The Súd steered a careful course around the frigates and minesweepers in the approaches to Reykjavík harbour before finally coming alongside the docks. Shortly afterwards the passengers began to disembark, one after the other, many of them shaky on their legs and relieved to have dry land underfoot again. The voyage had been uneventful until they reached Faxaflói Bay, where the wind had veered to the south-west bringing squalls of rain and the ship had begun to roll. Most of the passengers stayed below decks, where a sour reek of wet clothes pervaded the cramped quarters. Several had been seasick during this last stage, Eyvindur among them.
He had boarded the ship at Ísafjördur, toting his two battered suitcases, and slept for most of the way, worn out from trekking round the villages and farms of the West Fjords. The cases contained tins of polish: Meltonian for shoes and Poliflor for furniture. He was also lugging around a sample dinner service that the wholesaler had imported from Holland just before the war.
Eyvindur had done quite well with the shoe and furniture polish, but in spite of his best efforts to sing the praises of Dutch tableware, it seemed there was no market for such goods in these treacherous times. His heart really wasn’t in it, and he hadn’t even bothered to visit all the places that normally formed part of his route. Somehow he couldn’t summon the powers of persuasion, that almost religious fervour which, according to the wholesaler, all successful salesmen required, and so he had returned clutching only a handful of orders. Eyvindur had rather a bad conscience about this. He felt he could have made more of an effort and knew that the few orders he had secured would make little impression on the wholesaler’s mountain of stock.
The trouble was that he had been in a bit of a state when he set out from Reykjavík a fortnight ago. That was one reason the trip hadn’t gone as well as it should. Moments before he was due to leave he had made an accusation in his typically tactless way, which led to a row that had weighed on him throughout the trip. Vera had reacted furiously, calling him all kinds of ugly names, and he started to regret his words as soon as the Súd sailed out of Reykjavík harbour. He’d had two weeks to brood and find excuses for his behaviour, though to be honest he still wasn’t convinced that he had been the one in the wrong. Yet her outrage had struck him as genuine when she retorted that she couldn’t believe he would accuse her of such a thing. She had burst into tears, locked herself in the bedroom and refused to speak to him. In danger of missing his boat, Eyvindur had snatched up the cases of polish and tableware and run out of the door, wishing with all his heart that he had a different job, one that didn’t force him to spend long periods away from home while Vera got up to goodness knows what.
These thoughts were still rankling as he leapt ashore and half ran towards the centre of town, hurrying as fast as his legs would carry him, plump, a little splay-footed and out of condition in spite of his age, clad in his trench coat, a case in either hand. The rain was coming down more heavily now and water trickled from the brim of his hat, getting in his eyes and soaking his feet. He took refuge under the porch of the Reykjavík Pharmacy and peered round the corner into Austurvöllur Square. A small troop of soldiers was marching past Parliament House. The Americans were in the process of taking over from the British, and you could hardly move these days for Yanks, army trucks and jeeps, artillery and sandbags – all the trappings of military occupation. The quiet little town was unrecognisable.
There was a time when Vera used to meet him off the ship and they would walk home together, she chatting about what she had been up to in his absence, he telling her about his latest trip, the characters he’d met and the goods he’d managed to shift. He had admitted that he wasn’t sure how long he would last in this job. He wasn’t really cut out to be a salesman. Didn’t have the necessary gift of the gab. Wasn’t that comfortable in social situations unlike, say, Felix, who positively radiated self-confidence.
That was true of Runki too. He sometimes sailed on the Súd, his cases crammed full of headgear from Luton. How Eyvindur envied Runki his nerve; he was always self-assured, even cocky, never had any trouble getting people’s attention. He was a born salesman. It was all about confidence. While Eyvindur was getting his tongue in a twist over the Dutch dinner service, all over town people were donning Runki’s new hats, in the smug belief that they had got themselves a bargain.
Too impatient to wait for the weather to let up, Eyvindur grabbed his cases again, ducked his head and ran across the square into the wind and rain, that cold, late-summer rain that hung like a low canopy over the town. He and Vera lived in the west end, in a small flat that belonged to his father’s brother. Rents were astronomical these days with all the people flooding in from the countryside to the towns, especially Reykjavík, lured by the prospect of working for the army, for hard cash and a better life. His uncle, who owned several properties in town, was raking in the profits, though he charged Eyvindur a fair rent. Even so, Eyvindur found it steep enough and kept having to ask for more time when his self-confidence was at its lowest ebb and he failed to bring home enough in commission.
The flat was on the ground floor of a three-storey concrete building. He unlocked the front door, then the door to the flat, before hastily retrieving his cases from the step outside and carrying them in. As he did so he called out to his girlfriend, who he assumed was waiting for him inside.
‘Vera? Vera darling?’
There was no answer. He closed the door, switched on the light and took a moment to catch his breath. He needn’t have bothered to hurry over the last stretch: Vera wasn’t home. She must have gone out, which meant he would have to wait a little longer before he could beg her forgiveness for his crass accusations. He’d been rehearsing what he was going to say – would have to say – if he was going to make things right again.
