My Soul to Take: A Novel of Iceland (37 page)

"What do you mean?" asked Berta. Her attempt at nonchalance was belied by the tremor in her voice. "What's that?" she asked, as the wailing grew louder and more insistent.

"It's probably the ghost of a baby left out to die," said Thora calmly. "Or your relative, little Kristin. I gather your grandmother's already seen her." Thora was relying on Lara's hazy account of Malfridur's dream, in which Kristin had supposedly appeared. "Come on," she said, "we're better off going indoors than standing out here, waiting for the ghost to circle us three times. I think it may already have gone around once."

Berta looked at Thora feverishly. She was deathly pale, her eyes bloodshot. "How did they find Kristin?" she mumbled.

"That's not important," said Thora. "It had to happen, and it's just as well it has. Now you have to face the music."

"Mum and I will lose everything," said Berta suddenly. Thora was not sure whether she was talking to her or to herself. "And Steini. We own the house he lives in. His parents sold up and moved to Reykjavik. He'll have to move in with them." She looked out into the fog and took a deep breath.

Thora saw tiny beads of perspiration on her forehead and temples. The wailing grew quieter and then faded away. Berta seemed to calm down a little.

"There are worse things than losing your property," said Thora. She couldn't help adding, "Like losing your life."

Now Berta looked at her. "Birna didn't deserve to live, and neither did Eirikur. They weren't nice people. She blackmailed the old man, and Eirikur tried to get money out of me. He rang me and said he'd seen me leave the seance. He said he'd tell Mum and get her to pay him to keep his mouth shut. He thought we were filthy rich because of all the properties we own here. I told him to meet me at the riding stables, and then
...
you know."

"Yes, unfortunately I do," said Thora. She wondered how the girl could give the impression of being so sane and normal when she was clearly deranged. "I read Birna's autopsy report. It said she was struck repeatedly in the face with a rock. Were you hoping she wouldn't be identified?" asked Thora.

"No," gasped Berta. "I was going to hit her in the back of the head, but she turned around too quickly and I hit her in the face. She must have heard me coming. I was going to make it look as if her head had knocked against the rocks on the shore when she was being raped, but hitting her in the face made that impossible. I'd planned it so carefully. I picked the day of the seance and made sure people noticed me there. I sat at the back and sneaked out once the medium had the audience's attention, and then I used the canoe to get there quickly. I heard about the boat from Soldis, and I knew the owner wasn't staying much longer, so I had to do it then." She gritted her teeth. "Soldis talks a lot. I heard about Jonas's medication from her, and also that he was in the habit of leaving his mobile phone lying around. She also told me what the sex therapist sold, and other things that came in useful." Berta sighed, and her eyes filled with tears. "It was all supposed to go perfectly, but it still went wrong. Birna didn't die from the first blow, so I had to hit her again and again. And again." She looked down at her feet. "I thought I'd throw up when the gulls flew down."

Thora was close to vomiting herself, but she steeled herself and kept talking. This was clearly her one chance to talk to the girl. "Why did you stick pins in the soles of their feet?"

"I wanted to make sure their spirits wouldn't walk. That does no one any good, neither the departed nor those of us who live on," said Berta, who looked like she was about to faint.

"Are you all right?" Thora asked anxiously. "What were you doing in there?" Thora wondered if she had taken something. Then she realized that it was because the girl's life was collapsing around her.

"I was planting the drugs," said Berta tonelessly. "I hoped it would cast suspicion on Bergur and Rosa if Jonas was released. I was worried the police might find out that Jonas didn't send Birna the text message." She sighed and looked up at Thora. "I took his phone. It was all so easy, once I'd decided how to do it. Birna had to be stopped. She wouldn't listen to me when I told her it was the wrong place to build.

If she'd only done as I said, it would all have been all right." Berta hesitated, then said, "I did it for Steini." Thora couldn't be sure if the girl was justifying herself to her or to herself. "It was the least I could do. What happened to him was my fault—I'd called to ask him to pick me up on the night of the accident. Now he feels bad because he thinks it's his fault I did it, and he keeps asking me to forgive him. But it was my decision to do it for him, so there's nothing to forgive. I only did it for Steini." She collapsed.

