Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Ashes To Dust

‘And why are you looking at me?’asked Alda’s mother, putting one hand to her throat dramatically.‘I haven’t murdered anyone, if that’s what you’re insinuating.’

‘Of course not,’ Thóra replied. ‘But I think you know, or at least have an idea, who these men were. I’m fairly certain that it was something to do with Markus’s father Magnus, and Dadi, who is deceased. Your husband may also have played a part.’

The woman stared at Thóra without saying a word. Jóhanna looked from one of them to the other, her eyes wide. ‘Is that true, Mother? Is Markus locked up for a murder that Father committed?’

‘Utter nonsense,’ her mother spat, without looking at her daughter. She continued to glare at Thóra.‘I must ask you to leave. Unfortunately, I cannot help you. If Magnus and Dadi did something, that’s too bad, but I cannot answer for it.’

‘Did Alda have a child?’ asked Thóra suddenly. Jóhanna looked almost relieved at this question, perhaps thinking that it confirmed Thóra had a screw loose. Her mother, on the other hand, appeared startled.

‘What now? More nonsense?’ asked the woman, but she wouldn’t meet Thóra’s gaze.

‘I met a young man this morning who told me that Alda contacted him repeatedly and insisted that she was his mother,’ continued Thóra. It was best to strike while the iron was hot. ‘Is he lying?’

‘What is she talking about, Mother?’ asked Jóhanna, querulously.‘Is this the secret Alda was going to tell me?’ she said, turning her bewildered face to Thóra.

‘I don’t know,’ said Thóra honestly. ‘All I know is that Alda disappeared for a while. She was supposedly a student at Isafjördur Junior College for about the same length of time as her pregnancy, if the story is true. But no one there knows anything about her. That’s why I’m wondering whether the man’s claim might be true.’

‘Who is this man?’ asked the old woman, and added frantically: ‘I mean, is he mentally ill, or something?’

Thóra shrugged. ‘That’s neither here nor there. I’m not going to discuss him with you if he’s not Alda’s son, as you suggest. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have anything to do with you.’

The old woman’s head dropped. Thóra expected to be chastised again, but instead the old woman’s shoulders started to shake, at first slightly, then more rapidly. Jóhanna went to her mother and sat down at her side. She put her arm around her shoulders, and little by little they stopped trembling. ‘Oh, God,’ the old woman said, but couldn’t continue through her sobs. After a while she said: ‘I’ve done so many bad things in my life. So many bad things. I should be lying in that coffin. Not Alda.’ She still did not look up.

‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ said Thóra automatically. ‘It’s how you learn from them that matters.’

The woman shook her head. A moment later she raised her eyes pleadingly towards the white coffin that rested on a low platform before the altar. ‘That’s exactly what everyone fails to do. Everyone.’ She fell silent and Thóra kept quiet too, thinking it would be best to give her a little time. She was afraid Alda’s mother might withdraw into her shell if she pushed too hard to get in. The woman spoke again: ‘Everything was different back then. Everything young people take for granted today didn’t exist. We had to work for everything.’

‘Did Alda have a child?’ asked Jóhanna angrily. ‘What is this about?’ Thóra glared at her, not wanting her to rock the boat. Jóhanna pretended not to notice. ‘Who was the father?’she demanded.

Fat tears leaked down the old woman’s cheeks and fell onto the dark blue shawl she wore around her neck. There they formed a spreading dark stain. ‘She was raped. By a foreigner.’ She was speaking to Jóhanna as if Thóra were not even present.‘She went to hospital in a terrible state and she was treated there. They called us from there. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.’

Thóra had no desire to hear the description of Alda after the rape.

‘And she discovered she was pregnant after the attack?’ she asked, as gently as possible.

The woman gave Thóra a startled look, then nodded. ‘Yes. Fate can be so cruel, and more often than not to the most beautiful souls. She was just a girl, had maybe kissed one boy, probably not even that. She was so good and obedient that we never had any problems with her, unlike so many kids her age. Just once she does something differently, and then her world falls apart. Once.’

Jóhanna sat speechless next to her mother, which prompted Thóra to keep the conversation going. She drew a deep breath. ‘She drank alcohol that night,didn’t she? Like all the kids?’

The old woman nodded. ‘She wasn’t the worst. If she had been any drunker we would have been called and asked to pick her up. Instead, she was allowed to walk home.’ The woman stared into her lap. ‘She knew we would find out about it, so she decided to give herself some time to sober up. She went down to the harbour, thinking the sea air would help. There she met that terrible man. He was drunk, and he had his way with her. She couldn’t offer any resistance even though she fought back as hard as she could. She was so small and delicate, my darling child.’

‘And is that monster one of the bodies in the basement?’ asked Thóra, hoping that the question wouldn’t make her clam up. The woman said nothing, so Thóra tried again. ‘I have a daughter myself, and I can well imagine what flies through the minds of the parents when something like this happens. The worst of it is that we can’t do anything to change it. But Markus has a son, a son who doesn’t deserve to have his father locked up for the wrong reason. For his sake, the truth has to come out.’

The woman did not look up, but somehow this seemed to move her, and when she spoke again her tone was more determined.‘When Geiri found out from Alda at the hospital who had done it, he rushed out,’ she said flatly, as if she were reciting a script. ‘I tried to dissuade him, but it meant nothing. He left me at her bedside and went and got Magnus. One for all and all for one. They caught the men down at the harbour, on their boat, which Alda had described to her father. The men were still blind drunk; there were four of them, and two of them were sleeping. Geiri went into a rage, and Maggi wasn’t much better. Geiri was completely covered in blood when he came home.’

Thóra said nothing. Thórgeir, Alda’s father, and Magnus, Markus’s father, were the murderers. According to this account, Dadi had had nothing to do with it. ‘Did they use a salmon priest and a large ornamental knife?’ asked Thóra, certain she knew what the answer would be.

‘No,’ said the old woman, shaking her head gloomily. ‘They boarded their own ship and fetched a filleting knife and club they had there. They threw them into the harbour afterwards.’

Thóra didn’t react, although this surprised her. She had been so sure that the mallet and knife had been used. This meant there had to be another reason they were kept among the children’s clothing in the storeroom. ‘Did anyone know about this?’ asked Thóra. ‘It couldn’t have happened without anyone noticing.’ She pushed down the image of the beatings that sprang to her mind. They were obviously the source of the pool of blood at the pier.

‘Dadi, Valgerdur’s husband, went after them,’ said the woman. ‘Valgerdur was on duty when Alda arrived at the hospital, and it was she who called and told us what had happened to Alda. I had the feeling she enjoyed giving us the news. Then she hung around the whole time that Alda was crying and telling us what had happened. She offered to call Dadi and get him to find the man, and that’s what he did. He stumbled on Magnus and my Geiri at the fateful moment.’