My Soul to Take: A Novel of Iceland (36 page)

"I don't know if I should eat this," said Sigga, gazing at a pile of shellfish. "I thought I was ordering pasta." Gylfi, who did have pasta, looked at her plate, clearly debating with himself whether he should offer to swap with the mother of his unborn child. In the end he said he would share his meal with her and the shellfish went to Matthew as an extra main course, along with the big steak he had already started on.

Thora placed the plate of fishy mash in front of her daughter, who dug in. She reached hungrily for her own plate. She'd had enough of wondering who did what and why. She thanked her lucky stars she'd met the stockbroker before he left. He had contributed more to the search for the murderer than anything they'd done over the past few days.

She put down her knife and fork. "How did he get back to the horse rental when he fell off?" she said, puzzled.

"Who?" asked Matthew, putting down an empty shell.

"Teitur. He was injured and couldn't drive, and he can hardly have walked," she said. "Someone must have given him a lift."

"Yes," said Matthew. "So?"

Sigga and Gylfi listened, comprehending nothing. Soley, on the other hand, was not interested; she was comparing the level of Coke in her glass and Gylfi's.

"If someone gave him a lift, or helped him out, that person also knew about the horse's reaction to the dead fox, and knew where the fox was." She reached for her phone and took Teitur's business card out of her pocket.

"Hello. This is Thora, the lawyer at the hotel. Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering who drove you back to the stables from the place where you fell off."

"Oh, hello," replied Teitur. "I was hoping you'd decided to invest. The market's looking good right now."

"No, not at the moment, thanks," said Thora. "For the moment I'd like to focus on your accident."

"Okay," said Teitur, slightly disappointed. "It was the girl. I thought I told you when you first asked me about the accident. She saved my bacon, pulled me away before the horse finished me off. It was crazy."

"What girl was that?" asked Thora evenly. "Did you get her name?"

"Yes," he said, "but I don't remember it. She just happened to be there. She was carrying some boxes into the old house at the end of the path. I've often wondered what might have happened if the dead fox had been a bit farther away, out of her view. She was kind enough to drive me to the stables and then back to the hotel."

"Was her name Berta?" asked Thora, her voice still calm although her insides were in turmoil.

"Yes," said Teitur cheerfully. "That's it. Berta."

Chapter
34

RER. BER. THOR
A
set her phone down on the table and stared into space. Matthew, Gylfi, and Sigga waited silently with their cutlery in their hands, keen to hear what she'd found out.

"It might not be Rosa after all," said Thora into the silence. "Berta knew about the fox."

"Remember, she isn't necessarily guilty, even if she knew about it," said Matthew.

Gylfi and Sigga listened closely, understanding nothing.

"That's not all," said Thora. "Firstly, she's got the most to lose, apart from her mother, Elin, and her uncle Borkur. She was here, at the seance, and she believes in ghosts, so she could conceivably have pushed pins into the soles of the victims' feet to stop their spirits walking."

"But aren't you forgetting that Berta wasn't here when Eirikur was killed?" asked Matthew. "She'd gone to Reykjavik. The records from the tunnel prove it. Do you think there are two different killers?"

"Not at all," replied Thora. "If you think about it, she probably never even went to Reykjavik."

Matthew raised his eyebrows. "Do
you think she lent someone her
car?"

"No, I think she swapped cars with Steini," said Thora. "It's far too much of a coincidence that the two of them should have been driving through in opposite directions. He wasn't watching her drive away as we thought. He must have gone through, waited for Berta, and switched cars at the other end of the tunnel. Then she drove back here to kill Eirikur. It was probably Berta's car Throstur the canoeist saw pull up as he was driving away after he had stopped to check on Steini. It gives her an alibi."

"But what about Steini?" asked Matthew. "He's really the one that comes out looking like the guilty one here."

Thora shook her head. "Who'd ever believe he could manhandle Eirikur into the stall with the stallion? You saw him. He couldn't do it. She's as strong as an ox, however—she's been pushing him all over the place in his wheelchair." Thora clasped her forehead. "Do you remember the picture of her dead relative, Gudny, in the frame on my bedside table?" Matthew nodded. "When you think about it, Berta looks a lot like Gudny, especially if you imagine her with a different hairstyle."

Matthew smiled. "I don't remember Gudny's face clearly, let alone her hair. Does it matter?"

