Dressed in a black robe trimmed with dark blue satin, the judge glared at Thóra. He had cupped his hands over his chin, covering his mouth, and she felt he might just as easily be poking his tongue out at her behind them, or hiding a grimace of boredom. “Would the defense counsel please continue,” he boomed. “This is most interesting.”
Thóra smiled politely. “As I have pointed out, I came across this piece of evidence by sheer coincidence and informed the police of its existence immediately. I reject the prosecution’s argument that I should have contacted them before removing the photograph, because I couldn’t tell what significance it would have for the investigation until I saw what it showed. To do so, I had to remove it. I took every precaution not to disturb anything and touched it only with tweezers.”
“CSI: Miami?” asked the judge, and removed his hands from his mouth. He smiled at Thóra.
“Yes, you could say that,” said Thóra, smiling back.
The judge turned to the official from the district commissioner’s office, which had requested that Jónas be detained in custody. “It appears that the commissioner’s office did not make a proper investigation. Instead of objecting to the defense counsel’s arguments, you ought to thank her for her assistance, otherwise the photograph in question might never have come to the notice of the authorities.”
The official asked permission to respond and stood up. “It’s true that we welcome this piece of evidence, and of course we shall examine this new angle on the case. An officer was sent to the scene immediately, even though this happened late last night, and the photograph is being examined as we speak.” He cleared his throat. “However, we see no reason to reject the request to remand the suspect on these grounds alone. His alibi is inadequate, and he is still the chief suspect in these heinous crimes. The photograph alone does not alter that fact.”
“How do you answer this, counsel?” the judge asked Thóra.
“The photograph is far from being the only evidence. Baldvin Baldvinsson’s car went through the Hvalfjördur Tunnel on Sunday at 17:51. That would have taken him to Snæfellsnes in time to commit the second murder, even though he denied to me ever making that journey. The police presumably have a comparable list of traffic for the day that Birna was murdered, and I am informed that Mr. Baldvinsson was also present at the hotel on that day. He attended a séance that was held in the evening but left before the interval, which means that he had every opportunity to kill Birna. The police are undoubtedly in possession of e-mail communications between Baldvin and Birna, but I have not been given the chance to see them, or indeed any other evidence apart from the list of traffic through the tunnel on Sunday, which they were kind enough to pass to me.” Out of the corner of her eye, Thóra saw Thórólfur shift in his seat. He was clearly burning to correct this fabrication, but the only way to do so was to admit that he had accidentally left the list behind, so he had to restrain himself.
Thóra continued, “I should also point out that Eiríkur may have intended to abbreviate the name of Reykjavík on the wall but did not manage to write the final letter correctly. The K may have come out as an R. It should be remembered that throughout his efforts a crazed stallion was in the process of trampling him to death. ‘R-E-K’ could refer to Baldvin’s position as a Reykjavík city councilor. REK is a common abbreviation for Reykjavík.”
The judge nodded slowly. “We should not jump to conclusions. Baldvin Baldvinsson is a city councilor and his grandfather Magnús a former cabinet minister, so we should be very wary of insinuating that they are guilty of a serious breach of the law. I need not elaborate on the consequences if such a notion became public without reason.”
“It would be just as serious for my client were he to end up in the same position,” said Thóra. “He also cherishes his reputation.” She thanked her lucky stars that the password to Jónas’s computer was not common knowledge. “My client has now admitted to having had sex with the deceased on the Thursday in question, but long before the estimated time of the murder. That explains his fingerprints on her belt, because she didn’t change her clothes that day—at least I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that she did. Furthermore, my client has explained his whereabouts on both days, although there has not been time to corroborate his account. In his statement to the police he suffered a lapse of memory about his trip to Reykjavík on Sunday, but that can be put down to simple human error.”
The judge indicated to the official from the commissioner’s office that he could speak. “All this discussion has demonstrated,” he said, “is that the investigation of the crime scenes is a long way from completion, since evidence is still being gathered. Even less cause, therefore, to release the suspect at this stage. We do not know what further evidence he might remove. Regarding his confession before the court just now admitting to having had intercourse with the deceased, it is in my opinion obvious that he is aware that the results of the DNA testing of the semen will soon be available and is merely making a futile attempt at explaining away damning evidence. Lastly, interesting as the hypothesis about Baldvin Baldvinsson may be, it seems highly implausible and in no way reduces the suspicion cast upon the person present here. For example, no connection has been demonstrated between Baldvin and Eiríkur. We therefore reiterate our request for fourteen days’ custody.”