His outer clothes were sopping wet, so he took off his hat and laid his overcoat across a chair in the living room, then hung his jacket in the wardrobe by the door. Opening one of the cases, he took out a pound of genuine coffee that he had managed to get hold of in the West Fjords, hoping to give Vera a nice surprise. He was just about to go into the kitchen when he paused. Something wasn’t right.
Turning back, Eyvindur opened the wardrobe again. His jacket was hanging there, along with a second, longer jacket of his and another coat. It was what was missing that brought him up short: Vera’s clothes had gone. The shoes she kept in the bottom weren’t there. Nor were her two coats. He stood for a moment, staring blankly into the cupboard, then walked into the bedroom. There was another, larger wardrobe there with drawers for socks and underwear and a rail for dresses and shirts. Eyvindur opened it and pulled out the drawers, to be confronted by the astonishing fact that all Vera’s clothes had disappeared. His own things were still in their usual place but there wasn’t a single feminine garment left.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. In a daze, he went over to Vera’s dressing table and opened the drawers and compartments: it was the same story. Had she left him? Moved out?
He sank down on the bed, his thoughts miles away, recalling what Runki had said about Vera when Runki thought he couldn’t hear. The day he caught the boat to the West Fjords they had bumped into each other at Hot and Cold, a restaurant popular with soldiers. Runki had been there with a friend, shovelling down fish and chips, and as soon as he thought Eyvindur was safely out of earshot he had dropped that remark about Vera.
An absurd lie – he should have gone back and rammed the words down the bastard’s throat.
The lie that had made Vera so angry, so hurt when he was stupid enough to fling it in her face.
Eyvindur stared into the empty drawers and thumped his fist on the bed. Deep down he had been afraid of this. He was no longer so sure Runki’s remark had been an outrageous lie – that Vera was mixed up in the Situation.
And then there was all that nonsense his old classmate, that dirty rat Felix, had been rambling on about when they ran into each other in Ísafjördur. Was there any truth to it? All that stuff about the school and those experiments. Or was he simply out to humiliate Eyvindur because he was drunk, and cruel, just like he used to be in the old days when Eyvindur had laboured under the foolish belief that they were friends?
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VINTAGE
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Vintage is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Copyright © Arnaldur Indriðason 2018
English translation copyright © Victoria Cribb 2018
Cover photographs © Getty Images
Arnaldur Indriðason has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published by Harvill Secker in 2018
First published with the title Þýska húsið in Iceland by Vaka-Helgafell in 2015
Published by agreement with Forlagid www.forlagid.is
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This book has been translated with financial support from
Flóvent surveyed the flat but could see no signs of a struggle, despite the aftermath of violence confronting him in all its horror. On the floor lay the body of a man, shot through the head. It looked like an execution pure and simple; no sign that the victim had tried to run. No chairs had been overturned. No tables knocked aside. The pictures were hanging perfectly straight on the walls. The windows were intact and fastened shut, so it could hardly have been a break-in. The door of the flat was undamaged too. The man now lying on the floor with a bullet hole in the back of his head must have opened the door to his assailant or left it open, unaware that it would be the last thing he did. It looked as though the victim had just walked in when the attack took place, since he was still in his overcoat, the front-door key clutched in his hand. At first glance Flóvent couldn’t see that anything had been stolen. The visitor must have come here to kill, and had carried out this intention with such brutality that the first police officers to arrive at the scene were still in shock. One had thrown up in the living room. The other was standing outside, protesting that there was no way he was going in there again.
The first thing Flóvent had done was shoo away those who had no direct role in the investigation: the policemen who had trampled all over the scene; the witness who had raised the alarm; the nosy neighbours who, when informed that a gun had been fired in the flat, were unable to say for certain if they’d heard a shot. The only people left inside were Flóvent himself and the district medical officer who had come to confirm the man’s death.
‘Of course he’ll have died instantly,’ said the doctor, a short, scrawny man whose prominent teeth were clamped on a pipe that he hardly ever removed from his mouth. ‘The shot was fired at such close quarters that it could only end one way,’ he continued, exhaling smoke with every word. ‘The bullet has exited through his eye here, causing this God awful mess.’ He contemplated the congealed pool of blood that had spread out over the floorboards. One of the policemen had carelessly stepped in the dark puddle, slipped and almost fallen. You could see the skid mark of his shoe in the blood. There were splashes on the furniture and walls. Lumps of brain on the curtains. The killer had shot through a thick cushion to muffle the noise, then tossed it back on the sofa. The exposed side of the victim’s face had been almost entirely blown away.
Flóvent focused on trying to remember the protocol for examining a crime scene. Murders didn’t happen every day in Reykjavík and he was relatively new to the job, so he didn’t want to make any mistakes. He had only been with Reykjavík’s Criminal Investigation Department for a few years, but he had also done a six-month stint with the Edinburgh CID, where he had learnt a lot about the theory and practice of detective work. The victim appeared to be in his twenties. He had thinning hair; his suit and coat were threadbare, his shoes cheap. He appeared to have been forced down on his knees, then fallen forward when he took the bullet to the back of the head. A single shot in exactly the right place. But for some reason this had not been enough. After the execution, the killer had stuck a finger in the wound and daubed the dead man’s forehead with blood. What possible motive could he have had? Was it a signature of some sort? A comment that the perpetrator regarded as important, though its significance was lost on Flóvent? Was it a justification? An explanation? Second thoughts? Remorse? All of these? Or none? Or a challenge, intended to convey the message that the person who did this had no regrets? Flóvent shook his head. The clumsily smeared mark meant nothing to him.
