Sea of Stone

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Er, no. I’m not too far away from you.’

  ‘OK. Can you come right over?’

  ‘To Bjarnarhöfn?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We must see you now.’

  ‘Er… OK. I’ll be there. About an hour, I guess.’

  ‘Good. An hour?’ Páll glanced at the chief superintendent to make sure he was following. ‘See you soon.’

  Páll hung up. ‘He’s on his way.’

  A BMW four-wheel-drive sped into the farmyard and stopped by the police cars. Páll recognized the duty doctor and followed Rúnar over to greet him.

  The doctor was about sixty, lean, bald, with a neatly cropped greying beard on his chin. A livid purple burn mark spread across one side of his face and over his nose. His name was Ingvar. Ingvar Hallgrímsson.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ Rúnar said.

  ‘They said it was murder?’ said the doctor, opening the back of his car. ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘It looks like it. Multiple head wounds. You can see for yourself.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the church.’

  ‘The church? What the hell was he doing there? I’ll need forensic overalls presumably?’

  ‘We’ve set up a crime scene. It’s pretty badly messed up already, but do what you can to avoid making it worse.’

  Ingvar grunted. Páll had worked with him several times before on a variety of untoward deaths, none of them murder. He was efficient and sharp-eyed. Despite his gruff exterior, he was a popular doctor. Patients loved him; when he told you what was wrong with you, you believed him. And when he told you he could fix it, you believed him too. When Páll’s wife had started getting mysterious headaches two years before, she had been scared. Ingvar had sent her off to Reykjavík for a brain scan, the results of which were inconclusive, at least according to the specialist at the National Hospital. Páll’s wife had been distraught, especially after she had spent a couple of hours on medical sites on the Internet.

  Dr Ingvar had calmed her down. He had seen this kind of thing many times before. It was just a headache. It would go away. She believed him. It did.

  ‘Any idea who killed him?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Rúnar said. ‘Magnús found his body. His grandson.’

  ‘Magnús!’ Ingvar looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know he was up here.’

  ‘Well, he is. He’s in the farmhouse now.’

  ‘I understand he and his grandfather didn’t get on?’ Páll said.

  ‘No. My father was a tough bastard,’ Ingvar said. ‘Tough on his family. Especially Magnús and his little brother Óli. They stayed here for a few years in the nineteen eighties when they were kids. And now there is Krissi, his youngest grandson.’

  ‘Ollie’s floating around somewhere too,’ said Rúnar.

  ‘I thought he was in America. How about Kolbeinn? Is he here?’

  ‘I think he might be coming now.’ Páll pointed to the lights of another four-wheel-drive piercing the mist. In a moment Kolbeinn arrived, with his son in the front seat next to him. Kolbeinn was bigger and sturdier than Ingvar, with fair hair greying at the edges and sharp blue eyes darting out of a weather-beaten face. He had the square jaw of his father. Every inch an Icelandic sheep farmer.

  He jumped out of his car. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ He glanced at the ambulance, the police chief, his brother now suited in forensic overalls. ‘Has someone been hurt?’

  ‘It’s Dad,’ Ingvar said. ‘He’s been murdered.’

  ‘No!’ said Kolbeinn, stunned. Páll noted he was the first member of Hallgrímur’s family who seemed genuinely distressed at the old man’s death.

  Inspector Emil sped along the flat lava plain between the mountains and the sea. The dramatic crater of Eldborg rose in front of him. To his left, the glacier that capped Snaefellsjökull shimmered in the sun. Little black balls of cloud bounced around the sky, spraying quick showers here and there, occasionally ramming into the thick cushion of grey that covered the ridge of mountains along the spine of the peninsula to the north. Emil’s blue light was flashing but there was no one to see it.

  He regretted not stopping at the N1 petrol station at Borgarnes on the way up for a hot dog. Or two. It would only have taken five minutes and would anyone have known? What was five minutes in ninety?

  But Linda, his wife, would certainly have found out. Ever since he had stupidly shared the results of his conversation with his doctor a fortnight before, she had interrogated him every time he came home about the snacks he had had on the way. She could always tell when he was lying. Always.

