The chilly gaze of the old woman undeniably resembled that of her younger son, Markus, but in other respects they were unalike. She had greying hair, but her face was mostly free of wrinkles. Her skin was the only thing about Klara that seemed young, though; she was wearing a highly patterned, multicoloured dress, plainly cut. Her eyes had the watery look of old age, but they did not hide her displeasure at having to sit here and speak to Thóra, who had already asked her several polite questions with little response. Klara was probably around eighty, and wore her age gracefully as she sat there, straight-backed, on the large dark sofa. Carved lions’ paws adorned both the sofa’s arms and feet. The sofa suited Klara. In fact, she fitted perfectly into the room, whose every surface was dotted with crystal vases. Markus’s father, in contrast, didn’t look at all at home in this austere, old- fashioned setting. Thóra felt sorry for him. He sat in one of the more modern chairs in the room, an upholstered reclining armchair, and was wearing a tracksuit over a turtleneck sweater, with a fleece blanket wrapped around his shoulders. On his feet he wore sheepskin moccasins. Leifur, who had come in behind Thóra, took a seat next to his father. She wasn’t entirely sure why he was here. Perhaps he was meant to act as a kind of watchdog, to protect his mother and make sure Thóra didn’t go too far with her questions. He hadn’t said anything about coming along when Thóra had spoken to him the night before.
‘So you don’t remember any foreigners being around at that time?’ Thóra asked the old woman, then added: ‘They were probably British, four of them.’ The old lady’s strong perfume was making her feel a little light-headed.
‘No, I don’t,’ Klara replied. ‘I had enough to worry about at home, and I didn’t go down to the harbour much, where any foreigners were most likely to be.’
‘I see,’ said Thóra.‘And your husband didn’t do business with any foreigners?’
‘I never paid attention to his work, so I really don’t know,’ the woman replied, looking a little affronted. ‘Magnus’s work was entirely his business, I never got involved – that’s how it was in those days.’ She glanced sideways at her husband, who was sitting looking silently out of the window.
Thóra decided to change the subject and ask about Valgerdur and Dadi. Maybe the old ladywould relax if the conversation focused on someone else. ‘The name of your former neighbour, Valgerdur Bjolfsdottir, has been mentioned in connection with Alda Thórgeirsdóttir. I’m not sure how they are connected, but I was hoping you might be able to tell me.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Klara quickly, almost before Thóra finished speaking.
‘Anything about what?’ asked Thóra, certain Klara was hiding something – she hadn’t even tried to remember anything. ‘About the connection between them?’ Without waiting for a reply she smiled sympathetically at the woman, trying to convey that she knew it was a long story. ‘What little I’ve heard about Valgerdur and Dadi has all pointed the same way- everyone seems to be in agreement that they were a pretty tedious couple. It would be good to hear your opinion of them.’
‘How could that possibly be of use to Markus?’ Leifur asked, surprised and obviously annoyed. ‘I was led to believe the purpose of this meeting was to gather information that might help him.’
The old woman gave her son a sharp look.‘I think I can answer for myself,’ she said bad-temperedly. She turned to Thóra. ‘Although I’m in agreement with Leifur in that I don’t really understand how this is connected to Markus, it’s hardly a secret that both Valgerdur and Dadi were particularly unpleasant people. She was a busybody who enjoyed other people’s misfortunes,’ she said, scowling. ‘I suppose she was trying to console herself for her own rotten luck.’
‘What was so rotten about it?’ Thóra asked. ‘I heard she was a nurse and he was a sailor. There are definitely worse jobs.’
‘It didn’t have anything to do with work or money. They met when Valgerdur started at the hospital here as a student nurse. It must have been clear to her even before they’d exchanged rings that Dadi loved the bottle more than her, so it was a loveless and difficult marriage. At first they were no unhappier than the rest of the neighbourhood, really, but then things started to go downhill. We could hear everything, because our bedroom window faced theirs. I actually pitied her at first.’
‘So what changed?’ asked Thóra, who had started to feel sorry for poor Valgerdur herself.
‘She betrayed my trust so badly that nothing could ever heal the wound,’ said Klara, pursing her lips.