The bullet itself proved easy to find since it was buried in a floorboard. Flóvent marked the spot before prising the bullet out with his pocket knife and examining it in his palm. He recognised the make, as ballistics was a special interest of his. This was one of the innovations in forensic detection that he was keen to introduce to Iceland. Fingerprinting too. And the practice of systematically photographing felons and the scenes of major crimes. Whenever necessary, he called out a photographer he knew who had a studio in town. Bit by bit his department was building up an archive, though it was still very rudimentary and incomplete.
‘The person who fired the shot must have been standing behind him, presumably holding the gun at arm’s length,’ said the doctor, removing his pipe for a moment before clamping it between his teeth again. ‘So you ought to be able to get a rough idea of his height.’
‘Yes,’ said Flóvent. ‘I was wondering about that. We can’t assume the murderer was a man. It could have been a woman.’
‘Well, I don’t know. Would a woman be capable of this? Somehow I doubt it.’
‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’
‘It was clearly an execution,’ said the doctor, exhaling smoke. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Forced to kneel on the floor of his own home and shot like a dog. You’d have to be a cold-blooded bastard to do a thing like that.’
‘And smear his forehead with blood?’
‘Well, I don’t know … I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean.’
‘When do you reckon it happened?’
‘Not that long ago,’ said the doctor, looking at the congealed blood on the floor. ‘Twelve hours, give or take. The post-mortem will give us a better estimate.’
‘Yesterday evening, then?’ said Flóvent.
At this point the photographer arrived, armed with his tripod and the Speed Graphic camera he had acquired before the war. Having greeted Flóvent and the doctor, he looked around the room, dispassionately appraising the scene, then went about his business methodically, setting up the tripod, removing the camera from its case, fixing it up and inserting the film holder in the back. Each holder contained two pieces of film. The photographer had come equipped with a number of these holders and extra flashbulbs as well.
‘How many shots do you want?’ he asked.
‘Take several,’ said Flóvent.
‘Was it a soldier?’ the photographer asked as he paused to replace the film holder then fixed the camera to the tripod again and changed the bulb.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Doesn’t it look like the work of a soldier?’ The photographer was a world-weary man of about sixty. Flóvent had never seen him smile.
‘Maybe,’ said Flóvent distractedly. He was searching for clues to the identity of the gunman: any evidence he might have left behind such as footprints, clothing, cigarette ash. It looked as if the tenant had been in the kitchen fairly recently, fixing himself a snack. There was a half-eaten slice of stale bread and cheese on the table. Beside it was a cup of tea, partially drunk. Flóvent had fumbled in the victim’s pockets for his wallet but couldn’t find one on his body or anywhere else in the flat.
‘I can’t believe anyone but a soldier would be capable of a clean job like that,’ said the photographer.
The room was briefly illuminated by his flash, then he recommenced the laborious process of setting the heavy camera up in another spot and inserting new film.
‘It’s possible,’ said Flóvent. ‘I couldn’t say. You might know better.’
‘An officer, maybe?’ continued the photographer thoughtfully. ‘Someone in authority? It looks like an execution, doesn’t it? Betrays a kind of arrogance.’
‘You two seem to be thinking along very different lines,’ commented the doctor, tamping down his pipe. ‘Flóvent thinks a woman did it.’
‘No,’ said the photographer flatly, studying the man on the floor for a while before snapping another picture. ‘No, out of the question.’
‘Perhaps he was robbed,’ suggested Flóvent. ‘I can’t find his wallet.’
From his inspection of the flat, he concluded that the man had lived alone. It was a typical bachelor’s apartment, small and spartan, largely free from ornament, but clean and tidy. The only extraneous object was the cushion used to muffle the shot. Apart from that the flat was sparsely furnished, and what furniture there was showed signs of wear: the sofa and armchair in the living room, the two old wooden chairs in the kitchen. On the sofa lay an open suitcase containing hats, Lido cleansing cream and several packs of Kolynos toothpaste. The merchandise was spattered with blood.
The flash lit up the sordid scene one last time, then the photographer began to pack away his equipment. The doctor paused in the doorway to relight his pipe. Flóvent glanced back at the man on the floor, unable to comprehend the sheer violence that must have lain behind his killing: the implacable hatred, the anger, the utter ruthlessness.
‘Did you take a picture of that mark on his forehead?’ he asked.
‘Yes, what is it? What does it mean?’
‘No idea,’ said Flóvent. After his initial examination of the corpse, he had kept his eyes averted from the man’s shattered face. ‘I can’t make any sense of it. Can’t begin to guess what it means or why someone would have smeared blood on his forehead like that.’
