Ashes to Dust (40 page)

‘Yes, yes,’ said Thóra,
suppressing a yawn. ‘I’ll trade you.’

‘What?’ asked Hannes, taken
aback.

‘You can have your best golf clubs
back, in exchange for this information. I’ll never tell anyone where I
got it, or use it against you,’ she said, then waited for his response.
The golf clubs in question had fallen to her in the divorce settlement,
and she had no use for them whatsoever. They weren’t annoying her; she
would just be happy to get them out of her garage, where they’d been
gathering dust ever since

Hannes moved out. She had once been adamant
about getting them in the settlement, just because she knew how much Hannes
wanted to keep them. He believed they were his lucky set, and had often
mentioned them to Thóra since the divorce in the hope of getting them
back.

‘It’s a good deal,’ she
added. ‘I could easily get this information by other means, just a
bit more slowly.’ Like most paragons of virtue, Hannes’s conviction
was not so strong that he wouldn’t betray the sacred trust of his
workplace for something he really wanted. Thóra had scored a hole in
one.

By the end of the phone call she had all the
information she needed about Alda’s temporary leave of absence from the
A&E. It turned out Hannes never worked evenings or on weekends, so he
hadn’t known the woman except by sight. He still knew all about the
situation, which had been discussed a great deal at work. It hadn’t been
drug abuse or intimate relations with a colleague or patient, but instead
concerned a difference of professional opinion. Alda had turned against a rape
victim, a girl she had treated after an alleged assault. As a follow-up, Alda
was supposed to have been available to her as a kind of grief counsellor. At
first, she had been a great help to the girl, and had done everything by
the book. According to Hannes, the story went that Alda had supposedly taken
this particular case to heart and stood firmly behind the girl. Then something
happened that caused Alda to do a U-turn, and suddenly claim the girl was lying
about the rape. Hannes didn’t know what had caused her to change her
opinion, but he knew the nurse in charge of the Emergency Reception Unit had
disagreed with Alda that the allegation was unfounded. According to her, Alda
was having a nervous breakdown and was clearly not well enough to work. Alda
was requested to take a leave of absence, which she did.

Hannes couldn’t remember the name of
the girl or the alleged rapist. Thóra thought she knew who the latter
was. It must have been Adolf Dadason. As well as Alda’s familiarity
with Adolf’s parents, which could explain her change of heart, the time
frame fitted. Also, Hannes mentioned that he had heard something about improper
work ethics regarding patients in general, but he didn’t trust himself to
repeat it, since it was unconfirmed and had happened after Alda went off on
leave.

Before she let him go, Thóra also
asked Hannes about Valgerdur’s autopsy report. Are you talking about what
happened in Isafjördur
?‘
he asked
unexpectedly.

‘I might be,’ said Thóra,
surprised. ‘Do you know something about it?’

‘Yes, a bit,’ he replied.
‘It sounds like you mean the woman who apparently died in the Westfjords
hospital there because of a medical error. There aren’t many cases like
that, and obviously they always attract a great deal of attention within the
medical community. The woman’s relatives have kept the case going in the
hope of a malpractice suit and there’s litigation in progress,
although a settlement hasn’t been reached. It’ll be interesting to
see how it turns out.’

‘What actually happened?’ asked
Thóra, since the only thing she’d understood from the report was
that the woman had died after an allergic reaction to an antibiotic used to
treat serious infections.

‘The woman was on a trip with the
Icelandic Touring Association out west and contracted a serious streptococcus
infection. Her fellow travellers didn’t respond quickly enough and, among
other things, one of her legs had become gangrenous by the time she was
transported to the hospital in Isafjördur. The staff there made the
mistake of not asking her whether she was allergic to penicillin before
starting treatment. I don’t know what kind of state she was in,
actually, but they could have checked her history of allergies with a relative
if she wasn’t able to respond. Anyway, she turned out to have a severe
penicillin allergy which had been diagnosed when she was an adolescent, so this
could have been prevented. Whether she would have survived the infection is
another question, of course.’