"That was the photo that upset Jonas," said Thora. "He said he'd seen a ghost that was just like the girl in the photo. He had last seen the ghost in his own apartment." She closed her eyes and recalled the photo of Gudny's pretty face. "I bet it was Berta, and I bet she stole the sleeping pills too. I don't know what she was doing there. Maybe she was trying to find out Jonas's plans for the annex. He must have come back unexpectedly. He was probably high as a kite and couldn't tell whether he was seeing a real person or a ghost. Maybe she was planning to use the sleeping pills for Birna, then changed her mind after Jonas had spotted her. When she came to kill Eirikur, she may have thought it was safe, or simply had no choice, if the sleeping pills were the only sedative she had available. She's probably also the ghost they saw out in the fog behind the hotel. I bet she was out there with a shovel, searching for the hatch. Maybe she hoped to remove the bones before Kristin could be found."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Matthew. "I'm pretty sure that speculation alone isn't enough. Why would she kill Eirikur, for instance?"

Thora puffed out her cheeks. "I don't know. Maybe he was involved, or perhaps he saw her. She's probably the only person who knows why she did it."

"Shouldn't we go to the police with this?" he said. "Thorolfur seems all right really, and he won't be too offended if you send him off in a different direction, as long as the information is good. Remember, he's talking to Rosa, who you were sure was guilty an hour ago."

Thora sighed and stood up. "I have to go there and tell him. The sooner the better."

"Cat!" yelled the only person not captivated by the progress of the case. Soley beamed at Matthew and then turned to her mother. "Tell him I speak English," she said contentedly.

"That's wonderful, sweetheart," said Thora, stroking her little fair head. "You can practice some more while I pop out. Matthew will stay with you."

"Dog!" she heard Soley proudly pronounce, as she headed out of the restaurant to her car.

Lara made herself more comfortable on the hard chair,
taking care not to crease the coat she held on her lap. The flowers she'd brought with her did not appear to have perked up when put in water and hung limply in a steel vase on the bedside table. In the bed lay Malfridur Grimsdottir.

Lara cleared her throat and took the old lady's dry hand. "I haven't been able to think of anything else lately. The memories have come flooding back since my granddaughter, Soldis, started working at the hotel back west. You know the truth, and I'm hoping you'll tell me everything now, before it's too late." She looked at the drawn features of the woman in the bed. Strange how people aged differently. Malfridur was much younger than she was, yet here she lay, seemingly incapable of even holding her head up, while Lara sat straight-backed at her bedside. She hoped she would go quickly when her time came. She didn't want to fade away like this.

A tear formed in the corner of the old woman's eye. As she was lying down, it didn't run down her cheek, but pooled by her eye. "I hope God will forgive me," she said, and closed her eyes, sending the tear trickling down on to the pillow. "I was so young. I didn't dare go against Dad, and then he got ill and I had other things on my mind."

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Malfridur my dear," said Lara affectionately, and grasped the woman's hand tighter. "I quite understand that you couldn't talk to me about it back then, but now we're running out of time, both of us, and I can't bear to think of leaving this world without knowing where the child is. I owe that to Gudny."

Tears now poured down Malfridur's cheeks as she lay with her eyes squeezed shut. "She's dead," she said in her cracked voice. "Dad made sure of that." She started to sob and Lara patiently waited for her to calm down. "He shut her up in the coal bunker, and she died there during the night. I'd gone over to Kirkjustett to fetch a doll of hers that she was missing, and I saw him out of the window. Oh, God," said Malfridur, struck dumb by the memory. She rallied and went on. "After he burned down the outhouses, because of the stench, he flung the remains of the animals down into the coal bunker and turfed over the hatch the following spring. He had closed off the entrance to the bunker from the basement, and later he walled it up so no one could even tell there was a door there."

"Why?" asked Lara, close to tears.

"The livestock died because Gudny couldn't care for them after her father died. She was mortally ill herself. When Dad finally got in touch with her, the animals were beyond saving. The smell was horrible. He set the outhouses on fire, and buried the animals, to conceal the fact that he hadn't helped his brother and niece. Of course, he should have looked after the animals for Gudny, after she was bedridden." The old woman blinked hard. "He didn't even check whether all the animals were dead. At least one of the cows was still alive. I saw her at the window, maddened with fear. I still see her today, when I close my eyes."

"I'm not talking about the cattle," said Lara. "Why did he do that to Gudny's daughter? I'm trying to understand." She felt tears running down her own cheeks now.

"Kristin," said Malfridur. She opened her eyes and gazed up at the white ceiling. "Dad hated her. I didn't understand at first. She was so sweet and gentle, so quiet, but such a lovely girl. She was a few years younger than me, and for the few days she was with us, after Dad brought her and Gudny to our house, she was mostly busy taking care of her mother. Dad didn't want to go into the room because he was afraid of infection, but the little girl sat with her, fed her, and tried to make her as comfortable as possible, until her mum died one night.

