The Shadow Killer

41

Jósep had come to the attention of the police for a series of minor offences including vagrancy, drunk and disorderly behaviour, shoplifting, egg theft and the illegal hunting of eider ducks. Flóvent didn’t know how often he had been picked up, since such minor offences weren’t always recorded. There were two brief police reports under his name and in one of them, which was fairly recent, Flóvent saw that Jósep had given his sister’s name when asked for his current address. Flóvent drove over there, only to discover that Jósep had never lived with her; in fact, they very rarely saw each other, though the sister, whose name was Albína, was able to tell him that Jósep sometimes stayed at the Citadel, a hostel run by the Salvation Army. Curious to know what the police wanted with her brother, she was politely insistent that Flóvent come in, and before he knew it he had accepted her invitation to coffee. Although it was late in the day, her husband wasn’t home yet. He worked in the offices of Eimskip, the Icelandic Steamship Company, and lived in a state of constant anxiety about the fate of the company’s vessels in these dangerous times.

‘What’s Jósep done?’ Albína asked with a worried frown. Flóvent had explained who he was straight away, and she was quite unused to receiving visits from the police.

‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ Flóvent reassured her. ‘I think he may be able to help me. You see, I’m trying to trace a man he may know, or may have known at one time. It might sound rather an odd question, ma’am, but does he ever talk about his schooldays?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have much contact, and we were never close. Never really knew each other, to tell you the truth.’

‘You didn’t grow up together?’

‘No, we didn’t. I’m five years older than Jósep, and I was fostered by a couple from Akureyri when I was three. Later they adopted me.’

‘Do you mind my asking why you were fostered?’

‘It’s never been a secret.’

Albína had a decided manner. She wasn’t embarrassed about discussing her family. She had been taken away from her parents because they were judged unfit to look after her: they were both drunks, and she only had the haziest memories of them. When she was older, her adoptive parents had talked to her about them: they didn’t hide anything from her. But they never had any contact with her parents in Reykjavík. It wasn’t considered wise, they told her. Best to cut all ties. So she hadn’t learnt of her brother’s existence until she moved south with her husband, a few years before the war. She had decided to look up her birth parents, only to discover that they were both dead. Jósep was their only child, apart from her. He’d had a tough upbringing, to put it mildly.

‘I was an adult when I met him for the first time,’ she said. ‘I looked him up, and it was heartbreaking to see the state he was in. He’d succumbed to drink. Our parents lived in a slum.’ After a brief pause, she added: ‘I suppose I was lucky. He’s had a wretched life. I’ve no idea whether he brought it on himself to an extent, but I can’t imagine he got much support from our parents. And he ended up treading the same path as them. Isn’t that often the way?’

‘I daresay,’ said Flóvent.

‘You mentioned that you were looking for some school friends of his,’ said Albína. ‘Have they done something wrong?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ said Flóvent, anxious to be honest with her. ‘He was at school with a boy called Eyvindur, who was recently murdered here in town. Maybe you heard about it?’

‘The man who was shot?’

‘That’s right. Jósep was also at school with a boy called Felix Lunden. We’re looking for him in connection with the murder. Not necessarily because we believe he’s guilty, but because we’re hoping he can help us with our enquiries. Has your brother ever mentioned either of these men?’

‘You don’t think Jósep’s mixed up in this... this shooting?’ the woman asked incredulously.

‘No. We have no reason to think that.’

‘How strange that you should ask. Jósep came round here a couple of weeks ago, and I gave him a meal and some of my husband’s old clothes. He said he was pretty well set up and couldn’t complain, but it was clear that he’d been drinking. I don’t think he’s often sober, poor boy.’ She gave Flóvent a sharp look. All of a sudden she seemed to feel she had to leap to her brother’s defence. ‘I can assure you that Jósep’s a good man, though he’s had a very rough time of it. He’s a dear soul, really.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Flóvent.

‘He told me he’d met one of his old school friends recently. I don’t think he mentioned his name or I’d have remembered it, but he told me they’d been reminiscing about the old days, about things he’d forgotten all about.’

