Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

She put the mop in the sink and rinsed it under a jet of hot water. Muttering the Icelandic words for "hot" and "cold" to herself, she mentally cursed the difficult pronunciation.

Laura wrung out the mop and added it to the dirty cloths in the bucket of bleach. She reached for some window spray and three clean dusters. Today she was supposed to clean the insides of all the windows along the north side of the second floor, and she would certainly need more than one duster. She left the broom closet and went upstairs.

She was in luck; the first three offices were empty. Cleaning was so much easier when no one was around. Especially cleaning windows, as she had to clamber up onto chairs or other furniture to reach the top. She found it so uncomfortable doing this in front of a spectator whom she could not even talk to. It would all be much better when she gained a grasp of the language. Back in the Philippines she had been talkative and outgoing. In Iceland she felt she never came out of her shell except in the company of her compatriots.

At work she often felt more like an object than a human being; everyone spoke and acted as if she weren't there. Everyone except the head of cleaning services, Tryggvi. That man always behaved with absolute decorum and did everything he could to communicate with Laura and her fellow cleaning ladies, although more often than not this boiled down to primitive gestures that could be very amusing at times. Nor did he seem to mind their laughter when they teamed up to guess what he was trying to tell them. He was a true gentleman and Laura looked forward to being able to say something to him in his own language eventually. One thing was certainshe would never be able to pronounce his name after all the Icelandic courses in the world. She said "Tryggvi" in a quiet voice and could only smile when she heard how it came out.

Laura went to the fourth room. It served as the students' common room. She tapped on the door and went inside. On a battered sofa at the far end of the room sat a young girl whom Laura knew belonged to the murdered student's circle of friends. All those young people were easily recognizable, always looking like they were under a thundercloud, both in their demeanor and in how they dressed. The red-haired girl was immersed in a conversation on her mobile, and although she spoke quietly it was obvious that the subject was not pleasant. With a sour expression she looked up and cupped a hand over her mouth and the bottom of the mobile, as if to ensure that Laura did not hear what she was saying. She garbled a good-bye into the phone, crammed it in her camouflage-green shoulder bag, stood up, and strode haughtily past. Laura tried to smile to her and took enormous pains to say good-bye properly. The girl turned round in the doorway, surprised at the gesture, and muttered something before leaving and shutting the door. What a shame, Laura thought. She was a pretty girl, could even be called beautiful if she made the slightest effort to improve her appearance, took those awful rings out of her eyebrows and nose, and gave just the occasional smile.

But the windows were waiting and time was racing by. She sprayed the first window and wiped the cloth in successive circles over the glass. Fortunately there was not much dirt. The curtains were usually closed so the windows did not get smudged. She finished the windows one by one, but as she was completing the final one she noticed the first real dirty mark. It was not even on the glass itself, but was a small brown stain on the side of the steel handle used to open the window.

Laura retrieved the used cloth she had put into her overcoat pocket. There was no need to mess up the cloth in her handsit was perfectly clean. She sprayed the handle and wiped the cloth over and under it. Occasionally the youngest cleaners neglected places that weren't visible, and she could see that this smudgewhatever it waswas under the handle as well. She was pleased at having noticed it; she could just imagine some grumpy student opening the window, grabbing the handle, and then complaining about how badly it had been cleaned.

Laura snorted in disgust at the way they treated that placethe handle was just one of many examples of their sloppiness. Who could have such dirty hands anyway? Whatever it was, it wiped away immediately and Laura rubbed the cloth across a second time for form's sake. She looked at the shiny steel with satisfaction, feeling she had won a minor victory against Gunnar, the head of the department.

As she was slipping the cloth back into her pocket she could not help staring at the stain that was now on it. It was dark red. The brown color had been diluted by the damp cloth. It was bloodthere was no question. But how had it come to be on the handle? Laura did not remember any blood on the floor; the person who grabbed the window handle must have bled onto other surfaces. She wondered about a link with the murder, but thought it unlikely. The windows had been cleaned since then. She wrinkled her brow in thought. Just because she did not recall cleaning the windows herself did not mean no one else had. She tried to rememberwasn't the east wing cleaned the day after the murder? Yes. Of course it had been. The police had even questioned one of the younger girls, Gloria, who did the weekend shifts.

What on earth was she supposed to do? She balked at the idea of trying to explain this incident in Icelandic. It wasn't enough to be able to say "hot" and "cold" for this. Besides, she could end up in trouble with the authorities for erasing the murderer's fingerprints by wiping the handle. It could also be embarrassing if she tried to make an issue out of something that turned out to have a perfectly normal explanation. What a mess! She remembered the fuss Gloria made about the questioning she was subjected toshe'd even shed a few tears when she told the others about how tough the police were. Laura was convinced at the time that they were crocodile tears, but now she was not so sure. She looked all around the floor for any signs of blood. If she could find some it would settle the matter, because she had cleaned here more than once since the murder was committed. Then it would have to be a recent event with a normal explanation.

There was no blood on the floor, not even in the corners where the baseboards met. Laura bit her lip anxiously. She tried to console herself. The police had the murderer in custody. If the blood was connected with the murder it would surely be just one more piece of evidence showing that he was the killer. Laura took a deep breath. She thought about the magazines that were often thrust in her face at the Filipino gatherings, magazines containing interviews with one of the attendees and photographs of them with the most incredible objects that they all seemed to need to hold up against their faces. Laura could not envisage herself holding a window handle up against her cheek on a double-page spread in such a magazine. No, she was being unnecessarily sillyone of the students must have had a nosebleed, felt dizzy, and wanted a breath of fresh air. She breathed more lightly for a minute, until she remembered her own children getting nosebleeds. They went to a bathroomnot an open window.

All the same. There was nothing to suggest that the German student's murderer had tried to open the window, any more than someone completely unrelated to the murder had been injured and needed some fresh air. Laura took her cloth and decided to see whether there was any blood in the cornerssomething that could be expected if a major confrontation had taken place in the room. An inexperienced cleaner might not have realized that such traces of evidence could be left. Making the sign of the cross, she decided that if no more blood appeared on the cloth it was a sign from above that she was overreacting. Otherwise she would notify the police even if it meant putting that nice man Tryggvi in a spot of bother. Laura got down on her knees and inched her way along the walls. Nothing. The cloth came up clean apart from some specks of dust and the usual dirt. She felt better and got to her feet, satisfied with the outcome. What sillinessof course there was a normal explanation for that blood. Obviously the fact that it had even crossed her mind was due to her shock when the body was founda terribly mutilated and ungodly corpse. Once again she made the sign of the cross.