‘Could you go into a little more detail?’ said Thóra. ‘I don’t want to pry, but I have to understand what was going on in the neighbourhood if I want to help Markus. I’m fairly certain that whoever put the bodies there was known locally.’
Klara looked at Thóra without saying anything at first, then raised her eyebrows and let out a low moan. ‘I don’t see how this piece of ancient history could possibly matter today.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But nor do I see why I shouldn’t entrust you with the information.’ She sat up straighten‘After listening to Dadi shouting and Valgerdur sobbing for six months, I decided to speak to her and offer her a shoulder to cry on, because she seemed so lonely. All her relatives lived in Reykjavik and in those days people didn’t carry around their telephones, ready to discuss things wherever and whenever it suited them. I spoke to her confidentially and told her that she wasn’t the only one with a domineering and drunken husband, that it was only too common, and she could turn to me if she needed any help.’ Klara tapped her nose meaningfully.‘She thanked me by repeating the names I had told her, of the other abusive husbands, to anyone who would listen – the men as well as their wives. It took me many months to win back the trust of those women.’
‘Could she have been so desperate to make friends that she sacrificed you on the altar of popularity?’ asked Thóra, trying to imagine being the newcomer in a close-knit community.
‘That may well be the case,’ said Klara crossly. ‘But it was still unforgivable. She couldn’t expect simply to jump into the inner circle here, and after I had cleared up the mess she was as isolated as before. It was most unwise of her.’ Klara folded her hands demurely on her broad thighs.
Thóra decided there was little to be gained from continuing this line of questioning. ‘Do you know if the couple lost any children?’ she asked instead, although she knew that Bella was at that moment working hard to dig up that information.
‘No,’ replied Klara. ‘They had no children while they lived here. They tried for a long time, but with no luck. Valgerdur miscarried at least twice and that just made her more bitter. Of course back then there weren’t all those psychiatrists people run crying to now, but there’s no doubt that her sheer delight in our children’s failures was due to her childlessness. She was always ready to spread stories about the kids in the neighbourhood, and my boys were no exception because they were quite mischievous.’
‘There’s a child’s room in their house,’ said Thóra, hoping that no one would wonder how she knew this. ‘Could the people who lived there before Valgerdur and Dadi have had a child?’ Again, Bella was hopefully finding out the answer to that very question as she spoke.
‘They built that house, so no one lived there before them. The neighbourhood was the newest part of town, so some of the houses weren’t completely finished even after everyone moved in,’ said Klara. ‘I went to their house extremely rarely, only if I couldn’t avoid it.’ She rolled her shoulders gingerly, as if they were sore.
‘I never saw a children’s room but they may well have set one up. Actually, I heard they had a son not long after the evacuation, so maybe she was pregnant but hadn’t told anyone, in the light of her previous experiences. They might have been preparing for the birth of that child. But I can’t imagine it, because I heard from a woman I know that rumour had it Valgerdur showed little motherly affection for her newborn at first. It sounds like there were some issues there.’
‘Did you keep in touch with them after they moved to the mainland?’ asked Thóra. ‘No,’ said Klara indignantly. ‘Why would I? I just told you, they weren’t much to my liking. A lot of good people moved away from here and didn’t return, and 1 had enough trouble keeping in touch with them.’‘
‘I understand,’ said Thóra politely. ‘Do you think Dadi and Valgerdur were connected in any way to the bodies found in your basement?’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ replied the woman, still bristling. ‘I’ve already told the police I have no idea how this could have happened, and I’ve said over and over that I had nothing to do with it.’
Thóra noticed that the old woman said‘I’ and not ‘we’. This was something she’d also noticed in the police report – the briefest one in the entire file, written up by Gudni Leifsson. In it Klara had been asked a few questions, and had answered as succinctly as possible. Thóra suspected that Stefán and his colleagues would not be quite so considerate if and when they came to interview her. ‘But did they have connections to any foreigners here in the Islands?’ asked Thóra hopefully.