‘But the hospital must have regulations
covering these things,’ said Thóra. ‘Was her condition so
bad that they thought they didn’t have time to call Reykjavik or ask her
about it?’

‘There’s the rub,’ replied
Hannes. ‘The woman had been admitted to that same hospital several
decades before and in her medical record, which they had in their hands, there
was no indication of any allergies, much less a hypersensitive allergy. So
there was human error; not then, but many years earlier. Of course I’ve
only heard about this and not read anything myself, but I understand the
medical record states that the woman had been treated with penicillin when she
was in the hospital the first time with no mention of her having fallen ill as
a result.’

‘Can this allergy come and go?’
asked Thóra.

‘No, absolutely not,’ he said.
‘It was miswritten in the medical record, since they must have given her
an antibiotic that didn’t contain penicillin. Or it’s possible she
wasn’t even given an antibiotic at all, and that was the mistake in her
records. I don’t remember how old she was supposed to have been when the
first report was written, but she’d been diagnosed with the allergy
long before that. No one is born with an allergy to this drug, but once it
shows up it doesn’t disappear. Things would have gone differently if
she’d been given the drug for the first time when she was admitted all
those years ago, but that’s not important. She’d already been diagnosed,
and even carried an allergy alert card in her wallet. You might think that the
mistake they made was not looking for the card, but they say she didn’t
have her wallet with her at the hospital.’

‘So she just died?’ exclaimed
Thóra. ‘Can’t something be done in these cases?’

‘She suffocated when her trachea
swelled shut,’ said Hannes casually, as if he were describing a runny
nose. ‘Usually it’s possible to intervene but it proved impossible
in this case, maybe because she was so ill before it happened. I don’t
know the circumstances.’

‘How does one get hold of an autopsy
report for an acquaintance, rather than a relative?’ she asked.

‘What? Don’t ask me, I
don’t spend my time wondering about things like that. I wouldn’t
have thought it was possible, though. Only people with personal ties to an
individual can get copies of the reports. You can’t just phone up and
have it sent to you.’

‘One last thing - why isn’t there
a universal database with information on allergies?’ asked Thóra.

‘That would be a great idea and
it’s been discussed, but it hasn’t become a reality yet,’
said Hannes. He was quick to turn to another, more important matter. ‘Are
you at home? Can I come and get the golf clubs?’

Saturday 21 July
2007

Thóra and Bella were standing on the
porch of a little wooden house that had seen better days. It was covered by sheets
of corrugated iron that were rusting badly. The windows could have done with a
clean, and the riot of chickweed in the garden beat Thóra’s jungle
hands down. ‘Do you want me to do the talking?’ asked Bella, who
had been wildly keen on making this visit, while Thóra dreaded it with
all her heart. The house belonged to Alda’s mother, and Thóra knew
it would go down badly when she introduced herself as the lawyer of the man who
was suspected of murdering the woman’s daughter. It was just a question
of how badly.

‘No,’ replied Thóra
indignantly, wondering if she’d been right to make Bella come along. She
had wanted her there as support if it all went wrong and the woman lost
control, or even assaulted Thóra. She wasn’t afraid of a woman in
her seventies, but she would rather avoid trouble and had thought Bella’s
strapping build would have a calming effect. ‘I’ll do it. Just try
to look sympathetic. This woman is suffering.’

They heard footsteps approaching and
exchanged a glance before turning back to the door. It
was
 Jóhanna
, Alda’s sister, who opened it, and she looked
surprised to see them. ‘Hello,’ she said uncertainly, looking
furtively behind her.

‘Who is it?’
came
a shout from inside the house. The voice sounded like an old woman’s.

‘Just some women I know,’
called  Jóhanna
.

