My Soul to Take: A Novel of Iceland (10 page)

Thora had never
tried anything like the box's former contents, but she was quite convinced that such devices paled in comparison with the real thing, just like all other surrogates. Smiling to herself, she sat up in bed. Her dressing gown lay crumpled on the floor and she stretched out lazily to pick it up. She should do this sort of thing more often, she thought as she wrapped it around herself and looked for her clothes. Although she had been completely uninhibited before, she wanted to be wearing something when Matthew came back. He had popped out to his rental car to fetch his luggage and throw it into the room he had booked. Thora couldn't see what use he had for a room of his own, but she appreciated the courtesy he had shown her by not assuming that he could jump straight into bed with her—even though he had. She smiled again at how terribly pleased she was to see him, glad that he had come in spite of her objections. The problem was, their relationship was already doomed. He was a foreigner and unlikely to thrive in Iceland. When he arrived, she had awkwardly tried to find a topic of conversation and asked him what he thought of the Eurovision Song Contest winner. He had given her a blank look and asked if she was joking. Anyone who was not interested in Eurovision would hardly last a week in Iceland. She dressed hurriedly.

Matthew reappeared just as she was putting on her second sock. "Damn," he said, disappointed. "I'd forgotten that you're the world champion in speed-dressing." He smirked at her. "Of course, the upside is that you're pretty quick at undressing too."

"Very funny," said Thora. "What do you think of the hotel?"

Matthew took a look around and shrugged. "Great. A bit off the beaten track. But what on earth are you doing here?" He added quickly, "Not that I'm complaining, not at all."

"I'm working for the owner. He's thinking of suing the people who sold him the property."

"Ah. Was he ripped off?" Matthew asked. He walked over to the window and pulled open the curtain to admire the view. "Lovely," he said, and turned back to Thora.

"Oh, it's all quite silly, really. He claims this place is haunted and the previous owners must have known."

"Haunted, yes." Matthew's expression was the one she expected to see on the judge's face, if the case ever went that far. "You don't say."

"The business here is vulnerable to that kind of thing, so it's not quite as absurd as you might think." Thora smiled at him. "It's a New Age hotel. They focus on things such as healing, clairvoyance, organic food, crystals, magnetic fields, aura readings, and all that. Most of the staff are clairvoyant, or worse, so they're not very fond of ghosts."

"Indeed," said Matthew, pulling a face. "So, all perfectly normal."

"God, no," Thora hurried to say. "But in fact it's not that unusual in a place like this, which has long been considered a center for belief in the supernatural, so to speak. Legend has it that the glacier is inhabited by a man named Bardur who went inside it in a bout of depression after his daughter drifted away to Greenland on an iceberg. He's considered to be the guardian spirit of the area, and the glacier's supposed to have supernatural powers. I don't know whether the powers belong to this Bardur or the glacier itself."

"Supernatural powers from a glacier?" Matthew's disbelief was written all over his face. "It's just a mountain with snow on it that never melts, correct me if I'm wrong."

"Ha, ha," Thora said. "I'm just telling you the background, not my opinion. Faith in the power of the glacier goes way beyond Iceland— people flocked here from all over the world to welcome aliens from outer space just before the turn of the century."

"And of course that wasn't a wild-goose chase, was it?"

Thora shrugged. "Opinions differ. The spokesman for the group said they had come, but just in spirit. No spaceship or anything. Some kind of mental transportation."

"'Mental' being the operative word, I suppose?" Matthew grinned.

Thora returned his smile. "Could well be. But it is an incredibly powerful mountain."

"And where does the body fit into the picture?"

"Oh, that. The body's nothing to do with this spiritual stuff, actually. I don't think so, anyway. The owner doesn't agree entirely. He thinks the ghost's involved somehow. He's quite an unusual character."

"You don't say," rejoined Matthew, frowning. "Was the body found here at the hotel?"

