Snowblind (24 page)

The old theatre on Adalgata bustled with life. It had started to snow again, but this time the soft flakes fell gently to earth.

Many of the guests had dressed in their best for the occasion. There was anticipation in the air, a definite excitement.

Ugla’s starring role had been a triumph, and Ari Thór had been unable to take his eyes off her throughout the entire performance. Leifur had also been surprisingly good, considering that he had been an understudy, probably with limited rehearsal time. The play itself came as a surprise, much better than anything he had expected. It was a bittersweet love story, obviously set far away from Siglufjördur, about lovers who were never able to make their relationship known. Pálmi clearly had a talent.

There were three curtain calls for the cast and the final one received a standing ovation. Ugla gazed out into the auditorium under a roar of applause, her eyes fixed on one member of the audience: Ari Thór.

The reception following the performance was packed. Chairs were stacked against the walls to make space and senior pupils from the school circulated with canapés. Everyone made an effort to make the evening a success. Tonight, it mattered more than ever.

Ari Thór and Tómas talked to Pálmi, Rosa and Mads on the stage. Nína stood nearby, still on crutches and apparently waiting for an opportunity to join the conversation.

‘We are travelling to Reykjavík in the morning,’ said Rosa, the old lady, in English. ‘We can finally go home. But it has been an unforgettable visit, and wonderful that we had a chance to see Pálmi’s play performed.’

‘It wasn’t always easy to follow,’ Mads said with a laugh. ‘We might have to learn some Icelandic before our next visit.’

Ugla joined them and Ari Thór gave her a shy smile. He longed to be alone with her once the reception was over. Was he falling for her? He couldn’t really bear cheating on Kristín, at least not more than he already had, so presumably he had to make up his mind. If he was going to give Ugla a chance, there was no option but to make a very uncomfortable call to Kristín.

Ugla introduced herself to the Danish guests and they continued the conversation in English.

Mads took her hand. ‘Hello, my name is Mads. We are visiting from Denmark and have been staying with Pálmi.’

The old lady extended a hand. ‘I’m Rosalinda, but call me Rosa. Everyone does …’ she said, with a glance at Pálmi. ‘Except your late father, Pálmi. He always called me Linda.’

Ari Thór started as he saw the pieces click into place. The break-in, the photograph, the umbrella, the child Hrólfur was rumoured to have fathered. He understood where Pálmi’s talent had stemmed from; there was no doubt he had written a fine play.

It was suddenly all so clear: Hrólfur’s will, and the reason he had retired so young with only one good book to his name.

‘He called you Linda?’ Ari Thór finally asked Rosa.

The old lady nodded.

‘And maybe he wrote a poem for you?’ Ari Thór suggested.

Rosa looked confused. ‘No, no. He didn’t. Not that I know of.’

Ari Thór looked at Pálmi, who appeared to have aged ten years in a matter of moments.

‘Pálmi,’ he said, switching to Icelandic. ‘Who wrote the book,
North of the Hills
? You know who wrote it?’

It was clear that Pálmi would not deny anything. He didn’t have the same stamina that Karl had shown, the same strength of will. Instead, he seemed relieved that someone else had stumbled upon the truth at last.

He sighed and spoke in a low voice, in Icelandic. Rosa and Mads looked on in confusion, not understanding a word.

‘Well, my father wrote it.’

Tómas and Ugla stared at Pálmi as if incapable of believing what they were hearing.

‘Not Hrólfur?’ Ari Thór asked.

‘No …’ All the energy appeared to have drained from Pálmi.
‘Hrólfur. That bastard Hrólfur,’ he said, raising his voice before dropping it again. ‘He stole my father’s book. My father was in Denmark, and Hrólfur sat over him on his deathbed. It was obvious that he had written the book for Rosa … Linda, as he called her,
Verses for Linda
. I had never been able to work out why Hrólfur had never written another book, considering what a talent he was supposed to be.’

‘When did you figure this out?’

