Season of the Witch (12 page)

“I don’t know. Jóhann’s fond of the little beggar, naturally enough. Agnar isn’t a bad kid, although he’s getting off track in a big way just now.”

“I think I spotted Agnar cruising around downtown Akureyri the night before last. Is that possible?”

“Oh, yes. Quite possible. He and his buddies were banned from Reydin, not for the first time. When that happens they generally go gallivanting off to Akureyri.”

“So your brother Ásgrímur feels there’s been enough negative media coverage of the conflict between the locals and the incomers?”

“Now, Ásgrímur…Hey, how did you know he’s my brother?”

“Oh, you know. Small world.”

He falls silent. I can hear a din in the background.

“So was there no trouble last night or the night before?”

“Night before last, no. Last night there was a bit of a ruckus. Just the usual. Nothing important.”

The Hóll care home is in the northwestern quarter of Akureyri: a three-story building comprising two wings, designed in an unfussy but featureless style, like so many institutional buildings, inspired more by policy and economy than by any aesthetic vision.

Indoors, it is clear that the staff have done their utmost to make the best of what they have. Potted plants and vases of flowers enliven the lobby and corridors with warmth and color. Not unlike Hotel Reydargerdi, in fact.

Gunnhildur Bjargmundsdóttir is waiting for me in a spacious lounge, where gray-upholstered chairs and sofas are grouped around a large TV.

“Hello, Gunnhildur,” I enunciate loudly.

“Shhhhhhhh,” choruses from the gray chairs and sofas.

“Shhh.”

On the TV screen a couple are acting out a dramatic scene in English. Deeply tanned, with bright white teeth and pretty-boy good looks, the man reminds me of Trausti Löve. The woman’s an animated Barbie doll with silicone-enhanced breasts and big hair.

“How could you do this to me?” he says, pouting to express anguish. “With my own brother?”

“Oh, darling,” she replies, eyes shining with glycerin tears, “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

“Oh, yes. It’s all high drama here,” Gunnhildur whispers. “
Guiding Light.
They’re all watching
Guiding Light.
Now I’d prefer a proper blood-curdling murder story rather than this frothy nonsense. A classic British crime drama like
Morse
or
Taggart
, for instance. Whatever happened to them?”

I had wondered, after my phone conversation with Gunn-hildur, whether the old lady might be living in an imaginary world of the British whodunit, where people are stabbed to death in grimy alleys or poisoned by a roast beef dinner on a country estate. Her remarks about her daughter’s death seemed at odds with our reality. With the real world of Akureyri.

As she spoke to me on the phone, she became so distressed that a member of staff intervened and politely asked me to call back later.

And so I called back, sitting in the garden over my coffee and pastries. Gunnhildur wanted to meet me, and here I am, at the
Hóll
care home. I’m not about to dismiss elderly people, not until they reach the end of the road.

Gunnhildur Bjargmundsdóttir is a thin, lively, wiry little woman, with gray hair in a braid down her back. She walks with a cane but apparently has little need for it. Her limpid blue eyes are in constant motion, observing her surroundings. The skin of her face is rather leathery with age, yet remarkably unwrinkled. She has dignity. Life may have bowed her, but it hasn’t broken her.

In men and women of Gunnhildur’s years, old age seems to transcend gender. Neither specifically male nor female, they appear as human beings who have attained a kind of spiritual peace and inner beauty that nothing can disturb. Some battered more than others by life, their role is now to be observers rather than
participants. They sit in the lounge, white-headed or balding, waiting for their departure to the final, inescapable destination, and watch
Guiding Light
to pass the time. Before very long—on the time scale of eternity at least—I’ll be sitting there too.

No, I won’t dismiss people because of their age.

But still, once we have fled the drama of
Guiding Light
and taken refuge in a little niche in the corridor, I catch myself speaking loudly.

“Keep your voice down, young man!” snaps Gunnhildur. “What, do you think I’m deaf? Do you want to bring the
Guiding Light
mafia down on my head?”

