“No, joking aside,” replied Matthew. “In the Middle Ages, prosecutions were brought by individuals. Anyone who thought he had been the victim of wrongdoing or criminal conduct had to bring charges himself and prosecute the case. The trials were a joke really. If the accused did not just confess to the court or there was no clear proof of his guilt, it was left to God to decide. Accused people were made to undergo ordeals, walk over burning embers, being thrown into water in a sack, and so on. If their injuries healed after a certain time, or if they sank in the water, they were deemed innocent. Then the accuser was in trouble, because he would face trial. Understandably, people were reluctant to bring charges against others because of the risk that the case would turn against them.”
Matthew pointed at the man on the rack. “Eventually that approach was replaced by this system when the authorities and the Church realized there had been a huge increase in secular and religious crimes because the courts were impotent. To cut crime they had to resort to Roman law, which had a different arrangement for bringing charges and prosecuting them. This was based on investigation, which is where the Inquisition comes from. Where the Church led, the secular courts followed, and in this new system the victim no longer needed to bring charges or prosecute the case.” Matthew smiled triumphantly. “Ergo—lawyers.”
Thóra smiled back. “It’s a bit rich to blame lawyers for all this misery.” It was her turn to point to the anguished man on the rack. “Excuse me, but I don’t quite see the connection between investigation and torture.”
“No,” said Matthew. “Unfortunately there was a flaw in the new arrangement. In order to find someone guilty, either two witnesses or a confession was needed. Some crimes, such as blasphemy, aren’t necessarily witnessed, so everything depended on confessions. Judges needed them, and they could be obtained by torture. That was deemed to be an investigation.”
“Disgusting,” declared Thóra, turning away from the picture to face Matthew. “How do you know all this?”
“Harald’s grandfather was a mine of information about this period and a passionate raconteur. His accounts were great fun to listen to, but I have only a very superficial knowledge of this compared with him.”
“Well, well,” Thóra said. “Have you seen all these pictures before?”
Matthew looked along the wall. “Most of them, as far as I can see. Actually these are only a fraction of the pictures and other items in the collection. Harald obviously only brought part of it with him. His grandfather spent much of his life collecting it all. And who knows how much money he spent on it. I would imagine it’s the most remarkable collection in the world dedicated to torture and executions through the ages. One part is an almost complete set of the different editions of Malleus Maleficarum.”
Thóra looked around the room. “Was the collection just hanging on the living room walls?”
“No, are you mad?” replied Matthew. “The books and other documents, letters and such, are stored in a bank vault because they are so valuable. And there are two special halls in the Guntlieb home housing the part of the collection that’s on exhibit. I don’t expect they were particularly upset at losing some of the works. Most of the family hated them; Harald’s mother, for example, could never be persuaded to go in there. Harald was the only descendant who shared his grandfather’s interest. That was surely the reason his grandfather bequeathed the collection to him.”
“So Harald could transport it from one country to another as he pleased?” asked Thóra.
Matthew smiled. “I imagine they would have gladly let him take it even if he hadn’t inherited it. I think Harald’s parents were simply relieved to get rid of even a small part of it from their household.”
Thóra nodded. “Is this chair from the collection?” She pointed to the old wooden chair positioned in a corner of the room.
“Yes,” said Matthew. “That’s a ducking stool. It’s an example of using torture as a punishment, which is quite different from using it in an inquisition. It’s from Britain.”
Thóra walked over to the ducking stool and ran her fingers across the carvings on its back. She could not read the inscription; the letters had faded badly and she was not familiar with the script anyway. There was a large hole in the middle of the seat and on its arms were rows of twisted and shriveled leather straps that were obviously designed to tie down the arms of the occupant.
“The hole was to let water through so that the seat would sink until the victim was submerged. It was designed as a humiliation but sometimes the person in the stool would drown if the duckers weren’t careful.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t around in those days,” Thóra said, letting go of the stool. She generally found it difficult to hold her tongue when she felt strongly about something, so she would have been a prime candidate.
