Last Rituals

CHAPTER 21

Thora had not seen so much bad posture in one place since her son celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Yet the young people in front of her and Matthew were almost ten years older. They were all sitting as if they had dropped into the sofa out of the skyapart from the tall red-haired girland staring at their toes. After Gunnar called that morning, Thora had contacted Briet and arranged for the group to meet her and Matthew. Briet did not sound very pleased but reluctantly agreed to round them up and meet at eleven o'clockat a place where they could smoke. Strapped for choices, Thora had suggested Harald's apartment. Her proposal was greeted as grumpily as the idea of meeting in the first place, but judging from the curt exchange that preceded it, Thora realized that she could have invited them to Paris and earned the same response. Matthew was delighted with the venue, which he thought might throw them off balance and make them more likely to tell the truth.

While they were waiting for the students, Thora showed Matthew the handwritten sheet of paper that had been inside The Witches' Hammer. They pored over it for some time without reaching a solid conclusion except that "Innsbruck1485" was clearly connected with Kramer's arrival there and, presumably, with the old letters Harald was so enchanted with. Thora was fairly certain that "J.A." stood for Bishop Jon Arason, because 1550 was the year of his execution. On the other hand, she could not figure out why Harald had crossed it out. As far as they could see, this was how Harald imagined the precious object's travels. Matthew had never heard of the visitors' book of the crossthere was no visitors' book in the apartment, nor did he recall the police taking it away during their search. The doorbell disturbed any further speculation.

The students arranged themselves in Harald's living room, sitting close together on the two sofas with Thora and Matthew facing them on chairs. Thora had found a few ashtrays and the air was already thick with smoke.

"What do you want from us anyway?" asked the red-haired girl, Marta Mist. Her friends turned to look at her, relieved that a leader had emerged to divert attention from them. They all smoked nonstop.

"We just wanted to talk to you about Harald," said Thora. "As you know, we've repeatedly tried to meet you but have always received a less than warm response."

Marta Mist was unruffled. "We've been busy at school and we've got better things to do than talk to people we don't know from Adam. Actually, we're under no obligation to talk to you. We've all made statements to the police."

"Yes, quite right," Thora said, trying to conceal how much the girl got on her nerves, as in fact they all did. "We're very grateful to you for taking the time to come and we promise we won't keep you for long. As you know, we're looking into Harald's murder on behalf of his family in Germany and we understand you were his closest circle of friends."

"Well, I don't know; we went around with him quite a bit but we have no idea what he did on his own, naturally," said Marta Mist, and Briet nodded solemnly in agreement. The others just stared into their laps.

"You talk like you're one person, not five," said Matthew. "We've spoken to Hugi Thorisson, whom you all know, of course, and according to him it was you, Halldor, who went around with Harald the mosthelped him with translations and other things." He addressed his words to Dori, who sat squashed up against Marta Mist. "Am I correct?"

Dori looked up. "Er, yeah, we hung around together quite a bit. Harald had trouble with Icelandic documents and stuff that I helped him with. We were good mates." He shrugged to emphasize that their friendship had been fairly ordinary.

"You're a good mate of Hugi's too, aren't you?" Thora asked.

"Yes. We're childhood friends," Dori said, and looked down. With a deft jerk of his head he let his hair fall down to avoid further eye contact.

"It must matter to you that we have a clear picture of what happened. One of your friends was murdered and another friend is suspected of killing him. I'd expect you to be eager to help us. Right?" Matthew smiled at Dori but it failed to penetrate his hair and reach his eyes. He turned to the others. "And the rest of youthe same applies to you, of course?"

They all indicated their agreement by muttering "yes" down into their chests or nodding.

"Good." Matthew slapped his thigh. "So we're all set. Apart from where to start." He looked over at Thora. "Thora, would you like to do the honors?"

Thora smiled at the students. "How about you tell us where you met Harald and explain the nature of this magic society of yours? We find it all very peculiar."

Everyone looked at Marta Mist, hoping that she would take the task on. But she passed the question on to Dori with a nudge of her elbow, which looked unnecessarily forceful to Thora. Dori grimaced, but answered. "How we met? I first met Harald with Hugi last year. They'd met at a bar in town. I thought he was a laugh and we started hanging around together, like you do. We went out to restaurants and bars and concerts and stuff. Then Harald asked if we were interested in joining a society he was thinking about setting up and we just said yes. That's how we met the others."

Marta Mist took over. "I joined the society through Briet. She'd met Harald in class and wanted me to see what they were up to." Briet nodded fervently in agreement.

"What about you?" Thora directed her words at Andri and Brjann who sat side by side, smoking.

