Ashes to Dust Read online

  There was something else, however, that was worrying Thóra - her imminent trip to the Westmann Islands. There she planned to search high and low for someone who could shed light on the discovery of the corpses in the basement, and perhaps even bear witness to the exchanges between Markus and Alda in the days before the eruption. Around two thirds of the residents of the Islands had returned home after the eruption, and they formed a group that might conceivably have witnessed something significant. Although this plan was far from fail-safe, it was the only idea that Thóra could come up with at this stage of the case. Markus had agreed to it without objection, and even liked it. He was desperate to free himself from his current situation, and since the case had by now been reported in the media, it was clear to him that it was only a matter of time before his name would be dragged into the discussion. But as things stood now, it appeared that the reporters had received little information from the police, even though the case had naturally aroused a great deal of interest. Thóra felt it her obligation to acquaint herself with the coverage and she could only admire how creatively some reporters had managed to liven up their articles on the case, even without any new information. This, of course, would not last long, and soon the police would have to release information concerning the investigation in order to save face. Markus’s name would not be included in their press releases, but there was a risk they would have to announce that one person was already being questioned as a suspect.

  Then the game would be up and finally his name would be leaked. It was therefore imperative to try to clear him of all suspicion, as soon as possible, but Thóra could do little to speed up the investigation before the autopsy report and the findings from the crime scene were available. After she received these reports there would barely be any time to go to the Islands to speak with possible witnesses. So it was now or never. This was why it wasn’t the trip itself that was bothering her - the Westmann Islands were beautiful enough, of course, and it was nice to visit there. No, what annoyed her was that it had turned out that Thór, the firm’s junior lawyer, was too busy to go with her. Thóra thought it important to have a second set of eyes and ears with her in the Islands and the only ones that were available belonged to her secretary, Bella. Bragi had rightly pointed out that it mattered little whether Bella sat at the telephone or was somewhere else, making it convenient to bring her along as an assistant. The others at the firm were actually set on working when they arrived in the mornings — so it was either Bella or no one.

  Thóra sighed and scrolled through her contacts list for her secretary’s number. She wished she could phone Matthew and ask him to come to Iceland. He would certainly come if possible, but calling him would break her resolution to leave him in peace while he contemplated the future. An Icelandic bank had recently bought the German one for which he worked, and as a result he had been offered the position of supervisor of security at the main branch in Iceland. Soon he had to make a big decision. The work was similar to what he was doing now, and the pay was much better, which hadn’t surprised Thóra as much as it had him - the banks were locally notorious for paying ridiculous salaries. So the decision was not the job itself, but the move to Iceland. He knew no one there but Thóra and her children, so she didn’t want to interfere with his decision. If she encouraged him to come, she would be morally bound to maintain their relationship. If she discouraged him, he might think she didn’t care. A long time ago she had realized that any potential life partner would have to live in Iceland, so her relationship with Matthew depended on his decision. If Matthew did not come to Iceland, their relationship would be finished. They were hardly ever together, and that simply didn’t work. Thóra blushed at the thought of phone sex, which they had tried unsuccessfully. It seemed clear that for sex she needed a flesh and blood man, in the same room as her, and therefore it was better to be with someone who did not live many thousands of kilometres away. On the other hand, she hoped that he would come; she liked him and enjoyed being with him. There also seemed to be a shortage of attractive men of the right age. She didn’t like any of the ones that had recently tried it on with her, not even after her fifth glass. And that said a lot about them. The men who attracted her attention were either far too young, already taken, or gay. Before shaking off these thoughts it struck her that perhaps there was an overabundance of men in the Westmann Islands. One could always dream, and it didn’t hurt to have Bella in tow, especially since compared to her secretary, Thóra resembled a Playboy centrefold. Enough of that for now, she thought, and turning to the matter at hand, she called Bella’s number.

  After Sóley had gone to sleep and it was clear there was nothing worth watching on television, Thóra decided to have a look in the book Memorable Events 1971-1975, from the series Our Century. She had acquired the collection after her grandfather died, and although she didn’t open the books very often, they had occasionally come in handy. The book wasn’t thick and obviously contained far from all the newsworthy events of the period, but Thóra thought that the disappearance of four people must have found its way into the book, assuming it had made the news at the time. She flipped quickly through 1973 until she reached the summer of that year and the eruption in the Westmann Islands was finished. Markus’s childhood home had actually been buried some time during the first month of the eruption; nonetheless Thóra wanted to make sure that nothing got past her so she didn’t stop reading until she came to the headline ‘Eruption Finished!’‘ from 4 July.

