Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

Matthew looked at Thora, who nodded assent. "Yes, thank you, we'll accept that," he said. "As soon as you find out when Thorbjorn's free, you can give me a call. Also if anything occurs to you that might be important." He handed Gunnar his card.

Thora produced her card from her bag as well, handing it to Gunnar. "We'll see if the letter you're looking for is among the papers we have."

"I would appreciate thatit's rather embarrassing for the university and I'd prefer not to have to declare the letter lost. Unfortunately I don't have a card on me but you can usually get hold of me by just phoning my office." He stood up.

"About Harald's friends," said Matthew. "Can you put them in touch with us? We'd like to have a few words with the ones who knew him best; maybe they could shed light on what Harald was up to. We tried to contact some of them this morning, but none of them want to talk to us."

"You presumably mean the young people in that society of his," Gunnar said. "Yes, I should be able to. The society is based at our department so I bump into them from time to time. Actually I was hoping that society would fold without Harald. I didn't consider it a great credit to the university and certainly saw no reason to support them by providing facilities. But I don't control everything myself so I'm stuck with the decision. I can arrange a meeting with the two students who are at our department. They should be able to put you in touch with others that Harald associated with."

"That would be much appreciated." Thora smiled gratefully at him. "Why do you think the society is so awful?"

Gunnar seemed to mull over his reply. "There was a minor incident about six months back. I was and still am convinced that it had something to do with that society, but I can't prove it. Unfortunately."

"What happened?" asked Matthew.

"I don't know whether I should say much about it," Gunnar said, clearly wishing he hadn't mentioned it. "It was hushed up and not reported through the proper channels."

"What?" said Matthew and Thora in unison.

Gunnar hesitated. "We found a finger."

"A finger?" Matthew and Thora spoke together again, this time in shock.

"Yes, one of the cleaners found a finger outside their staff room. I can still hear that poor woman howling. The finger was sent for tests at the university's forensic science department and it turned out to belong to an old persona proper sex test wasn't done, but it was probably male. It was gangrenous."

"Were the police notified?" Thora asked, astounded.

Gunnar blushed. "I wish I could say they were, but after our own investigation into the origin of the finger and the reason for its being on our premises, we felt it was inappropriate to notify themsuch a long time after it was found, you know. It was the start of the summer break, as well."

Thora did not think the summer break was much of an excuse. Maybe they ought to be thankful that no one was on maternity leave when Harald's body was found. Or that the history department hadn't decided to investigate the murder itself. "Well, well."

"So what did you do with the finger?" asked Matthew.

"Um, weerthrew it away," Gunnar mumbled. His blush spread up his cheeks and across his scalp. "It was definitely not connected with the murder so there seemed no reason to bring up this dreadful business with the police. They had plenty of other things to think about."

"Well, well," Thora repeated. Fingers, eyes, a letter about severed earswhat next?

Thora straightened up and leaned back in her chair. She had just finished plugging the last cable into the computer and all that remained was to switch it on. She and Matthew were in Harald's studyafter bidding farewell to the cryptic Gunnar Gestvik. "I must confess that I find this theory of yours and the Guntliebs about a mystery murderer increasingly unlikely." She switched on the computer and a low hum indicated that it was booting up. "The blood on Hugi's clothes, for examplehow does that fit in with your theory?" Matthew said nothing, so she continued. "And the papers just nowI don't quite see the link between the murder and a university dissertation, especially because Harald was clearly straying from the subject a little when gathering his material."

"I just know it," Matthew said, without looking directly at her.

Something about his manner struck Thora as odd. Besides the fact that it was not like him to avoid eye contact, she noticed that he was staring fixedly at the screen of his mobile phone, as if hoping someone would call and extricate him from this conversation. Thora crossed her arms and scowled. "You're hiding something from me."

Matthew went on gazing hopefully at his phone. "Well, I hope I haven't revealed all my secrets during our short acquaintance," he said with forced joviality.

"Oh, come onyou know exactly what I mean. There's more to it than the missing money and eyes." Thora still had trouble discussing the gouged-out eyes. She still could not manage to express the idea clearly; words somehow failed to encapsulate it. "Really, that's all there isoh, yes, and an e-mail that says nothing and now a finger at the university that the professors panicked over and threw away."

Matthew put his mobile in his pocket. "Even if I were hiding something from youwould you still take my word for it that Hugi can't be the murderer, or at least couldn't have done it alone?"

Thora laughed out loud. "Nonot really."

Matthew stood up. "That's a shame. To tell you the truth, I can't make decisions about certain information by myself," he said, quickly adding: "That is, if there was anything else."

"Let's imagine that's the caseand that the person who can decide to include me in the picture would allow itwouldn't it be worth checking?"

Matthew looked at her pensively, then left the room. Thora noticed his mobile was back in his hand. Hopefully he'd gone out to use it. She cocked her ear and could hear the muffled sound of his voice from the corridor.

A little gray box in the center of the computer screen told her to enter the administrator password. Not knowing it, she had to go by guesswork: Harald, Malleus, Windows, Hexe , and the like. None of them worked, although Thora had been very pleased with herself and sure she had clinched it when she thought of the term Hexe , which stood for "witch" in German. She leaned back and looked around for inspiration. On a shelf above the desk was a framed photograph that she reached out for. It was of a young disabled girl in a wheelchair. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this was Harald's sister, who had died some years before. What was her name again? Wasn't she named after her mother? Whose name was what? Anna? No, but it began with A. Agatha or Angelina. Ameliaher name was Amelia Guntlieb. Thora tried that. Nothing happened. With a sigh she decided to enter it without the capital: amelia.

Bingo! The computer emitted the familiar Windows jingle: dum-deedum-dee, and Thora was in. She wondered how long the police had spent trying to find the password, but realized they must have a computer expert who could get in by the back door. They would hardly spend hours on trial and error.

It took a while before it dawned on Thora what the picture was on the unusual desktop wallpaper. It wasn't every day that she saw the inside of a mouth on a seventeen-inch screen, let alone a mouth with the tongue pinned on either side with two stainless steel tongs and a fiery red slit along it from the tipor rather, tips. Although she was not well versed in the practice, the photograph had obviously been taken when a tongue was being split down the middle. The operation was either still in progress or just completed. Thora would have bet money on the identity of the tongue's owner. It must be Harald himself. She shook herself to stave off nausea and opened Explorer, which immediately filled the screen, removing the wretched image from her sight.