The Shadow Killer

by Arnaldur Indridason

  But Eyvindur didn’t like to talk about it and changed the subject whenever Vera asked about his old friend. He wasn’t one for reminiscing, but he would chat about his sales trips, though mostly he just harped on about his failures. It had rankled that Felix was far more successful than him, and that had got him started on Runki, another salesman whose feats Eyvindur could only dream of.

  Now that she came to think of it, Eyvindur had mentioned one thing that had struck him as very odd. Felix had taken great pains to cover as wide an area as possible on his sales trips. He would trek to the most out-of-the-way places where only a few souls scratched a living. Other salesmen knew they weren’t worth the trouble, yet Felix had been determined to visit them. Eyvindur couldn’t imagine it was worth his while, however gifted a salesman he was.

  ‘It may sound like a strange question, but did Eyvindur happen to mention where any of these places were?’ asked Thorson. ‘Were they close to any military facilities, for example?’

  Vera shook her head. She didn’t think he’d mentioned that. Now that she had got over her indignation at the gossip they’d had repeated, she was friendly and willing to chat despite the late hour. She answered their questions thoughtfully and sensibly, and, at their prompting, tried to search her memory for anything she might have forgotten. Yet Flóvent’s thoughts kept returning to her upstairs neighbour, who had called her sex mad and accused her of being a soldier’s whore. And then there was the brown envelope he had found on the living room floor. She had cheated on Eyvindur, then walked out on him, straight into the arms of a British soldier. When Flóvent looked for traces of sorrow or remorse, for any kind of emotional turmoil, he could see none. The news didn’t seem to touch her at all, now that she had got over her initial surprise. Either she was more heartless than he had thought or the news hadn’t truly hit home yet.

  ‘Why do you ask about military facilities?’ she said. ‘Was Felix interested in them for some reason?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Thorson.

  ‘Are you suggesting he was some kind of spy? Eyvindur did say his father was a Nazi.’

  ‘We have no proof that he was spying,’ Flóvent corrected her. ‘Did Eyvindur imply that he was? Did he see Felix taking photographs on his trips, for example? Or expressing an interest in troop movements or military instillations?’

  ‘No, I don’t remember anything like that, but…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s so strange you should mention spying because Felix … Eyvindur told me once that he thought Felix only wanted to be his friend so he could spy on him.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Apparently, Felix was always asking Eyvindur about his father, insisted on going round to his house to play every time, and seemed very curious about his family – downright nosy in fact. Eyvindur found it very odd.’

  There was a knock at the laundry door. A British soldier appeared and smiled at Vera, simultaneously casting a suspicious glance at Flóvent and Thorson. Returning his smile, Vera put down the washing and began to tell the man that they were from the police, but soon faltered as her English wasn’t up to the task. Thorson chipped in, explaining that they had come to see Vera in connection with Eyvindur’s death. The man turned out to be Billy Wiggins, Vera’s boyfriend, a rather stocky British sergeant of around thirty, with red hair and a ruddy complexion, who was clearly none too pleased to find his girlfriend in the company of other men so late in the evening.

  ‘You all right, love?’ he asked Vera. She nodded. He walked over and took her in his arms and they kissed. The news of Eyvindur’s death didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. Flóvent caught Thorson’s eye, then asked Vera to step outside with him. When Billy made to follow, Thorson blocked his path, saying that he’d like to ask him a few questions; it would only take a minute. Billy looked set to push past him, but Thorson was firm, repeating that he didn’t want any trouble but he had a few questions. When Billy continued to ignore him, Thorson informed him that he would have to accompany him to police headquarters. The sergeant gave in and Thorson began asking him about his relationship with Vera and whether he had ever met Eyvindur.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ asked Billy Wiggins, with an uneasy glance out of the door to where Flóvent and Vera stood talking. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’

  ‘Did you know him, sergeant?’

