“What events are you referring to?” asked Gunnar as he reached over to look at the papers, which were photocopied articles from academic journals.
While Gunnar read, Matthew reeled them off: “An eruption in Mount Hekla in 1510, epidemics in Denmark around 1500, the Reformation in 1550, caves of Irish monks in Iceland before the proper settlement, and more of that nature. I can’t see a direct connection, but then I’m not a historian.”
Gunnar kept reading. When he had digested the subjects of all the papers he finally spoke: “They don’t all necessarily have to be directly connected with his dissertation topic. Harald could have obtained these articles for another course he was enrolled in. Actually, the age of settlement is my specialist field and Harald did not attend my classes, which might have explained the article on Irish monks. But I would still conclude that these documents are connected with courses he took alongside his dissertation.”
Matthew regarded Gunnar intently. “No, that’s not the point. Most of these are from a file labeled Malleus—you’re presumably familiar with that name.” Matthew pointed to the holes in the margins of the pages. “My conclusion was that he had collected all this in connection with witchcraft, somehow.”
“Yes, I know the name—couldn’t he simply have put it all in an old file and not got round to relabeling it?”
“Certainly,” said Matthew. “But somehow I don’t think he did.”
Gunnar looked back at the papers. “I must confess it’s not immediately apparent. My initial guess would be the link with the Reformation—in a sense that was the precedent for witch hunts, just as in much of Europe. Religion began to change and these developments provoked a kind of spiritual crisis. Regarding the eruption and the epidemics, Harald could have been looking into the connection between the persecutions and the prevailing economic landscape. Natural catastrophes and diseases had a great impact on the economy in those days. Still, other eruptions, such as Hekla in 1636, and other epidemics much closer in time to the witch hunts would have been a more normal avenue of inquiry than the subjects of these articles.” He tapped the papers on the desk.
“So he never mentioned this to you or Thorbjörn when you met to discuss his dissertation?” asked Thóra.
“Not to me. Thorbjörn made no mention of it either after he met with Harald on his own,” Gunnar said, then added: “As I told you, Harald was still developing his dissertation. His focus seemed to shift—apparently he even implied to Thorbjörn that he was more interested in the impact of the Reformation than in witch burnings, but nothing had been decided when he was murdered.”
“Is that normal?” Thóra asked. “Changing his mind like that?”
Gunnar nodded. “Yes, it’s very common. Students start off zealously, then discover the topic isn’t as exciting as they originally thought and choose a new one. We even have a long list of interesting research topics to let students choose from when they’re stuck for ideas.”
“Considering Harald’s interest in witchcraft in general,” Matthew said, gesturing at the artwork on the walls, “which he’d fostered from an early age, I doubt that the Reformation would have pushed it all out of his mind.”
“Harald was a Catholic, as you undoubtedly know,” Gunnar said, and Thóra and Matthew nodded dutifully. “One of the main aspects of Lutheranism that fascinated him was the general decline in living standards in Iceland around 1550, especially among the poorest sections of the population. The Catholic Church had kept all its property and wealth in Iceland, but with the Reformation this all passed into the hands of the king of Denmark and the country became poorer as a result. Likewise, the Catholic Church acted as an almsgiver, providing food and shelter to those in greatest need. That was cut off with the switch to Lutheranism. Harald thought that was worth looking into because the Catholic Church is seldom seen in that light. He was also impressed that priests and bishops in Iceland were allowed to take mistresses and have children by them—this wasn’t tolerated in other Catholic sees in Europe at that time, and still isn’t, in fact.”
Matthew seemed unconvinced. “Yes, maybe. But could it be that his meetings with Thorbjörn weren’t very detailed—perhaps Harald was cooking something up in his research that Thorbjörn, and presumably you, knew nothing about?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, obviously,” Gunnar replied. “But I didn’t get that from my contact with him, at least. That’s all I know. Of course he could have examined all kinds of topics without my knowledge—I didn’t follow his every move, nor was I supposed to. M.A. students decide most things for themselves and work very independently. But I recommend that you discuss this with Thorbjörn if you want more information. I can arrange a meeting if you like.”
Matthew looked at Thóra, who nodded assent. “Yes, thank you, we’ll accept that,” he said. “As soon as you find out when Thorbjörn’s free, you can give me a call. Also if anything occurs to you that might be important.” He handed Gunnar his card.
Thóra produced her card from her bag as well, handing it to Gunnar. “We’ll see if the letter you’re looking for is among the papers we have.”
“I would appreciate that—it’s rather embarrassing for the university and I’d prefer not to have to declare the letter lost. Unfortunately I don’t have a card on me but you can usually get hold of me by just phoning my office.” He stood up.
“About Harald’s friends,” said Matthew. “Can you put them in touch with us? We’d like to have a few words with the ones who knew him best; maybe they could shed light on what Harald was up to. We tried to contact some of them this morning, but none of them want to talk to us.”
