The Chill Factor

by Richard Falkirk

  After a few minutes a woman came to the door. Middle-aged, elderly – it was difficult to tell; except that she had the illusory girlish air that any woman has when she is disturbed at night with her hair down. But the face beneath the long grey hair was resigned and resentful. If she was Thorarinsson’s wife then it was understandable.

  ‘Yes?’ she said. She wore a black knitted shawl over a grey nightdress.

  ‘Is your husband in?’

  She appraised my suit, my shoes, my shadowed chin – perhaps even the bulge beneath my jacket. ‘He’s in bed,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t keep him long. Just a few words. He knows me.’ I was almost pleading; you couldn’t get tough with little old ladies at 5.15 a.m., however aggressively unpleasant they seemed to be.

  ‘Come back later.’ She started to close the door.

  ‘What’s the good of that? He’ll be gone by then.’ I put my new shoe in the door on the assumption that she hadn’t the strength to break any bones.

  ‘Haven’t you got all you want?’

  ‘Your husband wasn’t able to help us very much last time. There are a couple more questions I’d like him to answer.’

  She looked at me with hatred. ‘I thought you’d hurt him enough already.’

  ‘Hurt him?’

  She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her hands were swollen with arthritis like her husband’s. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘hurt him.’ She pushed the door hard against my foot.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  From the dusky depths inside Thorarinsson spoke. ‘Let him in. He can’t do me much more harm. If you don’t, he’ll start on you.’

  She let go of the door and I went inside. Thorarinsson had propped himself up on pillows. Both eyes were closed between pads of mauve skin, his lips were crusted with dried blood, his nose was out of alignment. One arm was in a sling.

  ‘Who did this?’ I asked.

  ‘Who did it?’ Three teeth were missing from the front of his mouth. ‘Who did this? You know who did it. Your fine friend – that’s who did it.’

  ‘Sigurdson?’

  He nodded and a drop of blood fell from his mouth, staining the sheet. ‘That’s his name.’ He pointed down at his crotch. ‘You should see the rest of my body.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  At least, I thought, you have had the dubious distinction of being beaten up by a Nazi.

  19

  Confessional

  I sat down in an old leather armchair which wheezed resentfully. First of all I had to know whether Thorarinsson had told Sigurdson what he wanted to know.

  Thorarinsson shook his head. ‘I told him nothing.’

  That seemed doubtful because on the previous occasion Sigurdson’s bunched fist had been sufficient to intimidate him. On the other hand there hadn’t been much to tell us that time.

  I said in Icelandic: ‘It didn’t take much to make you talk last time.’

  He winced. ‘I didn’t tell you anything that mattered.’ His eyes stared at me from between their mauve cushions with loathing. There was also a hint of Icelandic obstinacy there which I hadn’t previously noticed.

  I said: ‘You have to believe me. Sigurdson is not Icelandic – he is German. He was sent here as a boy in the last war. I can help you if you will help me. Otherwise he will return and kill you.’

  They looked at me with total disbelief: I couldn’t blame them: my mind was only just beginning to accept it.

  The woman said: ‘How can you expect us to believe this trickery?’ She sat on the bedside and looked at her husband with something approaching compassion – perhaps the first kindly emotion that had passed between them for many years.

  I lit a cigarette. ‘Do one thing for me. Get us all some coffee and I will try and explain.’

  ‘I cannot refuse,’ she said.

  She went into the kitchen. From his throne of pillows Thorarinsson waited phlegmatically for the questions – or the blows. The room was cramped with ancient furniture which was littered with dusty ornaments and chinaware. There was a bookshelf with a few leatherbound sagas and three snuffboxes on it. Wisps of steam floated past the grimy windows and the gloom was permeated by the smell of sulphur like all of Hveragerdi.

  When had I first begun to subconsciously suspect? At the guest-house that night, I supposed. Laxdal had been emphatic that Hafstein had no part in any Soviet plot. Why should he deny it if it were true? So what the hell were documents relating to Hafstein doing in Laxdal’s possession? Answer: They had been planted there. Just as Hafstein’s name had been planted in the pocket of the Russian agent shot dead in the forest.

