The Shadow District

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Not really,’ said Jakob, expelling smoke.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘She was given up for adoption. We didn’t talk about her much. Me and Egill were sent away for several years too. Life was tough at home.’

  ‘But she was your sister.’

  ‘So? It’s not like we knew her at all. I don’t remember her. Nor does Egill. So there’s no point asking us about her.’

  ‘What do you think happened to Rósamunda?’ asked Flóvent.

  Jakob shook his head. ‘Dunno. There’s plenty of stuff going on in Reykjavík with all those soldiers around.’ He looked pointedly at Thorson.

  ‘Do you think she could have been mixing with the soldiers?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. I didn’t know her.’

  ‘When did you last see your sister?’

  ‘I already told you: I don’t remember her. Neither does Egill.’

  ‘We gather she was corresponding with her father – your father. Were you aware of that?’

  ‘She wrote to the old man,’ said Jakob. ‘Said she was planning to visit us. But nothing came of it.’

  ‘Do you know why she got in touch?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe she wanted to get to know her family?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Didn’t you have any interest in meeting her?’

  Jakob thought, then shook his head.

  ‘Do you know if she was happy with her adoptive parents?’

  ‘No. Haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Whether she wanted to leave them? Move home to be with your father? Was that why she wrote to him?’

  ‘Dad didn’t mention anything like that. There was only the one letter. He told her she’d be welcome up north.’

  They persevered with their questions, but Jakob seemed remarkably indifferent to his sister’s fate. His callousness didn’t escape them.

  ‘Doesn’t she matter to you at all?’ asked Thorson.

  ‘I didn’t know her.’

  ‘She was your sister,’ said Flóvent.

  ‘She probably had a much easier life than us. I can’t think why she wanted to get in touch.’

  ‘To get to know you? Her family?’

  ‘Yeah, well, nothing came of it.’

  ‘It seems likely that she was raped.’

  Jakob’s expression didn’t change.

  Flóvent asked if he had been in Reykjavík the evening Rósamunda’s body was found, but he said no. He and his brother had been here in Hvalfjördur as usual. They’d worked all day, then played poker with some Yanks in a hut that served as a bar.

  Jakob’s younger brother Egill was not as offhand with them. He took the chair facing them, sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jumper. They asked him many of the same questions as they had put to his brother, and he backed up Jakob’s statement that they had been in Hvalfjördur when Rósamunda died.

  ‘When did you last see your sister?’ asked Flóvent.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Egill. ‘I was so young when she was adopted.’

  ‘Was there no contact at all between your family and Rósamunda in Reykjavík?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  Egill shook his head. ‘Well, she wrote to Dad.’

  ‘Did you see the letter?’

  ‘No, he told us.’

  ‘What was her letter about?’

  ‘She wanted to meet us or something.’

  ‘Was your father in contact at all with the couple who adopted Rósamunda?’

  ‘No. Never. We were …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We were told it was best for everyone if there was no contact. She was theirs and that was that. We always knew we had a sister in Reykjavík. We knew what had happened – she had to be given away. Dad couldn’t look after all of us when Mum died. Me and Jakob were sent to other farms. The family was split up. That’s nothing new.’

  ‘So you didn’t do anything to her?’

  Egill sniffed again and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. ‘No. We didn’t know her. Not at all.’

  24

  Following his visit to Ingiborg, Konrád went for a meal at a decent steakhouse on Skeifan. It was still early; there were few other diners, and he took a corner table. While he was eating, his thoughts wandered back to Vigga in the nursing home. To the other girl she had mentioned, who had gone missing and never been found, and that obscure reference to the huldufólk. This couldn’t have been Rósamunda. Her body had definitely been found behind the theatre. Thorson had been investigating her case during the war, if Ingiborg was to be believed. But something had prompted him to start asking questions again, all these years later. At least, he had spoken to Vigga, and possibly to others as well. What had sparked his interest? And why had he gone to talk to Vigga? How had she been mixed up in it all? Vigga had been under the impression that she was talking to Thorson when Konrád visited her. As if they had once known each other. Had the other girl suffered the same fate as Rósamunda? Was their story similar? Had Thorson unearthed some new piece of evidence in his old age?