  ‘No, I never met him. Never laid eyes on the man.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure? Of course I’m sure. What do you take me for? You don’t think I had anything to do with his … with his death?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Are you concerned about that?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About being implicated in the murder?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Because I didn’t do anything to the bloke. Vera’s a great girl and … and we get on well together. She’d made up her mind to leave him ages ago. She was just waiting for the right moment.’

  ‘How did you meet Vera?’

  ‘How? At Hótel Ísland. She was out having fun.’

  ‘Was she there with Eyvindur?’

  ‘No,’ said Billy with an ugly laugh, raising his eyebrows at Thorson’s naivety. ‘He wasn’t there.’

  Flóvent was standing outside, watching the washing fluttering in the evening breeze. Vera had taken out another cigarette. She inhaled, her eyes on the door of the laundry where Thorson was talking to Billy.

  ‘So you can’t imagine why Eyvindur would have gone to see Felix after all these years?’ Flóvent asked.

  ‘No, I … nothing comes to mind.’

  ‘Could it have been something to do with his sales trips? Or their school days? Something he wanted to ask him about? Had they started meeting up again? Renewed their friendship?’

  ‘I simply can’t help you,’ said Vera, blowing on the glowing tip of her cigarette. ‘Eyvindur sometimes talked about Felix, but he never had anything good to say about him. Only that when they were boys he’d suddenly dropped him and refused to have anything more to do with him. Eyvindur felt used. That’s how he talked about Felix. He said it hadn’t been a real friendship after all.’

  ‘It’s possible Felix was no longer allowed to see him,’ said Flóvent. ‘To associate with him. That’s the sort of home he was from. His father was very strict, I’d imagine. A snob.’

  ‘Yes, anyway, Eyvindur was still wondering about it. About what really happened.’

  ‘Did he ever mention taking part in any experiments at his school?’ asked Flóvent.

  ‘What kind of experiments?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Flóvent. ‘I just wondered if he’d said anything. A series of tests – to do with his health, perhaps. Or his development.’

  ‘No, I don’t remember him talking about that. Though he did once mention a school nurse, whose name I’ve forgotten. He showed me a picture of her. Felix was in it too.’

  Flóvent took out the school pamphlet from Eyvindur’s flat and showed it to her. Vera confirmed that it was the same picture. She held it up to the light from the laundry door and peered at it.

  ‘I wonder if it could have been him?’ she mused, as if to herself.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him,’ she said, pointing to the boy standing next to Eyvindur and Felix in the photo. ‘I have a feeling he was the one Eyvindur was talking about. I can’t remember his name but he had a similar story to tell.’

  ‘A similar story? How do you mean?’

  ‘It was like he’d experienced the same thing,’ said Vera. ‘Eyvindur ran into him one day and they started talking about Felix and it was exactly the same story. Felix had gone out of his way to get to know the boy at school and was close friends with him for a while, spent a lot of time with him. Then he suddenly dropped him, never spoke to him again.’

  ‘Do you think that could have been why Eyvindur went to see Felix?’ asked Flóvent. ‘To ask what was going on?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’ sai
d Vera. ‘I just don’t know. Haven’t the foggiest. He was always … always trying to sort something out, always saying that things were about to get better. He claimed he was about to come into a load of money. I gave up on him in the end. Couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘Where was this money supposed to come from?’

  ‘He never said. I expect it was all talk, as usual.’

  34

  Brynhildur Hólm told Flóvent she had hardly slept a wink, but then she’d never had to spend a night in prison before. He could tell she was badly shaken by the experience. She complained bitterly about being locked up, protesting that such treatment was quite uncalled for. She had demonstrated a willingness to cooperate with the police: there was nothing to be gained from throwing her in jail. Flóvent explained, as he had the night before, that she had admitted to aiding and abetting a man suspected of a serious crime and that it would be irresponsible of the police to allow her to remain at large. There was a risk she might destroy evidence, and she might well continue to assist the suspect.

  The plan was to isolate Felix and force him to give himself up, or at least smoke him out of his hiding place. A formal warrant had been issued for his arrest and members of the public were being urged to inform the police if they had any information about his movements over the past week. His photograph had been published in the papers and circulated to police stations up and down the country, as well as to the military police.

