‘Go on.’
‘I was looking for Agnar Haraldsson. I asked a student who said that he might be at his summer house by Lake Thingvellir. So I drove up there.’
‘At what time was this?’ Vigdis asked, her notebook out, pen poised.
‘I got there about four o’clock, I think. I don’t know. I can’t remember precisely. Can’t have been much before three-thirty. Might have been a bit after four.’
‘And was Agnar there?’
‘Yes, he was. I had a cup of coffee. We chatted a bit. And then I left.’
‘I see. And what time did you leave?’
‘I don’t know. Once again, I didn’t look at my watch. I was there about three-quarters of an hour.’
‘So that would make it four forty-five?’
‘Or thereabouts.’
Baldur was silent. Tomas held his silence too. Vigdis knew the game: she was motionless, pen poised. But Tomas wasn’t saying any more.
‘What did you chat about?’ Baldur asked, eventually.
‘I wanted to discuss a possible television project on the sagas.’
‘What kind of project?’
‘Well, that was the trouble. I didn’t have a specific idea. I was kind of hoping that Agnar would provide that. But he didn’t.’
‘So you left?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And then what did you do?’
‘I came back home. Watched a movie, a DVD. Had a drink. Well, I had several drinks actually.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes,’ said Tomas.
‘Do you often drink alone?’
Tomas took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said again.
Vigdis looked around the flat. Sure enough there was an empty whisky bottle in the bin. Dewar’s.
‘And was this the first time you had met Agnar?’ Baldur asked.
‘No,’ said Tomas. ‘I had bumped into him once or twice in the past. I suppose he was my saga contact.’
Baldur’s long face was impassive, but Vigdis could feel the excitement in him. Tomas was talking nonsense, and Baldur knew it.
‘And why didn’t you come forward before?’ Baldur asked, gently.
‘Um. Well, you see, I didn’t see anything about the murder in the papers.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that, Tomas! Your job is to keep up with the news. The papers have been full of it.’
‘And… I didn’t want to get involved. I couldn’t see that it was important.’
At this Baldur couldn’t maintain his composure. He laughed. ‘Right, Tomas. You are coming with us to the station, where you had better think up a better story than that bullshit. I would suggest the truth; that usually works. But first I want you to show me what clothes you were wearing on that day. And the shoes.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘You can’t release Steve Jubb!’ Magnus almost shouted.
Baldur stood in the corridor outside the interview room, facing him. ‘I can and I will. We don’t have the evidence to hold him. We know that there was someone else there that night after Steve Jubb had driven back to Reykjavik. Someone who dumped Agnar into the lake once it got dark.’
‘According to a four-year-old girl.’
‘She’s five. But the point is all the forensic evidence backs that up.’
‘But what about her parents? Surely they would have heard another car going past their house after nine-thirty?’
‘We checked. They went to bed early. Their bedroom is at the back of the house. And they were busy.’
‘Busy? Busy doing what?’
‘Busy doing what married people sometimes do when they go to bed early.’
‘Oh.’
‘And now we have another suspect.’ Baldur nodded towards the door where Tomas Hakonarson was just beginning a marathon interview session.
Magnus looked in. A man with round glasses, thinning hair and chubby cheeks was sitting smoking a cigarette, watched closely by Vigdis. The famous television personality.
‘And has he confessed?’
‘Give me time,’ Baldur said. ‘His fingerprints match the unidentified set we found in the house. We’re analysing his clothes and his boots now. For the moment his story is that he came and went before Steve Jubb arrived. Jubb arrived at about seven-thirty that evening and the neighbours were out all afternoon, so it’s just about possible that Tomas came and went without them seeing him. But if you thought Jubb was lying, you should see this guy. His story is shot full of holes. We’ll break it.’
‘Don’t you think what I told you about Lawrence Feldman and Steve Jubb trying to buy a ring from Agnar changes things?’
‘No,’ said Baldur, firmly. ‘Now, I have some work to do.’
Magnus went back to his desk in intense frustration. What really bugged him was the possibility that Baldur might be right and he wrong. Baldur was a good cop who trusted his intuition, but then so was Magnus. Which was why it would be so galling if Baldur’s hunches proved to be correct and his were not.
He knew he should take a deep breath, keep an open mind, let the direction of the inquiry follow the evidence as it emerged. But the trouble was, the more he looked into the saga and ring deal, the murkier it got. And the higher were the stakes for those involved.
When it came right down to it, Tomas Hakonarson had the opportunity but as yet not the motive. Isildur and Gimli, as they liked to call themselves, had motive aplenty.
The seat opposite Magnus was empty – Arni was still up in the air. Magnus called his cell phone and left a message on his voice-mail to tell him that Isildur was in Reykjavik and he may as well come home.
Poor guy.