Thora gave Matthew a brief account of where the body had been found, telling him that it was a woman who had been working for Jonas and she was thought to have been murdered.

"And is there a suspect?"

"Not to my knowledge," Thora replied. "I doubt whether the police have even formed an opinion yet. The case is still at the most preliminary stage."

"I hope for your sake that it's not this Jonas," said Matthew.

"No, it's definitely not him," Thora said airily, then added cautiously, "As it happens, I do have something that might shed light on the matter."

"You've got something? What kind of something?" asked Matthew. His eyes were bright with curiosity.

"Well, I have the diary of the woman who is very likely the murder victim. A sort of notebook, really," Thora replied, blushing but affecting nonchalance.

"What?" Matthew exclaimed. "Did you know this woman?"

"Never met her."

"But you have her diary? How did that come about?" "I came across it," she said, then added more truthfully, "I stole it, really. Accidentally."

Matthew shook his head. "Accidentally, right." He clasped his hands in prayer and looked up to heaven. "Dear God, don't let her have killed the architect for the diary. Even accidentally."

Jonas stood in the lobby watchingthree plainclothes detectives
prepare to examine Birna's car. They had driven up in a customized van and parked it to one side. There, they had jumped out and, without announcing themselves to anyone at the hotel, begun photographing the little sports car and the ground around it. Vigdis had phoned Jonas from reception to let him know as soon as she noticed the van, and he had run down to the lobby.

"What are they doing, anyway?" Vigdis asked.

Jonas jumped. He had been so preoccupied with watching the detectives at work that he hadn't noticed Vigdis. Clutching his heart, he looked at her. "Christ, you scared me." Then he went back to watching what was going on outside. "They're examining Birna's car, as far as I can see. God knows why."

Vigdis squinted for a better look. "Do they think she was murdered in the car, or what?"

Jonas shook his head. "Hardly. The car hasn't been moved for days. I'm sure I told them that."

"What difference does that make?" Vigdis asked. "I mean, she could still have been killed in the car, right there in the car park."

Jonas spun around to face her. "That's fucking nonsense. For a start, we don't know whether it
was
murder yet, let alone where it might have happened."

Vigdis shrugged. "Who do you think would drown on the beach here? It's this deep." She held her thumb and index finger a centimeter apart. "She must have been murdered."

Jonas was about to tell Vigdis not to exaggerate when he saw one of the detectives take his mobile out of his pocket. The distant ringing could be heard from where they were standing. The detective answered the call and they watched him talking. Suddenly he looked up in the direction of the lobby. His gaze fixed on Jonas, who felt his stomach sink.

The officer ended the call without taking his eyes off the hotelier, and walked over toward the entrance.

"Wow," Vigdis whispered to Jonas. "Did you see that? He's definitely coming to talk to you."

Thora rushed to Jonas’s office. He had phoned and asked
her to come, without any explanation except that the police were making allegations against him that he knew nothing about. She had a weird feeling that Matthew's remarks about Jonas had been a premonition, and for an instant the thought crossed her mind that the glacier might have strange powers after all.

"Excuse me," she said after knocking on Jonas's office door and opening it. Jonas was sitting behind his desk, facing someone, his face bright red. The other man had his back to her. He looked around when she said brightly, "Everything all right in here?"

"No, it's certainly not all right," the hotel owner snapped, standing up to pull up a third chair.

The police officer was middle-aged and very tall. He lifted himself five centimeters out of his seat and extended his hand to Thora. That was enough for her to realize that he was also extremely wide and well muscled. "Hello. I'm Thorolfur Kjartansson, detective."

"Hello. Thora Gudmundsdottir, lawyer." They shook hands. "What's the problem?" she asked, directing her words at Jonas.

"They seem to think that I'm somehow involved in that woman's death," Jonas snarled. He gestured at the man facing him and added, "He gets to take away my computer and printer, and he says he has a warrant to take my mobile phone." In his fury, Jonas was suddenly lost for words and made do with scowling at Thorolfur.

