“Letter aperture,” Thóra corrected them with a polite smile. “In the documentation it’s called a letter aperture.” She pointed to a printout on the desk in front of her and turned it toward the couple sitting opposite her. Their scowls deepened and Thóra hurriedly continued before the man began yet another tirade. “When Regulation No. 505/1997 on basic postal services was superseded by Regulation No. 805/2003 on comprehensive postal services and their implementation, Article 12 on letterboxes and letter apertures was revoked.”
“See!” shouted the man, turning triumphantly to his wife. “That’s what I said. So they can’t just stop delivering our mail.” He turned back to Thóra, sat up straight and crossed his arms.
Thóra cleared her throat. “Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple. The new ruling refers to a building regulation concerning letter apertures and their location. This states that letter apertures should be positioned so that the distance from the ground to the lower edge of the letter aperture should be between a thousand millimeters and twelve hundred millimeters.” Thóra paused briefly for breath, but couldn’t stop for too long in case the man interrupted. “The Postal Services Act No. 12/2002 then states that postal-service providers may return mail to the sender if the letter aperture is not in compliance with regulations.”
She got no further, because the man had heard enough. “Are you telling me that I won’t have any more mail delivered to me and have no right to appeal against all this red tape?” He harrumphed theatrically, waving his arms around as if fighting off an attack by invisible bureaucrats.
Thóra shrugged. “You could always move your letterbox higher.”
The man glared at her. “I was hoping you would be more use, especially after you promised to look into the matter before we came.”
Thóra wanted to take the regulation and throw it in the man’s beetred face, but she made do with gritting her teeth. “But I did,” she said calmly, forcing a smile.
She had expected the couple to be astonished at her encyclopedic knowledge of the matter and her prowess in reeling off the numbers of the regulations, but she should have realized that this case would be like banging her head against a brick wall. The agitation in the man’s voice when he telephoned the lawyers’ office two days earlier should have rung warning bells. Talking a mile a minute, he had requested legal advice for himself and his wife about their dispute with both the postman and the postal company. They had just moved into a prefabricated house that they had imported from America, which had arrived with all the trimmings—including a front door with an unlawful letterbox. One day his wife had come home to find a handwritten note on the door stating that no more mail would be delivered because their letterbox was too low. In future they would have to collect their mail from the post office.
“All I can do is advise you about your next move,” she continued. “Commencing proceedings against the postal service, as you propose, will bring you nothing but extra costs. Nor do I recommend suing the building committee officer.”
“It also costs money to replace the front door. I can’t move the slot any higher—I told you that.” The man and his wife exchanged triumphant looks.
“A front door would cost less than any court case, that’s for certain.” Thóra handed over the last document from the pile she had made before the couple had arrived. “Here’s a letter I’ve written on your behalf.” Both of them reached for the letter, but the husband got there first. “The post office, or the postman, made a procedural error. You, that is both of you, should have been sent a formal notification by registered mail that the height of your letterbox was unlawful, and you should have been given a grace period to rectify it. Postal deliveries should not have been stopped until after that deadline.”
“Registered mail?” the woman snapped. “How could we have received that if they’re not allowed to deliver it to us?” She turned to her husband, looking pleased with herself, but she didn’t get the response she wanted and her scowl returned.
“Oh, come on, don’t be so pedantic,” he snarled. “Registered mail doesn’t come through the letterbox—you have to sign for it.” He turned to Thóra. “Go on.”
“This letter insists that the postal service follow the correct procedures, send a registered letter requiring rectification, and grant you a reasonable deadline. We’ll ask for two months.” She indicated the letter, which the man had read and handed to his wife. “After that time there’s not much we can do, but I suggest that you move the letterbox to the right height. If that can’t be changed and you choose to keep the front door, you can get a mailbox. The hole in it must be within the same height range as for doors. If you opt for that, I advise you to use a tape measure when you put it up, to prevent any further disputes.” She smiled thinly at them.
