The Shadow District Page 16

  Petra and Geirlaug had been friends since college. From what Stefán had told her, he’d been chatting to an old engineering acquaintance who knew Geirlaug well, and somehow it had emerged that she used to know Petra’s mother, who ran a dressmaking business during the war. Stefán had seemed familiar with the company in question and became very attentive, saying he felt sure he had once met the owner.

  ‘Do you know where Stefán encountered this engineer?’ asked Konrád.

  ‘At a funeral, he told me. He’d read the obituary of a woman who used to work for my mother. For some reason he went along to her funeral and that was where he bumped into the engineer.’

  ‘So the woman had worked for your mother during the war?’

  ‘Yes, during the war and for a number of years afterwards, I believe. It was all described in the obituary.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘She’d been a friend of that girl Rósamunda who was murdered, and Stefán had interviewed her at the time in connection with the police investigation, or that’s what he led me to believe. He’d come across the reference to the dressmaking company in the obituary, and I suppose he felt the urge to find out more about her. Perhaps because he remembered her from the old days. Anyway, he decided to attend the funeral and that’s where he ran into an engineer he was acquainted with – I don’t know how – and started telling him how he’d met the dead woman, and about the link to my mother’s sewing business. The engineer happened to mention Geirlaug and that we were friends … And one thing led to another. Or that’s what he told me. I don’t know if there’s any truth in it.’

  ‘I very much doubt he was lying,’ said Konrád. ‘Stefán seems to have been a man of strict integrity.’

  ‘Yes, that’s how he struck me too,’ said Petra. ‘He said he’d interviewed my mother at the time, together with another man, a policeman whose name I forget, as part of the murder investigation.’

  ‘Did he come to see you about anything specific?’ asked Konrád. ‘Anything directly related to the inquiry?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, not to begin with, at any rate. He said he used to think about Rósamunda from time to time and would be grateful for a chance to meet me. He was terribly polite, and you’d never have guessed how old he was from looking at him. He didn’t seem at all arthritic or doddery. But then he said he’d always led a healthy life.’

  ‘Yes, he seems to have been very fit for a man his age.’

  ‘Yes, so … I regretted giving him such a turn.’

  ‘A turn?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was at all important, but it evidently struck him very differently and he suddenly got all worked up. Started saying he couldn’t understand my mother. How she could have done a thing like that – failed to let them know.’

  ‘What? What did she do? Failed to let them know what?’

  ‘About a little thing that my mother told me about long afterwards, many years later. In fact I was grown up by the time she told me. It never occurred to me that it was important.’

  ‘What did she tell you that got Stefán so worked up?’ asked Konrád, struggling to conceal his impatience.

  ‘You really need to understand my mother. I tried to make him see that,’ said Petra. ‘She was a funny woman in some ways. You’d have to have known her well to appreciate the way her mind worked. Especially in the old days, as regards her clients. She was – I admit it – a snob. A raging snob. People were in those days. They looked down on other people a lot more, called them common and so on. She still used to talk down to shop assistants, for example, right up until she died. She was stuck in her ways. And she was unbearable when it came to her social superiors, always name-dropping, boasting about how so-and-so used to be her client and always treated her like an equal – you know the kind of thing. “She always used to patronise my shop,” she’d say whenever some toffee-nosed old bag came up in conversation.’

  Not entirely sure how this was relevant, Konrád felt it best to keep his mouth shut. Now at least he understood the complete absence of needlework from her home, though. He was detecting a distinct chill in Petra’s attitude to her mother.

  ‘For example, she used to give some of her clients preferential treatment. She felt that confidentiality was the cornerstone of her business, and she honoured this principle right up to her death. That’s the way she operated. She never gossiped about her customers, felt she was almost part of their private lives, felt they trusted her and came to her with their requirements precisely because of this discretion.’

  ‘But how did that affect Stefán? Why should that have upset him?’

  ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t because of that – not because of what she was like, but because of what she failed to tell them.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘It was about Rósamunda. I don’t really know why I started telling him about it – Stefán, I mean. I don’t know why it should have mattered so much.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ Konrád asked, his patience really wearing thin.

  ‘That my mother said she once came across Rósamunda in the yard behind the shop – in tears and dishevelled, in Mother’s words. Rósamunda refused to say what was wrong but Mother sent her home anyway because the poor girl was in such a state. All Mother knew was that earlier that day Rósamunda had gone to deliver a dress to a house in town and had just come back from there when Mother saw her in the yard. The girl never referred to the incident again but flatly refused to take any further deliveries to that particular address. My mother never discussed it with anyone because she didn’t know the full story. I told Stefán this was typical – my mother would never have cast suspicion on those people. Never in a million years.’

  ‘Why suspicion?’

  ‘Because of what happened later. To the girl.’

  Konrád stared at Petra as the significance of her story gradually dawned on him, its relevance to the investigation and to Thorson. How had he felt on learning this detail so long after the event? According to Petra it had given him a bit of a turn. That was probably an understatement.