  The only possible person to have planted the first note was the policeman who shot the agent. Or Einar Sigurdson, bon viveur, policeman, spawn of the Third Reich.

  Throughout the investigation Sigurdson had exaggerated Hafstein’s involvement with a single motive that had nothing whatsoever to do with Russian infiltration. His aim was the elimination of Hafstein in a way that would not arouse suspicion. So, what better way than to create a situation where he was the authorised pursuer and Hafstein was the recognised quarry?

  But why, after twenty-eight years, had Sigurdson suddenly decided to kill the one man who knew the secret of his birth? Hafstein, the young clerk of the Thjodskrain, had obviously known about the insertion of Sigurdson’s false documents in 1942. I presumed that in the last mad months of his life he had decided to blackmail Sigurdson. Sigurdson whose whole existence was a deceit; Sigurdson who was therefore a justifiable source of money to finance the publication of his books. I could see Hafstein sitting beside the white church, the wind tugging at his pointed beard, watching a flight of birds in a cold sky, planning revenge on a world in which the values did not correspond to the values that had crystallised in his hermit mind, directing that revenge towards the one man whose fraudulence was vulnerable to his knowledge.

  That was why Hafstein had been shot dead on the beach at Surtsey.

  The woman returned with a china jug of coffee, hairlined with cracks, and three small cups. We all drank it black because there was no milk or cream. How to convince them?

  ‘Tell me one thing,’ I said, ‘what was it that Sigurdson wanted to know?’

  They looked at me with astonishment. Thorarinsson said: ‘You don’t know? But you and he are working together.’

  ‘Please believe me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

  The woman said: ‘It is some sort of trick. Don’t tell them, Eggert.’

  ‘Don’t worry my dear – I shan’t.’ He had been brave and he was proud of it.

  ‘Did Sigurdson do that to you in front of your wife?’ I asked.

  Thorarinsson nodded. Yellow teeth showed between broken lips in what might have been a smile. ‘Perhaps that is why I did not tell him anything.’

  ‘I must apologise to you,’ I said.

  Thorarinsson looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I misjudged you the last time we met.’ I went over to the bed and poured him more coffee. The armchair sighed again when I sat down.

  Thorarinsson said: ‘Hafstein was kind to us.’

  His wife said: ‘That is why we will not say anything that he would not have wanted us to say.’

  ‘But your husband did tell us what we asked him last time.’

  Thorarinsson said: ‘Hafstein told me to keep as much secret as possible. But if anyone started to get rough with me to tell them when he left. But that was all I was to tell.’ The yellow teeth reappeared. ‘I knew that he had gone to the Westman Isles.’

  Good on you, I thought. ‘Now tell me what it was that Sigurdson was after. It can’t do any harm because in any case you think I know.’ I lit my third cigarette and drank my second coffee. ‘Was it something to do with documents?’

  They regarded me with distilled suspicion. ‘You really don’t know?’ Thorarinsson said.

  ‘I really don’t. But I think it may have been something concerning d
ocuments.’ Like Sigurdson’s own documents from the Thjodskrain which could be identified as forgeries. ‘Did he want to know where Hafstein had hidden certain documents?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thorarinsson said. ‘That is what he wanted to know.’ He asked his wife to bring him a snuffbox. ‘How is it that you don’t know what your own colleague is looking for?’ He took a pinch of snuff clumsily; it was his snuff-taking arm that had been disabled.

  ‘Do you know where those papers are?’

  ‘Why should I tell you? Your colleague beat me up and I didn’t tell him.’

  ‘Do you know what these documents are?’

  ‘I know nothing about any documents.’

  If Hafstein had told him what they were, he would have known that Sigurdson was a German. That at least was the truth. But Thorarinsson did know where the papers were. Hafstein had befriended him and he was keeping his pledge. Or did he perhaps think that the envelope containing the documents contained money? Cynicism, the inevitable partner of sentiment.