  Upon reading, she found little that could conceivably be connected to the corpses in the basement. The airplane Vor, with five people on board, had crashed at the end of March north of Langjokull Glacier, and in the first article about the incident, the crash site had still not been located. A later article about the accident stated that rescue crews had found it, as well as the plane’s passengers, who all turned out to be dead. Another article that caught Thóra’s attention was from the end of January, concerning the loss of the British smack Cuckoo, along with its four-man crew. It had sailed from Thórlakshofn in the middle of the month, but nothing was heard from it or its crew after that. Thóra sat up on the sofa as she read this article, but lay back down again when several pages later she read that wreckage from the ship had been driven ashore along with remains of one of the crew’s bodies. The smack was thought to have capsized with all hands in a storm that hit shortly after it left the harbour. Thóra’s attention was captured again later in the book when she read that a group of six hikers had got lost after setting out on a trip from Landmannalaugar. The group had consisted of four foreign geologists and two Icelandic guides who were supposed to have been very familiar with the area. Thóra did not need to waste any time trying to imagine how part of the group had sought shelter in a basement in the Westmann Islands to get away from bad weather on the mainland, because immediately on the following page there was a report that the men had been found hounded and cold in a little emergency hut in the highlands. They had got lost in the drifting snow and could thank their lucky stars that they had stumbled on the hut. Thóra then read one report about people who had disappeared and were never found. In February, the Seastar had sunk southeast of the mainland with a ten-man crew. The passengers boarded two rubber life rafts but were never found. The group had consisted of nine men and one woman: five Icelanders and five Faeroese, and despite repeated searches through the articles Thóra could not discover anything about whether the crew had ever been found. The only problem was that Markus’s home had probably already been buried in ash by the time the ship perished, and it was an enormous distance to the Islands from the place where it had sunk.

  Despite her disappointment Thóra continued reading, then found an article that reawakened her hope. It concerned the huge number of foreign reporters that had come to Iceland to cover the eruption. Of course there was nothing in the article about any of them disappearing, much less four of them. Although it was unlikely that any full-time journalists or reporters had failed to return from Icela
nd without it ending up in the news, it was possible that things might have been different for freelancers. Some of these reporters might have travelled to Iceland without letting anyone know of their plans. They would perhaps not have been searched for here when their disappearance was discovered later in their homelands.

  Little else had occurred in the first part of the year that could shed any light on the identity of the corpses. The Cod War raged, but Thóra could find no indication anywhere that anyone had disappeared or been considered lost at sea in connection with the conflict between the British and the Icelanders over the extension of Iceland’s territorial waters from twelve miles to fifty. Several other articles mentioned deaths or disappearances, but they were never groups of people, always isolated individuals. Thóra thought it too unlikely that the corpses were a collection of people that had all disappeared or died under different circumstances at different times, so she didn’t read these latter articles in any detail.

  She also thumbed through 1972, since there was a possibility that the bodies had been in the basement before the eruption started. That year, however, turned out to be as lacking in significant detail for her purposes as 1973. A photo of a sinking ship raised an eyebrow, but the accompanying article said it was a trawler that was thought to have hit a mine. However, further investigation of the sinking revealed that the ship’s owners had exploded dynamite in its hold in the hope of an insurance pay-off. No one appeared to have died or disappeared in connection with the incident.

  Another headline to draw Thóra’s attention stated that eighty British trawlers were speeding towards the Icelandic fishing grounds. The article was dated at the end of August 1972, which was a bit early; however, this case involved a huge number of men, making it possible that four of them might have disappeared without being noticed. In fact nothing was mentioned about the disappearance of any of them, but the article succeeded in capturing the tone of relations between the two nations during the Cod War. The end of the article quoted a British trawler captain, who stated that if the Icelanders tried to board a British ship within fifty miles and outside twelve, they would be met with boiling water and sacks of pepper. Thóra found the mention of the pepper quite amusing, the boiling water less so, but the statement indicated that those involved had been prepared for anything - even physical injury.

  After her reading Thóra was little closer to discovering anything than she had been before, except for her feeling that the bodies might be connected to the Cod War in some very vague way. After all, to Thóra’s mind the word ‘war’ meant devastation and death.

  She slammed the book shut and hurried to pack for her trip the next morning.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday 15 July2007

  Thóra took her seat next to Bella in the plane. She thanked God that the flight would take only half an hour - she had a terrible fear of having to keep up a conversation with the girl in such close quarters. In the end Bella chattered the entire trip without pause, the gist of her monologue being her desire for Thóra to bring a lawsuit against the state for the ban on smoking in public places. Thóra smiled uncomfortably but didn’t dare interject. She even nodded non-committally when her secretary said that after smoking was prohibited in aeroplanes the majority of passengers had started to get sick after long-haul flights because the air on board was changed much less frequently. Instead of breathing smoke the passengers breathed germs and bacteria from people who came from all over the world and who therefore, according to Bella, could have the Ebola virus or bird flu. Thóra doubted that people who had contracted these diseases travelled much to the Westmann Islands, but nevertheless tried to breathe less than usual. When they landed she gulped down fresh air at the door of the plane and enjoyed the feeling of the warm breeze playing about her face. Bella hurried past Thóra and out of the airport to have a smoke.

