The Shadow Killer

2

Flóvent surveyed the flat but could see no signs of a struggle, despite the aftermath of violence confronting him in all its horror. On the floor lay the body of a man, shot through the head. It looked like an execution pure and simple; no sign that the victim had tried to run. No chairs had been overturned. No tables knocked aside. The pictures were hanging perfectly straight on the walls. The windows were intact and fastened shut, so it could hardly have been a break-in. The door of the flat was undamaged too. The man now lying on the floor with a bullet hole in the back of his head must have opened the door to his assailant or left it open, unaware that it would be the last thing he did. It looked as though the victim had just walked in when the attack took place, since he was still in his overcoat, the front-door key clutched in his hand. At first glance Flóvent couldn’t see that anything had been stolen. The visitor must have come here to kill, and had carried out this intention with such brutality that the first police officers to arrive at the scene were still in shock. One had thrown up in the living room. The other was standing outside, protesting that there was no way he was going in there again.

The first thing Flóvent had done was shoo away those who had no direct role in the investigation: the policemen who had trampled all over the scene; the witness who had raised the alarm; the nosy neighbours who, when informed that a gun had been fired in the flat, were unable to say for certain if they’d heard a shot. The only people left inside were Flóvent himself and the district medical officer who had come to confirm the man’s death.

‘Of course he’ll have died instantly,’ said the doctor, a short, scrawny man whose prominent teeth were clamped on a pipe that he hardly ever removed from his mouth. ‘The shot was fired at such close quarters that it could only end one way,’ he continued, exhaling smoke with every word. ‘The bullet has exited through his eye here, causing this God awful mess.’ He contemplated the congealed pool of blood that had spread out over the floorboards. One of the policemen had carelessly stepped in the dark puddle, slipped and almost fallen. You could see the skid mark of his shoe in the blood. There were splashes on the furniture and walls. Lumps of brain on the curtains. The killer had shot through a thick cushion to muffle the noise, then tossed it back on the sofa. The exposed side of the victim’s face had been almost entirely blown away.

Flóvent focused on trying to remember the protocol for examining a crime scene. Murders didn’t happen every day in Reykjavík and he was relatively new to the job, so he didn’t want to make any mistakes. He had only been with Reykjavík’s Criminal Investigation Department for a few years, but he had also done a six-month stint with the Edinburgh CID, where he had learnt a lot about the theory and practice of detective work. The victim appeared to be in his twenties. He had thinning hair; his suit and coat were threadbare, his shoes cheap. He appeared to have been forced down on his knees, then fallen forward when he took the bullet to the back of the head. A single shot in exactly the right place. But for some reason this had not been enough. After the execution, the killer had stuck a finger in the wound and daubed the dead man’s forehead with blood. What possible motive could he have had? Was it a signature of some sort? A comment that the perpetrator regarded as important, though its significance was lost on Flóvent? Was it a justification? An explanation? Second thoughts? Remorse? All of these? Or none? Or a challenge, intended to convey the message that the person who did this had no regrets? Flóvent shook his head. The clumsily smeared mark meant nothing to him.

The bullet itself proved easy to find since it was buried in a floorboard. Flóvent marked the spot before prising the bullet out with his pocket knife and examining it in his palm. He recognised the make, as ballistics was a special interest of his. This was one of the innovations in forensic detection that he was keen to introduce to Iceland. Fingerprinting too. And the practice of systematically photographing felons and the scenes of major crimes. Whenever necessary, he called out a photographer he knew who had a studio in town. Bit by bit his department was building up an archive, though it was still very rudimentary and incomplete.

‘The person who fired the shot must have been standing behind him, presumably holding the gun at arm’s length,’ said the doctor, removing his pipe for a moment before clamping it between his teeth again. ‘So you ought to be able to get a rough idea of his height.’

‘Yes,’ said Flóvent. ‘I was wondering about that. We can’t assume the murderer was a man. It could have been a woman.’

‘Well, I don’t know. Would a woman be capable of this? Somehow I doubt it.’

‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’

‘It was clearly an execution,’ said the doctor, exhaling smoke. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Forced to kneel on the floor of his own home and shot like a dog. You’d have to be a cold-blooded bastard to do a thing like that.’

‘And smear his forehead with blood?’

‘Well, I don’t know... I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean.’

‘When do you reckon it happened?’

‘Not that long ago,’ said the doctor, looking at the congealed blood on the floor. ‘Twelve hours, give or take. The post-mortem will give us a better estimate.’

‘Yesterday evening, then?’ said Flóvent.

At this point the photographer arrived, armed with his tripod and the Speed Graphic camera he had acquired before the war. Having greeted Flóvent and the doctor, he looked around the room, dispassionately appraising the scene, then went about his business methodically, setting up the tripod, removing the camera from its case, fixing it up and inserting the film holder in the back. Each holder contained two pieces of film. The photographer had come equipped with a number of these holders and extra flashbulbs as well.

‘How many shots do you want?’ he asked.

‘Take several,’ said Flóvent.

‘Was it a soldier?’ the photographer asked as he paused to replace the film holder then fixed the camera to the tripod again and changed the bulb.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Doesn’t it look like the work of a soldier?’ The photographer was a world-weary man of about sixty. Flóvent had never seen him smile.

‘Maybe,’ said Flóvent distractedly. He was searching for clues to the identity of the gunman: any evidence he might have left behind such as footprints, clothing, cigarette ash. It looked as if the tenant had been in the kitchen fairly recently, fixing himself a snack. There was a half-eaten slice of stale bread and cheese on the table. Beside it was a cup of tea, partially drunk. Flóvent had fumbled in the victim’s pockets for his wallet but couldn’t find one on his body or anywhere else in the flat.

‘I can’t believe anyone but a soldier would be capable of a clean job like that,’ said the photographer.

The room was briefly illuminated by his flash, then he recommenced the laborious process of setting the heavy camera up in another spot and inserting new film.

‘It’s possible,’ said Flóvent. ‘I couldn’t say. You might know better.’

‘An officer, maybe?’ continued the photographer thoughtfully. ‘Someone in authority? It looks like an execution, doesn’t it? Betrays a kind of arrogance.’

‘You two seem to be thinking along very different lines,’ commented the doctor, tamping down his pipe. ‘Flóvent thinks a woman did it.’

‘No,’ said the photographer flatly, studying the man on the floor for a while before snapping another picture. ‘No, out of the question.’

‘Perhaps he was robbed,’ suggested Flóvent. ‘I can’t find his wallet.’

From his inspection of the flat, he concluded that the man had lived alone. It was a typical bachelor’s apartment, small and spartan, largely free from ornament, but clean and tidy. The only extraneous object was the cushion used to muffle the shot. Apart from that the flat was sparsely furnished, and what furniture there was showed signs of wear: the sofa and armchair in the living room, the two old wooden chairs in the kitchen. On the sofa lay an open suitcase containing hats, Lido cleansing cream and several packs of Kolynos toothpaste. The merchandise was spattered with blood.

The flash lit up the sordid scene one last time, then the photographer began to pack away his equipment. The doctor paused in the doorway to relight his pipe. Flóvent glanced back at the man on the floor, unable to comprehend the sheer violence that must have lain behind his killing: the implacable hatred, the anger, the utter ruthlessness.

‘Did you take a picture of that mark on his forehead?’ he asked.

‘Yes, what is it? What does it mean?’

‘No idea,’ said Flóvent. After his initial examination of the corpse, he had kept his eyes averted from the man’s shattered face. ‘I can’t make any sense of it. Can’t begin to guess what it means or why someone would have smeared blood on his forehead like that.’

‘Have you identified him?’ asked the photographer as he was leaving.

‘Yes, his landlady told me who he was, and there are bills here in his name.’

‘So, who was he?’

‘I’ve never come across him before,’ said Flóvent. ‘His name was Felix. Felix Lunden.’