‘The man who was shot?’
‘That’s right. Jósep was also at school with a boy called Felix Lunden. We’re looking for him in connection with the murder. Not necessarily because we believe he’s guilty, but because we’re hoping he can help us with our enquiries. Has your brother ever mentioned either of these men?’
‘You don’t think Jósep’s mixed up in this … this shooting?’ the woman asked incredulously.
‘No. We have no reason to think that.’
‘How strange that you should ask. Jósep came round here a couple of weeks ago, and I gave him a meal and some of my husband’s old clothes. He said he was pretty well set up and couldn’t complain, but it was clear that he’d been drinking. I don’t think he’s often sober, poor boy.’ She gave Flóvent a sharp look. All of a sudden she seemed to feel she had to leap to her brother’s defence. ‘I can assure you that Jósep’s a good man, though he’s had a very rough time of it. He’s a dear soul, really.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Flóvent.
‘He told me he’d met one of his old school friends recently. I don’t think he mentioned his name or I’d have remembered it, but he told me they’d been reminiscing about the old days, about things he’d forgotten all about.’
‘Did he mention anything in particular?’
‘Yes, something about medical examinations. He talked about a nurse – somebody Hólm or Hólms – who looked after them.’
‘Brynhildur Hólm?’
‘That could be it. Miss Hólm, he called her. Apparently she used to keep a close eye on the children’s health, especially those who came from bad homes and were neglected, like him. She used to ask all kinds of questions, and sometimes there’d be a man in a white coat with her, who used to prod them and pinch them and look down their throats as if they were cattle. He put some kind of measuring instrument over Jósep’s head too.’
‘Could this man’s name have been Rudolf?’
‘Jósep didn’t say, but he reckoned there was something amiss about the whole thing. That’s what his old school friend told him – that it had been part of an experiment they weren’t authorised to carry out, and I think he said the doctor in charge was German. Could that be right? Could he have been one of those Nazis? Is there any truth in what he said?’
‘Was this the first he’d heard of it?’ asked Flóvent.
‘Yes, Jósep had never given it any thought, had forgotten all about it. The doctor – the man in the white coat – he had a son who was involved as well, and Jósep didn’t have a good word to say about him. He was sitting here at my table, reliving the past, but I couldn’t really follow what he was talking about.’
‘Was his name Felix? The son?’
‘Yes, Felix, that’s right. What was it Jósep said? That he was sly, or something. At any rate, Jósep didn’t like him, didn’t like any of it. He got quite worked up when he thought back to those days. Then he left and I haven’t heard from him since.’
* * *
The volunteers at the Citadel turned out to be well acquainted with Jósep, though they hadn’t seen him for a while. They said he dropped by from time to time, especially in the depths of winter, for a square meal and to get some warmth into his bones. To be taught that God was good to all men and that God’s blessing was extended to him as well. Flóvent was tempted to say that God didn’t seem that well disposed towards Jósep, given the state he was in, but stopped himself. They admitted that Jósep didn’t really take part in the singing, unless it was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. They saw less of him at the Lord’s citadel in the spring and summer, when he slept outside in the open air. In gardens, or sometimes in boathouses, or net sheds, he’d told them.
Flóvent thanked them. On his way out he encountered a tramp who had slipped into the entrance hall, and he thought to ask him if he knew Jósep. There was a throat-catching stench from his filthy rags, and it took all Flóvent’s self-discipline not to hold his nose, for fear of offending the man. Not that he looked the type to be easily offended.
‘Jósep?’ the tramp croaked in a shrill voice. ‘Why are you asking about him?’
‘I need to talk to him,’ said Flóvent. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’
‘Are you his brother?’
‘No.’
The tramp shot him a sideways glance. He had a matted beard, a battered, brimless hat pushed down over his filthy hair, and his hands were black with dirt.
‘Can you spare five krónur?’ he asked.
Flóvent produced three krónur from his pocket. The man tucked them away in his clothes.
‘I haven’t the foggiest where Jósep’s living,’ he announced and continued on his way inside the Citadel.
‘But…?’
‘You can try the yard behind Munda’s place on Gardastræti. She sometimes has leftovers.’
It was only a short step from the Salvation Army hostel to Gardastræti. Flóvent walked round the corner to the street where a woman by the name of Ingimunda, popularly known as Munda, had started up a small kitchen called The Little Inn at the beginning of the war. Her daily specials were fried cod in breadcrumbs, and meatballs in gravy, Danish style, and she was run off her feet. She was a small, thin woman, past her prime, very brisk in her manner, and had little time to attend to Flóvent. Yes, she said, Jósep sometimes came round to her kitchen door asking for scraps, and she had been known to slip him leftovers because her heart bled for down-and-outs like him. She’d known hard times herself, though business was booming now, thanks to the war.
‘He was here a couple of days ago,’ she said as she formed Danish meatballs for the evening rush. ‘Said he was dossing in the west end. In one of the sheds on Grandi. Told me he was expecting to come into some money soon, so he’d be able to settle up with me. A bit muddled, he was, the poor lad. I told him he didn’t owe me anything. Not a brass farthing.’
