Last Rituals (29 page)

 

 

They stood and gathered their belongings. When they went to pay for the drinks, Marta Mist pulled Dóri aside. "You got rid of all the—you know?"

 

 

Dóri averted his gaze but Marta Mist grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look in her eyes. "Haven't you got rid of it?"

 

 

Dóri nodded. "It's all gone. Don't worry."

 

 

"I don't even dare keep a joint at home. You'd better be just as careful. If those two start stirring things up, the cops might get ideas and turn up with search warrants all over the place. Are you sure you moved it all?"

 

 

Dóri straightened his back and stared into her eyes. He announced firmly: "I swear. It's all gone."

 

 

With a smile, Marta Mist let go of his chin. "Come on, let's pay."

 

 

Dóri watched her walk away. How amusing that she believed him. She, who always saw through him when he tried to lie to her. He was clearly improving in the dishonesty department. Cool.

 

 

* * *

Thóra tried not to be distracted by the bushy eyebrows of the man sitting in front of them. She and Matthew were in the office of Thorbjörn Ólafsson, who had supervised Harald's dissertation. "Thank you very much for seeing us," she said, smiling.

 

 

"It's nothing," replied Thorbjörn. "If you ought to thank anyone it should be Gunnar—he arranged the meeting. But I'm impressed that you could come at such short notice." Thorbjörn had phoned shortly after Dóri had left Harald's apartment, and Thóra and Matthew decided to see him at once. Thorbjörn put down the pencil he had been rolling between his fingers. "So what is it you want to know?"

 

 

Thóra went first. "I presume Gunnar explained our connection with Harald?" Thorbjörn nodded and she continued. "We wanted to hear your opinion of Harald and also if you could tell us something about his studies, in particular what he was researching."

 

 

Thorbjörn laughed. "I can't say I really knew him. I don't make a habit of mixing with my students much—it doesn't tempt me. I'm interested in the progress of their studies but personally they don't appeal to me."

 

 

"But you must have formed an opinion about him?" Thóra asked.

 

 

"Of course I did. I thought he was a peculiar character, to say the least—and not just because of his appearance. But he didn't bother me in the slightest—unlike Gunnar, for example, who couldn't really stand him. I enjoyed having students who did things their own way. And he was extremely diligent and focused. As a rule I don't make any other demands."

 

 

Thóra raised her eyebrows. "Focused? Gunnar gave the impression his research was quite scattered."

 

 

Thorbjörn snorted. "Gunnar's from the old school. Harald wasn't. Gunnar wants his students to stick to a prearranged course. Harald was more the type I like—on his journeys he liked to take a look down the side streets, so to speak. That's the way to go about it. You don't know where it will lead and it takes longer, but sometimes it yields windfalls."

 

 

"So Harald wasn't going to change his dissertation topic, as Gunnar claims?" Matthew asked.

 

 

"Far from it," Thorbjörn replied. "Gunnar's always convinced every-thing's going to the dogs. I wonder if he was worried that Harald would stay here as a perpetual student. It's happened, you know."

 

 

"Would you mind telling us a little about Harald's research?" Thóra asked. "We were wondering if his interest in witchcraft could be linked to the murder."

 

 

Now it was Thorbjörn's turn to lift his eyebrows. "Seriously?" Thóra and Matthew nodded their heads. "Well, I never. I'd be very surprised at that. History isn't so exciting that people kill for it very often," he said. "Anyway, Harald was planning to compare witch hunts in Iceland and on the mainland. As you know, it was mainly males who were burned at the stake for sorcery in Iceland, but it was females elsewhere. So that was his starting point. Since he was well acquainted with witch hunts on the mainland, Harald concentrated on acquiring Icelandic resources and studying the history of that period here. In my opinion he had established a good overview when he was murdered."

 

 

"So what about those side streets?" asked Matthew.

 

 

Thorbjörn paused to think. "Well, he had quite a fascination with Bishop Jón Arason and the printing press he's said to have imported to Iceland. At first I couldn't quite grasp how he intended to link that with witch hunts, but I let him proceed. Then he abandoned that angle for Brynjólfur Sveinsson, the bishop of Skálholt. I thought that was a better approach."

