the house again after bringing their drunken son home. Of course it was possible that she hadn’t been aware of him leaving, but Thora suspected the woman had been persuaded to make this statement against her better judgement.
Fresh in Thora’s memory were the descriptions of the violence that had caused the deaths of the men in the basement. It required a particular type of man to attack others in such a way, and now everything pointed towards that man being her client’s father. Dadi Horseshoe – and possibly others – must have helped him. This made more sense than the theory that an adolescent girl had been the perpetrator.
Back at the hotel Thora realized that her cheeks felt warm, and in the first mirror she passed she saw that her face was the colour of a redfish. She cursed herself for not using the sunscreen she had so conscientiously taken with her. Bella looked much the same. The secretary yawned and Thora noticed that she had no fillings in her teeth, although she had had no desire to find this out. ‘Do you want to take a nap?’ asked Thora, who would certainly have liked to take one herself. ‘I need to make several phone calls and try to speak to Maria, Leifur’s wife. So you can just take it easy. Then we’ll have a late dinner when I come back.’
Bella didn’t need to be asked twice. Thora went up to her room, but only to take a shower and put on something a bit cleaner and more presentable than her jeans and sweatshirt. Afterwards she felt much better, her fatigue washed away, along with the salt in her hair. It was just as well, because she needed all her energy to make it through the phone calls awaiting her. One of them was to Markus, to tell him the new information about his father, and to let him know that she intended to tell the police Paddi’s story about the blood. She also planned to inform the police about the English smack, because she was pretty sure the bodies were once its crew. She couldn’t imagine how the men had ended up in the basement of Markus’s childhood home after leaving the Islands several days before the eruption, but she had a strong feeling about it nevertheless. Everyone agreed there had been few foreigners in the Islands at the time, so no one else fitted. Right now she couldn’t waste time on these speculations, though, because she had plenty of other things to do. She started by phoning her children.
‘Have you got an apartment for the festival?’ asked Gylfi. No hello Mum, how’s it going?
Thora didn’t try to explain that she’d been too busy saving an innocent man from prison to make any preparations for The Bank Holiday weekend. It would mean nothing to Gylfi.‘No, I haven’t heard anything yet,’ she said honestly. Indeed she hadn’t heard anything about empty apartments, since she hadn’t asked. ‘I need to call someone later who may be able to help me.’Leifur was on Thora’s list to call, and if he couldn’t get them an apartment no one could. The fact that she was about to tell the police his father could be connected to the bodies in the basement might throw a spanner in the works. But her task was to make Leifur understand that it was best for his brother, and that it was Markus’s legal right that the truth be told.
‘Don’t forget to sort it out,’ said Gylfi doggedly. ‘We have to go.’
One has to brush one’s teeth, one has to eat healthy food, but one doesn’t have to go to a festival; Thora decided not to share this thought with her son, instead asking after Soley. She then had to pull the phone away from her ear, as Gylfi immediately started yelling his sister’s name as though he thought she was with Thora and he had to make himself heard through the phone.‘Hi, sweetheart,’ said Thora when her daughter came on the line. ‘How are things at Grandma’s?’ The kids were with their father’s parents, who often complained about not getting to see their grandchildren enough, but were never free to look after them when Thora actually needed them. They were well-off and travelled a great deal. Miraculously, this time everything had come together and the kids had gone to stay in their big house on Arnarnes. This was meant to be their dad’s weekend, but Hannes and his wife were at a friend’s fortieth birthday party that evening. Thora had never managed to foster a good relationship with her ex-husband’s family, though they had never actually had any conflicts. They were simply very different kinds of people, especially her and her former mother-in-law.
‘Hello, Mum,’ said Soley.‘I’m with Grandma in the hot tub. Do you know who’s with us?’
‘No,’ said Thora, hoping it wasn’t the nutritionist the couple had recently hired. Thora didn’t want her eight-year- old daughter to have to listen to talk about food and diets.
‘Orri!’ shouted Soley, obviously delighted. ‘He’s with us in the hot tub and he peed!’ She whispered the last bit, then started giggling. Thora had trouble not doing the same. It had been a long time since she’d laughed and she didn’t dare start, for fear that she wouldn’t be able to stop. She spoke to Soley for a few more moments before saying she looked forward to seeing them all tomorrow, and hanging up.
She called Matthew next. Her phone signal had dropped in and out at sea, making it unclear whether he had tried to reach her, but it didn’t matter. She wanted to know what he was planning to do. Thora smiled just hearing his voice.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said stupidly.‘I haven’t been able to get a good signal for the last few hours, and apparently you haven’t either. Otherwise I would have tried you sooner.’
‘No problem,’ he said.‘I’ve tried to reach you a couple of times but I haven’t had much luck. How’s it going? Have you found a body to go with the head?’
Thora smiled. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m not particularly looking for it; I’ve got enough on my plate digging around to find out what happened. It’s going slowly.’ She didn’t want to waste time telling Matthew the whole sorry story. ‘And now there’s another body.’
‘What? They found more?’
‘Not in the same place. A woman who could have helped my client was found dead. They thought she’d committed suicide, but it turned out she was murdered.’
‘Ah,’ said Matthew slowly.‘I hope you’re being careful. I told you that anyone who could cut off a man’s genitals is dangerous.’
‘We don’t know if it’s the same guy that killed her,’ she said. All the people connected to the old case are either dead or demented, remember?‘
‘Who says it’s even a man?’asked Matthew. ‘Women can be just as crazy as men. Maybe this thing with the genitals has something to do with the man’s behaviour towards a woman.’
It had crossed Thora’s mind that a woman might have done it, even though a woman surely couldn’t have had the strength to beat several men to death. Especially not a housewifeback in those days, who probably wouldn’t have done any training at the gym or other sports. Of course, a blunt instrument of some sort had been used, so a very angry woman could have caused the damage, but it was more likely that a man or group of men had done it. Thora grabbed the bull by the horns.‘So, tell me what you’re planning to do. I need to know what you’re thinking about the job.’ She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers. Please come, she thought. Take the job and come to me.
‘I’m thinking about saying yes,’ said Matthew. His voice was cautious, as if he expected her to try to dissuade him. ‘At least I’m sort of thinking about it.’
‘Excellent!’ Thora was startled at the force of her own exclamation, which came straight from the heart. ‘It’s nicer in Iceland,’ she added weakly. She counted to ten before going on, so she wouldn’t make even more of a fool of herself. ‘I’m really glad to hear that. When are you coming?’
‘I still have to get my ticket but I hope to make it over within the next fortnight, to speak to them one last time. I’ll be able to determine from that meeting when I can move there,’said Matthew, who seemed happy with her reaction. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you,’ he said. ‘I hope you won’t be out at sea or down in a basement the whole time I’m in the country.’
‘You should try to add a day or two to your trip to be sure,’ said Thora. It would be awful if Markus’s case prevented them from meeting up. ‘I’m going home tomorrow, but who knows when I’ll have to come back to the Islands.’
They said goodbye and Thora selected the number for Litla- Hraun Prison with a smile on her lips. After several moments Markus came to the phone. ‘I’m really glad to hear from you,’ he said, out of breath, after they’d exchanged greetings. ‘I remembered a phone call I got while I was driving east, and it’s probably the call that came from the unlisted number.’ He sounded proud. ‘I didn’t want to do anything before I’d let you know about it, although of course I really wanted to have the police called here to take a new statement.’
‘Good,’ said Thora, happy with the news, as well as his decision to wait for her.
