Last Rituals

CHAPTER 4

There turned out to be five sheets of paper in the printer, not one as Thora had expected. The Web site actually contained much more than just a single screen's worth, and Thora began reading the pages on her way back to her office.

The brief introductory paragraph stated that Malleus Maleficarum was undoubtedly one of the most notorious books ever written. First published in 1486, it was intended as a manual to teach inquisitors how to recognize, prosecute, and execute witches. It emphasized that black magic and various customs of the common people were now considered blasphemy, which was punishable by death at that timepractitioners were burned at the stake. The book was divided into three parts, according to the article. The first was aimed at making people realize that magic and witchcraft were real phenomena, and also that these were considered evil and unnatural. It stated that the mere act of believing in the existence of the black arts was blasphemous, which was a new ruling. Section two was a compendium of lurid tales about witches' practices, dominated by sex with demonic beings. The third and final section laid down the foundation for prosecuting witches. It underlined that torture was a permissible means of extracting confessions and everyone was allowed to testify against those accused of such crimes, irrespective of reputation or other normal standards for deeming witnesses unfit or partial.

The authors of the text were said to be two Dominican Black Friars: Jakob Sprenger, at that time chancellor of the University of Cologne, and Heinrich Kramer, professor of divinity at the University of Salzburg and chief inquisitor in Tyrol. The latter was credited with authoring the majority of the text, as he had been extensively involved in prosecuting witches ever since 1476. The work was reputedly written at the urging of Pope Innocent VIII, who did not appear to be a particularly attractive character according to this account. He was attributed with starting the witch hunts in Europe by issuing the papal bull of December 5, 1484, titled Summus desiderantes affectibus, authorizing the Inquisition to prosecute witches and equating sorcery with blasphemy.

It also enumerated this pope's attempts, in old age, to ward off death by drinking milk from women's breasts and having his blood changed. While this did not grant him a renewed life span, it did cause the death of three ten-year-old boys from loss of blood.

Thora learned that the book soon gained widespread circulation with the advent of printing, and also because its authors were known and respected scholars. Catholics and Protestants alike drew on it in their battles against witchcraft. Part of the book found its way into the law of the Holy Roman Empire, now Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, eastern France, the Low Countries, and part of Italy. Thora was astonished to read that the book was still regularly published.

She put down the printout. Interesting as it was, a six-hundred-year-old book hardly shed much light on the death of Harald Guntlieb. Looking at her watch, she saw that she had only an hour left. She stapled the pages together, put them to one side, and turned back to the folder on Harald. She turned to section six, the police investigation.

At first glance the summary did not look thick enough to contain the case documents in their entirety. Perhaps Matthew had only managed to procure some of them; in fact, Thora was shocked that he could have obtained them at all without a formal request. She flicked through the contents, which turned out to be a photocopy of the police interrogation reports. A stamp indicated that they had been handed over two weeks before.

Here she was on home ground. It was all in Icelandic, which was possibly the reason that the Guntliebs had decided to enlist an Icelander. The pages were heavily annotated in an untidy hand, obviously because Matthew had tried to puzzle his way through them. In the upper right-hand corner of most reports he had written a brief note stating who was being interviewed and his or her connection with Harald. Most of the reports were from interrogations of Hugi Thorisson, who was still detained in custody awaiting charges. Thora was interested to note that throughout the interrogations he had always had the status of suspect rather than witnesssomething had surely indicated his guilt immediately. Unlike a witness, he was therefore not obliged to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So he could say virtually anything, although it would hardly serve his interests before the courtjudges tended to turn grumpy if the accused said they had been out for dinner with Donald Duck or something equally as likely at the time of their alleged crime.

It suddenly dawned on Thora how Matthew had obtained the documents. The lawyer appointed to defend a suspect was entitled access to police records. Hugi Thorisson's lawyer had therefore had access to them all. Thora quickly flicked through the reports, looking for one in which Hugi had had a lawyer with him, to see who it was. In the first interrogations Hugi was alone. This was only to be expected; people generally do not ask to have a lawyer present at the start of an investigation, presumably because they think it makes them look more suspicious. When the going gets tougher they begin to hesitate and more often than not refuse to speak without one. This had clearly happened in Hugi's case, because at the very end of the investigation Thora saw that he had finally had the sense to ask for a lawyer.

Finnur Bogason had been assigned to him. Thora recognized the name. Finnur was one of those lawyers who generally handle cases in which they are appointed to the defense. In other words, no one approaches them of their own accord. Thora was convinced that, for the right sum, he would have given Matthew the documents. Pleased with her powers of deduction, she started reading through the interrogations.

The reports were not arranged chronologically, but according to the person being interviewed. Several witnesses were only interrogated once. These included the university porter, the cleaners, Harald's landlady, a taxi driver who had given him and Hugi a lift on that fateful evening, and several of his fellow students and teachers. The head of the history department, who discovered the body, had been interviewed twice because he was in such a state of shock the first time that he had not spoken a word of sense. Thora pitied the poor man; it must have been a terrible experience, and the horror of finding a corpse in his arms oozed from every sentence of the interrogation.

