Last Rituals (40 page)

 

 

"Let's get one thing straight before we say anything else." Thóra waited for his full attention and did not continue until he looked up. "I'm working for Harald's family. That means that your interests and theirs are not necessarily the same. Especially now. I advise you to get another lawyer immediately. Meeting you here right now is all I'm going to do. I can give you the names of some good people who can provide you with all the assistance you need."

 

 

Halldór screwed up his eyes and thought for a moment. "Don't go. I want to talk to you. None of those cops believe me."

 

 

"Have you wondered whether that might be because you're lying to them?" Thóra asked dryly.

 

 

"I'm not lying. Not about the main points."

 

 

"And I assume it's up to you to decide which are the main points and the minor ones?"

 

 

Anger flashed across his face. "You know perfectly well what I mean. The main point is that I didn't kill him."

 

 

"And the minor points? What are they?" asked Thóra.

 

 

"This and that," he said, bowing his head.

 

 

"If I'm supposed to be of any use to you I want you to do one thing for me," said Thóra, leaning across the sturdy table separating them. "Don't lie to me. I can tell when people are lying." She hoped she had managed to convey the same conviction as the police officer.

 

 

Halldór nodded, his expression still peevish. "Right—but what I tell you is in confidence. Okay?"

 

 

"More or less," Thóra said. "I've told you I won't act as your defense if you go to court, so you can tell me pretty much anything—except of course the crimes you're going to commit later in life. Don't mention those to me." She smiled at him.

 

 

"I'm not going to commit any crimes," he said gloomily. "You promise nothing else goes further?"

 

 

"I promise it won't go to the police—even though it can only improve your standing with them. You're already in the doghouse; it won't get much worse than this. But if it makes you feel better, we can agree that we're only speculating about extenuating circumstances. Happy with that? Then you get help without actually saying anything."

 

 

"Okay," he said, but with a hint of doubt in his voice. Then he added huffily: "Ask me, then."

 

 

"Harald's eyes were found in your flat. How can you explain that?"

 

 

Halldór's arms twitched. Nervously he scratched the back of his left hand. Thóra waited calmly while he decided whether to tell her the truth or deny having anything to do with them. She was determined to walk out if he chose the latter option.

 

 

"I…I…"

 

 

"We both know who you are," Thóra said impatiently. "Answer me or I'm leaving."

 

 

"I couldn't send them," he suddenly blurted out. "I didn't dare. The body had been found and I was afraid they'd be discovered in the mail. I was going to do that later when it had all died down. I used the blood to write the curse, and I put the letter in an envelope that Sunday. Then I dropped it in a box in town." After his confession he took a deep breath, then squeezed his lips tightly together as if he intended to say nothing else.

 

 

"Was it because of the contract?" asked Thóra. "Were you really trying to honor that ridiculous contract about the revenge curse?"

 

 

Halldór glared at her, furious. "Yes. I swore I'd do it and I wanted to keep my word for Harald. It meant so much to him," he answered, red in the face. "His mother was a total scumbag."

 

 

"You realize that this is absolute madness?" Thóra asked in amazement. "How could you even entertain the idea?"

 

 

"I just did," came the sheepish reply. "But I didn't kill him."

 

 

"Hang on, we haven't got that far yet," said Thóra. He was getting on her nerves. "You removed his eyes—have I understood that correctly?"

 

 

Halldór nodded reluctantly.

 

 

"And you took them home?"

 

 

He nodded again.

 

 

"Where, if I may ask, did you keep them?"

 

 

"In the freezer. Inside a loaf of bread. I stuffed them inside the bread and put it in the freezer."

 

 

Thóra leaned back. "Of course. Inside a loaf of bread. Where else?" With considerable effort she tried to erase the image from her mind. "How could you do it? The operation itself, I mean."

 

 

Halldór shrugged. "It was no big deal. I used a teaspoon. Carving the symbol was harder. It didn't go too well. I was really stoned—I had to keep going over to the window for fresh air."

