The Shadow District

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘We shouldn’t set too much store by what they say. After all, Ingiborg kept her relationship with Frank secret from her parents. It’s a common problem with families who forbid fraternisation with soldiers. Many of the girls choose to keep quiet about the men they’re seeing.’

  ‘This dripping’s pretty good, by the way.’

  ‘Don’t you have it in Canada?’

  ‘No, isn’t it uniquely Icelandic?’

  ‘Probably. How are you enjoying life in the army?’

  ‘It’s fine. Though I’m counting the days till the war’s over and I can head on home.’

  ‘Anybody waiting for you there?’ Flóvent had never touched on personal matters before in his conversations with Thorson and hoped he hadn’t overstepped the mark.

  ‘No.’ Thorson smiled. ‘Nobody.’

  Since he hadn’t seemed to take offence at the question, Flóvent decided to keep probing. He knew little about Thorson except that he was a good man to work with, shrewd, diligent and obliging. Didn’t give himself airs either. ‘What about here?’ Flóvent ventured to ask.

  ‘Nope, nobody here either.’

  ‘Of course, you’re only, what, twenty-something? Plenty of time to think about that later.’

  ‘Twenty-four. I guess so. How about you?’

  ‘Unmarried,’ said Flóvent. ‘Somehow I’ve never had time for … for that sort of thing.’

  ‘But there must be someone −’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ said Flóvent and changed the subject. ‘So you’re planning to head home? Once the war’s over?’

  ‘Home to Manitoba, yes. Get an engineering degree. Do something useful.’

  ‘Engineering?’

  ‘I want to build bridges. I was minding my own business, studying structural engineering, when war broke out and I ended up over here.’

  ‘What about the police? You don’t feel you’re doing anything useful as a cop?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Thorson looked up from his salt cod. ‘Of course the job’s interesting, the crimes and investigations and all that, but I can’t really see myself as a cop. I’ll be glad to be free of police work when the war ends.’

  ‘Have you visited any of your Icelandic relatives since you came here?’

  ‘No, there aren’t many left. Anyhow, what about you? What made you become a detective?’

  ‘They were short of men – and know-how – when they set up the department ten years back,’ said Flóvent. ‘I’d been on the force for several years so they sent me to Scotland and Denmark to learn about criminal investigation. I wanted to go abroad. And the job suited me well. I learnt a great deal. We’re building up the department from scratch really. Collecting fingerprints, photographs of convicts. It’s all new to us. Mind you, operations have mostly been suspended since the war began. In fact, I’m the only one working on that side at present.’

  He was devoting every spare moment to compiling the fingerprint archive, though in practice he had very little time. The archive had been started in 1935 when the police first began taking prints from criminals and cataloguing them. At around the same time they had introduced the practice of taking three-dimensional photographs of felons at the police headquarters on Pósthússtræti, using a large stereoscopic camera for the purpose. The collections were still in their infancy, however, like the department itself, which had been founded in Reykjavík about a decade earlier, employing a handful of plain-clothes detectives, including one to take care of the technical side. They carried special badges, a circular silver shield bearing the police star and the inscription Criminal Investigation Department instead of the regular police motto ‘With laws shall the land be built’. The shield was attached to a silver chain and was to be carried in the pocket of the officer’s trousers. Flóvent had never seen any reason to take his out.

  ‘So what … what do you enjoy about it?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘Enjoy? I don’t know if that’s the right word. You have to be interested. And have faith in your ability to solve cases.’

  ‘Is it that challenging in a society as simple as Iceland’s?’

  ‘It’s getting more complicated by the day,’ said Flóvent, smiling. ‘When a poor farming community is torn up by its roots and dragged into the maelstrom of world events, who can say where it’ll end? But it’s not likely to end well.’

  They finished their salt cod.

  ‘So, what do you do in your free time?’ asked Flóvent. ‘Any particular hobbies?’