‘Well, yes – Valgerdur worked at the hospital, of course, besides serving as school nurse two afternoons a week,’ replied Klara. ‘In school there were no foreign teachers or staff, but the hospital sometimes admitted wounded foreign fishermen, as well as other foreigners, I imagine. You couldn’t really call that a connection, though, her taking care of their injuries. As for Dadi, he worked for one of the smaller fishing companies in the Islands. Only Icelanders worked there, to my knowledge. Beyond that it’s probably better to direct the questions to their son; I’m sure he could tell you more than I can, since I have never had any interest in them.’
‘Has Dadi passed away?’ asked Thóra. ‘I know Valgerdur died recently, but I have yet to check on him.’
‘As far as I know, he died of cirrhosis of the liver a couple of years ago,’ said Klara crisply. ‘But I think their son is alive.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘No, I don’t remember. I heard it once but forgot it a long time ago.’
Thóra nodded. Maybe Bella would find it in the archive. She had managed to loosen the woman’s tongue, so now it was time to change gears again; in any case, she had run out of questions about the neighbours.
‘There is something else,’ she said. ‘On Friday the nineteenth of January 1973, the weekend before the eruption, there was a school dance here in town that got out of hand. Markus was picked up by his father, since he’d had too much to drink with his friends and schoolmates.’ She gazed levelly at the woman. ‘Do you remember that evening?’
From Klara’sreaction, you would have thought Thóra had asked for permission to rummage through the family’s dirty laundry. ‘I vaguely remember that,’ she replied, though she clearly remembered the evening in question quite well. ‘It wasn’t just Markus but the whole class, as I recall. Markus never drank, unlike the other teenagers, so it came as a shock to us.’
‘I have no interest in Markus’s drinking, but I was wondering if you might remember anything else unusual from that evening,’ said Thóra. ‘Do you remember whether your husband went out after he brought Markus home, perhaps down to the harbour?’
Klara paled. ‘Magnus didn’t go anywhere,’ she said. ‘He brought the boy home and that’s all. Magnus wasn’t in the habit of wandering off in the middle of the night, and he’d hardly have been in the mood to do so after seeing the state his son was in.’ She fiddled with the large gold rings on two fingers of her left hand, and looked away.
Thóra didn’t believe a word of this. For the first time in the conversation, the woman wore a hunted expression, and she was clearly no actress. She appeared to be just as poor a liar as her son when under pressure. ‘How about you, Leifur?’ Thóra asked.‘Do you remember anything from that night?’ She smiled brightly at Klara. ‘Maybe Magnus went out after you were asleep.’
Leifur shook his head. ‘I was in Reykjavik that weekend. Classes had started again after the Christmas holidays. I was in my third year at Reykjavik Junior College and I was living in the city.’
Thóra raised an eyebrow. ‘But you were here the night of the eruption,’ she said. ‘And that was in the middle of the week, wasn’t it?’
Leifur smiled at her, but unlike his mother’s his smile appeared genuine. The old ladywas looking more bored and irritated by the second. ‘Markus getting drunk like that really hit the family hard,’ he said. ‘Mother was in pieces and Father was furious, so I decided to come home and give Markus a piece of my mind. We were off school that Monday anyway, so I didn’t miss much. I had planned to go back to town on Tuesday, although I hadn’t expected it to be in the middle of the night, as it turned out to be.’
‘Is that Sigridur?’ said the old man suddenly. He had stopped staring out of the window and was now peering in bewilderment at Thóra.
‘No, Dad,’ replied Leifur gently.‘This woman is name Thóra. Sigridur is dead.’ He took his father’s hand. ‘Wow, your hands are like ice. Should we cover you up a bit better?’ Leifur didn’t wait for an answer, since the old man seemed to have tuned out again. Leifur looked at Thóra.‘Sigridur was his sister. He probably thought you looked like her, although I don’t see a resemblance.’
Thóra smiled at father and son.‘Hello, Magnus,’ she said loudly, even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t speak down to the old man. ‘My name is Thóra, and I’m a lawyer.’ The old man frowned, not taking his eyes off her. ‘I’m helping your son. Bodies were found in the basement of your old house on Sudurvegur Street, and the police think Markus is involved.’ Leifur and his mother had agreed that she could try to speak to him, though they both believed nothing would come of it. Mind you, the look on the faces of both mother and son indicated that they’d clearly not expected this topic when they gave their reluctant permission.
