The Shadow District Read online

  Konrád sat down at the desk. Everything suggested that the man had led a simple, monotonous life in his last years, as one might expect of someone his age. The most unexpected thing, Konrád thought, was that there was no evidence of contact with family or friends: no letters, no family photos, no computer that would allow him to access email or social media. An aura of quiet solitude emanated from every object in the flat, an impression only enhanced by those that were missing.

  Konrád could see no clues to help him resolve the questions in his mind. Why had the man’s life ended in such a senseless manner, and why had he been holding on to three newspaper cuttings about a long-forgotten murder? But he did find the book where the cuttings had been gathered. Marta had told him it was still lying on the man’s desk just as they’d found it. The book turned out to be an anthology of Icelandic folk tales and legends.

  Konrád had got quite a shock when Marta told him about the cuttings. He had grown up in the Shadow District, on Skuggasund, only a stone’s throw from the theatre, and as a child had heard the tale of the murdered girl from his father, who had been adamant that American soldiers were responsible for the deed. He had known plenty, he said, and they would have been more than capable of treating an Icelandic girl like that. Of having their way with her, then dumping her body. According to him, the matter had been hushed up because a senior American officer had been involved and the military authorities had protected him by posting him abroad. Konrád never discovered what grounds his father had for believing this, and it was not until shortly before he died that he let his son in on the secret of what had happened at the seance requested by the parents of the murdered girl. It wasn’t something his dad was proud of, but characteristically he had no regrets either. Konrád’s dad wasn’t a spiritualist himself; his sole purpose in attending seances had been to con people into parting with their money, which he had done on numerous occasions. All the same, he did have a link of sorts to the otherworld through his sister, who believed in everything normally dismissed as superstition. She had complete faith in spells and curses, in the afterlife, in ghosts and monsters, and the huldufólk or ‘hidden people’, as the elves were known, and possessed a fund of stories that her brother drew on for his deceptions. She was convinced that there was always a good reason why the dead haunted the living, and that reason had to be discovered and solved before the departed spirit could find peace. This sister, who at the time still lived on the family farm up north, had rather eccentric, old-fashioned beliefs and claimed to have more than a touch of the second sight herself. She used to insist that Konrád’s withered arm was the result of a curse that had been laid on the family.

  Konrád made another circuit of the flat, browsed the bookshelves, wandered back into the kitchen, then into the bedroom. He pulled out a drawer in the little bedside table and found a large photograph lying on top of an ancient, dog-eared copy of the Bible. The picture showed a handsome man aged around thirty, taken, at a guess, in the 1950s. It was black and white, unmarked and unframed. The back had yellowed with time, but otherwise the picture was very well preserved apart from a few stains in one corner. The man, who was lean and dark-haired, with strongly marked eyebrows, was staring straight at the camera, a faint, inscrutable smile playing on his lips.

  Taking the picture into the sitting room, Konrád sat down again in the old man’s chair at the desk, holding the newspaper cuttings in his other hand, his gaze wandering from them to the photograph and then to the book lying open in front of him. A succession of thoughts passed through his head: thoughts of his father, the murdered girl, the military occupation, seances, the tormented souls of the dead, and an old man who lived alone and was found lying on his bed as if asleep – but had in fact been murdered.

  8

  Konrád was startled out of his reverie by the sound of someone knocking three times on the door. Rising from the desk, he went rather hesitantly into the hall, uncertain how to act. There was another round of knocking, more determined this time.

  ‘Hello,’ he heard a voice call, ‘is there somebody in there?’

  Realising he had to do something, Konrád opened the door. Outside on the landing stood a tallish, middle-aged woman with a cloud of dark hair.

  ‘I saw someone go inside,’ she said. ‘Are you related to Stefán, by any chance?’

  ‘No, I’m with the police.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I haven’t noticed you here before.’

  ‘No, I was just on my way out,’ said Konrád, without elaborating on the reason for his presence.

  ‘I’m Thorbjörg,’ said the woman. ‘I live upstairs, in the flat directly above Stefán’s. I’ve spoken to the police, to someone called Marta.’

  ‘Yes, I know her.’

  ‘Are you any closer to finding out what happened?’ asked Thorbjörg, not unnaturally curious about her neighbour’s shocking fate. News of his murder had been splashed all over the media.

  ‘No, not yet,’ said Konrád.

  ‘Who would do such a thing – attack an old-age pensioner like that? He can’t have had long to live anyway.’

  ‘Did you know each other well?’

  ‘No, I can’t say we did – he kept himself to himself. We’ve been here for, what, eight years, but I wouldn’t say we knew him well.’

  ‘Who lives opposite him?’

  ‘Birgitta. She’s a widow. I suppose she knew him best of all – she’s been here the longest.’ The woman leaned towards Konrád, lowering her voice. ‘You should talk to her. There was something going on between them – especially, I’d imagine, after her husband died three years ago’

  ‘Something going on?’

  ‘Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were more than just friends. Not that I want to spread gossip, you understand. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Did you notice if Stefán had any visitors recently?’

  ‘No, the police have already asked me that. He didn’t have many visitors. Although it’s not like I kept track or anything.’

