Adolf put down the phone and wondered about this strange disease afflicting his daughter. He couldn’t understand it at all. The girl had never been chubby; before she got sick she’d had a bit of baby fat but nothing you’d notice. Now she was a walking skeleton who refused to eat, and at this rate no man would want her even if she offered to pay him for it. It wasn’t that he thought of her in that way - she was too young and besides, she was his daughter. But this appeared to be the life that awaited her if she carried on with this nonsense.
Tinna’s mother had been hysterical on the telephone and insisted that the girl was mortally ill. He didn’t quite agree with that — he was sure that in the end she would be so hungry that she would have to eat something. He did vaguely recall a headline in some gossip magazine about a famous model who’d died of anorexia, but that was different. That woman had starved herself because of work, but Tinna had no reason to do so. In the end, she would come round.
He stood up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to look for coffee, but to no avail. All he found was a little jar of instant granules that had expired several months earlier. Nevertheless, he prepared a large mug of the slop and gulped it down at high speed, black and sugarless. He needed to perk up a bit and be wide awake when he spoke to his lawyer. He found that since he’d lost his job he was paying less attention to the world around him and was generally more apathetic. It was probably because he had too much time on his hands, which meant that he dragged things out until the last minute. He shook himself to speed up the effect of the caffeine in his blood. He didn’t remember who had recommended this method, but it always seemed to work. He phoned his lawyer.
‘Did you know that the nurse who wanted to meet me is dead?’ was the first thing she said.
‘No,’ lied Adolf. He’d seen the death notice several days earlier and had felt relieved. ‘Does it matter?’
His lawyer cleared her throat. ‘I would have thought so, yes,’ she said. ‘It was my understanding that she had information that might have helped you. You needed her, I can tell you that much.’
‘I didn’t rape the damn girl,’ snarled Adolf. This was all bullshit. They’d never pin it on him.
‘You don’t need to keep telling me,’ said his lawyer, with a hint of fatigue in her voice. ‘If this Alda had been able to testify in your favour, it would have meant a great deal. Your position is bad enough as it is.’
‘How can someone be accused of rape after more than twenty-four hours?’ he said heatedly. ‘If I had raped her for real she would have gone straight to the police or the hospital. Not home.’
‘That does work in your favour, but it’s actually not uncommon, and therefore doesn’t suffice in itself. I remember that she had some injuries and unexplained bleeding from her genitals.’ Adolf didn’t feel like saying anything, and she continued, ‘Of course you already know all this, there’s no use going over and over it.’ She paused for a moment but was met by more silence, so she started again: ‘When this Alda called me, she said she wanted to speak to you before she came to meet me. I tried to get her to change her mind, but she insisted. Did she contact you?’
‘No,’ Adolf lied for the second time. ‘She didn’t.’
‘That’s too bad,’ said the lawyer. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ It was clear from her tone that she didn’t believe him, so perhaps to cover this she added: ‘It’s just that Alda treated the girl when she went to A&E, so whatever it was that she wanted to say would probably have made a great deal of difference. As it stands now, the hospital report is very bad for you.’
Adolf knew all this. ‘I told you, Alda didn’t come.’
‘What you actually said was that she hadn’t contacted you, but it doesn’t matter.’ The woman sounded unconvinced. ‘You let me know if you suddenly remember a phone call or a visit from her that slipped your mind.’
Adolf let her question go in one ear and out the other. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ He hesitated slightly but then continued, ‘I’m not in the mood. My daughter is ill and she’s been admitted to hospital. As a matter of fact, her life’s in danger.’ To judge by the silence on the other end of the phone this surprised his lawyer, who was usually imperturbable. ‘Still, I’m sure she’ll recover. Maybe she could even testify…’
Chapter Nineteen
Friday 20 July2007
Yesterday’s stormclouds had disappeared and been replaced by thin wispy clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky. It was as if God had been puffing on a cigar and exhaled in the direction of Iceland. Thóra sat outside on her veranda, enjoying the morning. The pages of the Morgunbladid daily newspaper lying on the table in front of her rustled in the breeze and steam drifted up from her coffee cup. She closed the paper and took a sip of coffee. Mercifully, Morgunbladid had gone easy on Markus in its report on his arrest and the detention order pending trial. This was perhaps no surprise, since the judge had been on the fence. For a while Thóra even thought that he would deny the state prosecutor’s request. However, this did not happen, although he did reduce the recommended custody period from three weeks to five days. Thóra’s objection and her remarks on evidence that pointed to Markus’s innocence may have helped. For the first time in her life she wanted a cigarette, or at least to smell cigarette smoke. Passive smoke from Bella was probably to blame, unless she was losing her mind. Thóra hoped that it was the former. She couldn’t afford to fall apart today, since the High Court would rule on the detention order this afternoon.
