across the aisle gave Bella an affronted look and fastened his table against the seat-back in front of him. Thora busied herself looking straight ahead and acting nonchalantly. She turned to the next page, which turned out to be empty. There were no entries for the twentieth of January or the twenty-first. ‘Damn,’ she thought; up until now there had not been a single word that might relate to the head and box. The diary had been left behind during the evacuation, so Markus’s only hope was that Alda had written something significant in the entry for the twenty- second, the night the eruption started. Hopefully that page wasn’t empty. Thora drew a deep breath and crossed her fingers before turning the page.
Luckily, the next page was neither empty nor completely crossed out. Still, it looked as though Alda had been on drugs or had had a fever when she wrote the entry for that day. Thora couldn’t make head or tail of the text which, unlike Alda’s previous entries, was written in waves all over the page instead of following the lines. The entry was composed of repetitions of the word disgusting disgusting disgusting and several instances of why did I go out? why? why?as well as I want to die. These sentences were all strung together and Thora couldn’t discern any particular order in them. On a line below this jumble was the sentence:
I’m not going to write any more. I’ll do this for God and Mum and Dad and then I’m going to kill myself. I’m not coming back here.
This appeared to have been written in a calmer state, because the letters were straighter and better formed. There was nothing else. The pen had been dragged down along the margin and at the bottom of the page there was a single word in writing so tiny it was barely legible: Markus
Thora lowered the book and sighed. Why couldn’t Alda have been clearer? However, this did show something: it strongly suggested that the girl had experienced a shock. If Thora used her imagination, Markus’s name might be interpreted as a declaration that he could help Alda. On the other hand, her client’s name on the page did not substantiate his statement. After this entry, the diary consisted only of empty pages.
Chapter Sixteen
Thora put down the newspaper. She could take comfort in the fact that the photo on the front page could have been any prosperous fifty-year-old man. There were enough of them around. Hopefully that would be of some consolation to Markus, who stared at her from the grainy image like a convict. The press must have searched high and low for a photograph showing her client with a cruel expression. Although his face was quite blurry, the photo seemed to show a man who was capable of anything. The headline Four Dead – Autopsy Suggests Murder, was positioned in a way that made it quite clear Markus was being portrayed as a criminal. The accompanying article barely elaborated on the headline except to say that Markus Magnusson, Reykjavik businessman, was helping police with their enquiries. A short biographical summary, in a separate box at the bottom of the page, pointed out that Markus had resided in the Westmann Islands at the time the men seemed likely to have been murdered. However, no mention was made of his youth at the time. Markus seemed not to have got around very much, because the photograph from the front page also accompanied an article later in the paper, along with two photos of the excavation site and an aerial photo of Heimaey. It was clear the newsmenhadn’t acquired a copy of the medical examiner’s report, and they still hadn’t connected
Alda to the case. The main body of the article was a review of everything that was already known about the case of the discovery of the bodies, but with the addition of Markus’s involvement and the case becoming a murder investigation. Surely the media would soon make the connection and drag Alda’s name into it.
Thora felt it was important to thoroughly investigate the nurse’s role in all of this, but as soon as the media became interested in Alda, lots of doors would close. She thumbed through her notes and went over the little she’d written about Alda. She decided she ought to contact Isafjordur Junior College in the hope of tracking down her schoolfriends, speak to the plastic surgeon’s office where Alda had worked, then interview the employees of the A &E department where she’d taken evening and weekend shifts. Thora wondered whether she should speak to a doctor there whom she knew quite well – her ex-husband – but decided not to so that she wouldn’t owe him a favour. Experience had taught her that the saying ‘an eye for an eye’ fit their relationship well.
She looked up the number of the college and crossed her fingers, hoping someone would answer. It was midsummer, so she couldn’t be sure anyone would be there. Luckily, the school’s office was open and she spoke to the secretary, who was extremely obliging.
Thora agreed to hold while the woman went to look up Alda, in case she couldn’t get through to her again. After a long wait the woman returned to the phone.
‘Well, you know what, there was no Alda Thorgeirsdottir registered here during the winter of 1972-1973,’ said the woman, sounding apologetic. ‘Could she have gone by any other name? These are just paper records, in alphabetical order. We were supposed to have gone paperless a long time ago but never had the time to do it, which is why I’m afraid I need to have a full name.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’replied Thora. ‘Could she be missing from the file because she started studying there after the new year? At the end of January, after the eruption in the Islands?’
‘That wouldn’t change anything,’ said the woman, still sounding regretful. ‘Of course it’s possible that someone here made a filing error, but I find that rather unlikely. The school’s public funding is based on the number of students, so we’ve always been careful with our records. Although many things are done differently now, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.’
Thora thanked the woman and hung up. Had Alda gone there under another name, or did Johanna simply misremember which school her sister attended in the wake of the disaster? It must be the latter, since Johanna’s story didn’t fit in any way. Teenagers didn’t jump up a class and start a new educational level in the middle of term. Wondering who could help her unravel this mystery, Thora concluded that she would have to speak to Alda’s mother. She would be sure to know the details of Alda’s schooling, and Thora could use the opportunity to try to find out other information, too. In her notes she had Johanna’s mobile number, but when she rang to ask her to arrange a meeting with her mother, there was no answer. Johanna was probably at work, which meant Thora had no choice but to try again later. She also wanted to tell Johanna that nothing in the diaries suggested anything out of the ordinary in Alda’s relationship with her father.
She decided to ask Alda’s childhood girlfriends again about her whereabouts following the evacuation, in case by some chance they had remembered anything further. Only two of them picked up the phone, and it was clear from their tone that they feared her telephone calls would become daily occurrences now they’d made the mistake of humouring her the first time she rang. Both of them were noticeably less friendly this time, and neither of them could remember anything beyond what they’d already told her. Both stood firmly by their assertion that Alda had attended Reykjavik Junior College, though they didn’t know when she’d started there or whether she’d completed her studies. At the end of their conversation, the first woman muttered something about being late and said goodbye without giving Thora a chance to ask any further questions, but the second wasn’t as crafty and Thora managed to ask her about a number of things she’d been mulling over since reading the diary entries.‘Could something have happened to Alda just before the eruption, and was she acting any differently from usual?’ asked Thora.
‘God, it was such a long time ago,’ replied the woman, sounding as if she thought the phone call would never end. ‘If she was, I don’t remember it.’
‘No depression, irritability, nothing like that?’ urged Thora.
‘I don’t remember anything,’ replied the woman, but then paused for a moment as if something had occurred to her. Actually, we had all ended up in a little bit of trouble the previous weekend – I’d completely forgotten about that.‘
‘What happened?’ asked Thora anxiously.
‘Oh, just typical teenage stuff,’said the woman. ‘We tried alcohol for the first
