House of Evidence (6 page)

T
hrough the parlor window, Halldór watched Hrefna walking Sveinborg to the street. It was quite sensible of Hrefna to take the old woman back to her own home and continue talking to her there. It must have been a difficult experience, and she would probably feel better in more familiar surroundings.

Erlendur had gone to report the death to the uncle, and Egill had begun the search of the garden, so Halldór was now alone in the parlor. Putting on a pair of fine white cotton gloves that he kept in his pocket, he walked back to the lobby. He found the number of the bank in the telephone directory on the shelf under the telephone and then picked up the receiver, holding it by the bottom of the mouthpiece to avoid destroying any fingerprints that might be on the handle. Using his pen, he dialed the number of the bank, and when the receptionist answered, he was put through to Jacob’s superior.

Yes, it was true, they were beginning to wonder about Jacob’s absence; he always let them know if he was unable to come to work. This was, of course, dreadful news. The bank would assist them in every possible way.

Halldór hung up the phone and looked again at the body lying untouched in the doorway. A cold chill ran down his spine.
He was expecting the pathologist, who would arrange the postmortem and should be able to give an estimate of time of death.

Halldór passed through each room, noting down which lights were on and which drapes had been closed, in case they should later need to stage a reconstruction of the crime scene. He noticed that the doors leading to the main parlor from the dining room, the office, and the lobby were all the same: double doors, painted white, with eight glass panes to each door. They all stood wide-open, folded back against the walls.

The floors were of dark wood, and the lower parts of the walls, up to chest height, were paneled in the same wood, with the upper parts and ceilings painted pale yellow.

The main feature of the parlor was the fireplace. Halldór knelt down and looked into the grate. The bottom was covered in ash from its last use, and everything was black with soot. There were a few pieces of wood in a basket next to the fireplace, but they were bits of broken-up boxes and scrap timber, not at all in harmony with the rest of the room.

Three pictures hung on the parlor walls: to the right of the fireplace was a painting of a young woman in a blue dress; to the left, slightly smaller, a photograph of an older couple; and on the north wall, a large painting, obviously a foreign one, depicting a handsome country house in forested surroundings. Initially Halldór thought it might be a reproduction, but on closer examination he saw some fine brush marks on the canvas. He tried without success to make out the artist’s name.

Halldór entered the office in the southwest corner of the house. It featured a window on either outside wall, hung with net curtains and thick drapes, the latter drawn back, making it relatively bright in the room, even without the lights on. In the middle of the floor stood a large, heavy desk made of dark wood,
with turned feet and carved molding around the top. There was a matching office chair, upholstered in brown leather, and, opposite the desk, two deeper chairs on either side of a small table that held a large ashtray.

On the gleaming desktop lay five frames containing postage stamps, which Halldór examined without touching. They were old stamps from various countries, with pictures of railway locomotives and carriages, carefully arranged on a black background and covered with glass.

On the south wall was a locked glass-fronted cabinet containing various firearms, while directly opposite it stood a low table against the wall, with an old model of a railroad station and train.

The inner wall behind the desk was lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. The books were all old, many of them with English titles. There were also some photo albums, one of which Halldór carefully extracted from the shelf and opened. It contained some old photographs of Reykjavik, including one of Birkihlíd being built. The next album contained old family photographs, while the third had pictures of the interior of the house, showing furniture and fittings, with neatly written captions under each photo. He found a picture of the desk and read the accompanying caption: “Desk in library. Design Philip Burden. Made in his workshop at Red Lion Square, London, 1898. Alfred Kieler bought it new that year and had it shipped to Iceland in 1899.”

It dawned on Halldór that this house functioned as a kind of museum, containing all available source material on the life of an upper-class Reykjavik family during the first part of the century. It contained better preservation and documentation than many museums he had visited; a great attention to detail lay behind this. He looked at the next caption: “Electric chandelier in parlor.
Purchased by Alfred Kieler in Stettin 1922. Made in Beringer’s workshop in that city. This type is attributed to him.”

Halldór flipped to another page: “Porcelain chamber pot. Purchased in Copenhagen 1895.”