Understandably Markus had wanted to appeal the district court’s decision. In fact only three days of the five had remained when the decision was announced, but she did not blame him. Three days felt like a thousand: no innocent man wanted to sit behind bars. She looked at the clock and saw that it wasn’t even eight yet. If she left the house within the next hour she might have time to find something else that could rebut the court’s decision. Yet she had no idea what exactly that might be. Without doubt, it was Alda’s diary from 1973 that had influenced the district court judge’s hesitation over Markus’s guilt. Thóra had handed it over to the police immediately after Markus’s interview. Stefán had reacted angrily and accused her of concealing evidence from the police, and Thóra had tried unsuccessfully to explain herself. When the prosecutor had tried to devalue the importance of the diary in court, the judge took Thóra’s side and said the handover hadn’t been delayed unnaturally in light of the circumstances. Another small victory had been won when the judge had asked numerous questions about the evidence that suggested the three bodies had been placed in the basement after the eruption had been going on for some time, which meant that Markus couldn’t have been there. The police didn’t have much on Markus as far as the bodies in the basement were concerned, if you didn’t count the head.
Alda’s death was a different story. Here there was very little in Markus’s favour: both a witness and evidence suggested that he’d been at the scene. The witness turned out to be a boy who had been distributing flyers for his sports club’s tin- can collection on the evening that Alda was murdered. The police had found one of the flyers in Alda’s house and tracked down the boy, who had given a description of a man who had shown up there at the same time as the boy had been walking away from Alda’s house, around seven thirty. The description fit Markus perfectly, and the boy had then selected a photo of him from a group of several he was shown. The boy said that the man had walked up to the house, but he hadn’t seen him get out of a car, nor did he particularly remember anything about cars on the street that evening. Thóra tried to point out that Markus’s car was a model that any normal healthy teenage boy would certainly notice, but to no effect. It was pointed out that Markus could easily have parked elsewhere, especially if he had come there with criminal intent and hadn’t wanted anyone to notice him. Thóra’s objection that Markus had an extremely average appearance and that the description could easily have applied to countless other men was also of little use, as, for that matter, was the fact that the boy c
ould have selected Markus’s photo from the stack at random. However, Thóra hoped this assertion would find better support after she examined the photos that the boy had been shown, because the police could easily have given him a selection in which Markus alone fit the description. She would be allowed to see them later, and she also hoped that a record of calls to and from Markus’s phone, as well as Alda’s, would be turned over to her at the same time. Thóra clung to the hope that this log would reveal that Alda had called Markus as he was driving eastwards from Reykjavik, as he insisted. That would strengthen his testimony a great deal; Alda would hardly have rung Markus if he were at her house.
Thóra had more trouble finding an explanation for the DNA sample on Alda’s body, which proved to be from Markus. This was a hair discovered upon combing out the woman’s pubic hair. It was compared with hair that Markus had provided, and turned out to be from his head. The autopsy hadn’t revealed any recent sexual intercourse, so
Alda’s genitals had been swabbed in search of Markus’s saliva, which had not been found. What his head had been doing between the woman’s thighs was thus left undetermined, and Markus could not shed any light on this detail, since he insisted vehemently that he had not been at Alda’s home, much less between her legs. The only conclusion that Thóra could reach on this subject was that the hair could have come from toilet paper, or something else Markus had come into contact with during his visit the previous evening. Such a thing was not impossible, but this explanation would not be taken into consideration at this stage of the proceedings. On the bright side, if it came to trial, the prosecution would be required to prove unequivocally that the hair had been brought to the scene that fateful night and in connection with the murder; not before that night, and by accident.
Markus had taken the court’s decision incredibly calmly. He was unhappy with it, but understood that he had to swallow it and wait for the High Court’s decision. Thóra praised him for his courage and said that she would let his family know, among them Hjalti, Markus’s only son, who lived with Markus’s ex-wife when he wasn’t in the Islands with his uncle Leifur. The phone call proved to be difficult for Thóra: Hjalti was a little older than her son Gylfi, only nineteen and he seemed very upset at the news. He asked over and over whether his father would be sentenced to prison, and it didn’t matter how much Thóra tried to reassure him that this was unlikely - he wouldn’t be convinced. He only calmed down a little when Thóra gave him Markus’s message that everything would be all right and not to worry at all. Out of pity for the poor boy, Thóra told him at the end of the conversation that he could phone her if he had any questions or wanted to talk to her about his father’s case. She fully expected him to take her at her word and keep in touch, especially now that his father’s name was in the papers.
Thóra took another sip of coffee and stood up. She looked out over the calm swell and shaded her eyes, then closed them and breathed deeply through her nose. She considered how best she could spend her spare hours, without reaching any conclusion. Markus’s detention made it more difficult for her to determine a possible witness. It was clear that Alda’s mother and sister would hardly welcome her with open arms. And although Alda’s colleagues hadn’t been as close to her as her relatives, they would undoubtedly view Thóra with suspicion. Nonetheless, Thóra decided to start with them. Yesterday she’d received a message from Dís, one of the plastic surgeons at the office where Alda had worked, saying she would be willing to meet up. Who knew, maybe she had some useful information. She might even know the real reason behind Alda’s resignation from the A&E. Alda’s sister’s theory that her murderer was a vengeful rapist was starting to sound more convincing, in the absence of more plausible options.
