The Chill Factor

by Richard Falkirk

  I brought a blanket from the car because the lava could be sharp. And a couple of bottles of wine and some loaves and cheese; and a tape-recorder that looked like a transistor radio, and pillows. The air was warm, smelling of mud and moss and honey. I also bought a raincoat and umbrella. As they said, ‘Just wait a moment …’

  First of all she kissed me, which wasn’t standard procedure for interrogation. I reached out one hand and switched off the tape-recorder.

  After a while she said: ‘I am very hungry, Bill.’

  The fact that, the day before yesterday, she had killed her former lover, had not markedly affected any of her appetites. She said: ‘You are surprised that I am not more in mourning?’

  ‘A little,’ I said.

  ‘I am Icelandic,’ she said. The phrase which was widely used to explain any strength, weakness or aberration of behaviour. ‘If you had read the sagas you would understand the way we are. Besides’ – she crumbled a piece of cheese on to a crust of bread – ‘I am happy because I am with you and all the badness is over.’

  ‘But I’m afraid it isn’t over,’ I said. I poured myself a glass of Italian wine and hoped it wasn’t an ox-blood and banana-boat vintage.

  She held out a glass and said: ‘Skal.’

  ‘Skal,’ I said. For a moment I could imagine her drinking out of a skull.

  She sipped and munched and occasionally stroked me. ‘I had a dream last night,’ she said after a while.

  I poured her more wine and handed her more bread. And, because Icelanders are very fond of recounting their dreams and should, if possible, be deterred, I pointed into the sky. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Geese. Pink-footed, I think.’

  ‘In this dream you and I were living together in a little white house on the shores of a lake.’

  I rose on one elbow. It was ridiculous. ‘Gudrun,’ I said, ‘everything is not over. I want to know everything that happened. From the beginning. When you first became involved with the Communists? How you got to know Laxdal? How long you acted as a courier? Who you had to meet in London?’ I gazed across the mauve crust of the earth towards the listening mountains. ‘Why you betrayed your country?’

  She stopped eating and threw a lump of lava into the lake. The ripples chased each other, gave up. ‘I did not betray my country. You must not say that. I did what I thought was best for Iceland.’

  ‘They must have got you very young,’ I said.

  ‘Laxdal made love to me when I was seventeen,’ she said. ‘I was a virgin until then.’

  ‘Great going,’ I said.

  ‘That is when a girl should stop being a virgin.’

  ‘And start being a Communist?’

  ‘I want to tell you about this dream. We left the little house and went swimming together in the lake. The water was very cold …’ She was getting into her stride: it was going to be a saga.

  ‘Gudrun,’ I said. ‘Forget the dream for now. Tell me how it all began.’

  I switched the tape-recorder on again.

  She was a student when Protest was just emerging as a force that could no longer be dismissed as youthful frivolity. It still wasn’t the ugly phenomenon that it is today; nevertheless the beards and hair were growing and the voice of youth was being heard, angry and strident and usually sincere.

  In Iceland, particularly in the winter, Vietnam and anti-apartheid were remote causes. And, with the absence of poverty, dictatorship or Black Power, the potential for protest was meagre. So inevitably Youth turned its attention to the presence of ‘The NATO Iceland Defence Force’ and the Americans therein.

  Equally there wasn’t much potential for Communism of the Marxist-Leninist brand. There was little poverty, the standard of living was high and the benefits were shared around – an insurmountable handicap for the revolutionary Communist. So Communism crystallised into indignation over the American presence.

  Thus youthful Protest and Communism to an extent mixed. Neither very strong, neither bearing much resemblance to their international brethren on the campus or in the Kremlin. But they elicited some sympathy from a populace which wavered between acceptance of the reality that they needed a defence force and resentment that they had to suffer ‘an Army of Occupation’.

  Gudrun apparently protested with enthusiasm – her glands didn’t permit indifferent participation in anything. But that was all it was: an exuberant intermission in the process of growing up. Until she met Laxdal.

