CHAPTER 17
Saturday, June 4, 1960
The eastern winds subsided during the night, and when dawn broke, the sun shone and a stillness hung over Breidafjordur. The water in the strait was dark blue and as smooth as a mirror, except for those spots where the tide swirled between the islets and shallows.
Kjartan gazed out of his bedroom window and recalled the old proverb that said that sunshine was of little use to the man with no sun in his heart. He took a few deep breaths and then started to pick up his clothes.
Grimur and Hogni had long left to go out and check on the seal nets by the time Kjartan finally stepped outside. Ingibjorg was in the kitchen stirring baking dough and listening to music on the radio. There was yellow dough in a large bowl, which she held firmly under her left arm as she stirred it vigorously with a big baking paddle in her right hand. In the shuffle some flour had been sprinkled over the table. Kjartan saw that the eggs she was using for the baking were big and had black spots on them.
“Those are great black-backed gull eggs from the spring,” she said as he picked one up to examine it. “There’s no need to spare any of those eggs in these recipes. There’s plenty of them at this time of the year, and they’re fine for baking, even if they’re a bit old and have started to gestate,” she added.
Kjartan drank his morning coffee and ate a slice of bread with lamb pate. He was gradually starting to feel better and more comfortable about his stay with the district officer and his wife, although he was still plagued by worries about the investigation. For a moment he managed to forget himself, though, by staring out the kitchen window at two white wagtails that were hopping between stones on the embankment; he whistled a few notes to the radio.
To his relief, Ingibjorg continued with her kitchen work and did not initiate any conversation with him. It was good to sit like that and just think a little. He also feared that if they started talking together, the conversation would soon veer toward his personal affairs, and that was something he was eager to avoid. He didn’t want to tell any lies, so it was best just to keep his mouth shut.
But he certainly had plenty of work to do. He intended to meet the islanders who had a motorboat at their disposal that would have been sturdy enough to make a journey to Ketilsey in the month of September, and he now asked Ingibjorg who they might be. She answered that there were only five, three once you excluded Valdi from Ystakot and Grimur, the district officer himself.
Ingibjorg listed the others as she broke another egg and added it to the baking dough: “There’s Asmundur, the storekeeper of the island store. He owns Alda, a beautiful white rowboat with a motor mounted on board. Then there’s Gudjon, my brother in Radagerdi, who has Ellidi, a six-ton open motorboat with a little wheelhouse on it, and Sigurbjorn, the farmer in Svalbardi, who owns Lucky, an old-fashioned motorboat; it’s green. They’re all decent, sensible, honest, and honorable people.”
Kjartan gave a start. Lucky could be the name of a boat. It had never occurred to him. There didn’t have to be any connection with the message the man in Ketilsey tried to leave behind, but it needed to be borne in mind in the investigation.
Kjartan knew the way to Radagerdi, and Benny was alone at home and still painting the window. He seemed to be glad of the interruption; he put down his brush and lit a cigarette.
“Mom and my sister Rosa are up in the shed milking the cows, and Dad’s with Sigurbjorn in Svalbardi, cutting his hair for the mass tomorrow,” he said when Kjartan inquired about the other members of the household.
“Cutting hair?” Kjartan wasn’t sure he had heard right.
“Yeah, Dad can cut hair a bit. He cuts it quite short, though, and it can be quite sore because his clippers aren’t as sharp as they used to be. That’s why I don’t want him to cut my hair. Sometimes a barber comes over from Stykkisholmur on the mail boat and cuts people’s hair while the boat goes off to Brjansl?kur. I prefer him. He knows how to cut hair with style. You can buy brilliantine from Asmundur at the island store.”
Benny stuck his smoldering cigarette into his mouth, took a comb out of his back pocket, and combed his blond hair back over his forehead.
“This is how Elvis combs his hair,” he explained, losing his cigarette as he did.
Kjartan said good-bye and walked away toward Svalbardi while Benny was searching for his cigarette stub in the rhubarb patch that grew along the walls of the house.
