Last Rituals (14 page)

 

 

"The police still have it," replied Matthew. "Presumably they'll return it with Harald's other effects."

 

 

"Maybe we'll find more e-mails," Thóra said hopefully.

 

 

"And maybe not," responded Matthew, smiling. He stood and reached up to a bookshelf above the desk. "Here, take this home to read. It's a good introduction to Harald's mental world." He handed her a paperback of
The Witches' Hammer
.

 

 

Thóra took the book and looked up at Matthew, in surprise. "This is a new book. Is it really still in print?"

 

 

He nodded. "It is—but I don't think many people buy it except out of curiosity these days. When you read it, though, bear in mind that it wasn't always that way."

 

 

Thóra put the book in her bag. She stood up and stretched. "Is it okay to use the bathroom?"

 

 

Matthew smiled again. "Maybe. Maybe not." He hurried to add: "Yes, I think that should be all right. If the police burst in to investigate it further, I'll hold them off until you've finished."

 

 

"How sweet of you." Thóra went out into the corridor and walked over to the bathroom. She got sidetracked, though, because the walls were adorned with more pictures and antique relics that aroused her curiosity. Actually, they aroused more horror than curiosity. But there was no denying that they were quite fascinating. It was similar to how people slow down when they drive past the scene of an accident. The pictures must have been from the grandfather's collection because the theme was the same as in the living room and the bedroom: death and the Devil.

 

 

Unlike the other rooms, there was little in the bathroom to suggest the former tenant's interests. The few movables inside were arranged very systematically in doorless cupboards—all in a matching style. Thóra looked at herself in the impeccably polished mirror above the sink and ran her fingers through her hair to freshen up her appearance a little. She noticed a toothbrush in one of the cupboards. It did not seem to have been used. Then she took a more critical look around. There must have been another bathroom in the apartment that Harald used—this one was far too perfect. No question.

 

 

When Thóra went back to the study she lingered in the doorway and said: "There must be another bathroom in the apartment."

 

 

Matthew looked up, startled. "What do you mean?"

 

 

"The bathroom off the hallway is virtually unused. There's no way Harald would have used dental floss that matched the color scheme."

 

 

Matthew grinned. "Top marks. Now don't go claiming you don't know how to investigate." He pointed to the part of the flat they had been through before. "There's a door in the bedroom. The bathroom's in there."

 

 

Thóra turned round. She remembered the door, which she had thought led to a closet. She thought about getting back to the papers but decided that she wanted to find out what the bathroom looked like first. A smile came to her face when she looked inside the door. There was a shower compartment instead of a bathtub, but in other respects it was just like any other bathroom in a normal household. All kinds of hygiene products were strewn around the sink, none of them matching anything else. Thóra popped her head inside the shower compartment. On a shelf attached to the wall were two bottles of shampoo, one upside down, a razor, a used bar of soap, and a tube of toothpaste. A bottle hung from the shower control labeled "Shower Power." This all looked more familiar and she felt a slight relief.

 

 

But what pleased her most was the magazine rack beside the toilet: if this wasn't typical of people who lived alone, she didn't know what was. Curious to find out what sort of magazines Harald read, she browsed through the rack. It was quite a mixture: several car magazines, one historical journal, two copies of
Der Spiegel,
a tattoo magazine that Thóra quickly flicked past, and one edition of
Bunte
. Thóra looked at it in surprise.
Bunte
was a typical women's magazine, carrying the same kind of celebrity stories as
Hello!
The idea of Harald reading something like this would never have crossed her mind. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes smiled at her from the cover under the headline "Tom Cruise wird Papa"—"Tom Cruise to Be a Dad!" The Hollywood couple's pregnancy held as much interest for Thóra as an article on cultivating cucumbers, so she returned the magazine to its place.

 

 

"I knew it," said Thóra triumphantly when she returned to the study.

 

 

"I knew it too," Matthew answered. "I just didn't know you knew."

