Ashes to Dust

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘Not a clue,’ said Kjartan, and he tightened his lips. ‘From what I’ve seen in the news, no one knows who these people are, or how they ended up in the basement.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ said Thóra patiently. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to wonder. It occurred to me that this might be connected to the Cod War, that they were sailors who died in an accident at sea or in some quarrel between the Icelanders and the British. I guess I’m assuming that they’re Englishmen.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ replied Kjartan. ‘There were various difficulties at the time, but they never developed into anything like what you’re suggesting. Besides, it couldn’t have been kept secret if something like that had happened. We would never have been able to kill four Brits without it becoming a huge incident. I have no idea who these people were, unfortunately.’

  Thóra decided not to press any further, but was surprised that the man might not at least have considered the possibility that the dead people were foreigners. It was absolutely indisputable — four Icelanders simply could not have vanished without being missed. An uneasy feeling came over her. The man before her knew more than he wanted to reveal. He’d been more than prepared to chat about unimportant things. She looked at Bella and stood up. ‘Well, this was informative.’ She shook Kjartan’s hand. ‘Maybe we’ll get a chance to disturb you further, if anything else occurs to me.’

  On the way out she noticed a framed photograph on the wall next to the doorway. It showed five people with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They were all wearing helmets, while in the background a jet of ash stretched to the sky. One of the men was clearly Kjartan in his younger years. All of them looked exhausted, and none smiled at the camera. ‘Is Markus’s father in this photograph, perhaps?’

  Kjartan walked up to it and pointed at one of the men. ‘That’s him. Magnus. And then there’s Geiri, or Thórgeir. Alda’s father.’

  ‘This is clearly you here, but who are the other two?’ Thóra asked.

  Kjartan snorted rudely. ‘That’s Dadi,’ he said, pointing at a rather ugly man who was a good deal shorter than the others. ‘A boring bastard who was married to an even more boring woman.’ He moved his finger. ‘And this is Gudni.’

  ‘The policeman?’ asked Thóra, turning to Kjartan. ‘Was he one of the friends that you mentioned?’

  ‘Was is the operative word,’ replied Kjartan.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday 15 July2007

  Bella relaxed with a cigarette as they stood outside Café Kró, a little harbourside restaurant they had come across in their search for supper. Thóra stood next to her, which was against her natural instincts, but the weather was so good that being in a bad mood seemed impossible. She felt completely relaxed after the meal, and the sea breeze had perked her up. The air had grown colder in the evening, even though the sun was still in the sky as if nothing were more normal. Even Bella’s smoke, which drifted over Thóra’s face every now and then, could not ruin the beautiful evening. A small boat sailed out of the harbour, several seagulls following it from the jetty. Otherwise the wharf was calm, except for two men who were repairing the pilothouse on a small fishing boat tied to the pier just below where they stood. The repairs were proceeding at a leisurely pace since the men spent more time chatting than working, and Thóra admired their relaxed attitude. Perhaps it was the extreme beauty of the surroundings that had this effect on people. As Thóra watched the lively bird life around the steep sides of Heimaklettur Peak she could feel her stress dissolving, and she thought she could have sat there sipping her drink for the rest of the evening.

  ‘So, how many bodies were there?’ said Bella, rudely interrupting her reverie.

  ‘In the basement?’ said Thóra, even though Bella could hardly have meant anything else. ‘Four. Or more correctly, three and a quarter. One of the corpses was just a head. Haven’t you followed the story in the news?’ she asked, astounded.

  ‘No, I don’t read that rubbish.’ Bella put her cigarette in one corner of her mouth and exhaled a great cloud of smoke. She watched thoughtfully as it floated upwards, spread out and disappeared. ‘Who kills four people at once?’ she asked, frowning. ‘One I can understand, maybe two. But four is too many. Is it possible that this wasn’t murder?’

  Thóra had to admit to herself that they were thinking along the same lines. ‘I haven’t got the results of the autopsy yet; maybe it isn’t finished. It could well be that three of them died by accident, or poisoning, or by some means other than human hand.’

