Kjartan seemed taken aback. He hadn’t realized the investigation had actually started.
Her eyes continued to linger on Kjartan a moment.
“I remember you from high school,” she said finally.
He gave a start and suddenly looked up, but he was unable to distinguish any expression behind her mask. He could not place her face. She must have been in a lower year, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment and then gazed down into the casket.
“ Corpus decompositium,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” Kjartan didn’t understand Latin.
“The body is decomposed,” she said.
That’s pretty obvious, Kjartan thought to himself, but he said nothing and just jotted it down on the page.
Johanna firmly gripped the parka and trousers and turned the body over in one swift move. A few additional flies woke up with the shift and flew out of the casket.
“No remains of skin or flesh on the face, nor in the eyes,” said Johanna, taking some implement out of her bag, which she used to loosen the skull’s clenched jaw.
“No cavities in the teeth, but worn. Some gold fillings. A man well into his middle age and wealthy enough to be able to afford a good dentist.”
She examined the skull under the hood.
“Remnants of gray hair.”
She walked to the other end of the casket and scrutinized the shoes. “Sturdy leather hiking shoes. Lace missing on right shoe.”
Next she examined the hands. “No rings on his fingers.”
She loosened the parka around his throat and unzipped it.
“Quality parka with a rust-free zipper. Seems to be a foreign label; color: dark green.” She peered into one pocket and then fetched some tongs and a small envelope in her briefcase. “In the outer pocket there are several small shells, mussels, small starfish, remains of…sandworm, I think.” She placed it all in the envelope as soon as she extracted it from the pocket.
“The deceased may have eaten some of this to stave off hunger. Need to examine this in the autopsy. Test for shellfish poisoning, if possible.”
She examined the inside of the parka. “No internal pockets on the parka. Wearing a brown woolen cardigan under it. No visible labels on the cardigan. Side pockets. A leather wallet in the right pocket.” She removed the wallet with her tongs, placed it in a small envelope, and took it over to Kjartan. “Here, take a look.”
He opened the wallet and counted several banknotes and coins. He counted: “Seven thousand two hundred and fifty-two crowns and fifteen cents.” There was nothing else in the wallet, and he left the money in it.
“That’s a lot of money to be carrying around,” he said.
Johanna looked into the other pocket of the cardigan. She took out a small folded piece of paper with her tongs and handed it to Kjartan. He unfolded the note and examined some words that had been written with a pencil, and then he read them out loud: “This book belongs to me, Jon Finnsson, and was a gift from my departed father’s father, Jon Bjornsson, as can be verified, and was personally given to me by my departed father and is cherished in their memory.” The handwriting was clear and legible.
Kjartan pondered the note. Below it another hand had written “folio 1005.” On the back of it thirty-nine letters were written out in three rows of meaningless text.
O S L E O Y I A R N R Y L
E M H O N E A E N W T L B
A U R M L E Q W T R O N E
The note had been ripped out of a perforated copybook, a small sheet with blue lines and narrow spacing. He placed the note in the envelope with the wallet, which he in turn slipped into his pocket.
“So we’ve got a name to go on, Jon Finnsson,” Kjartan said. “This is some kind of a book inscription, but a rather old-fashioned use of words.”
“Some of the islanders are a bit old-fashioned,” said Johanna.
She finished searching through the pockets but could find nothing else.
“Under the cardigan a light brown cotton shirt and green foulard. Quality clothes, it seems.”
“Could he be a local from these islands?” Kjartan asked.
“Very unlikely,” she answered. “He would have been missed. No one’s isolated enough here to be able to disappear without questions being asked after two or three days. Then there’s the clothing that doesn’t quite fit the islanders’ style.”
“A foreigner maybe?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea about that,” she said. “But this’ll have to do for now. We’ll send him to Reykjavik like this. They’ll be able to investigate it better down there.”
She placed the lid on the casket and locked it firmly. Then they walked outside.
“Is Jon Finnsson a name that rings any bells?” Kjartan asked the three men waiting outside.
“In what context?” Grimur asked.
Kjartan took out the note and read them the text.
Grimur and Hogni stared blankly at each other, but Thormodur Krakur tilted on his toes and puffed up his chest. “I know who this Jon Finnsson is.”
“Who is he?” Kjartan asked.
“That’s Jon Finnsson, the farmer in Flatey, the one who delivered the Flatey Book to the bishop of Skalholt, Brynjolfur Sveinsson. It was the bishop who sent the book to the king, wasn’t it?”
The deacon looked around with a triumphant air.
“But that was in the autumn of 1647,” Grimur added.
Thormodur Krakur continued: “Those words are written at the beginning of the Flatey Book and were copied in that note. It’s actually quite peculiar that the only person who inscribed this book was the person who allowed it to leave the family.”
Thormodur Krakur gesticulated to add emphasis to his story.
“And the Flatey Book is now with the king in Copenhagen,” said Grimur. “So this was hardly copied from the original source.”
“What could have been the purpose of copying that text down on a piece of paper?” Kjartan asked. “And what does folio 1005 mean?”
The others looked at each other, but no one had an answer. Finally Grimur said, “Sometimes tourists who’ve read some of the Flatey Book come here and want to find out about the making and history of the manuscript.”
“And who’s the person who can tell them about it?” Kjartan asked.
“Various people here and there,” said Grimur. “Most of the islanders can recount some of the sagas if they’re asked. Sigurbjorn in Svalbard is pretty well read and often quotes the book, although Reverend Hannes speaks better Danish and talks to the foreigners.”
As the men were chatting to each other, Johanna slipped out of her plastic coat and packed it back into her bag. Then she took Kjartan’s notes.
“I’ll copy these and bring them back to you tomorrow,” she said before walking away without saying good- bye.
Thormodur Krakur turned the key in the lock of the church door and then vigorously shook the handle to convince himself that the door was definitely locked.
“No one goes in here without me, and no one goes out except in God’s name,” he said, drawing a cross in front of the door with his hand before sticking the key into his pocket. “Isn’t that enough for this evening then, District Officer?”
“Yes. Thanks for all your help,” said Grimur.
The deacon grabbed the cart and pushed it down the slope, allowing it to roll in front of him until he reached level ground, and then he turned it around again. He paused a moment and started to spin, first making three clockwise circles and then making three counterclockwise ones, blessing himself after each circle. Then, dragging the cart behind him, he headed home.
