Ashes to Dust

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

  ‘Did she want to talk about the tattoo?’ asked Thóra.

  He shook his head, his expression just as unreadable as when Thóra had first set eyes on him earlier that morning. ‘She called me originally to shout at me,’ he said. ‘It was shortly after that silly bitch Halldora accused me of rape, and at first I didn’t have any idea who this woman was; I thought it must be her mother, or something.’

  Thóra looked at Svala. ‘Did you know this?’ she asked. ‘That the nurse who treated the girl had phoned the suspect to give him a piece of her mind?’

  Svala shook her head. ‘I heard most of this for the first time just now. It’ll become clear why he kept it secret.’ She gestured at Adolf to continue. ‘There’s more. Much more.’

  Thóra turned back to him. ‘So she just called you and started yelling without introducing herself?’

  ‘No, she did introduce herself, but her name meant nothing to me,’ replied Adolf. After she’d called me several times, just as hysterical each time, I stopped answering the phone.‘ He straightened in his chair. ’You can’t blame me - who’d want some old fishwife hollering at them day and night?‘

  ‘How much time had passed from the date of the alleged rape before Alda first called you?’ asked Thóra.

  Adolf thought for a moment. ‘About a month. No, a little longer. Maybe two.’

  ‘And did she say anything about why she was calling?’

  ‘No. She was completely crazy.’ Adolf shrugged. ‘She probably believed Halldora, and thought I was a rapist. Maybe she was hoping that if she kept on at me long enough I’d confess to their trumped-up charges.’

  Thóra knew this hadn’t been the first rape case Alda had been involved in, but had no idea whether her reaction was an isolated incident. Perhaps phone calls like these had been the reason Alda had been advised to take a leave of absence. ‘Do you think she was a friend of Halldora, or was it that she realized she knew your parents?’

  ‘She didn’t know that lying cow Halldora,’ said Adolf. ‘I actually called her to ask how she managed to get a nurse on her side in her smear campaign.’

  Svala gasped. ‘You called the girl? She didn’t mention that in the police statement, and the prosecutor hasn’t said anything about it either.’

  ‘Maybe Halldora didn’t want anyone to know about the phone call. She actually wanted to talk to me, and she offered to drop the charges if I would go out with her.’ Adolf frowned. ‘It’s like I’ve always said — her pride was hurt. 1 don’t know what I was thinking dragging her home with me that night, but I was drunk and high and didn’t realize what a dog she was. The next morning she clearly thought she’d hit the jackpot and kept going on about our “relationship” and God knows what else. I got rid of her as quickly as I could, but she came back the next night. I let her in by mistake and it was like she thought we’d become an item. Why couldn’t she see how badly we went together, her always talking, talking, talking and me…?’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘So when did she decide to press charges against you?’ asked Thóra. ‘You sleep together and the next evening she comes to visit. And after that, just under another twenty-four hours go by before she makes her allegation.’ Thóra knew she’d gone beyond the limits of what pertained directly to Alda’s murder, but she wanted to have everything clear before they discussed the woman. That way she could get a better feeling for Adolf’s reactions, and she might be able to tell if he was lying about anything important.

  Adolf looked at Svala, who indicated that he should continue. ‘I gave her pills on her second visit, to stop her from getting pregnant. I thought I’d forgotten them the night before because I was so drunk. That’s the only reason I let her in.’ He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed when he said this. ‘But it turns out I probably did remember on Saturday night, so she got a large enough—’

  Svala interrupted him, either embarrassed by his insensitivity or in a hurry to conclude the meeting. ‘Anyway, the girl started bleeding heavily and went to A&E. That’s where we see what kind of person she is: she put two and two together and started coming after Adolf. After the thing with the morning-after pills came out, she said she’d been raped.’

  ‘She called me from the hospital, while she was waiting for the doctor or something,’ Adolf said suddenly. ‘She asked whether I’d done this, and what was I thinking since we were a couple. I laughed at her because it was so ridiculous. I probably shouldn’t have done that. She went completely nuts and said I would regret it. Then she went and shouted rape after I hung up on her. That’s what she’s like, she’s mental.’