“You presumably mean the young people in that society of his,” Gunnar said. “Yes, I should be able to. The society is based at our department so I bump into them from time to time. Actually I was hoping that society would fold without Harald. I didn’t consider it a great credit to the university and certainly saw no reason to support them by providing facilities. But I don’t control everything myself so I’m stuck with the decision. I can arrange a meeting with the two students who are at our department. They should be able to put you in touch with others that Harald associated with.”
“That would be much appreciated.” Thóra smiled gratefully at him. “Why do you think the society is so awful?”
Gunnar seemed to mull over his reply. “There was a minor incident about six months back. I was and still am convinced that it had something to do with that society, but I can’t prove it. Unfortunately.”
“What happened?” asked Matthew.
“I don’t know whether I should say much about it,” Gunnar said, clearly wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. “It was hushed up and not reported through the proper channels.”
“What?” said Matthew and Thóra in unison.
Gunnar hesitated. “We found a finger.”
“A finger?” Matthew and Thóra spoke together again, this time in shock.
“Yes, one of the cleaners found a finger outside their staff room. I can still hear that poor woman howling. The finger was sent for tests at the university’s forensic science department and it turned out to belong to an old person—a proper sex test wasn’t done, but it was probably male. It was gangrenous.”
“Were the police notified?” Thóra asked, astounded.
Gunnar blushed. “I wish I could say they were, but after our own investigation into the origin of the finger and the reason for its being on our premises, we felt it was inappropriate to notify them—such a long time after it was found, you know. It was the start of the summer break, as well.”
Thóra did not think the summer break was much of an excuse. Maybe they ought to be thankful that no one was on maternity leave when Harald’s body was found. Or that the history department hadn’t decided to investigate the murder itself. “Well, well.”
“So what did you do with the finger?” asked Matthew.
“Um, we…er…threw it away,” Gunnar mumbled. His blush spread up his cheeks and
across his scalp. “It was definitely not connected with the murder so there seemed no reason to bring up this dreadful business with the police. They had plenty of other things to think about.”
“Well, well,” Thóra repeated. Fingers, eyes, a letter about severed ears—what next?
CHAPTER 18
Thóra straightened up and leaned back in her chair. She had just finished plugging the last cable into the computer and all that remained was to switch it on. She and Matthew were in Harald’s study—after bidding farewell to the cryptic Gunnar Gestvík. “I must confess that I find this theory of yours and the Guntliebs about a mystery murderer increasingly unlikely.” She switched on the computer and a low hum indicated that it was booting up. “The blood on Hugi’s clothes, for example—how does that fit in with your theory?” Matthew said nothing, so she continued. “And the papers just now—I don’t quite see the link between the murder and a university dissertation, especially because Harald was clearly straying from the subject a little when gathering his material.”
“I just know it,” Matthew said, without looking directly at her.
Something about his manner struck Thóra as odd. Besides the fact that it was not like him to avoid eye contact, she noticed that he was staring fixedly at the screen of his mobile phone, as if hoping someone would call and extricate him from this conversation. Thóra crossed her arms and scowled. “You’re hiding something from me.”
Matthew went on gazing hopefully at his phone. “Well, I hope I haven’t revealed all my secrets during our short acquaintance,” he said with forced joviality.
“Oh, come on—you know exactly what I mean. There’s more to it than the missing money and eyes.” Thóra still had trouble discussing the gouged-out eyes. She still could not manage to express the idea clearly; words somehow failed to encapsulate it. “Really, that’s all there is—oh, yes, and an e-mail that says nothing and now a finger at the university that the professors panicked over and threw away.”
Matthew put his mobile in his pocket. “Even if I were hiding something from you—would you still take my word for it that Hugi can’t be the murderer, or at least couldn’t have done it alone?”
Thóra laughed out loud. “No—not really.”
Matthew stood up. “That’s a shame. To tell you the truth, I can’t make decisions about certain information by myself,” he said, quickly adding: “That is, if there was anything else.”
“Let’s imagine that’s the case—and that the person who can decide to include me in the picture would allow it—wouldn’t it be worth checking?”
Matthew looked at her pensively, then left the room. Thóra noticed his mobile was back in his hand. Hopefully he’d gone out to use it. She cocked her ear and could hear the muffled sound of his voice from the corridor.
A little gray box in the center of the computer screen told her to enter the administrator password. Not knowing it, she had to go by guesswork: Harald, Malleus, Windows, Hexe, and the like. None of them worked, although Thóra had been very pleased with herself and sure she had clinched it when she thought of the term Hexe, which stood for “witch” in German. She leaned back and looked around for inspiration. On a shelf above the desk was a framed photograph that she reached out for. It was of a young disabled girl in a wheelchair. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this was Harald’s sister, who had died some years before. What was her name again? Wasn’t she named after her mother? Whose name was what? Anna? No, but it began with A. Agatha or Angelina. Amelia—her name was Amelia Guntlieb. Thóra tried that. Nothing happened. With a sigh she decided to enter it without the capital: amelia.
Bingo! The computer emitted the familiar Windows jingle: dum-deedum-dee, and Thóra was in. She wondered how long the police had spent trying to find the password, but realized they must have a computer expert who could get in by the back door. They would hardly spend hours on trial and error.
