The Shadow Killer

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Thorson was worn out after six hours of jolting over rough roads. He had set off from Reykjavík that morning, headed east over the mountains, and stopped for lunch at Tryggvaskáli in the village of Selfoss. There was a military airfield not far from the village and he had watched as one plane landed and another took off. They were engaged in air-defence patrols around the island. Ever since the war broke out there had been occasional sightings of German reconnaissance or fighter planes flying along the coast. They took off from Norway with fuel tanks specially adapted for long-distance missions over the North Atlantic, but so far they hadn’t caused much damage in Iceland.

  The British also had a unit stationed in Selfoss to defend the bridge over the River Ölfúsá. Thorson had been studying engineering back in Canada before he joined up and bridges were a particular interest of his, so he had taken this opportunity to examine the structure. It was a fine suspension bridge, spanning the point where the river narrowed between two cliffs, and he had paused to draw it in the sketch pad he always carried. This had attracted the attention of a British sentry, and he had been forced to show the man his ID before he could allay his suspicions.

  He knocked at the open door of the farmhouse, then stepped inside, rather diffidently, calling out to ask if anyone was home. He hadn’t seen a soul around the yard or by the outbuildings. The day was hot, sunny and dry as a bone, and when he had looked out over the fields it seemed as though the entire household was hard at work on the hay harvest. In the kitchen, he found an ancient-looking woman sitting in one corner. A little boy of not quite two was playing on the floor nearby, tethered to her chair leg so he couldn’t wander off and get into trouble. The old woman, absorbed in replacing the broken teeth of a rake, didn’t hear him come in, but the little boy looked up and grinned at him, then rose, tottering, to his feet. The tether was too short, however, and he plumped down on his backside again before he could take more than a step. At that the old woman glanced up and, seeing Thorson, removed a pair of battered round glasses from her nose and wished him a good afternoon. She was deaf, and he had to raise his voice to make himself understood. He had come from Reykjavík, he explained, to see the farmer, but of course he must be busy with the haymaking in this fine weather. Yes, he was, she said, and asked what he wanted to see him about. Thorson had worn a brown moleskin jacket instead of his uniform. People wouldn’t be used to receiving visits from soldiers out here, and he was afraid the uniform would put them on their guard. He explained that he was here to make enquiries about a young woman called Vera, to find out if this was the farm she had grown up on and if her parents still lived here.

  ‘Vera?’ exclaimed the old woman.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What about her? Is she in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘Why do you say that, ma’am?’

  ‘I’ve no idea where she is,’ the old woman went on. ‘The lass moved to Reykjavík a few years back and hasn’t been seen since. Her parents don’t live here any more. They gave up farming a couple of years ago and moved east over the sands, all the way out to Höfn.’

  ‘Oh, so –’

  ‘Yes, my son farms here now. He built this house. We’re from the neighbouring property, you see. Little Vera lived here, right enough, but her whole family’s left the area.’

  Thorson looked around the kitchen. A coffee pot stood on the hob, the sink was full of crockery and the stove was stacked with dirty pots and pans, because on a dry day like this every able-bodied person on the property was needed to bring in the hay. Outside the window he glimpsed the crumbling turf building that had until recently served as the farmhouse. Under that grassy roof Vera must have entered the world.

  When he and Flóvent had spoken to her in the laundry, it had struck Thorson as interesting that she had come from the countryside and known nothing of Reykjavík when she met Eyvindur. He had pressed her for more detail about her background, but she had seemed flustered and had resorted to deliberately vague answers, giving the impression that she would rather not discuss it. At this point Billy Wiggins had lost patience and said he was fed up with this bloody interrogation.