  Konrád was startled out of his thoughts by a crash. He looked up to see one of the customers standing in momentary bewilderment among the shards of a glass he had dropped. A waiter came to his aid, and Konrád decided to make a move.

  There was a line of inquiry he wanted to pursue. He’d been putting it off, but decided that now was as good a time as any to get in touch with the person who had originally sold Thorson his flat. He might just know something. Konrád had made a note of the name when he came across the sales contract among the old man’s papers.

  Konrád enquired after the man in question at an attractive townhouse in the east end and was directed to a garage where he worked as a mechanic. The man got the shock of his life when he saw Konrád, as he assumed he must be from the tax office, and that someone had shopped him for working cash in hand, an offence of which he was all too guilty. When his fears turned out to be unfounded, he relaxed and became very pally. Yes, he could remember selling the flat to Stefán Thórdarson, and had indeed heard how the old man had met his end. He hadn’t been acquainted with Stefán at all, but recalled that he had been a cash buyer. Remembered thinking that he must have managed to put quite a bit aside. It turned out that the man had a clearer memory of his old neighbour Birgitta, and the conversation soon veered towards a subject that had been strangely close to her heart.

  ‘Me and Birgitta used to argue about it,’ said the mechanic. He had a broad face and strong hands marked by many years of tinkering with engines. ‘She could never convince me. But she was totally in favour.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘You know she was a nurse?’ The man removed the battery from the car he was working on.

  ‘Yes,’ lied Konrád. In fact, he’d made no effort to research her background.

  ‘Naturally she was speaking from experience. Said she’d seen it all in her job.’

  ‘Speaking from experience? About what? I’m not with you.’

  ‘Assisted suicide,’ said the man, putting down the battery. ‘She wanted it legalised in this country.’

  ‘Assisted suicide?’ Konrád had difficulty hiding his surprise.

  ‘She wanted them to allow assisted suicide in specific, difficult cases. She used to be pretty hard line about it in the old days. Actually, I had half a mind to ring you about the old man. When I heard his death wasn’t violent – if you know what I mean – I immediately thought of her.’

  ‘That she might have suffocated him?’

  ‘I’m not saying that’s what happened. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I just happened to think of her when I heard about the old man. Remembered her views. The way he died sounded like that – like an act of kindness.’

  Konrád talked to the mechanic for a while longer without learning anything else of interest. After saying goodbye, he set off home and rang Marta on the way.

  ‘Have you give
n any thought to assisted suicide?’ he asked without preamble. Judging by the sucking and smacking noises at the other end, Marta had just finished eating.

  ‘Assisted suicide? What are you on about?’

  ‘Have you given it any thought?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ said Marta. ‘Do you mean would I choose that way out myself?’

  ‘No, not you,’ said Konrád. ‘Were you eating?’

  ‘Some crap I picked up at a burger joint. What’s all this about assisted suicide?’

  ‘Has it crossed your mind in relation to Thorson? There he is, lying in his bed, no sign of a struggle. No resistance on his part. It’s like he lay down and went to sleep, only someone put a pillow over his face.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Two points. There’s a suggestion that Birgitta and Stefán, or Thorson, were more than just neighbours – according to another occupant of the building. And I’ve just heard that Birgitta was a great believer in assisted suicide – was passionate about it, in fact. She used to be a nurse. Did she tell you that?’

  ‘No. Where did you hear that?’

  ‘From the man who originally sold Thorson his flat. He remembered Birgitta because of her views.’

  ‘Assisted suicide? It’s not like Thorson was ill. The post-mortem didn’t reveal anything wrong. What sort of relationship did they have? Maybe you ought to check it out.’

  ‘Want me to have a word with her?’

  ‘Please,’ said Marta. ‘We’re unusually short-staffed at the moment. See what you can winkle out of the woman and let me know how it goes.’

