Markus looked up and smiled. ‘Only sixty-eight more hours of this.’
‘Did you know that Alda was obsessed with sex?’ Thóra changed the subject, not sure how best to phrase the question. ‘In fact, her computer was full of pornography.’
Markus’s eyes widened. ‘No, I didn’t know that,’ he said. ‘She was always something of a prude. Could it have had something to do with her work?’
‘Maybe,’ said Thóra, although she couldn’t really see how this would have helped her work at either the clinic or the A&E. She took out the photos Dís had given her and showed them to him. ‘Do you recognize this tattoo at all?’
Markus peered at the picture. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never seen this. Who’d have something this pitiful written on them?’ he asked, giving her back the page.
‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know,’ she said, passing him the photo of the young man that had also been found in Alda’s desk. ‘How about this man; do you know him?’ Markus was visibly surprised when he saw the photo, but he said nothing, simply shook his head and returned the photo to her. ‘You’ve never seen him?’ Thóra asked.
‘No; at first he reminded me of a boy 1 used to know years ago, but I can see that it was taken recently,’ said Markus. ‘Who is he, then?’
‘No idea,’ said Thóra. ‘I was hoping you’d know.’ She put away the pages. ‘When did you next meet Alda after the evacuation?’ she asked. ‘I was told she’d attended Isafjördur Junior College for a while, but no one knew of her there. Could that have been a misunderstanding?’
‘No, not at all,’ replied Markus. ‘Alda went west and started school in Isafjördur after the new year. She then changed schools when she moved to Reykjavik around a year later. That’s when we renewed our acquaintance, because I was going to Reykjavik Junior College, where she transferred to.’ He stared into space, counting under his breath. ‘It was at the beginning of 1974. I was in my first year then.’
‘What year was Alda in?’
‘She was in the same year as me. We were the same age, and she’d finished the first part of the college year out west.’
‘The way I heard it, Alda registered for junior college immediately after the eruption,’ said Thóra. ‘She started in the middle of the winter term, and so was moved up a year. I found this quite unusual — is that really what happened?’
‘I heard the same story,’ replied Markus. ‘She was the brightest student in her class, so she’d easily have been able to jump ahead a year.’
‘But then wouldn’t she have been a year ahead of you at Reykjavik Junior College?’ asked Thóra.
‘Yes, but maybe she hadn’t passed her exams the spring after the eruption, or regretted not having been able to take the autumn term,’ said Markus impatiently. Clearly he thought this discussion a complete waste of time.
‘Let’s turn to something else,’ said Thóra. ‘I understand that the Friday evening before the volcano blew, there was a school dance at which the students in your class all planned to get drunk. Do you remember?’
Markus nodded his head sheepishly. ‘That’s the first time I ever drank alcohol, though it might sound unbelievable,’ he said. ‘Most of my friends started experimenting around the time they were confirmed.’ He looked embarrassed but kept going. ‘Dad handled alcohol badly, if you catch my drift. So I planned never to drink, because I didn’t want to be like him.’
‘That was an unusually wise decision for a boy of your age,’ said Thóra.
‘It didn’t last long,’ said Markus, and he smiled remorsefully. ‘Pretty much everyone was going to the party and I couldn’t weasel my way out of it. It was the first time I ever got drunk, and I’ll never forget that night.’
‘Do you remember whether Alda was picked up or whether she made her own way home?’ asked Thóra. ‘Did she perhaps go down to the harbour?’
Markus looked at her, surprised. ‘She certainly wasn’t picked up,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t that drunk; she was in better shape than the rest of us. On the other hand, I had to get picked up by Dad, which was awful. He wasn’t very pleased, that’s for sure. But whether Alda went down to the harbour that night, I have no idea. I doubt it. Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve found out that on that same night something happened at the pier. It was completely covered in blood the next morning, which raises the question of whether these bodies had something to do with it. It crossed my mind that Alda might have somehow stumbled into whatever happened and even got hold of the head there.’
Markus looked at her blankly. ‘And then what? Kept it until she asked me about the box on Monday evening? The eruption started on Monday night, so she would have had the head with her for forty-eight hours.’
‘Did the box smell at all?’ asked Thóra, but Markus could only shake his head. ‘Do you remember whether Alda had been in a bad mood, or in any way different from usual, the weekend of the dance and the following Monday? I’m pretty sure something happened to her the night of the dance, and I imagine it might be somehow connected to the bodies and the head.’ She told him about the diary.
‘I actually didn’t see her that weekend,’ said Markus. ‘She was ill, so she stayed indoors. She didn’t come to school on Monday either, so I was surprised when she called and asked me to meet her that evening and to come alone. It was all very mysterious, but of course I understand the reason now, having seen what was in the box she gave me. She was acting oddly that evening, I know that much. You’d have to ask someone else whether she was like that the whole weekend, because I didn’t see her.’
Thóra nodded. ‘And what about the night when Alda’s hair was cut off in the school gym?’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s completely unconnected to the case, but you never know.’