“These are actually some of the milder instruments in the collection,” said Matthew. “The originality of some of the inventions defies belief. Pain seems to give the imagination free rein.”
“Actually, I’d like to leave this cozy little room. Shouldn’t we keep going?”
Matthew agreed. “Come on, I’ll show you the other rooms. None of them are much better, but the kitchen is free of all this. Let’s start there.”
They moved to the kitchen, which led off the hallway. Although not particularly big, it was impressive, fully equipped with the latest gadgetry. Racks of wine bottles were spread along the fitted shelves. Thóra began to doubt that Matthew knew much about “ordinary people.” If this was yang, her kitchen was yin. There was a large gas stove with a tall steel ventilation hood overhead, a dishwasher, a cafeteria-standard sink, a wine cooler, and a huge double refrigerator. Thóra went up to it. “I’ve always wanted to make my ice cubes in one of these.”
“So why don’t you get one?” Matthew asked.
Thóra turned to face him. “For the same reason I haven’t bought other expensive things I fancy. I can’t afford them. Difficult as it may be for you to imagine, some households are a bit short of cash.”
Matthew shrugged. “A fridge isn’t exactly a luxury.”
Thóra did not bother to reply. She went to the cupboards and looked inside. In one of the lower ones was a set of steel pots with glass lids that were so clean she doubted they had ever been used. “It doesn’t look like Harald did much cooking, even though he had this amazing kitchen,” she said, closing the door. She stood up straight.
“No. Knowing him he was probably more one to buy ready meals or dine out.”
“His credit card statement gave that impression.” She looked all around but saw nothing that could provide further clues. Even the refrigerator door was blank—no magnet and therefore no notes hanging from it. Her refrigerator door was used as a kind of information center for the home. She could hardly remember what color it was; it was covered with timetables, birthday invitations, and other memory joggers. “Shouldn’t we look at the rest?” Thóra asked. “I doubt we’ll find anything here to move us forward.”
“Not unless someone killed him for his fridge,” said Matthew, adding teasingly: “Where were you on the night of the murder?”
Thóra made do with a wry smile. “There were a few small transactions in a pet shop on his credit card statement—did Harald keep any pets?”
Matthew shook his head in surprise. “No, there was no animal here nor any signs of one.”
“My first thought was that he’d been buying something for a pet.” Thóra looked in the kitchen cupboards for cat food or the like. Nothing.
“Call the shop,” Matthew said. “Maybe they’ll remember him—who knows?”
Thóra did just that. She found the number of the store, dialed, talked to the assistant there, and hung up. “Weird,” she said. “They remembered him and said he came in to buy a hamster on several occasions. Are you sure there wasn’t a hamster’s cage here?”
“Positive,” answered Matthew.
“Strange,” said Thóra. “The lad I talked to said Haral
d tried to buy a raven from them too.”
“A raven?” said Matthew, shocked. “Why?”
“He had no idea. They don’t sell ravens so they didn’t go into the reason. He just thought it was odd, which is why he remembered him.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he saw a bird like that as a kind of status symbol in all this magical mumbo jumbo,” said Matthew.
“Maybe,” Thóra said. “But surely not a hamster.”
They left the kitchen and walked down a corridor where the other rooms were. Matthew opened the bathroom door and Thóra popped her head inside—it did not seem to hide any secrets. Like the kitchen it was very modern and stylish, but not particularly interesting in other respects. They went to Harald’s bedroom, which turned out to be fascinating.
“Has anyone cleaned up here or did he always keep it so tidy?” Thóra asked, pointing to the neatly made bed. It was unusually low, just like the sofas in the living room.
