“But what about that man from Reykjavik, the reporter? Did he know you were keeping the bag?” Kjartan asked.
Nonni averted his gaze. “Yeah, when I sneaked out of mass, I went home to have a little look through the binoculars. Normally I hardly ever dare to use it because no one’s allowed to see me. I was sure that District Officer Grimur would take it away from me if anyone saw me.”
The boy looked shamefacedly at the district officer.
“Did the reporter see you?” Kjartan asked.
“Yeah, I thought that everyone was still in the church, but then he was suddenly there standing beside me.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He asked me if I owned the binoculars. Then he looked into the bag and saw the little books. Then he asked me if Dad had taken the foreigner to Stykkisholmur. I told him that Grandpa had, but he’d run out of fuel. Then he asked me if he could keep the little books if he promised not to tell anyone about the binoculars and the camera. I said yes, if he wouldn’t tell anyone. He promised and said that then I wasn’t to tell anyone either.”
The boy started whimpering. “And now the reporter is dead and I’m breaking my promise.”
“Do you remember the dead man you saw in Ketilsey?” Kjartan asked.
“Yeah,” the boy answered.
“Had you seen him before?”
“No, I don’t think so. You couldn’t see his face.”
Grimur had listened to the whole story in silence and now spoke: “Right, my friend. Let’s go to my house, Nonni, and we’ll get my Imba out of bed. She’ll give you some milk and something good to eat. Then maybe you’ll get a slice of cake and go to bed. Me and Kjartan here will go looking for your dad and grandpa.”
Question forty: The final question has now been reached. It is the key to all the other answers and goes as follows: “Who spoke the wisest?” The answers can vary greatly, according to personal taste and wisdom. There are many wise sayings in this book, but the key here is composed of the following letters:
O S L E O Y I A R N R Y L
E M H O N E A E N W T L B
A U R M L E Q W T R O N E
“My father went through the entire book, page by page, trying out all the sentences that felt reasonably sensible to him and contained some ounce of wisdom. He played around with them, rearranging the letters to see whether they could make up a complete sentence. The spelling was supposed to be in line with what was used in the latter half of the nineteenth century, as far as he knew, and the sentence had to contain exactly thirty-nine letters. He created little tables with these letters and shuffled them over and over again, but still couldn’t find the text to unlock the riddle, and he eventually gave up. Many weeks later, he started thinking about the enigma again. He realized something else was needed to find the right key sentence. Some letters appeared more than once in the rows of key letters, and it was impossible to say how the rows were connected. There had to be some other way of decoding the answer. Then he focused his attention on the drawing that accompanied the clues and had come to be known as the magic rune. Personally, he didn’t believe in that kind of stuff, but he was sure that the author had placed the picture beside the riddle for a reason. He noted that on each side of the picture there were thirteen lines that crossed the picture and reemerged on the other side of it in a different place. Thirteen multiplied by three is thirty-nine, which is the number of letters in the key. He drew a copy of the picture, reproducing it three times in a vertical row. Then he wrote out the key letters downwards in the vertical column and moved them across to the other side of the grid, following each line. The following sentence emerged: ‘Rarely is only one to blame when two men quarrel.’ This is the second part of a sentence that reads as follows and can be considered wise: ‘Remember, though, that rarely is only one to blame when two men quarrel.’ It’s a line from the old saga of Hakon. My father was so fervent in his quest that he overdid it that night. He was extremely ill when I found him in the library, but I had never seen him in such ecstasy. Now all he needed to do was to go over his answers to the thirty-nine questions and see whether they formed the end of the key poem. It should only have taken him part of the day, but he was too ill now and never got out of the house again. He knew he could only do this by strictly abiding by the rules. A short while later Gaston Lund arrived on his fateful visit. My father told him how the ‘magic rune’ was to be used to unlock the solution to the riddle and fortieth question. Lund got very excited about it and was lent the library key to rush up there and try out his answers. But he ran out of time. He didn’t manage to finish the test and later probably missed the mail boat. What happened next is difficult to imagine.”