  As early in the morning as could be deemed considerate, Thorson had phoned the woman who used to live upstairs from Eyvindur and Vera, and asked if she knew where Vera came from. She was as quick to answer as she had been before. Eyvindur had once mentioned a farm in the shadow of the Eyjafjöll mountains, but it was clear that he had never been there himself. He wouldn’t have minded visiting the farm, he’d said, but Vera wasn’t keen and had very little contact with her family. This had struck their neighbour as odd. She’d concluded that Vera must be lying about her origins, perhaps to cover up the fact that she’d been messing around with soldiers ever since they’d first set foot ashore. The slut.

  ‘So you haven’t had any news of her at all, ma’am?’ asked Thorson loudly, standing there in the farm kitchen, phrasing his question as politely as he could, anxious to show the old lady his respect.

  ‘No, none at all. We haven’t once heard from her or seen her since she left.’ The little boy had now climbed onto the old woman’s lap, where he sat staring curiously at Thorson.

  ‘Were they good neighbours, her parents?’

  ‘Who did you say you were again?’ asked the old woman, squinting at him. ‘Should I know you? My eyes aren’t what they used to be.’

  ‘No, you don’t know me, ma’am,’ said Thorson. ‘I’m acquainted with Vera from town and just happened to be passing. I knew the man she was living with. I don’t know if you –’

  ‘Oh, really? Has she got married, then?’

  ‘No, they weren’t married.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know why I should have heard anything about her. We’re not in touch with her family. Was it a soldier? The man she was living with?’

  ‘No,’ said Thorson. ‘His name was Eyvindur. He died recently.’

  ‘Oh, poor girl. Still, it won’t take her long to find herself another. She’s no better than … Can I offer you a coffee, young man? Have you come all this way from Reykjavík just to ask about the girl?’

  ‘I’d gladly accept some coffee,’ said Thorson, ‘but please don’t trouble yourself, ma’am. I’m sure I can fix it myself.’

  The old woman laid down the head of the rake and gave directions from where she was sitting with the child on her lap. She told him which tin he would find the coffee in, where they kept the chicory, how to rinse out the coffee pot and how many spoonfuls of coffee to put in. The farm had electricity, supplied by a diesel generator, and a modern electric cooker had replaced the old coal range that Thorson had noticed standing outside in the yard, already looking obsolete. The aroma of coffee filled the air. The old woman asked Thorson to give the little boy a flat-cake and told him where to find it. The child climbed back down to the floor and sat there chewing happily. The woman drank her coffee black, and Thorson followed her example, assuring her that he didn’t want anything with it. She asked him to stop calling her ‘ma’am’: that sort of civility was nothing but an affectation introduced by Danish merchants; why, she’d never called anyone ‘ma’am’ in her life, despite being so terribly old. She was fond of a bit of snuff, though. Taking out a small tobacco pouch, she offered some to Thorson who sniffed a few grains off the back of his hand and immediately sneezed. This tickled the old lady. She took a pinch of snuff, placed it daintily in each nostril, then wiped her nose with a red handkerchief.

  They chatted about the weather for a while; they’d had an outstandingly good summer in this part of the country, resulting in a bumper hay crop, and everyone had been so busy with the harvest that almost nothing else had got a look-in. She asked for news from Reykjavík, particularly about the Situation: about local women consorting with soldiers and whether it was very blatant and how such a thing was possible and why didn’t the government step in. Thorson told her that while there was a certain amount of courting going on between the soldiers and Icelandic women, it was perfectly harml
ess for the most part, though of course there were exceptions, and the so-called Morality Committee had been set up to keep an eye on underage girls. The old woman tutted a great deal at this and said she’d heard it was a disgraceful state of affairs, and of course it was only going to get worse now that the country was being flooded with Yankees.

  She helped herself to another pinch of snuff. Thorson noticed a stubby, much-smoked pipe in an ashtray beside her and guessed that it was hers as well. Her gums were almost completely toothless, and she whistled as she talked. Her long grey hair hung in two plaits, on either side of her face, and her skin was as wrinkled as a crumpled paper bag. Her whole appearance, from her gnarled fingers to her bent back, bore the stamp of the long years of toil that had been her lot in life.

