“I took care unwrapping the plastic that covered the body,” Elías said. “It’s possible there may be fingerprints on the inside of it. We’ll check it in the lab back in Reykjavik. We’ve got better facilities there.”
Birkir continued looking at the corpse. “Isn’t the body unusually intact considering it’s been there twelve months?” he asked.
Elías nodded. “That’s not necessarily abnormal. He was only half a meter down in the ground, out in the middle of nowhere. I think he was probably frozen solid for most of the year.”
14:45
Emil Edilon never used a cell phone, and he rarely spent much time at home during the day, so it was only after some searching that Gunnar found him at Café Mokka.
The writer was scribbling something on a paper napkin with a pencil stub. Next to him was an empty coffee cup.
“It’ll take you a while to finish the book if you don’t use better paper,” Gunnar said, taking the seat opposite him.
“I’m working,” Emil said. “Shouldn’t you be doing something useful somewhere?”
“I have a question for you.”
“Have I advertised myself as some kind of information service?”
“No, but it’s very important.”
Emil looked at his empty coffee cup. “I’ve finished my refill,” he said. “I’ll listen to you for five minutes if I get a fresh cup of coffee and a slice of apple cake with cream.”
“I need the name of a book,” Gunnar said.
Emil cut in before he could say another word. “Coffee and apple cake.”
Gunnar rose and made his way to the counter, where he ordered coffee and apple cake for two.
He retook his seat. “We’ve been given a riddle we need to solve. Have you ever heard the line ‘What about Solitaire’s back’? Apparently it’s the last sentence of a book.”
“Solitaire…” said Emil. “Somewhat unusual female name, I think. Can also refer to a card game—the British call it Patience. It’s also a big diamond—more than one carat if I remember correctly.”
“Can you remember it appearing as a name in a book?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Could you talk to the guys who do your Friday quiz every week? Some of the smarter ones? Don’t tell them I’m the one who needs to know. Also, I need you to stay at home for the next few days. I might need to get you on the phone at short notice.”
Emil, about to transfer a piece of apple cake from plate to mouth, stopped abruptly. “I’m supposed to wait at home for you to call me?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you’re going to have to explain this a bit more.”
Gunnar thought it over. Emil was not likely to give anything away. He was, in fact, famous for being able to keep secrets, and had many confidants. Many a sinner took comfort in being able to open his heart to Emil when the conscience pricked.
“This is confidential,” Gunnar said.
“I have kept secrets before.”
“Okay,” Gunnar said. It took just a few minutes to explain where the riddle had come from.
Emil took a long time to think over the situation and finally said, “All right. I’ll try to help you. But you’ll have to get a cell phone for me to use. I really don’t care to be stuck at home any more than I have to be.”
“Agreed,” Gunnar said. “Who can you get to help you?”
Emil pondered this. “I’ll start with the Crippled Critic, the Blue Baron, the Cross-Eyed College Teacher, the Red-Nosed Researcher, and the Ginger Journalist. They know all manner of things.”
“You mustn’t tell them what it’s all about,” Gunnar reiterated.
“I won’t.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“I’ll make something up. That’s easy for me.”
Emil took his pipe from his pocket. Glaring at it in disgust, Gunnar said, “You never mention anybody by name, and you’re always using these weird compound nicknames. Why?”
Emil said, “I can’t remember people’s first names. It’s some kind of malfunction in my head. So I make up these sobriquets, usually by combining an adjective and a noun. It’s easier for me to remember. The made-up name also gives me a link to the real name, which I can remember if I think it over long enough. The Red-Nosed Researcher is called…” Emil hesitated. “…Rúdolf. He works at the Agricultural Research Institute.”
“So the first letter in the nickname is the same as the letter in the real name?”
“Sometimes, but not always. The Blue Baron is called…” He closed his eyes and tapped at his forehead. “…Brúnó?”
Gunnar nodded. “That figures.”
“The Cross-Eyed College teacher is a woman. Kolla.”
“What do you call me when I’m out of earshot?” Gunnar asked.
“You’re the Germanic Giant.”
“That’s not too bad.”
“Nope.”
“The question about Solitaire. Will you remember it?”
“Yes, I’ll remember. What will I get as a reward for this?”
Gunnar grinned. “I’ll go to bed with you,” he said.
Emil put his head to one side and gazed silently into Gunnar’s eyes for a long time.
“My friend,” he finally said. “Maybe one day you’ll come across some miserable woman somewhere who just might sleep with you if you pester her long enough. But you’ll never get a guy to agree. Ever.” He smiled and added, “But don’t let it bother you. It’s not your fault that you’re ugly.”
Gunnar grinned again. “What do you want as payment?” he asked.
Emil thought for a long time. At last he said, “Last month, the Blue Baron was unfortunate enough to mistake some guy’s wallet for his own. He only realized his mistake when he’d been drinking for three and a half days using some plastic cards he found in the wretched thing. It would give our little group some peace of mind if the police report was inadvertently mislaid.”
