Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

“Oh, it’s all quite silly, really. He claims this place is haunted and the previous owners must have known.”

“Haunted, yes.” Matthew’s expression was the one she expected to see on the judge’s face, if the case ever went that far. “You don’t say.”

“The business here is vulnerable to that kind of thing, so it’s not quite as absurd as you might think.” Thóra smiled at him. “It’s a New Age hotel. They focus on things such as healing, clairvoyance, organic food, crystals, magnetic fields, aura readings, and all that. Most of the staff are clairvoyant, or worse, so they’re not very fond of ghosts.”

“Indeed,” said Matthew, pulling a face. “So, all perfectly normal.”

“God, no,” Thóra hurried to say. “But in fact it’s not that unusual in a place like this, which has long been considered a center for belief in the supernatural, so to speak. Legend has it that the glacier is inhabited by a man named Bárdur who went inside it in a bout of depression after his daughter drifted away to Greenland on an iceberg. He’s considered to be the guardian spirit of the area, and the glacier’s supposed to have supernatural powers. I don’t know whether the powers belong to this Bárdur or the glacier itself.”

“Supernatural powers from a glacier?” Matthew’s disbelief was written all over his face. “It’s just a mountain with snow on it that never melts, correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Ha, ha,” Thóra said. “I’m just telling you the background, not my opinion. Faith in the power of the glacier goes way beyond Iceland—people flocked here from all over the world to welcome aliens from outer space just before the turn of the century.”

“And of course that wasn’t a wild-goose chase, was it?”

Thóra shrugged. “Opinions differ. The spokesman for the group said they had come, but just in spirit. No spaceship or anything. Some kind of mental transportation.”

“ ‘Mental’ being the operative word, I suppose?” Matthew grinned.

Thóra returned his smile. “Could well be. But it is an incredibly powerful mountain.”

“And where does the body fit into the picture?”

“Oh, that. The body’s nothing to do with this spiritual stuff, actually. I don’t think so, anyway. The owner doesn’t agree entirely. He thinks the ghost’s involved somehow. He’s quite an unusual character.”

“You don’t say,” rejoined Matthew, frowning. “Was the body found here at the hotel?”

Thóra gave Matthew a brief account of where the body had been found, telling him that it was a woman who had been working for Jónas and she was thought to have been murdered.

“And is there a suspect?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Thóra replied. “I doubt whether the police have even formed an opinion yet. The case is still at the most prelimi

nary stage.”

“I hope for your sake that it’s not this Jónas,” said Matthew.

“No, it’s definitely not him,” Thóra said airily, then added cautiously, “As it happens, I do have something that might shed light on the matter.”

“You’ve got something? What kind of something?” asked Matthew. His eyes were bright with curiosity.

“Well, I have the diary of the woman who is very likely the murder victim. A sort of notebook, really,” Thóra replied, blushing but affecting nonchalance.

“What?” Matthew exclaimed. “Did you know this woman?”

“Never met her.”

“But you have her diary? How did that come about?”

“I came across it,” she said, then added more truthfully, “I stole it, really. Accidentally.”

Matthew shook his head. “Accidentally, right.” He clasped his hands in prayer and looked up to heaven. “Dear God, don’t let her have killed the architect for the diary. Even accidentally.”

Jónas stood in the lobby watching three plainclothes detectives prepare to examine Birna’s car. They had driven up in a customized van and parked it to one side. There, they had jumped out and, without announcing themselves to anyone at the hotel, begun photographing the little sports car and the ground around it. Vigdís had phoned Jónas from reception to let him know as soon as she noticed the van, and he had run down to the lobby.

“What are they doing, anyway?” Vigdís asked.

Jónas jumped. He had been so preoccupied with watching the detectives at work that he hadn’t noticed Vigdís. Clutching his heart, he looked at her. “Christ, you scared me.” Then he went back to watching what was going on outside. “They’re examining Birna’s car, as far as I can see. God knows why.”

Vigdís squinted for a better look. “Do they think she was murdered in the car, or what?”

Jónas shook his head. “Hardly. The car hasn’t been moved for days. I’m sure I told them that.”

“What difference does that make?” Vigdís asked. “I mean, she could still have been killed in the car, right there in the car park.”

Jónas spun around to face her. “That’s fucking nonsense. For a start, we don’t know whether it was murder yet, let alone where it might have happened.”

Vigdís shrugged. “Who do you think would drown on the beach here? It’s this deep.” She held her thumb and index finger a centimeter apart. “She must have been murdered.”

Jónas was about to tell Vigdís not to exaggerate when he saw one of the detectives take his mobile out of his pocket. The distant ringing could be heard from where they were standing. The detective answered the call and they watched him talking. Suddenly he looked up in the direction of the lobby. His gaze fixed on Jónas, who felt his stomach sink.

The officer ended the call without taking his eyes off the hotelier, and walked over toward the entrance.

“Wow,” Vigdís whispered to Jónas. “Did you see that? He’s definitely coming to talk to you.”

Thóra rushed to Jónas’s office. He had phoned and asked her to come, without any explanation except that the police were making allegations against him that he knew nothing about. She had a weird feeling that Matthew’s remarks about Jónas had been a premonition, and for an instant the thought crossed her mind that the glacier might have strange powers after all.

“Excuse me,” she said after knocking on Jónas’s office door and opening it. Jónas was sitting behind his desk, facing someone, his face bright red. The other man had his back to her. He looked around when she said brightly, “Everything all right in here?”

“No, it’s certainly not all right,” the hotel owner snapped, standing up to pull up a third chair.

The police officer was middle-aged and very tall. He lifted himself five centimeters out of his seat and extended his hand to Thóra. That was enough for her to realize that he was also extremely wide and well muscled. “Hello. I’m Thórólfur Kjartansson, detective.”

“Hello. Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, lawyer.” They shook hands. “What’s the problem?” she asked, directing her words at Jónas.

“They seem to think that I’m somehow involved in that woman’s death,” Jónas snarled. He gestured at the man facing him and added, “He gets to take away my computer and printer, and he says he has a warrant to take my mobile phone.” In his fury, Jónas was suddenly lost for words and made do with scowling at Thórólfur.

“I see,” Thóra said calmly. “May I see the warrant? I’m Jónas’s lawyer and he’s asked for my legal counsel.”

Thórólfur silently handed her a printout. Skimming it, Thóra saw that it was a warrant issued by the West Iceland District Court to seize Jónas Júlíusson’s mobile telephone, citing as grounds that it was in the interest of the investigation into the murder of Birna Halldórsdóttir. Thóra’s heart skipped a beat. Here it was in black-and-white.