‘Have you identified him?’ asked the photographer as he was leaving.
‘Yes, his landlady told me who he was, and there are bills here in his name.’
‘So, who was he?’
‘I’ve never come across him before,’ said Flóvent. ‘His name was Felix. Felix Lunden.’
The woman who found the body was a widow of around fifty called Ólafía. She had gone down to remind the man about his rent and walked in on what she described as the ‘ghastly scene’. His rent had been due on the first of the month, she said, and he was never late. Admittedly, she hadn’t seen him for a while but then he was often away for a week or two at a time, sometimes longer. She had gone down to the basement and was about to knock on his door when she noticed that it was open a crack. There was no reply when she called his name, so, after a moment’s hesitation, she had gone inside to find out if he was all right and to ask why he hadn’t paid his rent.
‘Of course, it was mainly because I was worried about him,’ she assured Flóvent, as if fearing he would doubt her motivation and suspect her of nosiness. ‘The moment I walked through the door I saw him lying there on the floor. It was horrible, quite horrible, and I … I gasped, and, well, to be honest I screamed and ran back out again, slamming the door. The whole thing’s a nightmare. A terrible nightmare!’
‘So you found the door open, ma’am?’
‘Yes, which was very unusual because he always kept it locked. In fact, he told me he wanted to change the lock because it was so old it would be far too easy to pick. Maybe he was right, but then we don’t bother locking our doors any more than anyone else in this town. We’re just not used to it. I suppose it’s our old country ways that haven’t kept up with the times. Not with the way things are these days.’
‘Are you the only person with a key to the flat?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Where do you keep your key?’
‘My key? I hope you’re not suggesting I was responsible. What a nerve.’ The woman looked outraged.
‘No, ma’am, of course not,’ said Flóvent. ‘I simply need to know who else could have had access to the flat in the last twenty-four hours – or in general. That’s all. Is it possible that someone else could have taken your key, used it to enter the flat, put it back, then lain in wait for the man and attacked him when he came home? Or else picked the lock, as you mentioned? It must have happened yesterday evening.’
Ólafía’s eyes still radiated suspicion. ‘Nobody can have taken my key,’ she said firmly, ‘because Felix had it himself. He’d borrowed my spare to get it copied. Said he’d lost his own. Maybe that was why he was talking about changing the lock.’
‘Did you see Felix at all yesterday evening?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘And you didn’t hear any sounds from his flat?’
‘No, I didn’t. I was asleep by ten, as usual. That’s when most people in this house go to bed. I like my tenants to keep regular hours.’
‘Had Felix been renting from you for long?’
‘No. It was about six months ago that he enquired about the flat. I had to get rid of the previous tenants: a drunken lout and his wife, nothing but trouble. I have no patience with that sort of behaviour.’
‘You say Felix used to go away for a week or two at a time? Why was that?’
‘He was a commercial traveller, wasn’t he? Used to make regular trips out of town.’
‘And he’d always paid his rent punctually in the past?’
‘Yes. But he was a week overdue this time and I wanted my money.’
The man’s upstairs neighbours, a couple in their thirties, said they hadn’t noticed any comings or goings or heard any raised voices in the night. But then they had been sound asleep by midnight. They’d been renting from Ólafía for two years, so they’d lived there longer than their neighbour. They didn’t know him very well but both agreed that he had been a cheery bloke and easy to talk to – just as you’d expect a good salesman to be. They weren’t aware that anyone had a bone to pick with him and couldn’t imagine what it was all about or comprehend the shocking brutality of what had happened.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep in this house tonight,’ the woman exclaimed, looking anxiously at Flóvent. As soon as she heard that their neighbour had been murdered, she had telephoned her husband, who worked as an overseer for the British, and he had come home early.
‘I don’t believe anyone else in the building is in danger,’ Flóvent reassured her.
‘Who could do such a thing – shoot a man in the head like that?’ asked the woman.
Flóvent couldn’t answer this. ‘Did he have any dealings with the army?’ he asked. ‘Did you ever see Felix in the company of soldiers? Did any of them ever visit him, as far as you’re aware?’
‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ said the woman. ‘I never noticed any soldiers round at his place.’
The man said the same. After asking them a few more questions, Flóvent thanked them for their time, then went and knocked on the door of the third set of tenants, an older couple who had been renting from Ólafía ever since her husband died. They informed him, unasked, that the husband had been shipwrecked off the Reykjanes Peninsula in a storm.
Neither of them had heard a gunshot; they had both been fast asleep at the time Flóvent believed the weapon had been discharged. They couldn’t tell him a great deal about Felix Lunden either. He wasn’t there much and never caused any trouble, never had noisy visitors or threw parties, didn’t seem to have many friends and wasn’t involved with a woman, as far as they were aware. Or if he was, they hadn’t noticed her visiting him. They knew nothing of his family circumstances.
‘Do you know if he had any dealings with the army?’ asked Flóvent.
‘No. Are you asking if he worked for them?’
‘Yes, or if he was acquainted with any soldiers.’
