The Shadow Killer

39

Flóvent paused the interview to ask Brynhildur Hólm if she wanted to speak to a lawyer, but she repeated that she had committed no crime. He sensed that to her taking such a step would seem like an admission of guilt. He tried to persuade her otherwise, and she said she would think about it, then asked if she would have to stay in prison much longer. Flóvent couldn’t answer that but repeated that she should let him know if she wanted a lawyer present during the interviews and he would arrange it for her. She said she would like to get this over with as quickly as possible. Her conscience was clear and Flóvent must understand that there was absolutely no need to keep her locked up in prison.

‘So Felix told Eyvindur about your experiments at the school?’ Flóvent prompted, once they had resumed their seats in the interview room. ‘Told him about the part he had played in the whole thing. And afterwards Eyvindur wrote that letter with the intention of blackmailing you.’

‘He really got on Felix’s nerves,’ said Brynhildur. ‘On those sales trips. Felix tried to keep his distance, but Eyvindur hounded him, perhaps because of the way Felix had treated him in the past. He must have held quite a grudge against Felix. He wouldn’t leave him alone, wanted to know why he was going to places that none of the other salesmen bothered with, kept dropping spiteful remarks about his German roots. Referring to Nazis. Going on about how the Nazis would be thrashed. Saying that Felix should go back to Germany. Then one day, Felix had had too much to drink, and he snapped. Told him they’d never been friends, that he’d been nothing but a guinea pig, or words to that effect. He deliberately humiliated him, didn’t pull any punches. Said they’d proved that he was no better than his crook of a father. He must have said a little too much because after that Eyvindur started digging around...’

‘How? Who did he contact?’

‘Well, we know he spoke to Ebeneser. According to him, Eyvindur rang him, then turned up at the school one day, demanding to know what had been going on in his final year. Judging by the questions he was asking, Felix must have given him quite a good idea of the work we were doing, though it’s possible he’d been talking to other boys from the school as well.’

‘Eyvindur told his girlfriend that he was expecting to come into some money, but she didn’t take him seriously. Said he was always making plans that came to nothing. Where’s the blackmail letter now?’

‘Rudolf... he was so upset that I think he burnt it. He wants to forget about the whole affair. Can’t bear to hear any mention of it.’

‘So you believe the letter has been destroyed?’

‘Yes. It was very amateurish. Mostly abuse, levelled at us. Calling us Nazis and threatening to expose us. Saying that we’d be made to suffer, and so on. Then there were instructions about the money Rudolf was to pay and where he was to leave it.’

‘And where was that?’

‘By one of the gates of the graveyard on Sudurgata.’

‘Did Rudolf discuss the letter with Felix?’

‘No, not that I’m aware. But I suspect that when the letter had no effect, Eyvindur must have got in touch with Felix — although Felix won’t admit it — and tried to force him to pay up or to put pressure on his father. I suspect that’s why Eyvindur was in his flat.’

‘And?’

‘And it ended in disaster. For some reason Felix left Eyvindur in the state you found him in. I have asked him again and again, but he won’t budge from his story: Eyvindur was already dead when he found him. He can’t tell me who it was who attacked him or why. But Felix keeps coming back to the possibility that the attacker may have mistaken Eyvindur for him — that he himself was the intended victim.’

‘Which brings us back to the same question: why would anyone have wanted to kill Felix?’

‘He has some ideas about that, but he won’t share them with me.’

‘Related to spying?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Or the experiments? To how he behaved as a boy?’

‘He refuses to discuss it.’

‘If he’s to be believed, surely the only reasonable conclusion is that the person who shot Eyvindur didn’t know what Felix looked like. If he killed Eyvindur by mistake?’

‘Yes, and that makes Felix all the more convinced that he must have been the target — the possibility that they brought in some outsider to do the deed. Those were his words. I don’t know what he meant.’

‘Isn’t he contradicting himself? Earlier you told me that he was also claiming Eyvindur was the intended victim.’

‘I think he’s struggling to work out what’s going on. Felix doesn’t know what to think any more and the same applies to me. I really don’t know what to believe. I’m utterly confused.’

‘These experiments... Do you know what happened to your subjects? Did your predictions come true? Did they end up as criminals?’

‘I’ve tried to find out — casually, you understand, not in any methodical way. I remember most of the names and try to keep up with what’s happened to the boys when I get the chance.’

‘And?’

‘I believe most of them have turned out quite well,’ said Brynhildur. ‘One became a teacher, for example, though two of them are in a sorry state, no better than vagrants, and a couple more have spent short spells behind bars for burglary or assault.’