Matthew sat down on the edge of the bed. His knees almost touched his chin. He rearranged his legs and stretched them out in front of him. “He had a cleaning lady who cleaned everything up the weekend he was murdered, which didn’t please the police much. Of course at that time she knew nothing about the murder, any more than anyone else. She just turned up at the appointed time and tidied up. I talked to her and she spoke well of Harald. But she did say there weren’t many women where she worked who wanted to take on this apartment.”
“I wonder why?” said Thóra sarcastically, indicating the pictures on the walls. They were all in the same vein as those in the living room, but these mainly depicted female torture, punishment, or execution. Most of the women were naked from the waist up, some completely naked. “This is just like any normal man’s room.”
“You think so? Maybe you’ve been associating with the wrong type of person,” answered Matthew, a smile darting across his face.
“I was joking, actually,” said Thóra. “Naturally I’ve never been in a bedroom with this kind of décor.” She walked over to a large flat-screen television that was fixed to the wall facing the bed. “I shudder to think what he had in this,” she said, bending down to the DVD player on a low chest of drawers beneath it. She turned on the player and pressed the eject button, but the disk holder came out empty.
“I removed the disk,” said Matthew, observing her movements from the bed.
“What was he watching?” Thóra asked, turning to him.
“The Lion King,” said Matthew, his expression not changing. “Come on, I’ll show you the study. That’s the most likely place to find something to help us.”
Thóra stood up and followed. But she decided to make a slight detour to look at Harald’s bedside table. She opened the single drawer and was greeted by a heap of jars and tubes of cream, which had clearly been used for certain personal activities, and a half-full packet of condoms. So there are women who don’t mind the wall decorations, thought Thóra. She closed the drawer and hurried after Matthew.
CHAPTER 10
Laura Amaming looked at her watch. Fortunately it was only a quarter to three—she had plenty of time to finish her work and still arrive on time for class at four. After years of living in Iceland, she had finally got round to enrolling in a course in Icelandic as a foreign language. She hated being late. Conveniently, the class was in the main building of the university, a stone’s throw from the history institute where she worked as a cleaner. It would have been almost impossible for her to attend had it been elsewhere—she did not finish work until half an hour before the class started, and she had no car.
She put the mop in the sink and rinsed it under a jet of hot water. Muttering the Icelandic words for “hot” and “cold” to herself, she mentally cursed the difficult pronunciation.
Laura wrung out the mop and added it to the dirty cloths in the bucket of bleach. She reached for some window spray and three clean dusters. Today she was supposed to clean the insides of all the windows along the north side of the second floor, and she would certainly need more than one duster. She left the broom closet and went upstairs.
She was in luck; the first three offices were empty. Cleaning was so much easier when no one was around. Especially cleaning windows, as she had to clamber up onto chairs or other furniture to reach the top. She found it so uncomfortable doing this in front of a spectator whom she could not even talk to. It would all be much better when she gained a grasp of the language. Back in the Philippines she had been talkative and outgoing. In Iceland she felt she never came out of her shell except in the company of her compatriots.
At work she often felt more like an object than a human being; everyone spoke and acted as if she weren’t there. Everyone except the head of cleaning services, Tryggvi. That man always behaved with absolute decorum and did everything he could to communicate with Laura and her fellow cleaning ladies, although more often than not this boiled down to primitive gestures that could be very amusing at times. Nor did he seem to mind their laughter when they teamed up to guess what he was trying to tell them. He was a true gentleman and Laura looked forward to being able to say something to him in his own language eventually. One thing was certain—she would never be able to pronounce his name after all the Icelandic courses in the world. She said “Tryggvi” in a quiet voice and could only smile when she heard how it came out.
