thing you might be able to help me with,’ said Thora. ‘It’s to do with some files I’m having trouble getting hold of.’ She wished she didn’t have to ask Leifur for help. ‘I’ve been trying to see a copy of the log of objects removed from the excavated houses.’
‘And who has those records?’asked Leifur briskly, sounding confident that he would be able to get hold of them.
‘The archaeologist in charge of the excavations is named Hjortur Fridriksson,’ she replied. ‘He was going to see if he could get them for me, but I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘I’ll take care of it,’said Leifur, and Thora had no doubt that he would.
However, she was no closer to a connection between Alda and Valgerdur. She went through the autopsy report Dis had copied for her, but understood almost none of it, other than that Valgerdur had been admitted to the hospital in Isafjordur with a severe streptococcus infection and had been given antibiotics intravenously, causing a bad allergic reaction which had led to her death the very same night. Alda had neither marked the text nor made notes in the margins, making it difficult to see what had sparked her interest in the death of this woman.
Once again Hannes came to Thora’s mind. He might be able to see something in this that she couldn’t. She knew she would have to seek out his help sooner or later, although she would have preferred it to be later. It would have to wait until evening, though, as Hannes didn’t take his mobile to work and she didn’t feel like having him paged just to listen to him complain that she’d called him out of an operation.
One person she could call during office hours was the sex therapist Alda had been seeing. Of course she was unlikely to tell Thora much, but it was worth a go. After calling and trying unsuccessfully to get the woman to tell her about Alda, Thora gave up. All she got for her pains was a vehement denial that Alda had been a sex addict, as the websites had suggested, and the claim that she had been looking at them on the therapist’s recommendation. The woman could not be enticed to reveal what purpose this might have served, and the phone call ended at that.
Next, Thora decided to go to the police station in the hope of seeing which photos had been shown to the leaflet delivery boy who’d fingered Markus as the man at Alda’s house on the night of her murders. Hopefully the police would also give her a log of the phone calls between Markus and Alda that same night.
‘You’ve got to be joking’,said Thora, as she put down the photos. She prodded the one resting on top. ‘This appears to be a woman, and I can’t be sure but it looks as though at least two of these people are over ninety, and one is barely out of adolescence.’
Stefan picked up the stack, his face thunderous. As he flicked through it the flush on his cheeks darkened.‘These photos were chosen at random, apart from the one of Markus, of course.’ He put pile the down again. ‘And this is a man, not a woman,’ he said, pointing at the photo of the person of indeterminate gender.
‘I would like to request that these photos be made available in the High Court,’ said Thora doggedly. ‘This is preposterous, and you know it.’
Stefan’s expression made it clear that he was seeing the photographs for the first time and was far from happy with the selection. ‘This is effectively an open and shut case,’ he snapped. ‘The boy’s description alone is enough. These photos were simply dotting the “i”s and crossing the“t”s.’
Thora said nothing, but she did not agree. She had read the boy’s description, which was rather vague, and in addition had been made many days after he had Distributedthe flyers. She very much doubted he could remember minute details of a man whom he had passed on the street. ‘Do you have the phone log?’ she asked.
‘Part of it,’ said Stefan, but gave no indication that he was about to fetch the list for her. He straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Markus is guilty,’ he said, when he thought he appeared sufficiently grave.‘I can promise you that.’
Thora smiled at him. ‘I don’t doubt your conviction, but I cannot agree with you.’ She stopped smiling. ‘Have you found out where the Botox came from? Markus doesn’t walk around with it on him, that’s for certain.’
Stefan unfolded his arms.‘We’re working on it. As it is, we’re going by the assumption that the drug was already in the house, since she was a registered nurse. But as I said, we’re actually still investigating this specific detail.’
‘I could have told you what her career was and spared you the time that went into investigating that,’Thora said sarcastically, then added: ‘One of the doctors in the office where Alda worked told me that you haven’t even gone to them for information about the drug. They say she didn’t have access to it except within the confines of the office.’ She clicked her tongue.‘I’m going to look into that later today. You’re not going to help your reputation by focusing so intently on one man that you blind yourself to other possibilities.’
‘We’re not “blinding ourselves” to anyone or anything,’ said Stefan crossly.‘There are only a few of us here and it takes time. Both of the doctors are coming down later to make statements.’ He smiled coldly at her.‘So we’ll be looking into that later today, too. Also, we still haven’t managed to find a single soul who saw your client heading east at the time that he claimed to be travelling. We’re not just looking for something that proves Markus guilty. Although I’m personally convinced of his guilt, I need to be certain. Conviction alone isn’t enough, and it can sometimes let you down – although I don’t think that’s the case this time.’
‘Do you have the log or not?’asked Thora tetchily. ‘I want to go over it before the hearing begins.’ She frowned. ‘Could it be that you’re reluctant to give it to me because it shows that Markus spoke to Alda, just as he claimed?’
‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ said Stefan, thereby confirming Thora’s suspicion. ‘Of course you can have the log; it’s being photocopied for you right now. I didn’t expect you here so soon.’
‘So Markus did speak to Alda?’she asked, trying to keep the triumph out of her voice.
Stefan’s expression was unreadable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not necessarily. A call was made from Alda’s phone to his. It’s not the same thing. Anyone could have answered his phone, and I suspect that he came up with this to create an alibi. We still don’t know who helped him, but it’ll become clear. In other words, I suspect Markus of having placed a call from Alda’s home phone to his own mobile.’
‘Did you check where Markus’s phone was located when the call was made?’ asked Thora, happily. This was all going much better than she had dared hope, despite Stefan’s attempts to downplay this good news and turn it to his own advantage.
‘Yes,’ Stefan said reluctantly. ‘The phone was just outside Hella.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But that doesn’t mean anything, as I said. Any fool knows it’s possible to trace the location of mobile phones. Markus would have done himself a great disservice if he had answered his own phone at Alda’s house. That’s why he got someone to answer it for him, that party need not have known it was for a criminal purpose.’
‘This is mind-boggling,’ she replied. ‘Markus’s photo has been in the papers, and everyone knows he’s suspected of murder. Do you honestly believe that if someone had taken it upon himself to answer Markus’s phone without any knowledge of this magnificent plot, that this very same person wouldn’t have contacted you?’
‘I said the accomplice might not have been party to the plot. If he was, then he would hardly draw attention to himself like that,’ said Stefan immediately. ‘Maybe Markus paid him for it, and now he’s too scared to report it for fear of being considered an accessory to the crime.’
‘If you’re planning to use this in court, you’d better hope you can find this mystery accomplice. You know as well as I do that it’s easy to come up with theories, but without evidence they’re not worth anything.’ Stefan’s certainty that Markus was guilty was getting on Thora’s nerves. It didn’t bode well, since it meant other possibilities were no doubt being thrown out in the meantime. There was no time to quarrel over this, though.‘How are you getting on with identifying the men in the basement?’ she asked. ‘I assume you’re in contact with the authorities in Britain?’
‘We haven’t been able to identify them yet,’ replied Stefan, without answering her second question.‘However, we do have some specific clues that are promising. I actually can’t say anything more about them at this point.’