‘The day before Hrólfur … the day before he died. I was talking to Rosa about the years in Denmark and she told me that my father had always called her Linda. She told me a little of their affair and there was so much that was reminiscent of Hrólfur’s book. I connected what she had told me with the book, but still didn’t immediately put two and two together. I knew that Hrólfur had spent time with my father before his death, sitting with him at the hospital, and then the suspicion started to grow in my mind and I asked myself if it could be that my father had written it.’

He paused and drew a deep breath before continuing.

‘I needed to speak to Hrólfur as soon as possible, and the first opportunity was that evening … I left to go home for dinner, like everyone else …’

‘Taking the umbrella,’ Ari Thór added.

‘Yes, precisely, and I forgot it in all the fuss when I came back …’

‘Nína tried to keep you out of trouble,’ Ari Thór interrupted. ‘She took the umbrella home as if it were her own, even though she had been at the theatre earlier in the day, before it started to rain. She probably thought that the umbrella would focus our attention on you. If we had known it was yours, it would have suggested that you had already returned from dinner. Then she broke into my place that night to steal my camera.’

‘What? What on earth for?’ Pálmi asked in amazement. Nína stood nearby, staring as if spellbound at Pálmi, and Ari Thór could see admiration towards Pálmi, even love, in her eyes.

‘I took some pictures that evening, in the auditorium and in the
lobby, and there’s one picture that shows your umbrella hanging on a hook,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Nína broke her leg on the ice just outside my door when she was hurrying home after breaking into my house. I heard her moving about and almost caught her in the act. I heard someone scream in pain right before I passed out myself, having fallen in the darkness. The hospital confirmed that she had come to them that same night with a fractured bone in her leg … I showed Ugla pictures of the scene and she told me that was your spotted umbrella, which is fairly distinctive, plus she said you’re one of the few people in Siglufjördur who uses an umbrella.’ He looked first at Ugla and then at Nína. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

Tómas glared but said nothing. Ari Thór knew that there were some harsh words due to come his way for having shown Ugla pictures that were part of a case in which she was also under suspicion.

Nína came closer, hesitated, and her gaze rested on Pálmi.

‘Yes. But I did it… for him,’ she said firmly.

‘You took the umbrella?’ Pálmi demanded, clearly discomfited and more than a little angry. ‘I wondered what had become of it.’

‘I was going to give it to you tonight and tell you … tell you that I know the whole story. Pálmi, my love, it was going to be our secret,’ she said.

‘Our …?’ he asked in astonishment.

Ari Thór stepped in and directed his next question to Pálmi. ‘So you went home to dinner and came back?’

‘Yes, I had forgotten the script. Úlfur and Hrólfur had a few corrections and had already asked me to take it home at the dinner break to print out a final version. I was halfway home when I remembered. When I came back Hrólfur was on his own up in the gallery and Nína wasn’t at the ticket desk.’

‘I was down in the basement,’ Nína said, interrupting him. ‘I heard an argument upstairs. You had already gone when I came up, and I didn’t notice that you had forgotten your umbrella until the police were here,’ she said, clearly pleased that Pálmi realised what risks she had taken for his benefit.

‘Did you confront Hrólfur with your suspicions?’ Ari Thór asked Pálmi.

‘Yes. I asked him straight out if he had stolen my father’s book. He’d had a little too much to drink and just laughed. He said it couldn’t really be called
stealing
, and that he had saved the book – given it life. He said that my father would never have been able to sell his book or make anything out of it. For some absurd reason he seemed to think that he had just as much right to it, because
he
was the one who put it on the map. You can imagine that I didn’t accept his version without an argument. I called him a liar and a damned thief. I actually asked him if there was anything in the book that he had written.

‘“No, your father did such a fine job,” he said, with that horrible smug look on his face. “I didn’t have to change a thing.” He told me to calm down, told me that he had given me a chance at the Dramatic Society to right the wrong. “One favour deserves another,” he said. My father had made him a novelist so he had made me a playwright.’