  At midday, Flóvent sat down with Brynhildur Hólm in the interview room at the prison. She had been officially detained in custody for several days. Flóvent brought out the papers he had discovered under the wardrobe in Rudolf’s surgery and spread them on the table. Her expression didn’t change. Flóvent began by remarking that so far none of the people involved in the case had told him more than a fraction of the truth, it seemed to him. And that what he had been told was implausible at best. All the facts had been twisted with the express purpose of misleading the police.

  ‘I don’t know what game you’re all playing,’ he said, ‘but it’s a distasteful one. Don’t you think it’s about time you started working with us?’

  ‘What are those?’ Brynhildur asked, glancing at the papers.

  ‘Documents I found at the surgery after you’d left. I had a doctor take a look at them for me this morning, and he found them very interesting for various reasons which I intend to discuss with you in a minute.’

  ‘Rudolf’s expecting me at the hospital. He’ll be worried if I don’t turn up.’

  ‘That’ll have to wait. What concerns me is this business with the boys. Eyvindur and Felix were friends at school. Then, out of the blue, Felix didn’t want to know him any more. And we’ve heard about another, similar, case involving one of the boys in the photograph I showed you yesterday.’ Flóvent pulled the anniversary pamphlet from the pile of papers. ‘This one here – the boy standing next to Felix and Eyvindur. We’re trying to get hold of him, but, in the meantime, maybe you can tell me a little about him?’

  Brynhildur lowered her eyes to the documents and the photograph, then sat there without speaking, her mind evidently working hard. Flóvent supposed that she was trying to decide whether she had reached the end of the road. Whether it was time to come clean.

  ‘You’ve had a while to think about it,’ said Flóvent. ‘Your situation could hardly be worse. You must see that. If you continue to withhold information it will only make your position more difficult and provide us with more ammunition.’

  ‘I thought he’d got rid of all that,’ Brynhildur said, her eyes fixed on the papers. ‘I didn’t think he’d kept any of it. He … he no longer holds the same views. Rudolf’s changed. Unlike his brother.’

  ‘The same views? On what? The Germans, you mean? The Nazis?’

  ‘He renounced his faith,’ said Brynhildur. ‘I suppose you could put it like that. He stopped believing the relentless Nazi propaganda.’

  ‘And Felix? Has he renounced his faith too?’

  ‘You think Felix is a spy,’ said Brynhildur after a long pause. Flóvent thought he detected a new note in her voice.

  ‘That’s one theory.’

  ‘Well, you could say he’s had experience in watching people. He used to do it for his father when he was a boy. Around the time that photo was taken. You could regard that as a kind of spying, I suppose. Quite different in nature, but still … I suppose it all amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘I’m not with you,’ said Flóvent. ‘What kind of spying? When he was a boy, you say?’

  ‘Rudolf received a threatening letter recently,’ Brynhildur said. ‘Someone must have slipped it through the letter box because it didn’t come by the regular post. There was no postmark. No stamp. It contained a typewritten letter. We don’t know who sent it, but we suspect it was Eyvindur. It was unsigned and full of spelling mistakes. The writer was incensed by something Rudolf and Ebeneser had done, which, admittedly, I was involved in as well. They were both named in the letter. The sender had discovered the truth. How, I don’t know. I thought we could keep it a secret but apparently not. The writer knew about the study and the experiments; he believed that a crime had been committed against him and threatened to expose the whole affair unless certain conditions were met.’

  ‘The experiments?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What experiments?’

  Brynhildur hesitated.

  ‘Were these papers part of it? Part of this study?’

  ‘It looks as though they were,’ said Brynhildur eventually. ‘I thought Rudolf was going to destroy all the records but…’

  ‘When did he receive this threatening letter?’