“My father spent the whole winter trying to muster up enough energy to return to the library and try out his solution. I often offered to do it for him, but he didn’t want me to. He wanted to see the solution appear before his own eyes. Then finally, yesterday, he asked me to go up and try out his solution. He felt death was approaching and wanted to hear the end of the poem before he passed away. I was going to ask Ingibjorg to watch over him and sent for her, but he lost consciousness as I was waiting for her to arrive. He steadily deteriorated during the day and died that evening. He’d solved the code but never knew if he’d found the right solution to the entire enigma. But now we’ll see what happens.”
Johanna wrote down the thirty-nine letters in a single column, following her father’s diagram, and numbered them at the same time. Then, starting on each letter, she followed each line across the grid to where it ended on the other side of the picture and wrote the letter out again. Wherever Bjorn Snorri and Gaston Lund’s answers differed, she wrote down both possibilities. Then she scrutinized the solution for a moment. She crossed out three letters in her father’s answers and three letters in Gaston Lund’s and inserted dashes between the words. She said, “The solution is: t h e f e y i s d o o m e d t o d i e t h e l u c k y i s s a f e f o r n o w
“There are, therefore, errors in my father’s answers to questions seventeen, twenty-six, and thirty. Lund got those answers right. There were three errors in Gaston Lund’s answers. But once he’d found the solution to the key, it should have been easy for him to correct his answer. The guess someone had scribbled at the bottom of the sheet sometime was somehow completely wrong. The final lines of the poem were as follows:
Heavy gray clouds of eerie pelting hail
Demanding the magic words
The fey is doomed to die
The lucky is safe for now.”
Johanna looked up Sverrir’s saga. “This is an account of a yeoman who followed his son to the warships and gave him some advice, urging him to be bold and audacious in battle. Reputation is what survives a man the longest, he said. In every battle you’re in, remember that you will either die or survive. Be valiant, therefore, since everything is predetermined. ‘The fey is doomed to die, the lucky is safe for now. To die in flight is the worst death of all.’”
Kjartan pondered this wisdom. It reflected a belief in predestination that might have been be useful to resort to when your life was turned upside down, but he still preferred to live by other laws. He pulled out his pocket notebook and scrutinized the picture he had drawn in Ketilsey. “Lund had probably managed to complete the solution on Ketilsey, and since he had nothing else to write with, he used the pebbles to form the missing word from the poem. Lucky wasn’t the name of a boat.
“I feel slightly ashamed because I almost caused an uproar today by connecting Sigurbjorn in Svalbardi’s boat to Gaston Lund’s death. And then I was going to claim that Gudrun in Innstibaer was the mother of Lund’s child and that their son had been involved in this case. It was a good job District Officer Grimur brought me to my senses and made me hold my tongue.”
“Yes, a good job he did. Gudrun’s son is not Gaston Lund’s son. The child that Gaston Lund did his best to disown is another man altogether,” said Johanna.
CHAPTER 57
Gr
imur, Kjartan, and little Nonni walked across the village together, and Grimur woke up his wife. She got up to prepare some food and also fetched a snack from an old cake box. The boy then stayed in the district officer’s house with Ingibjorg, while Grimur and Kjartan continued on down to the moored boats.
Both men were silent, lost in separate thoughts. They boarded the boat, and Grimur started the engine. The sound of the motor seemed abnormally loud as it broke the stillness of the morning. Even the birds in Hafnarey were silent just before dawn.
Grimur headed to the west of the island, passing the new pier and the coast guard ship and skerries.
Finally Grimur spoke: “How did it occur to you to ask the boy if he had any binoculars?”
Kjartan hesitated a moment before answering. “It was a hunch. On Thursday when we went to collect the body in Ketilsey, we spotted the boy on the shore below the croft. I saw he was holding something up to his eyes that glistened. It occurred to me that they might be binoculars. Then I remembered that Lund had been carrying some binoculars and a camera in his luggage that were never found. I knew there could be a connection there somewhere. That’s why I asked the boy.”