"Do you think so?" said Thora, as she helped the girl to her feet. "I really doubt it." They walked toward the farmhouse, Thora supporting Berta so she wouldn't fall again.

They heard the wailing once more, then just as suddenly it stopped. Thora was feeling quite unsettled by the time they reached the farmhouse steps, and the girl was shaking like a leaf. Thora glanced over her shoulder as she rang the doorbell, hoping someone would come quickly. The door opened, revealing Rosa. She said nothing, but gazed past them. Thora turned, half expecting to see a spectral child pulling itself laboriously up the steps with one arm.

"Gulli!" called Rosa. "There you are, you naughty cat. Where have you been?" The crying had resumed as she opened the door, and now it stopped as she finished speaking. "Puss!" she called in a soothing falsetto. "Come here, you silly cat!" A marmalade tomcat casually strolled up the steps.

Chapter
35

SUNDAY, 18 JUNE 20 0 6

T
HE LEMONADE
FR
OM
the minibar was expensive, but to Thora it was worth every penny. She put down the can and wrapped the thick white dressing gown more closely around her. She went to the window of her room, opened the curtains a crack, and looked out over Austurvollur Square. Not many people were around, and the few who were up and about seemed to be the last few stragglers from the previous night's revelry. Thora smiled. She let go of the curtain and walked back over to the bed, where Matthew lay asleep. Now that she had finally met someone who was neither divorced nor alcoholic, neither megalomaniac nor sports fanatic, just her luck that he had to be a foreigner who was hardly likely to want to move to Iceland. Perhaps that was exactly why she liked him.

She heard a faint ringing somewhere in the room and listened carefully to identify where her phone was. Finally she located it in her bag. She answered quickly. "Hello," she whispered, taking the phone into the bathroom so as not to wake Matthew.

"Mum," shouted Gylfi, "Sigga's dying!"

Thora shut her eyes and put her head in one hand. She had left Soley with Gylfi and Sigga—mainly so that she could be with Matthew for his last night in Iceland. They would soon be taking care of a baby, so they ought to be able to babysit a six-year-old for one night, and Sigga had hitherto shown no signs of going into labor.

"Gylfi, sweetheart," she said, "she's not dying. The baby's coming." She heard Sigga moaning in the background. "Is she in a lot of pain?"

"She's dying, Mum," said her son. "Really. Listen." The moans grew louder, then suddenly stopped. "It comes and goes," he added.

"She's in labor, darling," said Thora, more calmly than she felt. "I'm on my way. Get yourself and your sister dressed. If Sigga feels able to get dressed, that would be good, but otherwise she can go as she is." Thora opened the bathroom door and went back into the bedroom. "Has Sigga called her mum? Is she on her way?" she asked as she pulled her clothes on.

"No," said Gylfi firmly. "Sigga wants me to call, but I won't. She's horrible."

Thora couldn't disagree, but she urged him to ring all the same, as Sigga's parents would certainly want to be there for their daughter. It would be the last straw for Sigga's mum and dad if Gylfi failed to let them know.

"I'm coming, anyway," she said. "You make sure you're ready. If they want to pick Sigga up, they can. It's up to you whether you go with them or come with me and Soley." She hung up and zipped up her skirt. Uncharacteristically, she had dressed up for the occasion—high heels and everything. She'd wanted to celebrate the end of the case and enjoy her time with Matthew before he left. She looked at her tights, draped over the TV. She grimaced, but decided she would rather put them back on than expose her pasty white legs.

"Matthew," said Thora, nudging him gently, "I've got to go. Sigga's in labor."

Matthew, who lay facedown, lifted his head from the pillow and blinked groggily at her. "What?"

"I've got to go to the hospital," she repeated, "Sigga's screaming blue murder, so it shouldn't be long. I'll ring and let you know."

Thora drove home faster than usual. She smiled to herself as she turned into her road, remembering how Gylfi and Sigga had betrayed their ignorance when they had talked about the birth. Sigga had at various times expressed a desire to give birth underwater, or standing up outside surrounded by nature, or silently, like Tom Cruise's wife, all depending on what she had been reading on the Internet that day. All these idyllic births took place without any pain medication, but Thora suspected that would change when the girl was faced with reality. After the first session of a course for expectant parents, both had refused to return. Sigga had scandalized the midwife by asking whether there was MTV in the delivery room.