‘No,’ said the woman, ‘that is … not that we were aware.’
Flóvent sat with the couple for a little while longer before returning to Felix Lunden’s flat. The body had been removed and taken to the mortuary at the National Hospital. The district medical officer and photographer had left, but a uniformed policeman was standing guard outside to ensure that no one entered the flat. Flóvent was currently the only detective working for Reykjavík’s Criminal Investigation Department. All his colleagues had been seconded to other, more urgent policing roles at the beginning of the war, but he thought he might have to recall some of them to assist him with this case, which promised to be both complex and challenging.
He studied the bloodstain on the living-room floor, then examined the spent bullet that had been buried in a floorboard. He rolled it in his palm, picked it up between his fingers and held it to the light. Every gun left signature marks on the bullet, as unique as a fingerprint. If he could only find the firearm, he could prove that it was the right one by comparing the marks on the bullet to those produced by the barrel.
He recognised the make and calibre of bullet. It belonged to a Colt .45 pistol, the standard-issue sidearm carried by American servicemen. His question about whether the neighbours had seen Felix Lunden in the company of GIs had not been an idle one. All the evidence suggested that he had been killed by someone connected to the military, and the message was clear: Felix had deserved nothing better than a cold-blooded execution.
The plane taxied to the end of the runway, turned and prepared for take-off. Thorson, driving after it at breakneck speed, could see no alternative but to block its path. He had no intention of wasting any more time on the entertainer if he could possibly avoid it.
The man had finally turned up when an elderly woman living on Öldugata had reported him to the police. They had been searching for him all morning. At first, when she found the man sleeping on the steps outside her house, she had taken him for a tramp. But then it occurred to her that he was the best-dressed tramp she had ever seen. After taking a closer look, she concluded that he must be a foreigner, here with the army perhaps – though he wasn’t in uniform. When the police informed her that he was an American singer who had gone missing in town, and was quite the drinker to boot, she had laughed and said had she known she would have invited him in.
Thorson had wasted the entire day on that pain in the neck, all so he could shove him onto a plane and send him home. The singer was from New York. He had arrived in Iceland a week ago with a group of his fellow countrymen to entertain the troops, had been drunk more or less throughout his stay and had managed to get himself into a series of scrapes.
Thorson had been dragged into it when the man was beaten up after drunkenly insulting a bunch of soldiers after one of his shows. The US Military Police Corps was called in and Thorson had taken the man’s statement when he was brought in to the sick bay to be cleaned up before being sent back to Hótel Ísland, where all the entertainers were staying. The singer had no idea who his assailants were; they didn’t come forward and there had been no witnesses. All he could remember was that there had been three of them, they had found fault with his singing, and he had accused them of being rednecks. The incident had taken place behind the large barracks where the show, and a dance, had been held for the troops. The singer hadn’t come out of it well. He had a split lip and a black eye and complained that his side hurt where he’d been kicked in the ribs.
Two days later, when all the performers were due to fly home, he failed to show up at the airfield. Thorson was given the task of finding him and getting him on that plane, no matter what. The singer wasn’t in his hotel room and hadn’t packed; the place looked like a bomb had hit it, with clothes, empty bottles and sheet music littering the floor. Thorson soon discovered that he had been playing poker in the kitchen with the cooks until the small hours. One of them told Thorson that the man had been ranting about getting even with a bunch of punks, and that he had last been seen, at the crack of dawn, heading in the direction of the harbour.
‘Was he any good at poker?’ asked Thorson.
‘Had the shirts off our backs,’ said the sleepy cook ruefully.
Thorson phoned the airfield and extracted a promise that the plane wouldn’t take off until the singer turned up. After that, he called out several of his fellow MPs to join in the search, and they scoured the town, checking all the watering holes and guesthouses and even people’s gardens. He also alerted the Icelandic police in case they got wind of the man’s whereabouts. The singer hadn’t been in Reykjavík long enough to acquire any regular haunts, so there was no telling where he might be. A man answering his description was seen trying to scrounge a bottle of brennivín at the seamen’s hostel run by the Salvation Army; while customers standing outside Mrs Marta Björnsson’s restaurant on Hafnarstræti reported seeing an American weaving his way unsteadily towards the west end. Then a mature woman, wearing Icelandic national costume, reported that she had been accosted by a foreigner who had started following her in the vicinity of White Star, a late-night bar on Laugavegur, and offered her money to sleep with him. There had been the odd incident of this kind ever since someone had started the rumour that women who wore peysuföt were prostitutes.
It wasn’t until midday that the police heard from the housewife on Öldugata. The singer was delivered into the hands of Thorson, who drove him at high speed first to his hotel to collect his belongings, then out to the Reykjavík airfield where they learnt that the pilot’s patience had run out. The plane was revving up for take-off. Without further ado Thorson stamped on the accelerator and raced down the runway. By then the entertainer was waking up to the realisation that his plane was about to leave and that he was in danger of being stranded on this remote island. He stood up in the jeep, waving his arms frantically and raising his fine tenor voice to bellow at the plane to stop.
