Ashes to Dust (31 page)

‘It didn’t last long,’ said
Markus, and he smiled remorsefully. ‘Pretty much everyone was going
to the party and I couldn’t weasel my way out of it. It was the first
time I ever got drunk, and I’ll never forget that night.’

‘Do you remember whether Alda was
picked up or whether she made her own way home?’ asked Thóra.
‘Did she perhaps go down to the harbour?’

Markus looked at her, surprised. ‘She
certainly wasn’t picked up,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t that
drunk; she was in better shape than the rest of us. On the other hand, I had to
get picked up by Dad, which was awful. He wasn’t very pleased,
that’s for sure. But whether Alda went down to the harbour that night, I
have no idea. I doubt it. Why do you ask?’

‘I’ve found out that on that same
night something happened at the pier. It was completely covered in blood the
next morning, which raises the question of whether these bodies had something
to do with it. It crossed my mind that Alda might have somehow stumbled into
whatever happened and even got hold of the head there.’

Markus looked at her blankly. ‘And then
what? Kept it until she asked me about the box on Monday evening? The eruption
started on Monday night, so she would have had the head with her for
forty-eight hours.’

‘Did the box smell at all?’ asked
Thóra, but Markus could only shake his head. ‘Do you remember
whether Alda had been in a bad mood, or in any way different from usual, the
weekend of the dance and the following Monday? I’m pretty sure something
happened to her the night of the dance, and I imagine it might be somehow
connected to the bodies and the head.’ She told him about the diary.

‘I actually didn’t see her that
weekend,’ said Markus. ‘She was ill, so she stayed indoors. She
didn’t come to school on Monday either, so I was surprised when she
called and asked me to meet her that evening and to come alone. It was all very
mysterious, but of course I understand the reason now, having seen what was in
the box she gave me. She was acting oddly that evening, I know that much.
You’d have to ask someone else whether she was like that the whole
weekend, because I didn’t see her.’

Thóra nodded. ‘And what about
the night when Alda’s hair was cut off in the school gym?’ she
said. ‘I’m sure it’s completely unconnected to the case, but
you never know.’

‘I was ill, so luckily I wasn’t
there,’ replied Markus heatedly. ‘I would have been furious.
It was a terrible thing to do, and it didn’t help that the teachers had
no idea who did it. They couldn’t even find the hair.’

‘So you knew who did it?’ asked
Thóra.

‘No, unfortunately.
Or fortunately, for him — I would have made him
pay for it.’

‘Are you sure the person in question
was male?’ she said. ‘To me it seems very much like something a
jealous girl would do.’

Markus looked at her, startled. Clearly he
hadn’t thought of this. ‘Yes, I just assumed it was a boy. I
suspected a boy named Stefán, who kind of had a crush on Alda, but he
flat- out denied it and I was forced to believe him, he was so
convincing.’

Thóra remembered the entry in
Alda’s diary that had said she had kissed ‘
Stebbi
’,
which was short for Stefán. She assumed this was the same boy.
‘Could it have been anyone else?’

‘No, probably not.
Alda was friends with everyone and I don’t know
of anyone who resented her. I did everything in my power to find out who did
it, though. When I discovered the gym had been unlocked the whole night, I
stopped trying.

It could have been anyone in the Islands,
although there weren’t many people who would do such a disgusting thing
.‘

It was no use discussing this any further.
The only thing she’d accomplished by bringing up the hair story was to
annoy Markus. ‘What do you know about your neighbours from before the
volcano went up, Valgerdur and Dadi, who lived next door to you?’ she
asked. ‘They were nicknamed Dadi Horseshoe and Horseshoe Two. Could they
have been connected to these bodies in any way?’

Markus looked at her flatly.
‘Definitely,’ he said.
‘If the men died of
boredom.’

On the way into town from Litla-Hraun,
Thóra called Reykjavik Junior College and to her surprise someone picked
up. The man sighed when she informed him of her business, but promised to find
the information she requested. Unfortunately it would take him a little while,
he said, so he recommended that she phone back in fifteen minutes, which she
duly did. ‘I’ve found it,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Alda
Thórgeirsdóttir was registered in the school in the autumn of
1973 and graduated with honours from the language department in the spring of
1977.’

