only positive thing to come out of that morning was the fact he would no longer be required to travel to the island.
Using three fingers, Dagbjartur hammered out the conclusions of his interviews with Fridrik Einarsson and Arni Sakarias on his typewriter. He didn’t need to write much to cover the essentials, but it still took him a long time. His chubby fingers were stiff on the keyboard and didn’t always hit the right letters.
It didn’t take the head of the division long to race over his subordinate’s text.
“The Flatey enigma?” he erupted in a rage. “What childish nonsense is that?”
“The magistrate’s assistant in the west seemed to feel it was important,” Dagbjartur answered defensively.
“Oh yeah? And what’s this? A child out of wedlock. That might be worth looking into. Who’s this woman?”
“We don’t know.”
“Don’t know! What have you been up to over these past few days?”
“This.” Dagbjartur pointed stubbornly at his papers. “But no one knows who this woman is.”
“Aren’t there any birth records from those years that we can go through?”
“Everywhere’s closed on the Whitsunday weekend.”
“Right, well, keep going and keep me posted.”
For the remainder of the day Dagbjartur tracked down the friends, relatives, and colleagues of the reporter, Bryngeir, to dig up some information about his life and habits. His colleagues at the paper seemed to be mostly relieved to be free of him, although no one had the effrontery to say so straight out.
The list of relatives was a short one. His maternal grandfather was in an old folk’s home in Stokkseyri, and he had an uncle on his mother’s side who was a farmer in the east in Or?fi. Dagbjartur tried phoning the grandfather but was informed that the old man was deaf and unable to talk on the phone. When he finally reached the uncle in Or?fi, it took the man some time to remember he had a nephew by the name of Bryngeir. He hadn’t heard of his death, but betrayed little emotion. He did, however, ask if the man had left any assets behind.
Most of Bryngeir’s friends considered themselves to be more acquaintances than close friends and showed no sign of grief. He wouldn’t be dearly missed, it seemed.
Collecting a few snippets of information from here and there, Dagbjartur managed to build a reasonable personal profile of Bryngeir and submitted it to his boss that same evening.
Question twenty-two: Who were the soldiers of King John of England? Seventh letter. Earlier that summer, the English king had sent King Sverrir two hundred warriors when he was in Bergen; they were called the Ribbalds. They were as swift on their feet as beasts and were great archers, audacious, and had no qualms about committing bad deeds. The answer is “Ribbalds,” and the seventh letter is d.
CHAPTER 39
The women in Innstibaer had not ventured outside because of the weather that morning and hadn’t seen anyone. They attended to their chores, but they were surprised that no one had come to pay them a visit. The goodwife from Svalbardi usually popped over to them after the lunchtime radio news and gave them a rundown of the main events in the outside world. They couldn’t afford the luxury of a wireless in Innstibaer, so the two ladies relied on other channels for news. Newspapers didn’t reach them until they had been through several other readers. District Officer Grimur bought the Icelandic Times, and Asmundur in the island store bought Morgunbladid. The Times was passed on from Grimur to Gudjon in Radagerdi, whereas the Svalbardi family bought Morgunbladid from Asmundur the storekeeper at half price when he’d finished reading it. Hogni, the teacher, on the other hand, bought the social democratic paper, which he preserved meticulously in folders. The farmers then donated their papers to the library after they had read them, which was when the women could take a look at them with the other islanders. By that time the papers were normally several weeks old and the news had grown stale, but the serialized novels they contained were classics and very popular in Innstibaer. When the papers had been on the paper racks of the library for several months, they were placed in a bin by the gable of the building, after which they were destined to end their days shredded in the privies of some of the poorer families on the island. The little that was not recycled in this manner was given to the Ystakot clan to be used in the fire.
No news came that day, and Hogni, who also used to pass by in the afternoon for a cup of coffee, didn’t show. They had coffee ready in the flask and had saved a bit of the cookies, which Ingibjorg of Bakki had sent over to them on Whitsunday. They hadn’t spotted the district officer going out to sea that day, so the teacher was probably at home. He was bound to pop over to them.
Hallbjorg sat by the kitchen window and peered through the rain falling against the glass. She wanted to be able to see guests when they appeared in front of the house and to be ready to open the door. Contrary to their habits, they had locked the front door. Over the past two days, they had heard many stories about that terrible man from Reykjavik, who had been loitering around like the village drunk and causing trouble everywhere. The two women had, therefore, not dared to leave the house unlocked. But they were somehow restless. Even though they wouldn’t admit it to each other, they were quite eager to hear the latest gossip about this troublemaker.
Hallbjorg finished knitting the woolen sock and cast on the new one, but she glanced out the window at regular intervals. Gudrun had put down her knitting and picked up an old copy of Morgunbladid. She read out the serialized novel, A Life by Guy de Maupassant, part 15. This was their routine. One of them would read out loud while the other continued with her work. It enabled them to use their time more efficiently. But more often than not it was Gudrun who did the reading, because she had better eyesight for it and Hallbjorg got hoarse if she spoke at length.
Finally Hallbjorg became aware of some movement outside the house and saw through the window that the goodwife from Svalbardi was on her way up the steps to them and seemed to be in a hurry. Hallbjorg stiffly hoisted herself to her feet to unlock the door.
Question twenty-three: No horse could carry him. Fourth letter. Rognvald married Ragnhild, the daughter of Hrolf Nose. Their son was Hrolf, who conquered Normandy. He was so enormous that no horse could carry him. He was dubbed Hrolf Walker, or Ganger Hrolf. It is from him that the Norman earls and English kings descended. The answer is “Hrolf Walker,” and the fourth letter is l.
Kjartan said, “The guest’s answer to this was ‘Ganger Hrolf,’ and the letter is g.”
CHAPTER 40
Asmundur, the storekeeper, was on tenterhooks. As soon as he had opened the store in the morning, he had heard news of a terrible mishap in the cemetery. He then contacted Thormodur Krakur, who told him that the reporter from Reykjavik had been found dead there, lying on a grave. Details of the story became clearer as the day progressed. And it was good for business. Islanders popped into the store several times in the day under the pretense of running errands, but above all to hear more news. And naturally they felt compelled to buy something to conceal their blatant curiosity. But no one dared to linger in the store for too long. Instead, they would come back again later and something else would be bought. Customers from the neighboring islands traveled over for the same reasons.
The story that was circulating went as follows: Bryngeir, the reporter from Reykjavik, had been found horrendously mutilated in the churchyard early in the morning. There were mixed opinions as to what had happened to him, and the district officer had banned all access to the cemetery and guarded the gate. Police from Reykjavik were expected to arrive to investigate the case any moment. The magistrate’s assistant had been spotted coming out of the churchyard and walking down to the school to Hogni. He had then gone home to Bakki and had not come out again. The doctor had been the first person to phone the crime squad in Reykjavik. Then the district officer had phoned several times. The priest offered to hold a prayer meeting in the school at four, since the church was now in