The pilot sat watching their approach and for a moment it appeared that he was going to ignore them, then he threw up his hands in surrender and waited while Thorson pulled up alongside. The noise of the propellers was ear-splitting. A door in the fuselage opened and the singer leapt out of the jeep, grabbed his suitcase and was about to race to the plane when he remembered his saviour. Turning to Thorson, he drew himself up straight, raised a hand smartly to his brow in a salute, then climbed aboard. Thorson heaved a sigh of relief, swung the jeep out of the way, and watched the plane trundling down the runway, before lifting clumsily into the air and vanishing into the west.
On the way to the airfield Thorson had tried to find out how the hell the singer had ended up asleep on a doorstep in Öldugata. The man, who had only a hazy recollection of meeting Thorson before, said he had no idea what he had been doing there. But some women had approached him at Hótel Ísland and one of them had given him an address, so perhaps he had been trying to find their place.
‘At least you’ve been keeping busy during your stay in Iceland,’ remarked Thorson, looking the man over. The singer was Italian American: dark hair, sun-bronzed skin. When he smiled there was a flash of fine white teeth.
‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ he asked, catching Thorson’s eye.
‘Sorry, I was miles away. I guess I haven’t been sleeping too well lately,’ said Thorson. ‘This place gets to you after a while.’
‘It’s the goddamn back of beyond,’ the singer said flatly.
When Thorson eventually got back to base out at Laugarnes Point, he received a message that his commanding officer had been asking for him. It was the first time he’d had any dealings with Colonel Franklin Webster, head of the US Military Police Corps in Iceland. The colonel was attending an important meeting at Höfdi House, and Thorson was ordered to report to him there. He jumped into his jeep again and headed over to the handsome white Jugendstil residence that stood down by the sea, just outside the town. When he first arrived in Reykjavík the house had struck Thorson as one of the most distinguished buildings in the place, and his opinion hadn’t changed. It had once belonged to a famous poet and was rumoured to be haunted. Shortly after the invasion on 10 May 1940, the British had purchased the house as a residence for their consul.
Thorson parked in front of the house, announced his arrival and explained who he had come to see, then was shown into a waiting room. There seemed to be a lot of coming and going: high-ranking men were conversing in low voices; British officers and their American counterparts hurried from room to room, and he recognised an Icelandic government minister striding briskly into the house and continuing straight up to the first floor, accompanied by two other men. There appeared to be some kind of flap on. A large photograph of the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, hung on the wall in the waiting room, and Thorson was standing contemplating it when he heard a deep voice address him.
‘I hear you had a little trouble with one of our entertainers,’ said the colonel, who had approached noiselessly from behind.
Thorson swung round and saluted. The colonel, who was at least thirty years older than him, looked amiable enough, but Thorson had heard from his colleagues in the military police that he was a tough customer.
‘We handled it, sir,’ said Thorson.
‘Good. I understand you speak Icelandic fluently – that you have Icelandic parents, though you grew up in Canada. Have I got that right?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m what they call a West Icelander. My parents emigrated to Canada and I was born and grew up there.’
‘I see. How long have you been in Iceland?’
‘I was posted here as an interpreter, sir, at the time of the occupation, along with some other Canadian volunteers. They transferred me to the military police right away. When the Americans arrived this summer I was seconded to your police corps. It helps to know the language when you’re dealing with clashes between the troops and the local population.’
‘Yes, I realise that. I happen to be on the lookout for a man who speaks Icelandic and understands the local character but has American interests at heart. Do you think you’re that man?’
‘Well, I speak Icelandic, sir,’ said Thorson. ‘But I wouldn’t say I understand the local character yet.’
A smile tugged at the colonel’s mouth. ‘I don’t suppose you know much about murder inquiries?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’ll learn fast. The request comes from the Reykjavík police. Anyway, I’ve got to leave now but your job is to give them all the help you can. I believe the officer in charge of the investigation is called Florent or some such name. You’ll be working with him. He’s expecting to hear from you.’
‘What case is that, if I might ask, sir?’
‘An Icelander, shot dead in his apartment,’ said the colonel. ‘They’re claiming the bullet they recovered at the scene was fired from a US military pistol. In other words, they believe the crime was committed by an American. In my opinion that’s bull, but naturally I can’t … I expect regular reports on the progress of the investigation. If you need help, talk to me. If what they say is true and the trail leads to one of our men, it could be embarrassing. Not all the locals are happy about our presence here. Bear in mind that we don’t want any trouble: we’ve got enough of that.’
Colonel Webster left the waiting room as suddenly as he had entered it. Thorson’s eyes were drawn back to the portrait of Churchill, who frowned down at him as if to remind him of the gravity of the times they were living through. Then he turned on his heel and marched out of Höfdi House. On the steps he passed the Icelandic government minister and his two companions conferring in low voices, confident that no one could follow what they were saying. Thorson paused when he heard Churchill’s name.
‘… but they don’t know yet,’ said the minister, who was somewhat older than his companions. ‘Of course, it’ll have to be kept hush-hush.’
‘It seems highly unlikely,’ said one of the other men. ‘That he’ll come here.’
