Арнальдур Индридасон - The Shadow Killer

‘He must have had some reason for hanging on to the leaflet,’ said Thorson.

‘She might have a better idea of what Ebeneser and Rudolf were quarrelling about,’ said Flóvent, brushing his finger over the woman’s face.

‘When they were arguing about the boys?’

‘Yes. When they were arguing about the boys. Perhaps she could shed some light on that.’

They both got the shock of their lives when the door of the flat suddenly opened with a bang and a man appeared in the doorway. On catching sight of two men in the living room, he stormed towards them with a face like thunder.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ he demanded, glowering at Thorson. ‘I won’t have any soldiers in this house. Did Vera send you? Are you looking for her? Is it that slut you’re after?’

For a moment they didn’t know what had hit them. Then Flóvent set about trying to placate the man, explaining repeatedly that they were policemen investigating Eyvindur’s murder, and that Thorson was there on behalf of the military police. The man turned out to be Eyvindur’s uncle, the landlord. He wanted to rent the flat out again immediately. ‘No reason to wait,’ he said, a little shamefaced. He had only just learnt of his nephew’s death and all he seemed to care about was finding a new tenant. The demand for housing in the city was growing by the day, he explained apologetically, and he didn’t want to waste any time — although of course it was shocking news about his nephew. ‘But life goes on. What can I say? There’s no point letting the place stand empty — as long as you don’t object? The police, I mean.’

Flóvent told him they saw no reason why he shouldn’t rent out the flat again as soon as he liked. The uncle explained that he was going to put Eyvindur’s possessions in storage and perhaps try to sell some of them to make up for the rent he had owed.

‘Eyvindur always had trouble keeping up with his payments,’ the uncle said. He was a tall man in his fifties, with a deep voice and a no-nonsense manner, who knew his own mind and clearly didn’t suffer fools gladly. His name was Sigfús. ‘If it had been anyone but my boy Eyvindur, I’d have thrown him out long ago,’ he added, as if to show belatedly that he had cared a little for his nephew.

Flóvent told him that the police had tried to contact Eyvindur’s next-of-kin but despite their best efforts to track down his family, they hadn’t managed to find any other relatives. The uncle confirmed that there weren’t any. Eyvindur had no children and that wretched woman had walked out on him. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters either, and his parents had both passed away.

‘Are you any closer to finding out who killed him?’ asked Sigfús, adding that he had been stunned when he’d heard that his nephew had been murdered. Eyvindur was the last person he would have expected to suffer such a violent fate. ‘A harmless lad. I wasn’t aware that he had an enemy in the world,’ he said.

‘No, the motive’s not clear,’ said Flóvent.

‘He was always rather alone in the world, poor lad. Had a tough time of it. I let him live here for a song, considering what I could have charged these days. If I’d known what she... what that Vera was up to while he was away, carrying on her sordid trade here, I’d have thrown her out.’

‘Do you by any chance know where she is, sir?’

‘No need for formality, young man — and no, I don’t, and I don’t want to. She can go to the devil, for all I care. Isn’t she behind this whole thing? I never liked her. Never. Wasn’t this just her way of getting rid of the boy? They said on the wireless that he’d been shot with a soldier’s pistol.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Isn’t it obvious then?’ asked the uncle, addressing Thorson now. ‘Wasn’t it one of you lot? Isn’t that... so-called army of yours nothing but a parcel of murderers and good-for-nothings? She must have talked one of them into shooting my nephew. It wouldn’t have been difficult. She wanted to carry on her whoring in peace. Eyvindur must have been pestering her, begging her to come back, so she egged on some soldier-boy to get rid of him. Isn’t that the most likely story?’

‘Do you know if your nephew had any dealings with the military?’ asked Thorson, ignoring the man’s conjecture. It was obvious that he had a grudge against the occupation force. This was nothing new.

‘As far as I know, he had nothing to do with them. But Vera, on the other hand... She seems to have been busy keeping them happy and earning a bit of money on the side.’

‘Did Eyvindur ever mention this? That he was afraid of Vera? Of what she might do to him?’

‘No. Eyvindur would never have done anything to upset her. She had him completely under her thumb. Bit of a doormat, he was. Let her push him around. Hardly drew breath without asking her permission. I reckon it was her that persuaded him to go in for this sales racket. Ordered him, more like. I could tell from the way he talked about it. She wanted him out of her hair, said he was smothering her. Of course, she only did it to get him out of the way, so she could carry on with her whoring in peace. Eyvindur was no salesman. He said so himself.’

‘When did he say that?’

‘Not that long ago. He was paying me part of the rent he owed, and said he didn’t have much money and that Vera was always complaining. There was all sorts of stuff she wanted. I felt a bit sorry for the lad as he was already months behind with his rent. None of my other tenants would have got away with that. I thought of using him as a rent collector, but I knew he’d be hopeless. People would laugh in his face. Strange, that. They wouldn’t have laughed at my brother.’

‘At Eyvindur’s father, you mean?’

‘Ragnar Ragnarsson. You ought to recognise the name if you’re not a complete greenhorn.’

‘Ragnar Ragnarsson? You don’t mean...?’

‘Spent years behind bars. You ought to know who he was.’

Flóvent did indeed recognise the name and remembered having to deal with the man in his early days with the force. Recalled an ugly, powerfully built thug with tattoos up both arms. An arrest after a violent brawl at a drinking hole. A charge for assault. Ragnar had gone berserk when the police arrested him. His victim, a younger man, had been in a state of shock, more dead than alive when they reached the scene and got him to a doctor. He hadn’t known his assailant from Adam. Flóvent also remembered other occasions when Ragnar Ragnarsson had come to the attention of the police. Smuggling, burglaries, beatings. Then suddenly he was gone. Fell ill while serving a lengthy sentence. There had been a delay in calling out a doctor and by the time they got him to hospital he was dead. Flóvent heard later that it was a blood clot in the brain that had killed him.

‘I remember him well,’ he said, unable to hide his surprise. ‘You mean he was Eyvindur’s father?’

‘You wouldn’t exactly say Eyvindur was a chip off the old block,’ said Sigfús. ‘I’ve never met two men more different than Eyvindur and his father. I’d swear that boy didn’t have a drop of his blood. And the lad paid the price for that.’

‘Of course, Ragnar was a bully and a jail—’

‘Careful how you talk about him. I know he was no angel, but he was still my brother.’

‘No angel?’ Flóvent repeated. ‘He was a vicious brute. No one shed a tear at the station when they heard he’d kicked the bucket. It just meant one less thug on the streets.’

‘Well, say what you like,’ said Sigfús, ‘I’m not going to argue with you. What have you got there? Are those Eyvindur’s photographs?’

Flóvent passed him the photograph they had found in the trunk, and Sigfús said it was of his own parents, a farming couple who had only visited Reykjavík once in their lives and had the photograph taken as a souvenir. The school anniversary booklet was new to him, though, and so was the photograph it featured, though he immediately identified Eyvindur as one of the two bareheaded boys.