  A few minutes later Konrád knocked on Birgitta’s door. She was short with silver hair, a calm demeanour and a kindly face, though just now she appeared to be in low spirits and was reluctant to talk to Konrád. She had already spoken to the police, she said, and had little to add.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you like this,’ Konrád said, hoping to change her mind. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ she said at last, not wishing to seem unhelpful. ‘Would you like to come in?’

  They took a seat in her sitting room and Konrád asked if she had known Stefán long.

  ‘Ever since he first came here, which must have been about twenty-five years ago,’ she said. ‘He moved here from Hveragerdi where he’d lived for a long time. They got to know each other a bit, my husband Eyjólfur and him, used to pass the time of day on the landing, that sort of thing. After Eyjólfur died, Stefán kindly offered to help me out with odd jobs here and there, and he always used to drop in for coffee when he was going out to our local shop. He never shopped anywhere else.’

  ‘Didn’t he have any family?’

  ‘No, he never married and preferred not to discuss it. We had so much else to talk about.’

  ‘He was able to look after himself, was he? In spite of his age?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he was very active, and strong as a horse, despite being ninety. He used to say he had no intention of being put in a home.’

  ‘Did you happen to notice if he had any visitors recently or went out to see anyone? I get the impression he was a bit of a recluse.’

  ‘That’s right. He kept himself to himself, talked very little about friends or relatives. I don’t remember anyone visiting him recently, though it’s possible I just didn’t notice.’

  ‘What did he do for a living?’ asked Konrád. ‘Before he retired, I mean.’

  ‘He was an engineer. He built bridges all over the country. Though of course he retired years ago. What do the police think happened?’
/>
  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘They said on the news that he was smothered. That a pillow was held over his face and he was too weak to fight back.’

  ‘I’m guessing it was something like that.’

  ‘What a monster,’ said Birgitta quietly, as if to herself.

  ‘What about the other neighbours? Any tensions there?’

  ‘The neighbours? No. Why do you say that?’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘No, I believe the police interviewed everyone in the building and ruled out the idea that any of them could have done it. They’re all decent people. They’d never do a dreadful thing like that.’

  CID had indeed questioned all the occupants of the three-storey building. The flats, eight in all, were on the small side and most of the residents were elderly people who had downsized after their children left home. The police had also knocked on the doors of the neighbouring houses, but hardly anyone they spoke to had even been aware of Stefán’s existence.

  ‘Did he ever talk to you or your husband about the National Theatre?’ asked Konrád.

  ‘The National Theatre? I don’t think he was a theatregoer.’

  ‘I was actually referring to incidents linked to the National Theatre, rather than plays.’

  ‘What kind of incident?’

  ‘During the war, for instance.’

  ‘The war?’

  ‘The Second World War,’ Konrád said, anxious not to give away too much, not least because he knew so little himself.

  ‘What kind of incidents during the war?’ Birgitta asked, puzzled.

  ‘Was he religious, would you say?’ asked Konrád, changing the subject.

  ‘He never discussed it. So, no, I shouldn’t think so. I shouldn’t think he was particularly religious.’

  ‘Interested in the supernatural, then?’

  ‘No, I very much doubt it. Again, he never mentioned it. Do you mean … What exactly do you mean?’

  ‘Did he believe in life after death, visit psychics?’

  Birgitta stared at Konrád. ‘What did you find in his flat?’

  ‘Not much.’ He smiled. ‘I just happened to notice that he’d been reading a book of Icelandic folk tales. Were you aware of his interest in them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or in Icelandic folklore generally?’

  ‘He never brought up the subject with me. But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You were talking about the war and asked if he’d received or paid any visits. Well, he did tell me he’d gone round to a nursing home in the neighbourhood. He wanted to refresh his memory of something that happened during the war. When I asked him about it, he cut the conversation short as if he didn’t want to discuss it. I didn’t press him – I knew he’d fill me in later if he felt like it.’

  ‘So you don’t know what it was about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you get on well?’

  ‘Yes, very well. We were good friends.’

  ‘Do you know if he had any other friends, any acquaintances I could talk to?’ asked Konrád, thinking of the photograph in the bedside drawer.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’

  ‘Where was Stefán from originally? The south?’ Marta had given him only the most basic facts about the dead man. ‘You said he moved here from Hveragerdi.’

  ‘No, actually. He was Canadian,’ said Birgitta. ‘His parents emigrated. He was born in Manitoba. Came over during the war.’

  ‘With an Icelandic name like that – Stefán Thórdarson?’

  ‘No, well, that was later. He used his Canadian name for the first few years, then adapted it to Icelandic.’

  ‘His Canadian name?’

  ‘First he went by the name he’d had at home in Canada,’ Birgitta explained patiently. ‘Then he changed it when he took citizenship here. He used the Icelandic version, Stefán Thórdarson.’

  ‘So what was he called back in Canada?’

  ‘Thorson. Stephan Thorson.’

