Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Last Rituals

"Hello," said Briet, flustered, when Marta answered. "It's Briet."

"Fucking early to call." Marta Mist's voice was hoarse and Briet had clearly woken her up.

"You've got to get down to the universityGunnar's gone nuts and says he'll make sure we're all expelled if we don't do what he says."

"That's bull." Marta Mist sounded properly awake now.

"We've got to phone the others and tell them to come here. I'm not going to get expelled. My dad will go ballistic and I won't get my student loan."

Marta Mist interrupted her. "Chill for a minute. How does Gunnar plan to get us expelled? I don't know about you, but my grades are fine."

"He says he's going to complain to the department board about drug-takinghe says he's got things up his sleeve. So he could get Brjann and me expelled and then make sure the same happened to you and Andri and Dori. We have to do what he says. I'm not risking it, anyway." Briet was agitated. What was wrong with Marta Mistcouldn't she ever do what she was told?

"What does he want us to do?" Briet's agitation had infected Marta Mist.

"He wants us to talk to that lawyer, Thora. She wants to meet us and Gunnar insists that we cooperate. Actually he said he wasn't stupid enough to believe we always told the truth, but he doesn't carejust wants us to talk to her." She took a drag and exhaled fast. She heard someone at Marta Mist's end, asking what was going on.

"Okay, okay," said Marta Mist. "What about the othershave you phoned them?"

"No, you've got to help me. I want to get it overlet's all meet at ten and finish it. I have classes today."

"I'll talk to Dori. You call Andri and Brjann. Let's meet at the bookshop." Marta Mist hung up without another word.

Briet scowled at her mobile. Of course it was Dori who was with Marta. So she wasn't planning to phone anyonejust leave all the dirty work to Briet as usual. If she had just offered to call Andri or Brjann it would have been fair. Briet stubbed out her cigarette against the steps. She walked toward the bookshop, searching for Brjann's number in her address book.

From his office window, Gunnar watched Briet walk away. Fine, he thought I've got them panicking . When he had met the girl earlier it had been a huge effort to keep on talking. He had nothing on themexcept the certainty that they were deeply involved in drugs and God knows what else. His offer to arrange a meeting between them and the lawyer was a shot in the darkuntil then they had never done a thing he asked and he did not really expect them to begin now. So he had resorted to threatsthe sort of language they might understandand he seemed to have guessed correctly.

That crowd had always annoyed him. Harald was clearly the worst, but the others were really little better. The only difference was that they had not deformed their outward appearances to match what was inside. In his desperation to rid the university of the abomination they called a history society, he had checked their files and discovered to his astonishment that some of them were outstanding students.

Lowering the blinds again, he picked up the telephone. On the table in front of him was the lawyer's cardhe had to stay in her good graces and the German's, too, if he wanted to locate the manuscript that Harald had stolen. STOLEN. It was unbearable to pretend he had liked that repulsive young man and to talk about him respectfully. He was a common thief and a disgrace to himself and everyone who knew him. Gunnar put the telephone down. He had to calm himselfhe couldn't phone the lawyer in this mood. Take a deep breath and think about something completely different. The Erasmus program grant, for example. The application had gone in, and there was a good chance it would be approved. Gunnar managed to pull himself together. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number on the card.

"Thora, hello. Gunnar here," he said in the politest voice he could manage. "It's about Harald's friendsyou wanted to meet them?"

Thora had not seen so much bad posture in one place since her son celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Yet the young people in front of her and Matthew were almost ten years older. They were all sitting as if they had dropped into the sofa out of the skyapart from the tall red-haired girland staring at their toes. After Gunnar called that morning, Thora had contacted Briet and arranged for the group to meet her and Matthew. Briet did not sound very pleased but reluctantly agreed to round them up and meet at eleven o'clockat a place where they could smoke. Strapped for choices, Thora had suggested Harald's apartment. Her proposal was greeted as grumpily as the idea of meeting in the first place, but judging from the curt exchange that preceded it, Thora realized that she could have invited them to Paris and earned the same response. Matthew was delighted with the venue, which he thought might throw them off balance and make them more likely to tell the truth.

While they were waiting for the students, Thora showed Matthew the handwritten sheet of paper that had been inside The Witches' Hammer . They pored over it for some time without reaching a solid conclusion except that "Innsbruck1485" was clearly connected with Kramer's arrival there and, presumably, with the old letters Harald was so enchanted with. Thora was fairly certain that "J.A." stood for Bishop Jon Arason, because 1550 was the year of his execution. On the other hand, she could not figure out why Harald had crossed it out. As far as they could see, this was how Harald imagined the precious object's travels. Matthew had never heard of the visitors' book of the crossthere was no visitors' book in the apartment, nor did he recall the police taking it away during their search. The doorbell disturbed any further speculation.

The students arranged themselves in Harald's living room, sitting close together on the two sofas with Thora and Matthew facing them on chairs. Thora had found a few ashtrays and the air was already thick with smoke.

"What do you want from us anyway?" asked the red-haired girl, Marta Mist. Her friends turned to look at her, relieved that a leader had emerged to divert attention from them. They all smoked nonstop.

"We just wanted to talk to you about Harald," said Thora. "As you know, we've repeatedly tried to meet you but have always received a less than warm response."

Marta Mist was unruffled. "We've been busy at school and we've got better things to do than talk to people we don't know from Adam. Actually, we're under no obligation to talk to you. We've all made statements to the police."

"Yes, quite right," Thora said, trying to conceal how much the girl got on her nerves, as in fact they all did. "We're very grateful to you for taking the time to come and we promise we won't keep you for long. As you know, we're looking into Harald's murder on behalf of his family in Germany and we understand you were his closest circle of friends."

"Well, I don't know; we went around with him quite a bit but we have no idea what he did on his own, naturally," said Marta Mist, and Briet nodded solemnly in agreement. The others just stared into their laps.

"You talk like you're one person, not five," said Matthew. "We've spoken to Hugi Thorisson, whom you all know, of course, and according to him it was you, Halldor, who went around with Harald the mosthelped him with translations and other things." He addressed his words to Dori, who sat squashed up against Marta Mist. "Am I correct?"

Dori looked up. "Er, yeah, we hung around together quite a bit. Harald had trouble with Icelandic documents and stuff that I helped him with. We were good mates." He shrugged to emphasize that their friendship had been fairly ordinary.

"You're a good mate of Hugi's too, aren't you?" Thora asked.