‘Well, they aren’t ruling it out. There’s no more information as yet, but they’re hoping for the best.’
The three men glanced at Thorson, who smiled blithely as if he didn’t understand a word they said, then continued down the steps to his jeep. As he drove into town, he wondered if he’d heard right. Could Winston Churchill really be planning a visit to Iceland?
By the time Flóvent arrived at the mortuary, the doctor who conducted most of the post-mortems at the hospital had finished his examination of Felix Lunden’s body. There were two other bodies covered in white sheets waiting on nearby trolleys. The doctor, Baldur, a native of the Hornstrandir Peninsula in the north-west, lurched a little as he moved, his slight limp the legacy of an old tuberculosis infection in one foot. In front of him was a metal trolley bearing an array of bloodstained instruments – scalpels, forceps and small saws – of the type used to pry into the most secret places of the human body. He went over to the metal sink and started washing his hands.
‘It can’t have been a pretty sight,’ he remarked, drying his hands on a towel. ‘With half his face shot away like that.’
‘No,’ said Flóvent. ‘It wasn’t pretty.’
‘No need to tell you how he died – a single shot to the head.’ Baldur offered Flóvent some coffee from a thermos flask that he kept wrapped in a woollen sock. He poured out a cup of the still-warm liquid, handed it to Flóvent and asked if he’d like a drop of brennivín in it to improve the taste. When Flóvent declined, Baldur fortified his own coffee with a splash from a bottle that he kept in the cupboard under the sink. It was getting on for evening but he still had a lot to do; he’d told Flóvent he would probably be there until midnight. It was cold in the mortuary. Flóvent couldn’t think of a less inviting place to be in the whole of Reykjavík.
‘Did the post-mortem turn up anything interesting?’ he asked.
‘Nothing of real significance with regard to the body. The man wasn’t very fit. He was probably a chain-smoker: you can see that from the tar on his fingers and the state of his lungs. He hadn’t done any manual labour for a long time. His hands are soft, no calluses.’
‘I’m told he was a salesman.’
‘Yes, that would fit. Well, it looks like a professional job to me. A single shot did the trick.’
‘As if it was the work of a soldier? Is that what you’re implying?’
‘Yes, perhaps. Though of course I can’t say for sure.’
‘Am I right in thinking that the killer then smeared blood on his forehead?’ asked Flóvent.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘With a finger?’
‘Yes, he used his finger.’
‘He stuck it in the wound?’
‘Yes, unless he used blood from the floor. I expect there was quite a pool around the body when it was found.’
‘Why would he do a thing like that? Why add insult to injury by smearing blood on the victim’s forehead?’
‘What did you say his name was – Felix Lunden, wasn’t it?’
Flóvent nodded.
‘I’m guessing he might be related to a doctor who once worked here at the hospital,’ said Baldur. ‘There can’t be many people in Iceland with that surname. He had a surgery on Hafnarstræti for many years.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Rudolf, he was called. Rudolf Lunden. From a Danish–German family. He was forced to close his surgery following a riding accident. I don’t think he’s practised medicine since. But I didn’t know him well. He had a reputation for being cantankerous. If I remember right, he was linked to the Icelandic Nazi movement in their heyday before the war.’
‘Could this be his son then?’
‘That would be my guess,’ said Baldur. ‘Given his name. And that mark on his forehead.’
‘Oh? Were you able to decipher it?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’ The doctor took a sip of coffee. ‘I believe the person who did this wanted to send a very specific message when he drew that symbol.’
‘What is … What symbol?’
Just then the door of the mortuary opened to admit a young soldier. Over his uniform he wore an armband that identified him as a member of the US Military Police Corps. The young man looked from one of them to the other.
‘I was told I could find Detective Flóvent of the Reykjavík police here?’ he said diffidently. His Icelandic was fluent.
‘I’m Flóvent.’
‘How do you do, sir?’ the young man said politely, and shook Flóvent’s hand. ‘My name’s Thorson. I was told to offer my services to the Icelandic police in connection with a man’s death. I thought I’d better make contact with you as soon as possible. I hope this isn’t a bad moment?’
‘No, not at all. We were just discussing the post-mortem,’ said Flóvent. ‘You speak very good Icelandic. Are you an Icelander, by any chance? No need to call me “sir”, by the way.’
‘I’m a West Icelander,’ Thorson explained, shaking hands with Baldur as well. ‘From Manitoba in Canada. My parents originally came from Eyjafjördur. Is that the man who was shot in the head?’ Flóvent noticed that he avoided looking directly at the corpse.
‘Yes,’ said Flóvent. ‘Felix Lunden, a travelling salesman, from what we’ve managed to establish so far. Used to peddle hats, belts, a variety of face creams and toothpaste, that sort of thing.’
‘Face creams?’ said Baldur, adding another shot of brennivín to his coffee. ‘Can people really make a living from that?’
‘Apparently. He didn’t have any dependants. Lived alone.’ Noticing that Thorson was looking a little pale, Flóvent turned to him: ‘I don’t suppose you’re used to seeing bodies in this sort of state.’