He smiled, closed the album, and put it back in its place.

On the shelf next to the albums was a row of diaries. The period covered by each book was inscribed in black lettering on each book’s spine. There were twelve in all, the first labeled “June 30, 1910–February 23, 1912,” and the last “March 1, 1931–January 10, 1932.” Halldór picked out the first book and examined its title page.

Diary started in the spring of 1910. Jacob Kieler student, born March 4, 1890.

Halldór looked at the dead man in the parlor. His name was the same, but he was known as Jacob Junior, so he was probably the son of the Jacob who had written the diaries. Halldór looked up the first entry. The handwriting was clear and very legible:

June 30, 1910. Today I graduated from high school. After the ceremony at the school, there was a coffee party on the lawn in front of the new house my father is having built on his lot next to Laufástún. Father gave me this book and suggested I should keep a diary.

Hearing a noise, Halldór quickly put the diary away and went out into the parlor. He found Jóhann and Marteinn carrying in
some bags and Fridrik Leifsson, the pathologist, following close behind. Halldór and Fridrik had served together on the parish council and were friends.

“Sorry to be so late,” Fridrik said, as they shook hands. He squatted awkwardly by the body, examined it carefully, and then stood up.

“It would be very good to have an estimated time of death,” Halldór said.

“I’ll try and work something out,” replied Fridrik. He waited until Jóhann had taken a few photographs, then laid the body carefully on its back on the floor and loosened the clothes in front, before taking some instruments from his case.

Halldór retreated to one of the many windows and looked out at the snow-covered lawn. He knew that Fridrik was going to stick a thermometer into the body’s abdominal cavity and measure the temperature of the liver, enabling him to estimate time of death. Halldór preferred not to watch.

He spotted Erlendur accompanied by a man wearing a long black overcoat and black hat out on the street in front of the house. They had arrived at the yellow tape cordoning off the road, and he watched as Erlendur ducked underneath it.

They were met by a police officer, and the man in the black overcoat said something, pointing at the yellow tape with the walking stick he carried. The officer removed the tape from the fence and the man proceeded, following Erlendur through the gate and toward the house.

Halldór turned back around. Fridrik had covered the body with a green sheet and was scrutinizing his notebook. “If the parlor was this cold all night, then he must have died at one thirty, give or take an hour.”

Diary II

April 10, 1912. Snitkræfter og deformationer i statiken (stress and distortion in load-bearing structures) this morning. My calculations were correct. A German lesson with Mrs. Heger in the afternoon. Remained there well into the evening…

April 25, 1912. My mother and father arrived here in Copenhagen this morning from Hamburg. My father is on a business trip and they used the opportunity to visit me and celebrate my father’s birthday. I showed them the city today. They think that I have become very sophisticated. My father gave me the money I needed, and agreed to the plan I have made for the next four years. I am extremely grateful that my parents are able to support me financially, because I have watched some very talented young men being driven from their studies by lack of funds…My father has a significant birthday today, he is 50…

May 13, 1912. My fellow student Jørgen Renstrup asked me if I would like to travel with him to Tirol and Salzkammergut in Austria this summer for some hiking in the mountains. He had heard my accounts of my travels in Iceland, and is also a keen
hiker. This will be a good opportunity to exercise my knowledge of German…

May 15, 1912. It is being reported in the city that King Frederik VIII died suddenly yesterday while traveling in Hamburg…

June 28, 1912. Jørgen Renstrup and I are setting off on a three-week journey to Austria. We shall have a sleeper cabin on the train…

H
refna had led the old woman gently out of the house via the back door, past some uniformed officers searching the garden with rakes.

“What are these men doing?” Sveinborg had asked.

“They are checking to see if there’s anything lying in the garden that might help us solve this case,” Hrefna explained.

“The garden is very messy just now. Jacob Junior has tried to keep it tidy, but the wind blows garbage into it all the time. I really don’t know where it comes from,” she remarked.

It will probably get cleared properly this time, Hrefna had thought, but said nothing.