"Us?" Andri coughed, choking on the smoke he had forgotten to exhale.

"Yes," Thora replied. "You two." She pointed at them to dispel all doubt.

Brjann went first. "I'm doing history and I heard about the society the same way as BrietI'd chatted to Harald a bit before and he invited me to join. I took Andri along for a laugh." Andri smiled sheepishly.

"And what was the point of this society, if I may ask? We understood from Hugi that it mainly involved orgiesdisguised as meetings of people who were interested in sorcery in the historical sense."

The three boys grinned while Marta Mist turned down the corners of her mouth and said in tones of outraged innocence: "Orgies? There were no orgies. We were learning about sorcery and witchcraft culture in ancient times. The old stories really aren't so dull after all, they're really interesting. The fact that we had a bit of fun after the meetings is irrelevant, and Hugi's got the wrong end of the stick as usual. He never had a clue what that society was about." She leaned back and folded her arms. Her frown stayed put. She glared at Matthew and Thora. "Of course you have no idea what it was about eitherI bet you think we were decapitating chickens and sticking pins in homemade dolls."

"Would you be so kind as to explain the world of witchcraft, then?" asked Matthew.

Marta Mist groaned. "I'm not going to play teacher with you. All you need to understand is that magic is just an individual's attempt to influence his own life in unconventional waysat least, unconventional to the modern mind. In its day it was very common and for those born into poverty at the time it was the only hope they had of possibly changing their circumstances for the better. It mainly involves performing acts that will twist events in your favorsometimes at someone else's expense, sometimes not. In my view, when you've made the effort to perform the charm you've taken one step toward a specific aim and you can focus on it better afterward, so you're more likely to achieve it than before."

"Can you give me an example?" said Thora.

"Winning love or success; healing; harming an enemy. There's no limit, really. Most of the old charms are connected with basic needs, thoughlife wasn't so complicated back then."

After reading Malleus Maleficarum, Thora begged to differ. To her mind at least, it was very complicated to try to defend someone in a judicial system that constantly bent and changed the rules according to the interests of the prosecution. "So what do you use in your spells?" she asked, and to get a rise out of Marta Mist she added: "Apart from headless chickens and homemade dolls?"

"Very funny," said Marta Mist, without a trace of a smile. "In Iceland it was mainly magical symbolsalthough they often had to do more than carve or draw them to complete the spell. We know of magical symbols from other parts of Europe, too, and the same applied to themit wasn't always enough just to draw them."

"Such as?" Matthew asked.

"Reciting a charm, collecting animal bones, human bones, the hair of a virgin. That sort of thing. Nothing serious," Marta Mist answered coldly.

"Yes, and sometimes human body parts," Briet interjected. The group suddenly fell silent. She blushed and clammed up.

"Really?" Matthew said with feigned surprise. "Like what? Hands? Hair?" He paused briefly. "Or maybe eyes?"

No one said anything until Marta Mist spoke up. "I've never read of any spell where eyes are neededapart from the eyes of animals."

"What about the rest of you? Do you know about any such spells?" asked Matthew.

None of them spoke, but they all shook their heads. "Nope," Brjann said eventually.

"What about fingers?" Thora asked quickly. "Have you read aboutor performeda spell that needs a finger?"

"No." Dori's voice was firm and he swept his hair from his eyes in order to press his point home by looking Thora and Matthew in the eye. "We want to make it perfectly clear that we haven't been doing spells that use human body parts. I don't know what you're insinuating, but it's ridiculous. We didn't kill Haraldyou can rule that out for a start. The cops have our alibis and had them checked out." Dori leaned forward and took a cigarette from one of the packets on the table. He lit it, took a deep drag, and exhaled slowly.

"So Hugi killed him, then?" Thora asked. "Are you saying that?"

"No, I didn't say that at all. You ought to listen more carefully," Dori said heatedly. He leaned forward as if about to say more, but Marta Mist put her arm out and pushed him back against the sofa.

Then she spoke, much calmer than Halldor. "I don't know where your logic is coming from, but just because we didn't kill Harald doesn't automatically mean that Hugi did. Dori was just pointing out that we didn't kill Harald. Basta." Now it was Marta Mist's turn to lean back in the sofa. She plucked the cigarette from between Dori's fingers, took a drag, and returned it. Briet's face signaled annoyance; this obvious sign of intimacy seemed to jostle her nerves.

"Hugi didn't kill him. He's not like that," Dori muttered gruffly. He pushed Marta Mist's arm away and reached across the table to tap the ash from his cigarette.

