Ashes to Dust (39 page)

‘Don’t forget to sort it
out,’ said Gylfi doggedly. ‘We have to go.’

One has to brush one’s teeth, one has
to eat healthy food, but one doesn’t have to go to a festival;
Thóra decided not to share this thought with her son, instead asking
after Sóley. She then had to pull the phone away from her ear, as Gylfi
immediately started yelling his sister’s name as though he thought she
was with Thóra and he had to make himself heard through the phone.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ said Thóra when her daughter came on the
line. ‘How are things at Grandma’s?’ The kids were with their
father’s parents, who often complained about not getting to see their
grandchildren enough, but were never free to look after them when Thóra
actually needed them. They were well-off and travelled a great deal. Miraculously,
this time everything had come together and the kids had gone to stay in their
big house on Arnarnes. This was meant to be their dad’s weekend, but
Hannes and his wife were at a friend’s fortieth birthday party that
evening. Thóra had never managed to foster a good relationship with
her ex-husband’s family, though they had never actually had any
conflicts. They were simply very different kinds of people, especially her and
her former mother-in-law.

‘Hello, Mum,’ said Sóley.
‘I’m with Grandma in the hot tub. Do you know who’s with
us?’

‘No,’ said Thóra, hoping
it wasn’t the nutritionist the couple had recently hired. Thóra
didn’t want her eight-year- old daughter to have to listen to talk about
food and diets.

‘Orri!’ shouted Sóley,
obviously delighted. ‘He’s with us in the hot tub and he
peed!’ She whispered the last bit,
then
started giggling. Thóra had trouble
not doing the same. It had been a long time since she’d laughed and she
didn’t dare start, for fear that she wouldn’t be able to stop. She
spoke to Sóley for a few more moments before saying she looked forward
to seeing them all
tomorrow,
and hanging up.

She called Matthew next. Her phone signal had
dropped in and out at sea, making it unclear whether he had tried to reach her,
but it didn’t matter. She wanted to know what he was planning to do.
Thóra smiled just hearing his voice.

‘Oh, hi,’ she said stupidly.
‘I haven’t been able to get a good signal for the last few hours,
and apparently you haven’t either. Otherwise I would have tried you
sooner.’

‘No problem,’ he said.
‘I’ve tried to reach you a couple of times but I haven’t had
much luck. How’s it going? Have you found a body to go with the
head?’

Thóra smiled. ‘No,’ she
replied. ‘I’m not particularly looking for it; I’ve got
enough on my plate digging around to find out what happened. It’s going
slowly.’ She didn’t want to waste time telling Matthew the whole
sorry story. ‘And now there’s another body.’

‘What? They found more?’

‘Not in the same place. A woman who
could have helped my client was found dead. They thought she’d committed
suicide, but it turned out she was murdered.’

‘Ah,’ said Matthew slowly.
‘I hope you’re being careful. I told you that anyone who could cut
off a man’s genitals is dangerous.’

‘We don’t know if it’s the
same guy that killed her,’ she said. All the people connected to the old
case are either dead or demented, remember
?‘

‘Who says it’s even a man?’
asked Matthew. ‘Women can be just as crazy as men. Maybe this thing with
the genitals has something to do with the man’s behaviour towards a
woman.’

It had crossed Thóra’s mind that
a woman might have done it, even though a woman surely couldn’t have had
the strength to beat several men to death. Especially not a
housewife
back in those days, who probably wouldn’t have done any training at the
gym or other sports. Of course, a blunt instrument of some sort had been used,
so a very angry woman could have caused the damage, but it was more likely that
a man or group of men had done it. Thóra grabbed the bull by the horns.
‘So, tell me what you’re planning to do. I need to know what
you’re thinking about the job.’ She closed her eyes and crossed her
fingers. Please come, she thought. Take the job and come to me.

‘I’m thinking about saying
yes,’ said Matthew. His voice was cautious, as if he expected her to try
to dissuade him. ‘At least I’m sort of thinking about it.’

