The Shadow Killer

46

The Pólar was a slum on the outskirts of the town, just to the south of Snorrabraut. The buildings had been hastily erected during the Great War to house families in need, but now more than two hundred people lived there in squalor and poverty. Although the wooden buildings had recently been supplied with electricity, there was no mains water and the houses were flimsy, badly insulated and freezing cold in winter. The slum consisted of four rows of tenements enclosing a small courtyard, which had originally contained latrines. Flóvent had often visited the Pólar in his time on the beat, since things could get pretty rough there at night and at the weekends, with all the drinking and brawling that went on. This was where Jósep and Rikki had grown up and, as far as Jósep knew, Rikki’s mother still lived.

In the courtyard a man directed Flóvent to a woman sitting outside her front door, in a cloud of feathers, plucking a chicken. She paid no attention to Flóvent as he stood watching the deft efficiency with which she worked. Only when he decided to interrupt and ask her name, did she glance up from her task. She was a plump woman of about fifty, dressed in a threadbare housecoat, wearing rubber-soled shoes and woollen socks, with a headscarf knotted under her chin. The evening sun was behind Flóvent so she couldn’t see him properly. Squinting up at him, she asked who wanted to know. Her face was wizened and she had wide gaps between her teeth. She returned to plucking her chicken.

‘I see you’re busy, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I won’t take up too much of your time. I was just—’

‘Eh? Oh, no, that’s all right,’ the woman said. ‘I’m going to boil this ruddy thing,’ she added, as if to explain what she was doing. ‘Dússi gave it to me. His chickens won’t stop breeding. Do you know Dússi? He keeps a big flock of hens over Nauthólsvík way, and sells the eggs to the British. Makes a packet out of them.’

Flóvent said he wasn’t acquainted with Dússi, but he had just been talking to a man called Jósep, who used to be at school with her son. Did she remember him?

‘Jósep? I should think so,’ she said. ‘I sometimes see him wandering around town, the poor lad.’

‘I’m told he knew your son Ríkhardur. He was known as Rikki, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, him and my Rikki used to be mates,’ said the woman, brushing some of the feathers off her lap. Then she turned the chicken over and continued with her task, unconcerned by the presence of this stranger, looming against the evening sun. ‘He was looking rough the last time I saw him,’ she said. ‘Hit the skids, hasn’t he? Used to be such a clever boy too.’

‘We were talking about Rikki,’ said Flóvent. ‘About their school. And Rikki’s friends from the old days.’

‘Oh, were you now?’

‘He told me what happened to your son. In his last year at school.’

The woman paused in her plucking. ‘Why was he telling you about my Rikki? What for?’

Flóvent explained that he had come to see her because another boy who was at school with Ríkhardur had been found dead in a basement flat in town, shot in the head. His name was Eyvindur, and Flóvent was investigating his murder on behalf of the police. He had spoken to various people who had known Eyvindur at different times, including during his school days.

‘A policeman?’ she said. ‘Come to see me?’

Flóvent nodded. ‘Do you happen to remember Eyvindur?’

‘No, I can’t say I do. The man who was shot — was he at school with my Rikki? All I know is what I heard on the news, like everybody else. Has it got something... something to do with my Rikki? I don’t understand how that could be possible.’

‘No, we don’t know for sure,’ said Flóvent.

‘What did Jósep say?’ asked the woman. ‘The poor boy’s in a wretched state, isn’t he? I know only too well what drink can do to a person, how it can drag you into the gutter. I reckon the lad’s in a hell of a mess. He didn’t look at all good the last time I saw him. No better than a tramp. He’s a lovely boy, though, Jósep. Always says hello and stops for a chat, never tries to beg for money.’ The woman sat pensively for a while, her hands busy with the chicken again. ‘Yes, my poor Rikki,’ she said at last.

‘It must have been hard for you. Losing him.’

The woman didn’t answer, just carried on with her task, her mind far away. The air quickly turned chilly as the sun went down, but she didn’t seem to notice. Flóvent buttoned up his coat.