As luck would have it, Kjartan bumped into the farmers Sigurbjorn and Gudjon together. Sigurbjorn was sitting on a stool in front of the entrance to the Svalbardi farmhouse with an old sheet over his shoulders that was tied around his neck. Gudjon stood over Sigurbjorn cutting his hair. In addition to them, there were two women in the yard, probably a mother and daughter, washing bedclothes in a large basin. The youngest, a pretty girl of about fifteen or sixteen, looked at Kjartan with curiosity but coyly averted her gaze when he returned the stare.
Gudjon in Radagerdi was a well-groomed man in his forties, freshly shaven with dark hair, which was meticulously combed back with hair wax. He was wearing pressed beige pants and a checked cotton shirt with a red scarf around his neck. Sigurbjorn, on the other hand, was somewhat older with a choppy mop of gray hair on one side of his head that had not been cut yet. The other side was crew-cut, revealing bluish white skin underneath. His feet were clad in woolen socks and rubber shoes that protruded from under the sheet.
This method of cutting hair struck Kjartan as being closer to sheepshearing than hairdressing. The cutting was also proceeding slowly because the clippers were stiff and painful on Sigurbjorn’s head.
Kjartan introduced himself, and the others greeted him.
“Mild weather,” Kjartan then said, for the sake of saying something.
“Yes,” Sigurbjorn answered, “it’s been like this all spring. Better weather than any of the oldest women can remember, I think. The arctic terns have never come this early to nest; I think it can only end in disaster. Ouch, ouch, take it easy with those bloody clippers, Gutti pal.”
“You mean you think the weather’ll get worse?” Kjartan asked, scanning the air, unable to spot a single cloud. But then he got down to business: “But anyway, you know why I’m here on the island, don’t you? Can I ask you a few questions?”
Gudjon stopped cutting and straightened a moment. “Yeah, sure, of course,” he said, intrigued.
“It’s been established that the body that was found on Ketilsey was that of a Danish man who stayed here with the priest last year, Professor Gaston Lund,” said Kjartan.
“Yes. We heard that straightaway yesterday,” Gudjon answered.
“Do either of you remember the man?”
Gudjon shook his head, but Sigurbjorn nodded and answered, “Yeah, yeah, I sure do. I remember the man very well. I had an argument with him.”
“Oh?” Kjartan was all ears.
“Yeah, or as much as I could. He was trying to speak Icelandic, the poor lad, and it wasn’t altogether easy to understand what he was saying.”
“Could he make himself understood, though?”
“He could speak some old Icelandic and that kind of thing. He learned it from the manuscripts, he said. Then he’d practiced speaking modern Icelandic with Icelandic students in pubs in Copenhagen. They obviously taught him some swear words and curses.”
“Did he curse a lot?” Kjartan asked.
Sigurbjorn smiled and shook his head. “No, no.”
“What did you argue about?”
“I asked him when he was going to give us the Flatey Book back, and he said it was going to stay in Copenhagen. The best scholars were there, he said. Then I asked him some questions about Sverrir’s saga to test his knowledge, but he couldn’t answer much. We then tried to reason about it a little more, but I think it’s fair to say that we were just unable to understand each other.”
Sigurbjorn grinned at the memory of it, but then he turned serious and said, “Of course, it was terrible for him to perish out on Ketilsey l
ike that.”
Gudjon seconded this with a nod.
“Where did you meet?” Kjartan asked.
“In the library. Hallbjorg in Innstibaer let him in to look at our Munksgaard edition of the book. He was very impressed by how it was kept in a glass case. I don’t think they treat the original manuscript any better. He took several photographs. Then he was going to have a crack at the old riddle. That was when I asked whether he was going to return the manuscript to us, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it.”
Kjartan said, “We know that the deceased left the priest on September fourth and intended to take the mail boat to Stykkisholmur. We don’t know if he ever boarded the boat. If not, is it possible that he may have left the island on some other boat? Could he have gone on one of your boats?”
Gudjon and Sigurbjorn looked at each other and both shook their heads.
