Gunnar pondered this information for a moment. "Wait a minute. Doesn't that suggest that the letter wasn't in the consignment in the first place? Weren't the letters scanned as soon as they were unwrapped?"
"Yes, that began the following day. But the letter was there and it was scanned. I can tell from the numbering system we use to identify digital files. The collection was given a heading and individual documents a serial number based on their age, with the oldest first." She ran her fingers through her hair again. "One number is missing from the sequence, exactly where the letter would have been."
"What about the computer system backup? They're always going on about how secure we are against data loss. Can't you find the file on one of the backup registries?"
María smiled faintly. "I've looked into that. According to our system administrator, the file cannot be found on any of our daily backups or the latest monthly backup. He says they copy over the daily registries every week; there's a separate Monday registry, Tuesday registry, and so on. So there's never a backup more than a week old on those registries. The same goes for the monthly registries. They're copied over so that the oldest backup we have is a month old. This file was erased more than a month ago. Actually there's a six-month backup kept in the institute's bank vault. I haven't had that fetched yet because I didn't realize the seriousness of the matter until now."
"You still haven't told me where I come into the picture," was all that Gunnar could think to say. Computers and data systems were not his cup of tea.
"Naturally I've checked who was working with the collection. As you know, that's all documented, left, right, and center. According to the register, the last person to have access to it was a student from your department." María's expression hardened. "Harald Guntlieb."
Gunnar put one hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. What next? Wouldn't this ever stop? Taking a deep breath, he made an effort to talk slowly and calmly and keep control of his voice. "Other people must have looked at the collection. How can you be sure Harald took the letter and not someone before him? There are fifteen full-time positions here plus countless visitors and students doing research."
"Oh, I'm certain," María said firmly. "The person who looked at the collection before him was me, in fact, and everything was in place then. Also, a piece of paper had been inserted into the folder, presumably to prevent having to return it empty. That would have attracted attention. The piece of paper dispels all doubt."
She snatched a piece of paper from her desk in a gesture of irritation.
"I hope you realize that history students are given access to our resources, manuscripts, and documents on the responsibility of the department. You, as head of department, cannot shirk that responsibility. Our institute simply can't afford having a reputation for losing old and valuable documents. Much of our work is based on cooperation with similar facilities in Scandinavia and I can't bear the thought of jeopardizing that cooperation because of your students' dishonesty."
Swallowing, Gunnar looked at the piece of paper María had handed to him. At that moment he would have liked to throw his hands up in the air and storm out. It was a printout of grades and courses from the students' register, clearly marked with the name Harald Guntlieb at the top. Gunnar put the paper down in his lap. "If Harald stole the letter and swapped it for this piece of paper, he was one of the stupidest thieves ever. He must have realized that it would backfire." Gunnar lifted up the printout and waved it.
María shrugged. "How am I supposed to know what he was thinking? I presume he planned to return it. If anyone knows why he can't now, it's youhe only got access to the collection a little over a month before he fell out of the closet and into your arms. Doubtless he saw from the register that the collection hadn't been touched for two months prior to that. Everyone who needed to had already examined it thoroughly. He rightly assumed that he had some time before he would be found out so he'd have a chance to swap it again before then. What he was planning to do with the letter in the meantime is a mystery to me. But he didn't live long enough to bring it back. That's the best explanation I can offer for this incident."
"What do you want me to do?" said Gunnar meekly.
"Do?" María echoed sarcastically. "I didn't call you in for moral support. I want you to find the letter." She waved her arms around. "Look in his place in the reading room and anywhere else he might have stashed it away. You know where to look better than I do. He was your student."
Gunnar gritted his teeth. He cursed the day Harald Guntlieb was admitted to the department and remembered how he alone had opposed his application. It had given him a creepy feeling immediately, especially when he saw that his B.A. dissertation was on witch hunts in Germany. He knew at once that the young man would be trouble. Overruled by a democratic vote in the department, he was now stuck in this mess on top of all the other problems the student had caused. "Who knows about this?"
"Me. You. I haven't discussed it with anyone else apart from the system administrator, and he doesn't know the whole story. He thinks it just involves the electronic document." She hesitated. "I also approached Bogi. He worked with the collection when it arrived and I tried to find out everything he knows. He suspects there's something wrong. I imagine he thinks the letter went astray; I didn't hint at my suspicions that it's been stolen."
Bogi was one of the research fellows at the institute. Gunnar thought someone as easygoing as him was unlikely to make a fuss. "When is the collection due back in Denmark? How long do I get to search for the letter?"
"I can delay it by a week at the most. If the letter hasn't been found by then, I'll have no choice but to notify them of its disappearance. I emphasize that your name will be mentioned again and again. I'll do everything in my power to make sure that you get humiliated by this, not us. Actually a little bird told me this wasn't the first time your department's been connected with missing documents." She looked at him quizzically.
Gunnar stood up, his face flushed. "I see." He did not feel confident about saying anything more at this stage, but turned around in the doorway to ask one final question that had been plaguing himeven though he would have liked to storm out, slamming the door. "Don't you have any idea what this letter was about? You say the collection was examined thoroughly, someone must remember."
María shook her head. "Bogi had a vague recollection. He was researching the establishment of the Zealand diocese in Denmark and its effect on Icelandic ecclesiastical history. That was quite a long time after the letter was written, so he didn't study it closely. But he did remember that it was difficult to make sense of, something to do with hell, plague, and the death of an emissary. That was all I could drag out of him without arousing his suspicions about how things stand."