  Thóra breathed in the scent of the sea, which still overpowered the smell of her secretary’s cigarette. ‘The head, on the other hand, is harder to explain. If the men weren’t murdered - what about this head? Who would decapitate a corpse, and why?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘Maybe he was in an accident and the body was separated from the head. It does happen.’

  ‘But how did the head end up in the box? And the box, along with three bodies, down in Markus’s basement?’ Thóra was surprised to find that she was enjoying talking this through with Bella. She had no way of knowing where the case was heading, and she wondered how to make the most of her trip to the Islands. She might as well head back to Reykjavik if there was no useful information to be gained here.

  Bella frowned, and Thóra was relieved to realize that it was a sign of deep thought rather than anything Thóra had said to insult her. ‘This woman who gave your client the box,’ she said, taking a drag on her cigarette, ‘do you think she killed those people?’

  ‘No, I can’t see it,’ replied Thóra. ‘She was a teenager, hardly capable of killing four men. Not alone, anyway.’ She leaned against the wall and basked in the mild evening sun. ‘I’ve got to find a way to meet her mother, because she’s the one most likely to know something about where the head came from - if not more. It’s rotten luck that her father’s dead. I imagine that he’s probably involved somehow. But whether Alda’s family is connected to the case or not, they must know something. Teenage girls are good at hiding all sorts of things from their parents, but I don’t see Alda strolling casually around town with a man’s head in a box. If nothing else, her mother could tell me who she spent time with after the disaster. Maybe she confessed to a friend, or friends, later on? Markus lost all contact with her after they came to the mainland, so he’s no use.’

  ‘Her mother still lives in the Islands, remember,’ said Bella, looking around as if she expected the woman to be living in one of the warehouses at the docks. ‘That old man today said so, anyway. You should phone her, or go and see her.’

  ‘She may be living here,’ said Thóra. ‘Still, I don’t think it’s right to visit her on this trip, in light of the circumstances.’

  ‘Isn’t it exactly the right time to do it?’ asked Bella, flicking her cigarette into a barrel a short distance away. ‘She’s sure to be vulnerable after losing her daughter, and ready to open up.’

  Thóra shook her head. ‘No, that’s no use. If she’s in shock she might refuse to speak to me. I’ll ask Markus’s brother about Alda’s family tomorrow evening, and if he knows anything he can maybe tell me how I ought to proceed. Hopefully he’ll know how her mother is holding up.’

  Bella didn’t seem to be listening to her. ‘Do you remember the cemetery we drove past?’ she asked suddenly. ‘With the arched gate?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Thóra, wondering where Bella was going with this. Did she want to go and look around the graveyard?

  ‘Could the bodies be from there?’ the other woman asked. ‘Maybe a relative or someone else had been trying to save the bodies from disappearing in the eruption? The cemetery was buried and dug up later. Maybe whoever disinterred the bodies wasn’t sure that would happen?’

  Thóra looked at her secretary in surprise. ‘Digging up corpses just to put them in the basement of a house that was going to go the same way as the cemetery? I highly doubt it.’

  Bella shrugged. ‘Maybe whoever did it regretted it, or didn’t have a chan
ce to move the bodies again.’

  Thóra wanted to put a stop to this idle speculation, but couldn’t think of any clever way, so she just said, ‘Shouldn’t we get going? I’m happy to get an early night, so that we can get plenty done tomorrow.’

  Bella looked at her watch, then regarded Thóra quizzically. ‘Are you kidding? I haven’t gone to bed this early since I was three years old.’

  Thóra’s cheeks reddened slightly. ‘I’m not necessarily talking about going to sleep right away. I need to phone my children and a few other people first.’

  Bella shrugged again. ‘Suit yourself.’ She looked around. ‘I’m going to go for a wander and see if I can’t find a bar or two.’

