‘Has he been round here looking for him? Have people been asking after him, that you’re aware?’
‘No, only the fellow with the cigar. Said he was a wholesaler. I haven’t seen anyone else.’
‘What about the woman who used to live with him? Vera, wasn’t it? Have you seen her at all recently?’
‘Oh, no, I haven’t seen Vera for a while.’
‘Do you know anything about her?’
‘No more than anyone else who lives here. Poor old Eyvindur was at his wits’ end... asking all the other tenants in the building about her, if we’d noticed when she moved out. He was a bit... a bit down in the dumps about it, as you might expect. She knew — the woman who lives above me, that is. She told him. Saw the whole thing... saw a black car outside late at night. Vera threw her belongings inside and then she was gone. Without a word to anyone.’
‘You don’t happen to know where she went? You, or any of your neighbours?’
‘No, well... no, not really... but...’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought maybe poor Eyvindur had gone to the camps to look for her. That was my first thought.’
‘The camps? You mean the military camps? Why would he have done that?’
‘I thought maybe she’d left him on account of those soldiers who’ve been prowling around here... around the house,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t tell Eyvindur about that. Didn’t think... didn’t think it was any of my business. I reckon they were visiting her, though. I assumed they must be. Saw them... saw them mooning up at her window.’
‘What did they want from her?’ asked Flóvent.
‘A good time, I expect,’ said the man. ‘You used to hear gramophone music.’
‘Were they British? American?’
‘The ones I saw? One was British.’ The man sounded sure of himself. ‘A British soldier but... but there were others as well... I don’t know any more about it, you understand. Only, she told us — the woman who saw Vera sneaking out like a thief... like a thief in the night — that the man who picked her up was British. A Tommy. Obviously one of her soldier friends. Some soldier she’d bagged herself.’
When Flóvent finally got home around midnight he found his father asleep on the sofa in the living room. Flóvent tried not to wake him but, sensing his presence, his father opened his eyes, sat up and asked wryly if he was trying to work himself to death. They ate the reheated meal at the kitchen table and chatted quietly for a while before going to bed. Flóvent shared the details of the case with his father because he trusted him to keep a secret and knew that the old man liked to hear about the more complex investigations that came his way. He had often proved a helpful listener, though he worried at times that his son pushed himself too hard. He knew how conscientious Flóvent was and how he took much of the ugliness he saw in his job to heart — but never spoke of it, a habit he had learnt as a boy during the harrowing days of the Spanish flu.
‘Travelling salesmen?’ he said, after listening to his son’s account.
‘Yes, travelling salesmen.’
‘Could they have fallen out, this Felix and what was his name... Eyvindur?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘And the upshot was that this Felix shot the other man in the head?’
‘Maybe. We simply don’t know.’
‘What did they quarrel about? Their turf?’
‘It has to have been something more important than that,’ said Flóvent. ‘Something that really mattered.’
‘What really matters?’ asked his father.
‘Well, women, I suppose.’
‘Yes, can’t deny that.’
‘We’re told that the woman who was living with Eyvindur was no better than she ought to be. Her neighbour mentioned that she’d been hanging around with soldiers. That she was seen leaving in a car with one.’
‘Is she mixed up in the Situation, then?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Her boyfriend can’t have been too happy about that.’
‘No, I don’t suppose he was,’ said Flóvent, picturing the body of the salesman in the the mortuary. ‘I don’t suppose he was.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Are you looking around at all?’
The question was tactfully phrased, prompted not by a desire to pry but by the loneliness the old man had endured ever since his wife had died, a loneliness he wouldn’t wish on his son.
‘No time for that.’ Flóvent smiled.
‘I hope you’re not worried about me. I can look after myself. You know that.’
‘Of course.’
‘I wouldn’t want to get in your way.’
‘You’re not.’
‘The woman from the shop that you... are you still interested in her?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it.’
‘All right, son.’
19
Eyvindur’s neighbours spoke well of him. He was a quiet, sober tenant who kept himself to himself, polite but unsociable, and they were deeply shocked to hear that he was the man who had been murdered. To be sure, he had been away a fair amount because of his job and hadn’t lived there very long, but they had only good things to say about him. It was a different story with Vera. They didn’t know where she was now, but they had noticed some funny goings-on during Eyvindur’s absences: visitors who came and went under cover of darkness, stones thrown at windows, muffled voices in the early hours, doors slamming and quick footsteps retreating along the pavement outside. She could be touchy too, that Vera, and had a sharp tongue, so no one had dared to speak to her about it. None of them had breathed a word to Eyvindur about the night visitors until after she’d gone.
The woman from upstairs claimed that the couple had had a violent row just before Eyvindur left for his last trip, and Vera had walked out on him. The woman had witnessed the incident, seen Eyvindur leaving the flat, his face scarlet. He had managed a flustered greeting, then hurried off, carrying his two suitcases, in the direction of the harbour. Although she didn’t know what the quarrel had been about, she suspected it might have had something to do with the guests who came round while he was away. Vera had done most of the shouting; there had only been the odd peep out of Eyvindur — then he was off.
‘They weren’t even married,’ the neighbour said, tutting. ‘She’s no better than a slut, that girl.’
‘So you don’t approve of her, ma’am?’ said Flóvent.
‘She’s such a little madam,’ said the woman, her voice thick with disgust. ‘Like she thinks she’s better than other people, that... that soldier’s whore.’
‘You say you saw him leave, ma’am?’ said Flóvent. ‘Were you in the hall outside their flat at the time?’
The woman hesitated just long enough for Flóvent to suspect that she had been listening with her ear to their door. She looked as if nothing that happened in the house, night or day, got past her. Nosy. Censorious.
‘I... happened to be passing,’ she said after a pause.
‘Did you hear what they were arguing about?’
‘No, that is... how was I supposed to do that? I was on my way upstairs to my flat. I couldn’t hear anything. Not a thing. Just the noise she was making. But I couldn’t make out a word.’
‘So you didn’t hear them mention the name Felix?’
‘No, didn’t I just tell you that all I heard was shouting? Not what it was about.’
‘I understand Vera entertained guests, soldiers perhaps, while Eyvindur was away,’ said Thorson. He had accompanied Flóvent on this second visit to the flat, and heard all about the wholesaler’s identification of Eyvindur’s body and about Flóvent’s visit the previous evening.
‘You can say that again.’
‘It wasn’t always the same men?’