“With reference to Paragraph 1, Article 103 of the Penal Code,” replied Thóra, “we consider the allegations against my client to be in no way sufficiently supported, besides which the conditions for such a request as stated in the article are lacking. Given that we have raised the question of investigative negligence on the part of the police, I put it to you that it is absurd to presume the suspect would jeopardize the investigation by removing evidence, as described in Clause A of the aforementioned article. Had my client been aware of the photograph in question, he would have had ample opportunity to either destroy it or make it public. He is therefore demonstrably unlikely to tamper with any evidence, because he could already have done so over the past few days. This he has not done, as the photograph proves, so we request that the police demand be rejected, with a reserve appeal for the requested period of custody to be reduced. If this conclusion is reached, I also insist on immediate access to all police evidence regarding the case.”
“If I may, Your Honor,” the official said, “it is clear that two people have died at the hands of a murderer and we have probable cause to suspect the accused. Such crimes are obviously against the public interest, since it is unclear whether the murderer chooses his victims on any basis other than impulse. Anyone could be next. If the conditions of Article 1 are not found to be fulfilled, we request that the suspect be committed into custody on the basis of Article 2 regarding the public interest.”
The judge brought the proceedings to an end and stood up. He said he would consider the matter until noon and then deliver his ruling, and told them not to leave the vicinity of the court. He left the courtroom, followed by the recorder.
Thóra turned to Jónas. “We can only wait and hope, then,” she murmured.
“What do you think he’ll say?” Jónas whispered back. “I thought you did a brilliant job, and the configuration of the planets is very favorable, to say the least. I can’t imagine they’ll do anything except throw out that ridiculous custody request.” He looked proudly at her. “It was awesome how you remembered all the numbers of those legal articles.”
Thóra smiled at him. At last, someone who appreciated her recitals. She had been waiting a long time for this moment. If only the man singing her praises wasn’t a murder suspect who’d mentioned the configuration of the planets in the same breath. “That was nothing,” she said. “You ought to hear me when I get started on letter apertures.”
Thóra coll apsed into one of the cane chairs outside the lobby of the hotel with a groan and put a heavy folder of case documents on the table. She had been presented with them at the district court, wrapped in a supermarket carrier bag. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work,” she said to Matthew as he sat down beside her. “He was remanded in custody for seven days.” She looked around. “Where are the children?”
“They went to look at the beached whale,” Matthew said. “I’m not sure they quite understood my description, so they might get a nasty surprise.”
Thóra thought he was probably right. “No, they can’t have understood you,” she said. She knew her children well enough to realize that neither of them would go out of their way to see any decaying animal, let alone a whale. She didn’t know Sigga well enough to be able to tell whether she’d be able to handle it.
She tapped the orange plastic bag. “I did get the case documents, though,” she said. “Thórólfur tried to delay handing them over by saying he’d get someone in Reykjavík to photocopy them as soon as possible, but the judge offered the assistance of his own secretary, took the folder from them, and made a copy for me. The police attorney had his own copy in court, of course.” She smiled, remembering this small but sweet victory. “I have to rush through all this in the hope of finding something we don’t know.”
“I hope it’s nothing bad for Jónas,” said Matthew. “Could the police have more evidence against him than they’ve told him, or you?”
“I promise you, they threw everything at him during the hearing,” she replied. “It was a very close thing.” She didn’t think she was exaggerating, but at least the judge had shortened the custody term to one week, so she had done some good. She had to let herself believe that. “Poor Jónas didn’t take the news too well,” she said.
“What did you expect?” said Matthew. “Where is he now?”
“The police took him to the prison at Litla-Hraun. It’s a real pain that they keep remanding prisoners there. It takes such a long time to drive from Reykjavík,” she said, then added, “Even longer from here.”
“Don’t you need to get back to town soon?” he asked.
“I’m better off here, actually,” she replied. “Thórólfur said they wouldn’t interrogate Jónas for the next two days. They’re going to focus their investigations here and finish questioning witnesses they’ve been unable to locate. He wasn’t too pleased with the judge’s remarks about the handling of the crime scene.”
“Is there anything more to see here?” Matthew asked. “It was sheer chance that we found the key to the locker. We won’t get that lucky again.”