I’m confused. Is the old lady demented?

“No, God forbid,” I mumble to myself.

“God!” she exclaims. “He’s no use!”

“It’s Easter,” I continue in a whisper. “Aren’t we supposed to be God-fearing at Easter?”

“Fearing?” Now it’s Gunnhildur who’s raising her voice. “How are we supposed to fear the One who made everything from nothing? And that’s all that’s left.”

“What?” I whisper, looking around. “What’s left?”

“Nothing,” replies Gunnhildur softly. “Everything from nothing. In other words, nothing. Nothing from nothing.”

I am, briefly, struck dumb.

“What did God do for my Ásdís Björk?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

“That’s easy to answer. He did nothing. Not a thing.”

“You mean…”

“All I mean is that God didn’t save her from the danger she was in. He did nothing.”

“What danger was she in?”

“From evil. Wickedness. Viciousness.”

She leans forward to murmur in my ear. “Ásdís Björk was murdered. She was murdered in cold blood.”

“In the coldest of blood that flows through human veins?”

She is taken aback. “Yes. How did you know?”

I decide to let it go. “So who killed her?”

“That scoundrel Ásgeir, of course. Who else?”

“You mean her husband? Ásgeir Eyvindarson?”

“Yes!” she shrilly exclaims. “Him. No one else!”

“Why would he kill his wife?”

“He’s evil. Wicked. Vicious.”

Gunnhildur’s bright blue eyes are on me. She’s daring me to contradict her.

“So how did he do it? She fell into the river in front of a crowd of witnesses. I’m sorry to go into unpleasant detail, Gunnhildur, but her face hit the rocks. She died of head trauma.”

“Humph,” she says, offended. “You’re just like the police. I suppose you think I’m a loony old bat who’s watched too much
Morse
and
Taggart
?”

At this precise moment, I can’t think of anything to say to that.

“Not at all. It’s just that it’s easy to make allegations like that. What you’re saying—where’s the proof?”

“Proof?” she snaps. “How am I supposed to provide proof? An old lady stuck in a home?”

“Well, clues, then. Are there any clues?”

Gunnhildur places a wizened, liver-spotted hand on my knee. “Could it be a clue that Ásdís Björk had no intention of going on that goddamned wilderness tour?” she whispers. “Or that she and Ásgeir disagreed about how Yumm should be run? And that Ásgeir attended the company annual dinner while his wife was in hospital, fighting for her life?”

I consider what she has said. “Well, those could be clues to various things. A clue to conflict within the family firm. A clue about a disagreement over going on a wilderness tour. A clue to a managing director’s sense of duty to his employees. But clues to murder? Not really, Gunnhildur.”

“Well, then,” she coldly retorts, withdrawing her hand. “I’ve no more to say to you. You can go now.”

She is getting worked up again. “Why did you call me?” I calmly inquire. “I’m new in Akureyri, and I’m just finding my feet. You don’t know anything about me.”

“No, I don’t know anything about you. But I read your articles in the paper about my daughter. And I saw what you wrote about those people who lost their dog. That’s why I called you.” Gunnhildur starts to weep. “But I see now that there was no point. Go away, young man. Leave an old woman to cry in peace.”

On the evening of Good Friday, this is the news: Heida invited Jóa to dinner. Polly and I took a bath. Separately.

Then we watched a violent American action movie about the Passion of the Christ.

And as I tossed and turned through the night—pursued by Detective Chief Inspectors Morse and Taggart for the theft of a bottle of Jim Beam—at the Akureyri junkyard a body was found.

What was it the clergyman said in his radio sermon on Palm Sunday?