  25

  It was late evening. Candles were burning here and there on various tables, and thick curtains were drawn over the windows. The medium was waiting for them in the sitting room. He was about forty, on the small side, with a friendly manner, soft, smooth hands, and a warm smile. He wore a threadbare dark suit and looked a little peaky, as if he was suffering from a hangover. The couple, sensing a whiff of mysticism about him, were surprised to find how down-to-earth and approachable he was when he spoke to them. Konrád’s father had pulled out two chairs for them, which they now took. There were three other people attending the seance: a father and son and a very deaf old man, all of them poor, judging by their clothes. The son had lost his mother after a gruelling illness, and he and his father wanted reassurance that she was better off in the next world. The deaf old man wasn’t seeking contact with anyone in particular and seemed preoccupied with the issue of which language the spirits would use. The medium had no need of a chair. He alternately stood in front of them or paced the floor, trying to pick up the currents flowing through the ether – as he was only the conduit, he explained to his audience.

  ‘All I do is relay messages to you.’

  ‘Don’t you fall into a trance then?’ the woman wanted to know. Although she and her husband were no strangers to seances, they hadn’t encountered this psychic before.

  ‘No,’ the medium replied, ‘that’s not how it works. It’s more that the currents flow through me.’

  The old man cupped a hand to his ear. ‘What’s that you say?’

  ‘I’m explaining how it works.’

  ‘They will be speaking Icelandic, won’t they?’ the old man bellowed.

  The medium reassured him on this point and he began the seance by asking the sitters a series of questions. Names floated around the room, which they either did or didn’t recognise. If a name didn’t sound familiar to anyone, the medium was quick to move on to the next one. But if he received a positive answer from his audience, he would continue to question the spirit and describe any distinguishing features until a consensus was reached about who it could be. Once this was established, he would convey the message that all was well on the other side, and sometimes pass on thanks to somebody in the room. Some spirits, according to him, were accompanied by a sweet smell, others were associated with pieces of furniture, paintings or articles of clothing. The father and son recognised some of these, the old man others. Once the medium had taken his time in attending to them, he turned to Rósamunda’s parents.

  ‘I … it’s cold and dark here,’ he said, standing in front of them with half-closed eyes, his head tilted to one side. ‘Cold and dark and there’s a man standing … he’s standing in the cold and I … I think he’s got mittens on, it’s as if he’s got mittens on and he’s cold. Mittens knitted from two-ply yarn. Does that sound familiar at all?’

  The couple didn’t immediately answer.

  ‘He’s … could he be wet from the sea?’ asked the psychic. ‘Could he be drenched with seawater?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman hesitantly. ‘If it’s him. Did you say two-ply yarn?’

  ‘The mittens,’ her husband added in explanation.

  ‘He says you were always good to him and he wants to thank you for all the coffee,’ said the medium, not letting himself get distracted. ‘I have the feeling his name might be Vilmundur or Vilhjálmur, something like that.’

  ‘Could it be Mundi?’ the woman said, her eyes on her husband.

  ‘I get the feeling he drowned,’ continued the medium. ‘That he’s dead. Am I right?’

  ‘He was lost in Faxaflói Bay,’ said the husband. ‘Off Akranes. There were three of them.’

  ‘I knitted those mittens for him,’ said the woman. ‘The poor, dear chap.’

  ‘I can see … it’s like a painting or maybe a view from a sunny house and there’s this strong smell of coffee. A beautiful house. And kleinur. Such a strong smell of coffee and something else too – cinnamon, from the doughnuts, something like that.’

  ‘Mundi often used to say how good my kleinur were,’ said the woman, nodding as if to confirm this to the father and son who were sitting quietly listening.

  ‘I sense that he’s in church and I think … I can hear music. Could that be right? Was there a lot of music around him?’

