My Soul to Take tg-2

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  “So do you know if Eiríkur rang Rósa?” asked Thóra impatiently.

  “No idea,” said Vigdís. “I wrote down both numbers and gave them to him.” She leaned over the desk and pointed. “He went and made a call from that phone over there. I think it’s the one and only time it’s been used, as it’s in such a silly place.” She straightened up. “I heard him talking for quite a while, so he must have got through.” She scribbled on a Post-it and handed it to Thóra. “Here are the numbers, if you want to ask Rósa and Berta about it.”

  The phone was pushed back on top of a cabinet, under a gigantic stuffed elk’s head hung far too low on the wall. Thóra picked up the phone, taking care not to poke her eye out with a prong of its antlers. She pressed the “last number recall” button. The first number was neither of those on the Post-it, but the next was Rósa’s home number, followed by Berta’s mobile number. Thóra had to assume the first number was the most recently called, and irrelevant to Eiríkur. He had tried to call Berta and received no reply, and then he had contacted Rósa.

  It was all coming together.

  Thóra sank back in her chair. “You see, it all fits,” she said triumphantly. She closed the heavy binder containing the case documents and placed it on the wide armrest.

  “Isn’t it time we found Thórólfur?” suggested Matthew. He glanced at his watch. “I’m beginning to think he must have left. It’s been an awfully long time.”

  “The fog will probably delay him,” said Thóra, looking out of the glass doors. Visibility outside was very poor. She jumped as the basement door was suddenly flung open. “What now?” she said. “Are they still down there?” Something significant was clearly happening in the basement. The last of the animal bones must have been removed, as the men who emerged were empty-handed. They hurried past Thóra and Matthew without looking at them, then quickly returned loaded with equipment: cameras, vacuum cleaners, and spades.

  “I think the child’s skeleton has been uncovered,” said Matthew. “They’re making more fuss than they did about the animal bones.”

  “Ugh,” said Thóra with a shudder. “I just can’t understand how anyone could do that to a little child. They shut her up in a coal bunker just because of an inheritance and left her to die.”

  “Grímur wasn’t all there, so there’s no way to comprehend what he did,” said Matthew, watching a man with a large arc light descend into the basement.

  Thórólfur sat down heavily in the chair opposite them. He had approached astonishingly quietly, for such a large man. “Now, then,” he said, “I gather you want to talk to me.” He jerked his thumb at the basement. “I haven’t got much time—I really have to get down there. What’s up?”

  Thóra passed him the binder containing the investigation documents. “I think I know who killed both Birna and Eiríkur,” she said. “We need more than a few minutes to explain it, but I don’t think you’ll find it a waste of time.”

  Thórólfur harrumphed. “Don’t be too sure,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Go ahead. No fancy talk, just the bullet points, please.”

  When Thóra had finished telling Thórólfur about Rósa, the fox, the aloe-vera gel, Eiríkur’s phone call, and everything else she’d learned, she looked anxiously at him. “Rósa is definitely the killer, and her brother may be an accomplice at least. You can investigate fully, but I can’t.”

  Thórólfur gazed thoughtfully at her. He had listened patiently and asked no questions. “I have spoken to her, in fact, about Eiríkur’s phone call,” he said. “She said he called to ask about hiring a horse, whether it was based at the farm or elsewhere.”

  Thóra frowned. “What for?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought it was all a bit odd, but your story about the flowers and the gadget with the gel is most interesting.” He stood up and yawned. “I was hoping I could call it a day. I’d better look in on those two.” He glanced toward the basement door. “The discovery downstairs has been waiting for decades. It will hardly matter if it waits another half hour.”

  Thóra could not conceal her pleasure. Thórólfur seemed to be taking her story seriously, whatever else happened. “Thank you, Thórólfur. Perhaps you’ll keep me informed?” She stood up.

  Thórólfur beckoned to a police officer to accompany him out of the building. He looked at Thóra. “I didn’t say that.” He left without saying goodbye.