 

 

"Was he connected with witch hunts?" Thóra asked.

 

 

"Of course," replied Thorbjörn. "He was bishop at the time, but he was generally considered to take a soft line when it came to witches. It is known that he kept some boys at the school in Skálholt from being burned at the stake when a sorcerers' quire was found in their possession. But on closer examination it's an untenable view. For example, he did nothing to restrain his relative, Páll from Selárdalur, who was one of Iceland's most vigorous witch hunters. Seven men were burned at the stake on suspicion of causing an outbreak of illness at Páll's farm."

 

 

"This sorcerers' quire that you mentioned, was Harald particularly interested in that?" Matthew asked.

 

 

Thorbjörn shook his head slowly. "No, not that I recall. It goes by the name of the Skálholt Quire and Bishop Brynjólfur probably had it destroyed. Though he did make a record of the eighty spells described in it, I think. Harald was fascinated by Brynjólfur's library, which contained an assortment of manuscripts and books. And his personal history also aroused Harald's interest, of course."

 

 

"How?" asked Matthew, adding by way of apology: "I know very little about Icelandic history."

 

 

Thorbjörn gave him a pitying smile. "In short, Brynjólfur had seven children, but only two reached adulthood: Ragnheidur and Halldór," he explained. "Ragnheidur gave birth to a son out of wedlock nine months after Brynjólfur had made her publicly swear an oath, on her hands and knees, that she was a virgin. The oath was taken because of rumors that she was having an affair with her father's young assistant, a man by the name of Dadi. Ragnheidur's bastard son was taken from her arms and sent to be brought up by the father's family. She died shortly afterward, when the baby was about one year old.

 

 

"Halldór, Brynjólfur's son, died a few years later while studying abroad. Brynjólfur then brought back his only surviving heir, Ragnheidur's son Thórdur, who was six by then. He soon became the apple of the old man's eye. Brynjólfur's wife died three years after the lad moved to Skálholt and to top off the bishop's tragedy Thórdur died of consumption at the young age of twelve. So Brynjólfur, one of the great figures of Icelandic history, was left with no family or heirs. I think Harald was enthralled by the bishop's story and what could be read into it. If Brynjólfur had treated his daughter more fairly at the fateful moment, somehow you feel things would have turned out better for him and his family. Ragnheidur had tricked him, you see. Popular belief has it that she swore an honest oath in the church but allowed herself to be seduced by Dadi the same evening, in vengeance against the old man."

 

 

"I'm not surprised that such a story appealed to Harald," said Thóra.
He must have felt sympathy for Ragnheidur,
she thought. "Was Harald still studying Brynjólfur when he was murdered, or had he turned to another topic?"

 

 

"If I remember correctly, his interest in Brynjólfur had started to wane—he'd studied him comprehensively. I'm told he took a week off before he was murdered, so I don't know exactly what he was up to then."

 

 

"Do you know if Harald had any other business in Iceland apart from studying? Was he trying to buy up antiquities or objects of possible historical value?" asked Matthew.

 

 

Thorbjörn laughed. "Do you mean treasure troves? No, we never discussed anything like that. Harald seemed to have both feet firmly on the ground, he was a devoted student and I found him nice to work with. Don't let Gunnar's hysteria deceive you."

 

 

Thóra decided to change the subject and asked about the meeting in the faculty building on the fateful night.

 

 

"Quite right," said Thorbjörn. The playful glint had vanished from his eyes. "We were here, most of the teachers from the department. Are you implying anything?"

 

 

"Not at all," Thóra retorted. "I was just asking in the vague hope that you noticed something that might help us. Something that may have dawned on you since you gave your statement to the police. Memories often take a while to gestate."

 

 

"You won't learn anything from those of us who were at the meeting. We left long before the police said the murderer appeared. We were celebrating our application for a grant in cooperation with a university in Norway. We're not exactly party animals, and we don't have much stamina at such gatherings. We'd all left before midnight."

