He left.
Afterwards, wondering if he could glean any more information from Vigga, he paid another visit to her nursing home. The corridors were alive with residents on the move, many of them inching along on Zimmer frames; they were overtaken by members of staff dashing to and fro with trays and bowls. The air was filled with music from a radio. Vigga was lying in her usual spot, oblivious to it all. Reluctant to disturb her, Konrád took a seat beside her bed. The carer he consulted had told him she never received any visits, so people had been surprised when an elderly gentleman had come to sit with her a couple of weeks ago, and now Konrád had turned up twice.
He had been sitting there for twenty minutes or so, flipping through an unbelievably tedious lifestyle magazine, when he heard the old woman stirring. He put down the magazine. Vigga opened her eyes and looked at him.
‘Vigga?’ said Konrád.
‘Who are you?’ she asked weakly.
‘My name’s Konrád. I came to see you the other day.’
‘Oh?’
‘Do you remember?’
Vigga shook her head. ‘Who are you?’ she asked again.
‘My name’s Konrád. Naturally you won’t remember me, but I used to live near you in the old days.’
Vigga showed no sign of recognising him, either from the past or from his recent visit.
‘I came to see you the other day to ask about a visitor you had, a man called Stefán. He was stationed here during the war and went by the name of Thorson; he was in the military police. Do you remember his visit at all? Do you recall talking to him?’
‘Do I know you, Mr—?’ asked Vigga, suddenly turning formal.
‘No, I doubt you’d remember me — it was too long ago. This Thorson wanted to know if you could help him with a case he was investigating during the war — a young woman found strangled behind the National Theatre. When I came to see you recently, you mentioned another —’
‘Are you from the management?’
‘No, I’m just visiting,’ said Konrád. ‘I don’t know if you talked to Thorson at all, but you told me about another girl, a girl who’d vanished. They never found her bones, you said, and you mentioned the huldufólk.’
‘She was attacked by one of the huldufólk.’ With difficulty, Vigga raised herself up from her pillow, her eyes resting on Konrád’s face.
‘Who?’
‘The girl up north. Hrund, her name was. They never found her. She threw herself into the waterfall. Was your father a medium?’
‘No,’ said Konrád, disconcerted.
‘Yes, he was.’
‘No, he—’
‘The fake medium!’
‘No, he wasn’t. He was a member of the Society for Psychical...’
‘He was a crook,’ hissed Vigga, lying back on her pillows. ‘He was a dirty, no-good piece of scum.’
‘Vigga?’
She didn’t answer. Her eyelids drooped again.
‘Vigga?’
Three quarters of an hour later Konrád stood up and left. Vigga was out for the count. He had sat by her side, waiting for her to wake up so he could ask her more about the girl, Hrund. Everything she’d said was a mystery to him. The huldufólk had attacked Hrund and she’d thrown herself into a waterfall. He had no idea what she was talking about. Was Hrund the same girl she had referred to last time, the one who had vanished and never been found?
He was sitting in his car, about to start the engine, when he suddenly remembered the two pages of notes he had found in the police archives, which appeared to be in Flóvent’s hand. They had mentioned that the suspect knew ‘the girl up north’.
Could that have been this Hrund?
He recalled his father’s account of the seance with Rósamunda’s parents. Because of the subsequent furore, no one else had learned that the disgraced medium had sensed the presence of another girl who had also suffered a cruel fate, and Konrád, who was not the credulous type, wondered all the same if he could have meant the girl Vigga had referred to as Hrund.
37
The woman was a little younger than Konrád. She had held a number of office jobs over the years, most recently with the social security department. She suggested they meet up at a cafe in the centre of town. Though their fathers had worked together, conspiring to defraud the innocent, Konrád had never spoken to her before. Her name was Eygló and she was the only child of the medium who had held the seance for Rósamunda’s parents.
He explained over the phone that he’d found her father’s obituary online and got her name from it. Eygló told him her father had been reluctant to talk about his time as a medium, but she turned out to be familiar with the Rósamunda affair and said she’d sometimes wondered how it ended. Konrád informed her that the inquiry appeared to have been abandoned and the case was never solved.
‘So you’re his son,’ was her opening gambit as they greeted one another in the cafe. She held on to his hand when he made to withdraw it, scrutinising him for a moment before suddenly releasing it. ‘I have to admit I was a little curious after we talked on the phone.’
‘Curious?’ said Konrád as they sat down.
‘Your father nearly destroyed my dad,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see what you look like.’
‘I hope you’re not too disappointed.’
‘We’ll see. Those kinds of character flaws tend to run in families.’
‘Character flaws? What do you mean?’
‘Dad never used to speak ill of anyone, but that’s what he said about your father — that he was a bad character. Were you brought up by him?’
‘I don’t see what... what that has to do with anything.’
‘You want to bombard me with questions — why shouldn’t I return the favour?’
‘This isn’t about me.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Then why are we here? Isn’t it because of your father? That seance? Isn’t that why you rang me?’
Eygló studied him intently as she waited for his reply. She was petite, dark-haired, dressed almost entirely in black, and looked much younger than her years. Her eyes were bright and searching below her high forehead, her movements brisk and decisive; she had a quick mind and got straight to the point. Over the phone she had informed Konrád that she had followed in her father’s footsteps and worked as a psychic for a while. Konrád toyed with the idea of asking if she’d inherited her talent from her father but hesitated. She added that she wasn’t well known and kept very quiet about what she called her ‘gift’.
‘I rang about Rósamunda,’ said Konrád. ‘I wanted to know if your father had ever said anything about her. If he’d researched any of the details of her case before he held the seance. If he had any prior knowledge, let’s say.’
‘Wasn’t that your father’s job? To collect information?’
‘So I gather,’ said Konrád. ‘He told me how they used to go about rigging the sessions, and about that particular seance, but he didn’t tell me anything about Rósamunda. I was wondering if your father had...’
‘You don’t believe in any of it, do you?’ said Eygló. ‘Psychics. Seances.’
‘No.’
‘Not even in life after death?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
Konrád smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘You can’t be as sceptical as you say or you wouldn’t have dragged me down here. Are you sure you don’t have a touch of the second sight yourself?’
‘Did your father ever talk about Rósamunda?’ asked Konrád, quickly changing the subject.
‘No, not that I recall. Though he did tell me about that seance. He said your father coerced him into working with him. Did you know that?’