Thóra reopened her eyes and looked out at the placid sea, so much nicer to look at than the overgrown garden. This was the summer that Thóra had intended to sort out her garden, but now it was almost over. She’d ticked almost nothing off the list, apart from mowing the lawn. The hedge had grown to the height of a man or taller, which Thóra wasn’t proud of. Its branches reached up to the sky, utterly neglected. The flowerbeds had succumbed to weeds. She could certainly see how entire cities could disappear beneath a rainforest’s lush greenery, considering how quickly vegetation could sweep over things even in a polar climate. She went back inside. The garden could wait until next year.
Of the four people in the waiting room, Thóra felt she was the one who could most use the services of a plastic surgeon. There were two young women who were attractive by any standards, although their bleached blonde hair did little for them. The other occupant was a young man, and Thóra couldn’t think for the life of her what he might need fixed. On behalf of all Icelandic women she sincerely hoped he wasn’t planning on having a sex change complete with breast implants.
The waiting room was plain, but the fixtures and fittings looked expensive. It made the little closet that served as a waiting room at her legal firm look ridiculous, which suggested a plastic surgeon’s time was worth far more than a lawyer’s. That was no surprise: people were more concerned about their looks than their reputations. Thóra looked at the clock and hoped that it would soon be her turn; she was getting uncomfortable sitting there, knowing the others were regarding her and wondering what work she was having done. She was on the verge of pointing out to one of them, who had glanced once too often at Thóra’s chest, to mind her own business, when the receptionist appeared and informed Thóra that Dís would see her now. Thóra stood up and followed the slender woman. She was wearing a short dress, and such high heels that Thóra’s toes ached in sympathy. Again she compared this to her legal firm’s office set-up, where Bella steered clients into the harbour of the waiting room like a squat little Gothic tug-boat, the tattered hem of her floor-length dress trailing behind her.
‘Through here, please,’ said the dark-haired girl, her snow-white smile gleaming. ‘And I hope it all goes marvellously for you.’ She opened the door to the office, turned and left.
Dís was on the telephone but indicated that Thóra should take a seat before putting down the phone, standing up and extending her hand. She was wearing a white fitted shirt and black jeans that hugged her slender waist, as well as a thick belt that clashed with an otherwise conservative outfit. Thóra thought they were about the same age, and noticed that the doctor was in very good shape. Her body didn’t look like it had been sculpted with a scalpel, but rather by blood, sweat and tears — probably requiring several hours a day with a personal trainer. It must be important for a plastic surgeon to look good.
‘Hello,’ said Dís, who seemed aware of Thóra’s scrutiny of her body. She sat back down. ‘I’m sorry to have made you wait; I didn’t expect to be so busy. It’s usually quite calm here before lunch.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Thóra. ‘I’m just grateful that you were available to meet me at such short notice.’
‘I gathered it was important,’ said Dís, smiling hesitantly. Her face was not dissimilar to Thóra’s, with high cheekbones and a wide mouth. The main difference was that Dís had nicely styled hair and flawless make-up, whereas Thóra usually dragged her hair into a messy ponytail and wore only mascara. ‘Of course I want to do anything I can to help apprehend whoever did this to Alda. I saw in the paper that a man had been taken into custody. I hope the sentence fits his disgusting crime.’
Thóra cleared her throat. ‘Ah, yes. I forgot to mention that I am actually representing the suspect.’ She could see this information was not well received. The doctor’s friendly face hardened. ‘He says he’s innocent, and it’s indisputable that the police don’t have much to go on. His custody period is unusually short given the seriousness of the case, which reflects the judge’s doubts about my client’s guilt. There is a lot of evidence that actually supports his plea of innocence. I’m looking for information to back him up, and at the same time I want to find out who actually did murder Alda.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘No one who cared for her will want to see
the wrong man punished.’
Dís said nothing. She gazed thoughtfully at Thóra, who looked resolutely back. Then Dís’s expression suddenly seemed to relax. ‘Of course I don’t want that,’ she said. ‘Nobody wants an innocent man to be found guilty. So shall we say that I’m prepared to help you in the unlikely event that this man didn’t do it?’
Thóra decided not to spend any more time defending Markus to the doctor. She hadn’t come here to argue, and it wouldn’t strengthen her position to antagonize her informant. ‘Okay, thanks.’ She turned to her list of questions, determined to make the most of her time since she didn’t have long. One of the people sitting outside was probably waiting for a consultation with the woman about some urgent operation. ‘When you heard that Alda had been murdered,’ she said, ‘did you wonder how such a thing could have happened, or who could possibly have wanted to harm her?’
Dís didn’t take time to think, but replied immediately. ‘I must admit, the first time I heard it was murder was this morning, when I read about the custody order. As you know, I was the one who discovered Alda, and I thought at that point that she’d killed herself. Suicides don’t often make it to the papers, so I was very surprised this morning when I saw her death had been reported. I actually have no idea what else has gone on since I found her body. No one’s told us anything about the progress of the investigation.’ She added hurriedly: ‘Of course, we didn’t even think that there was an investigation.’
Ashes to Dust Page 19