 

 

"You're certain?" Matthew asked.

 

 

"Absolutely—I was the last to leave and I switched on the security alarm myself. If anyone had been left inside it would have set off every bell in the building. That's happened to me and it's not exactly pleasant." He looked at Matthew, who appeared unconvinced, and added: "The printout from the security system can corroborate that."

 

 

"I don't doubt that it can," said Matthew, stone-faced.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 24
DECEMBER 10, 2005

The good weather from the previous evening seemed likely to hold. They were at the aviation school office where Thóra and Matthew had hired a plane the day before. While Matthew completed a form for the pilot, Thóra took advantage of the complimentary coffee. The fare had surprised her—the scheduled flight time to Hólmavík was just under an hour either way but it cost less than if they had driven and stayed at a hotel. She had even been offered a lower price if they were willing to accept a trainee pilot. She opted for the higher fare.

 

 

"Okay, we're ready." The pilot smiled. He was so young that he must have just been promoted from the lower fare bracket. They followed him to a small plane that accommodated four people including the pilot. Matthew offered Thóra the seat in front, but she declined when she saw how cramped it was in the back. Although tall, she was still smaller than Matthew and therefore less likely to need a shoehorn to get her out at the other end. She climbed in and buckled up.

 

 

The pilot took his seat and handed them each a headset. "Put these on. The plane's a bit noisy, so we have to communicate through the mikes on these headphones." Thóra and Matthew put the clunky apparatus over their heads and plugged them in. The pilot turned on the engines, and after a short discussion with the control tower they took off.

 

 

They flew over Reykjavík, which looked much larger from the air than on the ground. Matthew looked down, fascinated, but Thóra found it more rewarding to look ahead, a rare opportunity on a plane. "There aren't many tall buildings," observed Matthew, looking back at Thóra. She found it mildly embarrassing to talk over the sound system in case the air traffic controllers were listening in, so she just nodded and averted her gaze downward, watching the low-rise houses zip by. The city and its suburbs were characterized by the Icelandic need to live in a house. Not an apartment, a house. Apartments were mere stepping-stones. Thóra craned her neck to try to see her own home, but could not. They were heading inland, away from the sea. Once they had flown over the boundaries of the residential areas, Matthew turned back to Thóra. "What happened to your trees? There's hardly any vegetation down there," he said in an unnaturally loud voice.

 

 

"Oh, most people think the sheep ate them," replied Thóra, now almost certain they were out of earshot of flight control.

 

 

"Sheep?" repeated Matthew incredulously. "Since when do sheep eat trees?"

 

 

"They don't," said Thóra. "They get the blame, though. I don't think there were ever any trees, to be honest. Maybe some shrubs." She looked down at the barren ground. "I like it this way, actually. Who needs trees?"

 

 

Matthew shot her a quizzical glance and then went back to scanning the mountainous landscape up ahead.

 

 

The flight to Hólmavík went quickly and the airstrip in the village soon appeared. Thóra saw a gravel runway with a single shed, nothing more. It was just outside the village beside the main road. The pilot flew over the runway and sized it up; then, satisfied with what he saw, he turned the plane and made a soft landing. They unfastened their belts and got out.

 

 

Matthew took out his mobile to make a call. "What's the number of the local taxi company?" he asked the pilot.

 

 

"Taxi company?" He laughed. "There's not even one taxi here, let alone a whole company. You'll have to walk."

 

 

Thóra smiled along with the pilot, pretending she had known this all along. But like Matthew she had expected to be able to take a taxi from the airstrip down to the museum. "Come on, it's not far," she said to Matthew, pulling her shocked companion with her. They crossed the road, which was completely devoid of traffic, and walked to the gas station and shop at the entrance to the village. They went in to ask for directions. The girl working there was very helpful and even went outside with them to point out the museum. It could not have been easier; a walk down the road, along the shore into the village, and there, right next to the harbor, was the museum. A black wooden house with a turfed roof, it was just barely discernible in the distance. It was only a few hundred yards and the weather was good. They set off.