‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ said Thorson. ‘And for your understanding. I believe it’s best for everyone concerned to have this matter cleared up once and for all.’
‘Yes, maybe you’re right.’
Thorson made to rise and show his visitor to the door, but Benjamín told him not to inconvenience himself; he could see himself out. They shook hands in parting.
‘You’re dead set on this?’ said Benjamín.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘All right, goodbye then,’ Benjamín said, his voice dropping to a whisper, and he left the room.
Thorson heard the door close behind him and sat for a while, thinking over the visit and wondering if he was doing the right thing by rescuing the case from oblivion and trying to have the investigation reopened. He was feeling more tired than usual after his trip to the nursing home and Benjamín’s subsequent visit; the whole business must have affected him more than he’d realised. He thought about how convenient Jónatan’s death had been for Hólmbert. How he had seized the chance to pull the wool over the eyes of the police, blaming Jónatan for the sole purpose of deflecting suspicion from himself.
Gazing unseeing out of the window overlooking the garden, Thorson made up his mind once and for all to take his discoveries to the police without further delay.
He went into the bedroom, opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the photo of his lover that he’d kept by his side all these years. It brought up painful memories of the lengths to which they’d had to go to keep their relationship a secret, the social stigma that used to be attached to people like them. Although times had changed for the better, out of habit he still kept the picture discreetly tucked away in a drawer. It reminded him of the trials they’d had to endure, the prejudice they’d faced. He took it out almost every day, seeing again that direct gaze, that inscrutable smile, and remembered the time they’d had together, the love they’d shared, the love he had lost and grieved for ever since.
Feeling bone weary, Thorson replaced the photo in the drawer and stretched out on the bed. A succession of images passed through his mind: Rósamunda; Benjamín trying to bribe him with money; Benjamín’s father, Hólmbert, the former cabinet minister and his grandfather, the MP. And as always his mind presented him with a picture of Jónatan lying in a pool of blood on Laugavegur, the tiny snowflakes settling on his eyes.
The MP and his son … Had the MP been aware of his son’s crimes? Had he protected him? Or had the son been protecting his father?
Thorson began to drift off to sleep.
Had the son been protecting his father?
He awoke to find himself struggling to breathe. Even in the midst of his struggle, his mind latched on to the MP, and he knew suddenly that Hólmbert was not the only suspect in Rósamunda’s killing. There was his father the MP, whose house it was that Rósamunda had refused to visit; who had been on a trip up north with his son when Hrund was assaulted; who had been of sufficiently high rank, in a sufficiently elevated position, that the girls wouldn’t have dared to expose him.
Waking up properly, Thorson found that he really couldn’t breathe; his head was being pressed down into the bed by a deadly weight. He struggled to open his mouth and draw breath but was overcome by a terrible sense of suffocation. As he frantically fought for oxygen the realisation hit him that he was being overpowered by someone stronger than himself …
50
Benjamín stared without speaking into the dark corner where Rósamunda had been found.
‘My father was an accessory,’ he said at last. ‘He didn’t kill Rósamunda. But he walked in on his father standing over her body, and helped him dispose of it. To that extent my father’s as culpable as my grandfather was. He was confronted with an impossible dilemma when the police came to see them. Either to come clean and point the finger at his father, or lie and frame his friend, who was already dead.’
‘He chose to lie.’
‘What would you have done? What would you have done in his place?’
Avoiding Konrád’s eye, Benjamín kept his gaze fixed on the doorway, as if he could see Rósamunda’s cold, lifeless body.
‘He discovered what his father had done and had to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. Had to take care that the truth never came out. Could never be free of the guilt.’
‘How did you know?’
‘It was his illness.
‘His illness? You mean his Alzheimer’s?’
‘Yes. My father kept it secret right up until he developed dementia. The disease made him lose control of the memories he’d been keeping locked away inside him. They slipped out, one by one, including the most painful ones. He started talking about episodes from his past that he’d never spoken of before, hardly seemed to realise he was doing it. Naturally I knew – we all did – about Jónatan, but my family never really discussed him or what had happened. It was never really talked of. But then my father started rambling on about Jónatan and always seemed very disturbed when he mentioned him. He kept saying that my grandfather had picked up some ideas from him about the huldufólk and used them to do something unspeakable. He kept crying – a man who’d never shown his feelings. Naturally I was curious, and in the end I got the truth out of him. I found myself confronted by a family tragedy – the ugly truth about my father and grandfather. And of course the other, much greater tragedy involving the deaths of Rósamunda and Hrund and later of Jónatan. I had no idea what to do with the information. It was just too much for me. I felt I had to contain it at all costs. I felt responsible. All of a sudden I found myself in the same position as my father. He had been wrestling with his conscience all these years. Then one day when I was visiting him at the nursing home I found a man his age sitting in his room with him. He’d dug up the truth, only he thought my father was responsible for what my grandfather had done, and he was talking about going to the police. I went round to see him. Not to hurt him but to talk to him.’
‘And the temptation was too great? If you got rid of him, you got rid of the whole problem?’
