He had only a vague memory of the murderer’s message that they had forced him to read. This wasn’t surprising since, from what he could recall, it had been nothing but a meaningless jumble of numbers. As incomprehensible as the other actions of the person who had cut out the numbers and glued them to the paper. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea who it could have been. Only that it must have been a stranger. Nobody who knew Elísa could have done that to her.’
‘Then how are the police supposed to catch him?’
Now it was his turn to mouth helplessly as he cast around in vain for an answer. In the end he gave up. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Margrét needs to be with us. Not with strangers.’
‘I don’t know if Dad told you but she wants to go.’ It was so hard to say it out loud. He felt a sudden fury at his mother for forcing him to do so. ‘Perhaps it’ll help reconcile her to me.’
‘Reconcile her to you? What have you done?’ His parents behaved as if there were nothing odd about the way Margrét was reacting to him. They hadn’t once commented on the fact that she spent all day reading in the bedroom that used to be his brother’s and hardly ever emerged. Even when she was forced to join them at mealtimes, she made a point of never looking in his direction, and her grandparents made an equally determined effort not to notice. To compensate, they spoke unnaturally loudly and cheerfully. The only ones who behaved normally were Stefán and Bárdur. Except when Stefán asked if Mummy was hungry and if she was coming to eat with them. Then Bárdur behaved like the rest of them. Those were the times Sigvaldi found hardest.
‘I haven’t done anything. But she seems to blame me. She’s only a child. She probably thinks I should have been there to save her mother.’
‘Have you tried asking her why? Do you want me to talk to her?’
‘Yes, I’ve tried asking and no, she won’t talk to me. I think she just needs time to recover. The women at the Children’s House have recommended therapy to help her get over it.’
‘Therapy?’ His mother’s tone was so scandalised you’d have thought he wanted to send Margrét to rehab.
‘Appointments with a psychologist. A child psychologist who specialises in trauma counselling. There’s nothing wrong with that. What are you worried about? That it might be harmful?’
His mother didn’t answer. It was her usual reaction when she disagreed with the person she was talking to but didn’t want to quarrel. But she couldn’t disguise her anger when she spoke again: ‘If she’s sent away from us she’s bound to need trauma counselling. I’ve never heard such nonsense. To tear a child away from her family after she’s just lost her mother! I swear some of these so-called specialists aren’t right in the head.’
‘Actually, the suggestion came from the police. And nothing’s been decided yet.’ At that moment his phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number and wondered whether to answer. What if one of his patients had gone into labour? It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had rung him directly. He dithered, then eventually picked up. If it was a pregnant woman, he would direct her to speak to the doctor on duty in the maternity ward: he was on leave. He almost burst out laughing at the inadequacy of the word.
It was a policeman on the phone, the detective who had interviewed him on the second occasion, Huldar. He didn’t introduce himself with his full name and Sigvaldi couldn’t remember his patronymic, not that it mattered. He listened, said ‘yes’ once, then goodbye. Slumping back, he took to staring blankly at the wall again. ‘That was the police. They’re coming to fetch Margrét later.’
‘You didn’t even try to object.’ His mother came to stand in front of him, blocking his view of the textured white paint.
‘No. It’s the right thing to do.’ Sigvaldi let his arm fall onto the soft sofa cushion. The phone slipped from his grasp.
The phone call had sapped his last reserves of energy.
‘There’s been another murder. Same guy.’
With an effort he managed to pull himself upright. He had to get his act together. There wasn’t much time; the police and a social worker were due in two hours. He wanted to talk to Margrét, explain the situation and try to work out if this was really what she wanted. If so, he would help her to choose clothes and toys to take with her. If not, he would call the police and revoke his consent. In that case he would just have to take the kids into hiding himself. In some remote shepherd’s hut in the highlands, if necessary.
Perhaps she would give him a chance to explain how terribly hard it was for him that he hadn’t been at home when it happened. Perhaps he could convince her that he wasn’t in any way responsible for the ghastly fate of her mother – of the woman he had loved as much as she had.
