Last Rituals

to Holmavik as they circled the parking lot.

'At last,' Matthew said, slipping his rental car into a newly abandoned parking space.

They walked in the direction of the laboratory, which was located behind the main building. It had snowed during the night and Matthew walked ahead of Thora, stomping through the piles of slush and ice. The weather was blustery and the bracing north wind tugged at Thora's hair. That morning she had decided to wear her hair down but regretted that decision now as the wind swept it in all directions. I'll look really good by the time I get inside, she thought. She stopped for a moment, turned her back to the wind, and tried to protect her hair by wrapping a scarf over her head. It was hardly fashionable but earned her hair a respite from the gusts. After this ceremony, she hurried after Matthew.

When they finally reached the building he looked around for the first time since they had left the car. He stared at her with the scarf over her head. She could just imagine how elegant she looked, which he confirmed when he raised his eyebrows and said: 'There's bound to be a bathroom you can pop into when we get inside.'

Thora yearned to fire a retort at him, but restrained herself. Instead she gave him a rigid smile and threw open the door. She strode over to a woman pushing an empty steel trolley and asked where they could find the doctor they were supposed to meet. After asking whether he was expecting them, the woman directed them toward an office at the end of one of the corridors. She added that they should wait outside because the doctor was not yet back from a morning meeting.

Thora and Matthew sat down in two battered chairs by the window in the corridor.

'I didn't mean to offend you. Sorry,' Matthew said without looking at her.

Not interested in discussing her appearance, Thora ignored the remark. She took the scarf off her head with as much dignity as she could muster and put it in her lap. Then she reached over for a pile of tattered magazines that were lying on a little table between the chairs.

'Who could ever be interested in reading this stuff?' she muttered as she flicked through the pile.

'I don't think people come here looking for something to read,' Matthew answered. He was sitting up straight, staring ahead.

Thora put down the magazines, irritated. 'No, maybe not.' She looked at her watch and said impatiently, 'Where is that man, anyway?'

'He'll be here,' came the curt reply. 'Actually I'm starting to have second thoughts about this meeting.'

'What do you mean?' she asked peevishly.

'I think it may be too shocking for you,' he replied, turning to face her. 'You don't have any experience with this sort of thing and I'm not sure it's a good idea. It would be best if I just tell you what he says.'

Thora glared at him. 'I've given birth to two children, with all the accompanying pain, blood, placentas, cervical plugs, and God knows what else. I'll survive.' She folded her arms and turned away from him. 'So what do you know about gross stuff?'

Matthew did not seem impressed by Thora's experience. 'Lots of things. But I'll spare you the details. Unlike you, I have no need to beat my chest.'

Thora rolled her eyes. This German wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs. She decided to find out what The Watchtower had to say rather than try to sustain a conversation with him. She was halfway through an article on the bad influence of television on world youth when a man in a white coat came hurrying along the corridor toward them. He was around sixty, starting to gray at the temples, and very tan. His eyes were flanked by wrinkles from smiling, which led Thora to conclude that he had had a good time in the sun. He stopped in front of them and Thora and Matthew both stood up.

'Hello,' the man said, offering his hand. 'Thrainn Hafsteinsson.'

Thora and Matthew returned his greeting and introduced themselves.

'Do come inside,' the doctor said in English so that Matthew would understand, and opened the door to his office. 'Excuse me for being late,' he added in Icelandic, addressing his words to Thora.

'That's fine,' she replied. 'The literature out there is so fascinating, I wouldn't have minded waiting a bit longer.' She smiled at him.

The doctor looked at her in surprise. 'Yes, quite.' They entered the office where there was little in the way of empty space. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with scientific works and journals of all sizes and descriptions, with the occasional filing cabinet arranged between them. The doctor walked behind a large tidy desk and sat down, inviting them to do the same. 'Well, then.' He put both hands on the edge of the desk as he said this, as if to emphasize that their meeting was formally beginning now. 'I presume we'll be doing this in English.'

Thora and Matthew both nodded.

He went on: 'That won't be a problem, I did my doctorate in America. But I haven't spoken a word of German since I walked out of my school oral exam as a teenager, so I'll spare you that.'

'As I told you on the phone, English is fine,' Matthew said. Thora tried to suppress a smile at his German accent.

'Good,' the doctor said, reaching out for a yellow plastic folder from the top of a pile of papers on his desk. He arranged it in front of himself, poised to open it. 'I should start by apologizing for how long it took to get permission to show the autopsy documents in all their glory.' He gave them an apologetic smile. 'There's far too much bureaucracy surrounding this kind of case and it's not always obvious how to respond when the circumstances are unusual, as in this situation.'

'Unusual?' Thora inquired.

'Yes,' replied the doctor. 'Unusual insofar as the family chose to appoint a representative to retrieve the autopsy results, and also because a foreign national is involved. For a while I was starting to think we'd need the signature of the deceased to squeeze permission out of the system.'

Thora smiled politely, but could see out of the corner of her eye that Matthew's face was like a fossil.

The doctor looked away and continued. 'Anyway, the bureaucracy surrounding it wasn't the only thing that made this case special, as I think you should realize before we begin.' The doctor smiled again. 'This was the strangest and most extraordinary autopsy I've ever performed, and I saw a thing or two when I was a student abroad.'

Thora and Matthew said nothing and waited for him to continue. Thora was noticeably more excited than Matthew, who might as well have been a statue.

Clearing his throat, the doctor opened the folder. 'Nonetheless, let us begin with what can be called the fairly normal aspects.'

'By all means,' grunted Matthew, and Thora tried to conceal her disappointment. She wanted to hear the strange parts.

'Well, the cause of death was asphyxiation by strangulation,' the doctor said as he tapped the folder. 'When we've finished I'll let you have a copy of the autopsy report and you can read the results in more detail if you want. As far as the cause of death is concerned, the main point is how the deceased was strangled. We think a belt was used, made of some material other than leather. Whoever did it used a lot of force when he or she tightened it; there are pronounced marks on the neck. And it's not unlikely that the pressure was maintained for far longer than was needed to kill him for some reasonpresumably in a mad fit of brutality or rage.'

'How do you know that?' asked Thora.

The doctor rummaged through the folder and produced two photographs. He put them on the desk and turned them to face Thora and Matthew. They showed Harald's badly damaged neck. 'You see that at the edge of the strangulation marks the skin was punctured in some places and burned by the friction. That suggests that the surface of the belt was slightly uneven. And notice, too, that whatever it was does not appear to have been regular in shapeit varied in width, judging by the differences in the breadth of the wound.' The doctor paused while he pointed to one of the two photographs. 'Another interesting thing is that down here at the base of the neck are signs of earlier wounds, not as serious but interesting all the same.' He looked at them. 'Do you know anything about this?'

Matthew spoke first. 'No, nothing.' Thora restrained herself, but she suspected the cause. 'I'm sure they have nothing to do with the murder. But you never know.' The doctor seemed satisfied with Matthew's answer; he did not press them further at least. He pointed to the other photograph, which was also of Harald's neck, but enlarged. 'This is a close-up, and it shows how a piece of metal, the carved buckle of a belt or some other unknown object on the strap that was used, dug into the deceased's neck. If you look closely you can see it resembles a little