  She said she had his best interests at heart and no doubt she did. What the doctor had told him was scary. Emil was a heart attack waiting to happen. People had always been telling him this, but this time the look on the doctor’s face had been one of genuine concern. Cut down on the food. Cut down on the drink. Exercise.

  Exercise! How could he exercise? He was barely able to walk these days. His knees were giving out, although he hadn’t mentioned that to the doctor. The poor man looked stressed enough as it was. Emil weighed close to a hundred and thirty kilos. Exercise would kill him.

  Which maybe would be the best thing. At least Linda would get the insurance money and would be able to pay off the stupid loan they had taken out three years before to pay for the new barn. Ever since Linda had inherited her parents’ farm she had wanted a new barn for the horses, but they couldn’t afford it. Then one day she had come back from the bank brandishing an offer of a special foreign currency low-interest loan. He told her it was way too much, but she wouldn’t listen. Her sister was borrowing, his brothers had both bought new summerhouses; they could afford a new barn.

  And now the debt was rising. It was linked to something strange like Swiss francs or yen, and when the kreppa came, the financial implosion of 2008, the value of the loan had ballooned. They were behind. So far behind they could never catch up.

  And Emil knew there was no way that he would pass his next medical due in July. So then they would be living on his police pension. The farm broke even at best. Yes, maybe he should just have a heart attack. That would solve everything.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t another place to buy a hot dog before Bjarnarhöfn.

  So, this was almost certainly Emil’s last major investigation. There had been very few of them since he had transferred from CID in Reykjavík to Akranes after his wife had inherited the farm. He had been a good investigator once. At least as good as his old colleague Snorri Gudmundsson, who was now National Police Commissioner. However badly his body was wearing out, Emil’s brain was still in good shape, he knew that. Although, if this was a homicide and the killer wasn’t right there waiting to confess at the farm, he would have to draft in help from Reykjavík. They would probably send that jerk Baldur.

  But then there was Magnús Ragnarsson. He intrigued the inspector. Snorri and his wife still occasionally visited Emil and Linda for dinner at the farm, and Snorri had a lot of good things to say about the Icelandic American. He had really shaken things up in Reykjavík. Inspector Baldur, who ran the Violent Crimes Unit, didn’t like him much, which was a good thing as far as Emil was concerned. And now Magnus had found the body. Perhaps Emil could use him. That would be interesting.

  He called the chief superintendent. ‘Hi, Rúnar, it’s Emil. I’ll be at Bjarnarhöfn in about half an hour. Anything to report?’

  ‘I’m keeping the family at the farmhouse until you arrive,’ said Rúnar. ‘The victim’s grandson Ollie called the victim’s house soon after he died. He’s somewhere in the area, I’m not sure where. I’ve asked him to come here as soon as possible.’

  ‘And forensics?’

  ‘An hour behind you, I think. They’ve just set off.’

  The forensics team had to gather in Reykjavík before heading up to the Snaefells Peninsula, so that was quick going.

  ‘No obvious suspects, then?’

  ‘Not yet.’


  Rúnar was waiting for Emil in the farmyard. He and Páll showed the inspector the crime scene and the victim’s body, then briefed him on what they knew so far. As Emil and Rúnar made their way back to the farmhouse they were stopped by a tall woman with long blonde hair.

  Rúnar introduced Aníta, the farmer’s wife, Hallgrímur’s daughter-in-law. She seemed agitated.

  ‘I don’t know whether this is important, but I saw something that doesn’t seem right the more I think about it,’ she said to Rúnar, glancing back over her shoulder to the farmhouse.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Rúnar.

  ‘Magnús. When I was riding back to the farm, I saw him through the window of Hallgrímur’s cottage. He was washing up a mug.’

  ‘Really?’ said Emil. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. He saw me, and rushed outside to tell me that Hallgrímur had been killed in the church.’

  ‘Was Magnús staying in the cottage?’ Emil asked.

