The Darkness Knows

29

Hurt though he was by what Eygló had said about his father, Konrád didn’t bother trying to defend him. He knew it was a hopeless task, and anyway, her unflattering portrait was nothing compared to what he’d heard from other people. The only thing that surprised him was that his father should continue to evoke such strong reactions so long after his death.

He had sometimes heard his dad talk about the seances, mostly to raise a laugh or share a curious anecdote. The subject had caught Konrád’s imagination, and over the years he had acquainted himself with various theories about the afterlife, including the idea of the Ether World, which was no less real to spiritualists than the world here on earth. When someone passed over into the Ether World on their death, so the theory went, their soul took with it all their human characteristics, such as their personality and memories, and these became the basis for a new existence in their ‘ether body’. All that was left behind in the physical world was their earthly remains, their dead body, which without its soul was no more than a useless husk. If Eygló’s father had believed in this theory, he must have seen himself as having a kind of antenna connecting him to the souls in the Ether World.

‘All I’m trying to do is get a better sense of my dad,’ Konrád eventually replied. ‘I know he wasn’t perfect — I’d be the first person to admit that — and if you can’t bring yourself to talk about this stuff, I’ll understand. I’m not even sure myself what I hope to achieve from my “fumblings”. Maybe I’m just trying to get a better idea of who he was. I don’t think I knew him particularly well.’

‘Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie,’ Eygló said. ‘Have you considered that?’

‘To tell you the truth...’ Konrád hesitated.

‘What?’

‘That’s exactly what I’ve been doing up to now — letting sleeping dogs lie. I reckon I’ve avoided looking into his death because I dreaded finding out something I didn’t want to know. He wasn’t an easy man to be around. He was mixed up in various shady activities that wouldn’t tolerate the light of day. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know any more about him or why he had to die like that. What if he simply deserved it? I expect you’ve—’ Konrád broke off. ‘You probably haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about.’

‘The difference between him and Engilbert was that my father was a dear man who would never hurt a fly,’ Eygló said. ‘But he was very sensitive and couldn’t cope with stress. That’s why he drank, I think. I’ve wondered for years why he killed himself. He didn’t leave any explanation behind or give any hint of what he was planning to do in the days beforehand. Or write a note to my mother. Or me. We had nothing to help us understand why he chose to end it all like that.’

‘Was it a spur-of-the-moment decision?’

‘It must have been.’

‘Had he tried before?’

‘Yes, actually. Once. Many years before.’

Eygló stared at Konrád in silence and he saw that she had no intention of elaborating. Which he could understand. They barely knew each other and he could tell that she was deeply unsettled by their conversation. ‘Did he work as a psychic at all after their wartime scam was exposed?’ he asked.

‘Yes, he did, but only on a very small scale, for a selected few.’

‘And was he successful? At making contact with the... Ether World?’

‘You can make fun of him all you like,’ Eygló said, her hackles rising at what she took to be Konrád’s mocking tone.

‘No, sorry,’ he said hastily, ‘I didn’t mean... I just don’t know how to talk about this stuff. I really didn’t mean to offend you. It was the last thing on my mind. I’m just not used to discussing the subject.’

‘He was a genuine clairvoyant,’ Eygló said. ‘He gave people comfort. Don’t sneer at that.’

‘Last time we met you told me he’d been very shocked to hear about my father’s death — about how it happened. Can you tell me more about that?’

‘It was my mother who told me. She said she’d been a bit taken aback by Dad’s reaction. He seemed terrified but she had no idea what of. He would hardly leave the flat unless she was with him. He kept checking that the door and all the windows were securely locked and insisted on keeping a light on, as if he’d suddenly become afraid of the dark.’

‘And he only started behaving like that after he heard about my father’s murder?’

Eygló nodded. ‘My mother had the feeling he was afraid your father would come back as a ghost. That he’d start haunting him.’

‘Had he ever behaved like that before?’

Eygló shook her head. ‘He was very sensitive... weak, really,’ she said. ‘It didn’t take much to get him into a state, and Mum said that being denounced as a fraud during the war had knocked him sideways — he’d never really got over it.’

‘Because he had the gift?’

‘Yes, of course, and because he didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wasn’t like that. He felt guilty about everything, however trivial, and always wanted to do his best.’

‘Was there a post-mortem?’ Konrád asked.

‘No. They didn’t think it was necessary. Everything happened so fast. Why would they have done one?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just something that occurred to me. You said he used to drink. Last time we met, I think you described it as going on benders.’

‘Yes, he did. Mum used to be so worried about him when he didn’t get in touch for days. She thought he might be associating with people like...’

‘My father?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he drunk when he... had he been on one of his benders when he killed himself?’

‘Yes, he’d been drinking.’

‘Was it your mother who found him?’

‘No,’ Eygló snapped, suddenly angry. ‘You want to know what happened, do you? You think it matters? You want to hear the gory details?’

‘Sorry,’ Konrád said. ‘I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I just wondered... I don’t know how to put it... Did it ever occur to you that he might have suffered the same fate as my father? That it could have been a crime?’

‘A crime?’

‘That he’d suffered the same fate?’

Eygló gaped at Konrád and he saw that the idea had never entered her head.

‘No! Of course not.’

‘But if they’d started working together again,’ Konrád said, ‘they might have got on the wrong side of someone. My father’s death might have been connected to some scam they were involved in.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘They died a short time apart. Do you think their deaths could have been linked?’

‘No — impossible. Impossible! Why would that even occur to you?’

‘I don’t have any evidence,’ Konrád said. ‘I didn’t learn what happened to Engilbert until you and I first met. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since and wondering if our fathers could have been working a scam together again. I mean, it’s obvious from those newspaper cuttings that my dad had been thinking about spiritualism — about the Ether World.’

Eygló sat there in silence, turning it over in her mind. What Konrád was suggesting had never occurred to her in all the years that had passed since her father’s death. ‘We didn’t find him ourselves,’ she said at last, in a low voice. ‘He just turned up in the harbour at Sundahöfn.’

‘How...?’

‘We just assumed it was suicide. Though I suppose it’s possible it was an accident. He could have gone for a swim or fallen in the sea,’ she said. ‘In all his clothes. They didn’t find any injuries on him. He sometimes used to hang out in the boats down at the harbour, when the crews had brennivín.’

There was a crash from the kitchen. Someone must have dropped a plate on the floor. The two of them were almost the only people left in the restaurant now that the midday rush was over.

‘Did they measure his blood alcohol? I assume they must have done.’

‘Yes. Like I said, he’d been drinking.’

‘And he was fully dressed?’ Konrád said.

‘Yes.’

‘Shoes and all?’

‘Yes.’

‘And nothing had been stolen or...?’

‘No. There was nothing to steal.’

They sat there for a long moment, facing each other in silence, as if time had stood still at their table.

‘I can’t imagine how he must have suffered,’ Eygló whispered. ‘It makes me shudder just thinking about it.’