My Soul to Take

CHAPTER 3

I can’t understand what’s become of Birna,” muttered Jónas, reaching for a floral-patterned cup containing the elixir whose praises he had just been singing to Thóra. This was a special brew of tea from local herbs that, according to Jónas, cured all manner of ailments and ills. Thóra had accepted a cup and taken a sip, and judging from the taste, the tea must have been exceptionally wholesome.

“I would have liked the two of you to meet,” he added, after taking a mouthful and placing the cup down carefully on the saucer. There was something quite ridiculous about this, for the cup and saucer were so oddly delicate, bone china with a slender handle that looked even smaller in Jónas’s big hands. He was far from delicately built—big-boned without being fat, weather-beaten and with an air of one who would rather swig strong coffee from a mug onboard a trawler than sip undrinkable herbal tea from a ladylike cup following a yoga class.

Thóra smiled and made herself comfortable in her chair. They were in Jónas’s office at the hotel, and her back ached after driving up west. The Friday traffic had been heavy, and it didn’t help that she had had to drive her children to their father’s house in Gardabær on her way out of town. The traffic had crawled along as if every single resident of the capital were on exactly the same route. Although this was not officially his weekend to have the children, Hannes had offered to swap because he would be abroad at a medical conference the following weekend. Consequently Thóra had decided to take Jónas up on his offer and spend the weekend at the New Age spa hotel on Snæfellsnes. She was going to use the opportunity to relax, have a massage and unwind, as Jónas had suggested, but the main purpose of her trip was of course to dissuade him from claiming compensation for the supposed haunting. Thóra wanted to end the conversation as quickly as possible and go to her room for a nap.

“She’ll turn up,” Thóra said, just for the sake of saying something. She knew nothing about the architect; the woman could easily be a raving alcoholic who had fallen off the wagon and would not be seen for weeks.

Jónas huffed. “It’s not like her. We were meant to go over the draft plans for the new building this morning.” He flicked through some papers on his desk, clearly annoyed with the architect.

“Couldn’t she just have popped back to Reykjavík to fetch something?” Thóra asked, hoping he would stop talking about this woman. The ache in her back was beginning to spread to her shoulders.

Jónas shook his head. “Her car’s outside.” He slammed down both hands on the edge of the desk. “Anyway. You’re here at least.” He smiled. “I’m dying to tell you about the ghost, but that will have to wait until we have more time.” Glancing at his watch, he stood up. “I have to do my rounds. I make it a rule to talk to my staff at the end of every day. I have a better sense of the operations and the situation if I know about any problems from the very start. That makes it easier to intervene.”

Thóra stood up, delighted to be free. “Yes, by all means. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here all weekend and there’s plenty of time to discuss it.” As Thóra slung her bag over her shoulder, she noticed an awful smell and wrinkled her nose. “What’s that stink?” she asked Jónas. “I smelled it out in the car park too. Is there a fish-oil factory near here?”

Jónas took a few deep breaths. Then he looked at Thóra with a blank expression. “I can’t smell anything. I suppose I’ve got used to the goddamn stench,” he said. “A whale has washed up just down the beach from here. When the wind’s in a certain direction, the smell wafts over the grounds.”

“What?” Thóra said. “Do you just have to wait for the carcass to rot away?” She pulled a face when another wave of the stench swept in. If only the problem she was here to deal with was something like this, it would be a cinch.

“You get used to it,” Jónas said. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number. “Hi. I’m sending Thóra over. Have someone show her to her room and fix a massage for her this evening.” He said goodbye and put the receiver down. “If you go to reception, I’ve reserved you the best room, with a lovely view. You won’t be disappointed.”

A young girl accompanied Thóra from the reception to the much-praised room. She was so small that she barely reached up to Thóra’s shoulder. Thóra disliked letting such a slip of a girl carry her bag for her, but had no say in the matter. She was glad that her luggage was not that heavy, even though, as always, she had brought far too much with her. Thóra was convinced that different laws applied on holiday from everyday life, that she would wear clothes that she normally neglected in her wardrobe, but she always ended up in the same clothes as usual. She followed the girl down a long corridor that appeared wider than it was because of the skylight that ran its length. The evening sun shone on the thin, fair hair of the girl in front of her.

“Is this a fun place to work?” Thóra asked, making small talk.

“No,” replied the girl without turning around. “I’m looking for another job. There’s just nothing going.”

“Oh,” said Thóra. She had not expected such a frank answer. “Are the people you work with boring?”

The girl looked back over her shoulder without slowing her pace. “Yes and no. Most of them are all right. Some are real idiots.” The girl stopped by one of the doors, fished a plastic card out of her pocket, and opened it. “But I’m probably not the best judge. I’m not too keen on the bullshit they try to feed the guests.”

For the hotel’s sake, Thóra hoped that this girl did not have much contact with the customers. She wasn’t exactly the world’s best sales-woman. “And is that why you want to quit?” she asked.

“No. Not exactly,” the girl answered, showing Thóra into the room. “It’s something else. I can’t explain exactly. This is a bad place.”

