“When did you leave him?”
“Around eight. I had to go home to dinner. I was hungry.”
“Was he alone then?”
“No, Thormodur Krakur came into the shed and they chatted a bit. I think Krakur was telling him old dreams. The old man likes to do that, if he can find a willing listener.”
“Did you tell anyone that Bryngeir believed he’d solved the case of that Danish man?”
“No, no. Just Mom and Dad. My sister Rosa heard it, too, but I didn’t tell anyone else, I swear.”
Thorolfur chewed on a slice of bread and drank coffee during the questioning. Occasionally he jotted something down on a lined sheet of paper.
Now Lukas started asking questions: “You’re sure you didn’t see him after eight?”
“Yeah, I’d thought of going out again and trying to find him. Even to go along with him, if someone was willing to take him to Stykkisholmur. But then it started to rain and I couldn’t be bothered. I just listened to the news on the radio.”
“Were your parents home?”
“Mom went down to Stina at the telephone exchange when she’d finished washing up, but Dad was at home reading a book to my sister Rosa.”
“He can therefore confirm that you were at home all evening?”
“That I have an alibi, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Do I need that?”
“It’s good to be able to eliminate as many people as possible.”
“I think Dad fell asleep when he’d finished reading to Rosa, and then Mom came home.”
“So you could have left the house without anyone knowing?”
Benny stubbed out his cigarette. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I can ever leave the house without Mom realizing it. She told me that Bryngeir had been hassling Hafdis when she got back. Stina at the telephone exchange had heard it from the people at Svalbardi after mass.”
Thorolfur took over the interrogation again: “What did you two do on Saturday?”
“I met him on the pier when he arrived with the boat and then took him to Svalbardi so that he could ask if he could stay. We spent some time with Sigurbjorn, chatting and drinking rum. Although I got very little rum. He was incredibly miserly, even though he had two and a half bottles. Then we went outside and spied when they were carrying that Danish guy in the casket down to the pier.”
“What do you mean, ‘spied’?”
“Just, not letting anyone see us. Bryngeir didn’t want anyone to see that we were watching. I don’t know why. Then we went to Ystakot and spoke to Valdi for a bit.”
“What about?”
“Bryngeir was trying to find out if Valdi would be willing to take people to Stykkisholmur if he was well paid for it.”
“What did Valdi say about that?”
“Maybe if the pay was good enough.”
“What did you do then?”
“We walked back and looked into the church. Bryngeir started trying to play the organ, but he couldn’t play a note. Hogni, the teacher, then came in and was about to rehearse for the mass. He’s our organist. He was really mad at Bryngeir for messing with the organ and was going to throw us out. But Bryngeir wouldn’t leave and just talked crap. I think he just liked winding people up. He was such a darn asshole. I didn’t want to hang around with him anymore and just went home. I think he just went into Svalbardi to have a snooze when he got bored arguing with Hogni.” Benny shut up and waited for the next question. Thorolfur kept him waiting and stared at him with searching eyes.
“Have you any knowledge of how Bryngeir died?” he finally asked.
“No, I swear,” Benny said hastily. “I’ve already told you.”
“Right then. That’s enough for now. Talk to you again later.”
Question twenty-six: Left his guts on the roof of a church. First letter. They went to Folskn unexpectedly and immediately killed Gunnar and some of his men. Ivar Korni was in the loft and escaped through a window, dressed only in his underwear. He tried to get into the church but it was locked. A ladder leaned against the church wall, so he climbed up to the roof and stayed there for the night. In the morning they found him, almost dead from the cold. He begged for mercy but did not get any. A man climbed the ladder and pierced him with a spear. Ivar fell, leaving his blood and guts behind him on the church roof. The answer is “Ivar,” and the first letter is i.
CHAPTER 43
Hogni’s task was to call in the people on the established list of names, and Sigurbjorn of Svalbardi had arrived by the time Benny stepped out of the classroom with Grimur after his questioning.
“Those guys are real cops,” Benny said, excited. Grimur told him to go home and ushered Sigurbjorn in to take a seat opposite the two detectives. He himself sat by the door.
Thorolfur kicked off with: “I’m told the deceased Bryngeir stayed with you on Saturday, is that correct?”
“You’d hardly call it stayed,” Sigurbjorn answered. “He came on Saturday and asked to stay the night. We have a spare bed that we sometimes lend to travelers, and he was welcome to it. He also got some food from us when he arrived and then again in the evening. But he was cheeky and incredibly tiring when he was drunk. I threw him out at three in the morning. I’m told he crawled into Krakur’s barn and slept there in some old hay until late on Sunday morning.”
“Why did you throw him out?”
“He turned out to be such a darned scoundrel. We all went to bed at around midnight, and he was supposed to do the same. But there was something restless about him, and in the middle of the night he sneaked into my daughter’s bedroom stark naked and tried to slip into her bed. He wanted to seduce her, the bloody lech!”
“What happened then?”
“Well, her granny sleeps in the next bed and had her wits about her. She caught him at the side of the bed and shooed him away. I think she emptied her potty over him. In any case, he was all wet on top when I found him in the corridor and kicked him out. Then I grabbed all his stuff and dumped it on the steps.”
“Didn’t you see him again?”
“No, and I didn’t go looking for him either. It didn’t surprise me that the man was doomed.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. When I looked into his bag to see if he’d stolen anything from the house, I found sheets from the Flatey enigma that are meant to be kept in the library and not taken away. He’d stolen them the bloody night before. I went straight to Hallbjorg in Innstibaer and got the library key from her to be able to put the sheets back where they belonged. She told me the magistrate’s assistant had been the last one to go to the library and that he’d probably forgotten to lock it. They don’t know how to handle these precious things, those cultivated people from Reykjavik.”
“Is that the only key to the library?”
“Yeah, apart from the key that the late Bjorn Snorri got a loan of. He went to the library so often.”
“You’re sure you didn’t meet Bryngeir again on Sunday evening?”
“Yes, of course I didn’t meet him again,” Sigurbjorn snapped angrily. “Do you think I’m lying? Do you really think I dragged that scoundrel up to the churchyard, placed him on a grave, and carved a blood eagle out of his back just because he’d abused my hospitality?”
“Carved a blood eagle out of his back?” Thorolfur asked.
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s perfectly obvious. Someone carved a blood eagle out of his back. Haven’t you read the Flatey Book?”
“No.”
Sigurbjorn shook his head and said, “Don’t they require you to have any education to join the police force these days?”
“The Flatey Book isn’t exactly on the police syllabus,” Thorolfur answered sourly.
Sigurbjorn grinned. “Isn’t it now? Well it should be. I’ll try to remember it for you. Sigurdur, Fafnir’s killer, fought Lyngvi Hundingsson in Friesland and captured him. Then they had a discussion about how Lyngvi should die. Regin suggested they carve a blood eagle on his back, and that’s what they did. Regin cut through Lyngvi’s back with his sword, broke his ribs to make them look like wings, and then he pulled out his lungs. So Lyngvi died with great valor. There are also accounts of blood eagles in the Orkneys saga and in the tale of Ormur Storolfsson, if I remember correctly. If you ask me, that’s exactly what was done to that wretch in the churchyard.”