‘Do I get to see this letter?’ Hédinn asked, determination in his voice.
‘We can sort that out,’ Ari Thór said. ‘But let’s return to Hédinsfjördur.’ He glanced at the wall where the film from Hédinsfjördur had brought the scene of his narrative to such vivid life. Now there was only a square of light from the projector.
‘It’s 1955; Hédinsfjördur is uninhabited, but Gudmundur, Gudfinna, Maríus and Jórunn decide to try their luck and move into the farmhouse on the western side of the lagoon. It’s a beautiful place, but dangerous, right at the foot of a towering mountain. I haven’t heard any reasons for this venture, other than a simple desire to strike out and try something new. Gudmundur appears to have been fairly well off, so maybe it was a wealthy man’s need for adventure. I’m not so sure of that, however; I think the reasons are quite different, and behind them is the solution to the mystery.’
Ari Thór looked down, paused and then looked directly at Hédinn.
‘You were born a year later, in 1956.’ Hédinn nodded and Ari Thór continued. ‘That autumn a workman was engaged to help with the farm work – a teenage lad from Húsavík. His name was Anton.’
‘Anton? That’s the lad I met in Hédinsfjördur?’ Delía asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘His name was Anton?’ Hédinn asked, his voice dropping. ‘He’s dead?’
‘He is.’
‘Is that connected to … Did he die in Hédinsfjördur?’ Hédinn asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Your family had nothing whatsoever to do with Anton’s death. Quite the opposite, as your father treated him very well and paid for him to study abroad.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Hédinn said in clear astonishment, about to get to his feet but then sitting back down. ‘He did that, did he? Why?’
‘I think he had good reason to send the lad away to study; and the same applies to his generosity to Maríus and Jórunn,’ Ari Thór said, his voice becoming grave. ‘That winter Maríus took the photograph that set all this off. As you know now, that’s Anton holding you as a baby, Hédinn. There were questions to start with as to why an unknown man was holding the baby, but since Anton was a workman at the farm, there’s nothing particularly out of place there. We can presume that, by the time the photograph was taken, he had been part of the household for some time. Then, around Christmas, on a beautiful winter’s day, a young woman hiked over the pass from Siglufjördur to take pictures,’ Ari Thór said with a sideways glance at Delía. ‘She’s the only one of us who met Anton.’
‘So did Hédinn,’ Kristín pointed out.
‘True,’ Ari Thór agreed, smiling. ‘But Delía is the one who remembers meeting him.’
‘That’s right,’ Delía said. ‘That conversation with the boy, Anton … it’s stayed in my mind all these years.’ She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
‘Didn’t you talk about how difficult it must have been to live in such a remote place?’ Ari Thór asked, giving Delía an opportunity to tell her tale.
‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘My feeling is that the place was haunted. There was something unearthly in the darkness there.’
‘Ghosts?’ Hédinn asked doubtfully. ‘I don’t believe it. My parents never mentioned anything like that. Not that they ever said much about the time they spent in Hédinsfjördur, if I’m completely honest.’
‘The young man said he could feel something abnormal there,’ Delía continued. ‘I could see he was frightened. Then Gudmundur called to him; he clearly wasn’t happy to see a visitor. That’s my impression, at any rate.’
‘I spoke to a close friend of Anton’s and asked him about that. He recalled them talking about this, and said that there was a connection to breastfeeding, of all things.’
‘What? And did you get an explanation?’ Delía asked.
‘Anton’s friend couldn’t tell me any more, although I feel it fits neatly in with my theory of what happened.’
‘And what is your theory?’ demanded Delía.
She seemed keener that Hédinn on reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Maybe he was feeling scared of the truth, Ari Thór thought, now that the narrative was unfolding, and would prefer not to hear the end of the story.
‘I’ll get to that in a moment,’ Ari Thór said, enjoying being in the limelight.
He felt like a storyteller – someone who would disappear once the tale had been told. But then he realised that might not be a possibility. Since Tómas’s visit, he had avoided thinking about the future, intending to relax for the evening and decide later whether or not to apply for the inspector’s post in Siglufjördur. But the future had sneaked up on him again; he knew that a significant choice was waiting to be made. But that could wait a little longer. He tried to steer his thoughts elsewhere.