‘Was that your mother?’ asked
Thóra, stopping short of standing on tiptoe and peeking
over  Jóhanna’s
shoulder. ‘I came
here hoping for a quick chat with her.’

‘It wasn’t a good idea to come
here,’ she said. ‘Mother won’t want to talk to you.
She’s still absolutely devastated and as long as Markus is a suspect,
you’re the enemy. I tried to tell her what you told me, that he was
innocent, but she didn’t want to hear it.’

‘What women?’ came another shout
from inside the house, closer this
time.

 Jóhanna looked miserable.
‘Just women, Mother,’ she called back. ‘Don’t worry,
you don’t know them.’

‘Nonsense,’
came
the loud reply. The woman had reached the hallway. ‘As if I don’t
know all the women here in…’ She fell silent when she saw Bella and
Thóra on the steps. She edged next to her daughter in the narrow
doorway,
nudging  Jóhanna
aside, so that
only half of her was visible. ‘Good day,’ she said, drying her
hands on a dishtowel that she was holding before extending one to them.
‘I am Magnea
,  Jóhanna’s
mother.’

‘Hello,’ said Thóra,
extending her hand. ‘Thóra
Gudmundsdottir
.
I was actually hoping to meet you.’

‘Oh?’ said the woman, and her
face darkened. ‘How can I help you, my dear?’

‘I was hoping to be able to speak to
you a bit about your daughter Alda,’ said Thóra, steeling herself.
‘I am representing Markus Magnusson, who has been wrongly accused of
doing her harm.’

‘Since when is murdering a woman just
“doing her harm”?’ hissed the woman. She took a step
backwards, pushed Jóhanna out of the way and slammed the door with all
her might. The house number on the wooden plate hanging over the door came
loose from the impact and dangled sideways. Thóra counted herself lucky
that neither she nor Bella had already put a foot across the threshold.

She looked at Bella. ‘Wow,’ said
her secretary. ‘It must really suck being a lawyer.’

Thóra tried knocking softly on the
door in the hope that the woman would reappear. From inside a muffled shout
told them to go away before the police were called. This was pointless,
that much was clear, and Thóra and Bella returned to their car. When
Thóra was about to start the engine, there was a knock on her window.
 Jóhanna stood outside, and Thóra rolled it down.

‘I told you this was a bad idea,’
she said reproachfully. ‘Now I’ve got to spend what’s left of
the weekend calming her down.’ She hugged herself as if she felt cold,
though it was unusually warm outside. ‘She’s not herself,’
she said. ‘She’s not usually like that.’

Thóra nodded. ‘I understand,
don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to have
troubled you, and we wouldn’t have come if I had thought it would go like
that.’ This was a white lie, since Thóra had expected precisely
this reaction.

 Jóhanna stood outside the car
shuffling her feet, clearly holding onto something she wanted to say.
‘What was in the diaries?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I’ve
changed my mind, I want to know.’ She hesitated for a second and
straightened up. ‘That is, if they said something about Father.’

‘I’ve been meaning to let you
know, but unfortunately I got caught up in other things,’ said
Thóra, reproaching herself for not having tried harder to get in touch
with the woman.

‘I called once but there was no
reply.’ She smiled
at  Jóhanna
.
‘The good news is there was nothing bad about your father in the
diary.’

 Jóhanna nodded. It looked as if
tears were forming in her eyes. ‘Good,’ she said, and smiled.
‘Good.’

‘There were various other things that I
wanted to talk to your mother about, though. For example, there are a number of
inconsistencies about where Alda was after the evacuation.’
Thóra raised her hand to block the sun, and looked
into
 Jóhanna’s
eyes. ‘She wasn’t a boarder at
Isafjördur Junior College,’ she said. ‘She was never
registered there.’

‘Yes, yes, she was,’
protested  Jóhanna
. ‘I swear it. My memory
can’t have failed me that badly.’

‘Did you ever see her there?’
asked Thóra. ‘Did you go to visit her, or did she come home for
the holidays?’