 

 

"No big deal," echoed Thóra, perplexed. "Pardon me for doubting that."

 

 

He glared at her. "I've seen much more revolting things. And done much more revolting things. What do you think it's like, slicing your friend's tongue in half? Or watching surgical operations?"

 

 

Thóra could not imagine, but she still doubted that it was as repulsive as plucking out someone's eyes with a teaspoon. From now on she would stir her coffee with a tablespoon. "Be that as it may, it can't have been pleasant."

 

 

"Of course not," Halldór shouted. "We were stoned out of our minds. I told you."

 

 

"We?" Thóra asked, startled. "So you weren't alone?"

 

 

Halldór paused before answering. He picked at the hole in his jeans and started scratching the back of his hand again. Thóra had to repeat her question before he answered. "No, I wasn't alone. We were all there: me, Marta Mist, Bríet, Andri, and Brjánn. We were on our way back from town. We were going back to the party—Marta wanted some dope and Bríet said Harald had some Es hidden away in the common room."

 

 

"What about Hugi, wasn't he with you?"

 

 

"No. I didn't see Hugi that night. He left the party with Harald and we didn't see him again. Him or Harald. Alive, I mean."

 

 

"So you went up to the faculty building?" Thóra marveled. "How did you get in? The security system didn't record any movements."

 

 

"It was out of order—I think it always is. And do you really think somebody marches around the whole building making sure no one else is in there? Not likely."

 

 

"Thorbjörn Ólafsson, Harald's supervisor, insists that he switched the system on," said Thóra. "He says that's definite."

 

 

"It wasn't on when we arrived. Harald's killer must have switched it off."

 

 

"But the building was still locked and you need an access code to get in," Thóra said. "It all goes through a computer and the records show that no one went through the door." A printout from the security system had been among the evidence the police had sent to her, and she had seen it with her own eyes.

 

 

"We got in through an open window at the back of the building. It's always open, actually—there's some moron with a room there who never remembers to shut it. That's what Bríet says, anyway. We left through it too. She didn't have her key; neither did Brjánn."

 

 

"And?" Thóra said. "Was Harald there? Passed out? Dead? What?"

 

 

"I told you I didn't kill him. He wasn't crashed out when we got there. He was in the common room. On the floor. Dead. Fucking dead. Blue in the face with his tongue out. You didn't have to be a pathologist to see that he'd been choked." The tremor in Halldór's voice suggested he was not quite as cool as he pretended to be.

 

 

"Could he have choked while performing some sex act? Did you remove anything that could have implied that?"

 

 

"No. Nothing. There was nothing around his neck—just a nasty bruise."

 

 

Thóra thought about it. Of course, he could be telling her a pack of lies, but if so he was certainly a damn good liar. "What time was this?"

 

 

"About five. Maybe half past. Or six. I don't know. I remember leaving the bar around four. How long we hung around, I can't say. We didn't care what the time was."

 

 

Thóra took a deep breath. "And then what—you just started removing his eyes and carving him up right there? And how did he end up inside the printer room?"

 

 

"Of course it wasn't the first thing I did. We stood there like a bunch of idiots. Didn't know what to do. Even Marta Mist was hysterical, and she's always supercool. We were desperate, off our heads, stoned and drunk. Then all of a sudden Bríet started talking about the contract, latched onto me and said I had to honor it, otherwise Harald would haunt me. We'd signed it at one of our meetings in front of the others—just for show, really, but Harald was serious about it. Hugi was the only one who didn't know about the contract. Harald always said he didn't take sorcery seriously."

 

 

"Was the contract only about the revenge curse?" asked Thóra.

 

 

"Yes—the written one," Halldór replied. "Actually we made a second one. It was a love charm to enhance the effect of the first one by arousing Harald's mother's belated love for him, to make her mourning even tougher. That contract was verbal. I was supposed to make a hole at the end of Harald's grave and draw some symbols in it and write his mother's name. Then I'd put some snake's blood in the hole. Harald even bought a snake for the purpose. A week before he died he asked me to look after it and I've still got the bloody thing. It's driving me nuts. You have to feed it live hamsters and stuff. It makes me sick."