‘First I’ll tell you a little more about Anton,’ he said, his mind once again focused on Hédinsfjördur. ‘He wasn’t there when Jórunn died, and it seems that Gudmundur ensured that as few people as possible knew that he had spent the winter there.’
Ari Thór heard Hédinn gasp for breath.
‘I gather Anton left in January or February,’ he continued. ‘Gudmundur asked him to leave, but paid him his wages until the spring.’
‘What had he done?’ Hédinn asked.
‘Nothing at all. Your father simply wanted him out of the way, and even paid for him to travel to Norway to study after Jórunn’s death. He paid his sea passage and for his studies that winter,’ Ari Thór replied.
There was complete silence, and even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.
‘Gudmundur wanted to be rid of the workman?’ Delía asked in a low voice.
‘Exactly. First he was sent away from Hédinsfjördur, and after Jórunn’s murder, there could be no half-measures. So he was sent far away, out of the country.’
Hédinn started in surprise and gripped the edge of the table.
‘What did you say? Jórunn was murdered?’ he asked sharply, a tremor in his voice.
‘Yes. She was murdered. I’m sure of it.’
‘And who was the murderer?’ Hédinn asked, fear plain in his voice.
‘I can tell you that, Hédinn,’ he said, taking on the role of storyteller so wholeheartedly that he forgot that caution should be exercised around sensitive souls. ‘At the very least I can tell you that your mother and father were entirely innocent of that terrible deed.’
48
There was a palpable tension in the air. Hédinn muttered something to himself and then fell silent. Delía said nothing. Kristín had let go of Ari Thór’s hand, but now he felt for hers and squeezed it. Her fingers in his gave him the security that he felt a sudden need for.
Hédinn broke the silence, clearing his throat. ‘Are you telling me that Maríus murdered his wife?’ he asked, astonishment and a note of relief in his voice.
Ari Thór let a few long seconds pass before he replied.
‘No. Maríus didn’t murder her.’
‘What the hell do you mean?’ Hédinn asked, his anger rising. ‘Are you insinuating that … that Anton came back to Hédinsfjördur and murdered Jórunn?’
‘Not at all. He’s completely innocent. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and knew too much.’
‘Well … I don’t understand,’ Hédinn said. ‘There wasn’t anyone else there.’
‘Only Hédinn himself,’ Delía said slowly.
Hédinn got noisily to his feet, and as he did so a gust of wind hammered at the house, silencing them all.
‘Damn it. I’m not listening to this nonsense. I wasn’t even a year old then.’
Ari Thór stood up too and placed a hand on Hédinn’s shoulder.
‘Calm down. Of course I’m not suggesting that you could have committed a murder at only ten months old.’
Hédinn sat down again.
Ari Thór took his seat on the stool as Delía muttered under her breath. ‘It must have been the ghost,’ she said. Her vo
ice shook.
Ari Thór paid her no attention. ‘Let’s go quickly over the facts that caught my attention,’ he said firmly. ‘When I started to look into the case, I spoke to the chairman of the Siglufjördur Association. His understanding was that the sisters, Jórunn and Gudfinna, had been alike in their nature, and not keen on dark fjords. They had both been brought up in Reykjavík. In general, whenever Jórunn’s death is mentioned, the opinion seems to have been that she was in a delicate state of mind. I’ve listened to a recording of the conversation with Nikulás and my understanding to begin with was that he confirmed this. He said, and I can quote his exact words …’
Ari Thór took a notebook from his pocket and opened it at the page where he had made notes ahead of the evening’s gathering.
‘Nikulás was of the opinion that Jórunn had taken her own life,’ he continued. ‘He said he had been sure of it. To be precise, he said: “Maríus often hinted at it when we talked. He said that the darkness had got to some of them very badly.” After I started to look at this from a different angle, I decided to ask Nikulás about this. I contacted him today and was able to get one of the staff at the care home to ask him some questions, as the old man is too deaf to use the phone. He was able to give a clearer explanation. Maríus had certainly spoken about how hard Jórunn had found it to adjust to their circumstances – but the same applied to Gudfinna.’
