The blacksmith gazed out of the kitchen window at the sunset, as if weighing up whether he should add something else. Thorson waited patiently, and after a long interval the man cleared his throat.
‘Is there more?’ asked Thorson.
‘No, it’s just she said something that you probably ought to know about. It’s only just come back to me. I thought nothing of it at the time, because she was obviously messing around. I don’t even know if I should be telling you because you’re bound to take it too seriously. Read too much into it.’
‘What did she say?’
‘There was an accident. A man drowned in a trout lake up on the moors near here. And she said I could go fishing with her fiancé and come back alone. That accidents happened. Then she laughed. She said it light-heartedly. I don’t think she meant anything by it, but...’
‘Now you’re wondering if she was only half joking?’
‘No, like I said, I didn’t think anything of it at the time.’
‘But now her boyfriend in Reykjavík has been found dead.’
‘I just wanted you to know. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.’
Shortly afterwards the blacksmith accompanied Thorson out to the jeep. The dogs were nowhere to be seen. Thorson offered him his moleskin jacket in return for the shirt, as they were about the same height, but the man flatly refused to take anything from him.
‘There’s something about her, something that draws men to her, though I can’t put my finger on it’ the man said in parting. ‘Some kind of spell that makes you do anything she wants. I wouldn’t trust a word she says, but whether she’d go so far...’
‘Well,’ said Thorson, ‘we’ll see.’
They shook hands.
‘She disappeared,’ said the blacksmith. ‘She couldn’t leave fast enough. I gather she did a midnight flit and didn’t say goodbye to a soul.’
Thorson climbed into the jeep.
‘The strange thing is... It probably sounds crazy, but...’
‘Yes?’
‘I miss those evenings,’ said the man, his gaze straying towards the smithy. ‘She was... I still think of her sometimes, in spite of everything.’
39
Flóvent paused the interview to ask Brynhildur Hólm if she wanted to speak to a lawyer, but she repeated that she had committed no crime. He sensed that to her taking such a step would seem like an admission of guilt. He tried to persuade her otherwise, and she said she would think about it, then asked if she would have to stay in prison much longer. Flóvent couldn’t answer that but repeated that she should let him know if she wanted a lawyer present during the interviews and he would arrange it for her. She said she would like to get this over with as quickly as possible. Her conscience was clear and Flóvent must understand that there was absolutely no need to keep her locked up in prison.
‘So Felix told Eyvindur about your experiments at the school?’ Flóvent prompted, once they had resumed their seats in the interview room. ‘Told him about the part he had played in the whole thing. And afterwards Eyvindur wrote that letter with the intention of blackmailing you.’
‘He really got on Felix’s nerves,’ said Brynhildur. ‘On those sales trips. Felix tried to keep his distance, but Eyvindur hounded him, perhaps because of the way Felix had treated him in the past. He must have held quite a grudge against Felix. He wouldn’t leave him alone, wanted to know why he was going to places that none of the other salesmen bothered with, kept dropping spiteful remarks about his German roots. Referring to Nazis. Going on about how the Nazis would be thrashed. Saying that Felix should go back to Germany. Then one day, Felix had had too much to drink, and he snapped. Told him they’d never been friends, that he’d been nothing but a guinea pig, or words to that effect. He deliberately humiliated him, didn’t pull any punches. Said they’d proved that he was no better than his crook of a father. He must have said a little too much because after that Eyvindur started digging around...’
‘How? Who did he contact?’
‘Well, we know he spoke to Ebeneser. According to him, Eyvindur rang him, then turned up at the school one day, demanding to know what had been going on in his final year. Judging by the questions he was asking, Felix must have given him quite a good idea of the work we were doing, though it’s possible he’d been talking to other boys from the school as well.’
‘Eyvindur told his girlfriend that he was expecting to come into some money, but she didn’t take him seriously. Said he was always making plans that came to nothing. Where’s the blackmail letter now?’
‘Rudolf... he was so upset that I think he burnt it. He wants to forget about the whole affair. Can’t bear to hear any mention of it.’
‘So you believe the letter has been destroyed?’
‘Yes. It was very amateurish. Mostly abuse, levelled at us. Calling us Nazis and threatening to expose us. Saying that we’d be made to suffer, and so on. Then there were instructions about the money Rudolf was to pay and where he was to leave it.’
‘And where was that?’
‘By one of the gates of the graveyard on Sudurgata.’
‘Did Rudolf discuss the letter with Felix?’
‘No, not that I’m aware. But I suspect that when the letter had no effect, Eyvindur must have got in touch with Felix — although Felix won’t admit it — and tried to force him to pay up or to put pressure on his father. I suspect that’s why Eyvindur was in his flat.’
‘And?’
‘And it ended in disaster. For some reason Felix left Eyvindur in the state you found him in. I have asked him again and again, but he won’t budge from his story: Eyvindur was already dead when he found him. He can’t tell me who it was who attacked him or why. But Felix keeps coming back to the possibility that the attacker may have mistaken Eyvindur for him — that he himself was the intended victim.’
‘Which brings us back to the same question: why would anyone have wanted to kill Felix?’
‘He has some ideas about that, but he won’t share them with me.’
‘Related to spying?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Or the experiments? To how he behaved as a boy?’
‘He refuses to discuss it.’
‘If he’s to be believed, surely the only reasonable conclusion is that the person who shot Eyvindur didn’t know what Felix looked like. If he killed Eyvindur by mistake?’
‘Yes, and that makes Felix all the more convinced that he must have been the target — the possibility that they brought in some outsider to do the deed. Those were his words. I don’t know what he meant.’
‘Isn’t he contradicting himself? Earlier you told me that he was also claiming Eyvindur was the intended victim.’
‘I think he’s struggling to work out what’s going on. Felix doesn’t know what to think any more and the same applies to me. I really don’t know what to believe. I’m utterly confused.’
‘These experiments... Do you know what happened to your subjects? Did your predictions come true? Did they end up as criminals?’
‘I’ve tried to find out — casually, you understand, not in any methodical way. I remember most of the names and try to keep up with what’s happened to the boys when I get the chance.’
‘And?’
‘I believe most of them have turned out quite well,’ said Brynhildur. ‘One became a teacher, for example, though two of them are in a sorry state, no better than vagrants, and a couple more have spent short spells behind bars for burglary or assault.’
‘What about this one?’ asked Flóvent, pointing to one of the boys standing next to Eyvindur in the photograph. ‘You didn’t answer me before.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t recognise the other two boys with Felix and Eyvindur.’