  ‘Well,’ said Thóra as she dragged their suitcases over to Bella, who stood by the ash bin, enjoying her cigarette, ‘shouldn’t we try calling a cab?’ She looked around but there was no taxi to be seen. She felt worse when she saw that some of their fellow travellers appeared to be getting ready to walk into town. Maybe there weren’t any taxis in the Islands? Just as she was on the verge of going back into the airport to ask about this, a new Range Rover jeep pulled up. Thóra had recently been told how much these cars cost, but the figure was so high that she still thought it must have been a misunderstanding. The dark window-pane slid down into its slot and a middle-aged man stretched out through the open window and called to them.

  ‘Are you Thóra?’ he said, looking at Bella. His voice was deep.

  ‘No, that’s me,’ Thóra called back quickly, rather displeased that her secretary should be mistaken for her. Although Thóra did not consider herself a great beauty, the difference between their appearances and clothing was like night and day. Thóra always tried to dress smartly: in tasteful jeans and a sporty outdoor jacket that had cost far, far too much, while her secretary looked more as if she were on her way to the stage to act in a play about the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. To make matters worse, the girl’s make-up made her look like a vampire. Thóra stepped closer to the car.

  ‘Hello,’ said the man, and reached over to open the passenger door. ‘My name is Leifur, I’m Markus’s brother. He called me and said that you were on your way, so I thought I’d come and pick you up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ replied Thóra immediately. ‘My secretary is here with me, is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Leifur, as he stepped out of the car and put their suitcases in the back. ‘You’re staying at Thórshamar Hotel, I expect?’ he said, after they’d all piled in.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Thóra, and she took the opportunity to examine the man better. She could see a distinct resemblance between the brothers, and thought they must both have been very handsome in their younger years. Leifur was slightly older than Markus, probably in his fifties. He carried his age well, like his brother, and had the air of someone who is used to being in charge and getting his own way. She wasn’t attracted to much older men, but she could see that the brothers were good-looking. Leifur’s smart clothing suggested he was a man who appreciated good quality, and this fitted with his choice of car, although Thóra knew that clothing did not tell the whole story. Bella, for example, was neither a terrorist nor a fat vampire, although people might be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

  ‘The hotel is in an excellent location,’ said Leifur as they drove off. ‘In the centre of town, not far from the harbour.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said Thóra, and wondered what she should say next. She had no idea how much he knew about the case, and wanted to avoid telling him anything he didn’t already know. It wouldn’t look good if he started quoting her at police interrogations. She glanced around in search of something to talk about. ‘Great weather,’ she said, and then reproached herself for the cliche. ‘Is it always so nice here?’

  Leifur turned towards her and smiled. ‘Sure, I guess so.’

  Much to Thóra’s regret, no lively discussion of the weather ensued. No one said anything for a few moments and she used the time to look around. There was little or no traffic on the roads, just like last time she had been here. The landscape was just as magnificent, and she was about to mention this when Leifur started speaking again, now less upbeat than before: ‘It’s terrible, this thing with the bodies,’ he said, glancing over at Thóra. ‘I presume it’s okay to talk about it in front of your secretary?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Thóra. ‘Nonetheless, I’m unable to discuss details of the case with you. At least, details that you don’t know about already.’

  ‘No, I’m not going to try to get anything out of you,’ replied the man. ‘That’s not what I meant. I was just so shocked that they were found in our house. My family has enough to deal with right now.’

  Thóra’s ears pricked up. ‘Oh?’ She looked around the jeep and recalled how Markus also seemed to have quite enough to g
et by on. Financial concerns could hardly be overburdening the family.

  ‘Ah, well,’ replied Leifur, sounding dejected. ‘It’s a lot of little things combined with a few larger problems. Dad’s illness is the biggest.’

  ‘Yes, Markus told me about it,’ said Thóra. She always found it difficult to speak to strangers about illness or death. ‘You have my sympathies. It’s a terrible disease.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘No, you needn’t worry about me. Markus told me his side of the story and I have to admit that although it might sound improbable, I trust him. It was a bit odd how he chased after Alda all those years ago. She stood head and shoulders above the rest of the girls in those days, but still. He would have done anything for her — actually, he did enough stupid things even without her.’