The Flatey Enigma

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  “I lit my candles by the cross of the holy tree,” he muttered softly, but then he couldn’t remember the rest and just muttered a silent, “Amen.”

  The policemen carried the box out of the churchyard and placed it on the handcart. They then set off across the island toward the coast guard ship.

  It was almost three in the morning by now, and there were no lights on inside the houses, except for the doctor’s residence. Another corpse lay within those walls, and the daughter was alone in the house, so it wasn’t surprising that the light was on. Reverend Hannes had told Grimur that she wanted her father to be buried in Flatey. Gudjon in Radagerdi was bound to have started making the casket. The body would be transported to the church after the closing of the casket.

  The only lights that glowed on the coast guard ship were those on the bridge where four men were on watch. Two of them stepped on shore, lifted the casket between them, and carried it on board the ship. The inspectors followed them to collect small suitcases containing their personal belongings. Then they stepped back on shore again. The disembarkation bridge was pulled back on board and the moorings untied. The ship slipped away from the pier and smoothly backed out of the strait. It was only when it was far out in the open sea that it finally veered south and advanced at full speed.

  The ship had been ordered to go straight to Stykkisholmur to deliver the casket and then return to Flatey. The crew would then remain on standby to assist the inspectors whenever needed in the days ahead. The ship would also to be used as a communications center. Everyone on the island could eavesdrop on conversations that went through the regular radio channels, but the coast guard could send messages that the general public were unable to decipher, and the policemen therefore needed it to be able to communicate with their colleagues in Reykjavik where the investigation was also still being pursued.

  Grimur and the policemen watched the coast guard ship sail off and then walked toward the village. Accommodation had been set up for the guests in the school.

  Question twenty-five: What did Ivar lack? Second letter. Ivar the Boneless was king in England for a long time. He had no children because it was said that he lacked carnal desires, but he wasn’t short of cunning and cruelty. He died of old age in England and was buried there. The answer is “desires,” and the second letter is e.

  CHAPTER 42

  Tuesday, June 7, 1960

  District Officer Grimur woke up early, despite the night watch, and was dressed by eight. Kjartan also descended from the loft and said good morning.

  “Feeling better now, my friend?” Grimur asked.

  “Yeah. I’m over it now, thanks. I’m sorry for dropping out like that.”

  “It was a perfectly natural reaction. You’re a young man and you’re not used to that kind of horror.”

  “Yeah, it’s also being in this position of authority. It doesn’t suit me. I should have turned down this job straightaway when the district magistrate sent me here. This isn’t the kind of job I moved west to do. It’ll turn me into a depressive because my nerves can’t take it.”

  “What doesn’t kill a man makes him stronger.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Kjartan answered.

  It was still raining, and the eastern winds had started to pick up again.

  Grimur checked the weather. “The forecast is for more of the same,” he said dejectedly as Ingibjorg put on her rain clothes to go out to the shed. The district officer had to assist the policemen, so someone else had to take care of the cows.

  At around eight, Grimur and Kjartan set off for the school with morning coffee in a flask and freshly baked bread for the overnight guests. On their way they picked up Benny in Radagerdi, gave him time to quickly dress, and took him along to the school. It was best to get started straightaway if they wanted to question all the adults on the island. Benny was undoubtedly the person who would have the most to say. He had followed the reporter around for almost two days.

  The policemen were up. Hogni had heated up some shaving water in a washbasin on a primus stove, and they were finishing washing. Kjartan greeted them, introduced himself, and asked if they needed his help.

  Thorolfur eyed the magistrate’s envoy with an inquisitive, slightly intrigued air. “No,” he said finally, “we’ll finish the questioning ourselves today, and the district officer can bring the people in for us. You can just take it easy until we call you in.”

  “Call me in?” Kjartan asked, surprised.

  “Yes. We’ll be taking statements from everyone who was on the island last night. Even the district administrative officer will have to account for his movements.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m ready whenever,” said Kjartan, nodding good-bye before he disappeared outside.

