‘I would have wanted to have the coffin open,’ she heard Jóhanna say, as she tenderly stroked the gleaming lid of the casket. ‘I think Alda would have wanted it that way.’
As Thóra drew closer she heard the older woman give a snort. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew how her face looked, with all those scratches on it. She wouldn’t have dreamt of letting people see her like that while she was alive.’
‘It could have been fixed with make-up,’ said Jóhanna testily. She turned to the coffin again, laying both hands on it. They rested there, motionless. ‘It would have been okay.’
‘If you want to see her for the last time I’m sure we can get the sexton to take the lid off,’ replied the old lady, without a trace of sensitivity. ‘I was here before when they brought her, and I got to see her.’ She hung her head. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it. This isn’t Alda any more. She’s ice cold and I’m sure she’s been brought here straight from cold storage. I wished I hadn’t been here.’
Thóra was just one row behind the two women when she cleared her throat to draw their attention. She didn’t want to startle them, and felt uncomfortable to be practically spying on them. The organ music had made it possible for her to get this close, drowning out the low creaking of the floorboards. She would probably have been able to place her hand on the old woman’s shoulder before being noticed.
Both of the women turned and stared at Thóra. ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Jóhanna in surprise.
‘And how dare you come here?’ exclaimed her mother, almost choking. ‘Don’t you know that we’re preparing for my daughter’s funeral? This isn’t the place for someone who defends her murderer.’ Anger had overcome the sorrow in her voice.
‘Markus didn’t murder her,’ said Thóra calmly, suppressing her discomfort at having disturbed mother and daughter at this private moment. ‘He has a good alibi that proves it was impossible for him to have been anywhere near her at the time.’
Until that point Jóhanna had resembled a sleepwalker, but at this she seemed to brighten up slightly. Her face was even more haggard than Thóra recalled; her hair was dirty, and her clothing showed signs of neglect. Her mother, however, had taken the time to fix herself up, and looked respectable. Of course, the difference in their appearance did not necessarily mean that the mother hadn’t taken the loss as hard as her daughter. Perhaps she had found it a comfort to have something to occupy herself, even if it were only making herself presentable for the funeral. The corners of her pink-painted lips turned down like a nearly perfect horseshoe, further emphasising the contrast between mother and daughter. ‘Of course he has an alibi,’ said the old woman, adding sarcastically: ‘His brother Leifur wouldn’t have had any trouble sorting that out.’
‘No,’ said Thóra, staying calm. ‘That’s not true.’ She wondered whether she should explain the alibi, but decided not to. They would either accept what she had to say, or not. ‘Markus is going before the judge today because of a police request that his detention be extended. It’s easy to prove that he didn’t murder Alda, but it’s proving harder to clear him of something that happened out on the Islands.’ She looked into the old woman’s eyes, which were burning with rage. ‘Most of the people who know what happened there are either too ill to be able to help him, or are no longer with us.’
‘And why are you looking at me?’ asked Alda’s mother, putting one hand to her throat dramatically. ‘I haven’t murdered anyone, if that’s what you’re insinuating.’
‘Of course not,’ Thóra replied. ‘But I think you know, or at least have an idea, who these men were. I’m fairly certain that it was something to do with Markus’s father Magnus, and Dadi, who is deceased. Your husband may also have played a part.’
The woman stared at Thóra without saying a word. Jóhanna looked from one of them to the other, her eyes wide. ‘Is that true, Mother? Is Markus locked up for a murder that Father committed?’
‘Utter nonsense,’ her mother spat, without looking at her daughter. She continued to glare at Thóra. ‘I must ask you to leave. Unfortunately, I cannot help you. If Magnus and Dadi did something, that’s too bad, but I cannot answer for it.’
‘Did Alda have a child?’ asked Thóra suddenly. Jóhanna looked almost relieved at this question, perhaps thinking that it confirmed Thóra had a screw loose. Her mother, on the other hand, appeared startled.
‘What now? More nonsense?’ asked the woman, but she wouldn’t meet Thóra’s gaze.
‘I met a young man this morning who told me that Alda contacted him repeatedly and insisted that she was his mother,’ continued Thóra. It was best to strike while the iron was hot. ‘Is he lying?’
