‘What do you want to know?’ asked Jóhanna resolutely. ‘I want to help in any possible way I can.’
Irritation at Leifur overwhelmed Thóra. If he had responded in the right way, she would have been, better prepared. She asked the first question that came to mind: ‘I know that you went with your mother and sister to the mainland the night of the eruption. Do you remember seeing Markus and Alda speaking to each other on board the ship?’
Jóhanna’s eyes widened.‘It’s strange, but I remember the sea voyage as if it happened yesterday. I was only seven years old but that night was an experience I’ve never been able to forget. I thought war had broken out.’
‘And did you happen to see whether Alda and Markus spoke?’ asked Thóra patiently.
‘Actually, I think I did,’ replied Jóhanna. ‘I held tightly to my mother’s hand on one side and to Alda’s on the other, and I remember I didn’t want to let go when she tried to walk away. I’m pretty sure that it was with Markus. They went off somewhere but I don’t know where, or how long they were gone. I just remember that I cried the whole time she was away, because I was sure she wouldn’t come back.’
‘Are you happy to declare this to the police?’ asked Thóra, trying to mask her delight. This was all going very well.
‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Jóhanna. ‘My mother might remember it too, and she’s probably a better witness, since she was older than me when it happened, naturally.’ She fiddled with her teaspoon on the saucer. ‘She’s not in any fit state for an interview at the moment, because of Alda, but she’ll get over it, hopefully. Dad died quite recently after a long struggle against cancer, so she’s suffered a lot this year.’
‘I understand,’ said Thóra. ‘I heard you moved to the Westfjords after the disaster. How was Alda at that time? I realize you were young, but do you remember whether she changed in any way? Did she behave differently or seem depressed at all?’
Jóhanna shook her head.‘No, I don’t think so. Alda went to boarding school soon after we moved west, so I didn’t see her much. Like everyone else in the family she’d been uprooted, so naturally she may not have been quite herself. I think Mother would know better than me.’
‘What school was she sent to?’Thóra asked. Maybe she could look up some of Alda’s schoolfriends.
‘I’m pretty sure it was Isafjördur Junior College,’ said Jóhanna.
Thóra tried not to reveal her surprise, but this didn’t sound right. ‘I understood from her girlfriends that she went to Reykjavik Junior College? Was that not the case?’
‘No, not at all,’ Jóhanna replied. ‘She changed schools in the autumn, wanting to be in Reykjavik rather than the west, since we’d all gone from there back to the Islands.’
This didn’t add up. How could Alda have started school in the middle of the winter term, a year above the one she should have been in? Markus had been the same age as Alda and her classmates, and he was still in secondary school the year of the eruption. ‘Was Alda a good student?’ she asked.
‘Yes, very good,’ said Jóhanna. ‘She was always incredibly conscientious and hard-working. She actually enjoyed learning. Not like me.’ She smiled, but it faded quickly. ‘It’s funny,’she said, although she didn’t look at all amused, ‘I’ve lain there thinking about what could have happened to Alda but it never crossed my mind that this could be connected to the bodies in the basement. I was so certain that it had something to do with her work at the A &E, that one of those disgusting rapists had broken into her house and killed her.’
‘Well, there’s no evidence that that’s what happened,’ said Thóra. ‘So maybe this case of the corpses is connected to Alda’s death in some way.’
‘Yes, I’m convinced it is,’said Jóhanna determinedly, crossing her arms.
Thóra knew that people who were grieving often held on to the slenderest threads of hope, clinging to illogical theories and explanations. It was a way to focus their minds on something other than the grief and guilt they would feel for the rest of their lives.
‘I’m sure the truth will come out,’ said Thóra, although she didn’t feel sure at all.‘These rapists you mentioned, did Alda have much contact with them? I would have thought she’d have dealt with the victims, not the perpetrators.’ Markus had told Thóra about Alda’s work for the Emergency Reception Unit.
‘When you put it like that, I suppose it doesn’t make much sense,’ replied Jóhanna. ‘To my knowledge she didn’t ever meet them, but I was imagining that one of them could somehow have found out her name and set out for revenge. She’s had to testify in at least two cases. She’d actually had enough, and she’d just resigned from the unit when this tragedy happened. Something came up at work that she never had time to tell me about. She was planning to fly here next weekend to stay with me, she said she needed to tell me something and wanted to do it face to face.’
‘She was going to come here?’asked Thóra. ‘From talking to her childhood girlfriends, I thought she never came back after the evacuation.’
‘That’s true, she didn’t,’ agreed Jóhanna.‘The eruption affected her so badly that she never trusted herself to return. Also she was at school, and worked every summer. I’m not sure that it was a conscious decision of hers, it just turned out that way. She might have wanted to cut her ties to the Westmann Islands, although she never said anything like that to me. What was really tragic was that after the disaster, kids from the Islands never wanted to say where they came from. We were looked down on and made to feel as if we were parasites feeding off the rest of the country. You can’t accuse
Icelanders of being sensitive to the needs of others, even their own countrymen. Their compassion doesn’t reach very far. Alda might have wanted to put some distance between herself and the Islands because of that.‘
Thóra doubted that was the reason. It seemed more likely that whatever had led Alda to ask Markus to hide the severed head had made it impossible for her to imagine returning to the area.‘This thing she wanted to discuss with you, did she say what it was about?’ she asked.
Jóhanna shook her head.‘She was being a bit weird about it. She said she should’ve sat down with me a long time ago to get it off her chest.’ She stopped, seeming on the verge of tears. ‘That’s how I know she didn’t kill herself; she wouldn’t have done it before we had a chance to talk. She was so insistent that we meet face to face, she couldn’t tell me on the phone.’
‘When did you hear from her last?’ asked Thóra.
‘The day before she died she phoned to tell me that she’d bought her ticket, and she seemed happier than she’d been in the previous phone call.’ Jóhanna rubbed at her right eye. ‘It was as if she’d received good news or had a load taken off her shoulders. I don’t know what had happened.’
Thóra suspected that what had cheered Alda up was the knowledge that Markus was going to remove the head from the basement. She must have been nervous while the status of the excavation was still unclear, which would explain her mental state in those conversations with her sister. When it looked as if everything was going to work out she had felt happy again, but this lasted only a short time before everything went as badly as it possibly could. ‘Hopefully it will all become clear,’she soothed.
‘She said one thing I didn’t understand,’ said Jóhannathoughtfully. ‘She asked me under what circumstances I would get a tattoo. She was in such a good mood that it didn’t seem to matter to her that I couldn’t answer the question. And then there was some rigmarole about how one should be careful of judging others and that she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She said she would explain it all the following weekend, but I felt like the tattoo question was somehow connected to her cheerfulness.’