“We go out very little that early in September,” Sigurbjorn said, “except maybe to collect the hay on the outer islands when it’s been cut. Later we take a few trips to the mainland to collect the sheep from their summer grazing. We never sail south to Stykkisholmur or anywhere in that direction at that time of the year. Anyone who needs to travel south takes the mail boat.”
Kjartan persisted: “Is it possible that someone would have taken him on one of your boats without you knowing?” he asked.
“Taken the boat in secret, you mean?” Gudjon asked.
“Yes.”
“That would be a first on these islands.”
“Could it have happened? There’s a first time for everything.”
Gudjon and Sigurbjorn looked at each other and both shook their heads again.
“No,” they said in unison, and Sigurbjorn added: “I think I would notice it straightaway if someone else had landed my boat.”
Gudjon seconded him with a nod.
“Have you any idea, then, of how he could have reached Ketilsey?”
“I’m sure he didn’t fall off the mail boat on the way to Stykkisholmur,” said Gudjon. “The crew would definitely have noticed it if a passenger they had picked up in Flatey failed to disembark in Stykkisholmur. Especially in September when there are normally very few passengers on the boat. They’re very observant and conscientious.”
Kjartan wondered whether he should also mention that the Danish man had probably written the word Lucky with pebbles on Ketilsey, but he decided against it. He had no way of knowing if it was connected to Sigurbjorn’s boat and could not think of how to formulate his question. Feeling the farmers could be of no more use to him for the moment, Kjartan said good-bye and headed back toward the village. Glancing back, he could see that the men were deep in conversation and seemed to have forgotten about the haircut altogether.
She read, “Question one: It will come near when it is God’s wish. First letter. King Sverrir was going to his ship on a small rowboat when an arrow struck the bow over his head and another one came close to his knee. The king sat there and did not flinch, and his companion said, ‘Dangerous shot, sire.’ The king answered, ‘It will come near when it is God’s wish.’ The answer is ‘dangerous shot,’ and the first letter is d.”
CHAPTER 18
Detective Dagbjartur sat at the National Library with Egill, the reception manager from Hotel Borg, who was skimming through the newspapers of the last months. Egill was supposed to try to recognize the man who had inquired about Professor Lund the previous autumn. The reception manager was sure he had seen pictures of the man in the papers, and now they had to flip through them until they found him. This was their second day on this task, and it was proceeding slowly. Egill carefully studied all the photographs of men and occasionally stumbled on snippets of articles that drew his attention. Dagbjartur just sat there patiently, yawning and cleaning his nails. He had set himself a very clear and delimited task, which at best could be stretched out for another day or two. This temporarily freed him of petty criminals and paperwork. A press release had been dispatched to the papers that morning requesting the man to come forward, and it read as follows: “The man who entered Hotel Borg at the end of August of last year and enquired about Gaston Lund from Denmark is asked to contact the police in Reykjavik.” The notice would not be appearing before next Wednesday at the earliest. Whitsunday was upon them and no papers would be coming out.
Large, thick folders of newspapers lay on the table in front of the two men, and Dagbjartur ensured each pile was renewed as soon as it had been viewed. It was a moderate task to be performing on a beautiful June day, and it seemed to be proceeding nicely. It was also a quiet day at the library on that Saturday, and there was only a small group of regulars at work. Every now and then a smothered cough, sneeze, whisper, or shifting chair could be heard. Otherwise everything was as quiet as a morgue.
Dagbjartur was dozing off in his seat when the reception manager suddenly exclaimed, “There he is!”
Dagbjartur popped off his chair. “Are you sure?” he asked, disappointed.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “absolutely sure.”
Dagbjartur looked at the paper. The picture was of an amiable-looking silver-haired man, who was named underneath as Fridrik Einarsson. The title of the article was “Killing methods in the Orkneyinga saga.”
Dagbjartur glanced at his watch. There was still plenty of time left in the day to find this man and talk to him. There was no way of avoiding it. Dagbjartur sighed wearily.
