Last Rituals

could not make head or tail of. 'Urteil G.G.,' for example, was written alongside a hefty withdrawal from Harald's student days in Munich. Since Urteil means 'ruling,' she had a hunch that Harald had needed to pay someone to conceal the reason for his dismissal from the army. However, the date did not fit and she could not imagine what G.G. meant. In another place was Schadel, 'skull,' and elsewhere Gestell, which stumped her. She found more withdrawals with no context and decided not to waste her time on them.

Two entries caught her attention, however. The first, several years old and amounting to 42,000 euros, was yet again designated by the Latin term 'Malleus Maleficarum,' while the much more recent one had a question mark beside it. This was presumably the money Matthew said had gone missing, just over 310,000 euros. Thora calculated this to be more than twenty-five million Icelandic kronur. No wonder Matthew doubted the money had been spent on drugs. If it had, Harald would have had his work cut out for him, even if Keith Richards had been around to help. And judging from the bank statements it also appeared that Harald was not short of money, in spite of such large withdrawals.

She moved on to the next page, which showed Harald's credit card use in the months before his death. Scanning through them, she saw that the majority of the charges were to restaurants and bars, with the occasional purchase in clothing stores. The restaurants could all be categorized as what Thora's friend Laufey would call 'trendy.' Noticeably few transactions were made in grocery stores. A large sum spent at Hotel Ranga in mid-September caught Thora's eye, as did another marked 'School of Aviation' and a much smaller charge from the Reykjavik family zooof all placesdated at the end of September. There were also a number of small purchases in a pet shop on the outskirts of the capital. Maybe Harald liked animals or had even been trying to impress a single mother by gaining her children's approval. Yet another point to ask Matthew about. The section on Harald's finances ended with these statements. Thora looked at her watch and saw that she was making good progress.

Thora decided to take a rest from the folder. She turned to her computer and Googled 'Malleus Maleficarum.' More than fifty-five thousand results came back. She soon found one that looked promising, with a page description saying that the phrase meant 'Witches' Hammer' and was the title of a book from 1846. Thora clicked the link and a site came up in English. The only graphics on the page were an ancient drawing of a woman in a cowl, apparently tied to a ladder. Two men were struggling to lift up the ladder and roll it, along with the woman, into a great fire blazing in front of them. She was clearly being burned alive. The woman looked heavenward, her mouth open. Thora could not tell whether the artist intended to depict her beseeching God or cursing him. But her desperation was obvious. Thora printed out the page and went to fetch it before Bella removed it from the printer. That girl was capable of anything.

CHAPTER 4

There turned out to be five sheets of paper in the printer, not one as Thora had expected. The Web site actually contained much more than just a single screen's worth, and Thora began reading the pages on her way back to her office.

The brief introductory paragraph stated that Malleus Maleficarum was undoubtedly one of the most notorious books ever written. First published in 1486, it was intended as a manual to teach inquisitors how to recognize, prosecute, and execute witches. It emphasized that black magic and various customs of the common people were now considered blasphemy, which was punishable by death at that timepractitioners were burned at the stake. The book was divided into three parts, according to the article. The first was aimed at making people realize that magic and witchcraft were real phenomena, and also that these were considered evil and unnatural. It stated that the mere act of believing in the existence of the black arts was blasphemous, which was a new ruling. Section two was a compendium of lurid tales about witches' practices, dominated by sex with demonic beings. The third and final section laid down the foundation for prosecuting witches. It underlined that torture was a permissible means of extracting confessions and everyone was allowed to testify against those accused of such crimes, irrespective of reputation or other normal standards for deeming witnesses unfit or partial.

The authors of the text were said to be two Dominican Black Friars: Jakob Sprenger, at that time chancellor of the University of Cologne, and Heinrich Kramer, professor of divinity at the University of Salzburg and chief inquisitor in Tyrol. The latter was credited with authoring the majority of the text, as he had been extensively involved in prosecuting witches ever since 1476. The work was reputedly written at the urging of Pope Innocent VIII, who did not appear to be a particularly attractive character according to this account. He was attributed with starting the witch hunts in Europe by issuing the papal bull of December 5, 1484, titled Summus desiderantes affectibus, authorizing the Inquisition to prosecute witches and equating sorcery with blasphemy.

It also enumerated this pope's attempts, in old age, to ward off death by drinking milk from women's breasts and having his blood changed. While this did not grant him a renewed life span, it did cause the death of three ten-year-old boys from loss of blood.

Thora learned that the book soon gained widespread circulation with the advent of printing, and also because its authors were known and respected scholars. Catholics and Protestants alike drew on it in their battles against witchcraft. Part of the book found its way into the law of the Holy Roman Empire, now Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, eastern France, the Low Countries, and part of Italy. Thora was astonished to read that the book was still regularly published.

She put down the printout. Interesting as it was, a six-hundred-year-old book hardly shed much light on the death of Harald Guntlieb. Looking at her watch, she saw that she had only an hour left. She stapled the pages together, put them to one side, and turned back to the folder on Harald. She turned to section six, the police investigation.

At first glance the summary did not look thick enough to contain the case documents in their entirety. Perhaps Matthew had only managed to procure some of them; in fact, Thora was shocked that he could have obtained them at all without a formal request. She flicked through the contents, which turned out to be a photocopy of the police interrogation reports. A stamp indicated that they had been handed over two weeks before.

Here she was on home ground. It was all in Icelandic, which was possibly the reason that the Guntliebs had decided to enlist an Icelander. The pages were heavily annotated in an untidy hand, obviously because Matthew had tried to puzzle his way through them. In the upper right-hand corner of most reports he had written a brief note stating who was being interviewed and his or her connection with Harald. Most of the reports were from interrogations of Hugi Thorisson, who was still detained in custody awaiting charges. Thora was interested to note that throughout the interrogations he had always had the status of suspect rather than witnesssomething had surely indicated his guilt immediately. Unlike a witness, he was therefore not obliged to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So he could say virtually anything, although it would hardly serve his interests before the courtjudges tended to turn grumpy if the accused said they had been out for dinner with Donald Duck or something equally as likely at the time of their alleged crime.

It suddenly dawned on Thora how Matthew had obtained the documents. The lawyer appointed to defend a suspect was entitled access to police records. Hugi Thorisson's lawyer had therefore had access to them all. Thora quickly flicked through the reports, looking for one in which Hugi had had a lawyer with him, to see who it was. In the first interrogations Hugi was alone. This was only to be expected; people generally do not ask to have a lawyer present at the start of an investigation, presumably because they think it makes them look more suspicious. When the going gets tougher they begin to hesitate and more often than not refuse to speak without one. This had clearly happened in Hugi's case, because at the very end of the investigation Thora saw that he had finally had the sense to ask for a lawyer.

Finnur Bogason had been assigned to him. Thora recognized the name. Finnur was one of those lawyers who generally handle cases in which they are appointed to the defense. In other words, no one approaches them of their own accord. Thora was convinced that, for the right sum, he would have given Matthew the documents. Pleased with her powers of deduction, she started reading through the interrogations.

The reports were not arranged chronologically, but according to the person being interviewed. Several