Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

Thóra hung up on Bragi, her partner in the legal firm, and sighed. She was exhausted after a long day, which had gone differently than she’d planned. Markus had been called in for yet another round of questioning, now under suspicion of involvement in the untimely death of Alda and of being party to the death of the people in the basement. The phone call from Markus had been urgent, so Thóra ended up at the police station after finishing her ice cream, instead of going to the cinema or doing something else with her children. She had had to listen to the same questions put to her client as in the previous interviews, along with a few additional questions about Alda. They all concerned whether he had been at her home on the Sunday evening when she was thought to have died. Markus had denied this and stuck to his story that they had only spoken on the phone. At first he absolutely denied having gone to her house for weeks, but later admitted that he had in fact been there – not on the night they were asking about, but the night before. He had stopped there for a short time and had a glass of wine.

Thóra felt like screaming when Markus let this slip. She was disappointed in him, mainly for trying to keep quiet about his visit, especially since his meeting with Alda had occurred outside the time in which the police were interested. As such, this only increased their suspicion towards him. Thóra thought it likely that he’d been so stubborn about not admitting his visit because he feared being charged with drink-driving. This was not unusual – many people hid insignificant details from the police if they involved illegal actions, and tended to focus on keeping them secret even if they were suspected of much more serious crimes. The police’s attempts to tie Markus to a murder didn’t seem to bother him, but he was like a cat on a hot tin roof when attention turned to his possible motor vehicle violation. He was obviously clinging to the childish belief that in the end his name would be cleared of the murders without his needing to put any great effort into it.

When the police came to the end of their list of questions concerning Markus’s visit to Alda, Thóra felt that the interrogation had run out of steam and that Markus had withstood the worst of it. She was wrong. Markus responded furiously when the police eventually said they wanted to question his closest relatives. For a time Thóra thought that Markus’s protests would end with his being arrested, but she was finally able to calm him down before it came to a scuffle. After leaving the office Thóra pressed him on the cause of this violent reaction: he said that he was worried about his elderly parents, although they probably weren’t the only ones who would be called in for questioning; the police also wanted to speak to his older brother, Leifur, who ran the family’s fishing company in the Islands. Markus had demanded that Thóra be present during all of the interrogations, and had a hard time understanding that she was prohibited from doing so due to conflict of interest. She also tried to explain to Markus that the police were simply fishing; they weren’t just on the look-out for whatever would tighten the rope around his neck, but also for anything that could cut it loose. The purpose of the investigation was to gain a clear picture of events; this was not a government inquisition aimed at pinning everything on him. She had her doubts that Markus would accept all of this, but in the end he settled for her explanations.

There was something else, however, that was worrying Thóra – her imminent trip to the Westmann Islands. There she planned to search high and low for someone who could shed light on the discovery of the corpses in the basement, and perhaps even bear witness to the exchanges between Markus and Alda in the days before the eruption. Around two thirds of the residents of the Islands had returned home after the eruption, and they formed a group that might conceivably have witnessed something significant. Although this plan was far from fail-safe, it was the only idea that Thóra could come up with at this stage of the case. Markus had agreed to it without objection, and even liked it. He was desperate to free himself from his current situation, and since the case had by now been reported in the media, it was clear to him that it was only a matter of time before his name would be dragged into the discussion. But as things stood now, it appeared that the reporters had received little information from the police, even though the case had naturally aroused a great deal of interest. Thóra felt it her obligation to acquaint herself with the coverage and she could only admire how creatively some reporters had managed to liven up their articles on the case, even without any new information. This, of course, would not last long, and soon the police would have to release information concerning the investigation in order to save face. Markus’s name would not be included in their press releases, but there was a risk they would have to announce that one person was already being questioned as a suspect.

Then the game would be up and finally his name would be leaked. It was therefore imperative to try to clear him of all suspicion, as soon as possible, but Thóra could do little to speed up the investigation before the autopsy report and the findings from the crime scene were available. After she received these reports there would barely be any time to go to the Islands to speak with possible witnesses. So it was now or never. This was why it wasn’t the trip itself that was bothering her – the Westmann Islands were beautiful enough, of course, and it was nice to visit there. No, what annoyed her was that it had turned out that Thór, the firm’s junior lawyer, was too busy to go with her. Thóra thought it important to have a second set of eyes and ears with her in the Islands and the only ones that were available belonged to her secretary, Bella. Bragi had rightly pointed out that it mattered little whether Bella sat at the telephone or was somewhere else, making it convenient to bring her along as an assistant. The others at the firm were actually set on working when they arrived in the mornings – so it was either Bella or no one.

Thóra sighed and scrolled through her contacts list for her secretary’s number. She wished she could phone Matthew and ask him to come to Iceland. He would certainly come if possible, but calling him would break her resolution to leave him in peace while he contemplated the future. An Icelandic bank had recently bought the German one for which he worked, and as a result he had been offered the position of supervisor of security at the main branch in Iceland. Soon he had to make a big decision. The work was similar to what he was doing now, and the pay was much better, which hadn’t surprised Thóra as much as it had him – the banks were locally notorious for paying ridiculous salaries. So the decision was not the job itself, but the move to Iceland. He knew no one there but Thóra and her children, so she didn’t want to interfere with his decision. If she encouraged him to come, she would be morally bound to maintain their relationship. If she discouraged him, he might think she didn’t care. A long time ago she had realized that any potential life partner would have to live in Iceland, so her relationship with Matthew depended on his decision. If Matthew did not come to Iceland, their relationship would be finished. They were hardly ever together, and that simply didn’t work. Thóra blushed at the thought of phone sex, which they had tried unsuccessfully. It seemed clear that for sex she needed a flesh and blood man, in the same room as her, and therefore it was better to be with someone who did not live many thousands of kilometres away. On the other hand, she hoped that he would come; she liked him and enjoyed being with him. There also seemed to be a shortage of attractive men of the right age. She didn’t like any of the ones that had recently tried it on with her, not even after her fifth glass. And that said a lot about them. The men who attracted her attention wereeither far too young, already taken, or gay. Before shaking off these thoughts it struck her that perhaps there was an overabundance of men in the Westmann Islands. One could always dream, and it didn’t hurt to have Bella in tow, especially since compared to her secretary, Thóra resembled a Playboy centrefold. Enough of that for now, she thought, and turning to the matter at hand, she called Bella’s number.