 

 

Thóra was about to cap this retort when her mobile rang. She fished it out of her handbag.

 

 

"Mom," said Sóley's little voice. "When will you be back?"

 

 

Thóra looked at her watch. It was later than she had realized. "Very soon, darling. Is everything okay?"

 

 

Silence, then: "Oh, yes. I'm just bored. Gylfi won't talk to me anymore. It's no fun being alone with him. He's in there jumping on his bed and howling, and he won't let me in."

 

 

Although Thóra could not quite picture the scene, Gylfi was clearly not babysitting properly. "Listen, darling," she said gently. "I'll be home soon. Tell your brother to stop playing around and to come out and look after you."

 

 

They exchanged good-byes and Thóra put her phone back in her handbag. Inside it, she noticed the note she had written with questions for Matthew about the documents in the file. She took it out and unfolded it. "I'd like to ask you a few things about the documents that were in the file."

 

 

"A few?" he said in surprise. "I expected more than 'a few'—quite a few at the very least. But fire away."

 

 

Thóra was unsure of herself as she looked at the list. Damn it, had she overlooked so many points? She tried to act nonchalant. "Actually these are the main points, there were too many minor details to write them all down." With a smile, she continued. "For example, the army. Why were those documents in the file when Harald was actually medically unfit for military service?"

 

 

"Military service, yes. I just included it to give you the fullest possible picture of Harald's life. It might be irrelevant but you never know where the threads join up."

 

 

"Do you think the murder is linked to the army?" Thóra was skeptical.

 

 

"No, definitely not," replied Matthew. He shrugged. "But in Harald's case you can never tell."

 

 

"But why did he do national service?" Thóra asked. "Judging from his profile he would have been more likely to be against military warfare."

 

 

"You're quite right. He was called up, as it happens, but under normal circumstances he would definitely have gone for community service. You know about that option for conscripts?" Thóra nodded. "He didn't opt out of service, however. His sister Amelia had just died and it upset him deeply. I suspect he made the decision in a mental crisis. This was at the beginning of 1999, and in November or December of that year Germany decided to send troops to Kosovo. Harald went there with a smile on his face. I'm not sure about all the details of his military career but I do know that he was a model conscript, steadfast and tough. So the incident in Kosovo took the army completely by surprise."

 

 

"What happened?" asked Thóra.

 

 

Matthew gave a wry smile. "It's quite a funny story—in a way. Especially bearing in mind that the expedition to Kosovo was the first German mission abroad since the Second World War. Up to then German soldiers had only been involved in peacekeeping work abroad. So it was vital for our troops to be model soldiers."

 

 

"Harald wasn't, then?"

 

 

"Oh, no. You could call him unlucky. After he'd been there about three months his regiment arrested a Serb who was suspected of having information about a fatal bombing. It cost three German soldiers their lives and many others were injured. The Serb was detained in the basement of the building where the German regiment was stationed. Harald was one of the guards. He was on duty alone when the prisoner had been there for two or three nights and still hadn't confessed a thing. Harald had mentioned to his superior that he knew a thing or two about interrogation techniques and was given permission to try to get some information out of the prisoner that night." Matthew looked at Thóra. "Of course, the man who authorized this had no idea that Harald was well versed in the history of torture. He must have expected Harald to put his head round the door every so often to ask the prisoner a few innocent questions."

 

 

Thóra's eyes opened wide. "Did he torture him?"

 

 

"Let's just say that the Serb would gladly have swapped places with the men in the naked pyramid at Abu Ghraib. I'm not condoning what happened, but that was like Disneyland compared with what the poor Serb had to put up with that night. When the shift changed the next morning Harald had managed to get the man to tell everything he knew—and a lot more besides. But instead of earning the praise he thought he deserved, Harald was discharged on the spot—as soon as his superiors saw the barely breathing heap of raw meat lying in its own blood on the floor of the cell. Of course the affair was hushed up because it would have tarnished the army's reputation. All the official documents state that Harald left the army for health reasons."