‘I was ill, so luckily I wasn’t there,’ replied Markus heatedly. ‘I would have been furious. It was a terrible thing to do, and it didn’t help that the teachers had no idea who did it. They couldn’t even find the hair.’
‘So you knew who did it?’ asked Thóra.
‘No, unfortunately. Or fortunately, for him — I would have made him pay for it.’
‘Are you sure the person in question was male?’ she said. ‘To me it seems very much like something a jealous girl would do.’
Markus looked at her, startled. Clearly he hadn’t thought of this. ‘Yes, I just assumed it was a boy. I suspected a boy named Stefán, who kind of had a crush on Alda, but he flat- out denied it and I was forced to believe him, he was so convincing.’
Thóra remembered the entry in Alda’s diary that had said she had kissed ‘Stebbi’, which was short for Stefán. She assumed this was the same boy. ‘Could it have been anyone else?’
‘No, probably not. Alda was friends with everyone and I don’t know of anyone who resented her. I did everything in my power to find out who did it, though. When I discovered the gym had been unlocked the whole night, I stopped trying.
It could have been anyone in the Islands, although there weren’t many people who would do such a disgusting thing.‘
It was no use discussing this any further. The only thing she’d accomplished by bringing up the hair story was to annoy Markus. ‘What do you know about your neighbours from before the volcano went up, Valgerdur and Dadi, who lived next door to you?’ she asked. ‘They were nicknamed Dadi Horseshoe and Horseshoe Two. Could they have been connected to these bodies in any way?’
Markus looked at her flatly. ‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘If the men died of boredom.’
On the way into town from Litla-Hraun, Thóra called Reykjavik Junior College and to her surprise someone picked up. The man sighed when she informed him of her business, but promised to find the information she requested. Unfortunately it would take him a little while, he said, so he recommended that she phone back in fifteen minutes, which she duly did. ‘I’ve found it,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Alda Thórgeirsdóttir was registered in the school in the autumn of 1973 and graduated with honours from the language departmen
t in the spring of 1977.’
‘Did you say autumn 1973?’ said Thóra. ‘Didn’t she start her studies after the new year? It was my understanding that she started there with you in the middle of the winter term, having transferred from Isafjördur Junior College, where she attended the previous term.’ Thóra decided not to confuse the man any further by adding that Alda was also supposed to have been studying at Isafjördur Junior College in the spring term, 1973. In any case, the woman at the office there had denied that Alda had been a student there that winter.
‘There’s nothing here from Isafjördur Junior College,’ said the man, and Thóra heard him rustling papers. ‘She was clearly registered with us that autumn, but was kept out of school that term due to health concerns. It doesn’t say what her illness was as that kind of information is confidential, and kept elsewhere. But whatever it was, she was attending school here in good health in January 1974.’
Thóra thanked the man and said goodbye. Alda had obviously never attended junior college in the west. That story was a fabrication. The best Thóra could come up with was that Alda had been admitted to a psychiatric ward and it had been a sensitive subject. All those years ago mental diseases were shameful and taboo. Thóra thought it fairly likely that any mental breakdown Alda had suffered had had something to do with the box she’d handed over to Markus. It couldn’t have been healthy for an innocent teenager to handle a severed human head.
Chapter Twenty-two
Saturday 21 July2007
Thóra’s mobile rang as she stood at the ship’s railing on board the Herjolfur ferry. She had chosen to travel by sea to the Islands since the weather forecast was poor for the next day and she could only afford to be there for one night. She intended during that time to search for information about the Horseshoes, Valgerdur and Dadi, as well as to speak to Markus’s mother, and hopefully also his father, which was the main purpose of the trip. Bella had lain down in their cabin; she had been recruited to come along to support Thóra.
It was Matthew, calling from Germany. The ship was sailing swiftly away from all the transmitters on the mainland, and the connection was bad. ‘Where are you, anyway?’ he asked, sounding as if he were calling from inside a barrel.
‘I’m out at sea, so the connection could cut out any time,’ said Thóra. ‘I’m on my way to the Westmann Islands for this case I’m working on.’
‘Hopefully it’s not the bodies and the head in the basement?’ asked Matthew, but apparently some crackling on the line meant he couldn’t hear her reply, so he got straight to the point. ‘How would you like me to come for a visit next week?’ he asked.
‘That would be great,’ said Thóra, and she meant it. ‘Are you coming for work, or just dropping in?’ She tried not to show that she was itching to know whether he’d made his decision.
‘I’m going for an interview,’ he replied. ‘They want to show me round their offices and introduce me to the board. I’ll have to make my final decision after this, although I’ve pretty much made up my mind already.’
‘And?’ asked Thóra. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I… if… so…’ The connection was cut off. Thóra thought about running to the stern of the ship to find a signal and hear what Matthew had decided, but she stopped herself. The ship would be out of phone contact again before she had a chance select his number. She sighed and stuck her mobile back into her pocket.
‘Could you confuse these two houses?’ asked Thóra. She was standing with her hands on her hips on the excavation site of Pompeü of the North, looking at Markus’s childhood home and the house where Valgerdur and Dadi had lived.