If we wish to be disciples of Christ, we too must shoulder his cross and follow every day in his footsteps. The cross of suffering is an indispensable aspect of the life of all Christians. The events of Holy Week serve to help us understand the suffering in our own lives…

It’s around midday on Easter Saturday, and Jóa and I are on our way to the junkyard at Krossanes, otherwise known as the Eyjafjördur Refuse and Recycling Scrap Metal Facility. At my first attempt I take a wrong turn, and we find ourselves down by the fjord at the Óseyri marina. But eventually we reach the dump, beyond the Krossanes fish factory.

The dump is enclosed by a fence, with a large central entrance gate. It is wide open, but on either side of it uniformed police officers stand guard. In front of the gate are five or six cars. By one of them I see a radio reporter with a little handheld outside-broadcast gadget, which always reminds me of a hip flask.
Another car bears the logo
Morning News.
On the other side of the fence is a shack, painted pale blue, with dumpsters and containers scattered around and a truck on which the slogan
SCRAP METAL IS OUR BUSINESS
is emblazoned. Plus two police cars, and one unmarked. They aren’t painted with the slogan
DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ARE OUR BUSINESS
. Behind them I see huge stacks of tires, boxes, discarded refrigerators and freezers, and all sorts of garbage. In the distance I think I catch a glimpse of a car graveyard.

Jóa and I step out of the car, and she starts taking photos through the gateway, which is closed off by yellow crime-scene tape, and of the police and forensic specialists in their protective clothing. They are all preoccupied, many crouching over a half-burned pile of tires, from which dark-gray smoke is still rising into the motionless air in the bright sunlight.

I follow Jóa to the gate, where four reporters are clustered, brandishing their video cameras, mics, and tape recorders.

“What’s happening?” I ask as I join them.

“We’re waiting for a statement,” says the
Morning News
reporter with a glance at his watch. “It’s about time. I’m going to miss my deadline.”

“What have we got?”

“Just that they found a body here at the dump last night.”

“Is that it?”

I look around and spot a shiny white Citroën draw up by the other cars below the gate. Out of it steps Heida, editor of the
Akureyri Post
, wearing snug jeans and a summery white jacket.

She gives me a nice smile.

“Hi, and thanks for dinner the other night.”

“My pleasure,” I answer, looking around for Jóa.

She is still taking pictures. She turns around, and she and Heida politely nod to each other.

The local editor walks over to Jóa, taking from her pocket a small digital camera. As she takes pictures, she discreetly says something to Jóa.

We watch and wait, chatting casually to pass the time. After twenty minutes I see approaching us a big, sharp-featured man with a shaven head and heavy black-framed glasses. Chief of Police Ólafur Gísli Kristjánsson is in uniform. His manner is formal and distant as he ducks under the crime-scene tape to address the media.

“Good afternoon,” he says as he glances over the group, pretending not to see me. “Unfortunately there isn’t much I can tell you. Not at this point…”

This point in time
, yet again, I think. What would the police do without it?

“…but here, at the Eyjafjördur Refuse and Recycling Scrap Metal Facility…”

Oh, the bureaucratic verbiage!

“…a body was found in the early hours of this morning. A search party of police and rescue volunteers made the discovery at around 5:30 a.m. A night watchman on his rounds had noticed smoke, which is not normal at that time of night, so he immediately got in touch with us.”

The chief stops talking. He doesn’t seem to have any more to say.

“Is the deceased a man?” asks the radio reporter, who is live on the air on the midday news.

Ólafur Gísli hesitates. “There are indications that it is, but we can’t give a definite answer as yet.”

“Is that because of the state of the body?” I inquire.

“I can’t answer that question at this point in time.”

“Is it unidentifiable?” I continue.

“No comment,” he replies, putting on his glary face.

“Presumably we can deduce,” I observe, “from the fact that we can see smoke here at the dump, that someone set fire to the body?”

“That is an inappropriate question at this point in time. We have yet to determine the identity of the deceased and then inform the next of kin. Until we have done so, such questions will not be answered.”

“We can see a plume of smoke, apparently rising from a pile of tires over there,” I say, pointing through the fence. “Can you at least confirm that someone set fire to the tires?”