'What I am about to tell you is in absolute confidence and must not go any further. Before I tell you I need confirmation that you'll keep this secret. Understand?'
'How am I supposed to know if I can keep a secret when I don't have a clue what it is?'
Matthew shrugged. 'It's a risk you'll just have to take. I can honestly say to you that you will want to tell someonejust so you know I'm not leading you into a trap.'
'Who will I want to tell?' asked Thora. 'That seems important to me.'
'The police,' Matthew replied, without hesitation.
'You, or Harald's family, have information that could be important to the case, but you've decided to keep it secret? Do I understand that correctly?'
'Yep,' said Matthew.
'Well, well,' said Thora. She thought about it. Presumably a code of ethics obliged her to inform the authorities of information that could relate to a public prosecution, so she ought to turn down the offer and notify the police that Matthew was concealing evidence connected with the murder. On the other hand, she was well aware that he would deny the allegation and her part in the investigation would then be over. That served no one's interests. So with a rather elastic ethical interpretation she could conclude that she was obliged to swear to keep her mouth shut and, armed with this new information, do her utmost to solve the mystery confronting them. Everyone happy. Thora mulled all this over in silence. A fairly dubious conclusion, but the best of a bad jobthe code of ethics must allow for extenuating circumstances when the end justifies the means. If not, then it was time to change it.
'Okay,' Thora said eventually. 'I promise to tell no onenot even the policewhatever it is you are about to tell me.' Matthew smiled, pleased, but before he could begin his revelation she added hastily: 'But in return you must promise me that if this secret of yours proves Hugi's innocence, and if we can't demonstrate that in any other way, we will pass on the information to the authorities before the trial starts.' Matthew opened his mouth, but Thora hadn't finished: 'And the authorities won't be told that I knew. And'
Matthew cut her short. 'No more 'ands'please.' Now it was his turn to think things over. He regarded Thora steadily. 'Agreed. You say nothing and I'll let the police know about the letter if we can't prove Hugi innocent in good time before the trial.'
The letter? Yet another letter? Thora was beginning to think this was one huge farce, but then she remembered the autopsy photographs, which were still vivid in her mind. 'What letter are you referring to?' she asked. 'I still stand by my promise.'
'Harald's mother received a letter shortly after the murder,' Matthew replied. 'The letter convinced her and her husband that the suspect could not be guilty. It was sent after Hugi had been taken into custody and therefore unable to send things through the post office. I doubt that the police would have done him the favor of posting it for himespecially because I presume they would first have read what it said.'
'Which was?' Thora asked impatiently.
'What it said was nothing specialexcept that it was quite unpleasant about Harald's mother. But it was written in bloodHarald's blood.'
'Yuck!' Thora said, before she could stop herself. She tried to imagine how it might feel to receive a letter written with her dead son's blood, but could not do it. It was too bizarre. 'Who was the letter fromdid it say? And how did you know it was Harald's blood?'
'The letter was in Icelandic and signed with Harald's name, but a handwriting expert ruled that it wasn't his hand. He couldn't absolutely confirm this because it was written with a rough instrument. This complicated a comparison with Harald's normal hand, so it was sent for tests, including whether the blood was his. It turned out to beunquestionably. In fact they also found traces of blood from a passerine bird that had apparently been mixed with Harald's blood.'
Thora's eyes widened. Bird's blood? That repulsed her even more than human blood. 'What did the letter say?' Thora asked. 'Do you have it with you?'
'I don't have the original, if that's what you mean,' Matthew answered. 'His mother wouldn't hand it over, nor a copy of it. She may well have destroyed it. It was quite disgusting.'
Thora looked disappointed. 'So what? I have to know what it said. Did you get someone to translate it?'
'Yes, we did. It was a love poem that began sweetly but soon turned rather nasty.' He smiled at Thora. 'You're lucky that I managed to copy it outyou see, I was given the job of translating it, with the help of an Icelandic-German dictionary. I probably wouldn't win a prize for the translation but the meaning was obvious.' While he spoke, Matthew produced a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. He handed it to Thora. 'I might not have written some of the letters down properlyI didn't recognize all of them, but it ought to be fairly close.'
Thora read the poem. It was long, considering it had been written in blood. She could not imagine how much blood it would have taken to write all those letters. Matthew had written it out in capitalspresumably to match the original. On the sheet of paper was written:
Thora felt odd reading itthe poem was quite macabre. She looked up at Matthew. 'I don't recognize it, unfortunately. Who does that sort of thing?'
'I don't have the faintest idea,' Matthew replied. 'The original was even more repulsive, it was written on skincalfskin. It takes a sick man to do something like that to a dead man's mother.'
'Why his mother? Wasn't it sent to his father too?'
'There was more with it, in German. I didn't write it down but I more or less remember what it said.'
'And what was that?' Thora asked.
'It was a short textsomething along the lines of: 'MotherI hope you like the poem and the presentyour son Harry.' And the word 'son' was double-underlined.'
Thora looked up from the page at Matthew. 'What present? Was there a present with the letter?'