Thóra had entered the room first and couldn’t see the girl’s face as she said this. She couldn’t tell if she was serious, but the tone of her voice suggested that she was. Thóra looked around the beautiful room and walked over to a wall of glass overlooking the ocean. Outside was a small terrace.

“Bad in what way?” she asked, turning to look at the girl. The view implied quite the opposite; the waves glistened beyond an empty, peaceful beach.

The girl shrugged. “Just bad. This has always been a bad place. Everyone knows that.”

Thóra raised her eyebrows. “Does everyone know that? Who’s ‘everyone?’ ” If the place had a bad reputation that the sellers knew about but had neglected to mention, it might provide some flimsy grounds for a compensation case.

The girl looked at her with the scorn only a teenager can muster. “Everyone, of course. Everyone here, anyway.”

Thóra smiled to herself. She didn’t know the population of the southern coast of Snæfellsnes, but knew that the word “everyone” could not cover many people. “And what is it that everyone knows?”

Suddenly the girl became evasive. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her far-too-large jeans and looked down at her toes. “I’ve got to go. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.” She spun around and walked out into the corridor. “Maybe later.” In the doorway she stopped and looked imploringly at Thóra. “Don’t tell Jónas I’ve been gossiping about this. He doesn’t like me talking to the guests too much.” She rubbed her left hand between the thumb and index finger. “If I want to be able to find work, I need a reference. I want to work at a hotel in Reykjavík.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not an ordinary guest. I’ll tell Jónas that you’ve been particularly helpful and ask his permission to talk to you properly when things are quieter. Jónas asked me to come here to investigate various matters. I think you can help me, and that would help him too.” Thóra looked at the girl, who glared at her suspiciously. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Sóldís,” the girl replied. She stood in the doorway for a moment, as if unsure what to do, then smiled weakly, said goodbye and left. Bergur Ketilsson walked at a leisurely pace, even though he knew that his wife was waiting for him at home with his nightly coffee. He preferred to spend the evening alone in the great outdoors rather than sitting at home with her in oppressive silence and fake marital bliss. He groaned at the thought. They had been married for twenty years, on reasonably good terms, but there had never been much passion between them, not even during their short courtship. They weren’t that way inclined, or at least she wasn’t. He had only recently discovered that side to his character—a little late to realize it, at forty. Life would doubtless have treated him differently had he found out before he married Rósa, the albatross around his neck. Perhaps he would have gone to Reykjavík to study instead. As a young man, he had taken delight in the Icelandic language, although he had never hinted at it to anyone. There was little to test the intellect of a lonely farmer. He scanned the eider nests mournfully. The recent cold snap had taken its toll on the ducklings. There would be fewer nests next year.

He walked on. In the distance he saw the hotel roof above the rocks on the beach. Silently he focused on it and tried to picture what went on inside, but he couldn’t imagine. He shrugged and continued on his way. As he was feeling depressed, he decided to take the longer route home, via the bay. This was not completely random, because he wanted to know how the hatching seabirds had fared during the cold spell. Quickening his pace, he trudged on, deep in thought. The hotel was behind the emotional crisis that had seized him. If it had not been built, he would have gone on with his life, reconciled to it, neither happy nor sad. He could never form a firm opinion about what went on there, as in its way it had brought him too much joy and too much confusion for him to be able to think logically about it. Spotting a nest, he approached it slowly. Two tiny ducklings were lying dead inside. The mother eider was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps the cold had killed her too.

In the bay, the story was the same. He saw a few chicks in the nests resting on each ledge. Perhaps that was some consolation. Next year the eider and the scavenging seabirds would still be evenly matched. Turning from the cliff, he headed toward the farm. He walked slowly, reluctant to arrive. Not even the stench from the beached whale upset him; it suited his mood. Bergur quickened his pace slightly. Perhaps he should rush home and tell Rósa that he had found another woman. More fun, cleverer, prettier, and younger too. A better woman than her in every way. For an instant, it seemed the right thing to do. He would give Rósa everything—the farm, the cattle, the horses, the eider colony. He would not have any use for them in his new, happy life. Then this dreamlike vision faded. Rósa could not run the farm by herself and would hardly rejoice at the news. She had never been particularly impressed by the countryside or the farm, greeting everything with the same flat expression bordering on indifference. The only thing that got a reaction out of her was the cat. The same went for their married life: she was never furious, never ecstatic. The strange thing was that he used to be exactly the same, but now he was a completely different man.

At the beachhead he stumbled and looked down in surprise. As a rule he was sure-footed and confident, with a knack for negotiating the rounded boulders and slippery seaweed. Looking down, he noticed something that he had never seen on the beach before among all the oddities that had washed up over the years. For a start, it was a much larger bed of seaweed than he had ever seen washed ashore in the bay. More important, a human arm could be seen through the seaweed. There was no doubt about that. The fingers were curled and twisted in a way that no doll or mannequin manufacturer would have wanted to reproduce. Bergur bent down and the acrid stench of blood filled his nose. He jumped back. The smell had probably escaped when he’d uncovered the soft, slimy seaweed with his foot, and the metallic smell of blood was so powerful that the stench from the rotting whale paled in comparison. Bergur put his arm over his nose and mouth to avoid inhaling the foul air.