‘No,’ yawned Bella. ‘They’re completely different. That one’s actually in ruins.’ She pointed at the neighbours’ house. She wasn’t exaggerating: the roof had collapsed beneath the weight of the ash and one of the outer walls resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
‘Try to imagine you’re in the middle of a volcanic eruption and the house hasn’t yet been destroyed,’ said Thóra. ‘Could you mix them up?’
Bella regarded her scornfully. ‘Can’t you see that one of the houses has two floors and the other just one?’ she retorted. ‘It’s impossible to mix the two up.’ She pointed at the house on the other side of Markus’s home. ‘No one could mix up that house and the house with the bodies either.’ Then she turned to scan all the excavated houses. ‘The house with the bodies is the only one on the street that has two floors.’
Thóra looked up and down the street. Her secretary was right: the only house that stood out was Markus’s. It was clear that the bodies hadn’t been put there by mistake. ‘So at least we know that,’ said Thóra thoughtfully. ‘I really want to get in there,’ she said, and pointed at the house where the unpopular couple had lived, Dadi Horseshoe and Valgerdur Horseshoe Two. When she saw Bella’s expression she felt she had to explain herself better. ‘The people who lived there are connected to the case, but I still don’t know how.’
‘Huh,’ snorted Bella. ‘I’m not going in there. It’s about to collapse.’ She walked closer to it and kicked at some tape that marked the area where visitors were prohibited from entering. ‘Haven’t they already taken everything out of it, anyway?’
‘Yes, they have,’ replied Thóra. ‘All the same, I want to have a look inside. You never know.’ She glanced around, though she knew they were the only ones in the area, and followed Bella’s example, stepping over the tape and walking up to the house. She peeked in through a crack in the crossed wooden boards that had been nailed over the window, but saw nothing in the darkness inside. She walked up to the door, which was leaning against the doorframe. Bella followed her.
‘Are you joking?’ said the secretary when Thóra started trying to heave the door out of the way. ‘Are you going in? It must be off limits.’ She glanced back along the trench where the excavation had taken place, as though she expected a squad of policemen to come running down its black banks, which were covered with netting to prevent ash from being blown down into the new town.
‘This house isn’t marked like Markus’s house,’ huffed Thóra, out of breath. ‘I wasn’t supposed to go in there, but there’s no police notice on this house saying entry is forbidden.’
‘What about the sign saying that non-essential personnel are prohibited from entering the houses?’ asked Bella, clearly shocked. ‘I thought lawyers couldn’t break the law.’
‘These aren’t laws, they’re requests,’ said Thóra, as the door budged a bit further. ‘And the nature of laws is that breaking them is illegal. Not just for lawyers, but for everyone. That’s why we have laws.’
Bella snorted and gave up questioning Thóra. Finally she relented and decided to help her, and by combining their efforts they managed to form a gap just large enough for Thóra to push her way in. ‘Just shout if something falls down on you,’ called Bella through the gap, once Thóra was inside. ‘Then I’ll go and fetch help.’
Once inside, Thóra was seized by the same feeling that had oppressed her that fateful morning when Markus had discovered the bodies. The stink of the ash was overwhelming, growing stronger the further in she went. There was some light, since the boards over the windows weren’t lined up exactly. Light also came in from above, where in several places she could see up to the rafters of the house and the collapsed roof letting in daylight. She moved from the foyer through a narrow doorway leading to the other rooms, and decided to head towards what she assumed was the sitting room. There it was much darker, since the roof was intact, but that mattered little since the room was empty apart from a Coke can and a plastic sandwich wrapper, both of which must have been recently left. On the walls were remains of wallpaper that had mostly peeled off, revealing a spotted and filthy layer of plaster beneath. Two wall lamps still hung in their places, but upside down.
The other rooms were much the same. Everything loose had been removed. Dadi had probably saved most of the contents, and the archaeologist Hjortur had come and swept up the re
st a little more than thirty years later. The house was small, and it was fairly clear from Thóra’s inspection that Dadi and Valgerdur hadn’t had much money. The bathroom, which was covered with broken tiles, was little more than a cupboard. The couple had lived alone in the house so they hadn’t needed more room to live comfortably. When she came to the room next to the master bedroom, Thóra’s eyes widened. This room had clearly been a child’s, since the peeling wallpaper there was covered with pictures of teddy bears. The broken ceiling light was in the shape of a hot air balloon. The couple had been childless, so Thóra found this most peculiar. In one corner of the room was a pile of rubbish that had been swept together, and sticking out of it was a doll’s plastic hand. When Thóra poked at the heap with her foot, the arm rolled out. She kicked lightly through the pile to see whether she could find anything else of interest, but without any results. The doll’s arm was by itself and thus had probably not caught the attention of the archaeologist.
Thóra breathed easier after coming back outside. ‘I have a job for you, Bella,’ she said as they caught their breath after dragging the door back into place. ‘You need to find out whether the people who lived here had a child that died, or whether they might have bought the house from people with children.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ panted Bella.
‘You’ll work it out. Maybe the people at the archive can help you.’
Ashes to Dust Page 22
