolescence.’

Stefán picked up the stack, his face
thunderous. As he flicked through it the flush on his cheeks darkened.
‘These photos were chosen at random, apart from the one of Markus, of
course.’ He put pile the down again. ‘And this is a man, not a
woman,’ he said, pointing at the photo of the person of indeterminate
gender.

‘I would like to request that these
photos be made available in the High Court,’ said Thóra
doggedly. ‘This is preposterous, and you know it.’

Stefán’s expression made it
clear that he was seeing the photographs for the first time and was far from
happy with the selection. ‘This is effectively an open and shut
case,’ he snapped. ‘The boy’s description alone is enough.
These photos were simply dotting the “i”s and crossing the
“t”s.’

Thóra said nothing, but she did not
agree. She had read the boy’s description, which was rather vague, and in
addition had been made many days after he had
Distributed
the flyers. She very much doubted he could remember minute details of a man
whom he had passed on the street. ‘Do you have the phone log?’ she
asked.

‘Part of it,’ said Stefán,
but gave no indication that he was about to fetch the list for her. He
straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Markus is
guilty,’ he said, when he thought he appeared sufficiently grave.
‘I can promise you that.’

Thóra smiled at him. ‘I
don’t doubt your conviction, but I cannot agree with you.’ She
stopped smiling. ‘Have you found out where the Botox came from? Markus
doesn’t walk around with it on him, that’s for certain.’

Stefán unfolded his arms.
‘We’re working on it. As it is, we’re going by the assumption
that the drug was already in the house, since she was a registered nurse. But
as I said, we’re actually still investigating this specific
detail.’

‘I could have told you what her career
was and spared you the time that went into investigating that,’
Thóra said sarcastically, then added: ‘One of the doctors in
the office where Alda worked told me that you haven’t even gone to them
for information about the drug. They say she didn’t have access to it
except within the confines of the office.’ She clicked her tongue.
‘I’m going to look into that later today. You’re not going to
help your reputation by focusing so intently on one man that you blind yourself
to other possibilities.’

‘We’re not “blinding
ourselves” to anyone or anything,’ said Stefán crossly.
‘There are only a few of us here and it takes time. Both of the doctors
are coming down later to make statements.’ He smiled coldly at her.
‘So we’ll be looking into that later today, too. Also, we still
haven’t managed to find a single soul who saw your client heading east at
the time that he claimed to be travelling. We’re not just looking for
something that proves Markus guilty. Although I’m personally convinced of
his guilt, I need to be certain. Conviction alone isn’t enough, and it
can sometimes let you down - although I don’t think that’s the case
this time.’

‘Do you have the log or not?’
asked Thóra tetchily. ‘I want to go over it before the hearing
begins.’ She frowned. ‘Could it be that you’re reluctant to
give it to me because it shows that Markus spoke to Alda, just as he
claimed?’

‘It doesn’t prove
anything,’ said Stefán, thereby confirming Thóra’s
suspicion. ‘Of course you can have the log; it’s being photocopied
for you right now. I didn’t expect you here so soon.’

‘So Markus did speak to Alda?’
she asked, trying to keep the triumph out of her voice.

Stefán’s expression was
unreadable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not necessarily. A call was made
from Alda’s phone to his. It’s not the same thing. Anyone could
have answered his phone, and I suspect that he came up with this to create an
alibi. We still don’t know who helped him, but it’ll become clear.
In other words, I suspect Markus of having placed a call from Alda’s home
phone to his own mobile.’

‘Did you check where Markus’s
phone was located when the call was made?’ asked Thóra, happily.
This was all going much better than she had dared hope, despite
Stefán’s attempts to downplay this good news and turn it to his
own advantage.

‘Yes,’ Stefán said
reluctantly. ‘The phone was just outside Hella.’ He cleared his
throat. ‘But that doesn’t mean anything, as I said. Any fool knows
it’s possible to trace the location of mobile phones. Markus would have
done himself a great disservice if he had answered his own phone at
Alda’s house. That’s why he got someone to answer it for
him, that
party need not have known it was for a criminal
purpose.’

‘This is mind-boggling,’ she
replied. ‘Markus’s photo has been in the papers, and everyone knows
he’s suspected of murder. Do you honestly believe that if someone had
taken it upon himself to answer Markus’s phone without any knowledge
of this magnificent plot, that this very same person wouldn’t have
contacted you?’

‘I said the accomplice might not have
been party to the plot. If he was, then he would hardly draw attention to
himself like that,’ said Stefán immediately. ‘Maybe Markus
paid him for it, and now he’s too scared to report it for fear of being
considered an accessory to the crime.’

‘If you’re planning to use this
in court, you’d better hope you can find this mystery accomplice. You
know as well as I do that it’s easy to come up with theories, but without
evidence they’re not worth anything.’ Stefán’s certainty
that Markus was guilty was getting on Thóra’s nerves. It
didn’t bode well, since it meant other possibilities were no doubt being
thrown out in the meantime. There was no time to quarrel over this, though.
‘How are you getting on with identifying the men in the
basement?’ she asked. ‘I assume you’re in contact with the
authorities in Britain?’

‘We haven’t been able to identify
them yet,’ replied Stefán, without answering her second question.
‘However, we do have some specific clues that are promising. I actually
can’t say anything more about them at this point.’

‘How do these things work?’ asked
Thóra, but only out of curiosity - she was getting to know Stefán
well enough to realize that he wouldn’t give in if she badgered him about
clues. ‘Does Interpol have a list of people who vanished without a
trace?’

‘We’ve contacted them, among
others,’ replied Stefán, keeping his cards close to his chest.

‘It was suggested to me that there were
a lot of men from the Defence Force helping out in the rescue operation during
the eruption,’ she persisted. ‘Could these men have been from the
base?’

‘No,’ he replied.
‘We’ve already checked, and it’s out of the question. As I
said, we’re hoping this will be cleared up soon, but until then
it’s not up for discussion.’

Thóra could understand his discretion;
she wouldn’t preach Stefán’s own job to him any more than
necessary. ‘Speaking of foreign countries,’ she said, ‘has
anything been heard from the lab where the cardboard box the head came from was
sent for testing?’

Judging by Stefán’s face the
results of the tests had been received, and
were
not
to his liking. He admitted this reluctantly.

‘And?’ asked Thóra.
‘What came out?’

‘A rather large quantity of old
fingerprints were found on the box,’ said Stefán. ‘Most of
them were from individuals unknown, since such a box can travel widely.’
He cleared his throat. ‘All the fingerprints were compared with
Markus’s and Alda’s and it turned out they had both touched the box
at one time.’

Thóra grinned broadly. ‘
Which provides strong support for Markus’s testimony, as
I’m sure you realize.
’

‘The presence of Alda’s
fingerprints on the box doesn’t necessarily mean she touched it while the
head was in it. Maybe she simply lent Markus the box when he needed it for
something.’

‘And maybe the moon is made of cheese
after all,’ said Thóra, still cheerful about this latest news.
‘Well,’ she said, and pushed her chair back. ‘I hope I can
get all this information more easily from now on. It’s a bit of a
pain to have to wait for the judge to order you to hand over whatever
you’ve got.’ The district court judge had reprimanded the police
for not having handed over all the case files to her, and Thóra enjoyed
reminding him of it. ‘Is what I received yesterday absolutely
everything?’ she asked.