‘What about this one?’ asked Flóvent, pointing to one of the boys standing next to Eyvindur in the photograph. ‘You didn’t answer me before.’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t recognise the other two boys with Felix and Eyvindur.’

‘It’s our understanding that he was another of Felix’s “friends”.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘That Felix befriended him and passed on information about his family?’

‘I really couldn’t say.’

‘You mean you don’t know if he was involved in the study? I thought you remembered the boys’ names? Knew what had happened to most of them?’

Brynhildur stared at the picture. ‘He may have been called Jósep,’ she said at last. ‘If I’m not mistaken. Jósep Ingvarsson.’

‘What’s he doing now?’

‘He’s a vagrant,’ said Brynhildur. ‘I’ve seen him loafing about in Hafnarstræti and wandering around the centre of town. His father was always being sent to prison; he was very violent.’

‘Do you think Jósep could have written the letter?’

‘Felix believes it was Eyvindur.’

Flóvent gathered up the papers on the table. He had decided to draw the interview to a close for now.

‘You say you want to help him. Well, if Felix is in danger, as he claims, we could help him.’

Brynhildur remained silent.

‘Think about Felix. About the danger he believes he’s in. You don’t have much choice. You must see that. Besides, you yourself are mixed up in this affair, and it could improve your own position if you’re straight with us. You ought to—’

‘He worshipped his uncle,’ said Brynhildur suddenly. ‘Felix is a fanatical Nazi. He’d have gone to Germany and joined the army if Hans hadn’t persuaded him that he could be of more use here at home.’

‘Be more specific. Of more use how?’

‘When the Germans invaded. But when that didn’t happen...’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s possible that Felix is in fact a German agent — thanks to Hans — and that Eyvindur blundered into the firing line by accident.’

‘All right. Let’s go back to Hans Lunden. What exactly does he do?’

‘He came over shortly before the war, full of the plans he had for Iceland following the German occupation. Hans wanted his brother to run an anthropological research programme based on his earlier work, but Rudolf had turned his back on Nazism by then and they fell out over the matter. Hans was furious and left without even saying goodbye to Rudolf. I don’t think they’ve been in contact since. Hans believed that the Nazis should take Iceland as a model, since it was home to a uniquely pure, ancient Nordic stock that was superior to other races.’

Brynhildur took another sip of water, then explained that Hans was an admirer of the sagas with their descriptions of warriors and feats of great prowess and daring. He had immersed himself in the country’s medieval texts, including the Eddic poems, with their Norse myths and tales of the ancient Germanic past. To him, the heroic forebears of the Icelanders were supermen by modern standards, and he dreamt of recreating them. He conducted anthropological research into Nordic racial superiority at an institute set up by Himmler in Berlin, as part of the Ahnenerbe, or Ancestral Heritage Group. That was why he had come to Iceland in ’39. Hans had been confident that when war broke out, the Germans would occupy Iceland and then it would be possible to embark on serious genetic and anthropological studies of the Icelandic population, of their ancient Germanic heritage and Viking blood — the very origins of the Icelanders. Hans had intended to direct the project himself: Rudolf was to be his right-hand man.

‘But then the German invasion didn’t happen,’ said Flóvent.

‘Which must have been a great disappointment to Hans.’

Rudolf had ultimately drawn the conclusion that the ideas Hans and other Nazi intellectuals had about Iceland were based on a misconception. Werner Gerlach had told Hans the same during their meetings at the consulate. In their view, modern Icelanders were no better than peasants and had nothing in common with their warlike Viking ancestors. There had been a great deal of interracial mixing on the island ever since the earliest settlement in the ninth century. In support of this argument, Rudolf referred to the observations he had made in the course of his study, suggesting that his findings could, instead, provide the basis for further research into the degeneration of the pure Nordic stock. They demonstrated that the descendants of the Vikings were anything but noble Aryans. But Hans Lunden wouldn’t listen. It ended in a bitter quarrel. Then the British occupied the island and their plans came to nothing.

‘Do you have any idea where Hans Lunden is now?’ asked Flóvent.

‘The last Rudolf heard was that he had abandoned the Nordic project and started conducting genetic studies on prisoners. On criminals.’

‘So, what you’re saying is that all this happened long after he and Rudolf had collaborated on their secret study at the school?’ said Flóvent, indicating the documents. ‘And that these papers date from much earlier.’

‘That’s right,’ said Brynhildur. ‘The school study was quite different in its aims, but it was instrumental in awakening Hans Lunden’s interest in Iceland.’

‘And you believe that Hans set Felix up as a German agent?’

‘Yes, and that Eyvindur was shot instead of Felix.’