  Laxdal, the mercenary of any cause that paid him enough, met her at some sort of political jamboree and discovered that she intended to become an air stewardess. There were no creases then sneaking around his eyes and mouth; he was attractive, virile and mature. He seduced Gudrun – although the verb to seduce has no real place in the Icelandic vocabulary and she thoroughly enjoyed the expert introduction into sex.

  Very soon she was in love with him. The sort of love that magazine aunties dismiss as infatuation to be treated on the same level as acne and chafing breasts. Not that they have ever experienced it, of course. With Gudrun the ‘infatuation’ lasted several years: thus it was love.

  She became an air stewardess and had her baby which involved no stigma whatsoever. All the time Laxdal nursed the protest in her soul which had long since been discarded by her contemporaries. And he never stopped talking – in the post-coital sadness perhaps – of his ideals: an Iceland free from foreign occupation.

  Then one day he asked her to take some documents to London and pass them over to a Polish friend – Russian probably – in a pub called The Pheasant near London Airport. The documents were in a large envelope sealed with wax and addressed to the Secretary of the Freedom For Iceland Society. A society that was more than spurious: it was non-existent. Gudrun agreed because there didn’t seem to be any harm in it and it was all connected with Laxdal’s ideals; and she was still a Communist of sorts.

  Their love continued. Gudrun asked him to leave his wife and he declined. Not everything, after all, was so different in Iceland.

  I stopped the tape-recorder for a moment. ‘Was there ever a Johann?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only Valdimar and now you.’ She looked as if she might like to revert to her dream, but I stopped her and switched on the recorder again without her noticing.

  She took more documents to London. Presumably details of the progress of Soviet infiltration and the American military set-up. She was the perfect courier: she travelled regularly to London, there was little likelihood of her being suspected, and she didn’t ask too many questions. With Gudrun carrying these messages the Russians didn’t have to bother about radio messages being monitored or diplomats arousing suspicion by frequent travel.

  The Russians had, in fact, assessed her philosophy accurately – the philosophy, possibly, of a few other Icelanders in similar circumstances. She was quite prepared to work for the eviction of the Americans; so were the Russians; it was merely that their motives were different.

  Then one day Gudrun grew up – or matured a little. She saw Laxdal out with another girl one evening, attentive and charming. That in itself did not upset her unduly because she knew that he loved only her. Then a couple of nights later she saw him out with his wife, attentive and charming. And in that moment of revelation she saw herself as the other woman. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

  She told Laxdal that it was all over. She told him that she was bored with carrying mysterious documents to London and that, in any case, his ideals showed no sign of coming to fruition. She also said that she was tired of Communism which wasn’t Communism anyway. In effect, she wasn’t going to continue with activities that she had performed merely to please her lover.

  Her lover had other ideas.

  He blackmailed her. He produced photographs of her meeting Russian agents in London and photostats of what he said was one of the documents she had taken to London. The document was a secret report of a Parliamentary sub-committee assessing Icelandic feeling about the presence of the Americans. If she didn’t c
ontinue to co-operate then he would see that evidence reached the police – after he had left Iceland.

  Gudrun debated how to beat the blackmail. And while she was thus engaged a dark stranger entered her life. One, William Conran. She was told he would be on the aircraft, she was told to pick him up, to’ become his lover and, if possible, to extract secrets from him in the time-honoured way. A minimum requirement was to supply details of my movements.

  ‘If you wanted to beat the blackmail why the hell didn’t you tell me what was going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Because they said they would kill you.’

  ‘They’d already tried once,’ I said. ‘Who was that, by the way?’

  ‘Magnusson,’ she said. ‘He’s a very good shot.’

  ‘Not too good, thank God.’

  ‘I didn’t know about the shooting until the other night. Apparently Laxdal got very angry with Magnusson for trying to kill you as soon as you arrived. He said they should wait and see who you were after.’