  ‘No,’ said Thorson. ‘I go hiking in the mountains now and then. I like being alone, surrounded by nature. I’ve climbed Mount Esja a few times, and Keilir too. It’s … this is a beautiful country. It’s easy to find peace and quiet out there in the wilderness. Fill your lungs with fresh air. Lie in the grass and contemplate the cloudless sky.’

  Flóvent smiled again. He had warmed to the young Canadian from their first meeting. ‘If Frank Ruddy’s telling the truth,’ he said, returning to their case, ‘and there really was a man standing on the corner, do you think he saw the girl being brought there? Or was he even the killer?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Can we track him down?’

  ‘We can try.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he have come forward?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t actually witness anything.’

  ‘Or didn’t exist,’ said Flóvent. ‘Frank Ruddy’s an incorrigible liar.’

  ‘He sure is. I don’t think we should rule out the possibility that soldiers were involved.’

  ‘Something occurred to me, though I don’t know if it has any bearing on any of this,’ Flóvent said after a pause.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The business of Rósamunda’s disappearance three months ago. Could it be linked to her recent abortion?’ said Flóvent. ‘I should have asked her parents.’

  ‘Are you thinking she might have been with the man who knocked her up?’

  ‘It crossed my mind. It seems natural to connect the two events.’

  ‘You mean she stayed over with some guy and didn’t want to tell anyone?’

  ‘Yes, conceivably.’

  ‘Why? Because she was afraid her parents wouldn’t approve? I thought you Icelanders were unusually relaxed about that kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, not everyone is. Actually, I was thinking she might have had an assignation that turned nasty,’ said Flóvent. ‘Maybe with a soldier. Or an Icelander.’

  ‘Why didn’t she want to have the child? If the father was an Icelander?’

  ‘Any number of reasons. She was unmarried, she wanted to learn dressmaking, set up her own shop.’

  ‘A modern woman, in other words?’

  ‘Yes, a modern woman.’

  After their meal they paid a visit to Rósamunda’s parents who agreed to let them see her bedroom. The couple enquired about the progress of the investigation and offered them coffee and doughnuts, but the two men begged them not to put themselves out. They asked if Rósamunda had ever mentioned the National Theatre or shown any interest in it. Her parents couldn’t remember that she had.

  ‘We were going to try and get hold of a sewing machine for her,’ the woman told them as they stood in Rósamunda’s room, surrounded by pieces of needlework, foreign fashion magazines and drawings of skirts, blouses and dresses that would never now be made.

  ‘A second-hand one,’ added her husband. ‘They’re pricey.’

  ‘She always used to say that a good sewing machine would soon pay for itself,’ said his wife. ‘The room’s just as she left it. Please excuse the mess – she was never one for tidying, bless her, my poor darling girl,’ she added in a choked voice.

  ‘Lots of girls keep diaries,’ said Flóvent. ‘Do you know if she did?’

  ‘No, no idea,’ said the man, patting his wife’s shoulder.

  ‘Do you mind if we search for one?’

  ‘Please, go ahead,’ said the woman. ‘Look, you can see she was making a dress out of velvet,
with a lace trim. It was her Lana Turner dress. She saw a gown like that in a Lana Turner film.’

  The room was like a little dressmaking workshop. There was a small kitchen table that Rósamunda had used for her sewing, a single bed against one wall and a wardrobe against another. A trunk lay open in the corner, spilling out fabric, ribbons, ruffles and a tin of buttons. As they looked around, they saw the room of a girl who knew what she wanted out of life and was happily immersed in her work.

  Flóvent cleared his throat. ‘When Rósamunda returned home three months ago, did everything go back to normal? Was she well? Did she seem like herself?’

  ‘I didn’t notice any difference,’ the woman said. ‘She worked very hard. She was seldom home. Used to leave early in the morning and come home late at night, only to snatch a few hours’ sleep really.’