Sigvaldi squared his shoulders. ‘If it means Margrét’ll be safe, we’ll just have to go along with it. I’m not losing her as well.’
Stefán’s ruffled head appeared in the doorway and Sigvaldi almost broke down when he repeated the question that was preying on his mind: ‘Daddy, when’s Mummy coming home?’ The childish pink lips turned down. ‘She didn’t kiss me bye-bye.’
Chapter 19
The sickening stench of charred flesh intensified as the evening wore on. It was impossible to become inured to it. In the brilliance of the portable floodlights, no one even noticed that the fleeting portion of daylight had long since ceased to filter in through the curtains. The blue-white glare turned people’s eyes black in unnaturally pale faces, giving them an exaggerated appearance of shock. They spoke more slowly than usual, in lowered voices, clamping their hands over their mouths in a vain attempt to prevent the smell from coming into contact with their tongues.
Soon forensics would be ready to pack up and the body could be removed; only then would it be possible to open a window. But it would take more than a blast of fresh air to purge their minds of what they had seen.
Huldar was among those who had been there longest, having accompanied the pathologist and forensics team to the scene, but he doubted he was the only one suffering from claustrophobia. Erla seemed to have lowered all her defences for once and forgotten to play the hardboiled detective. She said little and her face expressed the weariness and despair shared by the rest of the team. Ríkhardur too had hardly uttered a word since he’d shown up.
Huldar regretted having summoned them. Both had been working all weekend and had a right – a need – to knock off early. Yet neither had protested or tried to make excuses. Erla had been in the changing room at the gym, with one sock off. Ríkhardur had been on his way to Mosfellsbær, the little town to the north of Reykjavík, to visit his parents but had immediately turned round.
They showed no sign of resentment at being dragged back to work. Erla had arrived first and as a result was given her choice of tasks. When Ríkhardur eventually appeared there had been no need to give him his orders. He sensed what was required and got on with the job, without saying anything on the rare occasions when his colleagues conferred in muted voices. Nobody took exception to his silence: they were all pretty despondent.
They could do nothing now to change the fate of Ástrós Einarsdóttir. Instead, all their efforts were focused on the perpetrator, on ensuring that he was brought to justice. Their anger had ceased to flare every time they caught sight of the woman’s maimed body lying dead on the kitchen floor, yet their outrage was palpable. Huldar felt as if his fury was winding itself round his head and squeezing tight.
‘Any chance we could cover her up?’ Erla asked the pathologist, who had been crouching over the body for nearly an hour. ‘I can’t look at that face any longer.’
‘Nearly done.’ The pathologist carried on recording information about the victim without raising his eyes. Then he put down his notebook and began taking photos again. ‘It’s not as if you can see much.’
In a nightmare repetition of Elísa’s killing, the woman had been blindfolded with shiny, light grey duct tape that had been wound repeatedly around the upper part of her head. Perhaps it had been a mercy tha
t she couldn’t see. The same tape had been used to secure the electric appliance in her mouth, the appliance that had brought about her death and presumably prevented her from screaming. Little flesh was visible; only the top of her forehead, nose and ears, and the odd glimpse of her cheeks between the lengths of tape. The way her shortish, bristly hair stuck out of the top made it look as though she had died of an electric shock. If only; it would have been a much more merciful end.
The pathologist took one more picture, then stood up. ‘You can take the body now. Is the ambulance here?’
Huldar told him it was and everyone’s relief was palpable. The worst was over and soon they would no longer be confronted by the gruesome sight.
For some reason it was the woman’s fingers that affected Huldar most. They were clenched as though she had been groping for some way of preventing the inevitable, of pulling the gadget out of her throat and stopping the unspeakable agony that must have accompanied her death throes. From the signs, the pathologist deduced that the murderer must have pinned down her hands with his feet. There were a number of kitchen utensils on the table, including a large knife and a pair of scissors that had probably been used to cut the tape. Whether and for what purpose the murderer had intended to use the other implements was unclear. To frighten the woman, perhaps. But the murder weapon would have been horrifying enough on its own.