  ‘What about Vera? Is she in the Situation then?’ she asked.

  Unwilling to spread gossip, Thorson merely repeated that her boyfriend had died very recently.

  ‘Well, since you’re asking about her … I was going to say that Vera was one of those women who always attracts trouble. Man trouble, I mean. Of course she had looks on her side, no question, and she knew how to flaunt them. The local lads used to swarm around her like flies. She had them all eating out of her hand. And there was a bit of bother about something that happened…’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘… which may have been why she moved away.’

  36

  Brynhildur Hólm coughed and asked for a drink of water. Flóvent went to the door and ordered the guard to fetch a jug. Then he took his seat opposite her again and picked up where he had left off, asking her to clarify what she had said about Felix: that he took after Hans Lunden rather than his own father, that he had a cruel streak. Brynhildur refused to elaborate: Flóvent could interpret her words as he wished. The guard returned with a jug of water and two glasses.

  ‘All right. Then tell me about Rudolf’s research,’ Flóvent said, pushing the papers towards her. ‘What exactly was he studying?’

  Brynhildur looked at the pages in front of her. ‘If I tell you what I know, will you help Felix? Perhaps it was wrong of me to say he had a cruel streak. Because my heart bleeds for him, you know. Felix is in a bad way. He’s frightened, backed into a corner, and I’m afraid he’ll do something foolish if this goes on any longer. Afraid he’ll do something terribly foolish.’

  ‘I’m not sure what it is you’re asking of me,’ said Flóvent. ‘Naturally, I’ll do what I can for Felix within reason, but he’ll have to turn himself in.’

  ‘I’m not sure he will.’

  ‘Do you think he’s really in danger? Assuming Eyvindur wasn’t the target.’

  ‘He’s convinced of it. I want to help him but I don’t know how.’

  ‘Would you begin by explaining the significance of these papers?’ asked Flóvent, tapping the pile.

  Brynhildur said nothing for a while, as if weighing up her choices and not liking any of them.

  ‘It all started with their interest in criminals,’ she said at last. ‘Rudolf knew he’d never get permission from the government to conduct this type of research. It was Hans who urged him to do it anyway, privately. Ebeneser and Rudolf were committed Nazis in those days and thought they could get away with it. I was persuaded by their theories myself, but actually…’

  She broke off for a sip of water. ‘I wish we didn’t have to talk about this,’ she said. ‘We never spoke of it again. Not until…’

  ‘Not until the letter arrived?’

  Brynhildur nodded.

  ‘So what was the study? What is all this?’ asked Flóvent, gesturing at the pages.

  ‘The idea actually came from Rudolf’s brother. Hans had been doing some research in Germany, and during his time as a lecturer at Jena he had published a short pamphlet setting out his ideas. Rudolf believed he could carry out a similar study here. No one would need to know. Iceland was the ideal place. Up here in the remote north. An isolated society. The brothers agreed about that. They were still on good terms at the time.’

  ‘Isolated?’

  ‘Yes. You see, Nazism was a growing force in Germany, and it gave rise to a variety of theories, including the notion that criminality – amorality, I suppose you could call it – is passed down from generation to generation. In other words, that criminal traits are inherited. Rudolf told me that Hans was very interested in this idea. He was familiar with existing studies on the hereditary aspect of human abnormalities such as alcoholism, homosexuality, violence, incest and so on but criminal traits were of particular interest to him because he believed it might be possible to reduce or even eradicate them. Through measures like the castration of criminals, he believed it would be possible to cut their numbers from one generation to the next. That was the gist of Hans’s theories.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Rudolf was convinced. He persuaded Ebeneser to join him, which wasn’t difficult. Ebeneser would have done anything for him, and at the time he worshipped almost everything that came out of Germany. I myself … Rudolf and I have … that is…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘After his wife died he employed me to help him with the housekeeping. I had just completed my training and was also working as a nurse, and over time we became – how shall I put it? – close.’