  Svala cleared her throat. ‘You didn’t tell me about this before,’ she said. ‘We could easily check out the phone call.’

  ‘I didn’t rape her. I thought at least I’d be considered innocent until proven guilty. I didn’t do anything.’ Adolf stared at each of them in turn, his eyes shining with the conviction of a simpleton. ‘I didn’t want to have to admit what I did with the drug. I’ll get a bad reputation on the scene.’

  Thóra supposed the ‘scene’ was picking up young women in bars. All the feelings this man had stirred in her before he opened his mouth had long since gone cold. She was glad she never went out on the town, and that it would be many years before Sóley would start doing so; she had heard enough about Adolf and Halldora’s ‘relationship’. ‘You claim Halldora didn’t know Alda,’ she said. ‘But you haven’t told me whether Alda realized who your parents were. Was that what inspired the phone call?’

  Adolf bared his teeth a little. He reminded Thóra uncomfortably of a snake. ‘I never said she didn’t know Alda; she knew her, but it wasn’t her that got Alda to call me. Halldora said Alda was her counsellor or something.’ He shrugged. ‘As far as my parents are concerned, you’ve got to remember that while all of this was going on I was tied up in a lawsuit with the hospital that murdered my mother.’

  Thóra raised her eyebrows; ‘murdered’ was a bit extreme for a medical error. ‘I do know about that, yes.’

  ‘You’ll remember that his mother died when she was given a large dose of penicillin, even though she was allergic to it,’ interjected Svala. ‘I’m about to reach a settlement with the hospital, compensating Adolf for their mistake.’

  Thóra was already aware of all this. ‘I understand that you brought a lawsuit against the hospital,’ she said patiently, ‘but why don’t you carry on telling me about Alda?’

  ‘The thing is, I didn’t want anything to get in the way of me getting the compensation, so that’s why I wasn’t pleased about Alda harassing me,’ said Adolf. ‘After the first phone call she seemed to give up, so I just stopped worrying about it. But then she started calling me again a few months later, and even though she didn’t sound quite as crazy this time she was basically spouting the same old rubbish underneath it all. I didn’t want to hear it, which is why I hung up on her. I stopped answering the phone even after she said she had information that could help me, and kept apologizing over and over for having wrongly accused me.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Once I humoured her and said I’d meet her at a cafe, but then I changed my mind. I have no idea if she showed up or not.’

  ‘Was that shortly before she was murdered?’ asked Thóra.

  ‘Yes. Something like that,’ replied Adolf mysteriously. ‘I actually saw her several days before she died. She came to my house all smiles and apologies, like I said. I let her talk, then gave up and threw her out. She never called again, and I thought she had finally got the message that I didn’t want anything to do with her. Then I saw the obituary in the papers a few days later.’ He smiled nastily. ‘The phone calls stopped automatically, in other words.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Alda’s house?’ asked Svala anxiously. Then she added: ‘Don’t say anything if you have.’

  ‘No, I’ve never been to her house and I have no idea where she lives,’ replied Adolf.

  ‘Lived,’ Thóra corrected him. ‘She’s dead, as we know.’ She took
a deep breath before continuing. Hopefully this would lead to something useful rather than just ending up as a lesson in the psychology of self-obsessed individuals. ‘Why was Alda so interested in you and this case?’ she asked again. ‘Was it because of your parents?’

  Adolf grinned at her. It was as if he suddenly realized that he alone had information that Thóra needed. He seemed determined to make the most of it. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said, staring at her. ‘I wouldn’t be telling you this if Alda had died penniless.’

  ‘In that case, it’s certainly lucky that she didn’t,’ said Thóra, unsmiling. ‘And are you ever going to get round to telling me, or not?’ She wasn’t going to jump through hoops for him. The police would squeeze it out of him if necessary.

  The corners of Adolf’s mouth drooped. ‘Of course I’ve only got her word for it,’ he muttered. ‘It might be bullshit.’