  Thóra finished mashing potatoes and fish together for her daughter, who was carefully observing that the butter was evenly distributed throughout the mash. The chef certainly wouldn’t have imagined that his beautifully presented meal would end up like this. There were few diners in the dining room and the service was quick and efficient.

  “I don’t know if I should eat this,” said Sigga, gazing at a pile of shellfish. “I thought I was ordering pasta.” Gylfi, who did have pasta, looked at her plate, clearly debating with himself whether he should offer to swap with the mother of his unborn child. In the end he said he would share his meal with her and the shellfish went to Matthew as an extra main course, along with the big steak he had already started on.

  Thóra placed the plate of fishy mash in front of her daughter, who dug in. She reached hungrily for her own plate. She’d had enough of wondering who did what and why. She thanked her lucky stars she’d met the stockbroker before he left. He had contributed more to the search for the murderer than anything they’d done over the past few days.

  She put down her knife and fork. “How did he get back to the horse rental when he fell off?” she said, puzzled.

  “Who?” asked Matthew, putting down an empty shell.

  “Teitur. He was injured and couldn’t drive, and he can hardly have walked,” she said. “Someone must have given him a lift.”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “So?”

  Sigga and Gylfi listened, comprehending nothing. Sóley, on the other hand, was not interested; she was comparing the level of Coke in her glass and Gylfi’s.

  “If someone gave him a lift, or helped him out, that person also knew about the horse’s reaction to the dead fox, and knew where the fox was.” She reached for her phone and took Teitur’s business card out of her pocket.

  “Hello. This is Thóra, the lawyer at the hotel. Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering who drove you back to the stables from the place where you fell off.”

  “Oh, hello,” replied Teitur. “I was hoping you’d decided to invest. The market’s looking good right now.”

  “No, not at the moment, thanks,” said Thóra. “For the moment I’d like to focus on your accident.”

  “Okay,” said Teitur, slightly disappointed. “It was the girl. I thought I told you when you first asked me about the accident. She saved my bacon, pulled me away before the horse finished me off. It was crazy.”

  “What girl was that?” asked Thóra evenly. “Did you get her name?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but I don’t remember it. She just happened to be there. She was carrying some boxes into the old house at the end of the path. I’ve often wondered what might have happened if the dead fox had been a bit farther away, out of her view. She was kind enough to drive me to the stables and then back to the hotel.”

  “Was her name Berta?” asked Thóra, her voice still calm although her insides were in turmoil.

  “Yes,” said Teitur cheerfully. “That’s it. Berta.”

  CHAPTER 34

  RER. BER. Thóra set her phone down on the table and stared into space. Matthew, Gylfi, and Sigga waited silently with their cutlery in their hands, keen to hear what she’d found out.

  “It might not be Rósa after all,” said Thóra into the silence. “Berta knew about the fox.”

  “Remember, she isn’t necessarily guilty, even if she knew about it,” said Matthew.

  Gylfi and Sigga listened closely, understanding nothing.

  “That’s not all,” said Thóra. “Firstly, she’s got the most to lose, apart from her mother, Elín, and her uncle Börk
ur. She was here, at the séance, and she believes in ghosts, so she could conceivably have pushed pins into the soles of the victims’ feet to stop their spirits walking.”

  “But aren’t you forgetting that Berta wasn’t here when Eiríkur was killed?” asked Matthew. “She’d gone to Reykjavík. The records from the tunnel prove it. Do you think there are two different killers?”

  “Not at all,” replied Thóra. “If you think about it, she probably never even went to Reykjavík.”

  Matthew raised his eyebrows. “Do you think she lent someone her car?”

  “No, I think she swapped cars with Steini,” said Thóra. “It’s far too much of a coincidence that the two of them should have been driving through in opposite directions. He wasn’t watching her drive away as we thought. He must have gone through, waited for Berta, and switched cars at the other end of the tunnel. Then she drove back here to kill Eiríkur. It was probably Berta’s car Thröstur the canoeist saw pull up as he was driving away after he had stopped to check on Steini. It gives her an alibi.”