  ‘Lovers? You denied that when I asked you earlier.’

  ‘I … I don’t like discussing … our private life. After his accident he needed me more than ever.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was a riding accident. Out on Laugarnes Point. His horse took fright and bolted. Rudolf was left paralysed from the waist down and became terribly depressed. Understandably. He says I saved his life. That if I hadn’t stood by him through that awful time, he wouldn’t have seen any reason to go on living.’

  ‘I see. Tell me about the study.’

  ‘As headmaster, Ebeneser was in a unique position to provide Rudolf with information about his pupils’ backgrounds. He could check up on their family history and select boys for the study. Ebeneser’s a keen genealogist as well, so he was able to trace the ancestry of the offenders in question. Since I was the school nurse, I handled the questionnaires, took measurements and obtained samples. We were looking for developmental markers – both mental and physical – as well as physiological traits. Rudolf prepared the tests. We carried out our observations as unobtrusively as possible. I incorporated them into the boys’ usual check-ups. I simply increased their frequency, since it was perfectly natural that I should pay more attention to boys from broken homes, or the homes of convicted criminals.’

  ‘Boys like Eyvindur?’

  Brynhildur nodded. ‘I don’t believe they ever realised what we were doing. Rudolf came to the school from time to time to examine them. He processed the data we provided him with and passed on reports to his brother. Hans was very enthusiastic about our work, as you can imagine, since he was engaged in the same sort of research himself. Nazism was gaining a foothold in Germany, and our observations were supposed to lay the groundwork for a larger study into the Aryan race that Hans dreamt of conducting in this country: the search for the origin of the Icelanders, of the Viking temperament.’

  ‘As I said, I asked a doctor to take a look at these,’ said Flóvent, tapping the papers, ‘and he told me that they are indeed physical measurements, very precise ones. Hands, feet, head shape, bone structure. Even the gap between the eyes. What exactly was it that you were looking for?’

  ‘The brothers were familiar with the theories of Cesare Lombroso, but Rudolf wanted to go further. I don’t know if you … You see, Rudolf wanted to study both the individual and his environment. He felt Lombroso’s theories on heredity were insufficient when considered in isolation. He wanted to understand the influence of environmental factors on heredity.’

  ‘Lombroso’s theories?’

  ‘About the links between criminality and physical characteristics,’ Brynhildur explained. ‘His theories are based on genetics and relate to the p
hysical characteristics and physiognomy that distinguish criminals from the general population. By taking precise measurements and making careful observations, scientists believe they can predict whether the individual in question is predisposed to become a criminal later in life.’

  ‘Physical characteristics?’

  ‘Well, for example, Rudolf was looking out for a gangling frame, or a particularly powerful torso. For distinctive facial features: the position of the eyes, the dimensions of the skull, a specific head shape. A variety of these characteristics have been identified by scientists. Rudolf wanted to extend the study beyond physique and look at the influence of environmental factors on the children of criminals. That is, the influence of their upbringing and living conditions. Limited though it was in scope, he was convinced that our study would produce significant results. If we’re brought up in a certain environment, in certain conditions, isn’t there a possibility that we will behave in a certain way?’

  ‘You mean we learn from what’s in front of us?’

  ‘You could put it like that, yes. Rudolf considered these questions alongside Lombroso’s theories about physical anomalies. Felix was … Felix, he…’

  ‘Go on. What about Felix? Was he complicit in all of this?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid…’ Brynhildur left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Rudolf got him to befriend some of the subjects,’ said Brynhildur, and for the first time in their conversation she showed signs of shame at what she had done. ‘Felix used to report back to his father on their living conditions, family make-up and the relations between the different family members. He’d tell him what children like Eyvindur felt about their parents and their own futures, their attitudes to crime, alcohol, even sex. Some of them had already started smoking and drinking. These were boys of twelve or thirteen. Fifteen of them in all.’