Last Rituals

CHAPTER 25

The stately approach to the main building of the University of Iceland was in a league of its own when compared with other local buildings. Briet admired the view as she sat on the steps of the crescent-shaped driveway. For some reason she suddenly wanted to own a car. But that was out of the question on her pittance of a student loanshe'd love to meet the miser who calculated the cost of living it was supposed to meet.

It would be nice to finish her course and start workingnot that historians were big earners. If she wanted money she was in the wrong field. So she yearned to sink her claws into a good provider, as her elder sister had done when she married a lawyer. He worked for one of the big banks and was rolling in money. Her sister lived a life of luxury. Now they were building a huge house on the outskirts of the city and her sister, a political science graduate, worked mornings in one of the ministries and could play around shopping for the rest of the day.

Briet leaned up against Dori's side; he was sitting next to her. He was so handsome, a great guy reallyand, to top it off, doctors generally did very well for themselves.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked as he threw a snowball he had been busy making.

"Oh, I don't know," Briet answered wearily. "Hugi, mainly."

Dori followed the snowball's trajectory as it soared high into the air and landed right beside the statue of Saemundur the Wise and the seal. "He was a sorcerer," Dori said. "Did you know that?"

"Who?" Briet said in surprise. "Hugi?"

"No, Saemundur the Wise."

"Oh, him. Yes, of course I knew."

Dori gazed at the statue of the sorcerer beating a seal over the head with a prayer book. According to legend the seal was actually the devil himself, in disguise. It was a strange statue to put in front of a university, and Dori had long been fascinated with it.

Briet took a pack of cigarettes out of her bag. "Want one? Your favorite brand." She smirked as she handed him the white packet.

Dori smiled back at her as he looked up from the packet. "No, thanks. I've got some." He took one of his own and they both lit up. He leaned forward so that Briet had to take her hand off his shoulder. "What a mess."

"Tell me about it." Unsure of the best reply, Briet decided to play safe. She did not want him to do anything stupid that would have bad repercussions for her, and of course for him too. But she also wanted to show him that she had more understanding and integrity than Marta Mist.

"I'm sick of this bullshit." He stared straight ahead and thought a moment before continuing. "The other students here are totally different from us."

"I know," Briet said. "We're not exactly typical university students. I'm fed up with it too." She had no idea what they were talking about.

Dori went on talking and Briet had the impression he had not been listening to what she said. "What really strikes me most is that the other studentswho aren't always going out and partyingseem just as happy with life as we are. If anything, more satisfied."

Briet took her chance. She put her arm over Dori's shoulder and pressed her face toward his. "I've been thinking exactly the same thing. We've gone too far; if Andri and the others want to keep on, they can do it without me. I'm going to get a grip on myself, on my studies and everything really. It's no fun anymore." She had deliberately avoided mentioning Marta Mist by name for fear of giving herself away.

"That's funnyI kind of feel the same way." He turned to her and grinned. "We're not so different, you and me."

Briet gave him a peck on the cheek. "We're a good team. Forget the others."

"Not Hugi," said Dori, and his smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"No, of course not him," she hurried to say. "I'm always thinking about himhow do you reckon he feels?"

"Awful. I can't take this anymore."

"What?" Briet was afraid to askshe would have preferred to make a guess at what he meant, but she wasn't sure she'd get it right and she didn't want to spoil the way things were going.

Dori started to get to his feet. "I'll give that lawyer a couple more daysthen I'm going to the police. I don't give a shit what happens."

Damn. Briet desperately tried to think of a way to make Dori see some senseshe would even have gladly handed him over to Marta Mist, had she been there with them. "Dori, you didn't kill Harald, did you? You were at Kaffibrennslan, weren't you?"

He stood up and looked down at her, his expression far from pleasant. "Yes, I was at Kaffibrennslan. Where were you?" He walked away.

Briet was upset. She leaped to her feet and said: "I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry. I just meantwhy go to the police?"

Dori stopped dead in his tracks and spun round. "You knowI can't understand any longer why you and Marta Mist are so set against it. The day of reckoning always comes. Don't forget that." He strode off.

Briet had no idea how to react. A few moments later she took out her mobile and punched in a number.

Laura Amaming headed for the lobby of the Manuscript Institute where Gloria was struggling to vacuum the mat. Laura had not had the chance to talk to her alone all morning and she gladly seized the opportunity. "I need to ask you something."

Gloria looked up in surprise. "What? I'm doing exactly what you taught me."

