The Quiet Mother

28

Konrád’s meeting with the accountant made him somewhat late for his meeting in Reykjanes. He’d called Pálmi, who told Konrád that he was welcome if he didn’t come too late, because he had things he needed to do that evening. Konrád drove as quickly as the traffic would allow southwards down Keflavíkurvegur Road, and when he pulled into Pálmi’s driveway, it was dark.

They shook hands and Konrád came straight to the point — the trait of Konrád’s that Pálmi liked best. Konrád told him that he’d finally, after all these years, sat down with the chief witness in his father’s case, Helga, and that she’d told him the slaughterhouse’s smoking kilns were running, although that hadn’t been stated in the police reports.

‘Weren’t the kilns always running?’ said Pálmi thoughtfully.

‘No,’ Konrád said. ‘I grew up a short distance from there and sometimes the smell of smoke hung over the neighbourhood and sometimes it didn’t. I played nearby and even wandered onto the lot and watched the men working.’

‘But what does that change? This about the smoking kilns?’

‘I remember that the kilns were fired up at the end of the working day and left running overnight, so there couldn’t have been many people in the area when that was done.’

‘We went through it all carefully,’ Pálmi said. ‘We talked to the slaughterhouse workers. We couldn’t find any links to your father.’

‘I saw that in the reports,’ Konrád said, ‘but we both know that not everything goes into the reports. Do you remember the smoking kilns coming up in the interviews?’

Pálmi nodded.

‘As I said, I think we looked into all of it back then.’

‘Dad was stabbed there right in front of them,’ said Konrád. ‘The kilns building was adjacent to the gate where he was found, and there was a small window in it.’

Konrád took the photo from the photojournalist’s collection and handed it to Pálmi, who put on his reading glasses and looked at it. The image was dark and dull, but the window was clearly visible.

‘It’s big enough to climb through,’ said Konrád.

‘Yes, it certainly does appear so. It’s closed.’

‘Maybe it was easy to get in there unnoticed.’

Konrád told Pálmi what he’d started to consider since speaking to Helga, that only a short time must have passed between his father’s stabbing and her finding him lying there. He was still alive and died before her eyes, and had tried to say something she didn’t understand. She’d just missed the stabbing, and yet the murderer had vanished. Konrád wondered if the murderer had noticed her and the only way out of there was to slip through that window.

‘I remember that we looked into it,’ Pálmi said. ‘This wasn’t actually the only window that looked out onto Skúlagata, but was the only one that was possible to get in through. If I remember correctly, they’d meant to put bars in it, or they were replacing the bars at the time. We couldn’t see any evidence that someone had broken into the place via that window. What’s more, the door to the building holding the smoking kilns was locked from the outside.’

‘He couldn’t have hidden in there?’

‘No,’ said Pálmi. ‘We searched the place thoroughly that same evening. Everywhere apart from in the kilns themselves, which were running. I remember it now, looking back.’

‘You didn’t open them?’

‘No, you could hardly touch them, they were so hot.’

Pálmi recalled that the officers had quickly come up with three possible scenarios for the incident. First, Konrád’s father had been summoned to Skúlagata with the intention of killing him, meaning the murder had been premeditated. Second, he had arranged to meet a man or men and an argument arose that ended in a bloody attack in front of the slaughterhouse, meaning the murder was accidental. Third, and also premeditated, he’d been watched and the decision was made to meet him at the slaughterhouse and assault him there. In all of these scenarios, the assumption was made that the victim knew his killer.

There was also a fourth possibility. Konrád’s father had been walking on Skúlagata and met the murderer by complete coincidence in front of the slaughterhouse, something kicked off and it ended in murder. It had been committed without the murderer and the victim knowing each other in any way. When the investigation turned up nothing, the credibility of this fourth scenario grew, it being difficult to solve crimes that were committed by chance and for no apparent reason.

The two of them discussed the case back and forth like this without coming to any conclusion, as usual, until Pálmi said he had things to do.

‘If he’d arranged to meet someone there, I think most likely that it was connected to the Butchers’ Association in some way,’ said Konrád. ‘Maybe someone planned to smuggle him meat products or something like that through the gate.’

‘But wouldn’t that have been obvious to everyone on that street?’ Pálmi asked. ‘Isn’t it hard to engage in clandestine business in the middle of Skúlagata? Besides, we didn’t discover any links between your father and the company.’

‘I realise that but, you know, people lie for less,’ Konrád said.

‘The person or persons who were behind this have probably passed over into the Great Beyond,’ Pálmi said, walking with Konrád out to the driveway. It was pitch-dark outside, and the cold north wind played about them.

‘Yes, of course. Still, I haven’t heard of any deathbed confessions,’ Konrád said. ‘No one has wanted to relieve his conscience of the burden of this murder before going to meet his maker.’

‘And probably ended up going straight down,’ Pálmi said.

Konrád smiled.

‘I’m not seeking revenge or punishment. I want to know what happened and why.’

‘It was a big step for you to talk to Helga,’ Pálmi said after a short silence. ‘Was it OK, talking to her?’

‘It was good to meet her,’ Konrád said. ‘I should probably have done it a long time ago.’

‘Do you really think you can solve this case after all this time?’

Pálmi had asked this before, and the answer hadn’t changed.

‘I doubt it,’ said Konrád. ‘I highly doubt it. I’ve probably started far too late. And I’m aware of all the effort you put into it at the time, so...’

‘It’ll be fun to see if you get anywhere with it,’ said Pálmi.

‘None of this is any fun,’ Konrád said listlessly. ‘None of it.’

He hesitated.

‘Tell me something else. I hadn’t started as a detective at the time, but do you remember anything about a rape case here on Reykjanes sometime around 1970? A rape at a nightclub? After closing? It went to trial, but the accused was acquitted.’

Pálmi thought this over.

‘1970? No, I can’t say that I do. It could be...’

‘What?’

‘No,’ said Pálmi. ‘There was a troublemaker around here at that time, whom I know we picked up once on a rape charge. Fucking scumbag. Used a knife. That didn’t happen often in those days. That’s why I remember it now. I don’t know if he’s dead or not.’

‘Can you check on it for me?’

‘I’ll see what I can find,’ said Pálmi, telling Konrád to drive carefully back to town before hurrying in out of the cold.