‘Sigridur?’ repeated the old man quizzically. ‘Basement?’ he added. Thóra’s words were filtering through to him, though possibly not their meaning. The man fell silent and turned back to the window.
‘There’s no point trying with him,’ said Klara, her voice gentler than before. ‘He can still speak, but it’s not really connected to what’s going on around him. Also, the conversations, the few he takes part in, go in whatever direction he wants. It’s impossible to manage them.’ She looked from her husband back to Thóra, and her expression hardened. ‘I would rather you didn’t badger him any more.’
Thóra agreed. She had hoped the man would be in better condition, even though everyone in the family had said that he was suffering from full dementia. ‘Klara,’ she said cheerfully,‘do you think that your husband could somehow be involved in this case? Even the best of men can end up in situations that bring out the worst in them. No one really knows what happened, and there could even be a natural explanation for the deaths, one that’s hard to work out after so many years.’
The old woman leaned back as if to distance herself from Thóra as much as possible. The smell of her perfume subsided slightly. ‘It is my understanding that the men were beaten to death,’ she said. ‘My husband was a strong man and a very hard worker. However, he wasn’t violent. He couldn’t have killed anyone.’
‘Did he never get into any fights in his youth, do you remember?’ asked Thóra.
‘Fights?’ exclaimed Klara.‘He was-’ She glanced over at her husband and corrected herself. ‘He is a man. Of course he got into fights in the old days, before the children entered the picture.’
‘Was he a bit of a handful when he’d had a drink, anything like that?’ persistedThóra, mindful of Markus’s assertion that his father had been less than pleasant when drunk. She also knew that seamanship in the old days was usually accompanied by robust drinking. There were many so-called heroes of the sea in her mother’s family, and she’d heard tales of their long voyages, where they had worked hard under enormous pressure, then let off steam on shore. Now times had changed, and drunken sailors were no longer in evidence on the streets of the city.
‘Magnus wasn’t a violent drunk, if that’s what you mean,’ replied Klara sharply. ‘Nor was he an alcoholic, like some of his colleagues. I actually think that’s the reason he did better than them and managed to start a company that is now one of the largest here in the Islands.’
‘Of course, part of that was because he was also so hardworking,’ Leifur added.‘There are a lot of stories of his diligence when he was a young man – he had to fight hard for everything he got in life.’ He put a hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth like so many people nowadays.’
Thóra didn’t wish to point out that Leifur was one of those people: his father’s business had been handed to him on a plate. She also decided not to press them concerning Magnus’s drinking, since it didn’t seem relevant. ‘Could he have got into something in order to help someone out?’ asked Thóra.‘Like Thórgeir, Alda’s father?’
‘Sigridur?’ asked Magnus suddenly, before mother or son could answer her. ‘Do you know Geiri’s girl, Alda?’
‘Yes,’ said Thóra, fearing the old man would retreat back into his shell if she said no.
‘How is she?’ he asked, picking at a thread on the edge of his fleece blanket. ‘That was an awful business.’
‘What business?’ asked Thóra calmly, trying not to break the thread of his concentration.
‘I wonder if the falcon survived?’ said the old man. ‘I hope so.’
‘I… I think it must have,’said Thóra, desperate to say the right thing. ‘Did Alda kill the man?’ she asked, when nothing else came to mind.
The old man looked at her and his mood seemed to darken. ‘You’re always so difficult, Sigridur. Who invited you here?’
‘Klara did,’ replied Thóra, smiling as gently as possible.
When the only response she got was a blank stare, she added: ‘Klara, your wife.’
‘That poor child,’ said Magnus, shaking his head slowly. ‘Poor child, to have to rely on such people.’
‘Do you mean Alda?’ asked Thóra urgently, because the man appeared to be drifting away again.‘Did Alda have a hard time as a child?’
‘I just hope the falcon survived,’ said Magnus, and shut his eyes.
Further attempts to get him to speak were in vain. Thóra sat thoughtfully, unable to make head nor tail of anything he’d said. Why was he talking about a falcon? Was it connected to some event in his own life, unconnected to the bodies in the basement or Alda’s murder? And which child was he talking about?