Huldar had been trying to interpret the scene in terms of what was there. In addition to the kitchen utensils there was an overturned chair, and beside it on the floor a single sheet of paper covered in strange jottings. These consisted of random numbers and calculations whose logic was obscure. They didn’t resemble the coded message left at Elísa’s house; for one thing, they were written in pencil, not cut out of a newspaper. The pencil had been found on the floor beside the kitchen unit.
The woman had in all likelihood been sitting on the chair before she died. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether it was her or the murderer who had scribbled the sums, but given the clumsiness of the figures, it was probably her. It looked like the writing of a person who couldn’t see what she was doing. When her death struggle began, Ástrós had jerked sideways and fallen on the floor. According to the pathologist, the pain of her unprotected landing would have been completely eclipsed by the agony in her mouth and throat. It was unlikely she would even have noticed the fall.
‘You can take the paper, the pencil and these kitchen utensils. And unplug that bloody thing. I want the extension lead too. Don’t detach it, just wind it up carefully and put it on top of this.’ The pathologist pointed to the black handle protruding from Ástrós’s mouth, half hidden by tape. ‘Make sure you use gloves – when you unplug it as well. And bag up any loose items.’ He removed a large bag made of strong transparent plastic from his case. ‘You know how to mark them, don’t you?’
Again, Huldar had to answer for his team. The others had spoken little and then only to answer questions directly addressed to them. Even without Ríkhardur’s usual dampening presence the atmosphere would have been gloomier than at any funeral. They were all upset, though none of them had known the dead woman. Huldar was satisfied with their reaction: he wouldn’t have wanted to work with people who could shrug off a murder, particularly one as grisly as this.
‘What have you discovered?’ Huldar watched as the pathologist removed his mask and tugged off the gloves, which seemed glued to his hands.
‘Well, I can’t state anything categorically but her body temperature gives an estimated time of death of around midnight. All the indications are that the cause of death was burns to the throat, though I’ll need to conduct a full post-mortem to establish what happened and what actually killed her. She may have suffocated due to obstruction of her upper airway as a result of the burns. Or haemorrhaged and drowned in her own blood. There are various possible scenarios but I have no comparable cases on which to base a verdict. It’s not every day that people are despatched with a pair of curling tongs, if that’s what they are.’
Huldar and Erla stared, transfixed, at the black handle. The odour of charred flesh grew stronger again and Erla rubbed her nose in a feeble attempt to block it out.
The pathologist shook his head sombrely. ‘I’m afraid her death was neither painless nor quick. Alas.’
Huldar and Erla both made faces. Ríkhardur turned away from sprinkling the shelves of a kitchen unit with fingerprint powder, his face wearing a similarly pained expression. The pathologist continued unperturbed: ‘But, as I said, the post-mortem will clarify the picture and may also provide us with a more precise time of death, though that’s going to be a bit of a challenge. It would help if you could find out when she last ate, but that could be tricky – she lived alone, didn’t she? Assuming this was her flat.’
‘Yes. So I’m told.’ Huldar had talked to the dead woman’s sister, who had reported the murder. She was almost too shocked to speak but he had managed to glean some basic information, including the fact that she had come round because Ástrós wasn’t answering the phone. Between sobs she had explained that she was worried her sister might have had a heart attack and been lying unconscious on the floor. She’d suffered from high blood pressure. ‘According to her sister, Ástrós was widowed two years ago, so we can be certain she didn’t have supper with her husband. They had no children. There’s a cake in the fridge with only one slice missing, so it doesn’t look as though she’d been entertaining. There’s a saucepan, plate, knife and fork in the sink, also indicating that she ate alone. But there are two glasses. I suppose one could have been used earlier in the day, but given how clean and tidy the place is, she doesn’t appear to have been the type to let the dirty dishes pile up.’