  6 a.m. The village was awakening. Cars, bicycles, children’s voices. A bell ringing, glass or china breaking, an angry man’s shout.

  I said: ‘Sigurdson thought the papers were in the disused church near the mud pools.’

  Their old eyes looked at me, appraising, giving nothing away.

  ‘If you tell me where the papers are, I will stop Sigurdson returning.’

  The woman said: ‘Such trickery. It is so obvious, so childish.’ She spoke as if I were an erring husband returning from a booze-up with the boys with feeble excuses and a drunkard’s breath – as, perhaps, Thorarinsson used to arrive home. She examined her arthritic knuckles.

  Thorarinsson took more snuff. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘so obvious.’

  ‘I will pay you for the information.’

  Thorarinsson felt his lips, his broken nose, his slit-eyes. ‘That’s what your friend Sigurdson said. Then he did this. I don’t want your money.’

  ‘A lot of money.’ Cynicism doing battle once more with sentiment. If only sentiment would win more often.

  His wife moved from the bed to a leather chair opposite me. ‘How much money?’ she said.

  Cynicism vanquishing once more. What was a lot of money to them? The equivalent of £100 perhaps. I named a figure in kronur.

  Thorarinsson said: ‘I don’t think we should …’ He considered the pride which had withstood the onslaught of Sigurdson’s fists and boots. A pride which he had displayed before his wife who was now bargaining for money. What was the point?

  She turned on him. ‘All our lives we have been without money. Now we have a chance for a little. What good will it do us if you refuse the information? What good will it do you to get beaten up again?’ She softened a little. ‘You were very brave, my dear. But it is of no use. If this one leaves then the other will return. You will talk eventually – no man can take such beatings without talking. No man of your age. So why should we not have the money?’

  The yellow teeth again, a glisten of a smile. ‘You thought I was brave?’

  She nodded. ‘Braver than I ever thought you could be.’

  Laxdal had succeeded in improving relations between America and Iceland; now Sigurdson had succeeded in bringing a modicum of understanding to an old couple who had hitherto shared only antagonism. And perhaps some cash to go with it.

  I said: ‘So you do know where these papers are.’

  ‘We might,’ he said, with farcical evasiveness.

  His wife said: ‘But the money you offer is not enough.’

  ‘How much did Sigurdson offer?’

  ‘Much less. An insult.’

  I believed her. Niggardly souls often existed beneath brash exteriors. But how much of the brashness was assumed? An Icelandic exterior wrapped round a Nazi core – a formidable combination.

  I grinned suddenly and named the equivalent of £500.

  Her lips munched greedily around her gums. ‘Why do you laugh?’

  Because I envisaged London ordering Jefferey to pay her. But I couldn’t explain that. ‘Because I would like to give you the money.’

  Thorarinsson said: ‘Because it is not your money to give, I think.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  His wife said: ‘But that is not enough.’

  ‘I can’t offer more.’

  She shook her head impatiently as if no larger sum of money existed. ‘I do not mean that. I mean that we must have our safety guaranteed.’

  ‘I will do that,’ I said. ‘There is only Sigurdson who can harm you and I will take care of him.’

  Thorarinsson paused in the act of taking snuff. ‘But you two are together. How can we believe that?’

  To hell with you, I thought. You’re getting £500. No more bargaining. Not even if you were both centenarians. I summarised the situation with Sigurdson and said: ‘I’m not offering any more money. If you take it and tell me where the documents are then I give you my word that Sigurdson will not harm you. If you don’t then I cannot guarantee that Sigurdson will not return and finish the work he started.’ I paused. ‘When did Sigurdson do this, by the way?’

  ‘On our National day,’ Thorarinsson said.

  The day after he had shot Hafstein. Because for Sigurdson there had never been any mystery about ‘German Church’. He was the German and there was only one obvious church.

  The woman spoke, her voice hoarse with avarice. ‘How can we be sure that you will give us the money?’

  ‘You can’t,’ I said. ‘But I’ll write out something promising you the money. That’s the best I can do. You also have my word.’