‘Excellent!’ Thóra was
startled at the force of her own exclamation, which came straight from the
heart. ‘It’s nicer in Iceland,’ she added weakly. She counted
to ten before going on, so she wouldn’t make even more of a fool of
herself. ‘I’m really glad to hear that. When are you coming?’

‘I still have to get my ticket but I
hope to make it over within the next fortnight, to speak to them one last time.
I’ll be able to determine from that meeting when I can move there,’
said Matthew, who seemed happy with her reaction. ‘I’m looking
forward to seeing you,’ he said. ‘I hope you won’t be out at
sea or down in a basement the whole time I’m in the country.’

‘You should try to add a day or two to
your trip to be sure,’ said Thóra. It would be awful if
Markus’s case prevented them from meeting up. ‘I’m going home
tomorrow, but who knows when I’ll have to come back to the
Islands.’

They said goodbye and Thóra selected
the number for Litla- Hraun Prison with a smile on her lips. After several
moments Markus came to the phone. ‘I’m really glad to hear from
you,’ he said, out of breath, after they’d exchanged greetings. ‘I
remembered a phone call I got while I was driving east, and it’s probably
the call that came from the unlisted number.’ He sounded proud. ‘I
didn’t want to do anything before I’d let you know about it,
although of course I really wanted to have the police called here to take a new
statement.’

‘Good,’ said Thóra, happy
with the news, as well as his decision to wait for her. ‘Who was it,
then?’

‘I made an offer on an apartment in the
Islands for my son. He spends so much time there and has always stayed with
Leifur and Maria. It doesn’t really work
any more
,
since he’s almost an adult now. I remember that the estate agent called
me because the seller’s time limit for accepting offers was about to run
out. We discussed what I should do, and the upshot was that I asked him to
increase the offer. I’ve done business with him before, so he knows me
well and he’ll be able to verify that it was actually me on the
phone.’

Thóra felt like jumping for joy. Now
things were starting to fall into place. ‘Outstanding,’ she said.
‘I’ll pass this on to the police, and they can talk to him tomorrow
when your custody period is over. They’ll hardly request an extension if
you’ve got an alibi.’ She heard Markus sigh with relief.

‘That’s just as well, because I
can’t take it here much longer,’ he said. ‘I feel like
I’m in limbo. I don’t know what’s happening out in the world,
I’m not allowed to read the papers or even watch the news on television.
I’ve got a lot of stocks in foreign markets, and this is completely
unacceptable. I could be losing tens of millions.’

‘It’s almost over,’ said
Thóra. ‘I doubt I’ll be in touch with you again about this
before tomorrow, because I won’t reach anyone from the investigative team
today. The last resort would be to talk to Gudni, of course, but I would prefer
to speak to Stefán. There was something else I wanted to talk to you
about now, though.’

‘Isn’t there any chance of me
getting out tonight, since I’ve got an alibi?’ asked
Markus,
and Thóra wondered if he’d heard what
she’d said.

‘I’ll ask, of course,’ said
Thóra. ‘But it will be refused, since you’re suspected of
more than just Alda’s murder. They’ll detain you as long as they
can, because of the other bodies. We’re not out of the woods yet,
although things are starting to move in the right direction. Actually,
that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she added, happy to be
able to direct the conversation back onto the right track. ‘I’ve
received information pertaining to your father and something that happened in
the Islands several days before the eruption. It might not have anything
to do with the bodies in the basement, but I suspect it’s closely
related. I need to tell the police what I know.’ Thóra waited for
Markus’s reaction, but he said nothing.

‘What are you talking about
exactly?’ he finally asked. ‘Does it look bad for my father?’

‘Yes.’ Thóra didn’t
see any reason to lie. ‘He was seen in the place where the blood was
discovered, without any explanation for it. The blood might have come from
a fight, or an assault that ended up with the men being put in the basement.
Naturally, the truth will come out, but in order to prove or discount anything
the police need to know about this.’

‘Is there any real need for you to tell
them?’ asked Markus.
‘If it might not have
anything to do with my case?’