He switched on his computer and checked for an e-mail. There was one from Deputy Superintendent Williams, a long one by his standards.
Williams apologized for the failure to protect Colby. He claimed there was a patrol car outside all night, but they didn’t see anything. There was no trace of Colby herself, although she had told her boss and her parents that she was going away for a while.
There had been questions asked around Schroeder Plaza, the headquarters of the Homicide Unit, questions about Magnus disguised as gossip. Friends of Lenahan; friends of friends of Soto. There was no doubt that Soto’s gang was after Magnus.
The kid Magnus had shot had died. The inquest into his death and that of his older partner was going to be delayed until after the Lenahan trial.
But the big news was the Lenahan trial itself. The judge had finally grown impatient with the delay tactics of the defence and had denied their motions to subpoena thousands of e-mails from the police department. That, combined with the surprise collapse of another murder trial which left a hole in the judge’s docket, meant that it was likely that the trial would begin sometime the following week. Magnus would be called as a witness as early as possible: the FBI hoped that as soon as he testified, Lenahan would talk. The Feds would send Magnus details of his flight as soon as they had decided them. The destination airport was still under discussion, but it wouldn’t be Logan. The FBI would be there in force to meet him and take him to a safe house.
Magnus tapped out a reply saying it would be good to be home. Which was true. He felt that the value he was adding to the Icelandic police force was precisely zero. Baldur’s estimate would be negative.
He thought about Colby, and smiled. Good for her. If the Boston police couldn’t find her, that was a good thing. If she really wanted to hide, she could do it.
He wrote a quick e-mail to her, telling her to let him know she was OK, if she got the opportunity. That was the best he could hope for.
His thoughts turned to the case. He hated the idea of dropping it, leaving it to Baldur to clear up.
OK, if he was right and Baldur was wrong, that meant the case turned on the saga and the ring. Especially the ring. Leave aside the question of whether this was really the ring that was taken from a dwarf who fished in the shape of a pike a couple of millennia ago. That wasn’t important. What
was important was that Agnar thought he knew where a ring was, and Feldman wanted that ring. Badly.
So where was it?
As he had pointed out to Arni, it seemed unlikely that Agnar could conjure up a fake thousand-year-old ring in a couple of days. Which meant either that someone else had it, Ingileif for example, or that Agnar had figured out where he could find it.
Magnus didn’t think Ingileif had the ring. All right, he didn’t want to believe that Ingileif had the ring, but he knew he should keep the idea open as a possibility.
Unless someone else had it. Magnus had no idea who.
What if Agnar had figured out where it was hidden? Magnus had read Gaukur’s Saga: there were not enough clues in there to lead anyone to the ring. But Agnar was an expert on medieval Icelandic literature. He no doubt knew of dozens of folk tales and legends which might hold clues, cross-references.
Then Magnus remembered the entry in Agnar’s diary for Hruni. Not Fludir, Hruni. Vigdis had interviewed the pastor there, the pastor Petur had told Magnus about, Dr Asgrimur’s friend. Magnus recalled her report: the pastor had had nothing much of interest to say.
Magnus needed to go to Hruni. But first he wanted to speak to Ingileif. He wanted to find out more about the ring, and the pastor.
And, damn it, he wanted to see her.
He walked to the gallery and arrived just before closing time, but Ingileif wasn’t there. Her partner, a striking dark-haired woman, told him she was probably working at home. He had her home address from the initial interview and it only took him ten minutes to walk there.
Her first reaction when she saw him on her doorstep seemed to be pleasure, her smile was wide and warm, but a moment later it was clouded by doubt. But she invited him in.
‘How are you getting on in Iceland?’ she asked ‘Met any nice girls yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’m offended.’
‘Present company excepted of course.’
‘Of course. Have a seat.’
Magnus sat in a low chrome chair and accepted a glass of wine. A cello was propped up against the wall, dominating the small room. In an apartment this tiny a violin might have been a better choice of instrument, Magnus thought. Or a piccolo.
‘I didn’t know you were allowed to drink on duty,’ Ingileif said as she handed the glass to him.
‘I’m not sure I am on duty,’ said Magnus.
‘Really?’ said Ingileif, raising her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realize this was a social call.’
‘Well, it’s not a formal interview,’ Magnus said. ‘I want your help.’
‘I thought that’s what I had been doing,’ Ingileif said. ‘Helping the police with their inquiries. Except I admit I wasn’t very helpful at first.’
‘I want to talk to you about the ring. I need to figure out where it is. Who has it.’
‘I have no idea, I told you that,’ Ingileif said. ‘It’s stuffed in some tiny niche in the rocks somewhere in the Icelandic wilderness.’
‘Agnar thought he had found it,’ Magnus said. ‘Or at least he thought he knew where it was. It wasn’t just the saga he was trying to sell to Lawrence Feldman, it was the ring too.’