  ‘We’ll let others be the judge of that,’ said Svala. ‘Tell her what Alda said.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Adolf, shifting in his chair to face Thóra. ‘She said she was my mother.’ He looked away again. ‘I’m not the person I thought I was.’ Then he added nonchalantly: ‘If it is true then I’m her natural heir, of course, so I don’t care which of them was my mother. I can inherit from both of them.’ He shot a sideways glance at Svala. ‘It’s a win-win situation,’ he said with a grin.

  Thóra stared at his swarthy features and pictured Alda, blonde and fair-skinned. Two less similar people were hardly possible to imagine. Had Alda been out of her mind? She didn’t have any children: the autopsy report had even stated clearly that she’d never given birth. Thóra’s mind was racing, there were so many questions. Could Alda have donated her eggs to Valgerdur, making Adolf a test-tube baby? She couldn’t remember when such technology had first made it to Iceland, but it seemed doubtful that it had been available in the 1970s. If Alda were this man’s mother, who could the father be? Markus? Did this mean Valgerdur Bjolfsdottir did not raise Adolf? And if not, where was the son she raised?

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Tuesday 24 July2007

  Adolf was born on 27 October 1973, so it wasn’t hard to estimate his conception at some time around the eruption in January. Could Alda be his mother? After the meeting with Svala and Adolf, Thóra immediately called Litla-Hraun Prison in the hope that Markus would shed some light on Adolf’s assertion. She had no idea what Markus was thinking as she told him the story; he hotly denied that it was possible, but then had to admit that Alda had dropped off his radar for precisely the same period as the alleged pregnancy, and actually rather longer, since she wasn’t seen for almost a year. He repeatedly expressed his shock at ‘this bullshit’ and wondered aloud who could possibly believe that Alda would have kept this a secret from him. Thóra wasn’t as convinced as him, and knew that at least one other person knew the truth of the matter: Alda’s mother. She hurried to finish her conversation with Markus but was careful to promise him that they would meet before the district court made its decision on the custody extension. She reassured him that everything pointed towards that decision going his way. Markus was obviously nervous and reluctant to end the conversation, but Thóra finally managed to calm him down and hang up.

  Before she tried to talk to Alda’s mother, she had to clear up one thing. Was it possible that Alda had actually had a child, even though the autopsy report stated that she’d never given birth? Thóra called Hannes. As she scrolled down to his number she smiled to herself. Since the divorce, this was the second phone call in a row which was not about the children. It was a record. ‘Hi, Hannes,’ she said when he finally answered. ‘I know you’re at work so I’ll keep this short. Is there any way a woman could have delivered a child, even though her autopsy report says she never gave birth?’

  After a drawn-out explanation Hannes finally answered Thóra in layman’s terms. The autopsy clarified whether a child had exited through the birth canal; a woman’s vagina and other reproductive organs were inspected, especially if death hadn’t occurred naturally. A woman could have a child without there being any sign of it in the vagina, if she had a Caesarean section, but that would also be evident in an autopsy, from scarring in the stomach and uterus.

  ‘The report didn’t mention scars from a Caesarean section,’ said Thóra. ‘Although she had had breast enhancements. Could surgery like that erase traces of a birth?’

  Hannes said that he was no specialist, either in plastic surgery or forensic pathology, but thought that such scars could be removed as part of a plastic surgery procedure. But that didn’t explain why there had been no scars on the uterus wall.

  ‘Is it possible that the doctor simply overlooked it?’ asked Thóra. ‘The autopsy wasn’t primarily concerned with whether she’d had a child.’

  Hannes wouldn’t comment on that, no matter how hard Thóra pressed him. She said goodbye, feeling no closer to the truth. However, it clearly wasn’t out of the question that Alda had given birth, so Thóra decided to go ahead and try to arrange another meeting with Alda’s mother. If Adolf were Alda’s son, it would explain a lot: her reaction when he was accused of rape, and the picture of him in her desk.