Gunnar wrinkled his nose. “If you produce the goods I’ll take a look at the file.”
15:10
It fell to Kristján and Birkir to visit Leifur Albert’s mother in Akureyri. She lived alone in the ground-floor apartment of a duplex not far from the police station and, as luck would have it, was at home when they stopped by. She worked as a nursing assistant at the Central Hospital, but happened to be off duty that day.
She was a chubby, dark-haired woman of about fifty. When she opened the door, Birkir thought she looked somewhat sad. Perhaps that was to be expected.
She recognized Kristján and invited them in.
Kristján shook her hand and said, “This is Birkir Hinriksson from the Reykjavik detective division.”
“Sólveig Albertsdóttir,” she said, acknowledging Birkir’s greeting.
Birkir glanced around the apartment. It was tidy, but the furniture was old and worn. Framed pictures hung on the walls—reproductions of paintings, photographs of landscapes, family pictures. Their arrangement demonstrated good intention but not much taste.
Sólveig asked the policemen to be seated in the living room.
Kristján did the talking, “We think we may finally have found your son Leifur’s body.”
The woman caught her breath.
“The thing is, the circumstances are not quite what we were expecting,” he continued.
She exhaled with a low moan.
“We seem to have been mistaken in concluding that he committed suicide.”
“How—”
“It is possible that he was murdered.”
“Murdered? But what about his suicide note?”
“That’s a puzzle.”
“Oh my God. I knew it all along. My Leifur was never depressed. I told you that over and over.”
Birkir said, “Did your son have a habit of goose hunting?”
This startled Sólveig. “Is there some connection with those murders down south?”
“We don’t know yet,” Birkir replied. “It’s
under investigation.”
“Well, yes, he loved hunting. I told the police last year that his hunting gear had disappeared from the storeroom here.”
Kristján nodded in agreement.
“Could he possibly have been on a hunt when he disappeared?” Birkir asked.
“That’s what I initially thought,” Sólveig said. “It’s what I told the police when I reported him missing.”
Kristján said, “That was what we assumed in the beginning. And at the time, we directed our search accordingly. That’s why we didn’t find the car immediately.”
“Did he go hunting often?” Birkir asked Sólveig.
“Yes. Whenever he could.”
“Where did he go?”
“Just here around Eyjafjördur. He went wherever he expected to find birds and could get a hunting license. He used to sell his kill to restaurants.”
“Did he go on his own?”
“No, he usually went with a friend of his.”
“But he was alone when he disappeared?”
“Yes. His friend was visiting some people down south.”
“Was there anything unusual about this particular hunting trip?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he’d gone.”
“Was that typical?”
“Yes. Leifur hardly ever told me when he was going hunting. He was a grown man and lived his own life, even though he still had his room here. I never assumed he would be here for meals unless we had prearranged it. I usually eat at the hospital, myself. Sometimes I didn’t see him for days. He always had his cell phone, though. I knew I could call him if I needed to.”
“Did you not get anything from the phone log?” Birkir asked Kristján.
“No. The last signal came from here in Akureyri. The phone was off after that.”
Birkir turned back to Sólveig. “Did you notice any changes in your son in the days before he disappeared?”
“Not really. He was maybe a little restless. His best friend was moving away, and a girlfriend of his was also about to go abroad to study—not a romantic girlfriend or anything, she was just a friend. I couldn’t completely dismiss the conclusion made by the police that he had killed himself, but I found it very unlikely. Besides, there was no body. I always wondered if maybe he was still alive; that’s what I always hoped deep down inside. I told myself that perhaps he’d gone abroad.”
She turned to Kristján. “Are you absolutely sure this person you found is Leifur?”
Kristján nodded. “His wallet was in his pocket.”
“May I see him? Maybe it’s not him.”
“That would be fruitless. I’m very sorry, but you wouldn’t recognize him,” Kristján said. “We’ll check his dental records and do a DNA test. We will keep testing until we are completely certain.”
Birkir asked Sólveig, “Who are these friends of Leifur’s that you mentioned?”
Sólveig stood up and left the room, returning shortly with a large, framed color photograph, which she handed to him. It showed three young people, two men and one woman, all tanned and smiling, on some tropical beach. The men were incredibly alike—both brown-eyed, their dark hair styled similarly.
Sólveig said, “Leifur is on the right, and the one on the left is Jóhann. They’d been friends since elementary school. People used to call them ‘the twins,’ but they weren’t at all related.”
Birkir peered at the faces and was astonished to see that the Jóhann in the picture was without a doubt the same Jóhann who had been involved in the shooting down near Selfoss the previous year.
Sólveig continued. “Jóhann was also in an accident last year. He lost an eye.”
Birkir reflected. What on earth was going on? Jóhann had been in a shooting about the same time Leifur had disappeared. Birkir looked through his notebook to verify the dates: Leifur’s mother had reported him missing to the police in Akureyri two days after Jóhann had presented with facial wounds at the hospital in Selfoss. Could the incidents be linked? It seemed possible, even very likely. But were they connected with the three killings that had just occurred, an entire year later? That was the bigger question.