‘No,’ said Thorson. ‘I … I’ve only served in Iceland. I haven’t seen any action yet and the cases I’ve dealt with so far in the military police haven’t … haven’t been quite like this.’
Flóvent could tell the young soldier was making a great effort to appear professional. He wasn’t doing too bad a job of it either. Indeed, Flóvent thought he detected an air of maturity about the young man despite his boyish appearance. Thorson was in his early twenties, fair, with a guileless face that hinted at a trusting nature. Perhaps too trusting, Flóvent thought. There was a look in his eyes that suggested people had been known to betray that trust.
‘Do you think he was killed by a member of the US forces?’ asked Thorson.
‘You’ve probably heard that we found the bullet and that it comes from a Colt. 45?’
‘Couldn’t an Icelander get hold of a weapon like that?’
‘We’re certainly not ruling out the possibility,’ said Flóvent.
‘If a soldier was responsible, and word gets out, my commanding officers are afraid it might lead to – how did they put it? – increased mistrust of the defence force. They’re concerned that public debate about this crime could end up being a little one-sided.’
‘And it’s your role to prevent that?’ asked Baldur. ‘Bit young for politics, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not interested in politics,’ said Thorson. ‘What’s that on his forehead?’ he added, changing the subject. He had obviously plucked up the courage to examine the corpse’s shattered face. ‘Is that a letter?’
‘I was just telling Flóvent when you came in,’ said Baldur. ‘It’s not a letter, no; it’s something else, and quite interesting too. You could say the body’s been deliberately branded.’
‘What with?’ asked Flóvent.
‘As far as I can tell, with the Nazi symbol.’
‘The Nazi symbol? You mean the swastika?’
‘Yes, the swastika,’ said the doctor. He walked heavily over to the body and aimed a lamp at the head. ‘It looks to me as if that’s exactly what this mess on the man’s forehead is meant to represent.’
Flóvent and Thorson stepped closer and examined the mark. The doctor was right. Clumsy and smudged though it was, when viewed under the powerful lamp it was clear that the body had been branded with the distinctive Nazi swastika.
There was a commotion outside in the corridor, caused, Flóvent guessed, by the arrival of Ólafía. He had sent for her to identify the body of her tenant. He went out to greet her and was told in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t pleased about being dragged out to this horrible place. She was exhausted, she said. The day had been dreadfully difficult for her. A brutal murder had been committed in her house. Its reputation had been ruined. Her reputation had been ruined. She, who was always so scrupulous in everything, so very particular about selecting her tenants. Only respectable people. With no more than two children.
‘I found the poor man lying on the floor, what more do you want?’ she asked as Flóvent showed her into the mortuary.
‘I’m afraid we need to take care of this formality as quickly as possible,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know how clearly you were able to see him, ma’am, but I have to state in my report that you formally identified your tenant. We need to contact the man’s family and –’
‘Yes, yes, let’s get it over with, then.’
‘Did you get a good first impression of Felix when he started renting from you?’
‘A very good impression,’ said Ólafía. ‘I have a nose for these things. Polite. Obviously well brought up. Nice manners.’
‘You mentioned that he always paid his rent on time?’
‘Always. He was very careful about that.’
‘Did he pay in Icelandic krónur? Or did he use foreign currency? Dollars? Pounds?’
‘Foreign money? No, he didn’t have any foreign money. At least not that I was aware of. He paid in krónur like everybody else.’
‘Did he ever mention his parents’ names to you?’ asked Flóvent. ‘His father? Or mother?’
‘No. Are his parents still alive?’
‘We don’t know. Nor do we know if he had any brothers or sisters. In fact, we hardly know anything about him yet. That’s why it’s so important for you to do us this favour.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t like it at all,’ said Ólafía sourly. ‘It’s a terrible business altogether. Put yourself in my place. I don’t know if I’ll be able to rent out that flat again. Don’t know if I’ll have the heart to. Or if anyone will want to live there after something so … shocking. I haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to do with the place. I’ll have to pay some girls to clean it, and that won’t come cheap.’
She entered the mortuary, where she greeted Baldur and Thorson. The doctor showed her to the table.
‘I’ve tried to tidy him up a bit,’ said Baldur, ‘in case his relatives want to see him. But he’s a bit of a mess, so I hope it won’t give you a turn, dear. Let me know when you’ve seen enough.’
‘I was the one who found him, you know,’ said Ólafía. ‘And I’m not your “dear”.’
‘Of course, I do beg your pardon,’ said Baldur, shooting a glance at Flóvent as if amused by her testiness. He lifted the sheet back from Felix’s head. Ólafía was visibly shocked by the disfigured face, the empty eye socket, the shattered cheekbone and jaw. But the man’s features were still clearly visible on the other side, where the bullet hadn’t done as much damage, and she focused her attention on this, appearing suddenly unsure. Her gaze swung from Baldur to Flóvent and back again, as though she was thoroughly confused.
‘What? Has there been another murder?’ she asked, her face taking on a forbidding expression, as though her patience had been tried enough. ‘Just like the other one?’
‘The other one?’