Last Rituals

CHAPTER 8

Gunnar Gestvik, head of the department of history at the University of Iceland, strode along the corridor where the director of the Manuscript Institute had her office and absentmindedly nodded a greeting to a young historian on the way. The young man gave an embarrassed smile that again reminded Gunnar of his newly found fame within the university and its institutions. Nobody could seem to forget that it was into his arms that Harald Guntlieb's body fell, to say nothing of the nervous breakdown that he reaped in reward. Never before had he been so popular, if that was the right term, because hardly anyone who now made a detour to talk to him could rightly be classified as a friend.

Of course this business would eventually all blow over, but God alone knew how weary he was of having to answer stupid questions about the incident, which were prompted by nothing but sheer nosiness. He was beginning to feel revolted by the expression people invariably put on their faces while mustering the courage to ask their questions. The expression was supposed to show a combination of sadness at the young man's untimely death and compassion for Gunnar, but almost without exception the outcome was completely different. Their faces radiated only morbid fascination and relief that it had happened to someone else.

Should he perhaps have followed the vice chancellor's advice and taken two months' leave? He couldn't be sure. People might have lost all interest by then, but it would be rekindled when the case went to court. So he would only be postponing the inevitable by taking a rest. Besides, it would merely have spawned endless rumors about hima nervous breakdown and self-imposed convalescence, binge drinking at home, or even worse. No, he thought it was the right decision to turn down leave and let the storm die down. People would eventually grow bored of the subject and start avoiding him again.

Gunnar tapped on the door where Maria Einarsdottir, director of the institute, had her officemore for politeness' sake than anything else, because he immediately opened the door without waiting to be told to enter. She was on the telephone but gestured to Gunnar to take a seat, which he did. He impatiently waited for her to finish the call, which sounded as though it involved an order for printer toner that had not been delivered.

Gunnar tried to conceal how much this irritated him. When Maria had called him several minutes earlier she said it was a serious matter and demanded that he meet her at once. He had put aside the project he was working on at the moment, an application for an Erasmus program grant for the department of history in cooperation with the University of Bergen. The application was to be submitted in English and Gunnar had just been getting into his groove when Maria phoned. If this serious matter of hers was about toner, he would certainly give her a piece of his mind. He had begun to arrange a few well-chosen words when she put the telephone down and turned her attention to him.

Before she spoke she gave Gunnar a ruminating look, as if she too were choosing her words carefully. The fingers of her right hand drummed on the desk and she sighed. "Christ," she said in English, finally.

She had clearly not been using her time searching for a phrase from the classics, Gunnar thought, trying not to show how inappropriate he considered it for the director of the Manuscript Institute to use such a word. Times had certainly changed over the forty years since Gunnar was a young man. In those days people took pride in sounding classicalnow it was thought cheesy and pretentious. Even a woman like Maria, well educated and not a youngster anymore, used slang and shoddy grammar. Gunnar cleared his throat. "What is it, Maria?"

"Christ," she repeated, running both hands through her cropped hair. It was just beginning to turn gray and a few silver strands glittered when she ruffled it. Then she shook her head and got to the point. "One of the old letters is missing." A short pause, and then: "It's been stolen."

Gunnar's head snapped back. He could not conceal his surprise and disapproval. "What do you mean, stolen? From the exhibition?"

Maria groaned. "No. Not from the exhibition. From here. In-house."

Gunnar sat openmouthed. In-house? "How could that happen?"

"That's a good question. To the best of my knowledge it's the first time something of this kind has happened here." In a sharper tone she added: "Who knows, maybe more than just this letter is missing. As you well know, six hundred manuscripts and fragments from Arni Magnusson's great collection are preserved here, along with all the old letters he amassed and a hundred and fifty manuscripts from the Royal Library in Denmark. Oh, yes, and seventy other manuscripts and letters from here and there." She paused and stared Gunnar in the eye. "You can bet we'll go through every scrap of paper here to find out whether anything else is missing. But I wanted to talk to you in person before I make it public. As soon as I order a count, it will be obvious what's going on."