 

 

"So how do you know this?" Thóra asked, relieved at being able to ask a reasonably normal question.

 

 

"I know people," said Matthew enigmatically. "And I talked to Harald after he got back from Kosovo. He was a changed man, I can tell you. Whether it was his experience of military life or the taste of blood I can't tell. But he became even weirder than before."

 

 

"How?" Thóra asked, curious.

 

 

"Just weirder," Matthew replied. "In appearance and behavior. He enrolled in college soon after this—he left home so I didn't see him so often. From the few occasions when we ran into each other it was quite obvious that he was caught in a downward spiral. Presumably his grandfather's death shortly afterward didn't help either. They were very close."

 

 

Thóra did not know what to say. Harald Guntlieb was clearly no ordinary person. Looking at her notes, she remembered the victim of erotic asphyxiation who was described in the newspaper clipping. But she decided she'd had enough for now. She glanced at her mobile and saw that it was late. "Matthew, I have to go home. My list isn't finished but I have plenty to digest for the time being."

 

 

They quickly tidied up the papers they had been rummaging through in the study. They made sure not to mix up the piles of documents they had sorted. The thought of the extra work that would have involved was unbearable.

 

 

As she put the final pile neatly to one side Thóra turned to Matthew and asked: "Did Harald make a will—considering all the assets he owned?"

 

 

"Actually he did leave a will—quite a recent one in fact," said Matthew. "He'd always had one, but changed it in the middle of September. He made a trip to Germany specifically to meet the Guntliebs' lawyer to draw up a new version. But no one knows what it says."

 

 

"Really?" Thóra said, surprised. "Why not?"

 

 

"It was in two parts—with instructions to open one before the other. It stated that the second part must not be opened until Harald had been buried—which hasn't been possible because of the investigation."

 

 

"Was that all it said?" Thóra asked.

 

 

"No, there were also instructions about where he wanted to be buried."

 

 

"And where is that?"

 

 

"In Iceland—which is strange considering the short time he spent here. The country seems to have captivated him. Another instruction was that his parents have to attend the funeral and stand at the foot of the grave for at least ten minutes after the casket is lowered. If they fail to comply, all his possessions will be bequeathed to a tattoo parlor in Munich."

 

 

Thóra asked him to repeat that. "So didn't he expect them to turn up?"

 

 

"Evidently not," replied Matthew. "But he made absolutely certain of it with that clause—his parents don't care to be splattered across the tabloids because their son left a small fortune to a tattoo parlor."

 

 

"Do you think they'll inherit it, then?" Thóra asked. "That is, if they turn up."

 

 

"No," Matthew replied. "They couldn't really care less—they just don't want to end up in the gutter press."

 

 

He thought for a moment.

 

 

"I think his sister Elisa will probably inherit most of his belongings. But a good share of the money will doubtless go to someone here in Iceland—the lawyer implied that strongly when he was pressed. The second part of the will must be opened here, according to Harald's instructions."

 

 

"I wonder who it is," Thóra said, curious.

 

 

"I don't have a clue," responded Matthew. "But he or she had ample reason to kill Harald, if they knew about it beforehand."

 

 

Thóra was relieved to leave the apartment. She was tired and wanted to go home to her children. Yet she felt somehow uncomfortable. She had the feeling she had overlooked something. But no matter how she tried to recall it after she was alone in her "Bibbi's Garage" car, she could not put her finger on what was eluding her. And when she parked in her drive she forgot it completely.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 12

The effects of divorce are not all positive. Thóra had long been aware that it had its drawbacks too. Previously, two people were running the household, but now Thóra had to stretch a single salary to fill the gap left after the split. The meager amount she received in child support from her husband did little to alleviate her financial problems. It's an easy enough thing to step up one's spending and be comfortable with it; at least Thóra did not recall any particular difficulties in converting from a poor student to a salary-earner. But it's a different matter when it comes to cutting back, as she had found out.