"I'm here," called Thora as she entered, but she could not be heard over Sigga's howling. She wouldn't be welcome in a Scientologist delivery room.

"There's something wrong," shouted Gylfi when he spotted his mother. "I think the baby's trying to come out sideways."

"No it isn't," said Thora. "Unfortunately this is just what it's like." She went over to Sigga, who was sitting in the dining room with her head in her hands.

"It's because she's got such narrow hips," said Gylfi anxiously. "Everybody says that makes it really hard to give birth."

"It's not the hips that are the bottleneck in this process, sweetheart. That comes a bit farther down." She leaned over Sigga. "Just breathe deeply, Sigga," she said. "Okay, let's go out to the car. Have your waters broken?"

Sigga looked at Thora blankly. "Waters?"

"Come on," said Thora, clapping her hands briskly, "you'll find out soon enough." She helped Sigga out of the house, while Gylfi hurried ahead to open the car door. Soley followed sleepily, unclear what was happening. "Just say yes, Sigga, if they offer you an epidural. It's the fashion," said Thora, helping Sigga lie down in the rear seat of the SUV. She had decided to sell it, and the caravan, in order to clear her debts, but the SUV was bigger than her old banger and had room for all of them.

Thora sat in the driver's seat and started the engine. Just as she backed out of the drive, Sigga shouted out and she slammed on the brakes. Gylfi and Thora looked into the back. She sighed. She would have to knock something off the price of the SUV, now that the rear seat was awash with amniotic fluid.

Soley sat swinging her legs. She had nothing else to do in the
waiting area. Thora was impressed by how good she was being, especially since they'd been waiting in the little room for nearly three hours. Their time there wasn't made any more enjoyable by the presence of Sigga's father, who barely spoke, just sent Thora an impressive range of contemptuous looks, so Thora was relieved when her phone rang, breaking the oppressive silence. She answered and took the call in the corridor.

"Hello, Thora, this is Lara on Snaefellsnes, Soldis's grandmother," said the old lady's pleasantly modulated voice. "I hope I haven't rung at a bad time."

"No, not at all," replied Thora. "I'm so pleased to hear from you. I was going to call you myself, as I didn't manage to see you before I left." Five days had passed since Berta and Steini were arrested by the police, and Thora had been busy tying up the case and working off the backlog that had accumulated at the office. Jonas had fortunately decided not to take legal action against Elin and Borkur, after it transpired that the "ghost" had been Berta all along. "You know they found Kristin, of course."

"Yes, that's why I'm ringing," said Lara. "There are actually two things I wanted to mention. I'm arranging to have her buried next to her mother, and I was hoping you'd come to the service. It was thanks to you that she was found. I don't suppose her relatives will be attending en masse, and I feel it's important that it shouldn't just be me and the priest."

"I'd be honored," said Thora warmly.

"Good," said Lara. "I'll let you know as soon as the date is fixed." She cleared her throat delicately. "Then there's the other matter. The policeman who handled the case came to see me earlier."

"Thorolfur?" said Thora, surprised. "What did he want?"

"He brought me a letter, or to be more precise, a copy of a letter," replied Lara.
"A
letter that's taken sixty years to reach me. It's from Gudny."

"Where was it found?" asked Thora. She was astonished. "Was it in the coal bunker?"

"It was in Kristin's coat pocket," said Lara. It seemed to Thora that her voice might break, but when she spoke again, she sounded strong and steady. "Most of what's in the letter is my private business, but I wanted to share one thing with you."

"Of course," said Thora. "I think it must explain quite a lot."

"When Gudny wrote the letter, she knew she was dying. She realized it was her last chance to tell her story. She starts by apologizing for not telling me the truth in her previous letters. She says she didn't feel able to as she was afraid I would come to visit her, and she or her father would infect me. I'd started a new life in Reykjavik and she didn't want to unsettle me by complaining about her own problems."

"Presumably she meant the tuberculosis," said Thora. "It can't have been the child that she saw as a problem."

"No," Lara replied. "She loved her daughter more than life itself. She calls her 'a light in the darkness.' She says she's such a good little girl, sweet-natured in spite of her unusual upbringing, cut off from everyone except her mother and grandfather. I can't deny that Gudny seemed terribly ashamed of having had an illegitimate child, but it didn't affect her love for Kristin."