  ‘A few days before Eyvindur was killed. But no one told Felix. He and Rudolf are estranged. And anyway the threats weren’t directed at him, and we didn’t even know whether to take them seriously. So you can imagine my shock when Felix told me it was Eyvindur who’d been murdered. As soon as Rudolf heard, he was convinced that Felix was responsible – that it was Eyvindur who sent the letter, that he’d been planning to get even with Felix. It wasn’t … the idea wasn’t that far-fetched. Felix had helped his father with his research. And Eyvindur was one of the subjects.’

  ‘So Rudolf believes his son is capable of murder?’

  ‘I don’t know. They haven’t spoken for years.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Felix swears he didn’t kill Eyvindur and claims he has no idea what he was doing in his flat,’ said Brynhildur, dodging the question. ‘He insisted he stumbled on Eyvindur’s body. Then again, Eyvindur was involved in the study, so…’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t believe Felix either?’

  ‘I want to believe him. His version would be … easier to bear, though the whole thing’s a tragedy. A terrible tragedy.’

  ‘Why didn’t you and Rudolf take the letter to the police?’

  ‘Because then we’d have had to tell them about the study and … Rudolf flatly refused to do that. He still thinks he can hush it up. He can’t bear the thought of anyone knowing what we did, not now we’re at war with Germany and the Nazis are jack-booting all over Europe. He’s renounced his faith. When Hans came over hoping to conduct research with the support of the Icelandic government and grants from the German Reich, Rudolf refused to work with him. If he’d done so, it would have been impossible to cover up his earlier study.’

  Brynhildur heaved a sigh. ‘My fear is that Eyvindur wrote the letter, then went to see Felix and their encounter ended in disaster. But Felix won’t admit it. I think he’s trying to avoid facing up to what he’s done by inventing all these stories about spying and being in mortal danger.’

  ‘But yesterday you said Felix was incapable of killing anyone.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ve tried but failed to get him to confess, and I find it hard to picture him shooting anyone, but … but you never know.’

  ‘Is that why you say he hates his father? Because of the study?’

  ‘It’s a
long story, but that’s certainly part of it.’

  ‘So someone shooting Eyvindur by mistake – is that a complete fabrication?’

  ‘I simply don’t know. I think we’re all in the same boat, Felix, Rudolf and I; we’re all trying to work out what happened. Felix is desperate and keeps coming up with conspiracy theories. Yesterday he started saying that Eyvindur must have been the target after all. That the murderer might have been sent by the woman Eyvindur used to live with. Apparently she was carrying on with soldiers. Vera. Is that right? Could her name be Vera? Felix had heard a rumour that she was mixed up in the Situation, and he thinks maybe she wanted Eyvindur out of the way. He thinks a soldier might have gone after Eyvindur and killed him for her.’

  ‘At Felix’s flat? Isn’t that … Does Felix have any idea why Eyvindur was in his flat?’

  ‘No,’ said Brynhildur. ‘He swears Eyvindur had never visited him before.’

  ‘Eyvindur couldn’t understand why Felix suddenly broke off their friendship when they were boys,’ said Flóvent.

  ‘Yes, well, by then Felix had provided his father with all the information he required, and after that Eyvindur was of no more use to them.’ Brynhildur hesitated, then added, with obvious reluctance: ‘He takes after his uncle a bit too much at times. He has a very cruel streak. The poor boy.’

  35

  Thorson stepped out of the jeep and surveyed the farm. There was a new-looking two-storey house with small windows and raw, unpainted walls, which looked as though it had been thrown up in a hurry. A little way off stood a traditional turf farmhouse, which appeared to serve as a cowshed and barn nowadays. Two of its three gables were leaning drunkenly into the yard, and the walls were so overgrown with grass that the layers of turf were all but invisible. Part of the roof had fallen in, reminding Thorson of a story his father had once told him. When he was a boy in the north of Iceland, a dangerous bull had climbed onto the low, grassy roof of a farmhouse and stamped right through. There it had hung, thrashing and bellowing, its legs dangling down into the living room. His father had never forgotten the sight of the magnificent beast in such a ridiculous plight.