The Shadow District

30

The young man known to the road crew up north as the Professor was out when Flóvent and Thorson drove up to his digs, a poky basement flat on Öldugata. They’d raced back to Reykjavík after their meeting with Brandur at Patterson Field, with the young man’s name as a new lead. Working on the foreman’s hazy recollection that the boy had come south to study, they had headed straight over to the new university building in the west of town, where they discovered that he was in the second year of a degree in Icelandic and history. They were permitted to see his timetable and concluded that he had probably left for the day. The university office made no objections to supplying his address.

Flóvent and Thorson sat in the car, a stone’s throw from the basement, watching the odd passer-by hurry along the street as dusk fell. They were still waiting for the student. They had spoken to the other tenants but they didn’t have much to report. The student had moved into the basement last Christmas and never made any noise or caused any trouble, quite the reverse in fact. He was considered a quiet, polite young man, inoffensive in every way. No, they didn’t get the impression he was much of a womaniser, or indeed met any girls at all. Naturally, being a student, he wouldn’t have time for that sort of thing. He always had his nose in a book, though he did have at least one interest outside his studies, and that was birdwatching. They used to see him from time to time with a fine pair of binoculars on a leather cord and knew he was off on one of his birdwatching expeditions to the nearby Seltjarnarnes Peninsula or further afield.

Flóvent was all for hanging on to see if the young man came home, before trying to track him down by other means. But the car’s heater didn’t work properly and the temperature dropped as evening came on, so they sat there frozen and hungry, waiting. Since most people would be sitting down to dinner at this hour, there was hardly anyone around. Flóvent’s thoughts went to his father, who always waited for him to come home before eating, though Flóvent had repeatedly told him to go ahead without him. He pictured the old man napping on the couch in the kitchen, worn out after a long day’s drudgery on the docks.

‘If he turns out to be our man, there’s no need for you to be involved any longer,’ Flóvent remarked after a long silence. ‘It’ll have nothing to do with the military.’

‘Why don’t we wait and see?’ said Thorson.

‘Yes, of course, but it looks to me as if the focus of the investigation’s shifting away from your charges — from the troops, I mean.’

‘It certainly looks that way,’ admitted Thorson. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d kind of like to see this case through, all the same. So long as you don’t mind.’

‘I wouldn’t object,’ said Flóvent. ‘All help gratefully received.’

‘Good.’

‘I thought maybe you had other fish to fry. You’ve been unusually quiet all day.’

‘Yes, sorry, I’ve had a lot on my mind.’

‘Of course, you must have plenty of cases of your own to be getting on with,’ said Flóvent. ‘I daresay they’re no picnic either.’

‘You can say that again.’

Flóvent was right: he’d been distracted all day. With tens of thousands of troops crowded into a confined area, new incidents were inevitably brought to the attention of the military police every day. Minor brawls were common — you always got the odd troublemaker — but some cases were sadder, as you might expect when morale was low, the world was at war and the young men being sent across oceans and continents to fight the enemy were not all equally suited to the task. Sure, there were the daredevils who actively looked forward to combat, eager for a chance to take a shot at the enemy. But others lived in dread of what the future would bring, far from their loved ones, far from normality, far from the life they knew. The evening Rósamunda’s body turned up, Thorson had been over at Nauthólsvík Cove, on the other side of Öskjuhlíd, at the cluster of prefab huts that comprised the naval air station. Driving there, Thorson was reminded of the time he’d glimpsed Winston Churchill when he stopped over in Iceland in August of ’41, on his way back from a mid-Atlantic meeting with President Roosevelt. On the present occasion, though, Thorson had been called to a shoe-repair workshop housed in one of the huts, where a young serviceman had chosen to take his own life rather than face the enemy guns. The boy, who had only just turned twenty, came from a small town in Kentucky and was described by his friends as cheerful and friendly, but fearful, like many others, of being sent to the front. Rumours had been rife about the imminent transfer of troops from Iceland to Britain in preparation for the Allied invasion of France. No one could think of another explanation for his desperate act. He hadn’t left a suicide note, and none of his buddies had any idea what he was going to do; though, in retrospect, he had seemed kind of down in recent weeks and apprehensive about the future. They didn’t think it was a broken heart. There was no sweetheart back home, and he hadn’t been involved with any Icelandic girls. His wallet was found to contain a few dollars and a photograph of his mother and two sisters.

‘Those cases are always tough,’ said Flóvent when Thorson had explained about the young man.

‘They certainly are,’ said Thorson. ‘A lot of the boys are scared.’

‘What about you? Do you give it much thought?’

‘Not really. I’ve got enough to think about.’

‘Did you know the soldier from the Nauthólsvík camp?’

‘Not, not at all. I only learnt yesterday that he’d been having a terrible time since he got here.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, he was badly bullied.’

‘Why?’

‘A man in his squadron told me it was because he wasn’t one for the ladies. Quite the opposite —’

‘Is that him?’ Flóvent interrupted, nudging him.