Laura went to the fourth room. It served as the students’ common room. She tapped on the door and went inside. On a battered sofa at the far end of the room sat a young girl whom Laura knew belonged to the murdered student’s circle of friends. All those young people were easily recognizable, always looking like they were under a thundercloud, both in their demeanor and in how they dressed. The red-haired girl was immersed in a conversation on her mobile, and although she spoke quietly it was obvious that the subject was not pleasant. With a sour expression she looked up and cupped a hand over her mouth and the bottom of the mobile, as if to ensure that Laura did not hear what she was saying. She garbled a good-bye into the phone, crammed it in her camouflage-green shoulder bag, stood up, and strode haughtily past. Laura tried to smile to her and took enormous pains to say good-bye properly. The girl turned round in the doorway, surprised at the gesture, and muttered something before leaving and shutting the door. What a shame, Laura thought. She was a pretty girl, could even be called beautiful if she made the slightest effort to improve her appearance, took those awful rings out of her eyebrows and nose, and gave just the occasional smile.
But the windows were waiting and time was racing by. She sprayed the first window and wiped the cloth in successive circles over the glass. Fortunately there was not much dirt. The curtains were usually closed so the windows did not get smudged. She finished the windows one by one, but as she was completing the final one she noticed the first real dirty mark. It was not even on the glass itself, but was a small brown stain on the side of the steel handle used to open the window.
Laura retrieved the used cloth she had put into her overcoat pocket. There was no need to mess up the cloth in her hands—it was perfectly clean. She sprayed the handle and wiped the cloth over and under it. Occasionally the youngest cleaners neglected places that weren’t visible, and she could see that this smudge—whatever it was—was under the handle as well. She was pleased at having noticed it; she could just imagine some grumpy student opening the window, grabbing the handle, and then complaining about how badly it had been cleaned.
Laura snorted in disgust at the way they treated that place—the handle was just one of many examples of their sloppiness. Who could have such dirty hands anyway? Whatever it was, it wiped away immediately and Laura rubbed the cloth across a second time for form’s sake. She looked at the shiny steel with satisfaction, feeling she had won a minor victory against Gunnar, the head of the department.
As she was slipping the cloth back into her pocket she could not help staring at the stain that was now on it. It was dark red. The brown color had been diluted by the damp cloth. It was bl
ood—there was no question. But how had it come to be on the handle? Laura did not remember any blood on the floor; the person who grabbed the window handle must have bled onto other surfaces. She wondered about a link with the murder, but thought it unlikely. The windows had been cleaned since then. She wrinkled her brow in thought. Just because she did not recall cleaning the windows herself did not mean no one else had. She tried to remember—wasn’t the east wing cleaned the day after the murder? Yes. Of course it had been. The police had even questioned one of the younger girls, Gloria, who did the weekend shifts.
What on earth was she supposed to do? She balked at the idea of trying to explain this incident in Icelandic. It wasn’t enough to be able to say “hot” and “cold” for this. Besides, she could end up in trouble with the authorities for erasing the murderer’s fingerprints by wiping the handle. It could also be embarrassing if she tried to make an issue out of something that turned out to have a perfectly normal explanation. What a mess! She remembered the fuss Gloria made about the questioning she was subjected to—she’d even shed a few tears when she told the others about how tough the police were. Laura was convinced at the time that they were crocodile tears, but now she was not so sure. She looked all around the floor for any signs of blood. If she could find some it would settle the matter, because she had cleaned here more than once since the murder was committed. Then it would have to be a recent event with a normal explanation.
There was no blood on the floor, not even in the corners where the baseboards met. Laura bit her lip anxiously. She tried to console herself. The police had the murderer in custody. If the blood was connected with the murder it would surely be just one more piece of evidence showing that he was the killer. Laura took a deep breath. She thought about the magazines that were often thrust in her face at the Filipino gatherings, magazines containing interviews with one of the attendees and photographs of them with the most incredible objects that they all seemed to need to hold up against their faces. Laura could not envisage herself holding a window handle up against her cheek on a double-page spread in such a magazine. No, she was being unnecessarily silly—one of the students must have had a nosebleed, felt dizzy, and wanted a breath of fresh air. She breathed more lightly for a minute, until she remembered her own children getting nosebleeds. They went to a bathroom—not an open window.
Last Rituals Page 9