It took a while before it dawned on Thóra what the picture was on the unusual desktop wallpaper. It wasn’t every day that she saw the inside of a mouth on a seventeen-inch screen, let alone a mouth with the tongue pinned on either side with two stainless steel tongs and a fiery red slit along it from the tip—or rather, tips. Although she was not well versed in the practice, the photograph had obviously been taken when a tongue was being split down the middle. The operation was either still in progress or just completed. Thóra would have bet money on the identity of the tongue’s owner. It must be Harald himself. She shook herself to stave off nausea and opened Explorer, which immediately filled the screen, removing the wretched image from her sight.
A quick search showed that there were almost four hundred Word documents on the computer. She arranged them by date with the most recent at the top. Their names were self-explanatory. A common feature of the file names at the top was that they all contained the word hexe somewhere. Since it was so late, Thóra reached over to her handbag and took out a flash memory stick. She copied all the witchcraft files to examine at her leisure at home that evening—if Matthew would reveal what the Guntliebs had been keeping from her. If he didn’t, she intended to spend the evening working out whether she could afford to tell them to get lost. She had absolutely no interest in working as some kind of luxury interpreter.
There was still no sign of Matthew, so Thóra decided to search for scanned files. She asked the search function to find all the. pdf extensions and was rewarded with sixty names. She arranged them by date and copied the most recent ones to the memory stick. She had plenty to keep her busy that evening, that was certain. Then it occurred to her to search for Jpegs, and she called them up too. Harald had clearly owned a digital camera, which he had used prolifically. Hundreds of file names appeared, but they told her nothing because they were labeled by a series of numbers automatically generated when the pictures were downloaded from the camera. Harald had not bothered to rename them. Thóra selected “thumb-nail view” to see the content immediately. Once again she arranged them by date. She noticed that the most recent ones had been taken inside the flat. The subjects were odd—some showed nothing in particular, most of them taken in the kitchen during preparations for a meal that was photographed in detail. No people were shown but hands could be seen in two of them, which Thóra copied to her memory stick in case they belonged to the murderer. You never know, she thought. The other photographs were of a gigantic pasta meal at various stages—these she left alone.
Scrolling down, Thóra noticed that many of the photographs were quite embarrassing for the subjects, taken during an assortment of sex acts. She blushed for the participants as they rolled past in succession on the screen. Much as she would have liked to, she did not feel happy about enlarging them for fear that Matthew would walk in and find her prying. She also came across myriad photographs from the tongue operation, including the one Harald had chosen for his desktop wallpaper. It was impossible to see who was present, but some torsos were visible and Thóra copied those too. Other files contained all manner of scenes from what seemed to be action-packed parties, interspersed with—and these seemed completely out of place—Icelandic landscapes and journeys through them. Several were very dark and featured little more than gray rock faces—Thóra thought she could make out a cross carved on one of them when she enlarged it. A whole series had been taken in a small village that Thóra did not recognize, many of them in a museum where what looked like manuscripts were on exhibit along with a slab of basalt in a showcase. One shot showed a sign that Thóra enlarged to see if she could identify the museum, only to be disappointed—it simply said: No Photographs. Thóra gave up on the pictures for the time being; by now she was down to fairly old ones that could hardly be linked with the case. She opened Harald’s e-mail to see what it contained. In the in-box were seven unread messages. More had presumably arrived since Harald was murdered, but the police must have checked them.
Matthew walked in and Thóra looked up from the e-mail. He sat down in his chair again with a twisted smile o
n his face. “Well?” she said impatiently, wanting to hear what he had to say.
“Well,” Matthew echoed, leaning forward in his chair. He rested his elbows on his knees and clenched his hands as if about to pray. “Before I tell you what you think you have to know,” he said, emphasizing the word “think,” “you must promise me one thing.”
“What?” Thóra was quite sure of his reply.
“What I am about to tell you is in absolute confidence and must not go any further. Before I tell you I need confirmation that you’ll keep this secret. Understand?”
“How am I supposed to know if I can keep a secret when I don’t have a clue what it is?”
Matthew shrugged. “It’s a risk you’ll just have to take. I can honestly say to you that you will want to tell someone—just so you know I’m not leading you into a trap.”
“Who will I want to tell?” asked Thóra. “That seems important to me.”
“The police,” Matthew replied, without hesitation.
“You, or Harald’s family, have information that could be important to the case, but you’ve decided to keep it secret? Do I understand that correctly?”
“Yep,” said Matthew.
“Well, well,” said Thóra. She thought about it. Presumably a code of ethics obliged her to inform the authorities of information that could relate to a public prosecution, so she ought to turn down the offer and notify the police that Matthew was concealing evidence connected with the murder. On the other hand, she was well aware that he would deny the allegation and her part in the investigation would then be over. That served no one’s interests. So with a rather elastic ethical interpretation she could conclude that she was obliged to swear to keep her mouth shut and, armed with this new information, do her utmost to solve the mystery confronting them. Everyone happy. Thóra mulled all this over in silence. A fairly dubious conclusion, but the best of a bad job—the code of ethics must allow for extenuating circumstances when the end justifies the means. If not, then it was time to change it.
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