42
Thorson drove up to the laundry. White sheets were flapping on the lines behind the house, and there was an empty tub lying in the grass. He got out of the jeep and walked over to the washing, taking in the view over Faxaflói Bay, the white summer clouds over the sea, remembering how captivated he had been by the scenery and the light when he first came to Iceland. But it was the silence that really drew him, the tranquillity; you could feel it as soon as you left town, even here on the outskirts, where the sheets fluttered under a blue sky.
There was no movement near the house. He knocked at the door, then went inside and called out, but there was no answer. He stood there at a loss, surveying the piles of dirty washing and thinking that Vera had her work cut out. Presumably she wouldn’t be gone for long. Just then he heard a noise overhead and saw her descending the steep ladder, pausing halfway to peer down at him.
‘You again?’
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Is this a bad time?’
‘Yes … no. I was just so tired all of a sudden that I went for a nap.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, glancing back up towards the attic before continuing her descent. ‘What do you want? I thought I’d answered your questions. I don’t know anything about what happened to Eyvindur, so there’s no point asking me.’
‘I realise that,’ said Thorson. ‘I came to tell you that you can plan the funeral if you like. The doctor has finished his examination. I know you’d left him but…’
‘Oh, I see. I don’t know … perhaps his uncle could…’
‘Yes, well, I guess you’ll be hearing from him.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Have you heard from your friend Billy Wiggins at all?’ Thorson asked, looking around the laundry.
‘Billy? Why? What about him?’
‘May I ask if you two are close?’
‘Close?’
‘Would that be a fair description of your relationship? And that you’re engaged to be married?’
Vera gave him a long look, as if trying
to work out why he was really here, why he was asking about her relationship with Billy.
‘Billy and I are very good friends,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. We haven’t discussed marriage. Was that what you wanted to know? Why are you asking about Billy anyway?’
‘Of course, you haven’t known each other very long. A few months, maybe? It would be a little premature to talk about marriage.’
Vera dug out a packet of cigarettes from among the piles of washing, lit one and blew out smoke. They were an American brand, though that wasn’t necessarily significant.
‘Why don’t you just get to the point?’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘Have you?’
Vera stared at Thorson, smoking her cigarette, not saying a word.
‘Did you know that Billy has been sent up to Hvalfjördur for a few days?’ he asked.
Thorson had learnt that Billy’s unit had been sent with two others to work on the construction of barracks and harbour facilities at the naval base in Hvalfjördur. He hadn’t yet made up his mind whether to send for Sergeant Wiggins.
‘Yes, he told me,’ Vera replied.
‘Did Billy also tell you that he recently got into a fight at Hótel Ísland because of you?’
‘Because of me? No. It’s the first I’ve heard of it. What happened?’
‘He met some young soldiers – a couple of them walk past your house every day. And he took offence on your behalf. You see, they said you were friendly with a GI.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said Vera. ‘People will say anything. You shouldn’t listen to gossip. I don’t know any GIs. People are forever spreading rumours in this town. You don’t mean you actually took it seriously?’
‘Well, the fact is that Eyvindur was shot with an American military pistol. Of course, anyone could get hold of a gun like that if he wanted to. There’s a black market in that kind of thing around the defence force. All the same, I wanted to ask you if it’s true – if you’ve started a relationship with one of the new arrivals.’
‘Of course not,’ said Vera. ‘What a load of rubbish.’
He saw that it took her a moment or two to work out the connection. Work out what he was insinuating. Her reaction appeared genuine. Yet he had gone out east to her old stamping ground and learnt that there was nothing particularly genuine about her.
They locked gazes and he could tell the instant it dawned on her.
‘What … You’re not seriously suggesting Eyvindur was killed by some American soldier that I’m supposed to know?’
Thorson didn’t immediately answer. He thought of the blacksmith and his encounters with her in the smithy, and although his own interests didn’t lie that way, he could see why the man had fallen for her. How she’d got Billy eating out of her hand. Why it wouldn’t take her long to hook a GI, fresh off the boat, if she had a mind to. Everything she did was on her own terms. The only question in Thorson’s mind was how far she’d be willing to go to get what she wanted.
‘Isn’t that what happened?’ he asked at last.
‘Are you crazy?’ said Vera. ‘Are you completely off your rocker?’
‘What about Eyvindur?’
‘What about him?’
‘Wasn’t he holding you back?’
‘I left him,’ said Vera. ‘He wasn’t holding me back. I don’t understand what you mean. I got tired of him. That’s all. I left him. There’s nothing more to say.’
‘Like a thief in the night,’ said Thorson. ‘Didn’t say a word to him. You’d found yourself a British soldier and had been seeing him while Eyvindur was away. Wouldn’t it have been more honourable to come clean?’
‘No doubt. Look, I just couldn’t live with him any longer. And I’m not … I didn’t know what to say. What was I supposed to say? That he was never going to amount to anything and it took me a while to work it out? That it had been a mistake – the whole thing between him and me? That I’d regretted it from the moment I moved in with him? Eyvindur couldn’t bear to hear the truth – never could bear the truth – so I decided not to tell him.’
