Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

‘What do you mean? We can’t do anything. She killed herself,’ replied Agúst coldly.‘We’ll bring flowers to the funeral. A wreath or whatever.’ His voice gave no indication that he was upset by Alda’s death, although she had worked for them for a decade.

Dís pulled her hands from her face and sat upright. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked sharply.‘A nurse who has worked with us dies before her time and your idea is to say goodbye to her with flowers – or “whatever”. That’s pretty cold.’ She glanced around the room and asked herself why she was surprised. Agúst’s office was a reflection of his personality: cold and soulless. Although her own office was not all that interesting, his was so bereft of any luxuries and so tidy that in an emergency an operation could be performed on his desk. There was nothing in it that didn’t have a purpose, not a thing displayed simply because it was attractive or amusing. Even the framed pictures on the walls, which depicted the most common plastic surgery techniques, were there for a purpose. Just after hanging them up Agúst had told Dís that they would frighten patients who were reluctant about operations. His logic was that such individuals would thus be forced from the start to determine whether they actually trusted themselves to undergo an operation just to look better. Agúst had recently told Dís that after the photos went up, last minute cancellations had decreased noticeably.

Now he rocked backwards in his seat, clearly surprised. ‘Huh?’ he said, then fell silent. He sighed. ‘I know this may sound cold, but I’m not one for public displays of emotion.’ He reached across and took Dís’s hand, which was resting on the edge of the desk. ‘You know how highly I valued her. I just haven’t been able to get my head around this, I think. All I can think of is how we’re going to find a replacement nurse for the operations that we have coming up.’ He smiled sadly. ‘It’s easier to deal with the small things.’

Dís returned his smile sympathetically. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about that too.’ She pulled her hand away from his and placed it in her lap. She found it uncomfortable to touch his skin, which was silly considering their latex-covered hands touched all the time during operations. ‘This will all be fine,’ she said, and pushed her chair back. ‘Things have a way of working out.’ She stood up. ‘I think I would feel better if I hadn’t been the one who found her.’

‘Of course,’ replied Agúst. ‘Try to stop thinking about it. Remember Alda as she was in life. She deserves to be remembered that way.’

Dís nodded. Then she asked: ‘Do you think she might have been murdered?’

‘Murdered?’ asked Agúst, flabbergasted. ‘Who would have had any reason to murder her?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Dís thoughtfully. ‘Some rapist out for revenge?’ she added.

‘For God’s sake, I don’t think so,’ said Agúst, frowning. ‘I’m sure the rape association keeps better control of things than that.’

Dís smiled. ‘They’re called the Emergency Reception Unit Support Team for Rape Victims, and I’m not entirely sure that they do have things under control. I know Alda had had enough of them when she left her job at the A &E.’

Alda’s decision to give up her part-time job had come out of the blue several months earlier. She had been volunteering in the local A &E several nights a week and on the weekends, and among other things had earned a good reputation for her support and assistance of rape victims. She had seemed to enjoy this work, and perhaps her decision to quit was the clue that Dís had been trying to remember. Who knew, maybe the horrors Alda occasionally witnessed there had finally been too much for her to handle. ‘Maybe it was someone else entirely,’ she said cautiously.

‘Like who?’ said Agúst in irritation. ‘Mickey, Goofy and Pluto?’

‘No. Like you, for example,’ said Dís calmly, pulling a little paper bag from the pocket of her scrubs.

Agúst stood up. He didn’t seem angry, just surprised. ‘Me?’

Dís went over and put the bag on the desk in front of him. ‘I took this from the table beside her bed. Judging by her body, her death wasn’t painless. Not at all what one would expect if sleeping pills had killed her.’

Agúst looked Dís in the eye, stubbornly. ‘And this makes you think that I killed her?’

‘Look in the bag,’ she said softly. ‘I haven’t completely lost my mind.’

Agúst looked down at the bag and grabbed it. He glanced quickly back up at Dís.

‘Be careful not to touch what’s inside,’ she said calmly. ‘This might have to go to the police.’ She saw Agúst’s expression harden and hurried to add, earnestly: ‘If you were connected to this in some way then it goes no further. If not, then I’ve got to turn this in somehow. I took it from her bedside table.’ She pointed at the bag. ‘But that’s a problem for later. First we’ve got to get this cleared up.’ He looked at her. ‘Don’t look at me like that until you’ve seen what it is. Take a look.’

Agúst pulled the plastic down carefully with his index finger. He didn’t need to open the bag the whole way, as he recognized the contents as soon as they appeared.‘Fucking hell,’ he said quietly, and his head drooped. ‘What do we do now?’

‘All I know is that no one raised a single objection against the excavation except for Markus,’ said Hjortur, walking over to a shelf that appeared about to break under the strain of folders and a tall stack of papers. The archaeologist placed the pages he was holding on the top of the stack and turned back to Thóra and Bella.‘Not his parents, and not his brother. And I can assure you that this Alda you mentioned never got in touch with me. She might have discussed things with someone else here in this office, but if she did no one has mentioned it.’

Thóra nodded dejectedly. ‘Would you be willing to ask? If she had, it could make a difference.’

Hjortur gave her a look that combined pity with irritation. ‘I will, but I doubt it’ll lead anywhere.’

Thóra sensed that she would have to tread lightly in her dealings with the archaeologist so that he wouldn’t block her out. He wasn’t obliged to answer her questions or assist her in any way. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said humbly. ‘I know the discovery of the bodies threw a large spanner in your works, and I expect you’re just as eager as I am for the case to be solved. One might say we share a common interest.’

Hjortur didn’t take the bait. ‘I certainly hope that the police conclude this as soon as possible, but I’m not in as much of a rush as you are. What’s waiting for me has been there for thirty-five years, so several days or weeks ahead or behind schedule isn’t going to change the overall picture. We’re not comrades.’ He crossed his arms. ‘If there’s nothing else I can help you with, I would really prefer to keep working. I’m using this down-time to finish several reports that have been hanging over my head. We’re not just sitting here twiddling our thumbs because the area is temporarily closed.’

Bella snorted, and Thóra hurried to say something before her secretary butted in. ‘I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, and I promise to be quick,’ she said.‘You’ll be rid of us before you know it.’ She smiled and hoped for the best, but Bella was staring stonily at the archaeologist.

Thóra wasn’t sure if it was her honey or her secretary’s vinegar that moved Hjortur, but he agreed to sit down with them for a few minutes. They followed him into a small conference room. ‘Has anything been found in the excavation that could possibly be connected to the discovery of the bodies?’ Thóra began.‘Something that might have had no particular significance when it was found, but might now, in the light of what was in the basement? I’m not confining my question to Markus’s parents’ house.’