Арнальдур Индридасон - The Shadow District

‘That figures. He kept the photo in a drawer rather than on display.’

‘Yes. I expect that was an old habit from when you had to keep that kind of thing secret.’

‘Your relationship must have been very close for him to have confided in you.’

‘We... we became very fond of each other in the last few years and I miss him a lot, but I never had an affair while Eyjólfur was alive, let alone with Stefán, if that’s what you’re implying. And the idea that I played some part in Stefán’s death is utterly absurd. Preposterous.’

‘Did he have any relatives — the man in the photo, I mean? Anyone I could meet? Anyone Stefán stayed in touch with?’

‘Apparently he had a brother. But he’s dead. I don’t know of anyone else.’

‘So Stefán never told you he’d been a policeman here in Reykjavík during the war?.’

‘He never mentioned it, no. He didn’t like talking about those days.’

‘Any idea why?’

‘No, I just sensed that he didn’t like dwelling on the war years. And I never heard him mention any Rósamunda.’

‘What was he up to in the weeks and months before he died? Did he mention how he passed his time?’ asked Konrád.

‘Haven’t we been over that already?’ asked Birgitta wearily. Konrád’s visit was proving to be a strain, and he could tell she was keen to get shot of him and all his questions, his prying into her private life.

Deciding to call it a day, Konrád stood up. But it seemed Birgitta hadn’t finished.

‘You were asking about visits or people he met,’ she said. ‘When I thought about it afterwards I remembered him saying to me shortly before he died that he’d met a woman who had told him something, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He said it was all so long ago now... I don’t know if it could have any bearing on the case you mentioned.’

‘Who was the woman?’

‘She gave him some information about an old dressmaking shop.’

‘A dressmaking shop?’

‘That’s right. He said it didn’t exist any longer. The shop, I mean. Its heyday was during the war.’

‘Any idea what the information was?’

‘He didn’t explain, just said it was probably too late.’

‘Do you know who the woman was?’

‘No, I don’t. Though, come to think of it, I believe there were two of them, and one was called Geirlaug or some unusual name like that.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Oh, about three weeks, I should think.’

‘And you have no idea what it was about?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

Konrád spent the evening searching for information about old dressmaking companies. There had been several shops offering mending services and tailoring in Reykjavík during the war and for a number of years afterwards, from what he could discover. At the time seamstresses had been part of everyday life since there weren’t that many off-the-peg clothes available in the shops. People used to buy material and have it made up into dresses and coats or bedclothes and curtains The larger stores ran their own tailoring and dressmaking services, using material offered on their shop floor, an arrangement which had long since gone out of fashion.

As Konrád knocked back the Dead Arm, he felt his mood mellowing and let his thoughts stray back to his father and the spirit world, to human remains that were reinterred at the behest of psychics and to bones that were never found.

Finishing the bottle, he reflected on Birgitta’s revelation about Thorson and his lover, remembered the small stains on the photograph of the young man in the drawer. He had assumed something had spilled on it, but now he felt sure the marks were from Thorson’s tears.

Since Geirlaug wasn’t that common a name, Konrád decided his best bet was to ring all the Geirlaugs listed in the online telephone directory and ask whether by any chance they had a connection to an old dressmaker’s in Reykjavík, had heard of a man called Thorson and, if so, had met him shortly before he died. He couldn’t find any Geirlaug listed with ‘seamstress’ as an occupation, and assumed that the term had gone out of use long ago anyway. If the woman he was looking for turned out to be ex-directory, he would simply have to track her down by other, more circuitous means.

He started systematically working through the list of Geirlaugs at lunchtime the next day. Unusually, he had overslept. He had gone to bed late, been unable to get to sleep in spite of all the wine, and lain awake for hours, brooding over the fate of the elderly Thorson. He thought about Thorson’s lover and how, ever since losing him, the engineer appeared to have lived alone, withdrawn from the world. From there his mind turned to Thorson’s relationship with Birgitta, and he asked himself whether there was any chance, despite her categorical denial, that she could have helped him on his way as an act of mercy.

Having woken in the grip of a hangover, he drank several cups of coffee, gulping down water in between, but found he had little appetite. He sat staring into space until finally he summoned up the energy to start phoning Geirlaugs. There were landlines and mobiles listed for most of them, so if they didn’t answer at home, he tried their mobiles. He posed as an acquaintance of Stefán’s — avoiding any mention of ‘Thorson’ — and explained that he needed to get in touch with a woman called Geirlaug who had been in contact with him recently. Most of the women answered his call. One, who hadn’t been able to take it at the time, rang him back and asked if he had been trying to reach her. None of them knew Stefán Thórdarson, though two had a vague recollection of hearing the name in the news. The conversations were brief and the women generally showed little interest in who Konrád was. ‘You must have got the wrong number,’ was the most common response. Only one or two of the older-sounding women were curious to know more about him, but he didn’t waste time explaining. When they turned out not to know Stefán, he quickly brought the call to a close.

The task took him most of the afternoon. In between calls he listened to the radio or flipped through the papers, or wasted time surfing the Internet. Late in the afternoon his phone rang.

‘Yes, hello,’ he answered.

‘Was someone from this number trying to get hold of me?’ asked an elderly sounding female voice.

‘It’s possible,’ said Konrád. ‘Is your name Geirlaug?’

‘Yes, who is this, please?’

‘My name’s Konrád. Sorry to bother you like this but I knew Stefán Thórdarson. He died recently.’

‘Oh?’

‘You may have seen it on the news. He appears to have been murdered in his own home. I gather you spoke to him not long before he died.’

‘Yes, I did, I did speak to him,’ said the woman. ‘He rang me. Just like you.’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes, I’ve no idea how he dug up my name. He didn’t explain, just said he’d heard I knew a woman he was trying to get hold of.’

‘So you two didn’t meet?’

‘Oh no, we only talked on the phone.’

‘What exactly did he ask you?’

‘Who did you say you were again?’

‘My name’s Konrád and I knew Stefán. I’m helping the police with the inquiry into his death.’

‘Have you found out what happened?’

‘No, not yet. Could you tell me why he wanted to speak to you?’

‘He was trying to trace an old friend of mine,’ said Geirlaug. ‘It took me ages to work out what it was he actually wanted but we got to the bottom of it in the end. He’d heard I might be able to put him in touch with her. He didn’t even know her name.’

‘And what is her name?’

‘My friend? She’s called Petra. It was about her mother, Petra told me afterwards. He was asking questions about her.’ Geirlaug lapsed into silence, as if she had finished what she had to say.