  Flóvent surveyed the room again. They hadn’t found any kind of diary detailing Rósamunda’s day-to-day existence, dreams, wishes and desires, and nothing that could explain her tragic fate.

  Later that evening Flóvent had a brief meeting with Frank Ruddy’s other girlfriend, who was somewhat taken aback to hear that Frank had a wife back in Boston, though less surprised to learn that she wasn’t the only girl he was seeing in Reykjavík.

  ‘He’s from Illinois,’ said Flóvent.

  ‘Yes, Boston,’ said the girl.

  ‘Boston’s not in Illinois.’

  ‘Oh? What’s this “Illi” then? I’ve never heard of that.’

  ‘Illinois is a state. Boston’s a big city in a completely different state.’

  Her parents exchanged glances.

  The girl, who was nineteen, was sitting with her parents and younger brother in their basement flat in Skerjafjördur, at the address supplied by Frank. He had once escorted her home to her door. Her parents had watched furtively from the window as he kissed her goodbye and when he waved to them, they had waved back. They were from the east, from the countryside.

  The girl couldn’t tell Flóvent anything he didn’t already know. She knew next to nothing about Frank except that he was a real gentleman, always had plenty of cigarettes and chewing gum, and used to invite her to dances, and although she didn’t speak much English she had the distinct impression that he had once talked seriously about marrying her and taking her back with him to the States.

  16

  The next day, Flóvent and Thorson went to visit the dressmaker’s where Rósamunda had been learning her trade. The owner said she’d been expecting a visit from the police about what she described as ‘this tragic business with Rósamunda’. She was fortyish, thin and seemed a little flustered, her words coming out in a nervous gabble. She simply couldn’t understand it; Rósamunda had been such a good girl. So clever with her hands too.

  ‘A really gifted seamstress,’ she went on. ‘Dressmaking came naturally to her. She could mend garments so the repair was invisible. Quite invisible. And she made some absolutely ravishing dresses.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm her, ma’am?’ asked Flóvent, glancing around him. ‘Was she involved in any altercations that you’re aware of?’

  He was no judge of women’s clothes: of the dresses, skirts, hats and underwear that had been sent to the shop for mending. The rest of the staff had left for the day. Four electric sewing machines were lined up on a row of tables, surrounded by lengths of material, by needles and pins. Opening off the main work floor was a small room containing two old treadle machines. Bolts of cloth, ribbons and other sewing paraphernalia littered the place, along with fashion magazines and dress patterns.

  ‘No, not with anyone here,’ said the woman.

  ‘What about the customers?’

  ‘She was such a sweet girl, I can’t imagine anyone having anything against her.’

  ‘I assume most of your customers are women?’ said Flóvent.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you get any soldiers coming in?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘To my shop? No, no, I can’t say I do.’

  ‘So they wouldn’t have any reason to come in here?’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen one or two drop in with Icelandic girls, but they don’t use our services, if that’s what you mean. They just tend to tag along with their girlfriends.’

  ‘Do you have any regular customers in town?’

  ‘Do I? Good heavens, yes. Dozens. Some of my ladies have been coming here for years. We offer a first-class service – I’ve always set great store by quality and I can assure you that my company’s the best of its kind here in Reykjavík.’

  ‘Do you happen to know if Rósamunda was seeing a soldier?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘No, not that I’m aware.’

  ‘What about other suitors?’

  ‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. At least, she never mentioned it. But then I didn’t know much about her private life. She’s worked for me for several years now and has turned out awfully well, I have to say. I’ve got several experienced seamstresses working for me and another girl in training, but she’s not a patch on Rósamunda. She’s – she was – so much more talented. There’s no comparing them.’

  Flóvent noted down the other girl’s name. The owner granted them permission to look around in the back room. Apparently Rósamunda had approached the woman about the possibility of working for her; they hadn’t been acquainted beforehand. Another girl had left recently so the woman had decided to take Rósamunda on for a trial period. A fortuitous decision. On her last day at work she had been putting the finishing touches on an evening gown for one of their regular clients, the wife of a bank manager, who used to shop at Magasin du Nord on her visits to Copenhagen before this ghastly war began, and the bank manager’s wife had declared that this shop was in no way inferior to the famous department store.