"Kristin was special, but Dad couldn't see it. I was so happy to have her with us, and I assumed naively that she would stay on with us after her mother died. That didn't happen." Malfridur paused. "Instead of allowing her to live with us, he decided to kill her and obliterate any sign that she had ever existed. When Kristin was born, he hoped she would catch tuberculosis from her grandfather and die before she came of age, so he never filled out a birth certificate for her, because he saw a bastard child as a blot on the family. That turned out well for him

later."

"Why did he do it?" asked Lara. "I'd happily have taken in Gudny's child and loved her like one of my own. She would have been no trouble to him."

Malfridur turned to face her. "He was eaten up with rage at being dependent on her. Dad had lost everything. His brother, Bjarni, had helped him out by buying the farm and guaranteeing all the debts, but instead of making Dad happy, it sowed the seed that destroyed him in the end. He committed suicide, mad with self
-
hatred and shame over what he had done for money. He told me everything before he killed himself. I think he wanted absolution, but I couldn't give it to him. I was appalled by his cruelty. Although I saw what happened, and I knew the facts, more or less, I was horrified when he confirmed what I'd suspected." Malfridur gazed up at the ceiling again.
"I had the in
scription on his gravestone cut in keeping with the way he lived his life: 'Bloody is the heart.' " She fell silent again, then coughed feebly. "It has affected me all my life. I let her down, and I've lived in constant fear that she would come back to haunt me. And she has, in a way. Until now it has only been in the form of a bad conscience, but now she has visited me in a dream."

"I shall have her dug up," said Lara, who wanted to leave. She had had enough. "And have her buried next to her mother. I can't keep quiet over this."

Malfridur raised herself up from the bed a little, for the first time since Lara's arrival. "There's no need. I've made sure that it happens."

Lara looked at her without comprehension. "The child hasn't been found yet," she said.

"Then something's gone wrong," said the old woman. "I told my granddaughter, Berta, Elin's girl, about it, and she said everything would be all right. She promised to take care of it." She smiled feebly at Lara. "It's strange—I couldn't tell my children about it, but then Berta came to see me. There's something about the lass that reminded me of Gudny and the little girl. She's a good soul, Berta. She'll do the right thing."

Lara stood up. Rage suddenly flared up in her. "I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to have more in common with your father than with Gudny and her daughter."

“We’ll simply have to hope that
Malfridur
’s remorse can
withstand the challenge. She may not be so truthful when she realizes what's in store for her own grandchild," said Thora. She said goodbye and hung up. No more evidence was needed: Lara's telephone call confirmed that Berta was the killer. Thora had pulled over when Lara phoned, and now she drove on at a snail's pace through the thick fog toward Tunga. Here and there the fog lifted slightly, and bizarre shapes appeared in the mossy lava field. She felt a shiver down her spine as the fog thickened once more, swallowing the weird forms. Thora hoped she was on the right road. It was only a stone's throw, but due to the poor visibility, she drove slowly and she'd lost her bearings.

Suddenly an outstretched arm seemed to appear out of the fog; it was the sign for the farm of Tunga. She turned down the drive and speeded up slightly. A little farther on she saw the farmhouse looming in the fog, with Thorolfur's car outside. She parked next to it and saw it was empty. She went over to the entrance, but after a few steps she froze. From the fog she could hear a baby's low wailing. She turned, trying to determine where the sound was coming from, but without success. The crying stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and Thora rubbed her arms to calm the shudder that had run through her. What the hell was that? Could a woman be wandering around with a baby in the fog? Thora squinted, attempting to see better. She jumped when she saw a movement where she thought the stables ought to be. Propelled by curiosity, she went in that direction, taking care to tread softly on the gravel.

She had reached the stables when the crying started again. She looked back, but saw nothing, then jumped when she heard a loud crash behind her. The stable door was unfastened, and it was banging against the wall. Someone had clearly left it open. Thora hurried out of sight when she heard movements inside the stables. She pressed against the wall, hoping she couldn't be seen in the fog. She caught a glimpse of a human figure in the doorway, and watched someone emerge from the stables and close the door. Thora quickly realized she couldn't hide any longer.

"Hello, Berta," she said. "What are you doing here?"

The girl was taken aback. She t
urned and looked at Thora, wide
eyed. "Me?" she said. "Nothing."

"I saw you come out of the stables," said Thora. "Do you know the people here?"

The cries started up again and Berta peered out into the fog. "I heard the crying and I came out to check," she said, shuffling her feet.

"Inside the stables?" asked Thora. "That noise is clearly coming from outside." She looked at the girl, who was chewing her lower lip. "Berta, you must realize it's over," she said calmly. "Kristin's body has been found. There's no point in trying to put off the inevitable. Why don't you come with me and talk to Thorolfur? He's from the police and he's here at the farm." Thora pointed in what she thought was the direction of the farmhouse. She could now hardly see anything in the fog.