 

 

So Harald had bought the hamsters to feed the snake. Of course. "So he expected to die?" Thóra asked.

 

 

Halldór shrugged and left the question open. "I just did what I had to do. I remember Marta Mist and Brjánn puked their guts out while I got to work on the body. Then Andri said we had to get Harald out of the room or we'd be suspects. We used the common room a lot. We thought that was a good idea so we dragged him to that little room. We had to prop him up inside because there wasn't space on the floor to stretch him out. It took a lot of shuffling around and it was a real hassle. Then we got out—went back to Andri's, who lives quite close by. Marta Mist threw up in his bathroom the whole morning. The rest of us just sat paralyzed in the living room until we all crashed out."

 

 

"Where did you get the raven's blood to write with?"

 

 

Shame clouded Halldór's face. "We shot it. By the sea at Grótta. There was no other way. We'd been to the children's zoo to see if anyone there would give us or sell us a raven, and we'd talked to all the pet shops. But that didn't work. We had to write the contract in blood."

 

 

"Where did you get a gun?"

 

 

"I stole my dad's rifle. He goes hunting. He didn't notice, though."

 

 

Thóra was lost for words. Then she remembered the box with the body parts. "Halldór," she said calmly. "What about the body parts at Harald's flat? Did you two have any use for them or did they just happen to belong to Harald?" It was not exactly appropriate to say "belong" in this context, but it would simply have to do.

 

 

Halldór coughed, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Um, yes, those," he said sheepishly. "They're not from corpses, if that's what you think."

 

 

"Think? I don't
think
anything," Thóra snapped back. "Right now I'd expect you to say absolutely anything. You could tell me that you'd dug up coffins and I'd take it in stride—"

 

 

Halldór cut her off. "That's just stuff from work. Stuff that was supposed to be thrown away."

 

 

Thóra laughed mockingly. "I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt, but come on! Stuff that was supposed to be thrown away!" She pretended to lift something up and examine it with a sour face. "What's this foot? Bloody stuff everywhere. Just throw it out." She tossed aside the imaginary foot. "Don't be stupid. Where did it come from?"

 

 

Halldór stared at Thóra, blushing furiously. "I'm not stupid. It was stuff that was supposed to be thrown away—not literally thrown away, but incinerated. If the police investigate it, they'll find out it's all damaged body parts that had to be removed surgically. Part of my job is sending those things off to the incinerator. I took them home instead."

 

 

"I think it would be more correct to say it
was
your job, pal. I doubt that you'll be doing any more shifts there." Thóra tried to get a grip on the countless thoughts and questions whizzing through her mind. "How can you keep a foot and a finger for—how long was it again? Doesn't human flesh get moldy if it's not preserved? Maybe you kept them in the freezer too?"

 

 

"No, I baked them," Halldór answered, as if nothing could have been more natural.

 

 

Thóra gave another nervous laugh. "You baked body parts. Who do you think you are, Sweeney Todd? Jesus Christ, all I can say is I pity your lawyer."

 

 

"Ha-ha. Very funny. I didn't literally bake them." Halldór scowled. "I dried them over low heat in the oven. That way they don't rot. Or at least they rot a whole lot slower. By the way, decomposing flesh is said to rot, not 'get moldy.'" He flung himself back angrily in his chair. "We needed it for our spells—it made them much more fun."

 

 

"And the finger that was found in the faculty building—was that from your cooking sessions too?"

 

 

"It was the first one. I wanted to tease Bríet with it and I put it in the hood of her coat. I expected it to slide down her face to freak her out, but it dropped out without her noticing. But fortunately they couldn't link it with us. I didn't play practical jokes with body parts after that, because we came very close to getting into big trouble."