  “But what about Steini?” asked Matthew. “He’s really the one that comes out looking like the guilty one here.”

  Thóra shook her head. “Who’d ever believe he could manhandle Eiríkur into the stall with the stallion? You saw him. He couldn’t do it. She’s as strong as an ox, however—she’s been pushing him all over the place in his wheelchair.” Thóra clasped her forehead. “Do you remember the picture of her dead relative, Gudný, in the frame on my bedside table?” Matthew nodded. “When you think about it, Berta looks a lot like Gudný, especially if you imagine her with a different hairstyle.”

  Matthew smiled. “I don’t remember Gudný’s face clearly, let alone her hair. Does it matter?”

  “That was the photo that upset Jónas,” said Thóra. “He said he’d seen a ghost that was just like the girl in the photo. He had last seen the ghost in his own apartment.” She closed her eyes and recalled the photo of Gudný’s pretty face. “I bet it was Berta, and I bet she stole the sleeping pills too. I don’t know what she was doing there. Maybe she was trying to find out Jónas’s plans for the annex. He must have come back unexpectedly. He was probably high as a kite and couldn’t tell whether he was seeing a real person or a ghost. Maybe she was planning to use the sleeping pills for Birna, then changed her mind after Jónas had spotted her. When she came to kill Eiríkur, she may have thought it was safe, or simply had no choice, if the sleeping pills were the only sedative she had available. She’s probably also the ghost they saw out in the fog behind the hotel. I bet she was out there with a shovel, searching for the hatch. Maybe she hoped to remove the bones before Kristín could be found.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” asked Matthew. “I’m pretty sure that speculation alone isn’t enough. Why would she kill Eiríkur, for instance?”

  Thóra puffed out her cheeks. “I don’t know. Maybe he was involved, or perhaps he saw her. She’s probably the only person who knows why she did it.”

  “Shouldn’t we go to the police with this?” he said. “Thórólfur seems all right really, and he won’t be too offended if you send him off in a different direction, as long as the information is good. Remember, he’s talking to Rósa, who you were sure was guilty an hour ago.”

  Thóra sighed and stood up. “I have to go there and tell him. The sooner the better.”

  “Cat!” yelled the only person not captivated by the progress of the case. Sóley beamed at Matthew and then turned to her mother. “Tell him I speak English,” she said contentedly.

  “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” said Thóra, stroking her little fair head. “You can practice some more while I pop out. Matthew will stay with you.”

  “Dog!” she heard Sóley proudly pronounce, as she headed out of the restaurant to her car.

  Lár a made herself more comfortable on the hard chair, taking care not to crease the coat she held on her lap. The flowers she’d brought with her did not appear to have perked up when put in water and hung limply in a steel vase on the bedside table. In the bed lay Málfrídur Grímsdóttir.

  Lára cleared her throat and took the old lady’s dry hand. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else lately. The memories have come flooding back since my granddaughter, Sóldís, started working at the hotel back west. You know the truth, and I’m hoping you’ll tell me everything now, before it’s too late.” She looked at the drawn features of the woman in the bed. Strange how people aged differently. Málfrídur was much younger than she was, yet here she lay, seemingly incapable of even holding her head up, while Lára sat straight-backed at her bedside. She hoped she would go quickly when her time came. She didn’t want to fade away like this.

  A tear formed in the corner of the old woman’s eye. As she was lying down, it didn’t run down her cheek, but pooled by her eye. “I hope God will forgive me,” she said, and closed her eyes, sending the tear trickling down on to the pillow. “I was so young. I didn’t dare go against Dad, and then he got ill and I had other things on my mind.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Málfrídur my dear,” said Lára affectionately, and grasped the woman’s hand tighter. “I quite understand that you couldn’t talk to me about it back then, but now we’re running out of time, both of us, and I can’t bear to think of leaving this world without knowing where the child is. I owe that to Gudný.”

