Free The Flatey Enigma by Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson

you ever heard Elvis Presley?” he asked.
    “No, I can’t say that I have,” Kjartan answered.
    “Actually, they never play him on Icelandic radio. Sometimes I can hear him on foreign channels at night when the airways are clear. They play a lot of Elvis. I’ve put up an aerial.” The boy pointed at some copper wire that dangled between the gable of the house and the shed. It was fastened to some glass insulation, but a wire traveled from the aerial in through the open window.
    “There was also an article about Elvis in the Falcon magazine,” the boy added.
    He turned to the transistor again, which emitted no sound despite his attempts to shake it vigorously.
    “Battery’s finished,” he explained. “I might buy myself a record player this autumn and some records.”
    “Do you live here?” Kjartan asked.
    “Yeah, but I’m thinking of moving to Reykjavik…or to Stykkishólmur.”
    “Right.”
    “Yeah, I’m going to learn how to use a tractor and maybe get a driving license.”
    “Is there a tractor on the island?”
    “No, not yet, but the district officer might be buying one for all of us to share. Then they’ll need someone who can drive it.”
    It dawned on Kjartan to try out some investigative work, so he asked, “Do you remember seeing a tourist here in a green parka and leather hiking shoes anytime over the past months?”
    “Is that the dead man?” the boy asked.
    “Yes. He was an elderly man with gray hair. Probably traveling alone.”
    The boy scratched his head and seemed deep in thought. “He didn’t come here in the winter or spring. I would have seen him then if he had. But maybe last summer. There were quite a few tourists around that time. Some of them foreign.”
    “Foreign?”
    “Yeah, they like to gawk at the puffins all day long. Sometimes I sell them sea urchins and skulls.”
    “Skulls?”
    “Yeah, seal skulls. My gran sometimes sears seal pups’ heads and then boils them to make broth. So I just let them rot and dry them for a few weeks.”
    “Do they sell well?”
    “No, not unless the men are drunk; then they sometimes buy something.”
    “Well, I won’t keep you from your work,” Kjartan said. “What’s your name anyway?”
    “Benjamín Gudjónsson. They call me Benny, but I prefer Ben, like Ben Hur.”
    “OK…Ben.”
    Kjartan turned and walked back. When he reached the village, he saw Grímur’s boat pulling in at the pier.
     
     
    “…Jón, the farmer in Vídidalstunga, got two priests to work as scribes on the royal book, Jón Thórdarson and Magnús Thórhallsson. Nothing is known of these men apart from their names, but it can be assumed that they were educated and experienced scribes. The entire execution of the manuscript shows great skill. The calligraphy is firm and elegant. Capital letters are generally colored and decorated with pictures of men, animals, roses, or flourishes. It seems to have been Magnús who drew these adornments or illuminations, as we call them. This involved a great deal of work, since it can be estimated that each page represented a day’s work. Perhaps it was thanks to these decorations that the Flatey Book was so well preserved. It was from the beginning regarded as a treasure because of its appearance and craftsmanship. Readers clearly browsed through the pages of the manuscript with caution and respect. There was no danger that the book would be used to make shoe soles or articles of clothing, which was sometimes the fate suffered by other manuscripts that had been executed with less skill when they were written. Thus it was the craftsman’s work that preserved the author’s narrative…”

CHAPTER 10
     
    K jartan followed Grímur and Högni’s approach, and then he walked down to the cove and along the embankment to them as they pulled into a small landing and dragged the boat onto a sandy beach where they tied it to an old mooring stone.
    The two men were carrying a seal pup between them off the boat and up the