  ‘No. At least I don’t think so. I’ve only ever met him once before, over ten years ago. I had no idea he was coming today. No one mentioned it; not Hallgrímur, nor his wife Sylvía. And he and Hallgrímur hate each other, so I was surprised to see him here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Emil. ‘That’s very interesting. I was just going to speak to him now. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’

  There were two large men sitting in grim silence in the kitchen: Kolbeinn and Magnus. Kolbeinn was pale and shaken, Magnus calm. Clutching mugs of coffee, Emil, Rúnar and Magnus followed Aníta through to a small study, and she left them with promises of refills if they needed them.

  ‘We haven’t met yet, but I’ve heard a lot about you,’ Emil began with an amiable smile. ‘They tell me you cleared up that case last week, the tourist who was murdered on the volcano?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Magnus. ‘Made some arrests yesterday.’

  ‘Good work. We don’t get that kind of case very often around here. Although you were up this way last year, weren’t you? With the fisherman from Grundarfjördur. And the murder today, of course.’

  Magnus nodded.

  ‘Are you staying here at Bjarnarhöfn?’

  ‘No. I just came up by car from Reykjavík this morning. I was planning to drop in and see my grandfather. When I got here, I knocked on the door of his cottage. There was no answer, so I pushed the door and walked in. There was no one there. I saw that the church door was open and so I thought I would check it out. That’s when I found him.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone else around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do after you discovered the body?’

  ‘Dialled 112. Then I went back to the cottage to see if I could find any evidence of someone visiting Hallgrímur.’

  ‘And did you find anything?’

  ‘No. Nothing obvious. But maybe forensics will spot something.’

  The constable, Páll, had told Emil that Magnus had appeared tense when he first saw him, but he seemed cool now. Wary. Alert. Was this natural, Emil wondered? Possibly. Discovering a body would be very familiar to Magnus; discovering his grandfather’s body would be a shock. It was difficult to predict what a natural response to such a clash of professional detachment and private grief should be.

  ‘Aníta says that when she saw you through the kitchen window you were washing up a mug.’

  ‘Huh.’ Magnus thought a moment. ‘I could have been washing my hands. I had got some blood on them. That must have been what she saw.’

  Emil paused. ‘Páll said he saw you make a phone call just after he and Rúnar arrived. Who were you calling?’

  ‘The station,’ Magnus said. ‘Just checking in.’

  ‘I see.’ Emil smiled. Magnus smiled too. There was a long period of silence. Emil fondled a wart on one of his chins, the middle one.

  Eventually Emil spoke. ‘Do you have any idea who might have killed your grandfather?’

  ‘No. Absolutely none. I didn’t know him very well, and hardly know his family at all.’

  ‘You think they might be involved?’ Emil asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Magnus. ‘But it’s a logical place to start.’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ said Emil thoughtfully. ‘I’m just worried about that mug.’

  ‘The mug?’

  ‘Yes. When you were looking for evidence in your grandfather’s cottage, did you find any?’

  Magnus met Emil’s eyes with a steady gaze. ‘No. Only a Sudoku puzzle open on the table. I assume my grandfather was working on that.’

  ‘No mug?’

  ‘No, as I’ve explained, I wasn’t washing up a mug.’

  ‘There is a mug on the drainer by the kitchen sink,’ Rúnar said.

  ‘I’m sure there is. Maybe that’s how Aníta got confused.’

  ‘When we check the mug for fingerprints, which we will, will we find yours on it?’ Emil asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Magnus. Then he hesitated. ‘Wait. I might have taken a drink out of it. After washing my hands.’

  Emil just looked at him. Magnus looked back. ‘If you’ve finished, Emil…’

  But Emil hadn’t finished. ‘Why did you allow Aníta and her horse to mess up the approach to the church?’

  ‘I wanted to show her the body.’

  Emil grunted. ‘Magnús, you must have seen dozens of murder victims in your time.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Magnus said. ‘Actually, that’s probably an underestimate.’

  ‘So you know how to examine a body without getting blood all over your shoes and traipsing it everywhere?’

