Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

"A few?" he said in surprise. "I expected more than 'a few'quite a few at the very least. But fire away."

Thora was unsure of herself as she looked at the list. Damn it, had she overlooked so many points? She tried to act nonchalant. "Actually these are the main points, there were too many minor details to write them all down." With a smile, she continued. "For example, the army. Why were those documents in the file when Harald was actually medically unfit for military service?"

"Military service, yes. I just included it to give you the fullest possible picture of Harald's life. It might be irrelevant but you never know where the threads join up."

"Do you think the murder is linked to the army?" Thora was skeptical.

"No, definitely not," replied Matthew. He shrugged. "But in Harald's case you can never tell."

"But why did he do national service?" Thora asked. "Judging from his profile he would have been more likely to be against military warfare."

"You're quite right. He was called up, as it happens, but under normal circumstances he would definitely have gone for community service. You know about that option for conscripts?" Thora nodded. "He didn't opt out of service, however. His sister Amelia had just died and it upset him deeply. I suspect he made the decision in a mental crisis. This was at the beginning of 1999, and in November or December of that year Germany decided to send troops to Kosovo. Harald went there with a smile on his face. I'm not sure about all the details of his military career but I do know that he was a model conscript, steadfast and tough. So the incident in Kosovo took the army completely by surprise."

"What happened?" asked Thora.

Matthew gave a wry smile. "It's quite a funny storyin a way. Especially bearing in mind that the expedition to Kosovo was the first German mission abroad since the Second World War. Up to then German soldiers had only been involved in peacekeeping work abroad. So it was vital for our troops to be model soldiers."

"Harald wasn't, then?"

"Oh, no. You could call him unlucky. After he'd been there about three months his regiment arrested a Serb who was suspected of having information about a fatal bombing. It cost three German soldiers their lives and many others were injured. The Serb was detained in the basement of the building where the German regiment was stationed. Harald was one of the guards. He was on duty alone when the prisoner had been there for two or three nights and still hadn't confessed a thing. Harald had mentioned to his superior that he knew a thing or two about interrogation techniques and was given permission to try to get some information out of the prisoner that night." Matthew looked at Thora. "Of course, the man who authorized this had no idea that Harald was well versed in the history of torture. He must have expected Harald to put his head round the door every so often to ask the prisoner a few innocent questions."

Thora's eyes opened wide. "Did he torture him?"

"Let's just say that the Serb would gladly have swapped places with the men in the naked pyramid at Abu Ghraib. I'm not condoning what happened, but that was like Disneyland compared with what the poor Serb had to put up with that night. When the shift changed the next morning Harald had managed to get the man to tell everything he knewand a lot more besides. But instead of earning the praise he thought he deserved, Harald was discharged on the spotas soon as his superiors saw the barely breathing heap of raw meat lying in its own blood on the floor of the cell. Of course the affair was hushed up because it would have tarnished the army's reputation. All the official documents state that Harald left the army for health reasons."

"So how do you know this?" Thora asked, relieved at being able to ask a reasonably normal question.

"I know people," said Matthew enigmatically. "And I talked to Harald after he got back from Kosovo. He was a changed man, I can tell you. Whether it was his experience of military life or the taste of blood I can't tell. But he became even weirder than before."

"How?" Thora asked, curious.

"Just weirder," Matthew replied. "In appearance and behavior. He enrolled in college soon after thishe left home so I didn't see him so often. From the few occasions when we ran into each other it was quite obvious that he was caught in a downward spiral. Presumably his grandfather's death shortly afterward didn't help either. They were very close."

Thora did not know what to say. Harald Guntlieb was clearly no ordinary person. Looking at her notes, she remembered the victim of erotic asphyxiation who was described in the newspaper clipping. But she decided she'd had enough for now. She glanced at her mobile and saw that it was late. "Matthew, I have to go home. My list isn't finished but I have plenty to digest for the time being."

They quickly tidied up the papers they had been rummaging through in the study. They made sure not to mix up the piles of documents they had sorted. The thought of the extra work that would have involved was unbearable.

As she put the final pile neatly to one side Thora turned to Matthew and asked: "Did Harald make a willconsidering all the assets he owned?"

"Actually he did leave a willquite a recent one in fact," said Matthew. "He'd always had one, but changed it in the middle of September. He made a trip to Germany specifically to meet the Guntliebs' lawyer to draw up a new version. But no one knows what it says."

"Really?" Thora said, surprised. "Why not?"

"It was in two partswith instructions to open one before the other. It stated that the second part must not be opened until Harald had been buriedwhich hasn't been possible because of the investigation."

"Was that all it said?" Thora asked.

"No, there were also instructions about where he wanted to be buried."

"And where is that?"

"In Icelandwhich is strange considering the short time he spent here. The country seems to have captivated him. Another instruction was that his parents have to attend the funeral and stand at the foot of the grave for at least ten minutes after the casket is lowered. If they fail to comply, all his possessions will be bequeathed to a tattoo parlor in Munich."

Thora asked him to repeat that. "So didn't he expect them to turn up?"

"Evidently not," replied Matthew. "But he made absolutely certain of it with that clausehis parents don't care to be splattered across the tabloids because their son left a small fortune to a tattoo parlor."

"Do you think they'll inherit it, then?" Thora asked. "That is, if they turn up."

"No," Matthew replied. "They couldn't really care lessthey just don't want to end up in the gutter press."

He thought for a moment.

"I think his sister Elisa will probably inherit most of his belongings. But a good share of the money will doubtless go to someone here in Icelandthe lawyer implied that strongly when he was pressed. The second part of the will must be opened here, according to Harald's instructions."

"I wonder who it is," Thora said, curious.

"I don't have a clue," responded Matthew. "But he or she had ample reason to kill Harald, if they knew about it beforehand."

Thora was relieved to leave the apartment. She was tired and wanted to go home to her children. Yet she felt somehow uncomfortable. She had the feeling she had overlooked something. But no matter how she tried to recall it after she was alone in her "Bibbi's Garage" car, she could not put her finger on what was eluding her. And when she parked in her drive she forgot it completely.

The effects of divorce are not all positive. Thora had long been aware that it had its drawbacks too. Previously, two people were running the household, but now Thora had to stretch a single salary to fill the gap left after the split. The meager amount she received in child support from her husband did little to alleviate her financial problems. It's an easy enough thing to step up one's spending and be comfortable with it; at least Thora did not recall any particular difficulties in converting from a poor student to a salary-earner. But it's a different matter when it comes to cutting back, as she had found out.