Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

Thóra widened her eyes at Matthew. He gestured toward Vigdís, who was standing up to leave. Thóra realized at once what he meant. She was holding a key identical to the one they had found in the desk at Kreppa.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, surprised that they were still standing there. “Was the kids’ room all right?”

“Oh, yes,” Thóra replied, staring at the key. “Would you mind letting me have a look at that key?” She produced hers. “I came across one just the same and I was wondering what it fits.”

“This is the key to my staff locker,” she said, reluctantly showing her. “If you found one, it must belong to someone who works here. People do lose them.”

Thóra compared the keys. They were virtually indistinguishable. She handed back the other. “I don’t think it belongs to one of the staff,” she said. “Do you know if Birna had a locker at her disposal?”

Vigdís pursed her lips, thinking it over. “Not as far as I know, but she could have. The lockers were only installed recently. She chose them and ordered them. Maybe she kept one for herself.” Vigdís walked around the desk. “Come with me,” she said, setting off. “There aren’t many lockers, so it won’t take long to see if it fits.”

Thóra and Matthew followed Vigdís to the staff room, where there was a row of steel lockers along one wall.

“Shall I just start?” asked Thóra, brandishing the key. “I won’t rummage around in anything and if the key fits a locker that belongs to someone else I’ll close it immediately. I just want to know if Birna possibly kept some of her stuff hidden away. I don’t want to bother the police with this if it turns out to be of no consequence.”

“Sure, whatever,” said Vigdís. “You don’t need to try number seven: that’s mine.”

Thóra tried the locks. She didn’t need much time, because the key fit on her third attempt. It gave a little click as it turned. She carefully revolved the chrome handle and opened the locker. With a deep breath and a glance at Matthew, she peered inside. Almost at once she pulled her head out, disappointed. “Empty. Damn.” She stood aside to let him take a look. When he put his head inside and didn’t withdraw it immediately, she tapped his back impatiently. “What? Can you see something?”

Matthew twisted to peer up at the roof of the locker. “Something’s been stuck up here,” his voice echoed from inside the hollow space. “Do you have any tweezers?” he asked, straightening back up. “We don’t want to cover it with fingerprints if it’s something important.”

Thóra looked over at Vigdís. “Is there a first-aid kit here?” Sticking her head into the locker, she noticed a small white rectangle of paper taped to its top. The edges were slightly curled. “What on earth is that?” she wondered aloud, as she took a pair of tweezers from Vigdís. “I guess we should leave this for the police but until we know what it is we can’t be sure. For all I know it could be the manufacturer’s guarantee for the lockers or an installation guide.”

Matthew and Vigdís watched as she tried to remove the tape, although they could see little more than her back.

“Bingo!” she said, extricating herself with the white piece of card gripped in the tweezers. “It’s a photograph.” She turned it over. “Oh!” She flipped it around to show the others.

“Good God!” exclaimed Vigdís. “Baldvin Baldvinsson! I didn’t know he was a neo-Nazi!”

“It’s not Baldvin,” said Thóra, placing the photograph on the staffroom table. “It’s his grandfather, Magnús. It was taken years ago.”

“Jesus, they’re dead ringers,” marveled Vigdís. “I’d have thrown that photo away if I were Magnús. Or Baldvin.”

“Perhaps they never got the chance,” said Thóra. She turned to Vigdís. “Don’t tell a soul about this,” she said.

“God, no,” replied Vigdís. “Of course not.” She was already trying to remember her friend Gulla’s phone number and calculating what time Kata would arrive at the beauty parlor the following morning. Of course, they could be trusted. Everyone knew that telling your best friends counts as not telling a soul.

She collected her handbag from her own locker and went back to reception. As she passed Matthew, she placed a hand on his shoulder and told him kindly that her ex-husband had suffered from bouts of impotence and that Viagra had helped him regain his manhood. Bewildered, Matthew watched her walk away.

“Why on earth would she want to share that with me?” he asked Thóra in astonishment.

It dawned on Thóra that the sex therapist’s oath of confidentiality was not as sacrosanct as Stefanía had implied. Thóra shrugged. “They’re all a bunch of weirdos around here,” she said, feigning innocence. Then she gave a weak smile. “I suppose I should go and put Sóley to bed. It’ll be a while before I get to bed myself, the way things are turning out.”

Thóra was back at Jónas’s computer again. “It all fits,” she said as she scanned the Google results for “Baldvin Baldvinsson.” She opened a few links that contained nothing of interest, but she kept idly clicking while they talked.

“How?” asked Matthew. “I admit that a photograph like that, hidden in a place like that, suggests that Birna wanted to prevent it being found. The only person likely to want it is Magnús, but he’s too old to kill anyone. Besides, I’m not exactly sure why he would want to murder Birna, even if he knew she had the photo.”

“I don’t think he’s the only one, actually,” Thóra said. “His grandson, Baldvin, has much more to lose. It says here that he’s entering the primaries for the parliamentary election next spring and a recent newspaper article pointed out just how much he resembles his grandfather in every way. A photo of his grandfather in Nazi uniform, which could just as easily be of him, could sink his campaign.” She looked up. “This man drives around in a car with a registration plate that says VERITAS. It’s obvious what impression he wants to give. Nazis aren’t exactly part of his image. Part of the reason for his stellar political career is his grandfather. If the old man’s reputation is tarnished, it will smear Baldvin, although he wasn’t even a twinkle in his eye at the time.”

“So what was Birna’s motive?” wondered Matthew. “Why didn’t she simply hand over the photograph? Was she trying to blackmail them? Neither of them looks seriously rich. That car with the VERITAS plates is just an old Jeep.”

“When she found the photograph, presumably in that old album in the basement that seemed to have one missing, she might have taken it out just to examine it more closely. Obviously she was shocked to see a well-known person in it. Then she must have realized that she could turn it to her advantage, and I suspect that she wanted something other than money from them,” Thóra said, clicking yet another link. She read briefly, then looked up again. “This is quite interesting,” she said. “Baldvin is on the council committee to select a design for a new bus station they’re building in Reykjavík. You remember that drawing of the glass complex on the wall at Kreppa? There aren’t many wooded areas in Iceland. The proposed site by the hill on Öskjuhlíd is one of them. There were buses in the drawing.” She stabbed her finger in the air triumphantly. “She was clearly determined to win that commission. That could also explain why she phoned him.”

Matthew looked dubious. “Are you saying she would blackmail Baldvin into swaying the committee, just to win this project?” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe that.”

“For an architect in Iceland, that sort of project is like a lottery win,” she said. “It’s a large public building in a busy place, and the designer becomes a household name at once. People queue up with new projects for them. That’s the way it works here, and surely in other countries too.”