“I’m not sure. Something’s bothering me, and I mean something other than all the loose ends in this case.” She stood up and clutched the plastic bag to her chest. “I’ll take a quick look through this to check if anything in it turns the case around completely. I also went to the library to take out a copy of those folktales, on the off chance that the story behind that verse could provide an explanation,” she said. “I won’t be long, but it would be nice if you could send my children off on another mission impossible, if and when they return.”
Two hours later, Thóra walked out of Jónas’s office having made no real progress. She had read every word of the documents in the folder, which contained numerous witness statements, scene-ofcrime investigation summaries, two autopsy reports, and the results of tests on the deceaseds’ corpses and bodily fluids. The outcome of the DNA tests on the semen found inside Birna’s body was not in the folder, but the documents included a request to that effect. However, there were results on the blood group of the source of the sperm, which revealed that it came from two men. Thóra couldn’t work out if that discovery was a coincidence or whether it had been suspected when the test was requested. She wondered how common it was for a woman to have sex with two different men the same day, except on a professional basis. One thing that puzzled her was a report stating that besides the semen, another organic substance had been found inside Birna’s vagina, described as A. barbadensis Mill, A. vulgaris Lam. Thóra wrote down the name in the hope that Matthew would recognize it, but it seemed unlikely. Perhaps the substance had been inserted there by Birna herself, although Thóra couldn’t imagine why.
She waved to Matthew and crossed to where he sat having a beer at the bar. She put the folder down and sat beside him. “Are there still three children?” she asked.
“It was a close call,” he said. “Your son and daughter were a bit green around the gills when they got back from the beach. The pregnant girl was the only one who looked okay. I bought them each a Coke at the bar and they took them up to their room to watch a video.”
“I was more worried about whether a fourth had joined them,” she said, beckoning to the waiter and ordering a glass of Coke.
“You’re not a grandmother yet, so relax,” said Matthew, clinking his glass against hers and indicating the folder. “Did you find anything interesting?” He sipped his drink.
“No, I can’t say that I did. There was confirmation of various things we’d either heard or guessed. Needles or pins had been stuck into the soles of the feet of both victims, a fox had been tied to Eiríkur’s body, and according to tests carried out on the animal, it had been dead for some time—shot with a rifle. Unfortunately, there was no explanation as to why the fox was attached to his body.”
“Haven’t you heard from the lovely Bella?” asked Matthew. “Wasn’t she going to check that out for you?”
“Damn, I’d forgotten her,” said Thóra. She took out her mobile and quickly dialed the office.
“Hello,” said Bella flatly as she picked up. No “Central Lawyers,” no “Can I help you?”—nothing to suggest that the caller had reached a respectable law firm rather than a private home.
“Hello, Bella. This is Thóra. Did you find out anything about the connection between foxes and horses?” Thóra couldn’t be bothered to scold her yet again for her telephone manner.
“Eh?” replied the girl idiotically. “Oh, that.” When she stopped talking, Thóra thought she could discern a sucking noise followed by a quick exhalation.
“Bella, are you smoking in the office?” she asked, irritated. “You know that’s not allowed.”
“Of course not,” replied Bella. “Are you crazy?”
Thóra was sure she could hear the crackle of burning tobacco. Could the girl have taken up smoking a pipe?
Before she had time to ask, Bella went on, “The horse-riding types I spoke to hadn’t heard of any specific connection between the two, so I talked to a foxhunter I know and I got a bit more out of him.”
Thóra completely forgot about the smoking. “What did he say?” she asked eagerly. Would her secretary prove useful for once?
“Well,” said Bella, “he told me horses can go mad with fear if they smell the scent of a dead fox, especially if it’s started to rot.”
“Is that something only foxhunters would know,” Thóra asked excitedly, “or would all riders be aware of this? Do you think the ones you spoke to could have been particularly ill informed?”
“Ill informed about foxes?” Bella asked sarcastically. “I don’t have the faintest idea, but I’d say they don’t know about it, as a rule. I mean, how often do you come across a fox?”
“Thanks, Bella,” said Thóra, meaning it for probably the first time ever. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Her offer wasn’t that generous, since the secretary’s absence would have no discernible effect on the company’s operation. She hung up and recounted the conversation to Matthew.
“So the murderer tied a fox to Eiríkur to drive the horse wild—to make sure the poor man would be killed and not just badly injured.” Matthew raised an eyebrow. “A pretty cold customer.”
“But as a rule riders don’t know how horses react to a dead fox,” said Thóra pensively. “It’s mainly foxhunters who do.” After reflecting for a moment she added, “I wonder if Bergur hunts foxes. He has ducks on his farm.” She looked up at Matthew. “There was a box of rifle cartridges in the stables, in the coffee room.”
