Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

There was a creak as the stable door opened. A woman of about Bergur’s age came in tentatively. Thóra was struck by her appearance. She wasn’t ugly, but there was something about her posture and clothing that made her look very unattractive. Her hair was lank and colorless, tied back with a band that had seen better days. There was not a speck of mascara on her stubby eyelashes. She was the kind of woman you’d have trouble describing five minutes after she’d left the room, and she looked like she knew it. From her expression, she wanted the earth to swallow her. Thóra tried to send her a smile of encouragement as she hesitated at the open door.

The woman cleared her throat, then said softly, “Are you coming?” She directed her words at Bergur, as if she hadn’t even noticed Thóra and Matthew.

“Yes,” said Bergur, without a hint of warmth in his voice. “You go in. I’m coming.”

“Well, then,” Thóra said breezily. “We should be leaving.” She turned to Bergur. “Thank you. It was good to have the opportunity to see the murder scene.” She turned to the woman she assumed was Rósa. “Your husband was good enough to show us the stall where the body was found. I’m a lawyer, involved in the case on behalf of a client.”

Rósa nodded, without interest. “Hello, I’m Rósa.” She did not offer her hand to shake. Her eyes lingered on Thóra for only a fraction of a second before she turned back to her husband. “Are you coming?” she repeated. Bergur said nothing.

Thóra tried to defuse the tension with a final question, one she was glad Matthew couldn’t understand. “Last question, I promise,” she said. “I saw a young man in a wheelchair outside the hotel. I think he’s local. Do you happen to know how he was injured?” Bergur and Rósa stared at her, frozen to the spot. “You know, the one who’s badly burned?” she clarified. She didn’t need to say anything else, because the stream of curses Rósa suddenly unleashed left no doubt that she knew who Thóra meant. Thóra looked on, speechless, as Bergur grabbed his wife by the arm and led her away.

Matthew put his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how badly I want to get out of this foul-smelling place, but I’m not leaving until you tell me what the hell you said to that poor woman.”

Magnús Baldvinsson smiled to himself. Old and tired though he was, he still had moments when he felt young again. This was one of those moments. He dialed the number and waited cheerfully for his wife to answer, took a good sip of the cognac he had bought at the bar and relished the warmth of the golden liquid before swallowing. “Hello, Frída,” he said. “It’s over.”

“What?” she said. “Are you coming home? What’s happened?”

“The police have arrested a man for Birna’s murder,” Magnús answered, lifting his glass and swirling the brandy in front of his eyes. “You can tell Baldvin to come and fetch me whenever it’s convenient.”

“He’s out east preparing for the party conference. I don’t think he’s expected home until late tonight,” said his wife, her voice tinged with fear. “Do you want me to ask someone else to drive over and get you?”

“No, don’t worry,” said Magnús jovially. The familiar glow of pride in his grandson added to his joy that the tension and fear of the past few days was finally over. “I enjoy driving with him, so I can wait. Also, I want to hear all about the conference.”

“He’s been asking after you constantly since he drove you out there,” she said. “He’ll be glad to have you back home.” There was a short silence before she added, with a mixture of suspicion and apprehension, “Are you two up to something?”

“No, of course not,” said Magnús firmly. “Well, I’d better go. Tell Baldvin to come when it suits him. I’ll be here.”

They exchanged farewells and Magnús hung up. He let his hand rest on the receiver for a while. He didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or the sight of his wrinkled, clawlike hand, but something had dragged him back into the real world, and he felt like an old man again. To his astonishment, he felt a tear run down his lined face, and he watched it drop onto his trouser leg. Staring at the stain, he was overcome with guilt and misery.

Oh, Kristín.

Thóra rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know how much this helps, but I was right—the verse on Grímur Thórólfsson’s gravestone is from The Sayings of the High One,” she said as she leaned back in her chair from the computer. She beamed proudly at Matthew until she realized that he had no idea what she was talking about. “The Sayings of the High One are proverbs of wisdom, attributed to the god Odin. A lot of their advice is still very relevant.” Thóra recognized the lack of interest on Matthew’s face from her own schooldays, the first time she learned about The Sayings. “Anyway,” she went on. “It says here that the verse describes how bad people feel when they are dependent on others.”

“Which doesn’t really tell us anything,” said Matthew. “Everyone knows that.”

“Actually, I think it tells us a lot,” she argued. “For example, it was obviously carved on to Grímur’s gravestone for a good reason. It wasn’t chosen at random.”

She turned back to the screen and searched for the verse they’d found on the rock behind the hotel. The results were less productive; all she found was a reference to Jón Árnason’s nineteenth-century folktale collection on a page about the practice of abandoning children outside, and although she tried several times, she couldn’t locate the poem itself.

“That verse is connected with the abandoning of infants,” she told Matthew. “It says here that the cries of unbaptized babies who were left outside to die of exposure can be heard when the wind blows in the place where they died. Also that the ghosts of these babies can move around by lifting themselves on to one knee and dragging themselves along by one hand.” She looked up at Matthew. “Was that what you saw out of the window?” He shot her an evil look, and Thóra turned back to the computer, grinning. “The next time you see one, make sure it doesn’t manage to crawl three circles around you, because you’ll go mad. You should try to chase it away. Then it’ll go off and eventually find its mother.” She looked back at Matthew, smiling innocently.

“Very funny,” he said grumpily. “I wasn’t joking—I definitely heard it.”

“I need to get hold of a copy of those folktales and look through them.” Thóra yawned. “But that can wait.”

“No, there’s no rush,” said Matthew. “I have a feeling it won’t get you any closer to catching the murderer.”

“You never know,” she said, entering the details for her final search—for information on the tuberculosis epidemic in Iceland. Very few pages came up, and she browsed through them. “What rotten luck,” she said. “TB drugs came on the market in 1946. A year after Gudný died.” After reading a little more, she logged out and stood up. “I can understand why neither Gudný nor her father wanted to go to a sanatarium. According to what I just read, the attempts to treat or cure TB were very unappealing. Collapsing one lung, removing several ribs, stuff that did no good and in many cases left the patients severely disabled.”

Matthew tapped on her shoulder. “This is all fascinating, but I think you ought to look around and see who just walked in.”

Thóra looked over toward the lobby, but averted her gaze immediately. “What does she want? Do you think she saw me?”

“Maybe she’s come to beat you up,” he whispered in her ear. “But if it’s any consolation, my money’s on you.”

Without answering, Thóra stole another glance. She watched Jökull, the waiter and groundsman, walk over to where Bergur’s wife was hesitating at the reception desk. He was wearing an anorak and outdoor shoes, and hugged Rósa fondly before they left the building together. Neither seemed to notice Thóra or Matthew.