The Shadow Killer

30

It took Flóvent quite a while to come to his senses. His head ached, especially at his temple; why, he didn’t know. He had a hazy recollection of following Brynhildur Hólm from the hospital down to the town centre, of climbing a steep staircase and entering a doctor’s surgery. Putting a hand to his head, he encountered something sticky in his hair and on his clothes too. He was lying on his side on a hard floor, enveloped in darkness, though the window let in a bit of light from the street outside. He felt both sick and hungry at the same time, and couldn’t for the life of him work out where he was.

He lay there for a while, wondering dully how he had come to be lying on the floor.

Eventually, Flóvent eased himself into a sitting position, feeling groggy and unbelievably tired. Peering around in the gloom he saw the outlines of an examination table and a filing cabinet, a desk and a chair, and realised that he must still be in the doctor’s surgery. He struggled to his feet and immediately doubled up, coughing and retching. He leant against the examination table for support and happened to glance over into the corner where the wardrobe was standing open. It all came flooding back: how the door had been flung open and a figure had leapt out and hit him over the head. He ran a hand gently over his sore skull, realising, as he did so, that the sticky stuff was blood.

‘He hates his father.’

Flóvent spun round, and without the support of the examination table almost fell flat on the floor again. Straining his eyes in the direction of the waiting room, he saw, as if through a mist, a woman rising from a chair and coming towards him. He could barely make out her face in the gloom but knew at once who it must be.

‘Brynhildur? Brynhildur Hólm?’

‘You must have followed me. I didn’t notice until too late that I’d led you here.’

‘It wasn’t hard to follow you... ma’am. Then I remembered that Rudolf Lunden used to have a surgery on this street.’

‘There’s no need to call me “ma’am”, is there? We heard you coming up the stairs but didn’t think you’d break in. You were supposed to chase me out of the back door and down the fire escape, but you can’t have seen me. I had no idea he was going to attack you like that. He thinks he’s in danger. But you should be safe now.’

‘Felix?’

‘He was gone by the time I came back,’ said the woman, stepping out of the shadows into the faint light. She spoke in a weary monotone; her face was drawn. She still had on the long black coat and stout black lace-up shoes that she had been wearing earlier.

‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re lying,’ said Flóvent, trying to shake off his wooziness.

‘You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. But I am worried about him. Felix is in a bad way. He’s frightened and confused, says he can’t trust anyone.’

‘Why should I believe a word you say?’

‘Have it your way. I thought I’d try talking to you, seeing as you’re here. Felix should never have attacked you. I want you to know that I condemn that sort of violence. I knew you wouldn’t have any trouble catching... What I mean is I have no interest in playing cat and mouse, so we might as well talk now. Are you all right? How are you feeling?’

‘You’re an accessory to his crime,’ said Flóvent. ‘But then you know that.’

‘Accessory?’

‘He shot Eyvindur.’

‘No, he didn’t. He says he didn’t.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘Yes, I do. I see no reason to doubt Felix. I can understand that others might, but I don’t.’

‘If he’s innocent, why doesn’t he turn himself in? Why play the fugitive? He must be guilty of the murder. It’s the only reasonable explanation.’

‘He refuses to say a word. All I can think of is that something’s happened that he’d rather his father didn’t know about. Felix thinks I’ll go straight to him with the story. Their relationship’s a little tricky.’

Flóvent pointed at the black bag. ‘You’ve been taking care of him.’

‘I didn’t know what else to do. He asked for help. I couldn’t turn my back on him. Enough people have done that already.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t believe a word you say.’

‘Look, he rang scared out of his wits, and begged me to help him. He said he had nowhere else to turn. Something dreadful had happened. He wouldn’t confide in me at first, but in the end he told me about the body in his flat. I’ve tried to get him to explain what it is he’s afraid of but he refuses. Says the less I know, the better it’ll be for me. I don’t understand what he means but he’s been talking that way ever since the night Eyvindur was killed.’

‘I know they were at school together and used to be friends,’ said Flóvent. ‘Was that why he killed Eyvindur? Did it have something to do with the past?’

Brynhildur Hólm regarded Flóvent for a moment without speaking, then said patiently: ‘Listen to me: he says he didn’t shoot Eyvindur.’

‘Yes, you’ve already told me that.’

‘Of course I urged him to talk to the police. I’ve been begging him to do that ever since he went into hiding. But he says it’s not safe. He needs to wait. I don’t know what he’s waiting for. I can’t get any sense out of him.’

Brynhildur hadn’t heard from Felix for several months, then late one evening the ringing of the phone shattered the silence in the pebble-dash house. Rudolf had gone to bed. She was the only one awake, and she knew at once that something serious had happened to him. Felix was in such a state he could hardly string a sentence together. Once she had managed to calm him down a little, he had started babbling something about the basement flat he rented. That he’d arrived home to find Eyvindur lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Felix lost his head, had a sort of nervous breakdown — he didn’t know how else to describe it. He was convinced the police wouldn’t believe him; they’d arrest him and something would happen to him while he was in custody. He implored her not to tell his father what had happened until he himself could find out what was going on. Brynhildur believed what he said, so when Felix begged her to meet him, she immediately thought of the old surgery. She knew where the keys were kept and told him to meet her outside the building. He’d been holed up there ever since. She had tried to make him understand that things couldn’t go on like this; the police would come looking for him, and hiding from them would make things harder for him in the long run. When the police mistakenly thought he was the man who had been shot, Felix was relieved: it would give him a breathing space to consider his options. But his options had turned out to be limited. Brynhildur didn’t believe he had been in contact with anyone else or dared to leave the surgery at all.

‘You can decide whether or not you believe me,’ she said, once she had finished her tale, ‘but I don’t think Felix has killed anyone. I don’t think he could, don’t believe he’s capable of it.’

‘Who does he think shot Eyvindur, then?’

‘Felix says he doesn’t know.’

‘A soldier?’

‘Well, of course Felix was upset and fled the scene straight away, but he got the impression that whoever did it had acted with ruthless efficiency, like a soldier or a trained assassin. The killer hadn’t hesitated. That’s why he’s inclined to believe it was a foreigner rather than an Icelander, though he says he can’t be sure.’

‘Why’s he scared that something will happen to him?’ asked Flóvent. ‘What’s he frightened of?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No.’

‘Felix is convinced that Eyvindur was killed by mistake. He’s sure that he himself was the target and that the people who want him dead are still after him. That’s the whole point. That’s the problem. They’re still after him and he believes they want him dead.’