The Shadow Killer

27

Flóvent wasn’t sure what to do. As he shadowed Brynhildur Hólm over Skólavörduholt, he debated whether he should keep going or abandon this game and order her to stop. He didn’t even know why he had decided to follow her instead of approaching her and introducing himself. She must have been visiting Rudolf, shortly before Flóvent himself had arrived, and then lingered at the hospital for some reason. Perhaps she had stopped to speak to a nurse she knew and had slipped out of the back exit just as he happened to leave. She appeared to be heading for the centre of town, walking briskly, as if her errand couldn’t wait.

It was on top of Skólavörduholt that the British had erected the first barracks in Reykjavík, christening it Camp Skipton after a small town in Yorkshire. Some seventy Nissen huts now colonised the crown of this hill, where there were plans to raise a splendid church one day in honour of the poet and clergyman Hallgrímur Pétursson, author of the Hymns of Passion. The main route out of town had once led this way, passing Steinka’s Cairn, where wayfarers had customarily thrown a stone for good luck. In 1805, an unfortunate woman from the West Fjords had been found guilty of a crime of passion and died in prison. Denied the right to lie in consecrated ground, she had been buried on the hill under a pile of stones like an animal. Flóvent glanced in passing at the place where her cairn had once stood. A large Nissen hut now occupied the spot.

Looking ahead again, he saw Brynhildur threading her way between the puddles in the road that ran past the camp. Although she was no longer young he heard the odd wolf whistle from the soldiers who were lounging in the sunshine, playing cards, smoking and exchanging banter. Brynhildur didn’t so much as glance at them, but marched on in her tightly buttoned coat, clutching her black bag, heading towards Skólavördustígur.

She followed the street down to where it joined Bankastræti, then at the bottom turned right towards the harbour. In no time at all she had entered Hafnarstræti where she slowed her pace, then without warning darted into an alleyway. Seeing her vanish round a corner, Flóvent hurried after her. As he drew near to the entrance, he slowed down, then cautiously entered the alley. It ran between two buildings, a few doors down from Mrs Marta Björnsson’s restaurant, and ended in a courtyard. Flóvent couldn’t see a soul and had no way of telling where Brynhildur had gone. But it stood to reason that she must have entered one of the buildings, because there was no obvious route out of the yard apart from the alley.

Flóvent guessed that she had noticed him and deliberately slipped into the alley to shake him off. He ran back out to the street in case she had crept into one of the houses and out of the front door, but he couldn’t see any sign of her. Returning to the yard, he began trying the back doors, one after the other. They were all locked. He reasoned that Brynhildur must have the key to one of them and decided to see if he could get through the front.

As he stepped back out onto Hafnarstræti, he almost ran into a group of US Marines and had to wait for them to pass. Then he scanned the front of the buildings and noticed a small, easily missed sign in one window advertising Hermundur Fridriksson’s Clinic. It was then that he remembered Rudolf Lunden had once had a medical practice on Hafnarstræti.

So that’s where Brynhildur Hólm had been heading in such a hurry.

Not knowing the address of Rudolf’s surgery, he decided to try the house with the sign on it. The front door was unlocked. It was a three-storey stone building with a high attic and a steep staircase that creaked beneath his feet. He knocked on two doors on the ground floor, and, when no one answered, continued up to the next floor. Again he started knocking on doors, and the second was answered by an elderly woman who said she remembered Rudolf Lunden well and that his surgery had been on the top floor of the house next door. The buildings had once contained both apartments and offices, including two doctor’s surgeries, but then old Hermundur had died and Rudolf had closed his practice. As far as the woman knew, both surgeries were standing empty.

Flóvent rushed back down the stairs and tried the front door of the neighbouring house. It was also unlocked and, on entering, he found himself in a dark hall with the same kind of staircase. He wondered how Rudolf had managed to get up all those steps. He didn’t know how long the doctor had been confined to a wheelchair, but he could see why he would have had to close his practice after the accident. Flóvent found the surgery at the top of the stairs. Although the door was locked, it rattled when he tried the handle and he thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to force. He put his shoulder to it and shoved hard until he heard a snap and felt the lock giving way and the door opening.

Immediately inside was a small waiting room with three chairs, a framed photograph of the Alps hanging on one of the panelled walls. The curtains were drawn, leaving the place in semi-darkness, and the air was thick with dust. Another door led from the waiting room into the consulting room, where a small partition screened off the examination area. Flóvent pressed a switch on the wall, but no light came on. He went over to the window and pulled back the curtains, admitting enough light to see by. There were dusty medicine cabinets and optometry instruments, a desk, a filing cabinet, an examination table and half-open drawers containing dressings and hypodermic needles. The surgery looked as if it had been a busy, thriving practice when it was abandoned. As if Rudolf had walked out at the end of an ordinary day’s work and never returned.

But somebody had been there recently, because the dust had been disturbed in places, particularly around the desk and examination table. When Flóvent inspected the room more closely, he also discovered the remains of a meal, two milk bottles and a coffee thermos. Picking up the thermos, he sniffed at it. There was no question. Someone was holed up in the old surgery.

For an instant he stood stock still, listening, but all he could hear was the noise from the street below.

‘Felix!’ he called out. ‘Are you there? Felix Lunden!’

His words echoed round the rooms but there was no reply.

Flóvent returned to the little waiting room and this time noticed another door in the back wall. From the window he saw that it seemed to open onto a narrow fire escape. He guessed that Brynhildur Hólm had come up that way and fled as soon as she heard him outside on the landing, rattling the door. Perhaps Felix had been with her. At any rate somebody had recently been inside Rudolf Lunden’s surgery. Flóvent was about to race down the stairs after her but changed his mind, deciding it was too late now.

He returned to the consulting room, and when his eyes had adjusted once more to the gloom, he spotted the black doctor’s bag that Brynhildur had been carrying when she left the hospital. On opening it, he found it contained not medical equipment but essential supplies: a razor, soap and newspapers, a packet of coffee and a few slices of bread.

He picked up the razor, hearing, as he did so, a faint creak from one corner of the room. Flóvent jerked his head round towards the sound and noticed a large wardrobe built into the wall.

‘Felix?’ he called.

He listened.

‘Brynhildur?’

When no one answered, he tiptoed over to the wardrobe.

‘Felix?’ he called again.

He received no response and was about to yank open the door when, without warning, it flew towards him. A man he had never seen before leapt out and took a swing at him. Flóvent saw something gleam in the man’s hand and felt a searing pain, first at his temple, then in the back of his head. The man had struck him twice before Flóvent could even raise a hand to defend himself. As Flóvent reached out to grab his attacker, he felt his strength rapidly dwindling, his body becoming a dead weight, incapable of obeying his commands. Then he blacked out and wasn’t even aware of his head hitting the floor with a crack.