The Shadow Killer

14

The German consulate stood empty and deserted in the gathering dusk. It was an impressive building with a large, round window in the gable facing onto Túngata. A few doors further up, the nuns of St Joseph’s laboured to care for the sick, while across the road loomed the ungainly form of the Catholic Cathedral with its stumpy grey tower. Here on the hill, above the humble wooden shacks of Grjótathorp, the street was lined with handsome concrete villas, solidly built and blazing with lights, all except for the consulate that stood staring darkly from its single Cyclops eye.

A stiff northerly wind had sprung up, bringing with it a sharp chill, as Flóvent and Thorson let themselves into the consulate with a key acquired from US counter-intelligence. The Swedish embassy had taken over all consular operations, and now handled the affairs of German nationals in Iceland. The house had stood empty since the May morning the previous year when the consul general had been arrested. Flóvent didn’t know what had happened immediately following his arrest, but a number of German citizens had been interrogated at Midbæjar School and detained there until they could be deported to Britain.

The light summer nights were drawing in now that it was August, and Flóvent had come armed with a torch. The two men found themselves in a hall with reception rooms opening off it and a staircase ascending steeply on the left-hand side. The building had clearly been vacated in a hurry. Almost everything had been removed, but there were still cupboards, tables and chairs abandoned here and there; and papers, empty boxes, old newspapers, items of clothing, tablecloths and torn curtains were strewn all over the floor. Amidst the mess was a framed photograph of Adolf Hitler, the glass broken as if someone had stamped on it. Two flags, with their black swastika on a red background, lay in tatters among the other rubbish.

They wandered through the ground-floor rooms in an eerie silence broken only by the odd car making heavy weather of the climb up Túngata. Charred scraps of paper still littered the passageways. Thorson had been allowed to see the documents that had been removed from Gerlach’s residence by the British and subsequently handed over to US intelligence. Many of them had been translated into English, but he had found no references to Felix or Rudolf Lunden among them. Most of the documents concerned the consul’s dealings with the Icelanders, including correspondence with members of the government, in which he complained that the Third Reich was being shown insufficient respect. All pretty inconsequential stuff, Thorson thought. He got the impression that Werner Gerlach’s role had been to unite the German community in Iceland under the Nazi flag and to foment insurrection. None of the papers Thorson was permitted to see were singed or displayed any other sign of having been exposed to the inferno in Gerlach’s bathtub. But they did include countless memos detailing the consul’s views of the Icelanders, which were uncomplimentary, to say the least.

Entering the consul’s office, Thorson and Flóvent saw two SS uniforms bundled in a heap in one corner and more framed photographs of leading figures in the Third Reich lying on the floor. Flóvent picked up a couple and showed them to Thorson. They were of Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering, personally signed with warm regards to the consul.

‘I gather he and Gerlach are bosom buddies,’ said Thorson, pointing at Himmler. ‘I don’t know about the other guy.’

They had come to this gloomy building in search of evidence linking the consul to the Lunden family, possible clues to the provenance of the cyanide capsule, and anything else that might help them with the investigation into Felix’s disappearance. Beforehand, they had sat for hours in Flóvent’s office in the large building at number 11 Fríkirkjuvegur, trying to work out how to proceed. In the end, the best idea they could come up with was to take a look around the German consulate. There was no news of Felix’s whereabouts as yet, and they still didn’t know the identity of the dead man. The most plausible theory was that Felix had shot the man himself and was now on the run, possibly even making arrangements to flee the country. The suicide pill pointed to links with Germany and could conceivably have reached him via the consulate. They had no other leads. Flóvent told Thorson about his trying encounters with Rudolf Lunden and how almost nothing had seemed to rattle the doctor until Flóvent mentioned the swastika on the victim’s forehead. Only then had he been lost for words.

‘There’s one thing about Rudolf Lunden that puzzles me,’ said Flóvent, putting the pictures of Himmler and Goering down again. ‘I’ve been wondering why he wasn’t deported with Consul Gerlach and the other German nationals who the British saw urgent reason to arrest. How did he slip through the net? The purges the British carried out were pretty extensive, yet they allowed him to stay.’

‘He’s an Icelandic citizen, isn’t he?’ said Thorson. ‘And he’s lived here for thirty years.’ He set off upstairs to the first floor, with Flóvent on his heels, then continued up to the attic. They found themselves in the room with the round window facing the street.

‘In addition to which, he’s getting on in years and is confined to a wheelchair,’ said Flóvent.

‘Is there any other explanation? The intelligence guys told me they’d made a point of checking out his background and questioning him thoroughly. But they left it at that. They didn’t find any evidence to suggest he was a threat. Nothing to justify internment in Britain.’

