Арнальдур Индридасон - The Shadow District

‘So the two of them decided they would pin the whole thing on Jónatan?’

‘The idea only occurred to my dad when the police came round to notify them of his death. Jónatan was their prime suspect, but my father sensed that they had their doubts. He simply made sure they were confident that they had the right man. All he had to do was fuel their suspicions about Jónatan. After all, Jónatan was dead. It couldn’t hurt him. If you look at it like that.’

‘Why did they bring her here, to the theatre?’

‘My father was a bit vague about that. Perhaps because the National Theatre was supposed to resemble an elf castle, so it fitted the lie. And my grandfather knew that girls used to go there with soldiers. It would be very convenient if they could shift the blame onto them. My father watched from a distance. Stood on Skuggasund and waited until a soldier and his girl came across the body. Then he made himself scarce.’

‘And was richly rewarded for his silence.’

‘He inherited the family business,’ said Benjamín flatly.

‘And you? Weren’t you faced with the same choice when you decided to dispose of Thorson?’

The other man didn’t answer.

‘You must have been thinking about the family honour — whatever that’s worth?’

‘I just couldn’t face the idea of the past ever being exposed. Of anyone knowing that about us. About my father. My grandfather. The old man was intending to go to the police. I saw my chance and took it. There’s no excuse for what I did. Absolutely no excuse.’

‘You really thought you could keep it secret for the rest of your life?’

‘I felt I’d been put in an impossible position. Just like my father before me. A completely impossible position.’

‘Oh, I think you could both have found better solutions,’ Konrád said and sensed that his words had touched a nerve. Taking Benjamín by the arm, he led him to the car and made him get into the passenger seat. Then he climbed behind the wheel and drove off down Lindargata, glancing over, as he always did, at his old house, on his way to keep his appointment with Marta, who was waiting for news at the station.

Thorson’s funeral was attended by Konrád, Birgitta and a scattering of old engineering colleagues. It took place on a grey, rainy day at the chapel in Fossvogur Cemetery, where many years ago Thorson had bought a plot beside the grave of the man he had loved. The ceremony was brief: the minister delivered a blessing, they sang the old funeral hymn ‘The One True Flower’, then the undertakers shouldered the coffin and carried it out to the cemetery, where they lowered it into the ground.

One of the first things Konrád did after Benjamín’s story had come to light was to share it with Birgitta, explaining how it was that her old neighbour had come to die at the hands of a murderer, how his death had been intended to protect a shameful family secret. He told her about Rósamunda’s fate and about the girl from Öxarfjördur who had never been found and presumably never would be now.

‘They’re all guilty — three generations — each in their own way,’ commented Birgitta as they stood over Thorson’s grave. ‘The grandfather, son and grandson.’

‘I don’t suppose Benjamín knew what to do when Thorson suddenly turned up out of the blue, all set to expose his father and grandfather. He claims he didn’t go to see Thorson with the intention of killing him. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. A moment of madness. He thought the problem would go away if the old man did.’

‘What about the grandfather?’ asked Birgitta.

‘Benjamín got the impression that his grandfather didn’t have a lot of respect for women. It was a different era. Men saw nothing wrong in taking advantage of them. Then there was the social upheaval brought about by the war. Benjamín thought that perhaps in his grandfather’s eyes the girl up north and Rósamunda had represented everything he despised about the Situation. Innocent though they were, they were made to pay the price for the behaviour of other women. Though at this remove it’s impossible to know what was going through his head. For all Benjamín knows, there may have been other girls who landed in his clutches and never dared say a word.’

‘Stefán never forgot the girls,’ said Birgitta as they walked slowly back to the cemetery gates. ‘Even after all these years.’

‘No, he was never satisfied,’ said Konrád. ‘Never happy with the way it ended.’

Later that evening Beta dropped in on her brother, and he told her the whole story. She sat in the kitchen listening to Konrád’s account without a word, and afterwards was silent and pensive for a long while.

‘It must have come as a nasty shock for this Benjamín when his dad started rambling on about Rósamunda, and the horrific truth came out,’ she said at last.

‘He wouldn’t have known which way to turn,’ agreed Konrád. ‘Then Thorson pops up, then me. The whole thing was blowing up in his face.’

‘All his family’s dirty laundry about to be exposed.’

‘Yes.’

‘And his dad a former cabinet minister and all.’

‘He wanted to protect his reputation — his family’s reputation.’

‘Just like you’re always trying to defend your dad?’

‘I’m not “always” trying to defend him.’

‘Odd that he should have been connected to all this,’ said Beta.

‘Yes, but then he was mixed up in a lot of things.’

‘I’ll never forget the moment when Mum told me the news. That he’d been stabbed outside the abattoir and no one knew who’d done it. Somehow I didn’t care. I actually think I was relieved. I didn’t miss him at all. He was despicable to Mum — to a lot of people. And Mum said he was well on the way to turning you into the same kind of good-for-nothing.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Konrád. ‘OK, he had his faults but he had his good moments too. I know how he treated Mum, how he drove her away.’

‘It’s called domestic violence, Konrád. She fled all the way east to Seydisfjördur. He only hung on to you to get even with her. That was typical. He was a nasty piece of work, Konrád. He drank, he was violent and he got sucked into crime.’

‘I know all that. I was there, remember? It was ugly, and I’ve never forgiven him for what he did to Mum.’

‘Yet you’ve always tried to defend him! You’re always trying to find excuses for him. Like that Benjamín did, and his father before him.’

‘That’s not the same —’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Beta. ‘You bloody men, you’re all the same. Too bloody spineless to face up to the truth.’

‘Calm down,’ said Konrád.

‘No, you calm down!’ Beta got to her feet. Then, after a moment, she added in a less agitated tone: ‘Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened? By the abattoir?’

It was a question they used to ponder a great deal, but as time wore on the incident faded into the background, and these days they hardly ever discussed who could have stabbed their father to death and why. Beta was inclined to be more judgemental. She felt he had brought it on himself. But Konrád couldn’t agree.

‘No, I doubt it,’ he said.

‘It’s unlikely at this stage?’

‘Yes, not much chance now.’

Flóvent stood near the stage, watching the newly elected president of the Republic of Iceland deliver a speech to his countrymen who were huddled against the rain, having gathered in their thousands around the stands at Thingvellir, all the way up the Almannagjá ravine and down the River Öxará to the very shores of the lake. They had thronged here from all over the country to celebrate their new-found freedom as citizens of Europe’s youngest republic. The King of Denmark had sent a congratulatory telegram despite his private dismay at being called on to surrender the colony in the middle of the war. The D-Day landings had recently taken place. News had reached them of catastrophic Allied losses on the beaches of Normandy. Flóvent often thought of Thorson and fervently hoped that he had survived the slaughter.