“Very well, if that’s the way you want it.” Thorolfur picked up the sheet. “Here’s the first telegram with information on this case. We asked people in Copenhagen if they knew of anyone in Iceland who might bear a particular grudge against the professor. People could only think of one name.”
“Really, and what name was that?”
“Bjorn Snorri Thorvald. Isn’t that your father’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Professor Lund, therefore, wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms when he visited your home last autumn?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact he was. My father and Lund were actually very good friends and colleagues at the Arnamagn?an Institute for many years. The friendship then became increasingly strained during the German occupation of Denmark and turned to hostility at the end of the war. But when Professor Lund came into our home by sheer coincidence last autumn, they chatted for a while and were fully reconciled again. I think they both felt better after that.”
“Is there someone who can bear witness to what you’re saying?”
“No, my father’s dead, as you probably know.”
“What fueled this hostility in the first place?”
“My father was fired from his post at the Arnamagn?an Institute and he partly blamed the professor for it.”
“Why was your father fired?”
“I’m sure your men in Copenhagen will dig up a plausible explanation for that. It only happened fifteen years ago, and somebody should be able to remember the story.”
Thorolfur clenched his fists and leaned over the desk. “It would speed up our interview here if you would be willing to collaborate with us,” he said.
Johanna smiled coldly. “Yes, that’s probably true. Maybe I should explain it to you, since I doubt that your men will either have the ability or the will to get to the bottom of what really happened.”
Johanna told the inspectors how she had been brought up traveling with her father across the Nordic countries and Germany. How her father continued to travel to Germany after Denmark was occupied, and how he stirred up animosity among his colleagues at the Arnamagn?an Institute and the Royal Library. Finally the war ended and the Germans abandoned Copenhagen.
“I accompanied my father to the institute as usual that morning, but just as he was about to enter they blocked him. Then some superior came to tell him that his post had been abolished and that he no longer had access to the manuscript collection. He was given no explanation, and he was escorted out of the building when he started to raise his voice. A number of employees witnessed the scene, including Professor Lund. I don’t know how it would have ended if Fridrik Einarsson, his Icelandic friend, hadn’t been there to break it up. Fridrik then took us to his home and offered us some refreshments. He could tell my father that his lecture tours around Germany had probably been the cause of this animosity. He suggested we go to Iceland with him and his family a few weeks later and suggested we stay there until the turmoil had blown over.”
“Did you move to Iceland then?”
“Yes.”
“But did you never go back to Copenhagen?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My father desperately tried to get his post back from Iceland, but failed. I’d also grown opposed to the idea of moving away from Iceland because I got to know Einar, Fridrik’s son, when we stayed with them in Copenhagen and when we traveled on the ship together. He was the first friend of my own age I’d ever had, and he then became my boyfriend. He was a great guy and I couldn’t think of leaving him. We were together for the first few years of high school, and then he died in an accident.”
Thorolfur scribbled down a note and then asked, “You were called upon to examine the bodily remains of Gaston Lund when he was found and transported here last week, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t recognize him?”
Johanna smiled numbly. “It would be easy for me to say I didn’t. No one could doubt me, considering the state of the body. And it would be easier for me if I stuck to that version, but I don’t want to lie. I recognized him as soon as I opened the casket.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I was in such a terrible state of shock. And I thought of my father. The cancer had progressed so far and he only had a few days to live. He wasn’t suffering, though, because I’d managed to treat the pain quite effectively. At that moment I couldn’t bear the thought of him spending his last hours agonizing over the fate of his friend. So I decided to postpone any revelations, while I was still catching my bearings. It wouldn’t really have greatly changed the outcome of the investigation, since the man had been dead for several months anyway. It was just a twenty-four-hour reprieve, and that was all I needed. My father died without ever knowing about this incident.”
Lukas coughed several times to attract Johanna’s attention. It was his turn now. “That’s quite a story,” he said, moistening his lips. “But I think the reality is slightly different. What if it went something like this, for example: Lund came to you as a doctor and pharmacist. What kind of initial exchange you had I don’t know, but he asked you for some seasick tablets. You gave him some drug and advised him to take one pill straightaway, maybe two. He did as he was told, but soon felt drowsy and then fell asleep. You keep some strong sleeping pills, I take it, don’t you? We can easily check that.”
Johanna looked at him, aghast. “That’s correct, there’s an ample supply in the pharmacy, but your suggestion is preposterous.”
“Well, let’s see. Lund is asleep in your living room. Maybe you needed to give him an injection or something to keep him as unconscious as possible? Then you took him out on a boat to the most forsaken island you knew of in Breidafjordur. We know that considerable fuel vanished from one of the boats on the island at that time. You know how to handle a motorboat, don’t you? You know I can easily check on this.”
“Yes, I can handle a boat all right. But I haven’t a clue of where Ketilsey is in the fjord. And I don’t have the physical strength to carry a sleeping man on my own, let alone onto a boat and then off it again.”
“Perhaps your late father gave you a hand moving him? Maybe he was in better shape last autumn than he was lately. And happy to avenge himself. The man could also have been transported on a handcart. There are several of those on the island.”
“This is in very poor taste.”
“Yes, well you can’t really prettify an atrocity like this. The retribution was clearly meant to be memorable and final. How do you think that man felt when he woke up and realized where he was?”
Johanna gave Lukas a long stare before answering: “How do I think he felt? I’ll tell you. For the first few hours he was angry. Then very angry. He yelled and yelled and shouted and shouted. Then he was cold, and when night fell he was scared. Then he got very cold and even more terrified, and he cried. When the sun rose in the morning, he was thirsty and hungry and very tired. He gathered some driftwood and built himself some shelter by placing the wood against a crag. He packed some gravel and seaweed around the sticks and then crawled inside and lay down. Maybe he slept for one or two hours, and then woke up again shivering from the cold. Then it started to rain. He found an old plastic flask drifting on the shore and was able to collect some of the water that was running down the rocks. He drank and drank, but he got badly drenched in the rain. He crawled into the shelter and it didn’t rain on him. But he was already wet, and when night fell again, he was colder than ever before. He lay there shivering for many hours until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he crawled out and ran to try and get some warmth into his bones. It helped a bit, but it hadn’t stopped raining, so he got even wetter and colder. The day after the rain stopped and the sun appeared. He managed to sleep a few hours. Then he went down to the shore in search of something edible. He turned over stones, picked some copepods, and dug up some lugworm. He found shellfish. He shoved it into his mouth and washed it down with the water without chewing. He couldn’t bear the thought of biting into those bugs. He arranged the stones in the grass so that they would form a big SOS. Four days later he had a cold, a day after that a bad cough, and then he contracted pneumonia. Then he arranged some little pebbles on a flat rock and tried to write some kind of message. He coughed and coughed until he threw up and developed a high fever. And then he died.”