  Is that so? Flóvent thought to himself, noting down the name of the bank manager’s wife.

  ‘Yes, I try to … well, you could say that my clientele are very discerning people. And I try to keep it that way.’

  Flóvent nodded.

  ‘These days, of course, with everything in such short supply,’ the woman sighed, ‘we’re forced to make the most of what we have, even to make new clothes out of old ones. And everything’s grey or black. I haven’t laid eyes on a roll of silk in a month of Sundays.’

  Looking around the room, they couldn’t see any sign that Rósamunda had brought any personal possessions to work. She used to sit at one of the treadle sewing machines, and the evening gown for the bank manager’s wife, a simple design in black, was draped over a hanger next to it.

  ‘Do you know where she went after work on her last day here?’ asked Flóvent.

  ‘I assume she went home; she didn’t mention any other plans.’

  ‘Was that what she usually did?’

  ‘Yes, or so I believe. Though I don’t encourage that sort of familiarity from my staff – talking about personal matters, I mean. I prefer to keep things on a formal footing. I feel it’s important to be professional, especially these days.’

  ‘So you don’t know much about her private life?’

  ‘Very little.’

  ‘Did she ever mention the National Theatre in your hearing?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘The National Theatre? No. Why do you ask? You mean because she was found there?’

  ‘You never heard her talk about it?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Do you remember an occasion three months ago when she failed to turn up to work for a couple of days?’ asked Flóvent.

  ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t remember.’

  Thorson was also in tow when Flóvent went along that evening to see the other girl who was training to be a seamstress. She was the same age as Rósamunda and knew her much better than the owner did. The girl was slim and pretty, with shoulder-length, raven-black hair and thick dark brows that almost met over her dark brown eyes. Her skin was chalk-white, which only enhanced the obsidian sheen of h
er hair. She rented a small room in a basement near the centre of town and was busy mending a ladder in a silk stocking when they knocked on the door. She and Rósamunda had been close confidantes, she told them, and she’d had the shock of her life when she heard that her friend had died, and in such horrible circumstances. She added that she’d been about to come to the police herself with some information about Rósamunda.

  ‘It’s so awful,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about her. ‘What … what she must have gone through. I can’t stop wondering exactly how she died. Do you know what happened? How could something like that happen?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said Flóvent in a reassuring tone.

  ‘Have you talked to the old bag at the shop?’ asked the girl.

  Flóvent said yes they had visited the owner.

  ‘Honestly, the way she forced poor Rósamunda to slave for her, half the night sometimes, without paying her so much as a króna extra.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Flóvent. ‘We understand that Rósamunda was very good at her job.’

  ‘She was. And the old cow knew it. Rósamunda wasn’t planning to stay with her long. She meant to set up her own mending and dressmaking business, and I’m sure the old bag suspected it. She was worried about it. I’m sure she was.’

  ‘Did this lead to any unpleasantness between them?’

  ‘No, Rósamunda didn’t breathe a word about it, not so far as I know. Or if she did, it must have been very recently. She dreamt of becoming a couture dressmaker like the lady who runs Haraldarbúd. She even had plans to go abroad after the war to train.’

  ‘Do you know her parents at all?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘I met them once – they were like something out of the dark ages. But she always spoke well of them. You know she was adopted?’

  ‘What do you mean about the dark ages?’

  ‘Well, I got the feeling they were quite strict with Rósamunda when she was growing up, and they’re spiritualists too, of course.’

  ‘Spiritualists?’ said Thorson.

  ‘Yes, that’s what Rósamunda said. That they were into all that spiritualist stuff. Went to seances and had a load of books about ghosts and life after death.’