Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

Thóra scanned the text on the screen. She quickly found information on Markus’s house and its residents at the time, and recognized the names of his parents and brother. She noted down the names of their nearest neighbours, and then those of the residents of the other ten houses on the street. All the names told her was that Kjartan, whom she and Bella had met at the harbour-master’s office, looked to have lived in the house next to Markus’s. At least, the name of the family head was Kjartan Helgason. There could have been two men with the same name, but no other information on him was to be found on the website.

Thóra clicked on the next link, Residents of Sudurvegur Street, and found short biographies of four residents. Luckily, one of these biographical blurbs was about Kjartan Helgason and, even better, the article was accompanied by a photograph. Thóra recognized him immediately. On the downside, his biography didn’t tell her much except that Kjartan had had a long career at sea, thenworked in various jobs before taking up his current position as harbour-master. He had married and had four children; they were all adults now. Upon finishing this article Thóra skimmed through the other biographies, but found nothing that seemed likely to help Markus. The only thing that drew her attention was how many children there had been in each home. Apart from one couple that appeared to be childless, Magnus and his wife Klara had had the fewest children, just their two sons Leifur and Markus.

Thóra finished her coffee and phoned Bella to check on her progress – and set her mind at rest about the archivist’s safety. Her secretary was sullen. The files were obviously in the archive, but Bella hadn’t yet been able to discover which boat Markus had travelled on. Thóra regretted not having asked Markus what the boat was called, since the files were arranged by name of vessel. Thóra did her best to be encouraging and tell Bella how important her task was, then she said goodbye and informed her secretary that she was going back to the hotel, where they would meet and decide how best to take advantage of the rest of the day until their dinner with Leifur and his family.

The weather was so pleasant that Thóra decided to make a detour and enjoy the sunshine. She walked past a souvenir shop and went in to buy a statue of a puffin for Sóley, as well as a tiny pair of woollen mittens for her grandson Orri. Just as the saleswoman was ringing up the items, Bella called.

‘Guess what I found out?’ she said proudly. ‘Markus and Alda took the same boat to the mainland.’

Thóra thanked her, hung up and smiled happily at the saleswoman as she handed her her credit card. They’d cleared the first hurdle.

‘Could you please pass the salt?’asked Thóra, trying to sound nonchalant. On a beautiful porcelain plate in front of her was a light blue egg, flecked with brown, which she had cracked open halfway. Doing so had exposed an almost transparent white, even though the egg was supposed to be hard-boiled. Thóra wasn’t very adventurous when it came to food, and a wild bird’s egg wasn’t very high on her list of delicacies. Normally she would have refused it politely and waited for the main course, but at a dinner with unfamiliar hosts she had no other choice but to salt it well, swallow it and smile. Leifur grinned at her and handed her the salt- shaker. ‘It’s not for everyone,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.’

Thóra smiled back. ‘No, I would really like to try it,’ she lied, and shook the slender shaker over the greyish albumen. Then she handed the salt on to Bella and watched as her secretary did much the same. Bella peered out of the corner of her eye at Thóra, clearly suffering the same dilemma.

Maria, Leifur’s wife, was watching them closely from the opposite end of the table. She was visibly displeased. She looked away from the two women and turned to her husband. ‘I don’t know why you always have to force this on your guests, especially as we have visitors so rarely,’ she said, lifting her glass and gulping down her white wine. ‘It stopped being clever a long time ago.’ Her glass banged loudly on the table when she put it down, and it was embarrassingly clear that she’d had a bit too much to drink. She was an extremely good-looking woman who had probably been a great beauty in her youth, but she was painfully thin and Thóra would have bet anything she’d had medical assistance to keep herself looking so good. Her clothing was impeccable and appeared to be mostly brand new, although it wasn’t the latest fashion. Her outfit was classic, a knee-length beige skirt and cream silk shirt that matched her pale suede high heels. Since Maria had very fair colouring, she looked so monotone that Thóra thought she’d be invisible if she walked in front of a haystack.

‘Maybe you’d have preferred to serve your famous burnt French onion soup, dear,’ said Leifur, shooting his wife a look that was anything but loving. He did not seem to be dressed as formally as her, although he wore a shirt and smart trousers. Perhaps the casual impression came from his gestures and facial expressions, since he was in every respect more relaxed than his wife.

‘Have you always lived here in the Islands?’ asked Thóra, in an attempt to lighten the mood. She had experienced her own marital troubles and hindsight told her that incidents like this were the reason others had started to decline her and Hannes’s dinner invitations before they finally divorced. There had been no need to serve half-raw wild birds’ eggs to drive away their guests.

‘God, no,’ snapped Maria.

‘Maria isn’t from here, as you might’ve guessed,’ said Leifur, smiling sarcastically at his wife.‘We met when I was studying in Reykjavik and lived together there for two years until my graduation. With the exception of my school years I’ve always lived in the Islands.’ Leifur set aside the empty shell of one egg and reached for another. ‘I always wanted to study to be a sea-captain, but ended up in business.’ His experienced hands broke the shell off the top of the beautifully coloured egg. ‘It was clear that my father’s fishing company was growing and I felt a business degree would be of more use to the family and the company.’

‘And you turned out to be right, isn’t that so?’ asked Thóra. She knew from Markus that the fishing company was doing very well. She stuck her spoon into her egg, scooped out some of the hard congealed stuff and tried to swallow it quickly.

‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ said Leifur. ‘I actually doubt that my education makes much difference. We’ve been lucky with the catches, and have very experienced captains. Actually I have been able to strengthen the company’s foundations, but that’s only part of the picture. Things are getting a bit tight now, what with the quotas being curtailed, not to mention the instability of the krona.’

Thóra nodded and decided not to get into a deeper conversation about the exchange rate or finances. There was little more boring to her than money talk, and there was a risk that she would Display her own ignorance if the conversation continued on its current path. ‘And Markus hasn’t been involved with the fishing company at all?’ she asked.

‘No, he’s gone his own way,’ replied Leifur. ‘Luckily, maybe,’ he added.‘It’s never a good idea to run a company with two directors. Since father retired I’ve been running the show alone, and doing well. Markus doesn’t complain, and it wouldn’t matter if he did. He’s happy with his share of the profits.’

Maria snorted. ‘You would’ve done even better if you’d sold. You’re not the only one with a degree in business administration in this family, and I know very well how much you can get for the quota and the ships. Magnus says that we could live perfectly well off the interest alone, Markus included.’ She took another gulp of wine. ‘But God help us if the quota and the company were to be sold.’