  Thóra thought this was a bad idea, but knew perfectly well that she had no say in how her employees spent their free time. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she said with false cheer. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to visit the archaeologists overseeing the excavations, and then we should stop by the archive. And then you never know what might come up. In other words, we’ve got a busy day.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Bella, as she set off in the opposite direction from their hotel. ‘I’m not the one who’s always late.’

  Thóra couldn’t help letting Bella’s retort get under her skin. You could say what you liked about her secretary, but she always got to work on time. Thóra, in contrast, was usually late because it took so long to get herself and the children ready in the mornings. Although the situation was far from ideal when she only had her own children at home, it was a sight worse when her grandson and future daughter-in-law were added to the mix. ‘You realize that you can’t count this pub crawl as a company expense,’ she called after the girl. ‘The accountant will refuse to pay it.’ No sooner were the words out than she regretted them deeply. Could she have thought of a more ridiculous comeback?

  Bella did not turn around, but as she walked away she lifted one hand in the air and gave Thóra the finger.

  Chapter Ten

  Monday 16 July

  Thóra was furious to find Bella at breakfast ahead of her. The secretary had taken a seat by the window and on the table in front of her were plates piled up with high-calorie foods. She had such a smug look on her face that Thóra briefly considered taking a seat elsewhere, but she swallowed her pride and sat down opposite Bella.

  ‘Well,’ she said as she pulled the coffee pot towards her, ‘did you have fun last night?’ She herself had gone straight to her room and phoned home, since her parents had gone out of their way to house-sit and babysit in her absence. This arrangement was much less trouble than taking the whole gang over to their house, including Orri and his mother. Thóra’s father was in high spirits having set up camp in her garage, which he’d been itching to fix up for a very long time although her mother hadn’t been too keen on the idea. In her opinion everything at Thóra’s had gone to the dogs: the filter in the washing machine was blocked, a flood of clothing poured from the wardrobes every time she opened them in search of an outfit for Sóley, and in the farthest corner of the fridge there was a jar of jam that had expired last century. Thóra therefore had to endure a half-hour lecture about what a terrible housewife she was, but she didn’t need her mother to tell her that. At the end of the call she’d been allowed to speak to Sóley, who told her happily that she was wearing Gylfi’s huge socks because

  Grandma couldn’t find any of hers. Gylfi then came on and muttered into the receiver that she had to come home - Grandma was driving him completely crazy and Sigga was depressed. Before hanging up Thóra promised him that she would fix everything; she’d been affected by the thought of her daughter- in-law’s depression. She turned on the television and flicked through the channels without finding anything that appealed to her. She ended up watching men in sunglasses play poker, but finally fell asleep before figuring out how the game worked.

  ‘Crazy,’ said Bella, and she took a large bite of bread and jam. She’d spread the jam so thickly that it was more like jam and bread, causing one corner of the slice to break off from the sheer weight and leave a purple jam stain on her chin. She was completely unperturbed, wiping off the jam with her index finger and sticking it in her mouth. ‘I met some great people.’

  ‘Good,’ said Thóra, pouring milk into her coffee. ‘Were these people the same age as you?’

  ‘I didn’t ask for ID,’ said Bella, lifting her own coffee cup to her lips. She regarded Thóra over the rim and wiggled her eyebrows. ‘I slept with someone.’

  Thóra choked on her coffee. ‘What did you say?’ she spluttered.

  ‘You heard,’ said Bella proudly. ‘It was brilliant. Sailors really know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Sailorsf’ said Thóra, still aghast. ‘Were there more than one?’ How could this girl get herself a bedmate, or mates, as if it were nothing, when Thóra felt like she herself would have trouble finding an interested party in a men’s prison? Actually, that wasn’t entirely true: more often than not she was the uninterested one, rather than the men she met. Still, she felt irritated.

  ‘No, it was just the one,’ said Bella. ‘Not for any lack of opportunity - I certainly could have had two.’

  Thóra was speechless, and indeed said nothing for the remainder of breakfast. That hardly mattered, because Bella gave her such a comprehensive account of the events of the previous night that Thóra wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgeways.