‘Didn’t she ever mention it to you?’ Delía asked, her eyes on Hédinn.
Ari Thór sat in silence and waited.
‘No, I can’t say she ever did,’ Hédinn replied, downcast.
‘Living there affected her?’ Delía asked Ari Thór. ‘I can understand it. I wouldn’t have wanted to live there.’
‘Yes, Nikulás felt that living in Hédinsfjördur had been more of a trial for Gudfinna than for Jórunn. Gudfinna struggled to cope with the long darkness and the isolation, but that has hardly been mentioned. Maybe Gudmundur wanted to keep that quiet. Attitudes to mental illness were much more negative then than they are today.’
‘That’s very true,’ Delía agreed. ‘People didn’t talk about that sort of thing.’
‘My suspicion is that Anton knew about her state of mind. According to Anton’s friend, Thorvaldur, “the lady of the house” had become increasingly peculiar by the day, and by that I assumed that Anton had meant Jórunn. So I spoke to Thorvaldur to make sure, and it turns out he had meant Gudfinna, as he had always seen her as “the lady of the house”.’
‘People can react badly to conditions like that,’ Kristín said. ‘It can even lead to clinical depression that needs to be treated quickly and properly.’
‘So if that was the case,’ Ari Thór continued. ‘Gudmundur must have wanted to do everything he could to keep tongues from wagging.’
‘You said he sent the boy to study in Norway?’ Delía asked.
‘Precisely,’ Ari Thór said with a smile. ‘The man could afford it, but Anton certainly knew more than just this, so Gudmundur had every reason to send him abroad.’
Hédinn again shot to his feet. ‘What the hell are you insinuating about my father, boy? He was a good man.’
‘Well, well,’ Delía said, also standing up. ‘More coffee, anyone?’ she suggested, pouring it out into the cups on the table that had hardly been touched.
‘Careful now,’ Kristín whispered to Ari Thór.
‘I suspect that Gudmundur had his own, good reasons for paying for Anton’s studies and for supporting Jórunn and Maríus, who had been living in poverty until he pulled them out of it,’ Ari Thór said.
He paused and there was a deafening silence in the kitchen. Delía looked ill at ease, as if she would prefer her guests to leave. Hédinn remained on his feet, his face thunderous.
‘Let’s see,’ continued Ari Thór. Maríus owned his apartment debt-free, plus he had money in a savings account that hadn’t been touched for decades – money that inflation ate up. I had someone look more closely at the contents of Maríus’s box of documents, checking his accounts and also all the available information about the purchase of his apartment. Two things stood out. One was the payment; the amount in Maríus’s savings account, which was paid in during that summer of 1956. There’s no way to see where that payment came from, but I suspect it came from Gudmundur.’
‘No more. That’s enough. These are endless unsubstantiated theories about my father,’ Hédinn announced and set off towards the door. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Ari Thór said.
Hédinn stopped and turned in the doorway.
‘We were able to find the original documents concerning the sale of Maríus’s apartment in Reykjavík. Originally it had been owned by a limited company in Siglufjördur, which passed the ownership to Maríus. This was after the Hédinsfjördur venture, and what’s more, there’s no indication that Maríus paid for the apartment.’ Ari Thór looked down at his notebook and read out the name of the company.
‘Hell,’ Hédinn said the concern plain on his face. ‘That was one of my father’s companies.’
‘I thought so,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Is there any way that your father owed such a debt to Maríus that he paid a significant amount of money to him? As far as I can see, this was a lot of money at the time; and he also transferred the ownership of the apartment to him. It’s worth saying that Maríus appears never to have touched the money; he simply left it in the account and let inflation gradually make it worthless.’
Ari Thór paused to let this sink in before he continued.