Grimur nodded. “I think it’s becoming quite clear then. Professor Lund delayed for too long at the doctor’s house and lost track of time. He thought he had enough time to go to the library, but when he finally got down to the pier the mail boat had already left. He could probably still see it sailing south. He now badly needed to get to Stykkisholmur and from there south to Reykjavik because he had a flight to catch to Copenhagen. Old Jon Ferdinand and the kid were on the pier with the boat, and Lund managed to communicate to them that he needed to get to Stykkisholmur. He must have insisted and been pushy enough to make the old man sail off with him. But I think it had been many years since Jon Ferdinand had sailed all the way to Stykkisholmur. He must have forgotten himself on the way and headed for Ketilsey, since that was the route he was most used to sailing. Lund saw nothing strange about this, because Ketilsey is to the southeast, which could have been the sailing route to Stykkisholmur, as far as a stranger was concerned. The boat then ran out of fuel close to Ketilsey and they rowed to the landing slip. Lund must have gone on land to look for inhabitants and get some help, while Jon Ferdinand waited on the boat. After a while, Jon Ferdinand completely forgot that he had a passenger. All he can think of is that he’s out of fuel in Ketilsey and has to get home. Then a southerly breeze picks up and there’s no time to waste, so he hoists the sail and heads home for Flatey. Lund is left stranded on the island, and we know how the story ends.”
Kjartan said nothing but nodded. This was also how he had imagined the course of events.
The rocks of Ketilsey glistened in the morning sun as they approached. Then they saw a black boat drifting about a kilometer west of the island. As they drew closer to it, they saw Jon Ferdinand standing by the engine bay, staring vacantly at the sea and shivering in the cold. A dark stain ran from the crotch of his trousers down his thigh.
“He’s soiled himself,” Grimur uttered in a low voice. The old man sat down on the thwart as they arrived and seemed to be totally oblivious to their presence. Grimur stretched out to grab the hawser on the other boat and tied it to the back of his own. Then he continued to sail on to Ketilsey at full speed. They spotted Valdi long before they reached the island. He was standing on its highest point, waving his sweater. Then he came running down to the slip. He was crying with rage.
“What the fuck were you doing, Dad, leaving me like that?” he yelled as soon as they were within earshot.
“Take it easy, Valdi. Your father is incapable of answering that question,” said Grimur as he let his boat drift toward the slip. “Just hop on board and tell us what happened.”
Valdi clambered on board, and Grimur carefully backed the boat away from the shore. As soon as they had reached a short distance from the island, he turned on the motor again and dragged the Ystakot boat up by their side. Grimur held a hand out to Jon Ferdinand and helped him to step between boats. He sat the old man on the thwart and draped his jacket over his shoulders. Grimur then headed toward home at full speed, towing the Raven behind them. Jon Ferdinand sat transfixed on the thwart, staring blankly at the backwash. Every now and then he called out in his raucous old voice: “Where are the nets, lads?”
Valdi struggled to recover and said in a tremulous voice, “The stupid old fool just abandoned me on the island.”
Grimur silently nodded, as Valdi continued in his quivering tone: “We were checking out the eider duck’s nests and collecting down, and then I suddenly noticed that he was back on the boat. I thought he was just putting down some eggs or a bag of down so I wasn’t really watching him, but then I heard him turn on the motor. I ran down then, but he’d already untied the moorings and gone off by the time I got to the slip. He didn’t even look back. No matter how loudly I cried out, he just stared into empty space, as if he were the only person in the world. Then I heard the motor die, and since then the boat’s been drifting back and forth here for almost twenty-four hours. No matter how much I yelled, he didn’t seem to hear me.”
Grimur took out the picnic box and gave the father and son something to eat, and little else was said on their journey back to Flatey.
As they approached the island toward noon, they saw a flag flying at half-mast in front of the church and people on their way to the cemetery.
