The Shadow District

41

Konrád drove back to Reykjavík deep in thought. Night was falling but he hardly noticed. Even the violent gusts of wind that caused the car to swerve in the notorious black spot at the foot of Mount Hafnarfjall failed to rouse him from his reverie. Nor did he realise that he had shot past a speed camera in the Melasveit area. His mind was entirely preoccupied with his visit to Magnús in Borgarnes. They had discussed Rósamunda’s murder exhaustively, but Magnús either didn’t know anything about it or was pretending not to.

‘The fact that the girl refused to make a delivery to our house doesn’t prove anything,’ Magnús had argued. ‘Doesn’t prove anything at all.’

‘No, maybe not,’ Konrád conceded. ‘Nevertheless, it may be relevant to the bigger picture.’

‘The bigger picture,’ echoed Magnús. ‘You sound like a politician.’ He said it as if he had little time for the breed.

‘Am I right in thinking that your father was a member of parliament?’

‘Yes, he was involved in politics.’

‘And you were one of five children — your parents had four sons and one daughter?’

‘I’m not sure I appreciate all these questions about my family,’ said Magnús. ‘Just what are you insinuating?’

‘Did you have any domestic staff? Did anyone else live in the house?’

‘What are you driving at?’ asked Magnús.

‘I’m wondering who the girl was so keen to avoid. I suppose it could have been your mother or sister. Do you think that might have been the case?’

Magnús looked at Konrád for a moment. ‘My mother had quite a temper,’ he replied at last. ‘But my sister was sweetness personified. Is that what you wanted to hear?’

‘What about you and your brothers?’

‘What about us?’

‘Did any of you know Rósamunda?’

‘No,’ said Magnús. ‘I don’t recall any of us associating with a seamstress.’

‘But you remember Rósamunda’s murder?’ persisted Konrád, ignoring the contempt implicit in Magnús’s reply.

‘Vaguely, as I said before.’

‘Do you remember talking about it at home? And, if so, how your family felt about it?’

‘No, though obviously we’d have regarded it as a shocking crime. Just as any other family would. We were no different from other people. Are you trying to implicate us somehow in the girl’s death? Isn’t that absurdly far-fetched, more than half a century later?’

‘I’m not trying to implicate anyone in her death, I’m simply attempting to discover why she refused to set foot in your house shortly before she was found murdered. I hope you don’t find that unreasonable?’

Magnús had no reply to this.

‘Is it conceivable that your father could have applied political pressure to ensure that the investigation went no further?’

‘Political pressure?’

‘I don’t know how else to put it,’ said Konrád. ‘I can understand if this has come as a bit of a shock to you, but I can’t find any record of the case. Of course, those were unsettled times and the paperwork may have gone astray or never been completed, but the fact remains that I can hardly find a single sheet of paper relating to the Rósamunda inquiry. No police reports. Hardly anything in the newspapers beyond reports of her body being found. Nothing in the court records. It’s as if the whole affair was swept under the carpet. So, not unnaturally, it occurred to me that your father, as an influential figure at the time, might have had a hand in suppressing the matter.

Magnús listened, his face giving nothing away. ‘I don’t understand what you’re implying,’ he said when Konrád had finished. ‘As far as I’m aware, my father never abused his position in that way. Naturally, he fought for his constituency and did people favours here and there, but that sort of behaviour was taken for granted in those days. He may not even have known about the case.’

‘One of your brothers is still alive,’ said Konrád.

Magnús nodded.

‘Do you know if he received a visit from Thorson? The man I asked you about?’

‘I haven’t spoken to my brother or his family for many years.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, and I have no intention of discussing the matter with a stranger. Look, I’ve had enough of this. It’s time you were leaving.’

‘All right,’ said Konrád. ‘Thanks again for agreeing to have a chat. Just one final question: do you, or rather did you, know a girl, or young woman, during the war, whose name was Hrund?’

Magnús shook his head.

‘It’s possible she and Rósamunda had similar experiences, but the facts are a bit hazy.’

‘During the war?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. Not unless...’

‘What?’

‘I once heard about a girl who was supposed to have thrown herself into Dettifoss. She was from the Öxarfjördur area. Now you come to mention it, I’m pretty sure her name was Hrund.’

‘Where did you hear about her?’

‘From my father originally, I expect. He was travelling up there when it happened.’

‘Your father was in the area?’

‘Yes. The name stuck in my memory. Whenever I visited the waterfall I would think of her sad end. We’ve got relatives up there, and my father used to visit them. In the summers mainly.’

‘Do you know what happened?’

‘It was such a long time ago that I’ve forgotten the details,’ said Magnús. ‘But some people said she wasn’t right in the head. Or maybe it was a broken heart. Apparently she used to see things. She believed in the supernatural and supposedly had some kind of encounter with the huldufólk before she died.’

‘You couldn’t elaborate?’

‘No, sorry, the story was very muddled. But then delusions like that usually are.’

‘And she was never found?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Her body never turned up.’

Magnús rose to his feet, eager to end the visit. ‘I need to go for my rest now,’ he said. ‘Would you excuse me?’

‘Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to tire you.’ Konrád stood up as well.

‘We fell out over the will,’ Magnús volunteered suddenly, as they made their way to the front door. ‘My brother and I. I felt Hólmbert grabbed the lot in his typical domineering manner. Things never got really acrimonious — I didn’t take him to court — but the upshot is that we haven’t spoken for years. So it’s perfectly possible that this man, this Thorson, went to see him. But if so, I wouldn’t have heard about it.’

‘Right, I see,’ said Konrád.

‘Not that there would have been much point.’

‘For Thorson? Why not?’

‘It would be a waste of time asking my brother if he’d received a visit.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘And it’s too late for me to try and bring about a reconciliation.’ Magnús fell silent. Then he added: ‘I gather the illness is in its final stages.’

‘He’s ill?’

‘Hólmbert has Alzheimer’s and, from what I’ve heard, he’s gone downhill very rapidly,’ said Magnús. ‘Apparently he’s in a world of his own these days.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Yes, it’s a grim fate,’ said Magnús, opening the front door. ‘Apart from that I believe he’s always been healthy. Never known a day’s illness in his life. But that makes no difference when you’re dealing with a degenerative disease like Alzheimer’s.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Konrád. ‘So there’s no point my going to talk to him?’

‘No, you can forget about that,’ said Magnús, giving him a firm handshake.

Konrád was forced to slow down when he ran into congestion near the suburb of Grafarvogur. All the way back his mind had been grappling with the implications of what he’d learnt from Magnús, about Hrund and the waterfall, Rósamunda and the theatre. He racked his brain, trying to think of anything that might connect the two girls. Thorson had gone to see Vigga in his search for answers about Rósamunda. Did she tell him about another girl called Hrund? Or had he already been familiar with Hrund’s story from his time in the police? Konrád considered the newest piece of the puzzle: that the MP, Magnús’s father, had been visiting the Öxarfjördur area when talk of Hrund’s disappearance would have been on everyone’s lips. Later, Rósamunda had refused to enter his house. Was that the connection? Did Magnús know more than he was prepared to let on?

Konrád sat in the traffic jam thinking about the former MP and his connections to both cases, however tenuous. He reflected on the fact that the two girls had mentioned the huldufólk and remembered what he had been taught about coincidences when he was just starting out as a detective.

Never, under any circumstances, believe in them.