Flóvent guessed that she had noticed him and deliberately slipped into the alley to shake him off. He ran back out to the street in case she had crept into one of the houses and out of the front door, but he couldn’t see any sign of her. Returning to the yard, he began trying the back doors, one after the other. They were all locked. He reasoned that Brynhildur must have the key to one of them and decided to see if he could get through the front.
As he stepped back out onto Hafnarstræti, he almost ran into a group of US Marines and had to wait for them to pass. Then he scanned the front of the buildings and noticed a small, easily missed sign in one window advertising Hermundur Fridriksson’s Clinic. It was then that he remembered Rudolf Lunden had once had a medical practice on Hafnarstræti.
So that’s where Brynhildur Hólm had been heading in such a hurry.
Not knowing the address of Rudolf’s surgery, he decided to try the house with the sign on it. The front door was unlocked. It was a three-storey stone building with a high attic and a steep staircase that creaked beneath his feet. He knocked on two doors on the ground floor, and, when no one answered, continued up to the next floor. Again he started knocking on doors, and the second was answered by an elderly woman who said she remembered Rudolf Lunden well and that his surgery had been on the top floor of the house next door. The buildings had once contained both apartments and offices, including two doctor’s surgeries, but then old Hermundur had died and Rudolf had closed his practice. As far as the woman knew, both surgeries were standing empty.
Flóvent rushed back down the stairs and tried the front door of the neighbouring house. It was also unlocked and, on entering, he found himself in a dark hall with the same kind of staircase. He wondered how Rudolf had managed to get up all those steps. He didn’t know how long the doctor had been confined to a wheelchair, but he could see why he would have had to close his practice after the accident. Flóvent found the surgery at the top of the stairs. Although the door was locked, it rattled when he tried the handle and he thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to force. He put his shoulder to it and shoved hard until he heard a snap and felt the lock giving way and the door opening.
Immediately inside was a small waiting room with three chairs, a framed photograph of the Alps hanging on one of the panelled walls. The curtains were drawn, leaving the place in semi-darkness, and the air was thick with dust. Another door led from the waiting room into the consulting room, where a small partition screened off the examination area. Flóvent pressed a switch on the wall, but no light came on. He went over to the window and pulled back the curtains, admitting enough light to see by. There were dusty medicine cabinets and optometry instruments, a desk, a filing cabinet, an examination table and half-open drawers containing dressings and hypodermic needles. The surgery looked as if it had been a busy, thriving practice when it was abandoned. As if Rudolf had walked out at the end of an ordinary day’s work and never returned.
But somebody had been there recently, because the dust had been disturbed in places, particularly around the desk and examination table. When Flóvent inspected the room more closely, he also discovered the remains of a meal, two milk bottles and a coffee thermos. Picking up the thermos, he sniffed at it. There was no question. Someone was holed up in the old surgery.
For an instant he stood stock still, listening, but all he could hear was the noise from the street below.
‘Felix!’ he called out. ‘Are you there? Felix Lunden!’
His words echoed round the rooms but there was no reply.
Flóvent returned to the little waiting room and this time noticed another door in the back wall. From the window he saw that it seemed to open onto a narrow fire escape. He guessed that Brynhildur Hólm had come up that way and fled as soon as she heard him outside on the landing, rattling the door. Perhaps Felix had been with her. At any rate somebody had recently been inside Rudolf Lunden’s surgery. Flóvent was about to race down the stairs after her but changed his mind, deciding it was too late now.
He returned to the consulting room, and when his eyes had adjusted once more to the gloom, he spotted the black doctor’s bag that Brynhildur had been carrying when she left the hospital. On opening it, he found it contained not medical equipment but essential supplies: a razor, soap and newspapers, a packet of coffee and a few slices of bread.
He picked up the razor, hearing, as he did so, a faint creak from one corner of the room. Flóvent jerked his head round towards the sound and noticed a large wardrobe built into the wall.
‘Felix?’ he called.
He listened.
‘Brynhildur?’
When no one answered, he tiptoed over to the wardrobe.
‘Felix?’ he called again.
He received no response and was about to yank open the door when, without warning, it flew towards him. A man he had never seen before leapt out and took a swing at him. Flóvent saw something gleam in the man’s hand and felt a searing pain, first at his temple, then in the back of his head. The man had struck him twice before Flóvent could even raise a hand to defend himself. As Flóvent reached out to grab his attacker, he felt his strength rapidly dwindling, his body becoming a dead weight, incapable of obeying his commands. Then he blacked out and wasn’t even aware of his head hitting the floor with a crack.
28
The notification landed on Thorson’s desk just as his shift was finishing. Things had been fairly slow, so he had spent the evening trying to establish the location of all the laundries that took in washing for the military. Since the invasion, they had sprung up like mushrooms, as local women saw a chance to earn good money by working for themselves. He had also tried several times to reach Flóvent on the phone, eager to tell him about the pamphlet he had found among Brynhildur Hólm’s books.
A while ago Thorson had agreed to take a half shift as a favour to a colleague who wanted to go fishing with some friends at Lake Hafravatn, ten miles east of Reykjavík. Thorson had cast a line there himself from time to time. It was a beautiful place, with plenty of trout, a popular spot among his friends in the military police to relax on their days off.
The notification concerned a minesweeper currently moored in Reykjavík harbour. The man who reported the incident was part of an American delegation in town for a few days, who had gone for an evening stroll down by the docks. He had daughters that age, he said, and hated to see that kind of thing. He wanted the military police to intervene immediately. When Thorson was assigned the task he was told it might be an idea to alert the Icelandic police, particularly the Morality Committee, but if he wanted backup, he would have to wait because everyone was busy.
The phone rang on his desk just as he was dashing out of the door and he paused to grab the receiver. It was Major Graham from the Leper Hospital. Thorson explained that unfortunately he couldn’t talk right now as he had to respond to an incident.
‘Are you any closer to finding this... this Felix Lunden?’ asked Graham, as if he hadn’t heard a word Thorson had said.
‘We’re optimistic that he’ll be found soon, sir.’
‘I need to be briefed so that we can get our hands on him before the Icelandic government can muddy the waters. You got that, Thorson? If you catch him alive, that is. We could be dealing with espionage here. Any idea what he’s been up to? Have you uncovered anything about the man who was found in his apartment?’