"I'll be in touch," said Gunnar as he left. He went out and closed the door behind him without waiting for María's farewell.
One thing was certain. He had to find the letter.
CHAPTER 9
Thóra spun around slowly on the shiny parquet floor of the huge living room. It was decorated in the smartest of minimalist styles. The few pieces of furniture in it had certainly cost a fortune. Two large, elegant black leather couches were arranged in the middle of the room, considerably lower than the sofas Thóra was accustomed to. She yearned to sit down on one but did not want to imply to Matthew that this was all new to her. Between the two sofas was an even lower coffee table that looked to Thóra as if it had no legsthe surface almost seemed to be resting on the floor. She tore her eyes away from the furniture and gazed along the walls. Apart from a flat screen in the center of one, all the works of art displayed there looked ancient. A number of old objects had been arranged too, including a clumsy wooden chair that Thóra took to be a replica rather than an original. She wondered whether Harald had taken an active role in the look of the room himself or an interior designer had arranged everything. Such a hybrid of old and new gave the area a very unusual and personal character.
"How do you like it?" asked Matthew casually. His tone suggested that he, unlike Thóra, was accustomed to wealth.
"It really is a very smart place," she answered, walking over to one of the white walls to examine a framed copperplate etching that looked very old. She noticed the theme and stepped back at once. "What in God's name is that?" The copperplate was action-packed and it must have been an enormous effort for the artist to fit all the people into the scene. There were about twenty characters in this pale picture, mainly males, deftly arranged in pairs with one torturing the other or punishing him in some way.
Matthew went over to her and looked at the picture. "Oh, that." With a slight grimace he continued: "This is a picture that Harald inherited from his grandfather. It's German and depicts the situation there in sixteen hundred and something when the religious wars were at their height." Matthew turned away from the picture. "What makes it unique is that it is contemporary. In other words, it's not a later interpretation of the situation. Those works are often less realistic, more exaggerated. Although they may be a little stylized."
"More exaggerated?" Thóra exclaimed. What could be more exaggerated than this?
"Well, sort of." Matthew shrugged. "Through my work for the Guntliebs I've found out a little about this period and, believe me, it's far from the most disgusting piece in their collection." He smiled wryly. "You could almost put this in a child's room compared with some of the other ones."
"My daughter's got a picture of Minnie Mouse on her wall," said Thóra, moving on to the next picture. "You can rest assured a picture like that would never go on her wall, nor any other in my home."
"No, it's not for everyone," Matthew answered, following Thóra to a picture of a man being tortured on a rack in front of men dressed in cowls. The men sat hunched together, intently watching two executioners who seemed to be using all their strength to turn the wheels of the rack. Presumably the idea was to stretch the victim's limbs to increase his suffering. Matthew pointed at the center of the work. "This one shows torture by the Inquisition and it's also from Germany. They put great effort into extracting confessions, as you can see." He looked at Thóra. "I'm sure it's interesting for you as a lawyer to understand the roots of torture because in Europe it can be traced back to lawin the broadest sense, that is."
Thóra prepared for yet another insult to her professionshe had been forced to put up with them ever since she embarked upon her legal degree. "Of course, we lawyers are responsible for all this."
"No, joking aside," replied Matthew. "In the Middle Ages, prosecutions were brought by individuals. Anyone who thought he had been the victim of wrongdoing or criminal conduct had to bring charges himself and prosecute the case. The trials were a joke really. If the accused did not just confess to the court or there was no clear proof of his guilt, it was left to God to decide. Accused people were made to undergo ordeals, walk over burning embers, being thrown into water in a sack, and so on. If their injuries healed after a certain time, or if they sank in the water, they were deemed innocent. Then the accuser was in trouble, because he would face trial. Understandably, people were reluctant to bring charges against others because of the risk that the case would turn against them."
Matthew pointed at the man on the rack. "Eventually that approach was replaced by this system when the authorities and the Church realized there had been a huge increase in secular and religious crimes because the courts were impotent. To cut crime they had to resort to Roman law, which had a different arrangement for bringing charges and prosecuting them. This was based on investigation, which is where the Inquisition comes from. Where the Church led, the secular courts followed, and in this new system the victim no longer needed to bring charges or prosecute the case." Matthew smiled triumphantly. "Ergolawyers."
Thóra smiled back. "It's a bit rich to blame lawyers for all this misery." It was her turn to point to the anguished man on the rack. "Excuse me, but I don't quite see the connection between investigation and torture."
"No," said Matthew. "Unfortunately there was a flaw in the new arrangement. In order to find someone guilty, either two witnesses or a confession was needed. Some crimes, such as blasphemy, aren't necessarily witnessed, so everything depended on confessions. Judges needed them, and they could be obtained by torture. That was deemed to be an investigation."
"Disgusting," declared Thóra, turning away from the picture to face Matthew. "How do you know all this?"
"Harald's grandfather was a mine of information about this period and a passionate raconteur. His accounts were great fun to listen to, but I have only a very superficial knowledge of this compared with him."
"Well, well," Thóra said. "Have you seen all these pictures before?"
Matthew looked along the wall. "Most of them, as far as I can see. Actually these are only a fraction of the pictures and other items in the collection. Harald obviously only brought part of it with him. His grandfather spent much of his life collecting it all. And who knows how much money he spent on it. I would imagine it's the most remarkable collection in the world dedicated to torture and executions through the ages. One part is an almost complete set of the different editions of