The coroner’s preliminary report on Bryngeir’s body, which had been transported by van from Stykkisholmur earlier that day, was expected in the afternoon. Dagbjartur was sent over to collect the results firsthand because it was sometimes difficult to decipher these documents. If there was something in it that was difficult to understand, it was always best to have it explained on the spot. Sometimes it was possible to get the coroner to talk off the record about certain aspects that he would never have put down on paper except until maybe several weeks into the investigation. There seemed to be little doubt about the cause of the reporter’s death, but it needed to be confirmed. Further data might have come to light, such as some indication of the perpetrator’s physical strength, or whether he was left-or right-handed, etc.
Dagbjartur met coroner Magnus Hansen in the examination room. Two humanoid shapes covered with sheets lay on separate slabs in the center of the room. Dagbjartur was relieved to see that the examination seemed to be over. He had witnessed plenty of autopsies over the years and never found them enticing. If at all possible, he preferred to avoid being present.
“You’re certainly keeping us busy these days,” said Magnus. He was a tall man in his sixties, big boned with a big aquiline nose. He made quite an imposing figure as he towered over Dagbjartur in his long white coat, rubber apron, and white hat. A white surgical mask dangled loosely from his throat over his apron. Poised on the tip of his nose were glasses that he never seemed to look through, and he was holding copious sheets of notes in his hands.
Dagbjartur nodded and backed off a step. He was fearfully respectful of Magnus, who was famous for the pleasure he took in winding up investigators he considered to be too cocky.
“Do you have anything for us?” he humbly asked.
Magnus peered at him over his glasses and came to the conclusion that this little soul wasn’t worth teasing. “There’s not much to say about the first one,” he said. “He’s too far gone to be able to draw any conclusions about the cause of his death. There’s actually little more than a skeleton and shreds of skin around the legs that are held together by the clothing. Some wasted muscle and soft tissue around the bones. Except for the spots the birds got at, of course. There’s only bone left there. There’s almost nothing left of his internal organs, except for some remains of his heart and his enlarged prostate gland, which tells me little about the cause of his death but the fact that he probably had difficulties urinating. All the bones are intact, so they weren’t damaged by any attack. I examined the skull particularly well and saw no sign of any damage to it. There is, therefore, nothing to add to the local doctor’s report, which suggests the man died of exposure. The cause of death is therefore most likely to be hypothermia, unless he had some other underlying condition that kicked in once his resistance was weakened.”
Magnus stopped talking and peered over his glasses at Dagbjartur again.
“What about the other guy?” Dagbjartur asked, feeling the onus was now on him to say something.
“The other guy is another kettle of fish altogether,” said Magnus, perking up. He lifted his papers up to his nose and this time looked through his glasses.
“This is a very interesting case,” he said. “I first examined the many wounds on the subject’s back.”
He read from the sheets: “Paravertebral, contiguous to the spine on both sides, bilateral stab wounds piercing subcutaneous tissues and ribs, from the third to the eleventh rib on the right-hand side and the third to the tenth rib on the left-hand side at the intersection with the columna vertebralis.”
“The columna what?” Dagbjartur asked.
“Spinal column.”
“Right.”
“This was done with two powerful thrusts of a knife on the left side and three on the right side. I’d call these blows more than stabbings, because it takes a lot of power to tear the ribs apart like that. The perpetrator is probably right-handed and used both hands to hold the weapon, which was a very big sharp knife, sword, or even an axe. The lungs were then pulled out through the wounds. There are some scattered shallow fissures on them, probably caused by the friction with the broken ribs. Also fissures on the veins to the lungs for the same reasons.”
Magnus stopped talking and continued to read in silence.
“Do you think he died instantly?” Dagbjartur asked.
Magnus peered at him over his glasses. “What do you think?”
“Probably, I would imagine.”
“Yes, he probably would have died quickly if he hadn’t already been dead for a long time.”
“Huh?”
“Anyone with an ounce of brains would have been able to see that on the scene, but I guess brains are in short supply in your department.”
Dagbjartur remained silent. He realized Magnus was launching into one of his rants and that it was best to just let it wash over.
“There’s no inflammation around the rims of the wounds. Any fool should be able to see that.”
“That’s true,” said Dagbjartur in a total bluff. He couldn’t think of any colleague of his who would have been capable of recognizing a clue of that kind.
“The edges of the wounds are a yellowish brown and dry. No bleeding in the adjacent tissue. This is a clear sign that the man was not alive when the wounds were inflicted.”
“So how did he die then?” Dagbjartur asked.
