Thora turned back to the paper in front of her and pushed Dis and her mysterious information from her mind. There was no point wondering about that now; all would become clear after the weekend. She lifted her pen. Of everything that she had dug up, how much of it was connected to the case? She lined up the events chronologically in the hope of being able to piece it all together, and then ran down the scribbles on the page one more time.
A damaged fishing smack comes to the Islands 19 January, anchors at the pier, moves berths and then leaves during the night. Paddi the Hook watches it sail away.
Teenagers, among them Alda and Markus, get drunk at a school dance that same night. Magnus, Markus’s father, goes to fetch him. Alda probably walks home. Something bad happens to Alda, which she describes indirectly in her diary.
Magnus and Dadi ‘Horseshoe’ are seen down at the harbour that night. A lot of blood is found on the pier the following morning, where the smack was originally moored.
Detective Gudni is called to the scene. He is told of Dadi’s presence at the harbour, but not that Magnus was with him.
Dadi denies having been involved in anything illegal and states that he knows nothing about any blood.
Four men, most likely British, are beaten to death – unclear exactly when.
Leifur returns to the Islands to scold his brother for his drinking.
Alda gives Markus the box, and asks him to store it for her. She is in a frantic state.
Eruption during the night.
The residents flee to the mainland, some of them on fishing vessels, and Alda asks Markus what he did with the box. He tells her.
Magnus and his partner Thorgeir, Alda’s father, return to the Islands to salvage their possessions. Magnus mostly empties his family home, although not the basement.
Alda, her mother and her sister move to the Westfjords, where she supposedly attends Isafjordur Junior College – suddenly one year ahead of her previous school year. However, no one at the school has a record of her attendance there.
Markus’s mother and her children move to Reykjavik.
Valgerdur and Dadi move west, settle in the vicinity of Holmavik. There they finally have a child. She wants little to do with the child – perhaps she suffers from post-partum depression?
Some time during the first two weeks of the eruption, the bodies are moved to the basement.
Magnus buys up Thorgeir’s shares in the fishing company and continues to run the business alone. He acquires a processing plant for peanuts and lands his catch in the Islands, despite the continuing eruption.
Markus attends Reykjavik Junior College.
Alda is registered at the same school, but for home attendance until after the new year. Markus meets her again for the first time since the eruption and they do not discuss the box.
Alda studies nursing.
Markus marries and divorces, has one son. Markus does not work for his father’s company. Maintains his friendship with Alda.
Leifur, Markus’s brother, takes over the family business when their father becomes ill. He has worked there since completing his studies in business.
When plans are made to excavate Markus’s parents’ house, Alda asks Markus to prevent it, but keeps this secret from her sister.
Alda takes a leave of absence from the A &E.
Alda familiarizes herself with Valgerdur’s autopsy report.
Alda for some reason keeps a picture of a tattoo bearing the words ‘Love Sex’, as well as a picture of an unidentified young man.
Alda has links to pornographic websites on her computer and is seeing a sex therapist.
Markus does what he can to prevent the excavation of his childhood home but settles for being allowed to get the box from the basement after Alda consents to this arrangement. He travels to the Islands.
Alda is murdered.
Markus finds the bodies in the basement and a man’s head in the box.
A possible murder weapon is found in a box with children’s clothes, also in the basement.
Thora put down the paper and tried unsuccessfully to recall more details that might possibly make a difference. She also tried to determine how much of this might be unconnected to the murder, but couldn’t actually think of anything. It was the same as with the items in the storeroom – if she crossed something off the list it would probably turn out to be the vital clue. She sighed and tried to concentrate. Could Alda have killed the men? It didn’t matter how hard Thora tried to imagine such an attack, with the men rolling drunk and the teenage Alda in a murderous frenzy with a salmon priest on the pier – it didn’t add up. What was she supposed to have done with the bodies after such a horrific deed? Thora didn’t know any teenage girl who had the strength to struggle with the body of a full-grown man, still less if she had had to make four trips. If they’d been murdered in the basement, things would look different. Then Alda wouldn’t have needed to move the bodies at all. This, however, did not fit, since the murders were committed before the eruption. At least, Markus had put the box with the man’s head there before it happened. In addition, there were burn marks on the men’s clothing, which suggested that they had been out in the open after the tephra had started to rain down. And Alda had left the Islands by then. Thora felt the blood on the pier must be connected to this.
Where was the body that was missing its head? It would probably never be found, since it hadn’t turned up during the last thirty-four years, even during the excavation. They had already dug up all the houses that they planned to salvage from the ash, so there was no hope of finding anything new that way. In addition, hundreds of houses had been buried beneath lava during the eruption, so the body in question could be inside one of them, and thus gone forever. Then again that could hardly be the case, because why would the murderer or murderers have moved only one of the bodies from house to house? Why move the others from a house that was about to be buried by lava to one that was being buried under ash? She was certain of one thing – if she herself had needed to get rid of a body under such circumstances, she would have chosen the house that would end up under lava. And then, of course, it was possible that the men had not been murdered in the Islands after all, despite the blood on the pier. Perhaps the murderers didn’t have ties to the Islands or the Westmann Islanders, but instead were outsiders who had transported the bodies there to hide them. Thora sighed thoughtfully. If so, it had been a bad plan.
No, everything suggested that Markus’s father was the key to the case, not people from the mainland. If the bodies were put there without his knowledge, the murderer would hardly have hidden the mallet and knife in a box in the nearest storeroom, nor left these possible murder weapons next to the bodies. Thora tried to imagine how Magnus might have played a part in all of this. Maybe he and Dadi had ended up in a scuffle with the crew of the smack, killed the men and brought their bodies to the basement. But that didn’t fit with Paddi seeing the smack sail away. Could it be that the paths of these men had crossed out at sea rather than on land, and the blood had ended up on the pier when Magnus and Dadi were dragging the bodies ashore? Thora frowned. Could the two of them, Magnus and Dadi, have sailed Magnus’s ship? She had no idea how many people were needed to handle a boat that size. They would never have managed to get a whole crew of men to keep quiet about something like this. Of course Thora had seen the ship in a painting at Leifur’s house, but that image told her precisely nothing, since she had never even pissed in the sea, much less seen how a fishing operation worked. The trip with Bella and Paddi the Hook could hardly be counted. This led her to something else: if the bodies belonged to the crew of the British smack, then where was the boat?
An unexpected thud came from the door of Thora’s room, snapping her out of her reverie. The sound came again, but now it was clearly a knock. Thora stood up and went to the door, where
