The Shadow Killer

18

Flóvent saw at once that something was missing from the flat. He realised what it was when he opened the wardrobe in the bedroom and noticed that all the clothes were gone from one side. Then he remembered what the wholesaler had said about the woman Eyvindur lived with: that she hadn’t been home either when he called round. He checked the cupboard in the hall. Same story. Only men’s clothing. He surveyed the flat. From all the small touches that were absent, it was plain that there wasn’t a woman living there now.

Apart from that the wholesaler hadn’t been a great deal of help. He knew little about Eyvindur, though he was able to tell them that his patronymic was Ragnarsson and that he had worked for him for nearly a year, undertaking numerous sales trips during that time. The fruits of these trips had been pretty meagre, though the wholesaler admitted that he hadn’t always given Eyvindur the best or easiest goods to shift. He believed the man was honest, though he had admittedly suspected him of theft when he hadn’t shown up after his latest trip. He also told them that Eyvindur lived with a woman — Vera he thought her name was — but she hadn’t been home in the last few days when he had gone round to their flat. He’d heard a rumour that she’d left Eyvindur.

They weren’t married, as far as the wholesaler knew, and had no children. But Eyvindur never used to speak about himself, except when he complained about the presence of the occupation force and said there was no way he would ever work for British imperialists. Still less for American capitalists. Mind you, he hadn’t been any better disposed towards the Germans. The wholesaler had heard him roundly cursing the Nazis too.

There had been nothing out of the ordinary about Eyvindur’s last sales trip, or any of his other trips, for that matter. He generally sailed with the coaster Súd and went ashore at selected destinations; he would stay for a few days before returning with the boat and reporting back with the proceeds and orders, if there were any. So his employer couldn’t begin to imagine who would have possibly wanted him out of the way. He had been an innocent soul, as the wholesaler put it — never hurt a fly, to the best of his knowledge. Why he should have been round at Felix Lunden’s flat was a mystery to him. Of course they were both commercial travellers, but he wasn’t aware that they knew each other outside work. The wholesaler knew who Felix was, but only by reputation. He worked for another company, he explained and supplied a name, which Flóvent committed to memory.

Too impatient to wait until morning to examine the victim’s flat, Flóvent went straight from the mortuary to the address, which the wholesaler had given him, in the west of town. He saw no need to bring in Thorson at this stage, but called out a locksmith who worked for the police when required. The man picked the lock in no time, then went home again, leaving Flóvent alone in the flat. Sparsely and shabbily furnished, it consisted of a small living room and kitchen, a bedroom and a WC. Nothing new, nothing modern. Clearly the couple who lived there had been hard up. There were three photographs on a chest of drawers, two of them portraits of old people, the third a picture of a young couple that was a little out of focus — Eyvindur and Vera themselves, Flóvent guessed.

‘Why did you jump to the conclusion that Eyvindur had stolen from you?’ Flóvent had asked the wholesaler as they were saying goodbye outside the mortuary. ‘Had he ever done that before?’

‘Good God, no. But I was owed some money by a client in the West Fjords and I’d asked Eyvindur to call in the debt. I know for certain that he received the money, so, when I couldn’t get hold of him, naturally the possibility crossed my mind. But as far as I know Eyvindur was as honest as the day is long.’

‘Would he have been carrying money, then?’

‘Well, it wasn’t a large amount,’ said the wholesaler. ‘Perhaps he spent it. But you’ll let me know if you find anything among his possessions, won’t you?’

Flóvent found Eyvindur’s wallet on the kitchen table. It contained nothing but small change. He searched the flat for the wholesaler’s money but couldn’t find it. There hadn’t been any cash on the body either, and he wondered if Eyvindur could have been murdered for a handful of krónur from the West Fjords. The notion seemed far-fetched. He had no reason to suspect the wholesaler — the man seemed honest enough — but Flóvent knew he shouldn’t eliminate him from his enquiries. Could he have killed Eyvindur over a paltry sum like that? Was his concern for the salesman a front? He could have reported Eyvindur to the police with the intention of putting them off the scent. Such a ploy wasn’t unheard of. Sometimes the best place to hide was in plain sight.

The only interesting discovery Flóvent made during this preliminary inspection of the flat was a small crumpled brown envelope, half hidden under the battered sofa in the living room, as if someone had chucked it there. When he smoothed it out, he realised what it was; he’d come across that sort of thing before, and tried but failed to understand the writing on it: Individual Chemical Prophylactic Packet. The envelope had contained what was popularly known by the soldiers as an EPT kit. This one was empty but there should have been a sheet of directions, a soap-impregnated cloth, a cleansing tissue and five grams of antiseptic ointment for application to the genitals. The kits, which were issued to the troops on a regular basis, were intended to provide protection against venereal disease.