‘What is she talking about, Mother?’ asked Jóhanna, querulously. ‘Is this the secret Alda was going to tell me?’ she said, turning her bewildered face to Thóra.
‘I don’t know,’ said Thóra honestly. ‘All I know is that Alda disappeared for a while. She was supposedly a student at Isafjördur Junior College for about the same length of time as her pregnancy, if the story is true. But no one there knows anything about her. That’s why I’m wondering whether the man’s claim might be true.’
‘Who is this man?’ asked the old woman, and added frantically: ‘I mean, is he mentally ill, or something?’
Thóra shrugged. ‘That’s neither here nor there. I’m not going to discuss him with you if he’s not Alda’s son, as you suggest. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have anything to do with you.’
The old woman’s head dropped. Thóra expected to be chastised again, but instead the old woman’s shoulders started to shake, at first slightly, then more rapidly. Jóhanna went to her mother and sat down at her side. She put her arm around her shoulders, and little by little they stopped trembling. ‘Oh, God,’ the old woman said, but couldn’t continue through her sobs. After a while she said: ‘I’ve done so many bad things in my life. So many bad things. I should be lying in that coffin. Not Alda.’ She still did not look up.
‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ said Thóra automatically. ‘It’s how you learn from them that matters.’
The woman shook her head. A moment later she raised her eyes pleadingly towards the white coffin that rested on a low platform before the altar. ‘That’s exactly what everyone fails to do. Everyone.’ She fell silent and Thóra kept quiet too, thinking it would be best to give her a little time. She was afraid Alda’s mother might withdraw into her shell if she pushed too hard to get in. The woman spoke again: ‘Everything was different back then. Everything young people take for granted today didn’t exist. We had to work for everything.’
‘Did Alda have a child?’ asked Jóhanna angrily. ‘What is this about?’ Thóra glared at her, not wanting her to rock the boat. Jóhanna pretended not to notice. ‘Who was the father?’ she demanded.
Fat tears leaked down the old woman’s cheeks and fell onto the dark blue shawl she wore around her neck. There they formed a spreading dark stain. ‘She was raped. By a foreigner.’ She was speaking to Jóhanna as if Thóra were not even present. ‘She went to hospital in a terrible state and she was treated there. They called us from there. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’
Thóra had no desire to hear the description of Alda after the rape.
‘And she discovered she was pregnant after the attack?’ she asked, as gently as possible.
The woman gave Thóra a startled look, then nodded. ‘Yes. Fate can be so cruel, and more often than not to the most beautiful souls. She was just a girl, had maybe kissed one boy, probably not even that. She was so good and obedient that we never had any problems with her, unlike so many kids her age. Just once she does something differently, and then her world falls apart. Once.’
Jóhanna sat speechless next to her mother, which prompted Thóra to keep the conversation going. She drew a deep breath. ‘She drank alcohol that night, didn’t she? Like all the kids?’
The old woman nodded. ‘She wasn’t the worst. If she had been any drunker we w
ould have been called and asked to pick her up. Instead, she was allowed to walk home.’ The woman stared into her lap. ‘She knew we would find out about it, so she decided to give herself some time to sober up. She went down to the harbour, thinking the sea air would help. There she met that terrible man. He was drunk, and he had his way with her. She couldn’t offer any resistance even though she fought back as hard as she could. She was so small and delicate, my darling child.’
‘And is that monster one of the bodies in the basement?’ asked Thóra, hoping that the question wouldn’t make her clam up. The woman said nothing, so Thóra tried again. ‘I have a daughter myself, and I can well imagine what flies through the minds of the parents when something like this happens. The worst of it is that we can’t do anything to change it. But Markus has a son, a son who doesn’t deserve to have his father locked up for the wrong reason. For his sake, the truth has to come out.’
The woman did not look up, but somehow this seemed to move her, and when she spoke again her tone was more determined. ‘When Geiri found out from Alda at the hospital who had done it, he rushed out,’ she said flatly, as if she were reciting a script. ‘I tried to dissuade him, but it meant nothing. He left me at her bedside and went and got Magnus. One for all and all for one. They caught the men down at the harbour, on their boat, which Alda had described to her father. The men were still blind drunk; there were four of them, and two of them were sleeping. Geiri went into a rage, and Maggi wasn’t much better. Geiri was completely covered in blood when he came home.’
