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Tinna knew in that moment that she would never forget the expression on Yrsa's face. Tinna had seen dead bodies before during her short career, but this was different. There was nothing peaceful about Yrsa. She looked as though she had fought to the bitter end; as though she hadn't been remotely ready to relinquish this life. Yet it occurred to Tinna that Yrsa hadn't exactly had much to live for. The callous thought flashed through her head as she tried to take in what she was seeing, her mind simultaneously struggling to resist the horror.

Yrsa had often claimed, rather proudly, that the antique wooden desk in her office was her personal property—an old family heirloom. The desk my father always used to work at, she'd said. And now she was lying across the desk, her grey hair like a halo around her head. The dark red pool of blood on the desktop made a macabre contrast with the dead woman's greyish skin. It took Tinna a little while to grasp what she was seeing. At first, she assumed the blood had come from Yrsa's head, from a blow perhaps, or a bullet, but then, with a sort of sick horror, she noticed that two of Yrsa's fingers had been cut off. Her maimed hand rested on the desk, the gory fingers lying nearby.

Tinna took a step backwards, then another, and averted her eyes, heaving a deep, shaky breath. She resisted a powerful impulse to run out of the room, curiosity overcoming her common sense. This was a kind of test. If she wanted to work as a nurse, she would have to get used to worse sights than this. She forced herself to look back at the dead woman.

She hadn't been mistaken.

The thumb and index finger of Yrsa's right hand had been amputated, and now there was no question that this was the source of the blood, which must mean, Tinna realized, that the mutilation had been carried out while Yrsa was still alive.

Her skin crawled at the thought.

Then it flashed into her mind that she herself might be in danger.

She threw a glance over her shoulder, feeling the adrenaline pumping through her veins. There was no one behind her, but then Yrsa's office was quite small, so no one could be hiding in there. Tinna stood still, straining her ears, but all she could hear was the habitual creaking and groaning of the old building. She was alone. The only living soul in this wing, the only living soul in the whole hospital.

She left Yrsa's office, being careful not to touch anything else, though she knew her prints would be on the handle from when she had pushed the door open. It couldn't be helped.

Her next step was to call the police. There was a phone on Yrsa's desk, but using that was out of the question. She was afraid of touching anything in the room, for fear of spoiling evidence. There was another phone in the director's office, but his door was shut and Tinna wouldn't dream of barging in there uninvited.

She hurried downstairs to reception, where there was a phone that the other members of staff were allowed to use. Resisting the urge to flee the building, she told herself that she had to call the police immediately; she had no alternative. Before picking up the receiver, she wondered if she might be destroying any fingerprints, but it seemed unlikely, and anyway the most urgent thing was to get the police over here. She was about to dial the number when she realized that she couldn't remember it. Because it wasn't every day that she had to ring the police; in fact, this was the first time she had ever done it. She glanced around, searching in vain for a telephone directory, and eventually found last year's in a drawer. Having looked up the number, she made the call. It was answered almost immediately.

'Police.' A gravelly male voice.

For a moment, fear constricting her throat, Tinna couldn't stammer out a word.

'Police,' repeated the voice.

She coughed and drew a deep breath. 'Yes...yes, hello, my name's Tinna and I'm calling from the old sanatorium, I...' She broke off, frantically trying to find the right words.

'Yes? Has something happened?'

'Yes... er, yes, I think a woman who works here... I think she's been murdered.'

1950

Asta had seen so much death and suffering during the twenty years she had been working at the sanatorium. Far more than anyone should have to. She'd started there in 1930, only four years after the hospital had opened. Those were the bad years, when tuberculosis had been one of the biggest killers in Iceland, just as it seemed to be on the retreat in neighbouring countries. The main treatment then had been to isolate patients from the public and provide them with plenty of rest and fresh air, but the big sanatorium outside Reykjavík could no longer house all the cases and the decision had been taken to build a new one up north, in the countryside outside Akueyri.