Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

‘Agúst,’ said Dís, gritting her teeth to keep herself from shouting. She exhaled through her nose and composed herself before continuing. ‘I removed evidence from Alda’s home, and the police suspect something. This evidence could either prove the guilt of the man in custody, or, even worse, clear his name. Of course I’m worried; only an idiot wouldn’t be.’ She hoped it was clear she meant Agúst as well as herself.

He didn’t react to the taunt.‘The police have talked to me too. There was nothing strange about their questions, considering how she died. You can’t just grab Botox off the shelf at the chemist’s.’

Dís rolled her eyes. ‘You weren’t the first one at the murder scene. I was.’ She realized she was almost lunging at him across the desk and pulled herself back a bit.‘That’s why the questions they asked you weren’t as loaded.’

Agúst seemed unsure what to say. He obviously regretted not having taken the opportunity to slip out with the last patient. ‘Which questions were you worried about?’

‘The questions about the Botox and where Alda might have got it, the questions about exactly what I did while I waited, how much time passed before I called for help, and so forth. How do I know someone didn’t see me there, and that they won’t find out I did more than I told them?’

Agúst frowned. ‘Dís, are you crazy? How long did it take you to remove it from the bedside table? Thirty seconds? Twenty? The police can’t possibly have any information like that. Get a grip on yourself and calm down.’

Dís had to admit that he was probably right, which she hated. ‘But where else could Alda have got the Botox?’ she asked. ‘They’re not going to give up investigating that. Say they get their hands on it in the end – the bottle definitely has a serial number that can be traced back to the dealer, and from them to whoever originally supplied it. What do you say to that, Einstein? Then you’ll be under the microscope right next to me, I can promise you.’ She waited, willing him to panic. He had bought the drug, not her. The drugs that she ordered were on their inventory and didn’t ever leave the office. ‘And when they start investigating you, other things are going to come out, you know.’ She watched him, still waiting for his forehead to crease with worry.

Her hopes were dashed. Agúst just shrugged, smiling cruelly. ‘Not a problem,’ he said.‘I’ll never end up under that microscope. I’ve already come up with a solution.’ He was obviously very pleased with his plan, because he had puffed out his chest. ‘I told the police that we might not have checked the inventory closely enough lately, because we’d been so busy.’ Agúst smiled at Dís. And guess what? It turned out some Botox was missing.‘

Are you going to lie and say it came from here?‘ said Dís. It dawned on her that this lie could get Agúst out of the frame, but she would still be under suspicion. ’But they’ll think I took it,‘she said, surprised to note that there was no agitation in her voice.’I told the lawyer of the man they arrested that we check our inventory scrupulously. She’s going to suspect something when you tell a different story,‘ she added.

‘Bless you,’ laughed Agúst. ‘That lawyer has no idea what I told the police.’ But he looked discomfited. ‘You shouldn’t have told her that.’

Dís was unhappy about being put on the defensive, but there was little she could do about it. ‘I thought I could persuade her and the police to think that this was suicide after all, or at least divert their attention to the A &E.’ Asshe was saying this, she realized how bad this sounded.

Agúst rose and placed his hand on her shoulder as she sat with her palms flat on the desk. ‘Everything will be all right, Dís. Don’t trouble yourself unnecessarily or do anything rash.’ He smiled genially at her, but Dís could feel an edge behind his smile. He soon proved her right. ‘Where are you keeping… the thing you took from the bedside table?’ asked Agúst.

Dís tried to hide her distress.‘I took it home,’ she said, and pressed her lips together firmly. She wanted to make this difficult for him.

‘And what are you going to do with it?’ he asked calmly. ‘Wouldn’t it be best to destroy it?’

‘No,’ said Dís, looking down. ‘I can’t. There might be important fingerprints on the syringe.’ She stood up. ‘When I took it from the bedside table I suspected that you’d let Alda have some Botox. I knew she wanted to give herself and her friends injections, and I also knew that you wouldn’t say no to her, even though I didn’t realize then what interests you were protecting.’ She crossed her arms so he wouldn’t see how much her hands were shaking. ‘I was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake, a fatal one. Given herself a heart attack, or worse. I was thinking about you, I wanted to protect you if it turned out you’d been careless with drugs. But I never suspected this would turn out to be murder.’ She looked directly at him. ‘I wanted to help you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to-’

Agúst interrupted her. ‘What? Conceal evidence from the police? You’re already doing that.’ He stared at her, and now she saw fear in his eyes for the first time. ‘Are you taking this to the police?’

Dís thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet,’ she lied.

The tour had ended with them sailing almost aimlessly through a calm patch of sea around Heimaey and the nearby islands, while the old captain spun his stories. It would have been interesting to see their route on a map, since only fate seemed to determine the course Paddi the Hook took. Now and again he described certain aspects of the landscape to them and informed them of local customs and geography. But it was clear to everyone that this was not the purpose of the trip. He didn’t make any particular effort to describe what they were seeing, appearing to slip into tour guide mode only occasionally, out of habit. Thóra would try to appear interested, but with limited success. It wasn’t that it was difficult- the scenery was fabulous, especially south of Heimaey – but she thought it looked as though when the Almighty put the main island there, pieces had crumbled off and formed the other islands that lay scattered about. When she and Bella finally disembarked after the three-hour trip, Thóra was much better informed about life in the Islands and the people she thought were tied to the case. Paddi had seemed unwilling to admit that Alda’s name had ever been linked with the blood on the pier, and hadn’t succumbed to Thóra’s badgering. The smack with its foreign crew had sailed away in the night.

Back on land Thóra had tried to show the old sailor the copy of the photo from Alda’s desk, in the hope that he could identify the young man. Paddi shook his head and said that he wasn’t from the Westmann Islands, and looked more like a foreigner. Thóra thanked him and put the picture back into her bag. What she had, then, was the story about the blood on the pier, and the fact that Magnus had been in the area around the time it appeared. She found it interesting that Magnus’s wife was so adamant her husband hadn’t left the house again after bringing their drunken son home. Of course it was possible that she hadn’t been aware of him leaving, but Thóra suspected the woman had been persuaded to make this statement against her better judgement.

Fresh in Thóra’s memory were the descriptions of the violence that had caused the deaths of the men in the basement. It required a particular type of man to attack others in such a way, and now everything pointed towards that man being her client’s father. Dadi Horseshoe – and possibly others – must have helped him. This made more sense than the theory that an adolescent girl had been the perpetrator.