  Tears now poured down Málfrídur’s cheeks as she lay with her eyes squeezed shut. “She’s dead,” she said in her cracked voice. “Dad made sure of that.” She started to sob and Lára patiently waited for her to calm down. “He shut her up in the coal bunker, and she died there during the night. I’d gone over to Kirkjustétt to fetch a doll of hers that she was missing, and I saw him out of the window. Oh, God,” said Málfrídur, struck dumb by the memory. She rallied and went on. “After he burned down the outhouses, because of the stench, he flung the remains of the animals down into the coal bunker and turfed over the hatch the following spring. He had closed off the entrance to the bunker from the basement, and later he walled it up so no one could even tell there was a door there.”

  “Why?” asked Lára, close to tears.

  “The livestock died because Gudný couldn’t care for them after her father died. She was mortally ill herself. When Dad finally got in touch with her, the animals were beyond saving. The smell was horrible. He set the outhouses on fire, and buried the animals, to conceal the fact that he hadn’t helped his brother and niece. Of course, he should have looked after the animals for Gudný, after she was bedridden.” The old woman blinked hard. “He didn’t even check whether all the animals were dead. At least one of the cows was still alive. I saw her at the window, maddened with fear. I still see her today, when I close my eyes.”

  “I’m not talking about the cattle,” said Lára. “Why did he do that to Gudný’s daughter? I’m trying to understand.” She felt tears running down her own cheeks now.

  “Kristín,” said Málfrídur. She opened her eyes and gazed up at the white ceiling. “Dad hated her. I didn’t understand at first. She was so sweet and gentle, so quiet, but such a lovely girl. She was a few years younger than me, and for the few days she was with us, after Dad brought her and Gudný to our house, she was mostly busy taking care of her mother. Dad didn’t want to go into the room because he was afraid of infection, but the little girl sat with her, fed her, and tried to make her as comfortable as possible, until her mum died one night.

  “Kristín was special, but Dad couldn’t see it. I was so happy to have her with us, and I assumed naïvely that she would stay on with us after her mother died. That didn’t happen.” Málfrídur paused. “Instead of allowing her to live with us, he decided to kill her and obliterate any sign that she had ever existed. When Kristín was born, he hoped she would catch tuberculosis from her grandfather and die before she came of age, so he never filled out a birth certificate for her, because he saw a bastard child as a blot on the family. That turned out well for
him later.”

  “Why did he do it?” asked Lára. “I’d happily have taken in Gudný’s child and loved her like one of my own. She would have been no trouble to him.”

  Málfrídur turned to face her. “He was eaten up with rage at being dependent on her. Dad had lost everything. His brother, Bjarni, had helped him out by buying the farm and guaranteeing all the debts, but instead of making Dad happy, it sowed the seed that destroyed him in the end. He committed suicide, mad with self-hatred and shame over what he had done for money. He told me everything before he killed himself. I think he wanted absolution, but I couldn’t give it to him. I was appalled by his cruelty. Although I saw what happened, and I knew the facts, more or less, I was horrified when he confirmed what I’d suspected.” Málfrídur gazed up at the ceiling again. “I had the inscription on his gravestone cut in keeping with the way he lived his life: ‘Bloody is the heart.’ ” She fell silent again, then coughed feebly. “It has affected me all my life. I let her down, and I’ve lived in constant fear that she would come back to haunt me. And she has, in a way. Until now it has only been in the form of a bad conscience, but now she has visited me in a dream.”

  “I shall have her dug up,” said Lára, who wanted to leave. She had had enough. “And have her buried next to her mother. I can’t keep quiet over this.”

  Málfrídur raised herself up from the bed a little, for the first time since Lára’s arrival. “There’s no need. I’ve made sure that it happens.”

  Lára looked at her without comprehension. “The child hasn’t been found yet,” she said.

  “Then something’s gone wrong,” said the old woman. “I told my granddaughter, Berta, Elín’s girl, about it, and she said everything would be all right. She promised to take care of it.” She smiled feebly at Lára. “It’s strange—I couldn’t tell my children about it, but then Berta came to see me. There’s something about the lass that reminded me of Gudný and the little girl. She’s a good soul, Berta. She’ll do the right thing.”