Next came those who were under suspicion, at least temporarily. Among themof coursewas Hugi Thorisson, who continuously asserted his innocence. Thora hurriedly read the main body of his interrogation. Hugi said he had met Harald on the evening in question at a party in Skerjafjordur. They left it for a while and then split up when Harald expressed an interest in going back to the party and Hugi had wanted to head downtown. In the first interviews Hugi revealed little of where they had gone together, only vaguely mentioning a stroll through the cemetery. Later on, when he realized that he was going to be charged with murder, he said they had gone back to his flat on Hringbraut to fetch some drugs that Harald wanted to buy from him. He swore blindly that he not seen Harald after that; he could not be bothered to go out again so he stayed at home. He was unable to give precise times for any of these events, claiming he was drunk and stoned that evening.

Given how often Hugi was asked whether he could provide more detail about his movements around one o'clock on the morning of Sunday, October 30, Thora was convinced that an autopsy had revealed this to be the time of Harald's death. Hugi was repeatedly asked why he had removed Harald's eyes and where he had put them. Hugi consistently replied that he had not taken his eyes. He had no eyes, apart from his own, of course. Thora could only pity the poor man if he was telling the truth. She suspected that he was. Although she had only leafed through the case, the feeling remained that it would be highly unlikely for a weak-willed person, as Hugi appeared to be, to tell anything but the truth after such long isolation and intense interrogation.

Harald's friends and acquaintances who were at the party in Skerjafjordur were suspects at first, but then they were interrogated as witnesses. There were ten of them in all, including four of the five names on the list Thora had noticed at the front of the folder. The only name missing was the medical student Halldor Kristinsson.

All the partygoers told the same story. The party had begun at nine and ended at two when they went into town. Harald had left around midnight with Hugi, but no one knew why. The pair had said they were just popping out and had driven off in a taxi Hugi had ordered. Two hours later the others had given up waiting and gone barhopping. Asked whether they had tried to phone Hugi or Harald, they all gave the same answer: Harald's battery had died earlier that evening and Hugi did not answer their repeated calls to his mobile or home phone. Nor had anyone answered Harald's home phone when they rang there. They were also asked about what time they eventually went home from town, but, given the time frame, these questions were more for the sake of form. It turned out that the group had departed at different times, some not leaving until five in the morning. The student friends from the list of names went last, by which time the fifth, the medical student, Halldor, had joined them downtown. Thora continued browsing in the hope that he had been called in for questioning. He seemed to be the only one who had not been at the party around the time of the murder. Where had he been? Thora wondered.

The answer was at the end of the section. Halldor had been interviewed, and it turned out that he had been working until midnight at the City Hospital, where he had a part-time job. That was why he was not at the party. It involved only a handful of shifts a month, Halldor had said; he came in as a substitute when someone was ill or for other reasons. He had taken a change of clothes with him, and after showering at the hospital and getting ready, he took the bus into town. By his own account his car was not working and he gave the name of the garage where it was being mended over the period in question. Halldor said he originally planned to change buses and take another to Skerjafjordur, but he had just missed the last one and decided to go into town to wait for the partygoers at a cafe instead of forking out for a taxi or walking there. He claimed he had telephoned them and they said they were just on their way. It was around one when he arrived at a bar called Kaffibrennslan, and he bought a beer while he waited, he said. Around two he finally met the people from the party when they arrived in a taxi.

A series of witness statements followed, interviews with teachers from the history department. These mostly involved how well they knew Harald, and they all said the samethey did not know him outside the university and had little to say about him. There was another question mark over a meeting at the faculty building the night Harald was murdered. It was held to celebrate a cooperative project with a Norwegian university involving a large Erasmus grant. Reading between the lines, Thora inferred that this "meeting" was more of a cocktail party that lasted well into the evening. The last guests left around midnight. None of the names were familiar to her apart from Gunnar Gestvik, the head of department, and Thorbjorn Olafsson, the professor supervising Harald's dissertation.

The final statements were taken from a barman at Kaffibrennslan and the bus driver who drove Halldor from the hospital into town.

The waiter, whose name was Bjorn Jonsson, said he had first served Halldor around one o'clock that night, then several times again within the hour and finally around two when his friends had joined him. He said he remembered Halldor well because of how fast and furiously he drank that night.

The bus driver also remembered Halldor as a passenger on his last journey. There were very few people on the bus and the two of them had struck up a conversation, discussing the state of the health system and how poorly old people were treated. As far as Thora could see, Halldor had a fairly watertight alibi. As did all Harald's friends, except Hugi.

The reports were followed by several pages of photocopied photographs taken at the scene of the murder. Although blurred and in black-and-white, they were clear enough to give a good idea of the horrific scene. Now Thora understood even better the shock of the man who found the body, and she doubted he would ever recover.

The alarm on Thora's mobile reminded her that it was a quarter to five. She hurriedly flipped through to the final section, on the autopsy. How strange, she thought, and stood up. There was nothing behind the seventh divider. The section was empty.