‘Did you say autumn 1973?’ said
Thóra. ‘Didn’t she start her studies after the new year? It
was my understanding that she started there with you in the middle of the
winter term, having transferred from Isafjördur Junior College, where she
attended the previous term.’ Thóra decided not to confuse the man
any further by adding that Alda was also supposed to have been studying at
Isafjördur Junior College in the spring term, 1973. In any case, the woman
at the office there had denied that Alda had been a student there that winter.

‘There’s nothing here from
Isafjördur Junior College,’ said the man, and Thóra heard him
rustling papers. ‘She was clearly registered with us that autumn, but was
kept out of school that term due to health concerns. It doesn’t say what
her illness was as that kind of information is confidential, and kept
elsewhere. But whatever it was, she was attending school here in good health in
January 1974.’

Thóra thanked the man and said
goodbye. Alda had obviously never attended junior college in the west.
That story was a fabrication. The best Thóra could come up with was that
Alda had been admitted to a psychiatric ward and it had been a sensitive
subject. All those years ago mental diseases were shameful and taboo.
Thóra thought it fairly likely that any mental breakdown Alda had
suffered had had something to do with the box she’d handed over to
Markus. It couldn’t have been healthy for an innocent teenager to handle
a severed human head.

Saturday 21 July
2007

Thóra’s mobile rang as she stood
at the ship’s railing on board the
Herjolfur
ferry. She had chosen to travel by sea to the Islands since the weather
forecast was poor for the next day and she could only afford to be there for
one night. She intended during that time to search for information about the
Horseshoes, Valgerdur and Dadi, as well as to speak to Markus’s mother,
and hopefully also his father, which was the main purpose of the trip. Bella
had lain down in their cabin; she had been recruited to come along to support
Thóra.

It was Matthew, calling from Germany. The
ship was sailing swiftly away from all the transmitters on the mainland, and
the connection was bad. ‘Where are you, anyway?’ he asked, sounding
as if he were calling from inside a barrel.

‘I’m out at sea, so the
connection could cut out any time,’ said Thóra. ‘I’m
on my way to the Westmann Islands for this case I’m working on.’

‘Hopefully it’s not the bodies
and the head in the basement?’ asked Matthew, but apparently some
crackling on the line meant he couldn’t hear her reply, so he got
straight to the point. ‘How would you like me to come for a visit next
week?’ he asked.

‘That would be great,’ said
Thóra, and she meant it. ‘Are you coming for work, or just
dropping in?’ She tried not to show that she was itching to know whether
he’d made his decision.

‘I’m going for an
interview,’ he replied. ‘They want to show me round their offices
and introduce me to the board. I’ll have to make my final decision after
this, although I’ve pretty much made up my mind already.’

‘And?’ asked Thóra.
‘What are you going to do?’

‘I… if… so…’
The connection was cut off. Thóra thought about running to the stern of
the ship to find a signal and hear what Matthew had decided, but she stopped
herself. The ship would be out of phone contact again before she had a chance
select his number. She sighed and stuck her mobile back into her pocket.

‘Could you confuse these two
houses?’ asked Thóra. She was standing with her hands on her hips
on the excavation site of
Pompeü
of the North,
looking at Markus’s childhood home and the house where Valgerdur and Dadi
had lived.

‘No,’ yawned
Bella.
‘They’re
completely different. That one’s actually in ruins.’ She pointed at
the neighbours’ house. She wasn’t exaggerating: the roof had
collapsed beneath the weight of the ash and one of the outer walls resembled
the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

‘Try to imagine you’re in the
middle of a volcanic eruption and the house hasn’t yet been
destroyed,’ said Thóra. ‘Could you mix them up?’

Bella regarded her scornfully.
‘Can’t you see that one of the houses has two floors and the other
just one?’ she retorted. ‘It’s impossible to mix the two
up.’ She pointed at the house on the other side of Markus’s home.
‘No one could mix up that house and the house with the bodies either.’
Then she turned to scan all the excavated houses. ‘The house with the
bodies is the only one on the street that has two floors.’

