Konrád entered the room where Vigga was asleep under a white duvet. He reflected that the Shadow District had a strange, roundabout way of seeking him out. There was the girl murdered during the war, the cuttings the old man had kept, his dad’s seance, and now Vigga, lying under the covers, invisible apart from her grey hair and wrinkled forehead. He wondered what business Stefán could have had with his childhood bogeywoman, this indomitable old lady whom even death had not yet managed to defeat.
10
The doctor, Baldur, was a big-boned, craggy man of around sixty, with a booming bass voice, who hailed from the Hornstrandir Peninsula in the remote north-west of the country. When Flóvent entered the mortuary, Baldur was standing over the young woman’s corpse, pouring out a thick line of snuff on the back of his hand. He snorted it first up one nostril, then the other, then took a red handkerchief from the pocket of his white coat and wiped his nose.
‘Morning, Flóvent.’ He returned the snuff rag to his pocket. ‘This is a nasty business you’ve been landed with. Such a young girl. What a waste.’
‘Have you had a chance to examine her yet?’
‘Briefly. Looks to me like a case of manual strangulation.’ The doctor ran a finger down the girl’s long, elegant neck. Bruises were visible under the skin, patches of discoloration encircling her neck like thick fingers. ‘I’m working on the assumption that it was a man, based on these marks. They were inflicted by a strong pair of hands. He wouldn’t have had any problem obstructing her windpipe. The girl would have tried to fight him off. Tried to defend herself. He must have punched her in the face — see the contusion here? Her nails are broken too. Look.’ Baldur lifted one of the young woman’s hands to show Flóvent.
‘Was she attacked behind the theatre?’
‘No, I doubt it happened outdoors. If it had, we would have found marks from the sharp gravel, but I can’t see any cuts or abrasions. So I really don’t believe she was assaulted outside.’
‘You think her body was disposed of behind the theatre after she was killed?’
‘That’s plausible. And, yes, she was probably dead already. There’s another fact you ought to be aware of, though I stress I’ve only carried out a preliminary examination so far. The girl appears to have had an abortion.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, fairly recently. Not a professional job either. A bloody mess, in fact.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I find it hard to believe it was the handiwork of a qualified medic. Though I suppose it’s not impossible. There are incompetent fools in my profession, like in any other. Did the girl have a boyfriend?’
‘We still haven’t identified her,’ said Flóvent. ‘So it’s possible.’
‘A soldier, maybe?’
‘We’re currently searching for the man who found her body. An American soldier who fled the scene as soon as he realised what was up. He had an Icelandic girl in tow. We’ve spoken to her, but she couldn’t help us much. We believe it’s possible the soldier was acquainted with the victim. Do you know of anyone she could have gone to about her... her predicament?’
‘You mean for an abortion? No, I don’t. The law was changed a few years ago to allow them in strictly limited circumstances. If the mother’s life’s in danger, for example, or in cases of rape or incest. But one of those specific conditions would have to have been present for a doctor to perform an abortion. Getting pregnant by a soldier wouldn’t qualify.’
‘Naturally, it’s a sensitive subject for many people,’ said Flóvent.
‘I imagine it’s not too hard to come by a backstreet job in the present situation,’ said the doctor. ‘But of course it’s all done behind closed doors. There’s a black market in that sort of thing just like anything else in these strange times we’re living through.’
The hunt for a Sergeant Frank Carroll among the American troops had yielded nothing so far. Thorson was convinced the man had lied to Ingiborg. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time a soldier looking for some fun had exaggerated his rank and strung a girl along with promises that when the war was over he would take her home and introduce her to a brave new world in America. In an attempt to find out more about the man calling himself Frank Carroll, Flóvent and Thorson paid another visit to Ingiborg, though they saw no reason at this stage to arrest her and bring her in for a formal interview.
The identity of the murder victim was still a mystery. No one had reported her missing, as far as the police could ascertain, but news of her fate had spread following reports in the morning papers and on the radio, and Flóvent was confident that sooner or later someone who knew the girl would realise she was missing and get in touch. He broke the news to Thorson that she had undergone an abortion not long before she died.
This time, when the two detectives turned up to question Ingiborg further about her American boyfriend, she was alone in the house with her mother. Her father had torn a strip off her after their first visit, but now that he wasn’t home she seemed a little more relaxed. They wouldn’t permit her mother to listen to the interview, politely showing her out of the same drawing room they had used last time.
‘The fact is, Ingiborg,’ said Flóvent, ‘we can’t find any record of a Frank Carroll in the US Army.’
‘Which means,’ said Thorson, ‘that one of you is lying. Either you’re lying to us or he lied to you.’
‘If we find out that you’ve lied to us, Ingiborg,’ Flóvent went on, ‘we’ll take you down to the police station and from there to the prison on Skólavördustígur. We’ve given you the benefit of the doubt so far and been very considerate, but if it turns out you’ve been spinning us a yarn, all that will change.’
‘I’m not lying,’ protested Ingiborg. ‘I’d never lie to you. I’ve done nothing wrong. We just found the body and...’
‘And what, Ingiborg?’ asked Thorson.
‘He must have been lying to me,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He told me his name was Frank Carroll. That’s all I know.’
‘Have you been with a soldier before?’ asked Flóvent.
‘No, I’m not a slut.’
‘Did he promise to take you to America?’
Ingiborg didn’t answer.
‘Did he say he was going to marry you?’
‘We discussed it.’
‘Was the wedding going to take place soon or after the war?’
‘After the war. He was terrified of being sent to Europe, to the front. So he said we’d have to wait until the war was over. It sounded perfectly reasonable to me.’
‘Going to come back for you, was he?’ asked Thorson.
Ingiborg nodded. ‘I’m not an idiot, whatever you may think. I’m no soldier’s tart. Frank’s always behaved honourably towards me. He knew Daddy was opposed to our relationship and he was sorry about it. He knew we’d never be accepted by my family. That we’d always have to stand on our own two feet.’
‘And you were reconciled to that?’
‘You have no idea what it’s like living with my father,’ she said coldly.
‘What else do you know about Frank?’ asked Flóvent. ‘Did you notice any stripes or insignia on his uniform? Did he ever mention what regiment he belonged to? Or mention any of his friends?’