“They’re burying the late Bjorn Snorri,” said Grimur. “It was supposed to be a quiet affair before the coast guard ship sailed south with the inspectors and the prisoners, but that’s all changed now, thank God.”
The district officer steered his boat past the coast guard ship and over to the end of the pier. Little Nonni was standing on it all alone, and every now and then he ran back and forth a few steps. They tied the boat to the pier and climbed the steps.
“Take your father home, Valdi,” said Grimur, “and try to all have a bit of a rest.”
Grimur and Kjartan watched the three generations of men walking up the slope without glancing back, and then Grimur turned his gaze to the coast guard ship.
“I need to talk to the inspectors,” he said wearily.
“Gaston Lund’s visit to Iceland last fall was not his first visit to this country. He came here in the summer of 1926 with a few of his buddies from the University of Copenhagen. They were young and lively men and got up to all kinds of things during their two-week stay in Iceland. They followed the Njal saga’s trail in the south, and the upshot of it all was a pretty young country girl from Rangarthing ended up pregnant, and Gaston, who was still just a student at the time, was the father. A boy was born, and the mother moved with him to Hafnarfjordur. The child was registered as ‘Gestsson,’ or guest’s son, which wasn’t an unusual name in those days for children whose fathers hadn’t stuck around with their mothers for long. But there was more behind this name, because the professor’s Christian name, Gaston, was also the German word for guest: ‘gast.’ This young boy grew up with his mother, without any reproaches to his father. His mother told him his father was a cultured man from a respectable family and highly regarded by the Danish king. The boy was proud of him and became a big fan of all things Danish and anything connected to the king. Then, in the summer of 1936, Professor Lund came to Iceland again, as part of the delegation that accompanied King Christian X, and his name appeared in the Icelandic press. The mother took the boy to go and meet Gaston Lund where he was staying at Hotel Borg with the intention of introducing them to each other. That was the sole purpose of her visit and nothing more. But Lund took it very badly, claimed the woman was mentally unstable, and categorically denied any knowledge of the boy. He had the mother and son forcibly and shamefully thrown out of the hotel. It was a terrible shock for a young and impressionable soul, and it marked the boy for life. He had always been brought up with the myth of a father who mixed with kings and queens abroad and held far too important a post to be able to spend time with him and his mot
her. The boy’s self-esteem had been shattered in an instant, and the mother changed from being a proud, independent, driven woman to a grumpy bundle of nerves who had been deprived of the only recognition she needed in life. Ten years later she died of TB. Her son’s name was Bryngeir Gestsson. We lived together as a couple for a while, and I know he also had a vast impact on your life, too. But Lund didn’t dare to come back to Iceland until last summer, and he tried to avoid any further encounters with the mother of his child and the boy by concealing his identity.”
CHAPTER 58
Kjartan tried to lie down after his return from Ketilsey, but he was unable to sleep. He tossed and turned until he eventually gave up and decided to take a walk to calm his mind. As he walked up the steps toward the church, he saw Thormodur Krakur standing by the flagpole, propping himself up with his walking stick. He was wearing his Sunday suit, which after its repeated use over the past few days was by now beginning to look pretty crumpled and smudgy. An old sea bag lay at his feet.
“Good day to you, Assistant Magistrate,” said Thormodur Krakur when he noticed Kjartan.
“Hello, Krakur,” Kjartan answered. “The weather is clearing up.”
“Yes, good weather for traveling now,” said Thormodur Krakur, and they both fell silent a moment.
“Are you going on a journey then?” Kjartan asked.
“Yes, they want to take me south on the coast guard ship to have more of a chat about my nocturnal escapade with the reporter’s body. They want the doctors at the mental asylum to check out my brain to make sure I’m not mad or something.”
“That’s understandable, I suppose,” said Kjartan.
Thormodur Krakur frowned and then winced. “No, that’s true, I guess it might seem weird to an outsider, but I still believe that everything serves a purpose. We’ll see. Old Jon Ferdinand has to travel south as well. They’re going to be examining him, too.”
The Flatey Enigma Page 25