  She gave me a long slow kiss and I switched off the taperecorder again.

  Above us a tiny cloud formed in the sky as if it had been generated by the kiss.

  I lit a cigarette and gave her one. ‘Carry on,’ I said. ‘Now tell me about the girl who died.’

  ‘I didn’t know about that either,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that Communism could be so evil.’

  ‘You and a lot of others,’ I said.

  ‘Laxdal told me that I was not doing my job properly with you. Be made a hint that if I did not help more then I might die like the girl.’

  ‘That was stupid of him.’

  ‘He was very jealous of you. He did not love me but he was still jealous. He was like that. When he said that about the poor girl I got suspicious. I shouted at him and accused him of killing her. At first he said nothing. Then I said that you were much better than he was in bed.’

  I grabbed at the tape-recorder but my alleged prowess was already overheard and noted. And I wasn’t in a position to manipulate the eraser.

  ‘That was damned decent of you,’ I said in my most English voice.

  ‘I just said it to make him angry,’ Gudrun said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘And I succeeded because I knew how conceited he was about the loving.’

  ‘What happened,’ I asked, ‘on the night the girl died?’

  The girl was impressionable. Especially where boys were concerned. Parental control was feeble and she was known to be available at the dances at the Saga and the Loftleidir. There was also some suspicion that she had access to drugs: she certainly had access to liquor through her many boy friends.

  She was also Icelandic and therefore intensely patriotic. But it is not difficult to misdirect such loyalties in an impressionable teenage girl who is over-fond of boys and booze. Laxdal, or one of his younger associates, sold the girl the line about getting rid of the American presence. His organisation was, in fact, in the process of manufacturing a series of incidents that would bring American servicemen into disrepute. The girl was to create the first incident.

  It was all arranged for the evening when Gudrun and I went to the Saga for dinner. Someone had told Laxdal – one of the youths giving the party, presumably – that Shirey would be there looking for girls. The girl was given several drinks to drown any misgivings she might have and the meeting was set up at the bar.

  Her instructions followed classical lines. She was to take him home and encourage him to make love to her. Afterwards she was to tear her clothes a bit and run round to the police alleging assault.

  But Laxdal overplayed his hand – a weakness of his. In the first place the girl was given too much to drink; then he became too rough with her when he went round to the apartment and discovered that she had failed to seduce Shirey. Failure in such matters was inexplicable to Laxdal. He told her to tear her clothes and when she was too slow and laborious he lost his temper and slapped her, bruising her mouth.

  He realised that she was too drunk to complete her mission and left. By this time she was almost unconscious from the effects of the liquor and the blow on the face. Shortly after Laxdal’s departure she vomited and choked to death. Her body was found by an Icelandic youth who had called in the hope of being offered what Shirey had rejected.

  ‘Laxdal admitted it all to me the night I returned from London,’ Gudrun said. ‘I screamed at him and he slapped me just like he slapped the girl. I was going to tell you because I could not keep the truth from you any longer. But you came back too early. I tried to make you go away again and come back later. But you would not go. I tried to stop you from saying the names of Magnusson and Laxdal. Laxdal would have let you go if he thought you still didn’t suspect him. But you had to say them …’

  She gazed at me fondly, impulsive devil that I was.

  I switched off the recorder. I wasn’t sure whether she had realised that it was eavesdropping.

  About a mile away two men sped past on sturdy little Viking horses – the horses the Norsemen brought with them 1,000 years ago, the horses I rode in my childhood. I felt the saddle again and the flowing movement of muscle as the horses hurried along at the running walk they preferred to trotting.

  Overhead some more geese. Grey lags? You couldn’t tell at that height. They brought with them loneliness, winter dusks. The sky was paler, the mountains advancing, the sound of water louder. Human intrigue was a mere petulance.

  ‘Time to go,’ I said. ‘We’ll have another session later. Tomorrow perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t know anything more,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll have another session just the same.’

