The Darkness Knows

34

Later that day, Konrád went to see the joiner and his wife, to learn more about the fortune the couple had discovered when they finally got round to installing a new kitchen. The stash, consisting of one million krónur in bundles of thousand-krónur notes, had been wrapped in a plastic bag and stuffed into the gap between the oven and the cupboard above it, then concealed by a frontage in the same style as the cupboard doors. The bag, Fridný recalled, was from the Hagkaup supermarket chain. She seemed relieved to be able to unburden her conscience at last. The couple sat in their kitchen, looking as gloomy as if they had a death sentence hanging over them, surrounded by their attractive modern appliances and units, some fronted with glass, others with wooden doors.

‘It’ll be a pity if it gets into the papers,’ the joiner said, still unhappily preoccupied with their reputation.

‘You were aware that Sigurvin had lived here before you?’

‘Yes,’ Fridný said, shamefaced. ‘But it could equally have been put there by Jóhann. No one ever enquired about it. So we just held on to it.’

Konrád appreciated her honesty and wondered what most people would have done in their shoes, if they were short of money and just happened to find an unclaimed fortune in their kitchen. It was as if Fridný had read his mind.

‘I think most people would have kept it,’ she said. ‘I think they’d have done the same as us. Seriously. That’s what I believe. We’re no worse than anyone else, honestly.’

‘You spoke to Jóhann, who sold you the house, and he’d bought it directly from Sigurvin’s family?’

‘Yes, I sounded him out,’ Fridný said. ‘It was clear he had no idea what I was hinting at. We didn’t spend the money straight away, though. We kept it, because we didn’t know what to do with it. Finding that bag came as quite a shock, actually. I mean, what kind of person would hide a fortune like that in their kitchen?’

‘We were going to talk to the police,’ Egill said, ‘but somehow we never got round to it.’

‘And before we knew it we’d bought shares in that bank,’ Fridný said, ‘and things went as they did and now we don’t have a króna left.’

‘Will we have to repay all of it?’ Egill asked.

‘Do you know whose money it was?’

‘Didn’t it belong to Sigurvin? Won’t we have to pay back his heirs?’

‘We can’t be entirely sure that the money belonged to Sigurvin,’ Konrád said, ‘though that’s probably the most likely explanation. He could have been hanging on to it for someone else, for example. Really, it’s impossible to know.’

‘That’s exactly what the other police officer told Egill,’ Fridný said, with a sigh of relief.

Konrád saw that the couple had brightened up. They had been quite subdued when he arrived and they were showing him where the bag of money had been hidden. The spot was now occupied by a state-of-the-art Italian steam oven that Egill said they never used. Fridný had protested that she used it from time to time. The oven was especially good for cooking the gammon at Christmas; it made for a lovely, juicy roast.

Konrád assumed the other police officer they’d mentioned was Marta. He told them how he himself had investigated Sigurvin’s disappearance for many years but that he was no longer in the police force and that these days the case was no more than a hobby. They said they could quite understand that.

‘You did the right thing to contact the police when Sigurvin’s body turned up. It took courage to come forward and admit what you did.’

‘We felt it was only right,’ Fridný said. ‘We’ve been feeling bad about it and I can assure you that if we found that money today we’d report it immediately. Without a moment’s hesitation.’

‘We’re not thieves,’ Egill said. ‘You mustn’t think that. It just happened. I mean, what else were we supposed to do?’

‘You say the notes were in a plastic bag?’

‘Yes,’ Fridný said. ‘An ordinary Hagkaup shopping bag, like I said.’

‘I assume you didn’t keep it?’

‘No. We threw it away,’ Fridný said. ‘Without telling anyone.’

‘What was he doing keeping so much money in the house, anyway?’ her husband asked.

‘Dirty money,’ Fridný said indignantly. ‘It’s just as well it vanished when the banks collapsed.’

‘Could he have been killed over it?’ Egill asked. ‘Is that possible?’

Konrád shrugged. He had his suspicions but he wasn’t about to air them in this smart kitchen with its Italian steam oven, in the home of the couple who had lost someone else’s money.

He took his leave of them and was sitting in his car again when his phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number or the voice of the woman at the other end.

‘Is that Konrád?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Helga here. I spoke to my friend but she couldn’t remember the man you were asking about.’

‘I’m sorry, who is this?’

‘Helga.’

‘Helga?’

‘You came to see me at work.’

‘The podiatrist?’ Konrád said hesitantly, recalling his visit to the clinic.

‘That’s right,’ Helga said. ‘Is this a bad time?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Anyway, she remembers that evening at the sports bar because of the birthday, but can’t recall seeing any man at the bar.’

‘Oh well, that’s a dead end, then. I thought it was worth trying, though. Thank—’

‘But there’s something else.’

‘Oh?’

‘She went home before us and, once we started talking about it, she remembered something that happened outside the bar. There was a man in a baseball cap, like the one you described, standing outside and talking on his phone, and what he said stayed with her because she found it so horrible — the way he said it, anyway.’

‘Did she recognise him?’

‘No. And she didn’t remember seeing him in the bar either.’

‘What did she hear?’

‘She only managed to catch two words but he snarled them into the phone so angrily that it shocked her.’

‘What were they?’

‘Kill him.’

‘What did you say?’

‘“Kill him.” Those were the words she heard.’

‘Kill him?’

‘Yes, she heard him snarl them into the phone, and it gave her such a shock that it must have stayed in her subconscious. She’s never forgotten it.’