  ‘Did your mother believe there was a connection between the incident and Rósamunda’s death?’ he asked at last.

  ‘My mother suspected she might have had a nasty experience at the house. At least, the possibility bothered her in her later years.’

  ‘Was this shortly before Rósamunda was murdered?’

  ‘Yes, a few months before,’ said Petra. ‘Mother hadn’t meant to tell me. She blurted it out accidentally. Though I got the feeling she’d been brooding on it. But she obviously felt uncomfortable talking about it, so I let it drop.’

  ‘Why was Rósamunda crying? And why wouldn’t she go near the place afterwards?’

  ‘Mother didn’t know. Rósamunda clammed up and wouldn’t say another word about it. Mother knew the people concerned – they were important customers, and she didn’t want to believe they could have mistreated the girl. She was desperate not to draw any attention to the incident in light of that, if you follow me. You’d have to understand what Mother was like. Her clients were sacrosanct in her eyes.’

  ‘Was your mother the only person who knew?’

  ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘So Rósamunda was hiding in the yard, in tears, all dishevelled?’

  ‘My mother guessed that she’d been assaulted, but when she tried to help her, Rósamunda wasn’t having it, so Mother left it at that. I think she regretted it later – that she hadn’t done more for the girl.’

  ‘And she’d just come back from taking a delivery to these clients?’

  ‘Yes. But Mother would never have suspected them. That’s just the way she was.’

  ‘Yet it was still preying on her mind?’

  ‘Yes, it seems so. She was still thinking about it right before she died.’

  30

  The young man known to the road crew up north as the Professor was out when Flóvent and Thorson drove up to his digs, a poky basement flat on Ölduga
ta. They’d raced back to Reykjavík after their meeting with Brandur at Patterson Field, with the young man’s name as a new lead. Working on the foreman’s hazy recollection that the boy had come south to study, they had headed straight over to the new university building in the west of town, where they discovered that he was in the second year of a degree in Icelandic and history. They were permitted to see his timetable and concluded that he had probably left for the day. The university office made no objections to supplying his address.

  Flóvent and Thorson sat in the car, a stone’s throw from the basement, watching the odd passer-by hurry along the street as dusk fell. They were still waiting for the student. They had spoken to the other tenants but they didn’t have much to report. The student had moved into the basement last Christmas and never made any noise or caused any trouble, quite the reverse in fact. He was considered a quiet, polite young man, inoffensive in every way. No, they didn’t get the impression he was much of a womaniser, or indeed met any girls at all. Naturally, being a student, he wouldn’t have time for that sort of thing. He always had his nose in a book, though he did have at least one interest outside his studies, and that was birdwatching. They used to see him from time to time with a fine pair of binoculars on a leather cord and knew he was off on one of his birdwatching expeditions to the nearby Seltjarnarnes Peninsula or further afield.

  Flóvent was all for hanging on to see if the young man came home, before trying to track him down by other means. But the car’s heater didn’t work properly and the temperature dropped as evening came on, so they sat there frozen and hungry, waiting. Since most people would be sitting down to dinner at this hour, there was hardly anyone around. Flóvent’s thoughts went to his father, who always waited for him to come home before eating, though Flóvent had repeatedly told him to go ahead without him. He pictured the old man napping on the couch in the kitchen, worn out after a long day’s drudgery on the docks.

  ‘If he turns out to be our man, there’s no need for you to be involved any longer,’ Flóvent remarked after a long silence. ‘It’ll have nothing to do with the military.’

  ‘Why don’t we wait and see?’ said Thorson.

  ‘Yes, of course, but it looks to me as if the focus of the investigation’s shifting away from your charges – from the troops, I mean.’

  ‘It certainly looks that way,’ admitted Thorson. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d kind of like to see this case through, all the same. So long as you don’t mind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t object,’ said Flóvent. ‘All help gratefully received.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I thought maybe you had other fish to fry. You’ve been unusually quiet all day.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, I’ve had a lot on my mind.’

  ‘Of course, you must have plenty of cases of your own to be getting on with,’ said Flóvent. ‘I daresay they’re no picnic either.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  Flóvent was right: he’d been distracted all day. With tens of thousands of troops crowded into a confined area, new incidents were inevitably brought to the attention of the military police every day. Minor brawls were common – you always got the odd troublemaker – but some cases were sadder, as you might expect when morale was low, the world was at war and the young men being sent across oceans and continents to fight the enemy were not all equally suited to the task. Sure, there were the daredevils who actively looked forward to combat, eager for a chance to take a shot at the enemy. But others lived in dread of what the future would bring, far from their loved ones, far from normality, far from the life they knew. The evening Rósamunda’s body turned up, Thorson had been over at Nauthólsvík Cove, on the other side of Öskjuhlíd, at the cluster of prefab huts that comprised the naval air station. Driving there, Thorson was reminded of the time he’d glimpsed Winston Churchill when he stopped over in Iceland in August of ’41, on his way back from a mid-Atlantic meeting with President Roosevelt. On the present occasion, though, Thorson had been called to a shoe-repair workshop housed in one of the huts, where a young serviceman had chosen to take his own life rather than face the enemy guns. The boy, who had only just turned twenty, came from a small town in Kentucky and was described by his friends as cheerful and friendly, but fearful, like many others, of being sent to the front. Rumours had been rife about the imminent transfer of troops from Iceland to Britain in preparation for the Allied invasion of France. No one could think of another explanation for his desperate act. He hadn’t left a suicide note, and none of his buddies had any idea what he was going to do; though, in retrospect, he had seemed kind of down in recent weeks and apprehensive about the future. They didn’t think it was a broken heart. There was no sweetheart back home, and he hadn’t been involved with any Icelandic girls. His wallet was found to contain a few dollars and a photograph of his mother and two sisters.