  9

  A quick inquiry revealed that the Association of Chartered Engineers had very little information about Stefán Thórdarson, or Stephan Thorson. It was a good many years since he had retired, and he had been receiving regular payouts from the engineers’ pension fund, but the staff there knew nothing else about him. It was news to Marta that the dead man was Canadian. Birgitta hadn’t shared that information with the police when they spoke to her. It appeared that Stefán had never married and had no known children. And since no one had come to view his body at the mortuary or enquired after him, it was hard to establish anything else about him. The lack of progress was making Marta irritable.

  ‘Nobody can be that alone in the world,’ she complained to Konrád over the phone.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Konrád. He had just left Birgitta and was about to head over to the nursing home the old man had apparently visited. ‘Presumably his family were all in Canada, and anyway his closest relatives would be long dead by now. He chose to begin a new life here and never started a family of his own. All the same, he must have had a few other friends like Birgitta, so maybe you’ll manage to track some of them down.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Marta. ‘It’s bound to have been someone close to him.’

  ‘Who killed him, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, the poor old boy opens the door to someone he knows and invites him in. Or there’d be signs of a break-in or a struggle. Nothing was stolen. So it looks as though his visitor intended to do away with him, but even so –’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said Konrád. ‘We can’t assume he knew the person who came to the door. That was my first reaction too, but when you stop and think about it, we open our doors to anyone who knocks or rings the bell. You’d have to be unusually distrustful not to. So the old man didn’t necessarily know the person or people who did this. You can’t make that leap.’

  ‘All the same, the chances are he did. I’ll get in touch with the Manitoba police and find out if they can dig anything up on this … Stephen Thorson, was that what you said?’

  ‘Stephan. Not Stephen.’

  ‘Anything else? Anything in connection with the newspaper cuttings?’

  ‘No, nothing except …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it was a strangely quiet death, but …’

  ‘What? What are you trying to say? Spit it out.’

  ‘But it’s oddly consistent with the way he lived. He was so self-effacing. No one’s aware of his existence. He simply lived. And died.’

  The manager of the nursing home was rushed off his feet and could scarcely spare a moment for Konrád. He was a big man and loud with it. Konrád tracked him down by following the noise from the other end of the corridor. The man was thundering down the phone – at a supplier, apparently. There were two other men in his office. The manager ended his conversation with a few choice expletives, barked at the two men, who scurried out, then swung round to Konrád.

  ‘And what can I do for you?’ The phone on his desk started ringing. He picked up the receiver, said no three times, at equally spaced intervals, then banged it down.

  Konrád introduced himself. ‘I’m enquiring about a man who came here recently, presumably to visit one of the residents.’

  ‘Oh yes? Who was that?’

  ‘His name was Stefán Thórdarson. He was very old, over ninety.’

  ‘That’s no age nowadays,’ said the manager. ‘It’s like the old have stopped dying altogether.’

  ‘Quite. Anyway, it occurred to me that he might have asked you or your staff for assistance.’

  ‘Stefán Thórdarson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I recognise the name. Isn’t that the man who was found murdered in his bed? I remember him. He was round here a few days before that. Asking after our Vigga.’

  ‘Vigga?’

  ‘She’s a patient of ours. Spends most of her time in bed, completely out of it. Used to live in the Shadow Dis
trict.’

  Konrád stared at the man. ‘Do you know why he wanted to see her?’

  ‘No, though I seem to recall him saying he was an old friend of hers.’

  ‘I used to know a woman called Vigga from that neighbourhood,’ said Konrád. ‘She’d be very long in the tooth by now. I wonder if she’s the one he came to visit?’

  ‘We’ve only got the one Vigga here. Do you want to see her? Who did you say you were again? Are you with the police?’

  The phone started ringing again and the man snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Konrád. ‘I’ll find my own way.’

  He left the office smartly. Walking along the corridor, he remembered how, as a child in the Shadow District, life had held no greater terror for him than a woman called Vigga, who lived on Lindargata. Years later he had discovered to his surprise that she was born in 1915. In those days people used to age much faster, ground down by hardship and back-breaking work, so although he had always thought of her as ancient, she couldn’t have been forty yet in his earliest memories.

  She had lived alone and was the target of the local children because of her eccentric clothing and habits. They used to call her Vigga Pig and were petrified of her, giving her a wide berth except when they ganged up in sufficient numbers to torment her. Once in a while she would lose her rag, which only increased the thrill. If the kids saw her coming to the door as if to chase them, they would run away shrieking. Occasionally she would take on her persecutors, catching a couple and laying into them, all the while producing a stream of the most terrible curses they had ever heard. Boiling lead was a favourite threat of hers; she used to exclaim that she’d pour it all over the little swine. Once, when Konrád was six years old, she had caught him throwing snowballs at her house. She came storming out in her peculiar get-up of woollen vest, three ragged jumpers, several layers of skirts and a large pair of rubber galoshes that reached almost up to the knee. Konrád would have got away, silly little fool that he was, if he hadn’t slipped and fallen on his bottom. She had grabbed hold of him, slapped his cheek, already raw with the cold, so hard it brought tears to his eyes, then hurled him to the ground and said if he didn’t bugger off home she’d lock him in her cellar.