  The policemen sat down for a coffee and offered Benny a seat. Grimur and Hogni waited for further developments by the door, feeling uncertain about their exact role in these proceedings.

  Four school desks had been pushed together, and the policemen sat on two sides, Thorolfur facing Benny. There was a long silence while the guests devoured several slices of bread. Benny lit himself a cigarette, and Hogni handed him an old saucer as an ashtray.

  Thorolfur finally signaled Hogni to leave the room but invited Grimur to sit beside them. When the door closed, he turned to Benny and asked him for his name and age. The young man answered in a slightly tremulous voice.

  The policeman peered into his eyes at length. “When did you see Bryngeir for the last time?” he abruptly asked.

  Benny was quick to answer: “Sunday evening, at around eight.”

  “Where?”

  “In the shed at Thormodur Krakur’s place.”

  “What did you do on Sunday, where did you go, whom did you talk with?”

  This time Benny had to think a moment. “I met him twice. First at lunchtime. He came home to Radagerdi and scrounged a meal because Sigurbjorn in Svalbard threw him out in the middle of the night.”

  “Why was he thrown out?”

  “This Bryngeir guy was a bit of a stupid asshole. He told me there’d been some kind of misunderstanding. But then I heard that he’d tried to slip into bed with Hafdis when everyone was asleep. If I’d known he was like that, I would have just let him be and had nothing more to do with him. Hafdis is a good girl, and she’d never have allowed a guy like that to go near her.”

  “What did you do at lunchtime?”

  “I gave him the leftovers of some puffin soup at home in the kitchen and walked down to Eyjolfur’s pier with him to look at the people from the other islands who’d come over for the mass. I had other things to do then, so I didn’t see him again until the afternoon.”

  “What did you have to do?” Thorolfur snapped.

  Benny blushed. He inhaled his cigarette and exhaled through his nose. “I had to go to the church,” he said. “I sing in the choir. They needed a tenor this winter and Hogni asked me to join.”

  “Where did you meet Bryngeir again?”

  “In the island store after mass. He was talking to the storekeeper, Asmundur.”

  “Wasn’t the store closed?”

  Benny blushed and averted his gaze. “Asmundur keeps hooch in the store, which he’s willing lend to people for the same plus a half when they’re in need. District Officer Grimur doesn’t allow it, though. Bryngeir was trying to get Asmundur to lend him a bottle of hooch.”

  “The same plus a half? What does that mean?”

  “It means you pay him back a bottle and a half when it’s delivered to the post office.”

  “Did he get a bottle from Asmundur?”

  “Yeah, he got a bottle of rum, but not before I’d promised to cover the cost myself if Bryngeir failed to pay for it.”

  “So you trusted him then?”

  “Yes, I thought so. Or at least, he said he was expecting loads of money. I don’t know how that’ll work now that he’s dead. Maybe I’ll have to pay. I have to talk to Asmundur about it. I have a good seal fur that should b
e enough to cover the debt.”

  “How come Bryngeir was expecting money?”

  “When we got the bottle from Asmundur, we walked up to Thormodur Krakur’s yard. Bryngeir kept his stuff there. Then he told me that he had solved the mystery about that Danish guy. He was going to write about it in his paper, and no one was supposed to know how the case was solved until the paper came out. Not even the police. He said the paper would sell like hotcakes and that he’d get a percentage. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone about it. He was going to visit someone and then try to get someone to take him to Stykkisholmur in the evening.”

  “Who was he going to get to take him to Stykkisholmur?”

  “Just someone with a boat.”

  “Who was he going to visit?”

  “He just said some friend. He was a bit secretive sometimes.”

  “Did he know anyone on the island from before?”

  “No…yeah, at least he knew who the magistrate’s assistant was, yeah, and Doctor Johanna. But I don’t know if he knew them really.”

  “When did you leave him?”

  “Around eight. I had to go home to dinner. I was hungry.”

  “Was he alone then?”

  “No, Thormodur Krakur came into the shed and they chatted a bit. I think Krakur was telling him old dreams. The old man likes to do that, if he can find a willing listener.”