  Dís hid her head in her hands. ‘What do we do now?’ She was still recovering from the shock of finding Alda’s body. The first night after the discovery she had lain in bed, exhausted but unable to fall asleep. She kept wondering if her colleague Agúst could have overlooked some clue that the nurse had felt ill. All of their interactions with Alda that she could remember had to do with work, the next operation or the state of the little storeroom. If there had been any clues, they weren’t making themselves known. In the early hours of morning, just before sleep was finally merciful to her, she comforted herself with the thought that time healed all wounds. But mental scars took much longer to heal than physical ones, and it wasn’t getting easier to come to terms with Alda’s death as time went by. If anything, Dís thought that she felt worse now than the day she’d discovered the nurse’s body. She knew she’d remember that moment forever; after reporting the death, she had waited in the bedroom. In hindsight it would have been wiser to wait down in the living room or the kitchen, or even out in her car, but at the time she’d felt it would be disrespectful to the deceased, so instead she had sat down at the little dressing table at the end of the bed. Barely ten minutes had passed between the end of the emergency call and the ambulance arriving, but those ten minutes had been the longest of her life. For most of that time she had sat stiffly looking at Alda’s body, at the staring eyes directed at the doorway as if there were some great truth to be found there, the gaping mouth that appeared to be contorted in a scream of anguish. Judging from the evidence on the bedside table this was a suicide, although the appearance of the body suggested otherwise. Dís was not familiar enough with pathology or forensic medicine to know how a body should look after overdosing on the type of drugs by the bed, but if the pills had killed Alda it was clear that she hadn’t chosen well. Her fists were clenched, and to Dís it looked as though her usually flawless cheeks had been scratched deeply enough to draw blood, enough blood to form the dark pool in which her head lay.

  ‘What do you mean? We can’t do anything. She killed herself,’ replied Agúst coldly. ‘We’ll bring flowers to the funeral. A wreath or whatever.’ His voice gave no indication that he was upset by Alda’s death, although she had worked for them for a decade.

  Dís pulled her hands from her face and sat upright. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked sharply. ‘A nurse who has worked with us dies before her time and your idea is to say goodbye to her with flowers - or “whatever”. That’s pretty cold.’ She glanced around the room and asked herself why she was surprised. Agúst’s office was a re
flection of his personality: cold and soulless. Although her own office was not all that interesting, his was so bereft of any luxuries and so tidy that in an emergency an operation could be performed on his desk. There was nothing in it that didn’t have a purpose, not a thing displayed simply because it was attractive or amusing. Even the framed pictures on the walls, which depicted the most common plastic surgery techniques, were there for a purpose. Just after hanging them up Agúst had told Dís that they would frighten patients who were reluctant about operations. His logic was that such individuals would thus be forced from the start to determine whether they actually trusted themselves to undergo an operation just to look better. Agúst had recently told Dís that after the photos went up, last minute cancellations had decreased noticeably.

  Now he rocked backwards in his seat, clearly surprised. ‘Huh?’ he said, then fell silent. He sighed. ‘I know this may sound cold, but I’m not one for public displays of emotion.’ He reached across and took Dís’s hand, which was resting on the edge of the desk. ‘You know how highly I valued her. I just haven’t been able to get my head around this, I think. All I can think of is how we’re going to find a replacement nurse for the operations that we have coming up.’ He smiled sadly. ‘It’s easier to deal with the small things.’

  Dís returned his smile sympathetically. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about that too.’ She pulled her hand away from his and placed it in her lap. She found it uncomfortable to touch his skin, which was silly considering their latex-covered hands touched all the time during operations. ‘This will all be fine,’ she said, and pushed her chair back. ‘Things have a way of working out.’ She stood up. ‘I think I would feel better if I hadn’t been the one who found her.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Agúst. ‘Try to stop thinking about it. Remember Alda as she was in life. She deserves to be remembered that way.’