Laura waved her hand dismissively. "I'm not talking about cleaning. I want to know if you noticed anything unusual in the common room over the weekend of the murder. You cleaned it then. Before the body was found."

Gloria's dark eyes widened. "I told youand the police. There was nothing."

Laura gave her a stern look. She was lying. "Gloria. Tell me the truth. You know lying's a sin. God knows what you saw in there. Are you going to lie to him, too, when the time comes for you to stand in front of him?" Laura took the girl by the shoulder and forced her to look her in the eye. "It's all right. You couldn't know there'd been a murder. No one went into the printer room that weekend. What did you see?"

A tear rolled down Gloria's cheek. Laura was unruffled; this was not the first tear that the girl had shed at work. "Gloria. Pull yourself together. Tell meI found traces of blood on the window handle of the common room. What was in there?"

The tear became two, then three, then they poured out in a steady flood. Gloria blurted out between sobs: "I didn't knowI didn't know."

"I'm aware of that, Gloria. Everyone is. How could you have known?" She wiped the tears from the girl's cheeks. "What was in there anyway?"

"Blood," the girl said, looking at Laura in terror. "But it wasn't a pool of blood or something like that. It was more like someone had tried to clean up and missed a few spots. I didn't realize until it was up off the floor and on my cloth. I didn't think any more of it thenI didn't know aboutyou know."

Laura heaved a sigh of relief. Traces of bloodnothing more than that. So Gloria was safe, she surely wouldn't land in trouble for concealing it. Laura had kept her own cloth with the blood from the window and could now give it to Tryggvi to pass on to the police. They had methods for tracing the owner of the blood. In her mind Laura had no doubt that the murder was committed in that room. "Gloriadon't worry about it. It's just a trivial matter. You'll just need to make a new statementjust tell the truth, that you didn't realize the importance of this information." She smiled, but the girl was still crying.

"There's something else," she said, still sniveling.

"Something else?" Laura asked, amazed. "Like what?"

"I found something else in there that morning. In the drawer where the knives are kept. I'll show you," Gloria said, and burst into tears again. "I kept it. Come with me."

Laura followed Gloria into one of the cleaning closets on the first floor. Her eyes still shiny with tears, Gloria climbed onto a small set of steps and reached up to the top shelf. Bringing down a small object wrapped in a paper towel, she handed it to Laura. "I kept it because I knew it was rather strange. And when the body was found, I realized what it was, and I got so scared. My fingerprints are on it and I was sure the police would think I killed him. I didn't kill him."

Laura cautiously unwrapped the paper towel. When she saw what was inside, she shrieked and made the sign of the cross. Gloria began to weep again.

Gudrun, or Gurra as her friends called her, repressed the urge to bite her nails with great difficulty. It was such a long time since she had stopped the habit that she could not even remember whenfor example, whether it was before or after she married Alli. She looked at her well-manicured hands. Unfortunately she was not wearing nail polish; picking that off was a good way to vent frustration. She wondered whether to paint them for the sole purpose of being able to pick it off again when the polish dried, but she abandoned the idea.

Instead she stood up and went into the kitchen. It was a Saturday and she had planned to make a nice meal. Alli worked every day except Sundays, so Saturday evening was their only time to relax together. Gurra looked at the clockit was far too early to make dinner yet. She sighed. Everything was clean and tidythere was no housework left to do. But if she could not find something to keep herself occupied she would go mad. Something to take her mind off her fear. She recalled how scared she'd been when the police knocked on their door with a search warrant for the upstairs apartment. Then nothing had happened. Incredible but true. All her worrying had been unfounded and she had begun to relax again. Until the other day.

Why were those people prying into the case again? Weren't the police satisfied with their findings? So why stir it all up again? She groaned. What had she been thinking? Even though Alli was normally a complete pig and had lost all interest in their marriage, she still didn't want to get rid of him. She even did a thing or two to hold on to him. At forty-three, she was too old to go back out on the market.

How stupid she had been. Sleeping with her lodger. And, the funny thing was, that apartment had often had much more attractive tenants than that freaky German. She could not have been in her right mindignoring the fact that it happened more than once, and indeed more than twice. Sex with him had been funthere was no denying that. There was an air of adventure about it, presumably because she knew she should not be doing it. Harald was also much, much younger than her husband and much more frisky. If only he hadn't been covered in all those awful scars and rings and studs.

