The Quiet Mother

26

The story was well known within the family, even if it was mainly kept hush-hush out of consideration for the woman who was loved by all who knew her. Two men had taken advantage of Stella’s weakness in her widowhood, besides playing on her most painful emotions due to the loss of her son, pretending to be in special contact with the beyond. After they’d earned her trust through séances, she began providing them with the funds that they promised to hand over to the various associations and charities they named. She trusted them completely and they pressed their advantage. The more goodwill she showed them, in proportion to her childish complacency, the worse they played her until almost all her savings were exhausted. It wasn’t until she sought the advice of her brothers on how to get a new cheque book that everything was revealed. Then, the two men disappeared. She didn’t even know their full names, because she was in denial and didn’t want to believe anything bad about them. They’d opened a door to the afterlife, brought her comfort and helped her come to terms with her past, which was more than many others had managed to do. The fact that they were thieves and swindlers didn’t seem to matter so much to her. It took a special effort to open her eyes to what had really happened in her home.

Although they occurred a long time ago, these events still made the woman’s relatives shake their heads in astonishment.

‘It was those fucking bastards,’ Stella’s great-nephew said after Konrád had introduced himself and Eygló and he realised that this man was the son of one of the swindlers, and with him was the daughter of the other. They hadn’t called before going to see him, and the man, who was an accountant, was rather surprised by their visit initially, but quickly got over his surprise. He was used to meeting people who came to him with various concerns, and tried to make things easier for them.

‘So you’re the medium’s daughter?’ he said, looking at Eygló and making quotation marks with his fingers when he said the word ‘medium’.

‘He worked as a medium,’ said Eygló. ‘He was in bad company,’ she added, looking at Konrád.

‘Apparently your great-aunt wasn’t the only one they swindled,’ said Konrád. Neither he nor Eygló had heard of this case before. He believed what the man told them about Stella’s interactions with the two men. Had no reason to disbelieve him. Konrád had heard many stories about his father and knew what he was capable of, especially when people who might be called gullible were involved.

‘Yeah, we heard about that,’ said the accountant. ‘They seemed to know all the tricks in the book, and how to use them to take advantage of her weakness. Not just the losses she’d suffered. She didn’t know how to handle things. And she trusted people.’

‘It’s actually a quality that’s slowly disappearing,’ said Eygló. After some hesitation and persuasion, the man told them all about his great-aunt’s acquaintance with the two swindlers and how they had treated her. Her only son, a promising boy, had drowned in Elliðavatn Lake when his small boat overturned, just two years after she lost her husband. Somehow, the two scoundrels had got wind of this and dug up a few of the family’s personal details, which they used in the scam. The police weren’t notified. The matter was kept quiet. Stella’s relatives were reluctant to go public with it, considering the publicity, police investigation and lawsuits that could potentially follow. They wanted to avoid such things as far as possible, keeping Stella’s welfare in mind. Her reputation. However, two men had gone to see Konrád’s father to try to recover some of Stella’s money. She’d written a number of cheques and handed them over to the fraudsters. The money was gone. None of it was repaid.

‘My father was one of them,’ the man said. ‘They wanted to try to get the money back. The one who played the medium, I understand, was just some loser. He blamed the other one for all of it and said that he’d taken the cheques and cashed them. He lived in a basement flat in the Shadow District and was drunk and threatened them with a knife.’

‘Two men? In a basement flat in the Shadow District?’ repeated Konrád, recalling the visit paid to his father one evening when he himself lay ill in bed.

‘Yeah. Dad and his friend.’

Konrád’s memory of that evening suddenly became clearer, more purposeful and significant.

‘So that was your father?’ the man asked.

‘I think I vaguely recall that visit,’ said Konrád, remembering the ugly man in the winter coat who’d looked for money under the mattress. ‘I think they left our place empty-handed.’

‘Yeah, as I say, the money was never returned.’

‘So things were just left?’

‘I think so, yeah.’

‘You think so? What did your father do?’ Konrád asked.

‘He was an accountant. Here. In this office. Died about a decade ago.’

‘And the one who was with him when they went to the Shadow District? His friend?’