‘I don’t know what came over me,’ said Benjamín, his voice suddenly breaking at the thought of what he had done. Konrád saw that he was fighting back tears, still staring fixedly into the doorway as if he wouldn’t be able to meet anyone else’s eye if his life depended on it. ‘I thought … he was old, and I thought all I had to do was put him to sleep, then my problems would be over … but it doesn’t work like that. I have horrible nightmares … Though he was frail, he fought back with all his strength, and I was going to stop but … but it was too late. It was over so quickly … so quickly …’ Benjamín heaved a sigh. ‘I … I want this to stop,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to live with these secrets. I don’t want my son to have to hide what I’ve done, to go through the same hell. I want it to stop here.’
‘Did you say that Hólmbert had caught his father in the act?’
‘As far as I can work out, Dad found him with Rósamunda’s body. My grandmother was staying with relatives in Stykkishólmur at the time, and my grandfather was alone in the house apart from my dad. Rósamunda had turned up out of the blue, completely hysterical, accusing my grandfather of getting her pregnant and saying she’d got rid of the baby. She was ranting about a girl up north who she was sure was another of his victims, and threatening to denounce him so everyone would know what kind of man he was. That was how Dad knew what my grandfather had done to her.’
‘He’d raped her, you mean?’
‘Yes. She’d come round one day a couple of months earlier to deliver some dresses and my grandfather had invited her in. Somehow he managed to lure her down to the laundry, then started slapping her around and finally raped her.’
‘And your father insisted he hadn’t known beforehand?’
‘No, he didn’t find out about the rape until later. My grandfather admitted the whole thing when Dad caught him with Rósamunda’s body. By the time my father walked in it was all over. H
e said it was a horrible shock. The girl was lying on the floor of my grandfather’s study. My grandfather had only meant to shut her up, but before he knew what he was doing he’d throttled her. He asked Dad to help him. Ordered him, rather. Said they had to stick together. The family honour was at stake. The girl had been out of control, and he’d acted in self-defence. But Dad immediately suspected that the same thing had happened three years earlier when they were up north. My grandfather had been in a strange mood one evening, and there were obvious cuts or scratches on his neck that he was trying to hide. When Dad asked about them, my grandfather wouldn’t answer, but the incident lingered in Dad’s mind, and he couldn’t help wondering about the story of Hrund and her disappearance. It was only when he walked in on my grandfather with Rósamunda’s body, though, that he found out the truth. He demanded to know what had happened to Hrund and eventually my grandfather confessed that he’d assaulted her too. He swore he hadn’t killed her like Rósamunda but admitted he’d raped her.’
‘I take it he intimidated her into keeping silent?’
‘Yes. And he forbade my dad to report him – one minute pleading, the next furious. Dad took the decision to cover for him. And stuck by it. For my grandmother’s sake. For the family.’
‘What was all that business about the huldufólk?’
‘My grandfather was familiar with stories about the elves – you know the kind of thing. It runs so deep, especially in the countryside. And Jónatan was forever talking about them. Apparently my grandfather got the impression that Hrund was very naive and gullible, and he took advantage of that. But Rósamunda was a different story.’
‘So the two of them decided they would pin the whole thing on Jónatan?’
‘The idea only occurred to my dad when the police came round to notify them of his death. Jónatan was their prime suspect, but my father sensed that they had their doubts. He simply made sure they were confident that they had the right man. All he had to do was fuel their suspicions about Jónatan. After all, Jónatan was dead. It couldn’t hurt him. If you look at it like that.’
‘Why did they bring her here, to the theatre?’
‘My father was a bit vague about that. Perhaps because the National Theatre was supposed to resemble an elf castle, so it fitted the lie. And my grandfather knew that girls used to go there with soldiers. It would be very convenient if they could shift the blame onto them. My father watched from a distance. Stood on Skuggasund and waited until a soldier and his girl came across the body. Then he made himself scarce.’
‘And was richly rewarded for his silence.’
‘He inherited the family business,’ said Benjamín flatly.
‘And you? Weren’t you faced with the same choice when you decided to dispose of Thorson?’
The other man didn’t answer.
‘You must have been thinking about the family honour – whatever that’s worth?’
‘I just couldn’t face the idea of the past ever being exposed. Of anyone knowing that about us. About my father. My grandfather. The old man was intending to go to the police. I saw my chance and took it. There’s no excuse for what I did. Absolutely no excuse.’
‘You really thought you could keep it secret for the rest of your life?’
‘I felt I’d been put in an impossible position. Just like my father before me. A completely impossible position.’
‘Oh, I think you could both have found better solutions,’ Konrád said and sensed that his words had touched a nerve. Taking Benjamín by the arm, he led him to the car and made him get into the passenger seat. Then he climbed behind the wheel and drove off down Lindargata, glancing over, as he always did, at his old house, on his way to keep his appointment with Marta, who was waiting for news at the station.
51
Thorson’s funeral was attended by Konrád, Birgitta and a scattering of old engineering colleagues. It took place on a grey, rainy day at the chapel in Fossvogur Cemetery, where many years ago Thorson had bought a plot beside the grave of the man he had loved. The ceremony was brief: the minister delivered a blessing, they sang the old funeral hymn ‘The One True Flower’, then the undertakers shouldered the coffin and carried it out to the cemetery, where they lowered it into the ground.
