Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - My Soul to Take

“The rock?” said Elín, astonished. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Maybe nothing,” said Thóra untruthfully. “I’d just like to find out what it is, in order to rule it out as evidence.” She crossed her fingers, hoping Elín would believe her.

“I can assure you it’s nothing to do with this,” declared Elín. “My mother put that rock up many years ago. It was an advance wedding present to herself, or so she said. Don’t ask me why—she never explained it any further—but you can be quite sure it has nothing to do with any dead child.”

Thóra was surprised to hear that Málfrídur, Grímur’s daughter, had placed the rock there, but she carried on. “One last thing. What were you and your brother, Börkur, doing over this way on Sunday evening? I have a printout from the police showing the vehicles that passed through the tunnel that day and you were both there.”

“We came to meet you,” answered Elín irritably. “Don’t you remember? You came to see us on the Monday. We’d decided to beat the morning traffic and go up to Stykkishólmur the previous evening. Surely you don’t imagine Börkur and I are involved in this murder case?”

Thóra demurred awkwardly. “It’s just one of a number of points I want to be able to tick off,” she explained.

“Well, you can tick this off too: Börkur didn’t go west to kill anyone on Thursday either,” snapped Elín.

Thóra said nothing, not wanting to reveal that she’d had no idea Börkur had been on the move that day. Elín obviously thought Thóra had a list of cars for each day. “So why did he come?” she inquired cautiously.

“He won’t be pleased that I’ve told you,” replied the other woman. “I had a hard enough time getting it out of him.” The loud screech of a horn cut her off, and when she came back on the line, she was swearing. “Stupid old bastard! Why don’t they take their driving licenses away before they go senile at the wheel?” she said crossly, before continuing. “The only reason I’m telling you what he was up to is to get rid of you, and prevent any more unfounded allegations against us.”

“I really don’t mind why you’re telling me,” retorted Thóra. “So what was he doing?”

“He went to see a real estate agent who was very keen to see the remaining farming properties, with a view to selling them,” said Elín. “He knows I want to wait, and he did it against my wishes. The real estate agent can confirm it, if you want to check.”

Thóra said goodbye and hung up. “Börkur and Elín’s mother had the rock placed there,” she told Matthew. “They’re very odd people, which is hardly surprising in view of their family medical history— both the grandparents had mental problems—but they’re probably innocent of both murders. She gave me reasonable explanations for being here, at any rate.”

Thóra stood up and picked up the bags containing Jón Árnason’s folktale collection. “If I can find the verse, there may be some further explanation of it in the accompanying text. That might tell us why their mother had the verse carved into the rock, and had it put there.” She put the bags on the desk. “I must remember to return the books on our way back to Reykjavík,” she said. “My fines are already enough to pay for a whole annex to the library at home. I don’t want to do the same all over the country.”

“You’re not going to read all those, are you?” asked Matthew as he watched Thóra extract one weighty volume after another. “Maybe I’ll have a shower in the meantime.”

“It won’t take long to look it up,” said Thóra. She turned to the contents page in volume I and found the entry for “abandoned children.”

“Here it is,” she exclaimed eagerly and looked up from the book. “Here’s a story with the title ‘I Should Have Been Wed.’ That must be it.” Thóra rapidly scanned the brief story, then placed the open book in her lap.

“What is it?” asked Matthew. “I can’t tell if that expression means good news or bad.”

“Nor can I,” said Thóra. “It’s the story of a mother who left her infant outside to die. Some years later she had another daughter, whom she raised. When the girl reached marriageable age, a young man asked for her hand and they were betrothed. In the midst of the wedding ceremony, there was a banging at the window, and the guests heard this verse chanted: ‘Kerns I should have cast, a farm was meant for me, I should have been wed, just like thee.’ ” She looked at Matthew. “It was the ghost of the dead child, speaking to her sister.”

“So the verse is a reference to the fact that the sister is enjoying what should have been the lot of the child left to die?” asked Matthew.

“Yes, that’s the obvious meaning,” said Thóra. “Could Gudný have had another child?” She was shaking her head even as she said it. “No, I don’t think so.”

“But who got what should have belonged to the child?” asked Matthew. “Presumably the child was her mother’s heir?”

Thóra puffed out her cheeks, then slowly let the air escape. “It depends when Gudný died of TB. If the child predeceased her, of course the child couldn’t inherit anything from her mother. If the child died after Gudný’s death, that changes things. Gudný’s father died first. Since he was a widower, and she was his only child, Gudný would have been his sole heir, so the child would have inherited all her mother’s assets on her death.”

“And if that’s the case, someone would have profited from the child’s death,” said Matthew, “inheriting all Gudný’s assets, which would have gone to the child. Who would it be, in this case?”

“The mother’s closest relative,” said Thóra. “Grímur, Gudný’s uncle and the child’s great-uncle.” She closed the book. “Lára, Sóldís’s grandmother, said he had money troubles, so he could have killed her to prevent her reaching adulthood. As soon as the girl married or had a child of her own, Grímur would lose his claim to the inheritance.”

“That’s incredibly callous,” said Matthew. “But he wasn’t the one who put the rock there. His daughter, Málfrídur, Elín and Börkur’s mother, must have known of the body under there. It’s no coincidence that she placed a stone with that inscription in that very location.”

“Málfrídur,” said Thóra thoughtfully. “Málfrídur inherited what should have belonged to the child when her own father died years later in Reykjavík. If there is indeed a child, and if it’s Gudný’s.”

“There are a lot of ‘if”s in this story,” commented Matthew, “but I have to admit it sounds plausible. Could she be the murderer, rather than her father, Grímur?”

“Hardly. She was just a little girl during the war. When Lára came back here after the war, Gudný’s child had vanished from the face of the earth. It’s a reasonable assumption that Gudný’s daughter, Kristín, is the Kristín mentioned in the message scratched into the post upstairs. If so, it’s more than likely that it was Málfrídur who carved ‘dad killed kristín. i hate dad’ in the attic. It was in their house, after all. Perhaps she found out about it, or witnessed the murder, or maybe he even told her.”

“You’re probably getting close to solving this old case,” said Matthew, going into the bathroom to wash the dirt from his hands. He called over the noise of the running water, “It’s a pity it doesn’t help Jónas. I don’t suppose this is why Birna and Eiríkur were killed?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Thóra called back. “Maybe Birna found out about it and that led to someone wanting her dead—someone who didn’t want the truth to come out. She was going through that old stuff, as we know from the photo of Magnús. Maybe she’d found something that gave her a clue.”