Matthew stared back at her. “Could ‘RER’ have been an attempt at ‘BER,’ for ‘Bergur,’ but Eiríkur couldn’t write it properly?” He took out his mobile and called up the photograph he had taken of the scrawl on the wall. It took him a while to enlarge the image and center it. “I’ll be damned,” he said after scrutinizing the photograph. He handed the phone to Thóra. “The lower diagonal on the first R isn’t straight like on the second one.”
Thóra put down the telephone and turned to Matthew. “I think Thórólfur took the news quite well,” she said. “He played it cool, but I could tell he was delighted. I predict Bergur will have a visit from the police soon.”
“Or his wife will,” said Matthew. “You never know.”
“Yes, you do,” she replied. “Some things you just know. I read the autopsy report and it’s obvious that Birna was the victim of a very brutal rape, so no women are in the frame, except perhaps as accomplices. If Rósa did play a part in the murder, it wasn’t with her husband. I doubt they could agree on the time of day, let alone something on this scale.”
Just then, Sóldís walked over to them. “Granny wants a word with you,” she said awkwardly. “She asked me to ask you to phone her. It’s something to do with what you were talking about yesterday.” She looked down at her feet. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, you know, but here’s her number.” She handed Thóra a Post-it.
Thóra thanked her kindly and took out her mobile immediately, while Sóldís turned around and quickly left the bar. The telephone was answered after a single ring.
“Hello, Lára. This is Thóra, the lawyer from the hotel. Sóldís told me you wanted a word.”
“Yes, hello. I’m so glad you called. I haven’t been able to think about anything but Gudný since we talked yesterday. I believe that you’ll lead to the child’s fate being discovered at long last.” Thóra had the feeling that Lára was in a very emotional state, although her voice didn’t betray it. “I’m holding the letter from her, the one I told you about yesterday,” said the old woman, sniffing almost inaudibly. “I searched everywhere and eventually found it stored away with a couple of other things that I still keep from that time. I’ve read it over and again, and I think I’ve found something by reading between the lines.”
“What do you mean?” asked Thóra.
“In one place she says the baby takes after its father and I’ll see the resemblance at once,” said Lára. “At the time, when all that talk about incest started up, I half believed she was referring to her father or uncle. Now that I’m older, I realize that no woman would say that about a child born under such circumstances. She also asks whether I know the whereabouts of a young man she was keen on before I moved away. She wanted to drop him a line.” Lára stopped to take a deep breath. “I think that young man must have been the child’s father. He moved to Reykjavík soon after me, and I remember how strangely he acted when I bumped into him a year or so later. He refused to talk to me. I didn’t understand it then, and still don’t, really. The baby might explain his reaction. Perhaps he thought I knew about the baby or Gudný’s pregnancy and didn’t want to discuss it. He had a young lady on his arm.”
“Who was it?” Thóra asked. “Is he still alive?”
“Most definitely,” Lára replied. “When he dies, it will be reported in all the newspapers. He used to be a cabinet minister.”
Thóra felt her grip tightening on the handset. “Magnús Baldvinsson?” she asked, as calmly as she could.
“Yes, how did you guess?” exclaimed Lára, astounded. “Do you know him?”
“He’s staying at the hotel,” replied Thóra, “but he may have left by now—his grandson came to fetch him yesterday evening.”
“How odd,” Lára said. “He’s only come back for a few flying visits since he moved to Reykjavík all those years ago.”
“Well, I never,” was all Thóra could think to say. “Could he have been so unhappy about the baby that he . . .” She hesitated, searching for a suitable phrase. Adults were one thing, but babies quite another “That he somehow had the child adopted after Gudný died, or simply . . . disposed of it?” She hoped her euphemism would be clear enough.
“I don’t know,” said Lára. Her elderly voice faltered. “Heavens, I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing. Magnús was spineless, yes, but evil? I just don’t know. I can’t really imagine anyone behaving that way. They wouldn’t be shown any mercy in our society. Not today, and not back then.” She stopped to blow her nose. “Then there was your other question—about the coal bunker. I had a think about that and remembered that both farms switched to electrical heating before I moved away, which everyone thought was very posh. Bjarni set up a small generator by one of the waterfalls on the mountainside, north of the main road. I don’t know if it helps you at all, but both farms stopped having to bother with coal then and the coal bunkers were never used again.” Talking about something as down-to-earth as central heating seemed to restore the strength to Lára’s voice, and she spoke now with no hint of sadness. “In the box where I kept Gudný’s letter I found an old photo of the two of us behind the farm, and when I looked at it more closely, all this came back to me. You can see the coal hatch and the memories just flooded back.”