They were silent on the drive to Ránargata. The apartment was small but cozy: a living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. The furniture was old and didn’t match, but everything was very clean. The only bed was a sofa bed, with its mattress folded away. Embroidered cushions lay on top, and above it was a large wall hanging decorated with matching embroidery.

Sveinborg immediately began to make coffee; she seemed to feel better when she was doing something. Hrefna sat down on a bench by the small kitchen table and took out her notebook and pen.

“Has Jacob lived alone for long?”

“Mrs. Kieler, Jacob Junior’s mother, lived in the house, of course, while she was alive,” the old woman replied. “It was first and foremost her home. She died two years ago, bless her soul.”

“Are there any other relatives?”

“There is Kirsten, of course, Jacob’s sister. She lives up north, married to a headmaster. They have a daughter, Elísabet, named for old Mrs. Kieler. She is presently at the university here, studying law. She is lovely, but a little bit unsettled, as the young often are. Kirsten wanted Elísabet to live in Birkihlíd with Jacob Junior when she came south to go to school, but that came to nothing. She does pop in to see me now and again for afternoon coffee.”

Hrefna jotted the names down.

“Why did she end up not living in the house? There must have been plenty of space.”

Sveinborg shifted uneasily. “It wasn’t easy to live with Jacob Junior. He was, of course, very kind to me, but it wasn’t easy for a modern young girl to put up with him.”

“How did that manifest?”

“Oh…” Sveinborg hesitated. “It’s just that he was rather domineering.”

Hrefna understood that the old woman didn’t want to talk about this anymore, so she changed course. “Are there any other relatives?”

“There’s Matthías, of course,” Sveinborg continued. “Matthías Kieler, a cellist. At the moment he is visiting Iceland for a few months. He’s renting an apartment not far from Birkihlíd, and lives there with his manservant.”

“His manservant?”

“Yes, well, Klemenz has his own apartment, I think, in Austria, where they live. They are only here on a visit. The family is settling old inheritance matters.”

Sveinborg had misunderstood Hrefna’s surprise.

“It’s a bit unusual for people to have servants,” Hrefna clarified. “Is he in full employment as Matthías’s manservant…this Klemenz?”

“Yes, of course,” Sveinborg replied. It seemed perfectly natural to her that people should employ servants. “Klemenz has been with Matthías for many years, ever since he went to live in Germany. Matthías is a well-known musician, you see, who has worked abroad ever since he completed his studies. As he never married, he has always needed a servant. Klemenz has stood by him all this time; he’s been very loyal and devoted.”

Diary II

June 30, 1912. Arrived in Tirol and stayed the first night in Kitzbühel. The proprietor of the bed and breakfast informed us that local people were now encouraging tourists to come to the town in winter to pursue the sport of skiing. When he heard that we were “ingenieurstudenten,” he said that constructing cable cars in the local mountains would be a worthwhile project for us. The proprietor tries to speak High German to us, since it is impossible for us to understand the local dialect…

July 4, 1912. We set off on foot early in the morning from St. Johann. Our route followed excellent footpaths that farmers have used throughout the centuries to reach their shielings high up in the mountains, to which they move their cattle in summer…At noon we overtook a group of young people sitting on the slope having their picnic. These people were not dressed like the locals, so we took them to be tourists like us. We didn’t want to disturb them at their meal so we just greeted them with a “Grüss Gott,” and continued on our way. I couldn’t take my eyes off a girl who was standing by the path, and she boldly returned my gaze until I became embarrassed and looked away. Her image has been in my mind all day…

July 5, 1912. It is many years since I have walked such a long distance. The muscles in my thighs and buttocks are sore; the locals call this phenomenon “Muskelkater.” We both had “Tirola Gröstl” for supper. As we were sitting in the drinking parlor afterwards, I saw again the girl whose eyes I had gazed into when we met on the mountain path yesterday. Her name is Elizabeth Chatfield and she is of English nationality. She is nearly eighteen years of age…

July 6, 1912. We met the group from the English school at breakfast, and their tutor, who is their guide, invited us to walk with them today. This makes a pleasant change and it is fun to practice one’s English. Elizabeth asks whether I would like to correspond with her. She says she has a few pen pals, albeit mainly female ones…