‘Have you collected it all? The cake too?’ The pathologist had a reputation for thoroughness. Huldar knew from experience that he wouldn’t leave the scene until he was satisfied that all the evidence had been bagged up and nothing had been missed.
‘Yes. I’m hoping there’ll be fingerprints on the glasses, but they’ll almost certainly prove to be hers. I get the impression the killer’s too careful to be caught out like that. Did you find any prints on the body?’ Huldar already knew the answer. He had been watching the pathologist attentively and couldn’t have failed to notice any significant discoveries.
‘I found nothing on her front during the provisional examination. Naturally it’s possible I’ve overlooked something but I’m not optimistic about finding any prints on her clothes, given the way she’s dressed.’ The woman had quit this world clad in a thick towelling dressing gown, a threadbare T-shirt and checked cotton pyjama bottoms. Her top had ridden up as she fought for her life, revealing a pale, flabby stomach. Her dressing gown was open and the flaps lay spread out at her sides like misshapen wings. ‘We’ll know more once I’ve conducted an exhaustive examination at the lab. The back of her neck may be covered in prints but I doubt it. The tape is our best bet but I’m not getting my hopes up about that either. We found nothing on it last time and whoever the murderer is he seems to be incredibly careful. Assuming it’s the same man.’
Huldar didn’t comment, though he believed it was. There were too many similarities for it to be a coincidence. Two women, murdered a few days apart in almost exactly the same, grotesque fashion. The tape on its own was enough to convince Huldar that they shared a killer. They had little enough else in common, aside from the detail that neither had apparently been raped and the circumstances didn’t point to a sexual motive. As far as he knew, there was nothing in either of the women’s lives that provided any reason to suppose that someone would want them dead: Elísa, a thirtysomething mother of three children, who worked at the tax office; Ástrós, a widow in her sixties, who used to teach biology at sixth-form college and had few interests apart from watching television, if her sister’s description was to be believed. The flat bore witness to the woman’s humdrum existence: there were photos of her and her husband posing together in a variety of situations: on beach holidays, picnicki
ng on the Icelandic moors, at festive dinners. Although the photographs had been taken at lengthy intervals, the couple had changed little; she invariably wore her short, thin hair combed back from her rather colourless face; he had fleshier cheeks and his hair had receded a little more in every picture. Ordinary people. Neither Ástrós nor Elísa appeared the type to attract the attention of a deranged killer. Yet the fact remained that they had.
Huldar needed to keep all his senses alert so as not to miss any important details, but this was proving hard as the odour of singed flesh kept forcing his thoughts back to the macabre scene in the kitchen. From now on, the sight of duct tape would always bring an acid taste to his mouth and he assumed that the same would apply to all the others who had set foot in the flat that day.
Huldar bent down to the socket and carefully unplugged the extension lead. With gloved hands, he rolled up the lead and placed it gently on top of the body. His head swam and he took care to straighten up slowly for fear of fainting and keeling over on top of the poor woman. She had suffered enough when alive; there was no cause to visit any further indignities on her corpse.
While he waited for the dizziness to subside, he tried to discipline his thoughts in a way that he had failed to do since he arrived. It was so easy to fall into the trap of concentrating solely on the tape and electric appliances. But despite their similarities, the two murders exhibited a number of differences too. Huldar knew he should keep an open mind about whether it was the same perpetrator. Better men than him had been badly burnt by taking such things for granted and in the process overlooking obvious points that didn’t fit in with their theory.
Elísa had been found in bed, not on the floor like Ástrós. In the former case, the murderer had waited for the victim to go to sleep; in the latter he had burst in on the woman while she was awake. Huldar had a feeling that this was a symptom of growing confidence, but it was only a hunch. It was also possible that it wasn’t the same man. While the detail about the duct tape hadn’t been reported in the news, it could conceivably have leaked out. A number of people, not just within the police, were aware that tape had been used in Elísa’s murder, and it was quite possible that more than one person had confided this detail to a spouse, family member or friend. In normal circumstances it wouldn’t take long for that sort of information to spread.
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