Viktor Ingolfsson - The Flatey Enigma

Kjartan answered none of this, but stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills.

“What’s that?” Thorolfur asked.

“This is the medication I got from Johanna. I think I need one. These are outrageous accusations.”

Thorolfur snatched the bottle of pills from him, read the label, and stuck it into his pocket.

“Not just yet. My colleague’s hypothesis is not improbable, but it needs to be completed somehow. I’ve just received the preliminary postmortem report, according to which Bryngeir drowned and had been dead for a long time before he was carved up.”

This time it was Lukas’s turn to be baffled. “Drowned at sea?” he asked.

“No, in freshwater,” Thorolfur answered.

“In freshwater? But are there any ponds or streams on this island?” Lukas was addressing his question to District Officer Grimur.

“No, just the swamp, but that’s almost completely dry after the long spell of warm weather we’ve had,” Grimur answered.

Thorolfur read the sheet again and then looked at Kjartan. “Our colleague in Reykjavik seems to think it’s possible that Bryngeir drowned in a bathtub, and there’s one of those in the doctor’s house, I believe. Maybe the man was dragged into the bath before he was carved up. So you must have found him in the doctor’s house and taken care of him there. Isn’t that possible?”

Kjartan seemed to have stopped listening, but his shoulders were trembling. Thorolfur pulled the bottle of pills out of his pocket and slammed it on the table in front of him.

“Here, take your pills and tell us the truth!”

Kjartan looked at Grimur. “Could I have a glass of water?”

Grimur rushed into the corridor and swiftly returned with a cup full of water.

Kjartan slipped two pills into his mouth and took a sip. Finally he said, “There is just no other truth to tell you.”

Thorolfur shook his head. “We’ve checked everyone’s movements here on Sunday night and the early hours of Monday morning. There was nothing unusual. You and Johanna, on the other hand, were up and about into the early hours and had every motive to want to see the reporter dead. You’re going to have to tell me a hell of a lot more if you want me to start believing you.”

“I didn’t go near Bryngeir,” Kjartan repeated.

“Go over the evening for me,” said Thorolfur.

“Johanna and I were at the library until the early hours of the morning, and then I walked her home and left her outside her house. It had started to rain, so I rushed home to the district officer’s house and crept up to my bedroom in the loft. I didn’t know anything about Bryngeir before Grimur sent for me in the morning.” Kjartan wiped the sweat off his brow with the palm of his hand.

“What the hell were you doing in the library all night?” Thorolfur asked.

“Johanna was telling me about the Flatey Book.”

“Is that something you could talk about all night?”

“Yes.”

“What time was it when you went to bed?”

“I wasn’t keeping track of time, but it was daylight. I would guess six in the morning.”

Thorolfur pondered a moment and then said, “You’ll accompany us on board the ship. There’s a cabin reserved for you there. Johanna will be kept under observation at the doctor’s house. Both of you will be asked to write a full account of every single moment of that night. It’ll be interesting to see how your details match up.”

Question thirty-seven: The place where a man’s laughter is located. First letter. A man’s rage is located in his gall, life in his heart, memory in his brain, ambition in his lungs, laughter in his spleen, and desire in his liver. The answer is “spleen,” and the first letter is s.

A cloud of gloom hung over the district officer’s dining table that night. Grimur, Hogni, and Ingibjorg sat in the kitchen eating fried kittiwake eggs, puffin breast, and sugar-browned potatoes. There was plenty of food to go around because Ingibjorg had expected both policemen and Kjartan to join them for dinner. But they were on board the coast guard ship and would be there all evening. Probably overnight, too. Bjorn Snorri Thorvald’s funeral was scheduled for eleven the next morning, after which the coast guard ship was supposed to depart in the afternoon. Johanna and Kjartan were to go with them for further questioning. The detectives were now convinced that they were responsible for Bryngeir’s death and that Johanna had also played some role in Professor Lund’s fate.

“There’s no way that Kjartan and Johanna had anything to do with this nonsense,” Ingibjorg said decisively. “I know people, and I can see it in their eyes when they’re speaking the truth.”

Grimur looked bewildered. “It is very strange, though. All the islanders have been able to account for their movements that night. And they were the only two people who were up. Not that I bring myself to believe that there’s anything bad about Johanna. And Kjartan seems like such a decent guy, too, even if he had that stroke of bad luck in his youth.”

Hogni’s mouth was full of food. He liked it.

“Mmm, maybe they found him dead and just did those things to mock him,” he said.

“No, no, no,” said Ingibjorg. “Not my Johanna.”

They finished the meal and drank coffee afterwards. The sky had cleared, and the evening sun now appeared in the west. Grimur felt somehow restless. “Come on a walk with me,” he finally said to Hogni. “I find it easier to think in the evening air. We can collect the cattle for the night while we’re at it.”

The men stepped outside and walked over the eastern slope. Thormodur Krakur was carrying water to his shed. He didn’t answer when they said good evening to them and just vanished behind the shed door with his buckets of water.

“Everyone seems to be in a somber mood this evening,” said Grimur. He looked around. “This is where Bryngeir was last seen alive,” he said, puzzled. “And it’s from here that he was going to walk across the island to visit Johanna. What route could he have taken?”

“Well,” Hogni answered, “he must have taken the road and followed it down. I walked that way with Inspector Lukas today. He was timing it and measuring the distance. It’s six hundred strides.”

One of Thormodur Krakur’s cows bellowed loudly from within the shed.

“Yes, that’s a short walk,” Grimur said. “But what did the man do when he realized Doctor Johanna wasn’t in her house?”

Hogni thought about it. “Krakur says he was trying to get someone to take him to Stykkisholmur.”

“But none of the boat owners could remember him asking to be taken over that night.”

Hogni thought again. “Maybe he went out to Ystakot and asked Valdi. He’d done it once before,” he said.

Grimur started walking. “But don’t forget the poor man drowned before he was carved,” he said. “In unsalted water. There isn’t a single drop of water in the rocks around Ystakot.”

“No, except in the barrel in Valdi’s yard.”

“Do you think Valdi might have dragged the rascal by the scruff of the neck and drowned him in the barrel of water like a kitten?”

“Nah.” Hogni was baffled. “But Valdi can be hot tempered.”

“And why should he have dragged the body to the churchyard?”

“I don’t know,” Hogni answered, feeling uneasy about taking on the role of the accuser in this reasoning.

“Let’s walk across the island and see what the Ystakot clan have to say for themselves this evening,” said Grimur. They walked down the road below the church in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. No lights shone in the doctor’s house, but when they reached the pier they saw the coast guard ship was lit up.