"What about you? Are you like that? If I remember correctly, you didn't have as good an alibi as your friends." Matthew stared at Dori and waited for a response.

And it came. Dori's voice deepened in anger and as soon as he started speaking he shifted to the edge of the sofaas close to Matthew as he could get without falling off. "Harald was my friend. My good friend. We looked out for each other, did stuff for each other. I would never have killed him. Never. You're even wider off the mark than the cops, and you don't know what the fuck you're going on about." To punctuate his words he stabbed his burning cigarette at Matthew.

"What did you do for him, anyway? Apart from translating for him?" interrupted Thora.

Dori took his eyes off Matthew and glared just as vehemently at Thora. He opened his mouth as if about to say something, then stopped. After taking a last puff and stubbing out his cigarette, he moved back to his place on the sofa.

Brjann, the history student, assumed the role of peacemaker. "Er, I don't understand exactly what you're driving atof course someone killed Harald and if it wasn't Hugi, who was it? But you'll save yourselves a lot of time and effort if you just accept we're telling the truth. None of us killed Harald. We had no reason tohe was fun, always doing crazy things, really generous, and a good friend and companion to us all. Our society's nothing without him, for example. Not to mention the fact that none of us could have killed himwe weren't anywhere nearby and plenty of witnesses can confirm that."

Andri, who was working on a master's degree in chemistry, backed him up. His eyes were glassy and Thora had a faint suspicion that he was high. Perhaps his interest in chemistry went beyond the realms of academia. "It's completely true. Harald was unique; none of us would ever have wanted to get rid of him. He could be sarcastic and acted weird sometimes, but he was always really decent when it came down to it."

"How lovely," Matthew said witheringly. "But I'd like to know one thing. You were all at the party apart from Halldor. Do you remember Hugi and Harald going into the bathroom together and coming out with bloodstains on their clothes?"

All the students shook their heads, except Halldor. "No one was thinking about clothes in there." Andri shrugged. "That may well have happened but I for one don't remember it." The other three nodded in agreement.

They sat and said nothing for a while. Several cigarettes were stubbed out and more were lit. Matthew broke the silence. "So you don't know who killed Harald?"

In unison, the group said firmly: "No."

"And you've never used body parts, like a finger for example, in your black magic?" he went on.

With less synchronization: "No."

"And you don't recognize this magic symbol?" Matthew threw a drawing of the magic symbol that had been carved into Harald's chest onto the table.

In unison again: "No."

"That would be more convincing if you looked at the paper," Matthew said sarcastically. None had done more than barely glance at the drawing.

"The cops showed us that symbol. We know perfectly well what you're talking about," drawled Marta Mist. She laid her hand casually on Dori's thigh.

"Fair enoughI understand. But can you tell us what happened to all the money Harald transferred to Iceland shortly before he died?" asked Matthew.

"No, we don't know anything about that. We were Harald's friends, not his accountants."

"Did he buy anything, or talk about buying something?" Thora asked, directing her words at Briet, whom she thought most likely to tell the truth.

"He was always buying things," Briet said, darting her eyes toward Marta Mist and Dori. Noticing the former's hand on the latter's thigh, she turned back to Thora and added: "If not for himself, then for Dori. They were so close." She smiled maliciously.

Thora noticed a blush fill Dori's cheeks. "What did he buy for you, and why?" she asked.

Dori rocked awkwardly on the sofa. "It wasn't like that. Sometimes he gave me this or that in exchange for the help I gave him."

Thora refused to let him off the hook. "Like what?"

Dori blushed even more. "Just stuff." He flicked his hair back over his eyes.

Matthew slapped his thigh againmore determined now than before. "Well, folks. I have an idea. Marta Mist, Briet, Brjann, and Andriyou don't know anything, so you claim, and there doesn't seem much to be had out of you. How about you going home to study, or to class, or whatever it is you're so busy withand Thora and I can have a quiet chat with Dori?" He addressed Halldor. "Isn't that best? It might be less awkward."

"As if!" Marta Mist shrieked. "Dori doesn't know any more than the rest of us." She turned to Dori. "You don't have to stay. Let's all leave."

Dori said nothing at first, then brushed her hand from his thigh and shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay? Okay what? Are you coming with us?" Marta Mist asked irritably.

"No," replied Dori. "I want to get this over with. I'm staying."

Marta Mist's expression darkened, but she restrained herself and feigned indifference. She bent over Dori and whispered something to him before standing up. He nodded vacantly. Thora watched as Marta Mist planted a soft kiss on Dori's head and Briet pretended not to notice. Andri and Brjann busily put out their cigarettes and got to their feet. There was no mistaking their relief.