  She massaged her knuckles; one of them made a noise like a peapod splitting. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘we will trust you. There is nothing else we can do.’

  Thorarinsson made one last show of defiance. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t … I promised Hafstein.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ his wife said. ‘And so will you be if Sigurdson returns.’

  It was the end of his resistance. He took more snuff, his bruised head fell back in the pillows.

  I wrote out a promissory note. She took it, examined it, almost sniffed it, and stuffed it down the front of her nightgown.

  ‘And now,’ I said, ‘where are those documents?’

  Another glisten of yellow teeth. ‘In the church,’ he said. ‘Just like Hafstein said as he died. He wanted that scientist to know so that he would tell the police. The real police …’

  ‘But Sigurdson turned the place inside out before he came here.’

  The yellow teeth disappeared. The joke was over, the whole act was over. He put a weary hand to his forehead. ‘In the confessional. Under one of the floorboards.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘There’s just one thing …’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Why did you refuse to tell Sigurdson?’ I hoped it was because of his promise to Hafstein, not because he thought there was money beneath the confessional floorboards.

  ‘Because Hafstein told me not to. I kept my promise.’

  And who could dispute it? They would get their equivalent of £500 and live a little more happily ever after. Neither sentiment nor cynicism had triumphed.

  Before returning to the church I stopped at the Eden hothouse and gave Charlie Martz a call.

  I took a wrench from the boot of the Chevrolet and climbed the cliff to the church. Steam hissed high into the air from the level of the mud pools and a breeze blew it around the church.

  I left the door open to give me some light. Then I went into the confessional and knelt, but not to confess. I jammed the wrench under one board and prised it open. Nothing.

  Tendrils of steam wandered past down the aisle towards the altar. I dug the wrench down again. ‘Three Hail Mary’s, my child.’ Nothing.

  I squatted there for a moment, sweat cold on my forehead. Then dug down again, wrench splintering the yellow pine-wood. ‘Two Stations of the Cross, my child.’

  I slid my hand under the remaining boards and found the e
nvelope. The voice from the other side of the grill said: ‘I’ll have that, please.’

  Sigurdson added in a conversational tone: ‘I can see you quite well so don’t try anything. And, of course, the woodwork won’t stop a bullet.’

  I stayed kneeling, envelope in hand. ‘I have a feeling,’ I said, ‘that it’s you who should be kneeling. And confessing.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right.’ He laughed but the laugh tailed away. ‘On the other hand, perhaps my only crime was to be very young during the last war.’

  ‘I don’t think that was your only crime.’

  ‘Ah, you mean the killing of Hafstein? That had to be done. He was a dirty blackmailer anyway.’

  ‘And the beating-up of Thorarinsson.’

  ‘He will live,’ Sigurdson said.

  But Thorarinsson wouldn’t live if I allowed Sigurdson to escape. Because, with me dead, Thorarinsson would be the last person alive who could incriminate Sigurdson. And Thorarinsson’s wife.

  ‘Let us go where we will be more comfortable,’ Sigurdson said. ‘Out there on the pews. Stand up, throw your gun away, put your hands behind your neck and walk very slowly down the aisle. My gun is following you.’

  I sat in front of the nave and he pulled up one of the overturned pews so that we faced each other.

  ‘The envelope,’ he said.

  I handed it to him. He checked the papers inside and relaxed a little. ‘Forgeries,’ he said. ‘But very good ones. We Germans are very thorough.’

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ I said. ‘How did you find me here?’

  ‘I have had you followed nearly all the time. When you went to the Thjodskrain and then dashed up here I knew that you must have realised the truth. But you left the church empty-handed. So I knew that you had been as unsuccessful as me. However, the envelope was in the church somewhere – I knew that. So I waited here to see if you could persuade Thorarinsson to tell the truth.’ He grinned. ‘Your powers of persuasion are greater than mine. How much did you pay him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I lied, defending sentiment.

  ‘I do not believe you. However, it does not matter. I shall have to kill you and that will be a pity because I have enjoyed working with you. The Icelander and the Englishman.’