‘Even though he was friends with Gerlach and an influential member of the Nationalist Party?’ said Flóvent, flashing his torch around the attic. ‘Something doesn’t add up, if you ask me. The way I see it, he should have been deported along with all the rest.’

‘This Werner Gerlach’s quite an interesting character,’ said Thorson. ‘They gave me a brief summary of his career at the meeting in the old Leper Hospital, but maybe you’re already familiar with the details?’

‘No, actually. I don’t know much about him.’

‘He trained as a doctor and was professor of anatomy at the University of Jena,’ said Thorson. ‘He came to this country just before the war broke out, in April of ’39. They believe he was sent to Iceland on the direct orders of Himmler, who, like many Nazis, is particularly interested in this country.’

‘Yes, apparently they believe it’s been home to some kind of pure Nordic, Germanic race ever since Viking times.’

‘Whereas in reality you’re just a bunch of degenerate weaklings?’

‘Yes,’ said Flóvent and smiled.

‘Speaking of which, there’s one rather noteworthy fact about the University of Jena. Related to this interest in racial purity.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Flóvent. ‘I’ve never heard of the university before.’

‘I’m not familiar with it either,’ said Thorson, ‘but apparently they do research there on eugenics and genetics, including studies of criminals. The university’s top in its field in Germany. The Nazis are obsessed with the idea that criminal traits are hereditary, and they’ve set up major research programmes to prove it. Graham and Ballantine are aware of similar studies being carried out in German concentration camps. They mentioned the camp at a place called... what was it again? Buchenwald, I believe. Apparently the Germans are performing genetic experiments on the prisoners there.’

‘Isn’t that a load of nonsense? That criminal traits are hereditary?’

Thorson shrugged. ‘Well, the Nazis think they’ve found a solution to the problem.’

‘Which is?’

‘Castration,’ said Thorson. ‘They know of no simpler or more effective method of preventing criminals from breeding than to geld them.’

‘Isn’t that... is there any truth in this?’

‘Well, it’s what our friends at the Leper Hospital claim is going on,’ said Thorson, kicking a balled-up newspaper. It fell open to reveal some scraps of paper. Thorson bent down to take a closer look and discovered two charred pages, obviously ripped from a book. There was no sign of the book itself but clearly it must have come into contact with the flames in the consul’s bathtub. The pages, which had been singed top and bottom, appeared to come from a guestbook. Thorson picked them up gingerly and saw a date that looked like 1939. There was handwriting on both sides of the pages and although it was mostly illegible he could discern a few names and other words that the fire hadn’t managed to destroy.

While Flóvent trained his torch on the fragments, Thorson did his best to decipher them, as he had a smattering of German. He managed to pick out a few of the names. They were German and some were accompanied by greetings or comments like With grateful thanks for your hospitality or Thank you for an enjoyable evening in the company of friends.

‘Do they tell us anything useful?’ asked Flóvent, frowning down at them.

‘No, probably not,’ said Thorson.

‘What’s this?’ asked Flóvent, taking hold of one of the pages. ‘What does it say there?’ He drew Thorson’s attention to a signature that was very hard to read. There was no date by the name or any information on the purpose of the visit.

‘What’s the surname?’ he asked, staring hard at the writing. ‘Isn’t it Lunden? Doesn’t it say Lunden?’

Thorson peered at the almost illegible name. The first letter was an H. It was followed by something unreadable, then an n and finally a letter that looked like an s. The surname began with an L. Then there were a couple of unclear letters, then a d and an e, and finally another letter that was impossible to read. H_ns L_de_.

‘Could it be Hans or something like that? Hans Lunden?’ said Flóvent. ‘The surname’s definitely Lunden, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it looks like it.’

‘Yet another member of the Lunden family?’

‘That’s certainly a possibility. Though it could say something different. I’m not very good on German names.’

‘If it is Lunden,’ said Flóvent, ‘wouldn’t he be... what? Felix’s brother? I thought he was an only child.’

‘Or Rudolf’s brother. Or a cousin, perhaps. Whoever he was, he must have known Werner Gerlach well enough to have been invited here.’

‘Felix and Rudolf and now Hans?’

‘Who are these people?’

‘What’s that in front of his name? More letters?’

Thorson struggled to decipher the scrawl. ‘Impossible to read. Unless... could that be a capital D?’

‘D, and what’s this?’

‘Could it be D... r?’

‘Doktor Hans Lunden? Yet another doctor,’ said Flóvent thoughtfully, shining his torch into the corner where the fragments had been lying tangled up in the newspaper. Then he directed the beam back at the pages and raised his eyes to Thorson, repeating the words under his breath. ‘Yet another doctor.’