‘Did he mention anything in particular?’

‘Yes, something about medical examinations. He talked about a nurse — somebody Hólm or Hólms — who looked after them.’

‘Brynhildur Hólm?’

‘That could be it. Miss Hólm, he called her. Apparently she used to keep a close eye on the children’s health, especially those who came from bad homes and were neglected, like him. She used to ask all kinds of questions, and sometimes there’d be a man in a white coat with her, who used to prod them and pinch them and look down their throats as if they were cattle. He put some kind of measuring instrument over Jósep’s head too.’

‘Could this man’s name have been Rudolf?’

‘Jósep didn’t say, but he reckoned there was something amiss about the whole thing. That’s what his old school friend told him — that it had been part of an experiment they weren’t authorised to carry out, and I think he said the doctor in charge was German. Could that be right? Could he have been one of those Nazis? Is there any truth in what he said?’

‘Was this the first he’d heard of it?’ asked Flóvent.

‘Yes, Jósep had never given it any thought, had forgotten all about it. The doctor — the man in the white coat — he had a son who was involved as well, and Jósep didn’t have a good word to say about him. He was sitting here at my table, reliving the past, but I couldn’t really follow what he was talking about.’

‘Was his name Felix? The son?’

‘Yes, Felix, that’s right. What was it Jósep said? That he was sly, or something. At any rate, Jósep didn’t like him, didn’t like any of it. He got quite worked up when he thought back to those days. Then he left and I haven’t heard from him since.’

The volunteers at the Citadel turned out to be well acquainted with Jósep, though they hadn’t seen him for a while. They said he dropped by from time to time, especially in the depths of winter, for a square meal and to get some warmth into his bones. To be taught that God was good to all men and that God’s blessing was extended to him as well. Flóvent was tempted to say that God didn’t seem that well disposed towards Jósep, given the state he was in, but stopped himself. They admitted that Jósep didn’t really take part in the singing, unless it was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. They saw less of him at the Lord’s citadel in the spring and summer, when he slept outside in the open air. In gardens, or sometimes in boathouses, or net sheds, he’d told them.

Flóvent thanked them. On his way out he encountered a tramp who had slipped into the entrance hall, and he thought to ask him if he knew Jósep. There was a throat-catching stench from his filthy rags, and it took all Flóvent’s self-discipline not to hold his nose, for fear of offending the man. Not that he looked the type to be easily offended.

‘Jósep?’ the tramp croaked in a shrill voice. ‘Why are you asking about him?’

‘I need to talk to him,’ said Flóvent. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

‘Are you his brother?’

‘No.’

The tramp shot him a sideways glance. He had a matted beard, a battered, brimless hat pushed down over his filthy hair, and his hands were black with dirt.

‘Can you spare five krónur?’ he asked.

Flóvent produced three krónur from his pocket. The man tucked them away in his clothes.

‘I haven’t the foggiest where Jósep’s living,’ he announced and continued on his way inside the Citadel.

‘But...?’

‘You can try the yard behind Munda’s place on Gardastræti. She sometimes has leftovers.’

It was only a short step from the Salvation Army hostel to Gardastræti. Flóvent walked round the corner to the street where a woman by the name of Ingimunda, popularly known as Munda, had started up a small kitchen called The Little Inn at the beginning of the war. Her daily specials were fried cod in breadcrumbs, and meatballs in gravy, Danish style, and she was run off her feet. She was a small, thin woman, past her prime, very brisk in her manner, and had little time to attend to Flóvent. Yes, she said, Jósep sometimes came round to her kitchen door asking for scraps, and she had been known to slip him leftovers because her heart bled for down-and-outs like him. She’d known hard times herself, though business was booming now, thanks to the war.

‘He was here a couple of days ago,’ she said as she formed Danish meatballs for the evening rush. ‘Said he was dossing in the west end. In one of the sheds on Grandi. Told me he was expecting to come into some money soon, so he’d be able to settle up with me. A bit muddled, he was, the poor lad. I told him he didn’t owe me anything. Not a brass farthing.’