Think, thinkshe took a deep breath. How could they ever find out? No one knew about it; she had never told a soul at least. Common sense alone had stopped her boasting about the affair to her best friend. Harald would hardly have talked about it. He had no need to bragthere was an endless stream of young women through his apartment. He could boast about them if he felt the urge to discuss his sexual conquests. She corrected herselfthat "endless stream" had really been only two girls for the most part: a tall redhead and a petite blonde. He would surely never have mentioned his affair with her, and the police certainly had no inkling of it. She had spoken to them briefly a few times and nothing in their words or attitude ever implied that they considered her relationship with Harald to be more than that between a landlady and tenant. Which was actually how it had become toward the end. Harald had told her he couldn't be bothered anymore, he had other fish to fry. She grimaced at the thought.

She would have preferred to be the one who broke it off. To his credit he thanked her very nicely for the memories, but that did not stop her from losing it completely. She blushed at the recollection. How shamefully uncivilized of her. She was really annoyed about his true reason, although he had never actually admitted it to her. He had found himself a steady girlfriend. Gurra had seen them entering and leaving his flat several times during the week before he was murdered. This was a new girl who had not visited Harald before as far as Gurra knew. They spoke German together so she was presumably a compatriot of hisperhaps Icelandic women were not quite good enough for him when it came down to it. She was furious at Harald's hypocrisy; it was fine for her to cheat on her husband but he couldn't cheat on his girlfriend. No, he was too good for that.

So what, it was over and done with and what mattered now was not dwelling on something that might never come to light. She went into the laundry room. It was a long time since she had cleaned it properly. It was located off the corridor and could be reached from her own apartment and the hallway off Harald's. That was one of the few modifications they had made when they decided to buy the house and rent out the upper floor. She put the latch up and went inside.

Yes, there was work to be done here. The floor was still covered with pawprints from the police dogs who had searched everywhere for drugs. Fortunately nothing was found in the laundryGurra had no idea whether she and Alli would have been placed on the list of suspects or some sort of narcotics squad register if drugs had been found in the common area. Their presence had been requested during the search, which made no difference, since neither of them had ever touched drugsat least she hadn't. Who knows what Alli got up to on those endless business trips of his. But it didn't really matterthe police let the dogs sniff all around and when they seemed satisfied they abandoned the room without further ado. One officer had peeked inside the dryer and washing machine, mostly for curiosity's sake. That was it.

She opened the closet and took out a broom and bucket. When she removed the bucket she noticed a box. She stared at it. The last time she had cleaned the laundry room there was no box in the closet. It was usually empty apart from cleaning equipment for both apartments. Carefully she took it out. It must be Harald's. She tried to remember the last time she mopped the floor of the laundry room. Oh, my Godit had been when he dumped her. He had walked in to put some wash in the machine, and when she suggestedwith no effort to conceal her real intentionsthat she was up for doing it, he announced with a smile that enough was enough.

Since that unpleasant memory was from right before the murder, Harald must have placed the box there just prior to his demise. Why? He had never accepted her offer to use the storage room. The four shelves reserved for the tenant stood empty. Could he have wanted to hide something from his new girlfriend, thrown it into a box and stashed it away there? Judging from his physical appearance and bizarre decor, he was unlikely to have anything to conceal. Her heart skipped a beat. Unless he had secretly filmed his conquests and did not want his girlfriend to find them? There was hardly a more repulsive way to enter a relationshipthe thought of becoming an entry in a sexual conquest collection. Gurra clutched her head in both hands. It could even be her on tape or in some photographs. She stood riveted to the spot staring at the box. She had to open it. There was no alternative. She had to open the box and convince herself that nothing in it would reveal her secret.

Gurra bent down and forced up the cardboard flaps. She stared at the contents. No photographsno tapes. There were dishcloths wrapped around fragile objects, she supposed, and sheets of paper in plastic file holders. It was a massive relief. She reached for one piece of paper and saw that it was a very old letter, presumably valuable. The script and text were undecipherable, so she put it under her arm, planning to take a better look later. She browsed through the rest of the papers and to her great relief saw that they had nothing to do with Harald's private life either. One other sheet caught her attention, though. It appeared to have sloppy scribbles all over it, scrawled in red ink, and the paperif it was paperwas thick, dark, and waxy. The text was bizarre and a rune or symbol had been drawn at the bottom of the page. It was signed with two names, both illegible although she recognized Harald's as one of them from the tenancy agreement. She put it back in the box. Odd.