‘What about him?’

‘Who was he? What did he do?’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with it,’ said the man, looking alternately at Konrád and Eygló. They were sitting in an office surrounded by files and papers all relating to annual financial statements and tax returns and depreciations, assets and liabilities. The air in there was heavy; the windows were closed and there was no ventilation. The man had followed his father into the accounting business, and his shoulders were drooping from sitting at his desk for long periods of time. He was small of stature but had a strangely rough-hewn face, with bifocals perched on his wide nose, a big mouth and thick lips. This was in the city centre, a short distance from the cathedral, and through the closed windows, the sad chimes of the bells carried over to them.

‘No,’ Konrád said. ‘But it would be nice to know.’

‘He was just a family friend, a man my father knew.’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘Yes, actually. His name is Henning, and he’s very old, but I don’t know—’

‘Did they make any more attempts to recover the money?’ Konrád asked.

‘More? No. I don’t think so. What do you mean?’

‘I remember them making threats,’ Konrád said. Until now, he hadn’t connected the visit with his father’s fate. It had been too bizarre and unreal for that, more like a feverish nightmare than anything else.

‘Are you suggesting they did something to him?’ the man asked.

‘My father was actually murdered, probably about a year after that visit,’ Konrád said.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘So you heard about it?’

‘I wasn’t born then,’ said the man, ‘but this is all well known within the family. Though Dad never spoke about it. Mum didn’t, either. Dad’s friend, who went with him to the Shadow District, told me about the visit to the swindlers. I once tried to talk to my father about it, about how the man who treated Stella so badly was murdered, but he just shook his head. Said nothing. Didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Didn’t you find that strange? Why he was silent about these things?’

‘No. I didn’t really think about it. He was always a little... I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but he wasn’t a very cheerful man. He could be moody. For a time, he had mental issues and couldn’t work. I learned early just to leave him alone.’

‘But why do you think he never mentioned this?’ Eygló asked. ‘Or never wanted to talk about it?’

‘I don’t know. I’m trying to tell you how he was.’

‘Wouldn’t that have been normal?’ Eygló said. ‘The man who swindled his aunt is stabbed to death and the murderer isn’t found. Shouldn’t he have had something to say about it? Have had some opinions on it?’

‘Are there any rules about that? What are you implying?’ the man asked, clearly resenting the importunity of their questions. ‘Are you... have you come here to blame him for the murder? Are you really trying to pin it on my father?’

‘No, not at all, far from it,’ Konrád said.

‘Maybe you should go,’ said the man, on the verge of standing up and showing them out. ‘I don’t like these insinuations.’

‘We didn’t mean to insinuate anything,’ Konrád said calmly.

‘No, but in any case, I don’t have time for this. I can’t help you any more.’

‘But that friend of your father’s?’ Eygló asked. ‘That Henning. Did he say anything about the murder? When you talked to him.’

‘As I said, I don’t like these questions.’

The man took off his glasses and began cleaning the lenses with a microfibre cloth. ‘I have other things to take care of and am actually very busy. Besides, I was in my teens when I first heard about this, so a long time had passed since those incidents and I simply don’t know enough about them to be of any help to you.’

‘You know enough to call them bastards,’ said Konrád.

Eygló gave him a sharp look. She wasn’t there to end up in a fight with someone who’d suffered because of her father. The accountant looked at them in turn, then put his glasses back on.

‘Sorry,’ said the man, standing up. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sure those two partners were exemplary in everything they undertook. Thank you for coming, but I’m quite busy and don’t have time for this. Sorry for not being able to help you more.’

‘Did he say something? This Henning, your dad’s friend?’ Eygló asked, smiling amiably to make up for Konrád’s behaviour. The man was clearly angry at him.

‘It doesn’t matter because it didn’t happen. Dad sometimes said things, without meaning anything.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

The man looked at them through his bifocals. An unfathomable smile appeared on his thick lips. The ringing of the cathedral’s bells could be heard from outside, and its doors opened to a funeral procession behind a white coffin.

‘Henning said my father wanted to get rid of the swindler. Slit his throat like a mad dog’s.’