The man glowered at her as he thought it over. Suddenly he grinned nastily. “Okay, I get it. We send the letter, get the registered letter back, and have two months when the postman has to deliver our letters irrespective of the height of the letterbox. Right?” Thóra nodded. The man stood up, victorious. “He who laughs last laughs loudest. I’ll go and post the letter now, and as soon as I’m given a deadline, I’ll lower the letterbox right down to the threshold. When the deadline runs out, I’ll get a mailbox. Come on, Gerda.”
Thóra accompanied them to the door, where they thanked her and took their leave, the man eager to send off the letter and start phase two of his little war with the postman. Walking back to her desk, Thóra shook her head, astonished at human nature. The things people worried about … She hoped postmen were well paid, but had serious doubts that they were.
No sooner had Thóra sat down than Bragi, her partner in the small legal practice, put his head around the door. He was an older man and specialized in divorce; Thóra couldn’t face handling those cases. Her own divorce had been quite enough for her. Bragi, on the other hand, was in his element and was particularly adept at untangling the most convoluted disputes and getting warring couples to talk without killing each other.
“Well, how did the letterbox go? Do you see it as a test case before the Supreme Court?”
Thóra smiled. “No, they’re going to think things over, but we must remember to send them the bill by courier. I wouldn’t bet on them getting much mail delivered in the future.”
“I hope they get divorced,” said Bragi, rubbing his hands. “That would be a battle and a half.” He took out a Post-it note and handed it to Thóra. “This man phoned while the letterboxers were with you. He asked you to call when you were free.”
Thóra looked at the note and sighed when she saw the name: Jónas Júlíusson. “Oh, great,” she said, looking up at Bragi. “What did he want?”
Just over a year before, Thóra had helped a wealthy middle-aged businessman draw up a contract for his investment in some land and two farmhouses on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Jónas had made a quick fortune outside Iceland by acquiring half-bankrupt radio stations that he turned around and sold at a huge profit. Thóra was not sure whether he had always been odd or whether having money had turned him eccentric. Right now he was into New Age philosophy and planned to build an enormous holistic-center-cum-spa-hotel where people would pay to have their physical and spiritual ills cured using alternative therapies. Thóra shook her head as she thought about him. “Some hidden structural defect in the building, I understand,” Bragi replied. “He’s unhappy with the property.” He smiled. “Give him a call; he wouldn’t speak to me. He claims your Venus is ascendant in Cancer, which makes you a good lawyer.” Bragi shrugged. “Maybe a strong astral chart is just as good a qualification as a law degree. What do I know?”
“What a fruitcake,” said Thóra, reaching for the telephone.
Jónas had kicked off their professional relationship by drawing up her astral chart, which turned out favorably. That was why he hired her. Thóra suspected that the larger law firms had refused to provide Jónas with information about their lawyers’ exact time of birth and he had been forced to approach a smaller one; there could scarcely be any other explanation for a man of his wealth choosing to deal with a company with only four employees. She dialed the number that Bragi had scribbled down and pulled a face while she waited for him to answer.
“Hello,” said a soft male voice. “Jónas speaking.”
“Hello, Jónas. This is Thóra Gudmundsdóttir at Central Lawyers. You left a message asking me to call.”
“Yes, that’s right. Thank you for calling back.” He sighed heavily.
“My colleague Bragi mentioned a hidden structural defect in the property. What is it exactly?” asked Thóra. She glanced over at Bragi, who nodded.
“It’s awful, I’m telling you. The building is flawed and I’m certain the sellers knew about it and didn’t tell me. I think it will spoil all my plans out here.”
“What kind of flaw are we talking about?” Thóra asked, surprised. The property had been examined by approved surveyors and she had read through their report herself. Nothing unexpected had come up. The acreage of the property was as the sellers had stated, it carried all the rights named in the sale description, and the two farmhouses that were included with the land were so old that a complete renovation was the only option.
“It involves one of the old farmhouses where I had the hotel built, Kirkjustétt, you remember?”
“Yes, I remember it,” replied Thóra, adding, “You know that in the case of real estate, a hidden defect must affect the value by at least ten percent of the purchase price in order for the right to compensation to be established. I can’t imagine anything on that scale in such an old building, even one so large. Also, a hidden defect must be precisely that—hidden. The assessors’ report clearly stated that the buildings needed to be completely renovated.”