‘But he tracked you down anyway?’
‘Yes.’
‘Came to see you here?’
‘He wouldn’t let it drop, though he knew perfectly well it was over. That it never really meant anything. Because I told him as much.’
‘Then what? Did he leave you in peace?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You wanted to get rid of him.’
‘Get rid of him? No. I was rid of him. I’d left him.’
‘How did Wiggins take it?’
‘What?’
‘His coming here? Harassing you? Begging you to move back in with him?’
‘He didn’t know.’
‘Maybe it was Billy’s idea,’ Thorson suggested.
‘What?’
‘Did you talk Billy Wiggins into going after Eyvindur?’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Or did he come up with the idea all by himself? I hear he’s a jealous man. Hot-headed. What did you tell him about Eyvindur? How did you describe your relationship? Did you tell him that Eyvindur wasn’t going to let you go? That Billy would need to get him out of the way first, before you and Wiggins could be together?’
‘Where did you get all that? I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. What do you take me for? A moment ago you were saying I’d got some Yank to shoot him! Why don’t you make up your mind? You’ve got some nerve, coming round here accusing me of this rubbish.’
‘I know a man who’s suffered thanks to you,’ said Thorson. ‘He lives in the countryside. Alone with his dogs. He warned me about you. How you twist men around your little finger. He told me not to believe a word you say.’
Vera stared at Thorson. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Oh, I think you know. You’re familiar with his little smithy.’
‘You went to see him?’ she asked, dumbfounded.
‘He says he still thinks of you sometimes,’ said Thorson. ‘In spite of everything.’
43
Suddenly Vera was like a cornered animal. She was visibly shaken by Thorson’s reference to the blacksmith. Grabbing a tub of clean washing, she hurried outside as if she couldn’t bear to be trapped in the laundry a minute longer. Thorson followed her and saw that she had started pegging out the wet clothes. The sun had begun to cast a golden glow on the sky in the west.
‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘Not good,’ said Thorson. ‘Not good at all.’
‘What … what did he tell you?’
‘You didn’t come out of it well.’
‘What did he say? Just tell me what he said.’
‘He told me how you used him. That you dreamt of escaping to the city and that he’d been nothing but a means to an end. You seduced him, and he was too slow to realise what was going on. You had a bad reputation out there and –’
‘Who gives a damn?’ she interrupted. ‘Who gives a damn what those peasants think?’
‘Why do you talk about them like that?’
‘Because they’re forever running me down.’
‘That’s strange,’ said Thorson. ‘If anything, it seemed to me like they felt sorry for you.’
‘Why do you think I wanted to leave?’ asked Vera. ‘I was suffocating there. I never wanted to be a farmer’s wife, frying doughnuts and milking cows. As if that’s all life has to offer. It’s crazy. As if women shouldn’t be allowed to do anything else. Just work their fingers to the bone like skivvies. Wait hand and foot on some old sod. Churn out children and never dare to dream of any other fate.’
‘Yet you were engaged to a farmer?’
‘He used to feel the same. He wanted to leave. We talked of nothing else. But it turned out he didn’t mean any of it. He kept dragging his heels about selling the farm. Kept making all kinds of excuses. We quarrelled. We were always quarrelling. When it became clear th
at he’d never had any intention of moving, I said I was leaving him. “Well, good luck,” he said, “because you’re not going anywhere. I won’t let you leave.” He always talked like that: I won’t let you. I won’t let you! As if he could tell me what to do!’
‘So you decided to do something about it?’
‘It was … I wanted…’
‘To show him that you made your own decisions?’
Vera dropped the shirt she was holding back into the tub and turned to face Thorson, who was standing by the laundry door.
‘I don’t know what he told you, but I never meant to hurt him,’ she said. ‘Never. I know that’s what happened, and I know what he thinks of me – what they all think of me – but I never meant it to turn out that way. I don’t deserve all the blame. He had just as big a part in it as me.’
‘He says you played with him. Played with his feelings. Used him to get back at your fiancé, then tossed him aside like a piece of rubbish.’
‘Are those his words?’
‘He says you deceived him.’
‘Isn’t that because he wanted to be deceived?’ said Vera. ‘And when things didn’t turn out the way he wanted, it was all my fault? I was to blame? He knew I was with another man. He knew I was cheating on him. That didn’t put him off. That didn’t stop him. I’m not saying my behaviour was beyond reproach. I’m not … I was angry. I wanted to get back at my fiancé, I admit it. I admit my conscience isn’t exactly clean, and I certainly could have done things differently. But who was deceived? What’s all this talk of deception? He knew what he was doing. How do you know he wasn’t just waiting to be deceived? Dreaming of it? I bet you didn’t grill him about that!’
Vera stood facing him squarely, and when Thorson looked into her eyes what he saw above all was her strength of will. He wondered if it had been this strength of will that the blacksmith had found so impossible to resist. Thorson also detected a growing anger, directed at him, but it didn’t even occur to him to try to placate her.
The Shadow Killer Page 23