Thóra said nothing. Thórgeir, Alda’s father, and Magnus, Markus’s father, were the murderers. According to this account, Dadi had had nothing to do with it. ‘Did they use a salmon priest and a large ornamental knife?’ asked Thóra, certain she knew what the answer would be.
‘No,’ said the old woman, shaking her head gloomily. ‘They boarded their own ship and fetched a filleting knife and club they had there. They threw them into the harbour afterwards.’
Thóra didn’t react, although this surprised her. She had been so sure that the mallet and knife had been used. This meant there had to be another reason they were kept among the children’s clothing in the storeroom. ‘Did anyone know about this?’ asked Thóra. ‘It couldn’t have happened without anyone noticing.’ She pushed down the image of the beatings that sprang to her mind. They were obviously the source of the pool of blood at the pier.
‘Dadi, Valgerdur’s husband, went after them,’ said the woman. ‘Valgerdur was on duty when Alda arrived at the hospital, and it was she who called and told us what had happened to Alda. I had the feeling she enjoyed giving us the news. Then she hung around the whole time that Alda was crying and telling us what had happened. She offered to call Dadi and get him to find the man, and that’s what he did. He stumbled on Magnus and my Geiri at the fateful moment.’
‘So Dadi was a witness to it?’ asked Thóra. The woman nodded. ‘And he told no one?’
The woman smiled coldly. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘The police never heard anything about it, apart from being notified about the pool of blood the next morning?’ exclaimed Thóra. She had always suspected Gudni knew more than he was letting on, but it seemed she had misread him. Maybe he had been trying to hide his suspicions, not his knowledge.
‘No,’ replied Alda’s mother. ‘Naturally they suspected something because of all the blood on the pier, but they didn’t find any other evidence so they couldn’t do much about it. Then the eruption started, and people had other things to think about.’
‘But what about Dadi and Valgerdur?’ asked Thóra. ‘I’ve been led to understand that she was quite a gossip. How were they able to keep quiet about it? Dadi was even questioned about the pool of blood. He was spotted with Magnus at the scene that night, though the police never heard about it.’
‘Dadi offered to help us,’ said the woman with a humourless laugh. ‘Two of the men had died on the boat, and they were left there. Geiri and Maggi had beaten the other two to death on the pier, then dragged them on board. The only way they could think of to hide what they’d done was to move the smack farther out in the harbour. Dadi helped them do that, then came to see us that night - along with Valgerdur, who by then was off duty - and offered to get the bodies and the boat out of there before anyone stirred down at the harbour. Geiri and Magnus were in shock after the incident, and in no condition to clean up after themselves.’ Thóra nodded in encouragement, her eyes wide. ‘Geiri phoned Maggi, who had gone home, and he came round. It was agreed that Dadi and Valgerdur would make sure no one would suspect a thing. Then they left, and I don’t know what happened next. I didn’t want to know anything else. Magnus went with them.’ The woman shuddered. ‘I was in shock, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Geiri had a job but I wasn’t working, and we had two girls to take care of, one of them in a terrible state. If he’d gone to prison, everything would have fallen apart.’
‘Who cut off the man’s head?’ asked Thóra. She assumed the one who’d been decapitated was the one who had raped Alda.
The woman looked at Thóra in bewilderment. ‘That I don’t know,’ she said, and seemed to be completely sincere. ‘I never saw the bodies, and no one mentioned anything like that. I was absolutely staggered when they were found. But I can’t say he didn’t deserve it.’ This last was said without any bitterness or triumph, the words seeming to come out automatically.
Thóra suddenly felt sure that it was Alda who had gone from the hospital down to the harbour and cut off the rapist’s head. She did not want to ask her mother about it, but it would explain how the girl had ended up with the head. ‘Could Alda have left the hospital that night?’ she asked, without explaining herself any further.
‘I doubt it. She was on sedatives. Valgerdur said she was sleeping when she went off duty. Why do you ask?’