Question two: Most impudent. First letter. When they reached Reine, they spotted three longships rowing down the fjord. The third was a dragon ship. As the ships passed the merchant vessel, an imposing figure walked onto the deck of the dragon ship and said, “Who is the commander of this ship, and where did you first make land and camp last night?”
Sarcastic Halli replied, “We spent the winter in Iceland and sailed from Gasir, and our commander is called Bard. We made land at Hitra and camped at Agdanes.”
The man, who in actual fact was King Harald Sigurdsson, then asked, “Didn’t Agdi sodomize you?”
“Not yet,” Halli answered.
The king smiled and said, “Have you made some arrangement for him to perform this service on you later then?”
Halli answered, “If you’re curious to know, Agdi is saving that up for nobler people than us and is expecting you to arrive this evening so that he can pay you this debt in full.”
“You’re exceedingly impudent,” said the king.
The answer is “sarcastic Halli,” and the first letter is s.
CHAPTER 19
The island’s store was a two-story building close to the co-op building. Its doors faced west, but on its eastern side there was an extension and other entrances. From there was a staircase to the top floor where Asmundur, the storekeeper, lived with his wife in a small apartment. The store and stockroom were on the lower floor. When Kjartan opened the door into the store, a shrill bell resounded in the empty space. Kjartan looked around and took a deep breath. Strong and familiar odors lingered in the air. Wooden furnishings gave off a symphony of smells to the accompaniment of a broad range of products: candy, shoe polish, coffee, nails, books, oatmeal, hooks, potatoes, needles, baking powder, coffee jugs, raisins, scythes, brown sugar, paint, lemonade, grindstones, snuff, caps, peas, rubber shoes, vanilla drops, rakes, chocolate, and net buoys. These and many other products were crammed into cluttered piles on the shelves that covered all of the store’s walls. Some categories of products simply lay in bundles on the floor or on the counter.
Asmundur soon appeared in the store. He was a short, fat man, bald with a round jovial face, dressed in a white storekeeper’s apron tied around his potbelly. In his breast pocket there were two pencils and a folding ruler. The storekeeper greeted him amiably: “Hello, young man. We’ve got special offers on penknives and vitamins this week, cattle feeding corn is back in stock, and we’ve got the latest fashion in shoes from Reykjavik.”
“I’m not here to buy anything and I apologize for the intrusion, but I came for another
reason,” said Kjartan at the end of the storekeeper’s sales pitch. He then asked him the same questions he had asked the farmers earlier. Asmundur’s answers were similar. He remembered the Danish visitor quite well. The man had come into the store to ask about film for his camera.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have any rolls of film. I order them especially from Reykjavik when someone requests it. Since the Dane was on his way south anyway, I didn’t bother ordering any film for him,” said Asmundur. “I did, however, manage to sell him two pairs of woolen socks.” Then he thought a moment and said, “My boat certainly wasn’t moved during that time.”
“What do you use the boat for?” Kjartan asked.
“Mainly for small deliveries from the store,” the storekeeper answered. “Having a decent motorboat can come in quite handy when you need to pop over to the mainland or to the inner isles when the farmers are busy in the summer. The co-op doesn’t offer a good service like that, and that’s how you get customers. But I never go south to Stykkisholmur because the mail boat brings supplies over once a week. Then I always take my boat away after the slaughtering season and let it rest in the storehouse over the winter. I don’t like traveling by sea in the winter, both because of the dark and the cold. Farmers also normally find they have more time on their hands in the winter and like the change of doing their shopping in town.”
“Have you any idea how that Danish man could have ended up in Ketilsey?” Kjartan asked.
“It’s all people can talk about in the village,” the trader answered. “But nobody can figure it out. Who the hell could have left the man out there? I know every single person on these islands, and I can assure you there isn’t an ounce of evil in any of them. Maybe there was an accident. Maybe the man boarded the mail boat without any of the crew really noticing him. Then maybe he was standing by the gunwale and fainted and fell into the sea. Then perhaps he regained consciousness and swam until he found something to hang onto. Or the current was really fast and carried him all the way to Ketilsey. But it’s all so unlikely that one can barely believe it.”
The Flatey Enigma Page 9