  ‘That could well be right; he used to play the organ,’ said Rósamunda’s father.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the medium. ‘He’s telling you not to worry about …’

  He broke off and appeared to be listening intently for messages from the spirit world. A long time passed in absolute silence, as if the messages couldn’t get through. Then all of a sudden the medium took a step backwards and froze, as if riveted to the spot, his eyes still half-closed.

  ‘He says she’s with him. She … that you’ll know who she is.’

  The woman gasped: ‘Our little girl!’

  ‘Can you see her?’ asked her husband eagerly.

  ‘He doesn’t want … says you’ll know what he means and that you’re not to worry.’

  ‘Our darling little girl,’ said the woman and began to cry. Her husband tried to comfort her.

  The medium fell silent again and they didn’t dare interrupt, convinced that he was straining for messages from the depths of eternity, until finally Rósamunda’s father could hold back no longer.

  ‘Does she want to tell us who it was?’ he whispered.

  The medium stood in the middle of the room, perfectly still, for what felt like an age. The sitters didn’t move a muscle. The eyes of father and son were fixed on him and the deaf old man was trying not to miss a thing. Rósamunda’s parents held hands.

  ‘Does she want to tell us who it was?’ the husband asked again.

  The medium didn’t answer but remained silent and motionless, until he began shaking his head and pacing around the room, saying the connection had broken and he didn’t have the strength to continue.

  The seance was over. The psychic sank into a chair as if exhausted and Konrád’s father brought him a drink of water. Rósamunda’s parents sat there dazed, as though they could hardly believe what had happened. It took a while for everyone to get their bearings again. They were all convinced that something important, something extraordinary, had occurred.

  Konrád’s father pulled back the thick curtains to admit the light spring night, then went out to the kitchen and came
back with coffee for the sitters and offered round some boiled sweets. The deaf old man poured the coffee into his saucer and drained it with loud slurps.

  ‘Odd about those mittens,’ remarked Rósamunda’s father. ‘That he should bring them up.’

  ‘I was telling the host only yesterday how fond Mundi was of my kleinur,’ said his wife. ‘And about the mittens. The two-ply ones.’

  The father and son looked at them.

  ‘Did you tell him that?’ the widower asked, his eyes on Konrád’s father.

  ‘What was that? What did she tell him?’ shouted the old man.

  ‘I’m sure I did,’ said the woman. ‘I told him about Mundi and how he drowned.’

  ‘Did that seem wise to you?’

  ‘Wise? I don’t understand.’

  Konrád sat at the kitchen table, watching the sun go down and recalling his father’s account of the incident. He remembered it vividly. He was eighteen when his father told him about the seance with the couple who had lost their daughter, and how he used to go about swindling a few krónur out of gullible types, many of whom were mourning the loss of a loved one. He had never spoken of it before, though he had often talked of the other dubious activities he had been mixed up in. But on this occasion he had been drunker than usual and mawkish with it, willing to open up to his son about some of the murkier episodes in his past.

  ‘It was laughably easy,’ he had said in his hoarse voice, smoking non-stop as he talked. ‘People were ready to swallow anything, and the more they paid, the more they’d lap it up. Damn it, the whole thing was a piece of cake.’

  Konrád couldn’t detect any remorse in his father’s manner. He never made excuses for what he was or what he had done to others, but Konrád couldn’t stop himself from asking how he could stomach profiting from people’s misery like that.

  ‘If they want to be taken in, that’s not my problem,’ was all the answer Konrád got. ‘Mind you, he did have powers of some kind, the bloke who played the medium for the girl’s parents. We held a lot of seances together, him and me, and we weren’t found out because he did have a certain gift, I reckon, though he was a bloody amateur. I didn’t get everything from the woman – not the organ, for example – but maybe that was just luck. You needed a bit of luck to do it well. I’d tipped him off about the other stuff, like the mittens and how the bloke drowned, before they arrived. But when the father and son got wind of the fact that the woman had talked to me beforehand, they went mad and called the police, and that was that. A phoney medium exposed. And I was described as his accomplice.’ Konrád’s father burst out laughing. ‘Like I was his sidekick!’