  ‘Yeah. When I’m in detective mode. But this was my grandfather we’re talking about.’

  ‘Were you fond of your grandfather, Magnús?’

  Magnus paused, but kept his gaze steady on Emil. ‘No. No, I wasn’t. He was pretty horrible to my brother and me when we lived here. And he ignored me when I came back to Iceland after my father died.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Ninety-six. When I was twenty.’

  ‘And have you seen him since?’

  ‘Just six months ago. When I was working that case up here. Rúnar will remember that. I stopped in, just for five minutes. We had words.’

  ‘Harsh words?’

  Magnus nodded slowly. ‘There weren’t many of them, but they weren’t exactly kind.’

  Emil stared at Magnus in silence. Then he hauled himself to his feet. ‘Will you excuse me for a moment? I need to make a phone call.’

  He left Magnus in the study and went outside into the yard. He pulled out his phone.

  Rúnar followed him. ‘You don’t think Magnús has anything to do with this, do you? He’s one of our top detectives in Reykjavík.’

  Emil took a deep breath. ‘I need to call the Police Commissioner.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JÓHANNES DROVE ALONG the south shore of the Snaefells Peninsula in sunshine, with the volcano rising majestically behind them. Then he turned north, up into the mountains that ran along the peninsula, and into thick cloud.

  He and Ollie spent half an hour or so discussing what they would say, then lapsed into silence. As they crossed the pass, a cloak of dread enveloped Ollie. It wasn’t just the forthcoming interview with the police. He was worried about that – the story they had concocted had some holes in it. That fear was a rational one. But there was a deeper, stronger terror that gripped him.

  Bjarnarhöfn and the bleak landscape around it scared the hell out of him. It always had, and it always would.

  A new road led up over the pass. But Ollie remembered the old mountain pass just to the east, presided over by a pinnacle of lava in the shape of an old woman with a sack of babies over her shoulder. The Kerlingin troll. The local legend was that if the children of Stykkishólmur were bad, then the troll would creep down to the town at night and steal them away. According to Afi, Ollie was always bad. And he had lived in constant fear of the troll.

  Ollie
couldn’t see her through the cloud, but he knew she was there still, ready to pounce.

  There was another ghost up in the hills that his grandfather had told him about: Thórólfur Lame Foot, a saga chieftain from the area who had been killed by one of his rivals and had never rested quietly since.

  Eventually they descended and emerged from the cloud right by the Berserkjahraun, the berserkers’ lava field. It had started to rain. The congealed lava twisted in a frozen tumult down to Breidafjördur, at a point between Bjarnarhöfn and the neighbouring farm of Hraun. Fantastic shapes writhed in the mist, nibbled at by moss.

  ‘You know my father and your grandfather used to play here?’ Jóhannes said. ‘I’m sure you know the story of the Swedish berserkers who cut a path across the lava between our two farms and were killed by the farmer at Hraun?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ollie in little more than a croak. The story had thrilled Afi, and Magnus for that matter, but it was just another thing that scared the shit out of Ollie. The Swedish warriors had been buried in a cairn in the middle of the lava field. You could still see it a thousand years later. And as a child, especially on foggy days, Ollie couldn’t help seeing them flitting between the lava pinnacles.

  He felt a sudden yearning for the lush green of the Boston suburbs, his home. And a strong desire to see a tree. Just one fucking tree.

  And there was the farm, coming ever closer through the rain.

  Bjarnarhöfn.

  The scene of the four most dreadful years of Ollie’s life. It wasn’t really the beating that stuck with him. It was the terror. The dark cold cellar half full of rotting potatoes. The fell looming above and lava field surrounding them. The wet pyjamas. The fear that his grandfather had drilled into him as a six-year-old, and which had grown deep inside him to eat up his soul. Hallgrímur’s rage primed to ignite at any moment. The inconsistency. The love glimpsed and then snatched away.

  Ollie’s mother was buried there, in the little churchyard. Presumably Afi’s body was there somewhere too; the police wouldn’t have taken it away yet. And Ollie should be safe now that his grandfather was definitely dead.