"Why do you want to consult me about it?" asked Gunnar, surprised and slightly annoyed. As head of department he did not need to have much contact with the institute and had no particular function in it. "You're not accusing me of taking the letter?"

"For God's sake, Gunnar. I'd better explain the situation to you before you start asking if I suspect the vice chancellor." She handed him a letter that was lying on her table. "Do you remember the documents we had on loan from the Danish national archives?"

Gunnar nodded. The institute often received loans from foreign collections that were in some way connected with its own work. As a rule Gunnar got wind of them but did not commit them to memory unless the documents were related to his own areas of academic interest. The Danish collection was clearly not one. He skimmed the letter, which was written by Karsten Josephsen, a chief of department at the Danish national archive. Written in Danish, it was a reminder that the deadline for returning the documents was approaching. He handed the letter back to Maria. "I'm completely at a loss."

She took the letter and put it back in its place on the desk in front of her. "That may well be. It was a collection of letters written to the arch-deacons of Roskilde Cathedral. They were all from the period 1500 to 1550. I understand they did not arouse very much academic interest here, although the ones dated around the Danish Reformation in 1536 were interesting in their own right. But the missing letter was not one of those."

"What was the letter about?" asked Gunnar, still unsure how this concerned him.

"Naturally I don't know exactly what it said, because it's lostbut I do know that it was from 1510 and written by Stefan Jonsson, then bishop of Skalholt, to the archdeacon of Roskilde Cathedral. I have that information from the register that was sent here with the collection. In fact, that was how I discovered the letter was missing: I used the register as a checklist for packing the collection for its return to Denmark."

"Could it be that it never came hereit's simply always been missing?" asked Gunnar hopefully.

"Out of the question," came the answer. "I was present when the collection was unpacked last year and we took great care in checking it against the register they sent. It was all in perfect order and everything was in its place."

"So perhaps the letter has just been misplaced?" suggested Gunnar. "Couldn't it have accidentally ended up with other documents?"

"You know," Maria said, "if circumstances were different that might well be a possibility." She paused for a while to emphasize what would follow. "When I discovered the disappearance I went straight to our computer system to examine the letteryou presumably know that we scan every single document we receive, our own or borrowed?" Gunnar nodded and Maria went on. "Guess what? The file had been deletedjust this one letter."

Gunnar pondered this information for a moment. "Wait a minute. Doesn't that suggest that the letter wasn't in the consignment in the first place? Weren't the letters scanned as soon as they were unwrapped?"

"Yes, that began the following day. But the letter was there and it was scanned. I can tell from the numbering system we use to identify digital files. The collection was given a heading and individual documents a serial number based on their age, with the oldest first." She ran her fingers through her hair again. "One number is missing from the sequence, exactly where the letter would have been."

"What about the computer system backup? They're always going on about how secure we are against data loss. Can't you find the file on one of the backup registries?"

Maria smiled faintly. "I've looked into that. According to our system administrator, the file cannot be found on any of our daily backups or the latest monthly backup. He says they copy over the daily registries every week; there's a separate Monday registry, Tuesday registry, and so on. So there's never a backup more than a week old on those registries. The same goes for the monthly registries. They're copied over so that the oldest backup we have is a month old. This file was erased more than a month ago. Actually there's a six-month backup kept in the institute's bank vault. I haven't had that fetched yet because I didn't realize the seriousness of the matter until now."

"You still haven't told me where I come into the picture," was all that Gunnar could think to say. Computers and data systems were not his cup of tea.

"Naturally I've checked who was working with the collection. As you know, that's all documented, left, right, and center. According to the register, the last person to have access to it was a student from your department." Maria's expression hardened. "Harald Guntlieb."

Gunnar put one hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. What next? Wouldn't this ever stop? Taking a deep breath, he made an effort to talk slowly and calmly and keep control of his voice. "Other people must have looked at the collection. How can you be sure Harald took the letter and not someone before him? There are fifteen full-time positions here plus countless visitors and students doing research."

