The Shadow Killer

34

Brynhildur Hólm told Flóvent she had hardly slept a wink, but then she’d never had to spend a night in prison before. He could tell she was badly shaken by the experience. She complained bitterly about being locked up, protesting that such treatment was quite uncalled for. She had demonstrated a willingness to cooperate with the police: there was nothing to be gained from throwing her in jail. Flóvent explained, as he had the night before, that she had admitted to aiding and abetting a man suspected of a serious crime and that it would be irresponsible of the police to allow her to remain at large. There was a risk she might destroy evidence, and she might well continue to assist the suspect.

The plan was to isolate Felix and force him to give himself up, or at least smoke him out of his hiding place. A formal warrant had been issued for his arrest and members of the public were being urged to inform the police if they had any information about his movements over the past week. His photograph had been published in the papers and circulated to police stations up and down the country, as well as to the military police.

At midday, Flóvent sat down with Brynhildur Hólm in the interview room at the prison. She had been officially detained in custody for several days. Flóvent brought out the papers he had discovered under the wardrobe in Rudolf’s surgery and spread them on the table. Her expression didn’t change. Flóvent began by remarking that so far none of the people involved in the case had told him more than a fraction of the truth, it seemed to him. And that what he had been told was implausible at best. All the facts had been twisted with the express purpose of misleading the police.

‘I don’t know what game you’re all playing,’ he said, ‘but it’s a distasteful one. Don’t you think it’s about time you started working with us?’

‘What are those?’ Brynhildur asked, glancing at the papers.

‘Documents I found at the surgery after you’d left. I had a doctor take a look at them for me this morning, and he found them very interesting for various reasons which I intend to discuss with you in a minute.’

‘Rudolf’s expecting me at the hospital. He’ll be worried if I don’t turn up.’

‘That’ll have to wait. What concerns me is this business with the boys. Eyvindur and Felix were friends at school. Then, out of the blue, Felix didn’t want to know him any more. And we’ve heard about another, similar, case involving one of the boys in the photograph I showed you yesterday.’ Flóvent pulled the anniversary pamphlet from the pile of papers. ‘This one here — the boy standing next to Felix and Eyvindur. We’re trying to get hold of him, but, in the meantime, maybe you can tell me a little about him?’

Brynhildur lowered her eyes to the documents and the photograph, then sat there without speaking, her mind evidently working hard. Flóvent supposed that she was trying to decide whether she had reached the end of the road. Whether it was time to come clean.

‘You’ve had a while to think about it,’ said Flóvent. ‘Your situation could hardly be worse. You must see that. If you continue to withhold information it will only make your position more difficult and provide us with more ammunition.’

‘I thought he’d got rid of all that,’ Brynhildur said, her eyes fixed on the papers. ‘I didn’t think he’d kept any of it. He... he no longer holds the same views. Rudolf’s changed. Unlike his brother.’

‘The same views? On what? The Germans, you mean? The Nazis?’

‘He renounced his faith,’ said Brynhildur. ‘I suppose you could put it like that. He stopped believing the relentless Nazi propaganda.’

‘And Felix? Has he renounced his faith too?’

‘You think Felix is a spy,’ said Brynhildur after a long pause. Flóvent thought he detected a new note in her voice.

‘That’s one theory.’

‘Well, you could say he’s had experience in watching people. He used to do it for his father when he was a boy. Around the time that photo was taken. You could regard that as a kind of spying, I suppose. Quite different in nature, but still... I suppose it all amounts to the same thing.’

‘I’m not with you,’ said Flóvent. ‘What kind of spying? When he was a boy, you say?’

‘Rudolf received a threatening letter recently,’ Brynhildur said. ‘Someone must have slipped it through the letter box because it didn’t come by the regular post. There was no postmark. No stamp. It contained a typewritten letter. We don’t know who sent it, but we suspect it was Eyvindur. It was unsigned and full of spelling mistakes. The writer was incensed by something Rudolf and Ebeneser had done, which, admittedly, I was involved in as well. They were both named in the letter. The sender had discovered the truth. How, I don’t know. I thought we could keep it a secret but apparently not. The writer knew about the study and the experiments; he believed that a crime had been committed against him and threatened to expose the whole affair unless certain conditions were met.’

