Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

A quick search showed that there were almost four hundred Word documents on the computer. She arranged them by date with the most recent at the top. Their names were self-explanatory. A common feature of the file names at the top was that they all contained the word hexe somewhere. Since it was so late, Thora reached over to her handbag and took out a flash memory stick. She copied all the witchcraft files to examine at her leisure at home that eveningif Matthew would reveal what the Guntliebs had been keeping from her. If he didn't, she intended to spend the evening working out whether she could afford to tell them to get lost. She had absolutely no interest in working as some kind of luxury interpreter.

There was still no sign of Matthew, so Thora decided to search for scanned files. She asked the search function to find all the. pdf extensions and was rewarded with sixty names. She arranged them by date and copied the most recent ones to the memory stick. She had plenty to keep her busy that evening, that was certain. Then it occurred to her to search for Jpegs, and she called them up too. Harald had clearly owned a digital camera, which he had used prolifically. Hundreds of file names appeared, but they told her nothing because they were labeled by a series of numbers automatically generated when the pictures were downloaded from the camera. Harald had not bothered to rename them. Thora selected "thumb-nail view" to see the content immediately. Once again she arranged them by date. She noticed that the most recent ones had been taken inside the flat. The subjects were oddsome showed nothing in particular, most of them taken in the kitchen during preparations for a meal that was photographed in detail. No people were shown but hands could be seen in two of them, which Thora copied to her memory stick in case they belonged to the murderer. You never know, she thought. The other photographs were of a gigantic pasta meal at various stagesthese she left alone.

Scrolling down, Thora noticed that many of the photographs were quite embarrassing for the subjects, taken during an assortment of sex acts. She blushed for the participants as they rolled past in succession on the screen. Much as she would have liked to, she did not feel happy about enlarging them for fear that Matthew would walk in and find her prying. She also came across myriad photographs from the tongue operation, including the one Harald had chosen for his desktop wallpaper. It was impossible to see who was present, but some torsos were visible and Thora copied those too. Other files contained all manner of scenes from what seemed to be action-packed parties, interspersed withand these seemed completely out of placeIcelandic landscapes and journeys through them. Several were very dark and featured little more than gray rock facesThora thought she could make out a cross carved on one of them when she enlarged it. A whole series had been taken in a small village that Thora did not recognize, many of them in a museum where what looked like manuscripts were on exhibit along with a slab of basalt in a showcase. One shot showed a sign that Thora enlarged to see if she could identify the museum, only to be disappointedit simply said: No Photographs. Thora gave up on the pictures for the time being; by now she was down to fairly old ones that could hardly be linked with the case. She opened Harald's e-mail to see what it contained. In the in-box were seven unread messages. More had presumably arrived since Harald was murdered, but the police must have checked them.

Matthew walked in and Thora looked up from the e-mail. He sat down in his chair again with a twisted smile on his face. "Well?" she said impatiently, wanting to hear what he had to say.

"Well," Matthew echoed, leaning forward in his chair. He rested his elbows on his knees and clenched his hands as if about to pray. "Before I tell you what you think you have to know," he said, emphasizing the word "think," "you must promise me one thing."

"What?" Thora was quite sure of his reply.

"What I am about to tell you is in absolute confidence and must not go any further. Before I tell you I need confirmation that you'll keep this secret. Understand?"

"How am I supposed to know if I can keep a secret when I don't have a clue what it is?"

Matthew shrugged. "It's a risk you'll just have to take. I can honestly say to you that you will want to tell someonejust so you know I'm not leading you into a trap."

"Who will I want to tell?" asked Thora. "That seems important to me."

"The police," Matthew replied, without hesitation.

"You, or Harald's family, have information that could be important to the case, but you've decided to keep it secret? Do I understand that correctly?"

"Yep," said Matthew.

"Well, well," said Thora. She thought about it. Presumably a code of ethics obliged her to inform the authorities of information that could relate to a public prosecution, so she ought to turn down the offer and notify the police that Matthew was concealing evidence connected with the murder. On the other hand, she was well aware that he would deny the allegation and her part in the investigation would then be over. That served no one's interests. So with a rather elastic ethical interpretation she could conclude that she was obliged to swear to keep her mouth shut and, armed with this new information, do her utmost to solve the mystery confronting them. Everyone happy. Thora mulled all this over in silence. A fairly dubious conclusion, but the best of a bad jobthe code of ethics must allow for extenuating circumstances when the end justifies the means. If not, then it was time to change it.

"Okay," Thora said eventually. "I promise to tell no onenot even the policewhatever it is you are about to tell me." Matthew smiled, pleased, but before he could begin his revelation she added hastily: "But in return you must promise me that if this secret of yours proves Hugi's innocence, and if we can't demonstrate that in any other way, we will pass on the information to the authorities before the trial starts." Matthew opened his mouth, but Thora hadn't finished: "And the authorities won't be told that I knew. And"

Matthew cut her short. "No more 'ands'please." Now it was his turn to think things over. He regarded Thora steadily. "Agreed. You say nothing and I'll let the police know about the letter if we can't prove Hugi innocent in good time before the trial."

The letter? Yet another letter? Thora was beginning to think this was one huge farce, but then she remembered the autopsy photographs, which were still vivid in her mind. "What letter are you referring to?" she asked. "I still stand by my promise."

"Harald's mother received a letter shortly after the murder," Matthew replied. "The letter convinced her and her husband that the suspect could not be guilty. It was sent after Hugi had been taken into custody and therefore unable to send things through the post office. I doubt that the police would have done him the favor of posting it for himespecially because I presume they would first have read what it said."

"Which was?" Thora asked impatiently.

"What it said was nothing specialexcept that it was quite unpleasant about Harald's mother. But it was written in bloodHarald's blood."

"Yuck!" Thora said, before she could stop herself. She tried to imagine how it might feel to receive a letter written with her dead son's blood, but could not do it. It was too bizarre. "Who was the letter fromdid it say? And how did you know it was Harald's blood?"

"The letter was in Icelandic and signed with Harald's name, but a handwriting expert ruled that it wasn't his hand. He couldn't absolutely confirm this because it was written with a rough instrument. This complicated a comparison with Harald's normal hand, so it was sent for tests, including whether the blood was his. It turned out to beunquestionably. In fact they also found traces of blood from a passerine bird that had apparently been mixed with Harald's blood."