‘There are two more things that I’d like to draw attention to. I looked for Jórunn’s obituary, but couldn’t find one, just a simple death notice. There was no picture of the deceased on it, but that was usual at the time. On the other hand, there are no pictures of Jórunn anywhere to be found in connection with the reports of her death. That isn’t especially suspicious in itself, but I have the feeling that this was convenient for Gudmundur. He presumably wanted to make sure no pictures of Jórunn appeared after her death.’
‘Why on earth not?’ Delía asked.
‘Then there’s what Björg told us,’ Ari Thór said, with a glance at Kristín. ‘We went to see her today in Ólafsfjördur. While I remember, Hédinn – she said she’d love to see you.’
‘What? Me? Who is this woman?’ he demanded, still standing in the doorway, but no longer on his way out of the house.
‘She’s the midwife from Ólafsfjördur who delivered you. She’s still alive, and very active for her age.’
‘Still alive? She must be ancient,’ Hédinn said.
‘She’s as bright as a button,’ Ari Thór replied. ‘But why did Gudmundur go to her and not to the midwife in Siglufjördur? Why go the extra distance? Siglufjördur is closer and an easier journey over the mountains. Björg thought that the midwife from Siglufjördur didn’t trust herself to trek over the Hestsskard pass, which is plausible, but as she died years ago, we’ll never know for sure. There could be another explanation. I think the key to this is that Björg didn’t know these people at all and never saw any of them again afterwards.’
Every eye was on Ari Thór and he felt his pulse start to beat faster.
‘Gudmundur got in touch with Björg, telling her that his wife had gone into labour,’ he said. ‘Björg told us that it was a difficult birth, and that Hédinn’s mother remained in bed all that day. Björg didn’t go back to Ólafsfjördur until the following day. It took me a while to figure out how important that piece of information was, and then it all fell into place.’
Ari Thór caught Hédinn’s eye. His expression remained stony, until the significance of Ari Thór’s words dawned on him.
‘No … That can’t be right,’ he said, thunderstruck.
‘Exactly. It doesn’t add up. It’s possible that Björg isn’t telling the truth, but why shouldn’t she? She could have got mixed up, I suppose, but my impression is that she remembers the events of that day very clearly. Don’t you agree?’ Ari Thór said,
turning to Kristín.
‘Agreed,’ Kristín said quietly.
‘Now someone’s going to have to explain all this to me,’ Delía said sternly. ‘Why doesn’t it add up?’
‘Are you going to tell her?’ Ari Thór said, his eyes on Hédinn.
Hédinn hesitated before speaking. ‘Yes … As I told Ari Thór when we met first, my name is linked to Hédinsfjördur. My mother used to say that the day I was born she walked down to the lagoon in Hédinsfjördur; it was a beautiful sunny day, so she decided that I should be called Hédinn.’
‘Do you think she wasn’t telling the truth?’ Ari Thór asked. ‘Because this doesn’t fit Björg’s account, which states that she had to stay in bed for the rest of the day having had a difficult birth.’
‘No, it’s true,’ Hédinn said, although with hesitation. ‘She often spoke of what a beautiful day it had been. I just don’t understand …’ he began, and lapsed into silence, his eyes blank.
‘The simple answer is that Gudfinna wasn’t your mother, Hédinn,’ Ari Thór said bluntly, leaving those in the little kitchen stunned.
‘What? No, that can’t possibly be it,’ he said, his voice hopeless. It can’t be possible …’ he added, his voice cracking.
‘It’s the only possible explanation,’ Ari Thór said firmly. ‘I said just now that this is linked to something that’s a delicate matter today, and something that our Members of Parliament are even busy debating. By that I mean surrogate motherhood.’
‘Surrogacy?’ Delía said in amazement.’ What on earth are you implying?’
‘It’s a term that has been coined relatively recently, but at its heart it’s the same thing: making an agreement with a woman to carry someone else’s child. Gudmundur and Gudfinna had no other children than Hédinn, which was unusual in those days. In addition, we have evidence that they offered to adopt Jórunn’s and Maríus’s child some years before Hédinn was born. Could this be because they had been unable to have children of their own, and not simply to make life easier for Jórunn and Maríus?’
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