The Shadow District

33

It was the second time in a matter of weeks that a total stranger had come round to Petra’s house to ask questions about her mother. Both men had listened to what she had to say and looked utterly stunned. The first time it was the polite old man who had knocked on her door and chatted to her about everything under the sun before finally getting to the point and asking about her mother and Rósamunda. He was badly shaken when she told him about the girl. Now the other man — Konrád he said his name was — was sitting in the same chair, and she had managed to knock him sideways as well.

Petra couldn’t understand what was so significant about the story she had told them, but then she didn’t know much about the case. She explained to both men that her mother had hardly ever spoken about Rósamunda, either to her or to anyone else, as far as she knew, so she couldn’t really answer their questions. She’d never bothered to familiarise herself with the details of the case. In fact, all she knew was that her mother had been one of the people questioned by the police about a murder that had been committed during the war. She didn’t even know if it had ever been solved.

She suspected that the old woman had her reasons for not wanting to discuss it. On the rare occasions when Petra had asked her about Rósamunda’s death, if she was reading about a murder in the papers for instance, she had sensed her mother’s reluctance to dredge it up. But it had never entered Petra’s head that her mother might be sitting on information that could shed new light on the case.

She looked at Konrád curiously. She had conscientiously related everything she knew as accurately as possible, just as she had done previously for the old man, Stefán. They had both seemed so extraordinarily interested in her mother and Rósamunda, and she’d been eager to help.

‘Was it common for the women working for your mother to react like that? To refuse to take deliveries?’ asked Konrád.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Your mother found it very unusual, didn’t she?’

‘Well, yes, she gave that impression. Though I think mainly because it was so rare for one of her staff to disobey her. Especially when it came to a simple task like that.’

‘And Rósamunda wouldn’t explain?’

‘No, but as I said Mother reckoned she’d had a nasty experience at that house the day she found her in tears.’

‘Do you know if Thorson — Stefán — was intending to act on this information?’

‘No, but he seemed very upset when I told him about it, though he didn’t explain why. As I said, I know very little about the case. He left shortly afterwards and I never heard from him again.’

‘Which house was it that Rósamunda refused to visit?’ asked Konrád. ‘Who lived there?’

‘My mother said she knew the woman very well and wasn’t aware that she had ever been rude to Rósamunda. Not that Mother ever raised the matter with her of course. She never told a soul, so the family in question wouldn’t have had a clue that there was a problem. The woman’s husband was a politician, an MP, according to my mother. That’s why she didn’t want to make a fuss.’

‘An MP?’

‘Yes, he died years ago. Mother said he was a person of considerable standing at the time and his wife sat on all kinds of committees, was involved in the Women’s Institute and so on. They were both Oddfellows, or whatever it’s called. She was pretty sure he was a Freemason too. Their son later became a cabinet minister.’

‘And Rósamunda refused to deliver a dress to the wife?’

‘Yes. Not just a dress but bedclothes as well. All terribly smart, according to Mother, with the couple’s monograms embroidered on the quilt and pillowcases — she remembered it vividly. Mother was always very proud of the quality of her seamstresses’ work.’

‘And when you told this to Stefán, he was startled?’

‘To be honest he seemed stunned,’ said Petra. ‘He kept asking me questions, like you’re doing now, kept repeating the same questions over and over again, as if he wanted to be sure he’d understood correctly.’

‘But you don’t know what action, if any, he intended to take?’

‘No. I haven’t the foggiest.’

‘And you didn’t hear from him again?’

‘No.’

‘But you gave him the names of the family involved?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Was he going to look them up?’

‘I don’t know.’ Petra paused, then added: ‘I got the feeling...’

‘Yes?’

‘I got the feeling he wasn’t satisfied with how the case was handled at the time. He wouldn’t have come round otherwise.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘I think that was why he came to see me. I sensed that he felt the case wasn’t closed. That he was unhappy about how he’d left it. Even before I told him about Rósamunda I could tell something was still nagging at him after all these years. It was like he was searching for reassurance that he’d done the right thing.’

‘Did he actually come out and say that?’ asked Konrád.

‘No, and I didn’t ask him,’ replied Petra. ‘It was just a hunch. But I could have been mistaken.’

‘As if he had a bad conscience about some aspect of the case?’

‘That was my instinct. That he wasn’t happy about it, and was even less happy after what I told him. When he left he was muttering something about a student.’

‘Oh?’

‘I didn’t quite catch it, but I heard him say “the student”.’

‘The student?’

‘Yes.

‘What student?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve no idea what was troubling him but the poor man seemed genuinely distressed.’