  Thóra’s only hope of getting to Alda’s mother was to go through Jóhanna again. The woman would have no more desire than before to meet someone representing the suspect in her daughter’s murder. However, Thóra had to hurry; she needed to be finished before Markus’s custody hearing at two that afternoon.

  The woman who answered at the bank said that unfortunately Jóhanna was not in. She sounded young, and sympathy dripped from every word. When Thóra explained that her business was very urgent and asked where Jóhanna could be reached, the girl’s voice became even sadder. Jóhanna was in Reykjavik for the funeral of her sister, and she doubted she would have her mobile turned on, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, Thóra took the number, thanked her and made the call.

  An electronic message informed Thóra that the phone was either switched off or out of range. It was ten thirty. Thóra had only attended two funerals in her life, both at Fossvogur Chapel. She tried phoning there, but was told that no one by Alda’s name was being buried there that day or indeed that week. The man she spoke to said he unfortunately couldn’t guess where the burial was taking place, because there were many other options. He also said that almost without exception, funerals were not advertised; such sacred occasions were reserved only for the next of kin. So it was pointless to look in the papers, which had been next on Thóra’s list.

  She tried to imagine who might have been invited to Alda’s funeral but came up with no one besides Dís. She didn’t know whether colleagues were generally considered ‘next of kin’, but tried the plastic surgeon’s office anyway. The answering machine announced that calls would only be answered after noon that day due to illness. Thóra couldn’t wait that long if she wanted to make it to court by two. In the end the only man that she could think of, when all other doors had slammed shut, was Leifur.

  Only seven minutes passed between her saying goodbye to Leifur and his return call to say that the funeral was taking place in the Midtown Church at two o’clock. The location could only have been more perfect if the ceremony had been due to take place in the courtroom itself, as the Midtown Church was right around the corner. Thóra thanked Leifur, without telling him why she needed this information. He didn’t ask, though he must have been curious. In fact, she had the feeling he didn’t want to talk to her in case she found more evidence for his father’s involvement in the murders. If that was the case, it was fine by her — Thóra was happy not to have to discuss the case with him.

  She hurried out of Svala’s office into the pouring rain. The heavy drops reminded her more of a monsoon in a foreign country than Icelandic rain, and she darted over to the little car she’d bought after selling her big jeep, which she couldn’t afford to keep running. Perhaps Alda’s mother was already at the Midtown Church, helping to prepare for the ceremony — and if not, the priest might know
where she was. She might be at Alda’s house, or any hotel in Reykjavik. It was impossible for Thóra to decide if a parent would prefer to sleep among the belongings of their dead child or rest their head on the pillows of an impersonal hotel room.

  It was no easier than usual finding a parking space downtown. Thóra decided to drive around near the church until she finally came across someone leaving a parking space, and she waited as the elderly woman pulled out slowly in her Yaris. At first it looked as if Thóra would have to search for another space, but she finally managed to squeeze the car nimbly into the tight space. She allowed herself a couple of seconds in the pouring rain to congratulate herself on her driving ability. In fact the car was a little too far from the kerb, but she should be returning shortly so she let it be. She was not at all sure she would do any better on the second try.

  She could hear soft organ music through the thick wooden door as she stood in the rain outside the church. She hoped this didn’t mean the ceremony was underway. She had no desire to wander into the middle of a solemn moment not meant for strangers. Of course, it was going to be just as tasteless to shoulder her way up to a grieving mother she barely knew, but at least it was for a noble cause. She opened the door cautiously as the organist stopped in the middle of the tune, before starting on finger exercises. Thóra shook rain from her jacket in the foyer before putting her ear against the door to the church itself. The organ notes overwhelmed almost all other noises, but she thought she could distinguish the murmur of voices within. She cracked open the door and peered though. Towards the front of the church sat two women, staring at a white coffin in front of the altar. One of them stood up and walked towards it, and from behind Thóra could tell that it was Jóhanna, Alda’s sister. The short, grey hair of the woman still seated belonged to their mother. Thóra slipped in. She was hoping to reach the women before they became aware of her, so she tried to keep the old door from creaking.