Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

Markus marries and divorces, has one son. Markus does not work for his father’s company. Maintains his friendship with Alda.

Leifur, Markus’s brother, takes over the family business when their father becomes ill. He has worked there since completing his studies in business.

When plans are made to excavate Markus’s parents’ house, Alda asks Markus to prevent it, but keeps this secret from her sister.

Alda takes a leave of absence from the A &E.

Alda familiarizes herself with Valgerdur’s autopsy report.

Alda for some reason keeps a picture of a tattoo bearing the words ‘Love Sex’, as well as a picture of an unidentified young man.

Alda has links to pornographic websites on her computer and is seeing a sex therapist.

Markus does what he can to prevent the excavation of his childhood home but settles for being allowed to get the box from the basement after Alda consents to this arrangement. He travels to the Islands.

Alda is murdered.

Markus finds the bodies in the basement and a man’s head in the box.

A possible murder weapon is found in a box with children’s clothes, also in the basement.

Thóra put down the paper and tried unsuccessfully to recall more details that might possibly make a difference. She also tried to determine how much of this might be unconnected to the murder, but couldn’t actually think of anything. It was the same as with the items in the storeroom – if she crossed something off the list it would probably turn out to be the vital clue. She sighed and tried to concentrate. Could Alda have killed the men? It didn’t matter how hard Thóra tried to imagine such an attack, with the men rolling drunk and the teenage Alda in a murderous frenzy with a salmon priest on the pier – it didn’t add up. What was she supposed to have done with the bodies after such a horrific deed? Thóra didn’t know any teenage girl who had the strength to struggle with the body of a full-grown man, still less if she had had to make four trips. If they’d been murdered in the basement, things would look different. Then Alda wouldn’t have needed to move the bodies at all. This, however, did not fit, since the murders were committed before the eruption. At least, Markus had put the box with the man’s head there before it happened. In addition, there were burn marks on the men’s clothing, which suggested that they had been out in the open after the tephra had started to rain down. And Alda had left the Islands by then. Thóra felt the blood on the pier must be connected to this.

Where was the body that was missing its head? It would probably never be found, since it hadn’t turned up during the last thirty-four years, even during the excavation. They had already dug up all the houses that they planned to salvage from the ash, so there was no hope of finding anything new that way. In addition, hundreds of houses had been buried beneath lava during the eruption, so the body in question could be inside one of them, and thus gone forever. Then again that could hardly be the case, because why would the murderer or murderers have moved only one of the bodies from house to house? Why move the others from a house that was about to be buried by lava to one that was being buried under ash? She was certain of one thing – if she herself had needed to get rid of a body under such circumstances, she would have chosen the house that would end up under lava. And then, of course, it was possible that the men had not been murdered in the Islands after all, despite the blood on the pier. Perhaps the murderers didn’t have ties to the Islands or the Westmann Islanders, but instead were outsiders who had transported the bodies there to hide them. Thóra sighed thoughtfully. If so, it had been a bad plan.

No, everything suggested that Markus’s father was the key to the case, not people from the mainland. If the bodies were put there without his knowledge, the murderer would hardly have hidden the mallet and knife in a box in the nearest storeroom, nor left these possible murder weapons next to the bodies. Thóra tried to imagine how Magnus might have played a part in all of this. Maybe he and Dadi had ended up in a scuffle with the crew of the smack, killed the men and brought their bodies to the basement. But that didn’t fit with Paddi seeing the smack sail away. Could it be that the paths of these men had crossed out at sea rather than on land, and the blood had ended up on the pier when Magnus and Dadi were dragging the bodies ashore? Thóra frowned. Could the two of them, Magnus and Dadi, have sailed Magnus’s ship? She had no idea how many people were needed to handle a boat that size. They would never have managed to get a whole crew of men to keep quiet about something like this. Of course Thóra had seen the ship in a painting at Leifur’s house, but that image told her precisely nothing, since she had never even pissed in the sea, much less seen how a fishing operation worked. The trip with Bella and Paddi the Hook could hardly be counted. This led her to something else: if the bodies belonged to the crew of the British smack, then where was the boat?

An unexpected thud came from the door of Thóra’s room, snapping her out of her reverie. The sound came again, but now it was clearly a knock. Thóra stood up and went to the door, where she was flabbergasted to see Bella, dressed and ready to go.

‘I’m ready,’ said Bella. She looked at Thóra and appeared to be unhappy with her boss, who wasn’t dressed yet. ‘I couldn’t sleep because my room was too quiet.’

Thóra looked at the clock and saw that it was almost eight. ‘I’m coming,’ she said apologetically.‘Would you like to go down to breakfast and get us a table?’ She handed Bella the page with her summary of events. ‘You can look over this while you wait. A second set of eyes.’ It was apparent from the young woman’s expression that she had never heard this idiom before.

‘I’ll be down in ten minutes,’ said Thóra, smiling as she closed the door on her secretary.

‘Can’t I have the list a bit longer?’ asked Bella, sipping the black coffee she’d poured for herself. Thóra couldn’t count the number of sweet rolls that had disappeared into the girl as they ate their breakfast.

‘No problem,’ said Thóra in surprise. ‘Did you see anything in it?’

Bella shook her head. ‘No, not yet,’ she said. ‘Actually you forgot to put in about Adolf and the rape.’ She turned the list towards Thóra. ‘I stuck it in there,’ she said, pointing at an illegible scribble in the margin.

‘I definitely overlooked a few other things,’ said Thóra. ‘If you remember anything else you can certainly add it. It’s not sacred.’

‘I’m also wondering if I should check on this tattoo for you,’ said Bella, pointing at the list.‘Love Sex,’ she muttered. ‘That’s so lame.’

A foreign couple at the next table, who had been immersed in a guidebook, finally understood two words of the women’s conversation and smiled knowingly at each other.

Thóra thought tattoos were pretty dumb at the best of times, so Love Sex was no worse than anything else as far as she was concerned. ‘What are you thinking of doing?’ she asked.‘Do you know much about tattoos?’

‘I’ve got three,’ replied Bella, and she started to fiddle with the collar of her sweater. She pulled it down and Thóra caught a glimpse of a unicorn on the upper slope of the girl’s hefty breast. ‘One,’ she said, arching in her seat to show Thóra her belly. ‘Two…’ The foreign couple were now staring at them.

‘It’s okay, I believe you,’said Thóra uncomfortably. ‘But what are you going to do with this tattoo?’

Bella tidied her clothing and adjusted herself in her seat. ‘I’m going to see whether anyone recognizes it. There aren’t many tattoo shops in Reykjavik, so it won’t take long. It’s an unusual tattoo, I think,’ she said. ‘At least, I’ve never seen it in any albums.’