Fridrik Einarsson didn’t seem particularly pleased to be visited by Detective Dagbjartur on a Whitsunday afternoon for the second time in two days. Nevertheless, he invited him in and offered him a seat, but he anxiously glanced at his watch.
“My wife and I are off to a wedding. I don’t want to be late,” he said.
Dagbjartur tried to keep it brief: “We compared the list you made of Gaston Lund’s Icelandic acquaintances and another list of the inhabitants of Flatey, which we got back from them yesterday. Bjorn Snorri Thorvald’s name appears on both lists.”
“Yes,” Fridrik answered. “I could have told you that straightaway yesterday. I knew that Bjorn Snorri and his daughter Johanna were there on the island, but I couldn’t see how that was relevant. I heard on the radio at lunchtime that Bjorn Snorri just passed away. My old colleagues seem to be fading.”
“Did Bjorn Snorri and Gaston Lund get along?”
Fridrik looked at Dagbjartur in bewilderment. “How do you mean?”
“You said that the professor sometimes got into arguments about manuscripts with his Icelandic acquaintances.”
Fridrik smiled. “Bjorn Snorri didn’t argue about the manuscripts. He was one of the few Icelanders who was virtually indifferent to where the manuscripts should be preserved. He just wanted to know they were in a good place and that there was easy access to them…”
Fridrik suddenly shut up and frowned. “Easy access to them,” he repeated hesitantly, lost in some thought.
Dagbjartur sensed there was more to this and calmly waited for Fridrik to continue. “But that was the problem. Bjorn Snorri lost his job in Copenhagen at the end of the war and was barred from accessing the manuscripts after that. I remember very well how unhappy he was with his Danish colleagues, including Lund. He’d been thrown out of the house with unnecessary force. But those were special times at the end of the war, and a lot of errors were made as a result of pent-up anger. My family and I took the father and daughter in some days after he was fired, and they came home with us to Iceland a few weeks later. Johanna and Einar, my youngest son, were half engaged in high school until Einar died in a sudden accident.”
Fridrik’s voice faltered a moment before continuing: “I think Bjorn Snorri must have gotten over his misfortune in Copenhagen, but he was ill for many years. I imagine it’s the cancer that finally crushed him.”
“Can you describe Bjorn Snorri a little bit better for me?” Dagbjartur asked.
Fridrik reflected a moment before starting: “Bjorn Snorri had a particularly sharp mind. He was a great scholar, and few contemporaries could stand up to him when it came to his knowledge of Icelandic manuscripts. Instead of focusing on the text, he started off by forming a picture of the scribes. By placing himself in their shoes, he could guess which manuscripts they were copying. Was the scribe in the habit of cutting his quill as he was leafing through a manuscript? When was the scribe in the best form, at the beginning of the work or later? Was there a greater danger of making mistakes at certain times? Did he think the text was fun and did this make him rush the work so that he could swiftly move on? Or was the text boring and did that give him cause to labor on the calligraphy and adorn the letters? In what environment did he learn his craft, and what were his specialized skills? Bjorn Snorri tried to form a picture of these men for himself and look over their shoulders as they were working, as it were. But he was so absorbed by his quest to define these many centuries-old acquaintances of his that he neglected the present. His contemporaries were too close to him for him to give himself the time to consider them. He never asked anyone how they were today. Instead, he could trace back various versions of the same paragraph in different manuscripts and talk about their evolution from the perspective of the personal characteristics of each scribe. But he was incapable of relating to the circumstances of his fellow travelers in space and time. He just assumed that if anyone had any issue to raise with him they would step forward and say so. Body language and gestures were simply beyond his understanding. The mundane faded into insignificance when he was struggling to analyze and understand a seven-hundred-year-old margin label on a torn vellum manuscript. He accumulated enormous knowledge. And he needed an outlet for that. He was a writer of only average ability and compiling reports bored him, but he could stand and talk about his interests for hours on end. And he could speak all the Nordic languages with ease. German came to him quite easily, too. He used his lectures to formulate his opinions and findings, put some order into them, and place them in a logical context. Talking was, therefore, the final phase in the formulation of his theories, and it didn’t matter to him whether anyone was listening or not. If the issue was above the heads of the university students who sat with him, then he would just talk to himself or the one listener who was always close by and never flinched, little Johanna. And he used the time to explore new angles on his subject matter and could even make original discoveries in the middle of lectures in unknown cities. But as soon as that was all taken away from him, he withdrew into himself. He couldn’t find peace anywhere, because he’d lost his outlet in the mundane world. He sank into depression and numbed his pain with alcohol. It could only end in one way.”
Fridrik looked at his watch and stood up, but Dagbjartur remained seated. “How do you suppose Bjorn Snorri reacted when Gaston Lund showed up in Flatey?” he asked.
“To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea,” Fridrik shrugged. “He might have treated him with disdain, he could do that, or maybe they were both delighted to have found each other again. I’d say that’s more likely.”
“Is it possible that Bjorn Snorri would have wanted to harm Lund in some way?”
Fridrik sat again at stared at Dagbjartur in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe by dispatching Lund to that island.”
“Bjorn Snorri had been too ill to travel over the past years,” said Fridrik.
“But his daughter?”
“Are you asking me if Johanna Thorvald could have harmed Professor Lund?”
“Yes.”
Fridrik suddenly rose to his feet. “Johanna was like a daughter to me when she was my son’s girlfriend. I won’t tolerate that kind of talk about her,” he said, walking toward the door.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, my wife is waiting,” he said.
Dagbjartur stood up and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, and I won’t delay you any longer. But could you direct me to someone who knew them well?”
“Thorgerdur, my daughter, studied medicine at the same time as Johanna. They’ve been in regular contact ever since. Thorgerdur is a doctor at the National Hospital. Try to find her.”
Dagbjartur was on the way out, when he turned at the door and apologetically asked, “But what about the mother of Gaston Lund’s child? Any ideas on where I might find some information about her?”
Fridrik looked at him gravely. “Have you spoken to Arni Sakarias about the Flatey enigma?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask him about Gaston Lund?”
“No.”
“Then you better.”
Question sixteen: Drowned in a deep bog. Second letter. He told her that when she got there, he would give her a wedding with all the honors. Gunnhild liked this arrangement and traveled to Denmark with a fine retinue. But when King Harald heard of her arrival, he sent slaves and guests to her. They grabbed Gunnhild with a lot of commotion and jeering and drowned the wretched queen in a terribly deep bog. This brought an end to the cruelty and crimes of Gunnhild, the king’s mother. The answer is “Gunnhild,” and the second letter is u.