  ‘Those cases are always tough,’ said Flóvent when Thorson had explained about the young man.

  ‘They certainly are,’ said Thorson. ‘A lot of the boys are scared.’

  ‘What about you? Do you give it much thought?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve got enough to think about.’

  ‘Did you know the soldier from the Nauthólsvík camp?’

  ‘Not, not at all. I only learnt yesterday that he’d been having a terrible time since he got here.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, he was badly bullied.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A man in his squadron told me it was because he wasn’t one for the ladies. Quite the opposite –’

  ‘Is that him?’ Flóvent interrupted, nudging him.

  Glancing up, Thorson saw a young man approaching along Öldugata. He was tall and fair-haired; he wore a thick down jacket and sturdy boots and was carrying a pair of binoculars in one hand. He strode along the road, head down, deep in thought, then turned down the narrow path that led to the basement door.

  Flóvent and Thorson stepped out of the car and followed a little way behind. The young man had gone inside but hadn’t yet closed the door when they appeared at the entrance. He nearly jumped out of his skin when they loomed out of the darkness; he clearly hadn’t been expecting visitors.

  ‘Wha …?’ he said, gaping at the two men.

  ‘Good evening, sir. Are you Jónatan, by any chance?’ asked Flóvent.

  ‘Me? Yes.’

  ‘We’re from the police. We’d like to talk to you about a case we’re investigating. Mind if we come in, sir?’

  ‘The police?’ he echoed, startled. ‘What case?’

  ‘Might we come in for a minute?’

  The young man looked searchingly from Flóvent to Thorson, clearly perplexed.

  ‘What case?’ he asked again.

  ‘It concerns a young woman by the name of Rósamunda,’ said Thorson.

  ‘And a second young woman from Öxarfjördur, whose name was Hrund.’

  The student was halfway through taking off his jacket, still with the binoculars in his hand. He put them down, then hung his jacket on a peg. Flóvent and Thorson waited.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, do come in,’ said the young man. ‘I don’t see what … how I can help you. Did you say you were policemen?’

  ‘Were you birdwatching, sir?’ asked Flóvent, nodding at the binoculars.

  ‘I was watching the cormorants on Seltjarnarnes. Look, there’s no need to call me “sir”.’

  ‘Are you interested in birds?’

  ‘Yes, I am rather.’

  ‘Tell me, were you part of a road crew working in or around Öxarfjördur about three years ago?’ asked Flóvent, closing the door behind them. The young man showed his unexpected visitors into a small bedsit. There was a camp bed in one corner, made up with a quilt and blankets, a desk below a window set high in the wall, bookshelves on two walls. The cramped basement also contained a tiny kitchen and an even smaller washroom.

  ‘I was working on the roads there, yes.’

  ‘We gather you come from the
north,’ said Thorson. ‘You were at school there?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. At Akureyri College.’

  Flóvent looked round the small room, taking in the books on the shelves and desk, the files, the materials related to Jónatan’s studies, an old typewriter containing a sheet of paper with a few lines he had written before giving into the lure of the cormorants on Seltjarnarnes. Next to the typewriter was an ashtray containing several cigarette butts, and, on the other side of it, a packet of Lucky Strikes and a box of matches.

  Flóvent eyed the packet, then shot a look at Thorson, who had spotted it too.

  ‘What are you working on?’ Flóvent asked, gesturing at the typewriter.

  ‘I’m writing a thesis. For my degree in Icelandic and history at the university. What exactly is it you want with me? What … why are you here?’

  ‘Were you acquainted with a girl called Rósamunda?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Yes, I ought to know. I’m not acquainted with anyone of that name.’

  ‘What about Hrund?’

  The young man watched as Flóvent rooted around among the files on his desk, then stepped over to the bookcase and squinted at the spines.

  ‘Did you meet a girl called Hrund when you were working on the roads in Öxarfjördur?’ Thorson tried again.

  The student’s gaze remained fixed on Flóvent. ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t heard Thorson’s question.

  ‘These books …?’

  ‘What of them?’

  ‘What are you writing about?’ Flóvent asked, turning to him.

  ‘I’m writing a thesis,’ repeated Jónatan. ‘It’s about … well, all sorts of things.’

  ‘Are you collecting them?’

  ‘No, I’m not a collector. Lots of them come from libraries. I need them for my research.’