‘I’m hoping the police will
determine whether the events are related,’ said Thóra. ‘If
it turns out they are, they can investigate what happened and hopefully figure
out who these people were and how they met their maker.’ Thóra
took a deep breath. ‘You need this case to be solved, Markus. The truth
won’t do you any harm.’

‘When is Dad supposed to have been seen
at this bloodbath?’ asked Markus, his voice unreadable.

‘The Friday evening before the
eruption, the same night you got drunk for the first time,’ she replied.
‘Nobody saw him taking part in any violent activity, but he was seen in
the place where the blood was found the next morning. Of course that
doesn’t necessarily mean
anything,
and maybe a
logical explanation will be found, one that has little to do with him.’
She waited for a moment but Markus said nothing. ‘Do you remember if your
father went out again after he brought you home?’

Markus snorted. ‘I passed out as soon
as we got in. I didn’t even make it to my room — I woke up on the
sofa, having thrown up on the carpet, to Mum’s delight. I doubt that Dad
would have been in the mood to go anywhere. It’s all a bit of a blur, but
I still remember how angry he was.’

‘So your father could have gone out
again after bringing you home?’ asked Thóra carefully.
‘Without you noticing.’

‘Yes,’ said Markus slowly.
‘I guess so.’ He paused. ‘But there’s no way Dad killed
anyone and put them in the basement that night. There were no bodies
lying
around when I put the box there a couple of days
later. So I can’t see how it matters, or why you should have to tell the
police whether he went out or stayed at home.’

‘If your father didn’t do
anything, it’ll be fine,’ said Thóra, although she highly
doubted this. Many years had passed since these events had occurred and she
couldn’t see how anything could be proved after all this time.

‘I’m not that keen to clear my
name if it means pinning it all on Dad,’ said Markus stubbornly.
‘I’m not that kind of man.’

Thóra let her head fall back and she
looked up at the ceiling. Christ. ‘Telling the police what I’ve
found out doesn’t necessarily implicate him in anything, Markus,’
she said,
then
paused for emphasis. ‘But if he
did do something, then it’s not right to detain you as a suspect, and I
believe he wouldn’t want that if he understood what was happening. Is
that what you’d want for your son?’

‘No,’ admitted Markus
reluctantly. ‘Will you talk to my son tonight and tell him I have an
alibi for Alda’s murder?’

Thóra wasn’t going to let Markus
off that easily. ‘I’ll do that, but first I need to be sure you
understand what I’m saying. I’m about to call the police with
information that will help you, but that might be detrimental to your father.
You need to realize that I’m doing what is right for you, as you are my
client. Your father is not.’ There was silence on the other end.
‘Did you know about the blood? It was found on the pier.’

‘Yes,’ said Markus, slightly
sheepishly. ‘I remember it vaguely. I had other things to worry about
after my drunken night. Of course at school everybody was talking about the
dance, so we weren’t all that interested in the blood — it seemed
trivial in comparison to our troubles.’

Thóra suspected Markus recalled this
more than ‘vaguely’; she was sure he remembered everything from the
time that it happened, but had not wanted to tell her for fear of incriminating
his father. She could understand the sentiment, but the reason wouldn’t
matter to the police. ‘This will all come out,’ she said with
finality. ‘At best, your father had nothing to do with the bodies. At worst,
he was involved. Unfortunately, we can’t ask him about it.’

‘But he didn’t murder Alda, that
much is certain,’ said Markus.

‘No, you’re right,’ said
Thóra. ‘Maybe her murder isn’t connected to the other bodies
at all.’ Was that feasible? Who would kill Alda, if it had nothing to do
with the head?

Thóra let the stream of words wash
over her. Hannes was unstoppable when he talked about himself, especially if he
could turn the conversation round to his inspirational ideas about personal
morality. In other words, a phone call from him was like a message from heaven.
‘So you understand why I can’t discuss any details that fall under
the hospital’s confidentiality codes,’ he said smugly.
Thóra had the feeling that he was looking in the mirror as he spoke.