He continued to examine the picture, now directing his attention to the young woman. He had definitely seen her before—no question—but where? She was similar in height to her male companions, both of whom were tall, Birkir knew. He suddenly made the connection. The young woman in the picture was the very same one he’d bumped into on the stairs when he went to visit Fridrik Fridriksson’s widow. It had seemed at the time like she lived in the building.
“What is the girl’s name?” he asked.
“Hjördís. She was a friend, not a girlfriend. For quite a few years the three of them were nearly always together.”
“Do you know where she’s living now?”
“She went abroad to study last fall. I heard that she came back to spend the summer in Reykjavik, but that’s all I know.”
15:30
It took Gunnar a while to get a cell phone from the office, buy a SIM card for it, and find Emil Edilon again. He then had to educate Emil in the device’s high-tech wizardry. As soon as the old writer learned how to make a call, answer a call, and hang up, he set about locating his panel of experts.
Gunnar thought it unlikely that an Icelandic writer would name one of his characters Solitaire, but if that were the case, he felt certain Emil’s buddies would quickly locate the source. He, meanwhile, went off to the National Library to conduct his own search of its English literature shelves. It was slow going. The first book he looked at was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. He turned quickly to the last page and then returned the book to the shelf. Next was Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson, then The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. By ten to five he had arrived at The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter. Then, at last, Emil called. The other patrons in the library shot Gunnar unfriendly glances as he fished his cell out of a jacket pocket.
“Gunnar speaking.”
“It’s Edilon.”
“What have you got for me?”
“Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. James Bond.”
“Who got it?”
“The Ginger Journalist. He’s obsessed with Bond.”
“Did you tell him it was me looking for it?”
“No.”
“Thanks,” Gunnar said and hung up.
He moved swiftly over to the F shelf, dialing Dóra’s number as he went—she would be waiting at her computer. He spotted the book at the moment she replied.
“Wait, don’t hang up,” he said, taking the volume down from the shelf. With trembling fingers he flipped to the last page. There it was—some broad called Solitaire looking up and asking what about her back. He spelled out the book’s title for Dóra.
22:00
There was still no reply from the Gander. Dóra sat at her computer, staring at the box where new mail would appear. There was no sign of life.
“He’s not likely to be sitting glued to a computer,” Gunnar said. He was hoping their adversary was getting fed up with this game. Then maybe they’d have time for some proper detective work.
Once Birkir had returned to Reykjavik, the team—Birkir, Gunnar, Magnús, and Anna—had gathered at headquarters for a meeting. On the table before them was the file on Leifur Rúnarsson’s suicide. Anna chain-smoked while riffling through the papers.
“I’m absolutely certain Leifur wrote this,” she said firmly, pointing at a photocopy of the suicide note. “I had really good material to compare it with.” She picked up a copy of a postcard with a Spanish stamp. “His mother gave us this card, which he’d sent her earlier that summer. It even uses the same phrases: ‘My dearest Mom.’ ‘Your son, Leifur Albert.’”
Magnús was not convinced. “Are you quite sure?” he asked.
“Yes. All the characteristics match. The same slant to the letters, the same shapes, the same distance between them, the same proportions. There are other fine details we look
for in such testing, but none raise any question of doubt.”
Birkir asked, “Can you tell anything else from the handwriting? Could he have been forced to write this farewell letter?”
Anna sucked on her cigarette and regarded the photocopy. “No. There are no signs of stress. I actually commented on that in last year’s report. It seemed odd to me how effortless the writing was. This is exactly like the card from Spain. Almost casual.”
Magnús said, “We need to talk more with these young people, that’s clear.”
“Jóhann is on duty tonight,” Birkir said. “I called him, and he’s willing to talk to me during his eleven o’clock break.”
He produced a sheet of paper. “Hjördís, the girl who spent so much time with these two guys, is also on the list Fridrik’s widow put together for us. She’s listed as a neighbor and a prayer recipient.”
“What’s that mean?” Magnús asked.
“The family prays for people—unasked.”
“That’s kind.”
Birkir shrugged and said, “Depends on how you look at it.”
Gunnar changed the subject. “Are we going to assume, just like that, that there’s a link between these cases? I mean this killing and the Gander murders?”
Birkir shook his head. “We can’t assume anything. It’s actually very unlikely. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious connection.”
Símon entered carrying a stack of papers. “The pictures from the Hvalfjördur tunnel tell us nothing,” he said. “I’ve located all the drivers and gotten their stories, and confirmed them with third parties. Their journeys through the tunnel on those mornings were perfectly legitimate.”
“What about the motorcycle?” Gunnar asked.
“That’s still a puzzle. I’ve requested the pictures for between four and six every morning that week; they’ll show us whether he’s on the move every day. The Akranes police are putting a car there tonight to see if he turns up.”
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