The Shadow Killer

13

Salesmen came and went. The wholesaler had been a commercial traveller himself, so he knew first-hand how taxing the job could be and how meagre the rewards were at times. And for men who were engaged to be married or had a family, the long absences were no joke either.

Men from all walks of life ended up in the job. Some came to him as a last resort after circumstances forced them out of other professions. Drink was a common factor. Then there were the young poets and writers who were perpetually out of pocket. He welcomed them, despite knowing from experience that they wouldn’t last. They had their uses and could generally be trusted — with a few notable exceptions — to be entertaining. They were always trying to scrape a bit of money together to bring out a volume of poetry or take some time off to write the novel that would make their name. Over the years he had employed teachers and lorry drivers, failed farmers and wastrels, and knew only too well that no one lasted long as a travelling salesman.

Not everyone had what it took. You had your chaps who were so cocky and bursting with self-confidence that it hardly mattered what goods they had to shift: they could sell almost anything to anyone. It wasn’t the product they were selling so much as themselves: their confidence and their company, their friendship even, at least for a while. The best of them didn’t even mention business until they were on the point of walking out of the door, when all of a sudden they would slap their foreheads and pretend to remember why they were there. By the way — they were almost embarrassed to mention it — but they had these coats and dresses for sale, hot off the boat. Almost as if it were a matter of indifference to them and they only opened their cases as a special favour to the present company. At this stage they would have had their coffee, complimented the shopkeeper or housewife on the refreshments and repeated the latest news from Reykjavík: the scandal, the amusing anecdotes, the gossip about politicians and other prominent figures about town. Tales of drunkenness and loose morals were always popular. In the case of farms that lay a little off the beaten track and received few visitors, this worked especially well, since the household was often starved of news and positively grateful for a visit from such an entertaining chap.

At the other end of the scale you had your non-starters who never managed to shift a thing. He knew even before he dispatched them on their travels that they would have an uphill struggle. They tended to be the gawky, timid ones, who had no faith in their own abilities. They doubted from the first that they would be able to sell anything but thought it wouldn’t hurt to try. He did his best to give them a boost. Despite their lack of promise, he knew that anything was possible and no one should be written off out of hand. These chaps usually made the mistake of starting with an apology when they knocked on a door, be it in a fishing village or on a farm, and no sooner had they finished stammering out their errand than they would find the door closing in their face. It wasn’t that people weren’t interested in the products they were selling; they weren’t interested in them.

‘That’s the category this fellow falls into,’ the wholesaler said, after regaling the policeman with his theory of the two different breeds of salesman. ‘Though I’m not denying that he’s secured some decent orders from time to time.’

They were sitting in the police station on Pósthússtræti, the duty officer listening patiently to the prattle of the wholesaler who evidently enjoyed the sound of his own voice. One of his salesmen had failed to return with the samples and proceeds from his trip. The wholesaler had tried to track him down, but he was nowhere to be found. The man looked worried as he said this. He took the matter seriously, though it wasn’t the first time it had happened. His salesmen had tried to cheat him before. Yes, experience had taught him to keep a close eye on them and make sure they paid up.

‘I sometimes ask them to collect payments for older orders and the odd outstanding debt,’ he said, ‘and the temptation can — well, it can prove too much for them.’

The wholesaler seemed eager to convey that he was a man of the world. He was overweight, with plump cheeks and heavy jowls, and reminded the policeman, to a distracting degree, of the caricatures of capitalists in Spegillinn magazine. To complete the picture, he was sucking on a cheap cigar that wreathed him in a cloud of thick grey smoke, and he held himself like a man of influence. Yet he displayed a sympathetic understanding of human frailty and a willingness to help ‘those who are never going to conquer the world’, as he put it. The implication being that he himself had achieved this in style.

‘So you’d like us to find this man for you, sir?’ said the policeman, who was young and inexperienced. He was eager to do anything in his power to help those who came into the station, whether they were wealthy wholesalers or down-and-outs.

‘Yes,’ said the wholesaler, ‘that’s exactly what I’d like. Before this gets out of hand, if you see what I mean.’

‘By out of hand, you mean...?’

‘You obviously haven’t been listening, my boy. Theft, of course,’ said the wholesaler. ‘I’d rather not have to accuse the man of being careless with my money.’

‘You say you can’t find him anywhere?’ said the policeman.

‘I’ve searched high and low,’ said the wholesaler. ‘He was supposed to report to my office as soon as he got back from his trip but he failed to do so. I drove round to his place the following day but it was locked up, there was nobody home and the neighbours hadn’t seen him or the woman he lives with. She seems to have vanished off the face of the earth as well. I’ve been over there three times now but no one ever answers the door. He sometimes eats at Hressingarskálinn when he’s in town, but the staff there haven’t seen or heard from him lately. I have to admit, I’m worried.’

‘Has he shown any sign of dishonesty before?’

‘No, he hasn’t, and I don’t want to jump the gun and start accusing him of anything at this stage. But it’s not like him to fail to get in touch. Not like him at all.’

‘Are you concerned that something might have happened to him?’

‘Well, I can’t imagine what,’ said the wholesaler, tapping his cigar in the ashtray on the policeman’s desk. ‘He’s a harmless fellow. But I was wondering if you could perhaps enter his flat. On the grounds that he’s missing. Disappeared. Vanished into thin air. He could be lying dead in there for all I know.’

‘Has he worked for you long?’

‘Yes, nearly a year,’ said the wholesaler. ‘His political views stop him from taking a job with the army. He’s always ranting on about profiteering and capital and girls fraternising with the soldiers. He thinks everything’s going to hell.’

‘Really, does he support the Germans, then?’

‘Good God, no. Quite the opposite. He’s a communist. A damned commie. That’s why I’m worried about him. I keep thinking that he might have heard the rumours about his lady friend and done something stupid.’

‘Heard what? What about his lady friend?’

‘She’s moved out. Or so I hear. Got herself a soldier, taken to a life of vice. Not that I know anything about it. All I know for sure is that the fellow’s back in town, because I spoke to the crew of the Súd. He always sails with her, so they know him well, and they say he was on board when she came home the other day. But now he’s nowhere to be found.’