Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

‘Do you have any idea who these people were that were found in the basement?’ asked Thóra. ‘Do you know whether anyone went missing? From the rescue crews, for example?’

‘I have no idea,’ replied Kjartan. ‘As far as I know, they all returned home in the end. No one died in the eruption.’

‘Except the man in the basement of the pharmacy,’ said Thóra.

‘That wasn’t the eruption,’he replied. ‘He was an alcoholic.’

Thóra was speechless. This was clearly the accepted view in the Islands. Alcoholics didn’t count. She was determined not to let this put her off. ‘But you must have wondered who these people were?’ she continued. ‘The Westmann Islands aren’t very large, so naturally it’s most likely that these men had some kind of tie to them.’

‘Not a clue,’ said Kjartan, and he tightened his lips. ‘From what I’ve seen in the news, no one knows who these people are, or how they ended up in the basement.’

‘That’s correct,’ said Thóra patiently. ‘But it doesn’t hurt to wonder. It occurred to me that this might be connected to the Cod War, that they were sailors who died in an accident at sea or in some quarrel between the Icelanders and the British. I guess I’m assuming that they’re Englishmen.’

‘I doubt that,’ replied Kjartan.‘There were various difficulties at the time, but they never developed into anything like what you’re suggesting. Besides, it couldn’t have been kept secret if something like that had happened. We would never have been able to kill four Brits without it becoming a huge incident. I have no idea who these people were, unfortunately.’

Thóra decided not to press any further, but was surprised that the man might not at least have considered the possibility that the dead people were foreigners. It was absolutely indisputable – four Icelanders simply could not have vanished without being missed. An uneasy feeling came over her. The man before her knew more than he wanted to reveal. He’d been more than prepared to chat about unimportant things. She looked at Bella and stood up. ‘Well, this was informative.’ She shook Kjartan’s hand. ‘Maybe we’ll get a chance to disturb you further, if anything else occurs to me.’

On the way out she noticed a framed photograph on the wall next to the doorway. It showed five people with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They were all wearing helmets, while in the background a jet of ash stretched to the sky. One of the men was clearly Kjartan in his younger years. All of them looked exhausted, and none smiled at the camera. ‘Is Markus’s father in this photograph, perhaps?’

Kjartan walked up to it and pointed at one of the men. ‘That’s him. Magnus. And then there’s Geiri, or Thórgeir. Alda’s father.’

‘This is clearly you here, but who are the other two?’ Thóra asked.

Kjartan snorted rudely. ‘That’s Dadi,’ he said, pointing at a rather ugly man who was a good deal shorter than the others. ‘A boring bastard who was married to an even more boring woman.’ He moved his finger. ‘And this is Gudni.’

‘The policeman?’ asked Thóra, turning to Kjartan. ‘Was he one of the friends that you mentioned?’

‘Was isthe operative word,’ replied Kjartan.

Bella relaxed with a cigarette as they stood outside Café Kró, a little harbourside restaurant they had come across in their search for supper. Thóra stood next to her, which was against her natural instincts, but the weather was so good that being in a bad mood seemed impossible. She felt completely relaxed after the meal, and the sea breeze had perked her up. The air had grown colder in the evening, even though the sun was still in the sky as if nothing were more normal. Even Bella’s smoke, which drifted over Thóra’s face every now and then, could not ruin the beautiful evening. A small boat sailed out of the harbour, several seagulls following it from the jetty. Otherwise the wharf was calm, except for two men who were repairing the pilothouse on a small fishing boat tied to the pier just below where they stood. The repairs were proceeding at a leisurely pace since the men spent more time chatting than working, and Thóra admired their relaxed attitude. Perhaps it was the extreme beauty of the surroundings that had this effect on people. As Thóra watched the lively bird life around the steep sides of Heimaklettur Peak she could feel her stress dissolving, and she thought she could have sat there sipping her drink for the rest of the evening.

‘So, how many bodies were there?’said Bella, rudely interrupting her reverie.

‘In the basement?’ said Thóra, even though Bella could hardly have meant anything else.‘Four. Or more correctly, three and a quarter.One of the corpses was just a head. Haven’t you followed the story in the news?’ she asked, astounded.

‘No, I don’t read that rubbish.’ Bella put her cigarette in one corner of her mouth and exhaled a great cloud of smoke. She watched thoughtfully as it floated upwards, spread out and disappeared. ‘Who kills four people at once?’ she asked, frowning. ‘One I can understand, maybe two. But four is too many. Is it possible that this wasn’t murder?’

Thóra had to admit to herself that they were thinking along the same lines. ‘I haven’t got the results of the autopsy yet; maybe it isn’t finished. It could well be that three of them died by accident, or poisoning, or by some means other than human hand.’

Thóra breathed in the scent of the sea, which still overpowered the smell of her secretary’s cigarette.‘The head, on the other hand, is harder to explain. If the men weren’t murdered – what about this head? Who would decapitate a corpse, and why?’

Bella shrugged. ‘Maybe he was in an accident and the body was separated from the head. It does happen.’

‘But how did the head end up in the box? And the box, along with three bodies, down in Markus’s basement?’ Thóra was surprised to find that she was enjoying talking this through with Bella. She had no way of knowing where the case was heading, and she wondered how to make the most of her trip to the Islands. She might as well head back to Reykjavik if there was no useful information to be gained here.

Bella frowned, and Thóra was relieved to realize that it was a sign of deep thought rather than anything Thóra had said to insult her. ‘This woman who gave your client the box,’she said, taking a drag on her cigarette, ‘do you think she killed those people?’

‘No, I can’t see it,’replied Thóra. ‘She was a teenager, hardly capable of killing four men. Not alone, anyway.’ She leaned against the wall and basked in the mild evening sun. ‘I’ve got to find a way to meet her mother, because she’s the one most likely to know something about where the head came from – if not more. It’s rotten luck that her father’s dead. I imagine that he’s probably involved somehow. But whether Alda’s family is connected to the case or not, they must know something. Teenage girls are good at hiding all sorts of things from their parents, but I don’t see Alda strolling casually around town with a man’s head in a box. If nothing else, her mother could tell me who she spent time with after the disaster. Maybe she confessed to a friend, or friends, later on? Markus lost all contact with her after they came to the mainland, so he’s no use.’

‘Her mother still lives in the Islands, remember,’ said Bella, looking around as if she expected the woman to be living in one of the warehouses at the docks. ‘That old man today said so, anyway. You should phone her, or go and see her.’

‘She may be living here,’ said Thóra. ‘Still, I don’t think it’sright to visit her on this trip, in light of the circumstances.’