He straightened up, since there was little he could do for the person under the seaweed. He could see the outline of a body under the weed, and patches of white flesh were showing through. Once he had discerned the shape of it, it was so obvious that he was amazed he hadn’t noticed it immediately. Since he never took his mobile with him, there wasn’t much he could do but rush home and call the police. Perhaps the coast guard should be called out as well. They would enjoy being involved. He breathed through the sleeve of his coat to stave off the smell of blood, then stiffened. He recognized the ring on the swollen finger.

Bergur fell to his knees. Oblivious to the smell, he grabbed the ice-cold hand to be certain. Yes, that was her ring. He moaned and began to tear the seaweed away from where he imagined the head to be, but stopped when he realized there was no face. He could tell from the corpse’s familiar hair that his dream of a happy new life was over. Thóra was trying to unwind. Lying on her stomach, she made an effort to relax, or rather to concentrate on appearing relaxed, because she didn’t want the masseuse to think otherwise. The latter was a stringy, muscular woman, slightly younger than Thóra. She was wearing white canvas trousers, a pale green T-shirt, and orthopedic sandals on her feet. She had painted her toenails with light blue polish. Thóra did not make a habit of scrutinizing that part of people’s anatomy, but the toes kept appearing as she lay on the bench with her face positioned in a hole at one end.

The worst of it was over; the woman had stopped massaging and begun arranging hot stones in a row down her backbone. “Now you should feel how the energy from the stones flows through your back. It travels along the nerves and out into every part of you.” This speech was accompanied by soothing music from a CD the masseuse had told Thóra was on sale in reception. Thóra decided to look in at reception and find out the name of the group, to make sure she never bought one of their CDs by accident.

“Will it be much longer?” Thóra asked hopefully. “I think the energy’s penetrated every single cell. I’m beginning to feel great.”

“What?” The masseuse was incredulous. “Are you sure? It’s supposed to take a lot longer.”

Thóra suppressed a groan. “Positive. It’s brilliant. I can tell I’m done.”

The masseuse began to protest, but stopped when a telephone rang somewhere inside the salon. “Just a minute,” she said to Thóra, and her toes disappeared.

“Hello,” Thóra heard her say. “I’ve got a client.” A long silence ensued. Then, in a much more agitated tone of voice, “What? Are you serious … ? Jesus … I’m on my way.”

The masseuse hurried back in and began removing the stones from Thóra’s back. Thóra tried to conceal her relief by taking an interest in the telephone call. “Is anything wrong? Don’t worry about me; I’m all done, like I said.”

The woman was working quickly. “Something’s happened. Something terrible. Really terrible.”

Thóra propped herself up. “Really?” she asked, not needing to feign curiosity this time. “Is it something to do with the ghosts?”

An expression of horror spread across the woman’s face and she put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. A body’s been found on the beach. Vigdís from reception thinks it’s someone from here, and the police have arrived to talk to Jónas.”

Thóra leaped naked from the bench and reached for a gown. She quickly pulled it on, never having been in the habit of going around nude in the company of strangers, although she was not ashamed of her body. “You get going—I’ll take care of myself.” She tightened the flannel belt around her waist and tied a knot. “Was it an accident?”

“I don’t know,” the masseuse said, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. Clearly she was itching to go and find out more.

“I’ll get my things together and leave,” Thóra said, shooing the woman off. “I promise not to steal any stones.”

The woman didn’t need telling twice. She turned on her heel and rushed out into the corridor. Thóra went up to the screen she’d undressed behind and began putting her clothes back on. Her mobile rang in her bag and she fished it out. “Hello,” she said, trying to put on a sock with one hand. The connection was appalling and the line crackled.

“Hello, Thóra.” It was Matthew. “I’m still waiting for a reply to my e-mail.”

“Oh, yes,” Thóra said in German, abandoning her struggle with the sock. “I’m just about to answer.”

“Name the date. I’ll do the rest,” said Matthew. He clearly intended to come no matter what. “Give me the green light and I’ll be there.”

“It’s rather inconvenient at the moment,” Thóra answered reluctantly. “I’m working and something’s cropped up.”

“What has?” asked Matthew, clearly unconvinced. “Tell me.”

“Yes, well, it’s all rather peculiar,” Thóra said, racking her brain to remember the German word for “ghost.” “I’m working on a case connected with ghosts, but it seems as though it may be getting more complicated. The police have found a body and it may stir things up.”

“Where are you?” asked Matthew.

“Me?” Thóra replied foolishly. “I’m in the countryside.”

“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there tomorrow night.” His voice was solemn.

“Wait, it’s all right. Don’t come here,” Thóra gabbled. “There’s no murder, only a body.” She hesitated. “As far as I know, anyway.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” said the voice from the handset.

“But you don’t even know where I am, and I’m not going to tell you. Wait a few days and let me find a better time. I promise. I want to see you too. Just not right now.”

“You don’t have to tell me where you are. I’ll find you. Auf Wiedersehen.”

Thóra couldn’t argue anymore. Matthew had hung up.