“I found a bruise on the back of his head that indicated bleeding in the scalp. This suggested he was subjected to a blow to the head of some kind, which wasn’t fatal, however. But he probably passed out. The cause of death was therefore probably drowning.”
“Drowning?”
“Yes. Drowning is difficult to diagnose, especially when the lungs have been messed with like they have in this case. But all the symptoms of drowning are there when you look for them.” Magnus read: “Foam in the larynx, trachea, and bronchi.”
He stopped reading and gazed at Dagbjartur over his glasses. “Those could also be symptoms of heart failure or carbon poisoning, so I had to exclude that using other methods. But then I looked for other symptoms of drowning.”
Dagbjartur nodded to show interest.
Magnus continued to read: “Hyper-inflated lungs, hyper-inflatio pulmonum, with indentations on the surface, under the ribs, pulmonary edema. Liquid in both pleural cavities, bilateral hydrothoraces. Liquid in the cranial cavities and ethmoidal and sphenoidal sinuses. Blood congestion in the bones around the auditory canal. These aren’t all equally reliable indicators, of course, but when you add them all up I’m pretty certain.”
Dagbjartur was baffled and, after some thought, asked, “So was the man knocked out first, then drowned, and then carved up?”
“That I don’t know. I just got the results of tests that show that the man was very drunk. The ethanol level in his blood was 3.02 per mil and 2.56 in the urine. He could also have fallen and gotten that head wound before he drowned.”
Dagbjartur was still ruminating on these results. “Did the man drown at sea?” he asked.
Magnus pondered. “Is that possible?” he asked.
“Yes, probably,” Dagbjartur answered. “This happened on a small island surrounded by water.”
Magnus turned and took two steps toward one of the slabs. He carefully lifted the sheet off the body’s face and beckoned Dagbjartur to approach. The policeman was now seeing Bryngeir for the first time. His white eyebrow was very conspicuous. Magnus stooped over the corpse and examined its eyes. “No, he’s unlikely to have drowned at sea,” he said. “Salty water is a strong irritant of the mucous membrane of the eyes, so if he had, they’d be redder than that. The man probably drowned in clean freshwater.”
Magnus pulled the sheet back over the body and said, “It should be added that the man had a damaged liver and that he would have died within a few years if he hadn’t stopped drinking.”
“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” said Dagbjartur. “The report that my colleagues who went to the island sent said that the body was covered in blood on the scene. But if he’d been dead when he was carved up, there shouldn’t have been any bleeding, isn’t that right?”
“Exactly,” said Magnus with a tinge of recognition in his voice. “Everything therefore indicates that he died lying on his back and even with his legs in the air. The blood accumulated in the back and the cuts then released it. The arteries were also severed, so one could expect to see a lot of blood on the outside of the body.”
“Can you imagine how he might have drowned in such a position?” Dagbjartur asked.
“I don’t have any explanation that I could put down on paper with a clear conscience.”
“But could you hazard an off-the-record guess?”
Magnus glanced at the detective over his glasses and reflected a moment. Finally, he said, “I once read about a case in a specialized magazine about a man who murdered his three wives at various intervals of a period of some years. He approached them all when they were lying in the bathtub, grabbed them by the calves, and hoisted their legs in the air. That way their heads hit the bottom and they drowned without being able to save themselves. There were no wounds on the body, so it was always considered to be an accident. This happened in three different cities, so no one knew of the previous wife when the next one died. Finally someone recognized a pattern between them and the case was investigated. The police tested the method, so a woman who was a good swimmer was asked to lie in the bathtub and then her legs were hoisted in the same way. The woman almost died in the experiment. Don’t quote me on this, but that’s what could have happened, and the man could have been lying with his legs in the air like that for quite some time. The bruise on the head could have been caused by the brim of the bathtub.”
Question thirty-three: Bui’s response to losing his chin. Fifth letter. In the battle between the Jomsvikings and Earl Hakon, Thorkel jumped from his ship on board Bui’s with a sword in his hand and cut off Bui’s chin and lip, causing a row of his teeth to drop onto the deck. After Bui received the wound, he said, “That Danish woman in Borgundarholm won’t be as keen to kiss me now, if I ever get home.” Bui then struck Thorkel, striking him in the middle and slicing him in two.
“My father thinks the answer is in the words ‘that Danish woman.’ The fifth letter is d.”
Kjartan looked at the note containing the list of answers and said, “The guest’s answer was ‘sliced Thorkel in two.’”
“That means there are two possible answers to this question, the letters d and e.”