witnesses were only interrogated once. These included the university porter, the cleaners, Harald's landlady, a taxi driver who had given him and Hugi a lift on that fateful evening, and several of his fellow students and teachers. The head of the history department, who discovered the body, had been interviewed twice because he was in such a state of shock the first time that he had not spoken a word of sense. Thora pitied the poor man; it must have been a terrible experience, and the horror of finding a corpse in his arms oozed from every sentence of the interrogation.
Next came those who were under suspicion, at least temporarily. Among themof coursewas Hugi Thorisson, who continuously asserted his innocence. Thora hurriedly read the main body of his interrogation. Hugi said he had met Harald on the evening in question at a party in Skerjafjordur. They left it for a while and then split up when Harald expressed an interest in going back to the party and Hugi had wanted to head downtown. In the first interviews Hugi revealed little of where they had gone together, only vaguely mentioning a stroll through the cemetery. Later on, when he realized that he was going to be charged with murder, he said they had gone back to his flat on Hringbraut to fetch some drugs that Harald wanted to buy from him. He swore blindly that he not seen Harald after that; he could not be bothered to go out again so he stayed at home. He was unable to give precise times for any of these events, claiming he was drunk and stoned that evening.
Given how often Hugi was asked whether he could provide more detail about his movements around one o'clock on the morning of Sunday, October 30, Thora was convinced that an autopsy had revealed this to be the time of Harald's death. Hugi was repeatedly asked why he had removed Harald's eyes and where he had put them. Hugi consistently replied that he had not taken his eyes. He had no eyes, apart from his own, of course. Thora could only pity the poor man if he was telling the truth. She suspected that he was. Although she had only leafed through the case, the feeling remained that it would be highly unlikely for a weak-willed person, as Hugi appeared to be, to tell anything but the truth after such long isolation and intense interrogation.
Harald's friends and acquaintances who were at the party in Skerjafjordur were suspects at first, but then they were interrogated as witnesses. There were ten of them in all, including four of the five names on the list Thora had noticed at the front of the folder. The only name missing was the medical student Halldor Kristinsson.
All the partygoers told the same story. The party had begun at nine and ended at two when they went into town. Harald had left around midnight with Hugi, but no one knew why. The pair had said they were just popping out and had driven off in a taxi Hugi had ordered. Two hours later the others had given up waiting and gone barhopping. Asked whether they had tried to phone Hugi or Harald, they all gave the same answer: Harald's battery had died earlier that evening and Hugi did not answer their repeated calls to his mobile or home phone. Nor had anyone answered Harald's home phone when they rang there. They were also asked about what time they eventually went home from town, but, given the time frame, these questions were more for the sake of form. It turned out that the group had departed at different times, some not leaving until five in the morning. The student friends from the list of names went last, by which time the fifth, the medical student, Halldor, had joined them downtown. Thora continued browsing in the hope that he had been called in for questioning. He seemed to be the only one who had not been at the party around the time of the murder.
The answer was at the end of the section. Halldor had been interviewed, and it turned out that he had been working until midnight at the City Hospital, where he had a part-time job. That was why he was not at the party. It involved only a handful of shifts a month, Halldor had said; he came in as a substitute when someone was ill or for other reasons. He had taken a change of clothes with him, and after showering at the hospital and getting ready, he took the bus into town. By his own account his car was not working and he gave the name of the garage where it was being mended over the period in question. Halldor said he originally planned to change buses and take another to Skerjafjordur, but he had just missed the last one and decided to go into town to wait for the partygoers at a cafe instead of forking out for a taxi or walking there. He claimed he had telephoned them and they said they were just on their way. It was around one when he arrived at a bar called Kaffibrennslan, and he bought a beer while he waited, he said. Around two he finally met the people from the party when they arrived in a taxi.
A series of witness statements followed, interviews with teachers from the history department. These mostly involved how well they knew Harald, and they all said the samethey did not know him outside the university and had little to say about him. There was another question mark over a meeting at the faculty building the night Harald was murdered. It was held to celebrate a cooperative project with a Norwegian university involving a large Erasmus grant. Reading between the lines, Thora inferred that this 'meeting' was more of a cocktail party that lasted well into the evening. The last guests left around midnight. None of the names were familiar to her apart from Gunnar Gestvik, the head of department, and Thorbjorn Olafsson, the professor supervising Harald's dissertation.
The final statements were taken from a barman at Kaffibrennslan and the bus driver who drove Halldor from the hospital into town.
The waiter, whose name was Bjorn Jonsson, said he had first served Halldor around one o'clock that night, then several times again within the hour and finally around two when his friends had joined him. He said he remembered Halldor well because of how fast and furiously he drank that night.
The bus driver also remembered Halldor as a passenger on his last journey. There were very few people on the bus and the two of them had struck up a conversation, discussing the state of the health system and how poorly old people were treated. As far as Thora could see, Halldor had a fairly watertight alibi. As did all Harald's friends, except Hugi.
The reports were followed by several pages of photocopied photographs taken at the scene of the murder. Although blurred and in black-and-white, they were clear enough to give a good idea of the horrific scene. Now Thora understood even better the shock of the man who found the body, and she doubted he would ever recover.
The alarm on Thora's mobile reminded her that it was a quarter to five. She hurriedly flipped through to the final section, on the autopsy.
CHAPTER 5
Thora reached the day care on time. She met the mother of one of her daughter's classmates outside in the parking lot. The woman looked at the car with its garage logo and smiled, clearly convinced that Thora had started going out with some grease monkey. Thora itched to chase after her and explain that her relationship with the mechanic was strictly business, but instead she walked straight across the school grounds. Soley went to Myrarhusaskoli in Seltjarnarnes, which was not far from where Thora worked on Skolavordustigurless than ten minutes' drive. When she divorced Hannes just over two years before, Thora had made a firm stand about keeping their house in Seltjarnarnes, even though she had had great difficulty paying for his half.
Seltjarnarnes was a small town on a peninsula off Reykjavik's western coast. The surrounding sea was the town's most distinctive feature and somehow managed to make the residents feel they were surrounded by nature, despite the closeness of downtown. It was perfect for families with children, so property there was in high demand. Thora was thankful that their house had been appraised before the surge in real estate prices started. Were she getting divorced now, she would not have had a prayer of keeping the house. Of course, this was unspeakably irritating to Hannes, who had nightmares about how much she must have made on the deal. Although she regarded the house as a home rather than an investment, Thora was pleased about the profit she made on it, really only because of how much it annoyed her ex. The divorce had not exactly been on good terms, although they tried to keep their relationship polite for the children's sake. A geographical analogy would be India and Pakistantrouble was always brewing, although it rarely boiled over.
Thora went inside and looked around the hall. Most of the children had already gone home. This did not really surprise her, and she had the guilty thought that she was not a good mother. She had followed the Icelandic traditionhave your baby, take six months off, and then reenter the rat race. Nobody stayed at home after having kids, so Thora knew that she was no better or worse than other mothers. This did not stop her from feeling bad