  We walked across the ancient ash towards the car. I believed most of what she had said. But it didn’t really explain the large sums of money that had been paid into her banking account in the last two or three years – the payments I had been shown by a reluctant bank manager that morning. Perhaps they were to ensure the baby’s future.

  She threw the two wine bottles behind a crag of lava. I picked them up again and kept them for the car trunk because I didn’t like to see the countryside treated like that.

  The mallard sat on the grass watching us with benign interest and looking as if it were hatching an egg. Which was all right with me except that it was a male.

  The artificial lake in the centre of toytown was torpid and grubby, the nursery houses bright in the evening sunshine.

  Jefferey had arranged the meet beside the lake. They would always be meets with him now – never plain honest-to-goodness meetings. I should have been carrying The Times under one arm and wearing a red carnation in my buttonhole.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘I was hoping you might have something for me,’ he said.

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Developments old man. Things seem to have been hopping since our last meeting.’

  ‘Nothing that need concern you,’ I said. ‘You were rather keen that the British should have nothing to do with the Shirey affair.’

  ‘Don’t be so shirty,’ he said. ‘We thought your intervention was going to be a faux-pas. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a bit of the glory now. British scientist helps to unmask the killer – all that sort of thing.’

  I gave the mallard a despairing look. The mallard shifted uneasily on its phantom eggs and looked the other way.

  Jefferey said: ‘Of course, this doesn’t alter anything. The Russians,’ – he looked uneasily in the direction of the Soviet Embassy – ‘still know who you are and they want you out.’

  ‘Have you heard anything from London?’

  ‘Not yet, old man. After all it was a public holiday yesterday.’

  ‘In Iceland, not in London. You know, you’ll have to work

  on national holidays if you’re going to become a spy, Jefferey.’

  He looked as if he would have preferred a stiff upper-cut to stiff upper-lip. He controlled himself and said: ‘I think we should give the Press boys
a story. After all, it’s damned good publicity for the Brits.’ He paused. ‘And the Americans – after all, we’re all in this together.’

  ‘All of us except you,’ I said. ‘The Americans are handling the publicity on this. Lieutenant-Commander Charles Martz. I believe you’ve spoken to him on the phone.’

  Jefferey said: ‘He wasn’t very civil.’

  ‘Civil or not, you take your orders from him on this one.’

  ‘Now look here …’

  ‘Read this.’ I handed him a cable which I had decoded in pencil underneath. ‘You’ll have to take my word for it because I’m not giving you the cypher.’

  The cable from London said: ‘Message from embassy says you blown by soviets stop leave developments entirely to your discretion stop replacement will only be sent if you authorise stop you in sole charge in respect NATO mission but presume you will observe diplomatic courtesies stop regards …’ The cable was signed by someone whose authority was formidable.

  I retrieved the cable from Jefferey, rolled it into a ball and considered telling him where he could put it. But that would hardly be a diplomatic courtesy.

  Instead I put it back in my pocket. ‘I’ll eat this later,’ I said.

  So there we all were together for the first time since my arrival. Charlie Martz, Sigurdson and myself whooping it up at the Loftleidir. Sigurdson quaffing his asni with enthusiasm and eyeing the considerable talent, Martz and myself tinkling the rocks in our Scotch and eyeing the talent with less predatory intent.

  The bar was modern, so was the band and the dancing. The Loftleidir, situated on the city airport, was Reykjavik’s newest hotel – three restaurants, two cocktail lounges, swimming pool, sauna, floor show, dancing and ‘Icelandic specialities’. Sigurdson made it clear what he considered the specialities to be.

  He was laughing a lot and giving us both friendly punches. His hair had fallen into its fringe and was more spiky than usual around the sides. The leader of a spy ring had been shot dead and he had taken much credit among his own circles for the shooting: it all compensated for the fact that an American could not be blamed for the girl’s death.