‘The experiments?’

‘Yes.’

‘What experiments?’

Brynhildur hesitated.

‘Were these papers part of it? Part of this study?’

‘It looks as though they were,’ said Brynhildur eventually. ‘I thought Rudolf was going to destroy all the records but...’

‘When did he receive this threatening letter?’

‘A few days before Eyvindur was killed. But no one told Felix. He and Rudolf are estranged. And anyway the threats weren’t directed at him, and we didn’t even know whether to take them seriously. So you can imagine my shock when Felix told me it was Eyvindur who’d been murdered. As soon as Rudolf heard, he was convinced that Felix was responsible — that it was Eyvindur who sent the letter, that he’d been planning to get even with Felix. It wasn’t... the idea wasn’t that far-fetched. Felix had helped his father with his research. And Eyvindur was one of the subjects.’

‘So Rudolf believes his son is capable of murder?’

‘I don’t know. They haven’t spoken for years.’

‘Why not?’

‘Felix swears he didn’t kill Eyvindur and claims he has no idea what he was doing in his flat,’ said Brynhildur, dodging the question. ‘He insisted he stumbled on Eyvindur’s body. Then again, Eyvindur was involved in the study, so...’

‘Are you saying you don’t believe Felix either?’

‘I want to believe him. His version would be... easier to bear, though the whole thing’s a tragedy. A terrible tragedy.’

‘Why didn’t you and Rudolf take the letter to the police?’

‘Because then we’d have had to tell them about the study and... Rudolf flatly refused to do that. He still thinks he can hush it up. He can’t bear the thought of anyone knowing what we did, not now we’re at war with Germany and the Nazis are jack-booting all over Europe. He’s renounced his faith. When Hans came over hoping to conduct research with the support of the Icelandic government and grants from the German Reich, Rudolf refused to work with him. If he’d done so, it would have been impossible to cover up his earlier study.’

Brynhildur heaved a sigh. ‘My fear is that Eyvindur wrote the letter, then went to see Felix and their encounter ended in disaster. But Felix won’t admit it. I think he’s trying to avoid facing up to what he’s done by inventing all these stories about spying and being in mortal danger.’

‘But yesterday you said Felix was incapable of killing anyone.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ve tried but failed to get him to confess, and I find it hard to picture him shooting anyone, but... but you never know.’

‘Is that why you say he hates his father? Because of the study?’

‘It’s a long story, but that’s certainly part of it.’

‘So someone shooting Eyvindur by mistake — is that a complete fabrication?’

‘I simply don’t know. I think we’re all in the same boat, Felix, Rudolf and I; we’re all trying to work out what happened. Felix is desperate and keeps coming up with conspiracy theories. Yesterday he started saying that Eyvindur must have been the target after all. That the murderer might have been sent by the woman Eyvindur used to live with. Apparently she was carrying on with soldiers. Vera. Is that right? Could her name be Vera? Felix had heard a rumour that she was mixed up in the Situation, and he thinks maybe she wanted Eyvindur out of the way. He thinks a soldier might have gone after Eyvindur and killed him for her.’

‘At Felix’s flat? Isn’t that... Does Felix have any idea why Eyvindur was in his flat?’

‘No,’ said Brynhildur. ‘He swears Eyvindur had never visited him before.’

‘Eyvindur couldn’t understand why Felix suddenly broke off their friendship when they were boys,’ said Flóvent.

‘Yes, well, by then Felix had provided his father with all the information he required, and after that Eyvindur was of no more use to them.’ Brynhildur hesitated, then added, with obvious reluctance: ‘He takes after his uncle a bit too much at times. He has a very cruel streak. The poor boy.’