  “Did you tell anyone that Bryngeir believed he’d solved the case of that Danish man?”

  “No, no. Just Mom and Dad. My sister Rosa heard it, too, but I didn’t tell anyone else, I swear.”

  Thorolfur chewed on a slice of bread and drank coffee during the questioning. Occasionally he jotted something down on a lined sheet of paper.

  Now Lukas started asking questions: “You’re sure you didn’t see him after eight?”

  “Yeah, I’d thought of going out again and trying to find him. Even to go along with him, if someone was willing to take him to Stykkisholmur. But then it started to rain and I couldn’t be bothered. I just listened to the news on the radio.”

  “Were your parents home?”

  “Mom went down to Stina at the telephone exchange when she’d finished washing up, but Dad was at home reading a book to my sister Rosa.”

  “He can therefore confirm that you were at home all evening?”

  “That I have an alibi, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do I need that?”

  “It’s good to be able to eliminate as many people as possible.”

  “I think Dad fell asleep when he’d finished reading to Rosa, and then Mom came home.”

  “So you could have left the house without anyone knowing?”

  Benny stubbed out his cigarette. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I can ever leave the house without Mom realizing it. She told me that Bryngeir had been hassling Hafdis when she got back. Stina at the telephone exchange had heard it from the people at Svalbardi after mass.”

  Thorolfur took over the interrogation again: “What did you two do on Saturday?”

  “I met him on the pier when he arrived with the boat and then took him to Svalbardi so that he could ask if he could stay. We spent some time with Sigurbjorn, chatting and drinking rum. Although I got very little rum. He was incredibly miserly, even though he had two and a half bottles. Then we went outside and spied when they were carrying that Danish guy in the casket down to the pier.”

  “What do you mean, ‘spied’?”

  “Just, not letting anyone see us. Bryngeir didn’t want anyone to see that we were watching. I don’t know why. Then we went to Ystakot and spoke to Valdi for a bit.”

  “What about?”

  “Bryngeir was trying to find out if Valdi would be willing to take people to Stykkisholmur if he was well paid for it.”

  “What did Valdi say about that?”

  “Maybe if the pay was good enough.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “We walked back and looked into the church. Bryngeir started trying to play the organ, but he couldn’t play a note. Hogni, the teacher, then came in and was about to rehearse for the mass. He’s our organist. He was really mad at Bryngeir for messing with the organ and was going to throw us out. But Bryngeir wouldn’t leave and just talked crap. I think he just liked winding people up. He was such a darn asshole. I didn’t want to hang around with him anymore and just went home. I think he just went into Svalbardi to have a snooze when he got bored arguing with Hogni.” Benny shut up and waited for the next question. Thorolfur kept him waiting and stared at him with searching eyes.

  “Have you any knowledge of how Bryngeir died?” he finally asked.

  “No, I swear,” Benny said hastily. “I’ve already told you.”

  “Right then. That’s enough for now. Talk to you again later.”

  Question twenty-six: Left his guts on the roof of a church. First letter. They went to Folskn unexpectedly and immediately killed Gunnar and some of his men. Ivar Korni was in the loft and escaped through a window, dressed only in his underwear. He tried to get into the church but it was locked. A ladder leaned against the church wall, so he climbed up to the roof and stayed there for the night. In the morning they found him, almost dead from the cold. He begged for mercy but did not get any. A man climbed the ladder and pierced him with a spear. Ivar fell, leaving his blood and guts behind him on the church roof. The answer is “Ivar,” and the first letter is i.

  CHAPTER 43

  Hogni’s task was to call in the people on the established list of names, and Sigurbjorn of Svalbardi had arrived by the time Benny stepped out of the classroom with Grimur after his questioning.

  “Those guys are real cops,” Benny said, excited. Grimur told him to go home and ushered Sigurbjorn in to take a seat opposite the two detectives. He himself sat by the door.

  Thorolfur kicked off with: “I’m told the deceased Bryngeir stayed with you on Saturday, is that correct?”