"Oh, I'm certain," Maria said firmly. "The person who looked at the collection before him was me, in fact, and everything was in place then. Also, a piece of paper had been inserted into the folder, presumably to prevent having to return it empty. That would have attracted attention. The piece of paper dispels all doubt."

She snatched a piece of paper from her desk in a gesture of irritation.

"I hope you realize that history students are given access to our resources, manuscripts, and documents on the responsibility of the department. You, as head of department, cannot shirk that responsibility. Our institute simply can't afford having a reputation for losing old and valuable documents. Much of our work is based on cooperation with similar facilities in Scandinavia and I can't bear the thought of jeopardizing that cooperation because of your students' dishonesty."

Swallowing, Gunnar looked at the piece of paper Maria had handed to him. At that moment he would have liked to throw his hands up in the air and storm out. It was a printout of grades and courses from the students' register, clearly marked with the name Harald Guntlieb at the top. Gunnar put the paper down in his lap. "If Harald stole the letter and swapped it for this piece of paper, he was one of the stupidest thieves ever. He must have realized that it would backfire." Gunnar lifted up the printout and waved it.

Maria shrugged. "How am I supposed to know what he was thinking? I presume he planned to return it. If anyone knows why he can't now, it's youhe only got access to the collection a little over a month before he fell out of the closet and into your arms. Doubtless he saw from the register that the collection hadn't been touched for two months prior to that. Everyone who needed to had already examined it thoroughly. He rightly assumed that he had some time before he would be found out so he'd have a chance to swap it again before then. What he was planning to do with the letter in the meantime is a mystery to me. But he didn't live long enough to bring it back. That's the best explanation I can offer for this incident."

"What do you want me to do?" said Gunnar meekly.

"Do?" Maria echoed sarcastically. "I didn't call you in for moral support. I want you to find the letter." She waved her arms around. "Look in his place in the reading room and anywhere else he might have stashed it away. You know where to look better than I do. He was your student."

Gunnar gritted his teeth. He cursed the day Harald Guntlieb was admitted to the department and remembered how he alone had opposed his application. It had given him a creepy feeling immediately, especially when he saw that his B.A. dissertation was on witch hunts in Germany. He knew at once that the young man would be trouble. Overruled by a democratic vote in the department, he was now stuck in this mess on top of all the other problems the student had caused. "Who knows about this?"

"Me. You. I haven't discussed it with anyone else apart from the system administrator, and he doesn't know the whole story. He thinks it just involves the electronic document." She hesitated. "I also approached Bogi. He worked with the collection when it arrived and I tried to find out everything he knows. He suspects there's something wrong. I imagine he thinks the letter went astray; I didn't hint at my suspicions that it's been stolen."

Bogi was one of the research fellows at the institute. Gunnar thought someone as easygoing as him was unlikely to make a fuss. "When is the collection due back in Denmark? How long do I get to search for the letter?"

"I can delay it by a week at the most. If the letter hasn't been found by then, I'll have no choice but to notify them of its disappearance. I emphasize that your name will be mentioned again and again. I'll do everything in my power to make sure that you get humiliated by this, not us. Actually a little bird told me this wasn't the first time your department's been connected with missing documents." She looked at him quizzically.

Gunnar stood up, his face flushed. "I see." He did not feel confident about saying anything more at this stage, but turned around in the doorway to ask one final question that had been plaguing himeven though he would have liked to storm out, slamming the door. "Don't you have any idea what this letter was about? You say the collection was examined thoroughly, someone must remember."

Maria shook her head. "Bogi had a vague recollection. He was researching the establishment of the Zealand diocese in Denmark and its effect on Icelandic ecclesiastical history. That was quite a long time after the letter was written, so he didn't study it closely. But he did remember that it was difficult to make sense of, something to do with hell, plague, and the death of an emissary. That was all I could drag out of him without arousing his suspicions about how things stand."

"I'll be in touch," said Gunnar as he left. He went out and closed the door behind him without waiting for Maria's farewell.

One thing was certain. He had to find the letter.