‘Of course the Pólar kids were always picked on,’ she said. ‘Teased for being poor and dressing in rags that stank of mildew, and for having parents like us. The dregs of society. All the kids from here ended up in the dunces’ class. Of course I realise we... I don’t remember ever making him a packed lunch. It’s terrible to think of. And I don’t suppose his clothes were up to much. If there was any money in the house, it all went on booze. His sister took more care of him than I did. It was... it wasn’t a happy home and Rikki was a terribly sensitive boy. He had ever such a tender heart, my Rikki. Do you have kids yourself, mister?’

‘No,’ said Flóvent, ‘I don’t have any children.’

‘His dad was a bloody waster. A thief and a bum. Stole from Dússi and plenty of other people too. Broke into summer houses around here. Was mixed up in smuggling, and used to hit the bottle hard. Did time. Kept bad company.’ The woman ceased her plucking. ‘Not that I was any better. I was... I was on the booze too in those days. It’s all a bit of a blur, to be honest. It wasn’t until Rikki died that I gave up the drink. Haven’t touched a drop since. Not a drop.’

‘Could you tell me what happened? Jósep remembered parts of the story, but he suggested I talk to you.’

‘Rikki suddenly stopped turning up at school. I knew nothing about it. He didn’t tell me. He still left home every day. Always at the same time, heading towards the school. Then one day... I was standing out here one morning, where you’re standing now, when a man appeared. He’d been sent by the school to ask where Rikki was. He hadn’t been going to his lessons for several weeks. It turned out he’d just been wandering around town during school hours, playing on the beach, trying to kill time, and hadn’t told anyone. He was never happy at school, especially not that last year, so he just decided to stop showing up.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘It was that boy... that doctor’s son my Rikki used to go about with. That’s what they told me — Jósep and his friends — so I went round to his house, to “the German house”, as the boys used to call it. I wanted to speak to the boy, ask if it was true what they said, that he’d turned against my son. Ask him why he’d done those things. Why it had happened. After a lot of pleading I managed to speak to his father. He claimed not to know anything. By then the boy was in Denmark — he spent the summers there, he told me, and wasn’t due home any time soon.’

‘Did you tell his father what you’d heard?’

‘Yes, I did, I repeated the whole thing. He came across all surprised and of course he tried to make excuses for his son, but I could tell he knew exactly what I was talking about. Knew how cruel his boy was. Didn’t need me to tell him. But by then it was too late. My Rikki was gone.’

‘Jósep told me he fell off a roof at a building site on Eskihlíd.’

‘That’s right.’

‘He says the doctor’s son persuaded Rikki to jump.’

‘They said he thought he could fly. That boy was with him at the time. And Jósep, and another boy who was there too, they said they’d heard him egging Rikki on. Daring him to jump off. Goading him. He’d been bullying him unmercifully all winter, never left him alone, called him such ugly names that in the end Rikki didn’t dare go to school any more. Disgraceful behaviour — you can’t call it anything else. I don’t know why he hated Rikki so much. Maybe Rikki was an easy target because he came from the Pólar and couldn’t stand up for himself. The other kids sometimes used to call him a dunce. And then there was the smell of mould and the poverty and his ragged clothes. Maybe Rikki thought it would never end. The police said it was an accident — just boys mucking about. They wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t lift a finger.’

The woman sat without speaking, the dead chicken abandoned on her lap, as if she couldn’t face dealing with it any more. The sun had gone down and a cold wind came creeping through the Pólar.

‘But I soon came to my senses,’ she said. ‘I was in no position to moan about other people’s behaviour. Who was I to start blaming anyone else? I knew I hadn’t a leg to stand on. We weren’t there when he needed us, you see. He never got any support from us. I was pissed when I heard the news, didn’t know what was going on. That was all the support he got from us. What a pathetic cow I was. All he got from us... My poor, sweet boy.’

Flóvent saw that the woman was finding it increasingly hard to choke back her tears, her impotent rage. She stood up in her distress and the half-plucked bird fell to the ground. She took no notice. Instead she scowled at Flóvent, her eyes full of accusation, and he regretted that he had upset her so much. He should have thought out what he was going to say, taken a different approach perhaps, been more considerate.

‘What do you care about my Rikki?’ she said angrily. ‘No one cared about him while he was alive. Why are you asking about him now? Why did you have to rake the whole thing up?’

Flóvent wanted to express his sympathy, to explain, but she waved him away and told him to get lost, she had nothing more to say to him. So he left her there in the cold wind with her unbearable grief and a world of misfortune in her tired eyes.