Thóra looked up and down the street.
Her secretary was right: the only house that stood out was Markus’s. It
was clear that the bodies hadn’t been put there by mistake. ‘So at
least we know that,’ said Thóra thoughtfully. ‘I really want
to get in there,’ she said, and pointed at the house where the unpopular
couple had lived, Dadi Horseshoe and Valgerdur Horseshoe Two. When she saw Bella’s
expression she felt she had to explain herself better. ‘The people who
lived there are connected to the case, but I still don’t know how.’

‘Huh,’ snorted Bella.
‘I’m not going in there. It’s about to collapse.’ She
walked closer to it and kicked at some tape that marked the area where visitors
were prohibited from entering. ‘Haven’t they already taken
everything out of it, anyway?’

‘Yes, they have,’ replied
Thóra. ‘All the same, I want to have a look inside. You never
know.’ She glanced around, though she knew they were the only ones in the
area, and followed Bella’s example, stepping over the tape and walking up
to the house. She peeked in through a crack in the crossed wooden boards that
had been nailed over the window, but saw nothing in the darkness inside. She
walked up to the door, which was leaning against the doorframe. Bella followed
her.

‘Are you joking?’ said the
secretary when Thóra started trying to heave the door out of the way.
‘Are you going in? It must be off limits.’ She glanced back along
the trench where the excavation had taken place, as though she expected a squad
of
policemen
to come running down its black banks,
which were covered with netting to prevent ash from being blown down into the
new town.

‘This house isn’t marked like
Markus’s house,’
huffed
Thóra, out of
breath. ‘I wasn’t supposed to go in there, but there’s no
police notice on this house saying entry is forbidden.’

‘What about the sign saying that
non-essential personnel are prohibited from entering the houses?’ asked
Bella, clearly shocked. ‘I thought lawyers couldn’t break the
law.’

‘These aren’t laws, they’re
requests,’ said Thóra, as the door budged a bit further.
‘And the nature of laws is that breaking them is illegal. Not just for
lawyers, but for everyone. That’s why we have laws.’

Bella snorted and gave up questioning
Thóra. Finally she relented and decided to help her, and by combining
their efforts they managed to form a gap just large enough for Thóra to
push her way in. ‘Just shout if something falls down on you,’
called Bella through the gap, once Thóra was inside. ‘Then
I’ll go and fetch help.’

Once inside, Thóra was seized by the
same feeling that had oppressed her that fateful morning when Markus had discovered
the bodies. The stink of the ash was overwhelming, growing stronger the further
in she went. There was some light, since the boards over the windows
weren’t lined up exactly. Light also came in from above, where in several
places she could see up to the rafters of the house and the collapsed roof
letting in daylight. She moved from the foyer through a narrow doorway leading
to the other rooms, and decided to head towards what she assumed was the
sitting room. There it was much darker, since the roof was intact, but that
mattered little since the room was empty apart from a Coke can and a plastic
sandwich wrapper, both of which must have been recently left. On the walls were
remains of wallpaper that had mostly peeled off, revealing a spotted and filthy
layer of plaster beneath. Two wall lamps still hung in their places, but upside
down.

The other rooms were much the same.
Everything loose had been removed. Dadi had probably saved most of the
contents, and the archaeologist Hjortur had come and swept up the rest a little
more than thirty years later. The house was small, and it was fairly clear from
Thóra’s inspection that Dadi and Valgerdur hadn’t had much
money. The bathroom, which was covered with broken tiles, was little more
than a cupboard. The couple had lived alone in the house so they hadn’t
needed more room to live comfortably. When she came to the room next to the
master bedroom, Thóra’s eyes widened. This room had clearly been a
child’s, since the peeling wallpaper there was covered with pictures of
teddy bears. The broken ceiling light was in the shape of a hot air balloon.
The couple had been childless, so Thóra found this most peculiar. In one
corner of the room was a pile of rubbish that had been swept
together,
and sticking out of it was a doll’s plastic hand. When Thóra poked
at the heap with her foot, the arm rolled out. She kicked lightly through the
pile to see whether she could find anything else of interest, but without any
results. The doll’s arm was by itself and thus had probably not caught
the attention of the archaeologist.