"Children are incredibly adaptable," said Thora, thinking of her own little grandchild starting his or her life, possibly by coming out sideways.

"Absolutely," said Lara. "Kristin was lucky to have such a loving mother, and she didn't need anyone else." Lara hesitated, presumably scanning the letter for something specific. "Gudny states quite clearly that Magnus Baldvinsson is the father," she said eventually. "They were intimate only once, when he came to meet her father on Nationalist Party business and she became pregnant. She says she has never slept with any other man, neither before nor since, and jokes that there are unlikely to be any more men in her life now."

"Does she says whether he knew about the child?" asked Thora. Even if he did, he could hardly lay claim to inherit from her.

"She says he went to Reykjavik to study before she was aware of her condition, but she wrote him a letter after Kristin was born. He never replied." Lara sighed. "It's clear from her letter that she was very hurt, particularly on her daughter's behalf. If she had ever loved him, that put an end to it, understandably."

"Yes, there are things you can never put right in relationships," agreed Thora, "and refusing to acknowledge your own child is one of the worst."

"Gudny wrote me the letter to ask me to take her daughter in," said Lara. "Her father was already dead, and she and her daughter were living with her uncle Grimur. Gudny says she doesn't trust him, that he's deranged. She says he looks at her and her daughter with such hatred that she finds it quite frightening, and that she definitely doesn't want to leave her daughter in his care. She even asks me to find out whether anything can be done for his daughter, Malfridur, as she's also concerned about her, although she's older and more capable of looking after herself."

"Well, well," said Thora. "Do you suppose he knew Gudny wanted you to be Kristin's guardian?" asked Thora. "If Kristin went, he'd lose all his property along with her."

"I don't know," said Lara. "She doesn't say so, just that she doesn't know when the letter will reach me as she doesn't trust Grimur to post it. She says she's going to give it to her little girl in the hope that she can pass it to someone. She says she's talked to Kristin and told her about me, how kind I am, and that maybe she'll be able to see me soon. Then she adds that she can trust the child to take good care of the letter, although she's young. She's so conscientious and good."

"She managed to keep the letter a secret, at any rate," said Thora.

"Yes," said a faint voice at the other end of the line. The old lady was obviously weeping now. "No doubt I'll speak to you about it again after the funeral," said Lara through her tears. "I think I should go now."

"No problem," said Thora. "I'll be there. You can rely on me." She said goodbye and hung up.

She had been pacing up and down the short corridor as she spoke on the phone, without paying much attention to her surroundings. Suddenly she realized that behind most of the doors along the corridor women were busy bringing children into the world. The shouts from Delivery Room C sounded familiar, and she listened, hoping to hear a baby cry. She couldn't make anything out, and anyway it was unlikely that its little lungs would be any match for the noise coming from its mother. Thora distinguished a sentence between the howls: "It wasn't meant to hurt this much!" Mentally agreeing with Sigga, Thora smiled to herself. The baby was clearly about to arrive.

She listened at the door, and after a few more groans and shouts the forlorn crying of a baby was heard. Her eyes filled with tears, and she moved away from the door. She hoped that the fact that she hadn't heard Gylfi's voice didn't mean he'd fainted, but then she heard him say, "Ugh, take that horrible thing away!"

Thora was taken aback, but Sigga's mother snapped, "Don't be silly, boy! She's only showing you the placenta and caul. Some people dry them to make lampshades." Thora could only hope that there wouldn't be a nasty surprise among her Christmas presents this year.

The door opened and Gylfi emerged. He hugged his mother, his face glowing. "It was pretty disgusting, but I'm a dad! It's a boy."

Thora kissed him over and over again on both cheeks. "Oh, Gylfi!" she said between kisses. "Congratulations, my darling boy. Is he adorable?"

"He's all, like, covered in white stuff," answered Gylfi with a little shudder. "And the umbilical cord's a
bit..."
Instead of finishing the sentence, he opened the delivery-room door. "See for yourself," he said, going in.

Thora didn't want to intrude, so contented herself with peeking around the door. She had a vague impression of Sigga's mother and the midwife at the other end of the delivery table, but the baby in the arms of the new mother captured all her attention.