  “You’d hardly call it stayed,” Sigurbjorn answered. “He came on Saturday and asked to stay the night. We have a spare bed that we sometimes lend to travelers, and he was welcome to it. He also got some food from us when he arrived and then again in the evening. But he was cheeky and incredibly tiring when he was drunk. I threw him out at three in the morning. I’m told he crawled into Krakur’s barn and slept there in some old hay until late on Sunday morning.”

  “Why did you throw him out?”

  “He turned out to be such a darned scoundrel. We all went to bed at around midnight, and he was supposed to do the same. But there was something restless about him, and in the middle of the night he sneaked into my daughter’s bedroom stark naked and tried to slip into her bed. He wanted to seduce her, the bloody lech!”

  “What happened then?”

  “Well, her granny sleeps in the next bed and had her wits about her. She caught him at the side of the bed and shooed him away. I think she emptied her potty over him. In any case, he was all wet on top when I found him in the corridor and kicked him out. Then I grabbed all his stuff and dumped it on the steps.”

  “Didn’t you see him again?”

  “No, and I didn’t go looking for him either. It didn’t surprise me that the man was doomed.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. When I looked into his bag to see if he’d stolen anything from the house, I found sheets from the Flatey enigma that are meant to be kept in the library and not taken away. He’d stolen them the bloody night before. I went straight to Hallbjorg in Innstibaer and got the library key from her to be able to put the sheets back where they belonged. She told me the magistrate’s assistant had been the last one to go to the library and that he’d probably forgotten to lock it. They don’t know how to handle these precious things, those cultivated people from Reykjavik.”

  “Is that the only key to the library?”

  “Yeah, apart from the key that the late Bjorn Snorri got a loan of. He went to the library so often.”

  “You’re sure you d
idn’t meet Bryngeir again on Sunday evening?”

  “Yes, of course I didn’t meet him again,” Sigurbjorn snapped angrily. “Do you think I’m lying? Do you really think I dragged that scoundrel up to the churchyard, placed him on a grave, and carved a blood eagle out of his back just because he’d abused my hospitality?”

  “Carved a blood eagle out of his back?” Thorolfur asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s perfectly obvious. Someone carved a blood eagle out of his back. Haven’t you read the Flatey Book?”

  “No.”

  Sigurbjorn shook his head and said, “Don’t they require you to have any education to join the police force these days?”

  “The Flatey Book isn’t exactly on the police syllabus,” Thorolfur answered sourly.

  Sigurbjorn grinned. “Isn’t it now? Well it should be. I’ll try to remember it for you. Sigurdur, Fafnir’s killer, fought Lyngvi Hundingsson in Friesland and captured him. Then they had a discussion about how Lyngvi should die. Regin suggested they carve a blood eagle on his back, and that’s what they did. Regin cut through Lyngvi’s back with his sword, broke his ribs to make them look like wings, and then he pulled out his lungs. So Lyngvi died with great valor. There are also accounts of blood eagles in the Orkneys saga and in the tale of Ormur Storolfsson, if I remember correctly. If you ask me, that’s exactly what was done to that wretch in the churchyard.”

  The policemen glanced at each other, but Sigurbjorn continued: “And then there’s that Danish fellow. You can find parallels with his fate in the Flatey Book, too, but I guess you don’t know that story either, do you?”

  Thorolfur shook his head. “How did that one go?” he asked.

  “It’s in the saga of Olaf Tryggvason. Eyvindur Kelda went to Ogvaldsnes with the intention of killing King Olaf. Using magic he summoned a dark mist so that the king wouldn’t be able to see them, but it blinded them, too, and made them walk around in circles. The king’s protectors spotted the men and arrested them. The king then invited them to abandon their evil ways and to believe in the true God. But when Eyvindur and his men categorically refused to do so, they were taken to a skerry in the sea and left there to die of exposure. Since then it’s been called the Devil’s Skerry. That’s how it went. I think you’ll have to start reading the Flatey Book before you try solving the Breidafjordur mysteries.”