Pálmi fell silent, although his hands shook with fury.

Rosa and Mads listened in confusion to their host, who appeared to have lost all control of his temper.

‘I asked if my father had requested that the book be published, and Hrólfur admitted that he had,’ Pálmi continued. ‘The old bastard. My father wanted the book published and asked specially that she …’ – he pointed at Rosa, who appeared to understand nothing – ‘… that she should get a copy. Hrólfur betrayed everything, betrayed a dying man. He even admitted that he had made sure the translation rights were never sold to a Danish publisher, so that Linda, Rosalinda, would never read it and realise its true origins.’

Pálmi paused.

‘I’m happy that it’s out in the open now. I can tell her the truth and she can have an opportunity to read the book that my father wrote for her.’

He smiled at Rosalinda, who seemed puzzled that she had become the subject of conversation.

‘So he must have decided it was fitting that you should inherit the rights, a small way of making amends, finally,’ Ari Thór said.

‘That damned old bastard. As if that was going to change anything. He lived on another man’s efforts all his life. My father dead and forgotten, and Hrólfur living like a king for seventy years. But … I never meant to kill him.’

‘You pushed him?’ The question was unnecessary.

‘I jostled him, in the heat of the moment, and rushed out when I saw he was dead. That was when I forgot the umbrella. I had hung it up out of force of habit in the cloakroom when I came to fetch the script,’ Pálmi said, and a sob escaped him. ‘I had no intention of killing him. I’ve hardly had a night’s sleep since. Thank God it’s over.’

‘I think you had best come down to the station, Pálmi,’ Tómas said gently. ‘We need to take a statement.’

‘Hmm, yes, of course,’ he said, obviously bewildered.

‘One more thing,’ Ari Thór said. ‘The child Hrólfur was supposed to have fathered? Was that a lie?’

‘Yes,’ Pálmi replied, with a look of shame on his face. ‘I’m so sorry. I was so shocked when I heard you were treating this as a murder investigation, I wanted to lead you astray. I regret it deeply.’

Ari Thór had no doubt that he did. ‘And I walked straight into the trap.’

‘I had Nína in mind when I told you the story,’ he said, as if failing to remember that she was standing close by. ‘Nobody ever knew who her father was.’

Nína started in surprise, as if her whole world was crashing in around her.

‘Were you … were you trying to put the blame on me?’ she asked in disbelief.

Pálmi looked at her with guilt on his face. Nína’s eyes seemed to have gone blank, as if she had disappeared in her mind into another place.

‘We ought to be going, Pálmi,’ Tómas said.

The reception guests watched in amazement as the police sergeant escorted Pálmi out of the theatre.

Úlfur had heard enough of the conversation between Pálmi and the police to draw his own conclusions. He had suspected for some time that something was wrong, and had realised as he left Hrólfur and went home to dinner that Pálmi had not taken the script, despite discovering, upon his return to the theatre, that Pálmi had found time to correct it.

He had decided against asking Pálmi about it, and was even less inclined to mention anything to the police.

He felt an enormous sympathy for the man.

Pálmi looked back, his brow furrowed, as if the Siglufjördur mist and its devastating blizzards had enveloped him.

He was frightened, fearful of finding himself in prison. But that wasn’t at the forefront of his mind.

His greatest desire was for the forgiveness of the little community at the edge of the northern ocean; more than anything, he wanted to be able to look in the eye the people he had known for so many years.

Ari Thór had been pleased with himself when he questioned Pálmi, proud of himself, even.

Then he saw Pálmi’s face as he looked out over the auditorium for the last time, devastated.

It was supremely unjust. Pálmi was in the hands of the police while Karl was a free man.

For a moment, Ari Thór had found himself thinking that the world was fair.

Bloody stupidity. He knew well enough, from his own bitter experience, being orphaned as a child, that justice was nothing more than an illusion.