“This defect makes the farmhouse effectively useless for my purposes,” Jónas said firmly. “And there’s no doubt that it’s ‘hidden’—the assessors could never have noticed it.”
“What is this defect, then?” Thóra asked, her curiosity piqued. She imagined perhaps a hot spring appearing in the middle of the floor, as was said to have happened in Hveragerdi some years before, but she couldn’t recall there being any geothermal activity in that area.
“I know you’re not particularly inclined toward spiritual matters,” said Jónas levelly. “You’re bound to be surprised when I tell you what’s going on here, but I beg you to believe what I say.” He paused for a moment before coming out with it: “The house is haunted.”
Thóra closed her eyes. Haunted. Right. “Well, well,” she said, twirling her index finger against her temple to signal to Bragi that Jónas’s “defect” was just crazy talk. Bragi moved closer in the hope of eavesdropping.
“I knew you’d be skeptical,” Jónas grumbled. “But it’s true, and common knowledge among the locals here. The sellers knew but kept quiet about it while the sale went through. I call that fraudulent, especially when they knew of my plans for the farmhouse and the land. I have exceptionally sensitive people here, customers and staff alike. They feel bad.”
Thóra interrupted him. “Can you describe this ‘haunting’ for me, please?”
“There’s just a horrible atmosphere in the house. Also, things go missing, strange noises are heard in the middle of the night, and people have seen a child appear out of nowhere.”
“So?” Thóra asked. That was nothing special. In her household, things always went missing, particularly the car keys, there were noises day and night, and children appeared out of nowhere all the time.
“There’s no child here, Thóra. Nowhere in the vicinity either.” He paused. “The child is not of this world. I saw her behind me when I was looking in the mirror, and words can’t describe how … unalive she is.”
A shiver ran down Thóra’s spine. The tone of Jónas’s voice left no doubt that he believed this himself and was convinced he’d seen something unnatural, however incredible it might seem to her. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “Do you want to discuss it with the sellers and try to negotiate a discount? Isn’t that the point? One thing I do know—I can’t exorcise ghosts for you, or improve the atmosphere in the house.”
“Come up here for the weekend,” Jónas said suddenly. “I want to show you some stuff that’s been found here and see what you make of it. The best suite in the hotel is vacant, and you can give yourself a treat at the same time. Have a hot-stone massage, whatever you want. You can recharge your batteries, and of course I’ll pay you handsomely for it.”
Thóra could do with recharging, though she felt he was contradicting himself by promising relaxation in one breath and claiming the place was haunted in the next. At that moment her life was moving in ever-decreasing circles, mostly centered around the expected grandchild her son had fathered before the age of sixteen and her strained relations with her ex-husband, who insisted that the child had been conceived because Thóra was an unfit mother. Their son’s hormones were a minor factor, in his view; it was all her fault. This opinion was shared by the parents of the little mother-to-be, who was fifteen years old. Thóra sighed. It would take pretty powerful stones to massage away all the cares from her poor soul.
“What do you want me to look at? Can’t you just send it to my office?”
Jónas laughed coldly. “No, not really. It’s boxes of old books, drawings, pictures, and all kinds of junk.”
“So why do you think this old stuff is relevant to the so-called hidden defect in the property?” she asked skeptically. “And why don’t you just look at it yourself?”
“I can’t. I tried, but it gives me the creeps. I can’t go near it. You’re much more down-to-earth; you could probably go through it all without feeling anything.”
Thóra couldn’t argue with that. Ghosts, ghouls, and fairies had not bothered her much until now. The real world gave her enough trouble without needing to cross the borders into fantasy. “Give me a little while to think about it, Jónas. All I can promise is to try and make arrangements to come and visit. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon. Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes. You can call. I’ll be in all day.” Jónas hesitated before continuing. “You asked why I thought this old stuff was relevant.”
“Yes?” said Thóra.
Again Jónas paused before speaking. “I found a photograph in the box I started going through.”
“And?”
“It’s a picture of the girl I saw in the mirror.”