Gurra pushed the contents to one side in order to reach the fragile objects wrapped in dishcloths at the bottom. She took hold of one package and carefully lifted it up. It was lightalmost as if the cloth was empty. Cautiously she opened it and stared in awe at the contents. She shrieked, clenched her fist around the old letter that she was still holding, and flung the dishcloth to the floor. She ran out of the laundry room and slammed the door.

Gunnar picked up the phone and dialed the extension for Maria, the director of the Manuscript Institute. She was probably still at work even on a Saturday. A large exhibition was pending, and judging from the commotion surrounding the last major event, the institute would be a hive of activity. "Hello, Maria, Gunnar here." He made an effort to sound suitably authoritativethe voice of a man of integrity who had no desire to give an exaggerated impression of himself.

"Oh, it's you." Her curt response suggested that his tone had not impressed her. "I was just about to contact you. Any news?"

"Yes and no," Gunnar said slowly. "I'm well on my way to locating the document, I think."

"I feel much better knowing that you think you've got it," she said sarcastically.

Gunnar was careful not to get drawn into an argument. "I've looked everywhere in the department and I've contacted the representatives of Harald's family who are going to search his belongings. The document is thereI'm convinced."

"Don't you mean you think you're convinced?"

"Listen, I only called to keep you in the picturethere's no need to be rude," Gunnar said, although what he wanted to do most of all was slam down the phone.

"Quite right, sorry. We're so busy here with the exhibition. I'm all on edge. Don't let it upset you," Maria said in a much friendlier tone of voice. "But I stand by my word, Gunnar. You have only a few more days to find it. I can't start covering up for your students."

Gunnar wondered how many days "a few" would be. Hardly more than five, probably more like three. He did not want to press her for a more precise answer, from fear that she would shorten the deadline. "I realize thatI'll let you know the moment I hear something."

They exchanged dry good-byes. Leaning forward onto his elbows, Gunnar hid his head in his hands. The letter had to be found. If not, he would probably have to resign. It was unthinkable for the head of department to be implicated in the theft of documents from a foreign institute. Hatred welled up inside him. That bloody Harald Guntlieb. Before he arrived on the scene Gunnar had even toyed with the idea of one day standing for election as vice chancellor. His only dream now was that life would return to normal. That was all. There was a knock at his door.

Gunnar sat up and called out: "Come in."

"Hello, may I disturb you for a moment?" It was Tryggvi, the janitor. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. With slow steps he walked up to Gunnar's desk and declined the offer of a seat. He held out his hand, palm up. "One of the cleaners found this in the students' common room."

Gunnar picked up a little steel star. After examining it carefully, he looked in surprise at Tryggvi. "What is it? It can't be worth anything."

The caretaker cleared his throat. "I think it's a star from Harald's shoes. She found it the other day but only told me about it just now." Gunnar gave him a blank look. "So what? I don't quite follow."

"There was something else. If I understand her correctly, she also found traces of blood around the window." Tryggvi looked into Gunnar's eyes, waiting for a reply.

"Blood? Wasn't he strangled?" asked Gunnar, incredulous. "Isn't it just an old bloodstain, then?"

Tryggvi shrugged. "I don't know. I just wanted to let you have thisit's up to you what you do with it." He began to turn around, then stopped in his tracks. "Of course, he wasn't just strangled."

Gunnar's stomach churned at the thought of the awful abuse of the body. "Yes, quite right." He stared at the steel star, baffled. Then he looked up when Tryggvi spoke again.

"I'm certain it's from the shoe he was wearing when he was murdered. But of course I have no idea whether the star fell off before then."

"Well, well," muttered Gunnar. Gritting his teeth, he looked sternly at Tryggvi, stood up, and said: "Thank you, it might be irrelevant but you did right to let me know."

The janitor nodded calmly. "Actually there's something else," he said, and produced a folded paper towel from his pocket. "The woman who cleaned the common room over the weekend of the murder found traces of blood on the floor which someone had tried to clean up. And she found this too." He gave the paper towel to Gunnar. "I think we should talk to the police." After thanking the professor, he left the room.

Gunnar sat down again, stared at the star and thought about what to do. Was it important? Would a call to the police be a Pandora's box that would start the questioning all over again? That must not happen. It simply must not happen now that everything was getting back to routine. Apart from that bloody letter, of course. With a groan, Gunnar put the star down. It could surely wait until Monday. He opened the paper towel. It took him a while to realize how the object he was holding was linked to the case. When he realized, he just managed to put his hand over his mouth before letting out a scream. He picked up the telephone and dialed the emergency number for the police, 112. This one could not wait until Monday.