Thóra interrupted her. “When you say ‘behind the farm,’ which farm do you mean?”
“Kirkjustétt,” Lára said. “We didn’t go to Kreppa much in those days. Bjarni and Grímur were barely on speaking terms and I’m fairly sure that their only contact was over the generator, which supplied both farms.”
“So Kreppa had the same type of coal bunker?” said Thóra. “There are no signs of it behind the hotel. Could it have been covered over by the annex?”
“No, it shouldn’t have been,” replied Lára. “If I recall correctly, it was a little ways away from the farmhouse, not in the area where the annex was built. The hatch ought to be in the lawn behind the hotel. Both farms had the same layout. It was considered awfully modern to have the coal bunker away from the house, because it was much more expensive than tipping the coal straight into the basement. The most impressive thing of all was to have an entrance to the bunker from the basement even if it was some distance away.”
Thóra looked at Matthew, her eyes wide. She ended her conversation with Lára, excited at the prospect of exploring the basement for a door to the bunker, but before she rang off, she promised to let Lára know if she found any clues about the fate of the mysterious child.
“I need to make a quick call,” she told Matthew as she dialed the number of the prison. “I promise you I’ll explain everything in a minute.” Thinking back to the photograph that Birna had asked Robin to take of the basement wall, Thóra didn’t expect to find a door down there. When Jónas was brought to the telephone, she got straight to the point. “Jónas, I might need to make a hole in the basement wall, under the old part of the hotel. I just wanted to let you know. Are you all right otherwise?”
Thóra, Matthew, and Gylfi stood in the basement, in front of the wall they had agreed must be the one backing on to the lawn. It had taken them a long time to figure out where to begin, but by lifting Sóley so that she could see out through the dirty little windows, they could confirm that the wall from Birna’s photograph was the right one. Matthew put down the photograph and picked up a sledgehammer. Thóra moved back to where Sigga and Sóley were watching excitedly. Gylfi stood by Matthew, ready to take turns when the German wanted a break.
Her son had insisted on joining them when they took shovels out on to the lawn—to make sure that the hatch was there before they began modifying the interior of the hotel—and the girls insisted on coming too, delighted to have something different to do. They found the hatch some thirty centimeters down, just beyond the inscribed rock, but instead of arduously digging around it, they had gone to the basement to look for the door they knew was there somewhere—a hatch that had been buried for decades, said Matthew, would be no easier to open than the one they had struggled with behind Kreppa.
“What do you reckon you’ll find back there?” asked Gylfi, not entirely convinced of the wisdom of breaking it down.
“Honestly? I have no idea,” replied Thóra, “but it was obviously designed to keep people away. There’s absolutely no reason to concrete over a basement door. It would only have been sealed this way if the point was to hide it.”
“And what if there’s nothing there?” he said. “What will the owner say?”
“Nothing,” she reassured him. “I’ve informed him of our plans, and if worst comes to worst, he’ll just have some wall repairs to keep him busy when he gets out of custody.” Impatiently, she waved them on. “Fire away!”
Not needing to be told twice, Gylfi and Matthew pounded at the wall. Thóra and the girls looked on expectantly, but soon realized that it would be a lengthy operation. It was more than half an hour, in which time Sóley had fallen asleep from boredom on top of a pile of boxes and Sigga was yawning almost constantly, before the gap in the plaster, timber, and rock was big enough to climb through. Matthew and Gylfi stood back with their sleeves rolled up, dirty, sweaty, and out of breath.
“I’m not going in first,” Thóra said as she withdrew her head from the hole. “It’s awfully stuffy in there. It smells like burning.”
“I’ll go,” offered Gylfi, but Thóra knew him well enough to realize that he didn’t mean it.
“Matthew, you go first,” she said, pushing him toward the hole. “Where’s the flashlight?”
After all three had squeezed through the hole, Thóra and Gylfi followed Matthew along the dim passage. The slender beam from the flashlight only helped Matthew in front, and the Icelanders bumped into him when he stopped at a door at the end of the passage. He turned around, shining the flashlight under his chin. Both Thóra and Gylfi recoiled in horror, much to his amusement. He took the flashlight away from his face and lit up the door. “Shall I open it?”
They should have said no.