Thóra did not reply, but instead asked how the bodies had ended up in Magnus’s basement. ‘Did he help Dadi move them?’
The woman shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t. Magnus actually went back down to the harbour with Dadi to rescue a falcon he’d seen in a cage on board the foreigners’ boat, and to take any valuables they had there. The finances of his and Geiri’s company were in very bad shape. I believe he couldn’t bring himself to look into the cupboard where they’d shoved the bodies, so I’m sure he never offered to keep them at his place. The plan was to sink the fishing smack with the bodies still on board.’
‘Turns out they were bird smugglers,’ said Thóra. This explained Magnus’s rambling about birds. He was still wondering whether the falcon he had freed had survived.
‘That’s what Geiri said,’ replied the woman. ‘In fact on board they found a map showing some likely nesting sites of eagles and falcons. No one knows whether they already had the falcon, or whether they’d captured him on this trip. Magnus let it go that night in the hope that it would return to the wild.’
Jóhanna was staring at her mother. Thóra couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind. Was she too angry to speak, or struck dumb with shock?
‘Why did Dadi and Valgerdur want to help you?’ Thóra asked. ‘Were they not as unfriendly as I’ve been told?’
Again a cold smile appeared on the old woman’s face. ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch,’ she said. ‘But it’s not always the right person who has to pay.’
Thóra didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean? Did they want to be paid for keeping it quiet and disposing of the bodies?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘In return, Magnus was supposed to take the blame for everything in a case for which Dadi was under suspicion. Smuggling liquor, which he’d been doing for years. Magnus agreed to it, since he hardly had a choice. Murder and smuggling aren’t exactly comparable crimes in the eyes of the courts, nor of the public for that matter.’ The woman paused and drew a deep breath. ‘Our payment was even higher. Valgerdur had persuaded Alda to tell her at the hospital where she was in her menstrual cycle. If she
turned out to be carrying a child, they wanted to take it in secret and bring it up themselves.’ She looked into Thóra’s eyes. ‘Alda paid her debt to those barbarians; she agreed to it after we worked up the courage to tell her everything. Under normal circumstances, she would have had an abortion. Valgerdur threw out her medical report and made sure Alda was discharged before the doctors came round the wards the next morning. She told the nurses on the night shift that Alda w.is there to sleep off her drunkenness, that she was the daughter of a friend of Valgerdur and that she was doing her a favour. She asked them to keep quiet about it, which they did. So no one looked in on Alda until we returned early the next morning to fetch her - what was left of her. She was never the same again.’
‘Did Markus have anything to do with it?’ asked Thóra. ‘Was he connected to the murders in any way?’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘He was just one of the kids who drank too much. He was lying at home on the couch dead drunk, according to Magnus. He never came near any of it.’
Thóra exhaled slowly and shuddered. She was standing outside the Midtown Church again, but now she relished the unrelenting rain; it felt as if the cold drops were renewing and cleansing her after her conversation with Alda’s mother. She took out her mobile and called the police.
‘I think we’d better talk, Stefán,’ she said. ‘Something tells me that you’ll drop your appeal to extend custody when you hear what I have to tell you.’
Tinna woke with tears on her cheeks, sobbing weakly. She had no idea why she was crying. She was still in hospital, but didn’t recognize the room. There was no dust at the bottom of the lampshade on the ceiling, and the paint on the walls was a different colour, but only slightly; this one was just a little more yellow. She tried to turn over but felt a pain in her left arm and breast. The pain wasn’t sharp, but felt as if she’d been frozen and was just thawing out. Tinna looked down. She appeared to have bandages beneath her gown, both on her left breast and just below her shoulder. What had happened? Had she been injured in her sleep, but been so tired that she hadn’t woken up, either then or when her wounds were dressed? She was still tired and felt dizzy. Had she taken pills? She couldn’t remember, and in any case that was irrelevant. There was only one thing that mattered. She had to talk to someone. Someone adult who would listen to her, not just look at her and pretend to pay attention. She could almost see what went through their minds while they feigned interest in her: She’s sick. She’s pathetic. We know best. We know best. We’ll let her talk but we know best.
Ashes to Dust Page 37