"I see," Thora said calmly. "May I see the warrant? I'm Jonas's lawyer and he's asked for my legal counsel."

Thorolfur silently handed her a printout. Skimming it, Thora saw that it was a warrant issued by the West Iceland District Court to seize Jonas Juliusson's mobile telephone, citing as grounds that it was in the interest of the investigation into the murder of Birna Halldorsdottir. Thora's heart skipped a beat. Here it was in black-and-white.

"May I inquire why the telephone is needed?" she asked levelly.

"We think the phone may contain information that could be of use to us," Thorolfur answered, equally impassive.

"Various kinds of information are stored on mobile phones," Thora said, stalling as she tried to recall the model that Jonas owned. Some information could be obtained from the telephone company, so they were hardly trying to establish whom Jonas had called. They must have been after his calendar or photographs, if such features were included. What made the warrant unusual was that the police were interested only in the telephone. They were not insisting on a regular search of premises, unless such a request had been turned down. "Actually, it says here that you may take the phone, but there's no mention of the SIM card. Can he keep that?" Thora asked, vainly hoping that whatever they wanted was stored on the card and not in the phone itself.

Thorolfur snatched the warrant out of Thora's hands. "It says mobile telephone number"—he scanned the page and when he had found it he turned it around proudly for Thora to see, stabbing at the number with his finger—"667 6767. See, that's Jonas's number. It even states that he is the registered user. If you give me the phone without the card, you're not handing over what the warrant requires." Smugly, he leaned back in his seat and addressed Jonas. "You have to hand the phone over to me."

Thora looked at Jonas. "Are you opposed to giving them the phone?"

Jonas bristled indignantly. "Of course I am! What am I supposed to do without a phone? Admittedly, the reception out here isn't up to much, but I don't care. It's my phone."

"I advise you to advise your client to hand over what the warrant demands. Doing otherwise would be extremely unwise." Thorolfur could not conceal his irritation at the delay.

"I didn't kill Birna!" Jonas slammed his fist down on the desk. "How could you think I did?"

"No one's claiming that. Least of all me," Thorolfur replied, more calmly than before. "However, your behavior does raise certain questions."

"What are you insinuating?" Jonas bellowed. He hit the desk again, this time so hard that a pen stand and other loose objects shook on its surface. "I had nothing to do with this murder, and I insist on taking a lie-detector test to prove it, but you shan't have my phone."

Thora leaned over to Jonas and gently gripped his hand. "Jonas, lie detectors aren't used in Iceland. They're inadmissible as evidence in this country. I advise you to hand over the telephone. Especially if you haven't done anything wrong."

"That's out of the question," said Jonas firmly. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair as if to emphasize his determination. Then he inclined forward and whispered into Thora's ear, "They mustn't take the phone under any circumstances. Believe me, that would be a seriously bad idea." He leaned back away from her and smiled at the police officer.

"Okay, I understand. Give me your phone." She stared him in the eye. "Trust me."

Jonas looked at her suspiciously. "No. You'll give it to the police."

"Jonas. Trust me, I said." Thora held out her open hand.

Jonas just stared dubiously at her. After a moment's thought he took his mobile out of the pocket of the jacket hung over his chair. He handed the phone to Thora, but did not let go. "I mean it; you mustn't let him have the phone."

Thora nodded. "I know. You can let go." She heaved a sigh when he finally released his grip. She was relieved to see that it was not a camera phone.

"Please hand the phone over to me," Thorolfur said, holding out the sheet of paper to affirm his right.

"One moment," Thora said, and put her own mobile on the table. She opened the back and removed the SIM card. Then she did the same to Jonas's mobile and swapped the cards. "Here you are. One mobile phone, number 667 6767, registered user Jonas Juliusson." She handed her mobile to the police officer. "Completely in accordance with the warrant, if I have not misunderstood the wording." She smiled at Thorolfur.