One of the first things Konrád did after Benjamín’s story had come to light was to share it with Birgitta, explaining how it was that her old neighbour had come to die at the hands of a murderer, how his death had been intended to protect a shameful family secret. He told her about Rósamunda’s fate and about the girl from Öxarfjördur who had never been found and presumably never would be now.
‘They’re all guilty – three generations – each in their own way,’ commented Birgitta as they stood over Thorson’s grave. ‘The grandfather, son and grandson.’
‘I don’t suppose Benjamín knew what to do when Thorson suddenly turned up out of the blue, all set to expose his father and grandfather. He claims he didn’t go to see Thorson with the intention of killing him. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. A moment of madness. He thought the problem would go away if the old man did.’
‘What about the grandfather?’ asked Birgitta.
‘Benjamín got the impression that his grandfather didn’t have a lot of respect for women. It was a different era. Men saw nothing wrong in taking advantage of them. Then there was the social upheaval brought about by the war. Benjamín thought that perhaps in his grandfather’s eyes the girl up north and Rósamunda had represented everything he despised about the Situation. Innocent though they were, they were made to pay the price for the behaviour of other women. Though at this remove it’s impossible to know what was going through his head. For all Benjamín knows, there may have been other girls who landed in his clutches and never dared say a word.’
‘Stefán never forgot the girls,’ said Birgitta as they walked slowly back to the cemetery gates. ‘Even after all these years.’
‘No, he was never satisfied,’ said Konrád. ‘Never happy with the way it ended.’
Later that evening Beta dropped in on her brother, and he told her the whole story. She sat in the kitchen listening to Konrád’s account without a word, and afterwards was silent and pensive for a long while.
‘It must have come as a nasty shock for this Benjamín when his dad started rambling on about Rósamunda, and the horrific truth came out,’ she said at last.
‘He wouldn’t have known which way to turn,’ agreed Konrád. ‘Then Thorson pops up, then me. The whole thing was blowing up in his face.’
‘All his family’s dirty laundry about to be exposed.’
‘Yes.’
‘And his dad a former cabinet minister and all.’
‘He wanted to protect his reputation – his family’s reputation.’
‘Just like you’re always trying to defend your dad?’
‘I’m not “always” trying to defend him.’
‘Odd that he should have been connected to all this,’ said Beta.
‘Yes, but then he was mixed up in a lot of things.’
‘I’ll never forget the moment when Mum told me the news. That he’d been stabbed outside the abattoir and no one knew who’d done it. Somehow I didn’t care. I actually think I was relieved. I didn’t miss him at all. He was despicable to Mum – to a lot of people. And Mum said he was well on the way to turning you into the same kind of good-for-nothing.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Konrád. ‘OK, he had his faults but he had his good moments too. I know how he treated Mum, how he drove her away.’
‘It’s called domestic violence, Konrád. She fled all the way east to Seydisfjördur. He only hung on to you to get even with her. That was typical. He was a nasty piece of work, Konrád. He drank, he was violent and he got sucked into crime.’
‘I know all that. I was there, remember? It was ugly, and I’ve never forgiven him for what he did to Mum.’
‘Yet you’ve always tried to defend him! You’re always trying to find excuses for him
. Like that Benjamín did, and his father before him.’
‘That’s not the same –’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Beta. ‘You bloody men, you’re all the same. Too bloody spineless to face up to the truth.’
‘Calm down,’ said Konrád.
‘No, you calm down!’ Beta got to her feet. Then, after a moment, she added in a less agitated tone: ‘Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened? By the abattoir?’
It was a question they used to ponder a great deal, but as time wore on the incident faded into the background, and these days they hardly ever discussed who could have stabbed their father to death and why. Beta was inclined to be more judgemental. She felt he had brought it on himself. But Konrád couldn’t agree.
‘No, I doubt it,’ he said.
‘It’s unlikely at this stage?’
‘Yes, not much chance now.’
52
Flóvent stood near the stage, watching the newly elected president of the Republic of Iceland deliver a speech to his countrymen who were huddled against the rain, having gathered in their thousands around the stands at Thingvellir, all the way up the Almannagjá ravine and down the River Öxará to the very shores of the lake. They had thronged here from all over the country to celebrate their new-found freedom as citizens of Europe’s youngest republic. The King of Denmark had sent a congratulatory telegram despite his private dismay at being called on to surrender the colony in the middle of the war. The D-Day landings had recently taken place. News had reached them of catastrophic Allied losses on the beaches of Normandy. Flóvent often thought of Thorson and fervently hoped that he had survived the slaughter.
The new president’s speech echoed across the historic assembly site with the rain, and Flóvent was proud that day of being an Icelander, despite his anxiety about the future and his sense of unease. He was living in treacherous times; the world was in turmoil, and there was still a foreign military power occupying the land.
As he stood by the stage, studying the ranks of parliamentarians massed behind the president, Flóvent spotted the cold profile of Hólmbert’s father between upturned collar and hat. Their eyes met for an instant and the MP inclined his head.
The Shadow District Page 27