Glancing up, Thorson saw a young man approaching along Öldugata. He was tall and fair-haired; he wore a thick down jacket and sturdy boots and was carrying a pair of binoculars in one hand. He strode along the road, head down, deep in thought, then turned down the narrow path that led to the basement door.

Flóvent and Thorson stepped out of the car and followed a little way behind. The young man had gone inside but hadn’t yet closed the door when they appeared at the entrance. He nearly jumped out of his skin when they loomed out of the darkness; he clearly hadn’t been expecting visitors.

‘Wha...?’ he said, gaping at the two men.

‘Good evening, sir. Are you Jónatan, by any chance?’ asked Flóvent.

‘Me? Yes.’

‘We’re from the police. We’d like to talk to you about a case we’re investigating. Mind if we come in, sir?’

‘The police?’ he echoed, startled. ‘What case?’

‘Might we come in for a minute?’

The young man looked searchingly from Flóvent to Thorson, clearly perplexed.

‘What case?’ he asked again.

‘It concerns a young woman by the name of Rósamunda,’ said Thorson.

‘And a second young woman from Öxarfjördur, whose name was Hrund.’

The student was halfway through taking off his jacket, still with the binoculars in his hand. He put them down, then hung his jacket on a peg. Flóvent and Thorson waited.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, do come in,’ said the young man. ‘I don’t see what... how I can help you. Did you say you were policemen?’

‘Were you birdwatching, sir?’ asked Flóvent, nodding at the binoculars.

‘I was watching the cormorants on Seltjarnarnes. Look, there’s no need to call me “sir”.’

‘Are you interested in birds?’

‘Yes, I am rather.’

‘Tell me, were you part of a road crew working in or around Öxarfjördur about three years ago?’ asked Flóvent, closing the door behind them. The young man showed his unexpected visitors into a small bedsit. There was a camp bed in one corner, made up with a quilt and blankets, a desk below a window set high in the wall, bookshelves on two walls. The cramped basement also contained a tiny kitchen and an even smaller washroom.

‘I was working on the roads there, yes.’

‘We gather you come from the north,’ said Thorson. ‘You were at school there?’

‘Yes, that’s right. At Akureyri College.’

Flóvent looked round the small room, taking in the books on the shelves and desk, the files, the materials related to Jónatan’s studies, an old typewriter containing a sheet of paper with a few lines he had written before giving into the lure of the cormorants on Seltjarnarnes. Next to the typewriter was an ashtray containing several cigarette butts, and, on the other side of it, a packet of Lucky Strikes and a box of matches.

Flóvent eyed the packet, then shot a look at Thorson, who had spotted it too.

‘What are you working on?’ Flóvent asked, gesturing at the typewriter.

‘I’m writing a thesis. For my degree in Icelandic and history at the university. What exactly is it you want with me? What... why are you here?’

‘Were you acquainted with a girl called Rósamunda?’ asked Thorson.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Yes, I ought to know. I’m not acquainted with anyone of that name.’

‘What about Hrund?’

The young man watched as Flóvent rooted around among the files on his desk, then stepped over to the bookcase and squinted at the spines.

‘Did you meet a girl called Hrund when you were working on the roads in Öxarfjördur?’ Thorson tried again.

The student’s gaze remained fixed on Flóvent. ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t heard Thorson’s question.

‘These books...?’

‘What of them?’

‘What are you writing about?’ Flóvent asked, turning to him.

‘I’m writing a thesis,’ repeated Jónatan. ‘It’s about... well, all sorts of things.’

‘Are you collecting them?’

‘No, I’m not a collector. Lots of them come from libraries. I need them for my research.’

Turning back to the shelves, Flóvent took out a book and opened it.

‘Your foreman certainly wasn’t lying.’

‘Who?’

‘Your foreman from the road crew. He said you were fascinated by folklore.’

‘What are all those books about?’ asked Thorson.

‘Most of them are about Icelandic folk tales and legends,’ answered Flóvent, giving him a meaningful look. ‘Ghost stories. Elf rocks. Forbidden ground. Huldufólk,’ he added, reading from the contents page of the volume he was holding.

‘I use the books for my research,’ said the student. ‘My thesis is concerned with Icelandic folk beliefs, from the settlement right up to the present day.’

‘Did you know Hrund, the girl I mentioned?’ asked Thorson, returning to his earlier theme.

Jónatan’s gaze swung back and forth between the two men. ‘I knew who she was,’ he admitted at last. ‘You mean the girl who’s supposed to have thrown herself into Dettifoss?’

Flóvent nodded.

‘I was aware of who she was. But I didn’t know her at all.’

‘Can you tell us if she was interested in folk tales?’

‘If she was?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why... I didn’t do anything to harm her if that’s what you’re asking. Never touched her. Is that why you’re here?’

‘Now why would you think someone harmed her?’ asked Flóvent. ‘We haven’t said anything to give you that idea.’

Jónatan’s gaze flickered from one of them to the other in that poky little bedsit, as if the walls were closing in on him.

‘I know nothing about her,’ he protested. ‘I swear.’