Flóvent pocketed the envelope and searched for further clues about the woman who had been living with Eyvindur but seemed to have vanished from his life. He studied the blurred photo again and was just hunting for any letters or messages when he heard a noise outside in the hallway. He went out to see what was going on and found a man wrestling with the door of the flat opposite. ‘Damn it,’ he heard the man say with a sigh, and saw that he was trying, rather ineffectually, to free the key that had jammed in the lock. The man nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Flóvent emerging from Eyvindur’s flat.

‘Wh... what... Who are you?’ he stammered, gaping at Flóvent in alarm.

‘I’m from the police. Do you live here?’

‘Well... yes, I... I’m having a bit of trouble with the key,’ said the man, turning back to the lock. Flóvent reckoned he was drunk, too drunk to open his own front door without a struggle. ‘I had a new key cut,’ the man explained, ‘but it sometimes gets stuck in the lock. Are the police looking... looking for Eyvindur, then?’

‘Have you seen him recently?’ asked Flóvent, deliberately withholding the news of Eyvindur’s fate. A reek of spirits filled the hallway.

‘No, I haven’t a clue where he is. You should talk to his uncle. He owns the flat. He might know something.’

‘Has he been round here looking for him? Have people been asking after him, that you’re aware?’

‘No, only the fellow with the cigar. Said he was a wholesaler. I haven’t seen anyone else.’

‘What about the woman who used to live with him? Vera, wasn’t it? Have you seen her at all recently?’

‘Oh, no, I haven’t seen Vera for a while.’

‘Do you know anything about her?’

‘No more than anyone else who lives here. Poor old Eyvindur was at his wits’ end... asking all the other tenants in the building about her, if we’d noticed when she moved out. He was a bit... a bit down in the dumps about it, as you might expect. She knew — the woman who lives above me, that is. She told him. Saw the whole thing... saw a black car outside late at night. Vera threw her belongings inside and then she was gone. Without a word to anyone.’

‘You don’t happen to know where she went? You, or any of your neighbours?’

‘No, well... no, not really... but...’

‘Yes?’

‘I thought maybe poor Eyvindur had gone to the camps to look for her. That was my first thought.’

‘The camps? You mean the military camps? Why would he have done that?’

‘I thought maybe she’d left him on account of those soldiers who’ve been prowling around here... around the house,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t tell Eyvindur about that. Didn’t think... didn’t think it was any of my business. I reckon they were visiting her, though. I assumed they must be. Saw them... saw them mooning up at her window.’

‘What did they want from her?’ asked Flóvent.

‘A good time, I expect,’ said the man. ‘You used to hear gramophone music.’

‘Were they British? American?’

‘The ones I saw? One was British.’ The man sounded sure of himself. ‘A British soldier but... but there were others as well... I don’t know any more about it, you understand. Only, she told us — the woman who saw Vera sneaking out like a thief... like a thief in the night — that the man who picked her up was British. A Tommy. Obviously one of her soldier friends. Some soldier she’d bagged herself.’

When Flóvent finally got home around midnight he found his father asleep on the sofa in the living room. Flóvent tried not to wake him but, sensing his presence, his father opened his eyes, sat up and asked wryly if he was trying to work himself to death. They ate the reheated meal at the kitchen table and chatted quietly for a while before going to bed. Flóvent shared the details of the case with his father because he trusted him to keep a secret and knew that the old man liked to hear about the more complex investigations that came his way. He had often proved a helpful listener, though he worried at times that his son pushed himself too hard. He knew how conscientious Flóvent was and how he took much of the ugliness he saw in his job to heart — but never spoke of it, a habit he had learnt as a boy during the harrowing days of the Spanish flu.

‘Travelling salesmen?’ he said, after listening to his son’s account.

‘Yes, travelling salesmen.’

‘Could they have fallen out, this Felix and what was his name... Eyvindur?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘And the upshot was that this Felix shot the other man in the head?’

‘Maybe. We simply don’t know.’

‘What did they quarrel about? Their turf?’

‘It has to have been something more important than that,’ said Flóvent. ‘Something that really mattered.’

‘What really matters?’ asked his father.

‘Well, women, I suppose.’

‘Yes, can’t deny that.’

‘We’re told that the woman who was living with Eyvindur was no better than she ought to be. Her neighbour mentioned that she’d been hanging around with soldiers. That she was seen leaving in a car with one.’

‘Is she mixed up in the Situation, then?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Her boyfriend can’t have been too happy about that.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he was,’ said Flóvent, picturing the body of the salesman in the the mortuary. ‘I don’t suppose he was.’

‘What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Are you looking around at all?’

The question was tactfully phrased, prompted not by a desire to pry but by the loneliness the old man had endured ever since his wife had died, a loneliness he wouldn’t wish on his son.

‘No time for that.’ Flóvent smiled.

‘I hope you’re not worried about me. I can look after myself. You know that.’

‘Of course.’

‘I wouldn’t want to get in your way.’

‘You’re not.’

‘The woman from the shop that you... are you still interested in her?’

‘I’d rather not discuss it.’

‘All right, son.’