Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

“Ugh,” said Thóra. She conjured up mental images of the people from the photograph album, in particular Gudný and her father, Bjarni. Nothing like that had crossed her mind.

The girl shrugged. “They both died, apparently. TB.”

Thóra nodded slowly. “Well, I never. But what do you think? Do you believe this ghost is the girl from the farm?”

Sóldís stared into Thóra’s eyes. “I’ve seen the ghost, but I’ve never seen her, so how would I know?”

“You’ve seen the ghost?” Thóra asked, astonished.

“Sure I have,” came the scornful reply. There was a provocative look in Sóldís’s eyes, as if she were daring Thóra to doubt her.

“I see,” Thóra said carefully. “Where did you see the ghost, may I ask?”

“Outside here. In the fog. I didn’t see it in any detail, but it was definitely a girl.”

Thóra nodded. “It wasn’t just one of the kids from around here?” she ventured.

Sóldís laughed sarcastically. “Around here? Where around here? It’s five kilometers to the nearest kid and he’s a boy, see. Why would he drag himself all the way over here to roam around in the fog?”

Thóra had to admit it seemed unlikely. She was wondering what to ask next when her mobile rang.

“Hello, Thóra,” said Matthew’s familiar voice. “Have you decided to tell me where you are, or should I send out a search party? I’m at Keflavík Airport. I’ve just landed.”

I’m telling you, my stockroom’s been broken into,” Stefanía said, piqued, her hands on her hips. She tried not to be annoyed by Vigdís’s malicious sniggering from the reception desk. She had enough on her plate. Someone had forced the lock on the little stockroom where she kept her merchandise, and the fact that nothing seemed to be missing didn’t make it any less serious. Stefanía was long accustomed to being shown limited understanding by women. She wasn’t sure if it was her good looks or her field of work, sex counseling. More often than not she had the feeling that other women thought she had chosen that particular discipline simply to seduce married men, which was absurd. It wasn’t her fault if they made the occasional pass at her.

She scowled. “It’s not funny. The lock’s buggered. Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

Vigdís raised an eyebrow. “There’s no need to get worked up about it. Why make a song and dance about a burglary in which nothing’s been stolen?” She went back to her computer. She hated Stefanía with her “sex-counseling” nonsense. That woman thought the world revolved around her, and this burglary business was probably just a ploy to get attention. She wasn’t likely to succeed this time, given that she had to compete with the discovery of a dead body. Vigdís looked up from the computer screen and glared at Stefanía. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about it, anyway.”

What Stefanía most wanted that bitch Vigdís to do was throw herself into the tank at a piranha farm, but she decided to keep that to herself. “Do? I don’t know. Shouldn’t we at least let Jónas know that someone’s broken into a locked stockroom? What if it was a junkie looking for dope? He might come back.”

“Dope?” laughed Vigdís. “Who’d go looking for dope in your little cubbyhole? This happens to be a hotel that specializes in homeopathy and spiritual welfare. You’d have to look a long way to find a less likely place on Snæfellsnes for keeping dope or drugs.”

Stefanía took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but hardened drug users might not be too well informed about hotel specialization. Besides which, it could have been one of the guests. Or one of the staff,” she added with a mean smile.

Vigdís glared at her. “One of the staff? Are you crazy?”

“I just mentioned it. If it wasn’t a junkie, it was presumably an ordinary person. Maybe someone really wanted what I’m selling but was too shy to approach it through the regular channels. Who knows?” Stefanía widened her eyes in affected innocence.

Vigdís was determined not to get drawn into a discussion of stimulatory ointments and sex aids. Stefanía knew that she found the topic uncomfortable and Vigdís did not want to give her the pleasure of seeing her blush. “So why was nothing stolen?”

Stefanía hesitated. “Well, I don’t know. Of course, I haven’t checked every box and every item. They might have taken something.” She got no further with her speculations.

“There’s too much going on around here to worry about a burglary in which something ‘might’ have been stolen.” Vigdís made sarcastic quotation marks with her fingers.

“Oh?” said Stefanía, curious. “What’s happened?” She was irritated—something always happened when she was away. She went home to the nearby village of Hellnar in the evenings and rarely worked weekends. That may have been one reason why she didn’t get on with the other employees, most of whom stayed in small chalets that Jónas had had built next to the hotel.

“A body was found on the beach. Down in the bay, right by the cave.” Vigdís paused dramatically before continuing. “They think it was Birna, the architect.” Again she paused. “She was probably murdered.” She glowed smugly as Stefanía turned pale and clutched her chest.

“Are you making this up?” gasped Stefanía.

“Nope, I swear. Dead, probably murdered.” Vigdís turned back to her computer and changed the subject just to annoy her colleague. “Do you have an empty box to give to the lawyer? She needs a large one to put some stuff in.”

“What? Oh, sure,” Stefanía said distractedly. What on earth had happened? She thought about the counseling she had recently given to the poor woman. Had her advice led to the woman’s death? Dazed, Stefanía mumbled a farewell and started to hurry away, but she needed to know one more thing. She turned back. “Was sex anything to do with it? Do you know if she was raped by any chance?”

“Yes, I think she was,” Vigdís replied, although she hadn’t the faintest idea. Something told her this answer would get a reaction.

Stefanía turned and walked off toward her office, blushing furiously. This was all she needed.

Thóra put the heav y cardboard box on the newly made bed in her hotel room. She grimaced at the labeling on its side. When she had collected the box, she had initially thought it was a joke, some kind of candid-camera stunt. The box was labeled in English on all sides with large black letters, ALOE VERA ACTION! VIBR ATING DILDO. GENUINE RUBBER. NEW For customers with limited English, a drawing of the

contents had helpfully been provided. Thóra had blushed to the roots of her hair when she took the box from Vigdís at reception, who said, “I didn’t think this was as bad as the artificial-vagina box.” She smiled sweetly and added, “The only person with any spare boxes was the sex therapist. Sorry.”

It had taken Thóra most of the morning to go through the remaining items in the basement and gather together the ones that interested her. She was only concerned with old documents, letters, and photographs, and left the rest behind: cups, clocks, candlesticks, and other ornaments. She put papers that were clearly irrelevant back into the old boxes, but took all the photographs regardless of what they showed, since she couldn’t tell what she might find when she took a look at them in a better light.

There weren’t many, but one in particular aroused her interest—it was in a beautiful old frame and showed a teenage girl whom Thóra was fairly certain was Gudný Bjarnadóttir from the old farm. The girl was sitting on a hillside with her legs folded under her, smiling prettily into the camera. She was wearing a low-cut white blouse with a large bow at the front. The blouse somehow emphasized that this was a young girl and not a woman, but Thóra was fairly sure the girl had intended it to have the opposite effect. She put the photograph on her bedside table. It was hard to make it balance, because the stand had been damaged in storage. Taking a long look at the picture, Thóra prayed that Sóldís’s story about incest on the farm was pure fiction. If not, she was almost certainly looking at the victim.