Magnus explained the contents of the text message Steve Jubb had sent to Feldman the night Agnar had been murdered, and Feldman’s conviction that Agnar knew where the ring was.
‘So somebody has it?’ Ingileif asked.
‘Possibly,’ Magnus said.
‘Who?’
‘The most obvious candidate is you.’
Ingileif exploded. ‘Hey! You said you wanted my help. I would have said if I had it. I know I didn’t tell you everything earlier, but I’ve given up on the saga, and the damned ring. So if you don’t believe me, take me away and interrogate me. Or torture me. You are American, aren’t you? Do you want to try out some water-boarding on me?’
Magnus was taken aback by the vehemence of her denial. ‘It’s true I have lived in America for a while. But I’m not going to torture you. In fact, I’ll just ask you. Do you know where the ring is?’
‘No,’ Ingileif said. ‘Do you believe me?’
‘Yes,’ Magnus said. He knew that as a professional detective he should still doubt her, but a professional detective wouldn’t have been drinking a glass of wine in her apartment. He had given up on being a professional detective, at least while he was in Iceland. He just wanted to find out who killed Agnar.
She seemed to calm down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘About the water-boarding dig.’
‘Will you still help me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your brother told me that your father confided in the local pastor. That the two of them worked on theories of where the ring might be hidden. Can you tell me something about this pastor?’
‘I didn’t know anything about my grandfather finding the ring at that stage, but I did know that Dad planned several hiking trips around Thjorsardalur with the pastor to look for it. So, what can I tell you about Reverend Hakon?’
She paused, gathering her thoughts. ‘He’s strange. I mean there are plenty of eccentric country priests in Iceland, but Hakon is one of the strangest. A lot of my friends were scared of him, scared and fascinated at the same time. He used to mess with their heads.’
‘But not yours?’
‘No, he was always straightforward with me, because of my father, I think. He’s clever, he fancies himself as an intellectual. He’s very interested in Saemundur the Learned – you know, the guy who kept on cheating the devil. And of course he knows everything about the legend of the Hruni dance.’
‘Have you seen him recently?’
‘He officiated at my mother’s funeral at the end of last year. He didn’t do a bad job, actually. He definitely has presence.’ She finished her wine. ‘Do you want another glass?’
Magnus nodded. Ingileif went to the fridge to retrieve the bottle and refilled their glasses.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about my own father’s death this week, after what happened to Agnar. I know it’s Agnar’s murder you are investigating, but I wonder whether Dad’s death was all that it seemed.’
‘What happened?’
‘Dad and the pastor were going on a two-day expedition, with tents, up in the hills to the west of the River Thjorsa. It’s pretty barren up there, and there was still some snow on the ground. I never found out exactly where they went – presumably they were checking out some local caves or hound-shaped chunks of lava.’
Ingileif took a gulp of her wine. ‘On the second day they were on their way back when a snowstorm blew up out of nowhere. I say out of nowhere, it had been forecast, but the previous day had been clear and sunny, I remember it. They got lost on the moor, and Dad stumbled over a cliff. He fell about fifteen metres on to some rocks. The pastor climbed down. He says he thought Dad was badly injured but still alive. He hurried off as quick as he could to find help, but he got lost in the snowstorm. Six hours later he found a sheep farm and grabbed the farmer. By the time they got back to the cliff, Dad was dead: fractured skull, broken neck. In fact, they think he probably died within a few minutes of the fall.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘My father died when I was twenty. It’s rough.’
Ingileif smiled quickly. ‘Yes, it is. And although you think you have come to terms with it, you never really do. Especially when something like this happens.’
‘Do you think he was pushed?’ Magnus asked.
‘By Reverend Hakon? You mean, they both found the ring and the pastor pushed my father over the cliff to take it from him?’
Magnus shrugged. ‘You just said it. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ingileif said. ‘The pastor and my dad were good friends. My dad had lots of friends, he was good with people, but Reverend Hakon wasn’t. I think Dad was probably the only true friend he really had. After Dad died the pastor sort of withdrew into himself and became really weird. His wife left him a couple of years later. No one in the village blamed
her.’
‘Or it could simply be the reaction of someone who had just murdered his best friend,’ said Magnus. ‘I think I should go and see the Reverend Hakon tomorrow.’
‘Can I come?’ Ingileif asked.
Magnus raised his eyebrows.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ Ingileif said. ‘I need to find out what really happened to my father. It was a long time ago and I’ve tried to bottle it all up, but there are so many questions that I don’t have the answers to. Agnar’s murder has brought them all back. I’ve just got to find those answers if I’m going to get on with my life. Do you understand?’
‘Oh, I understand,’ said Magnus. ‘Believe me, I understand. I sometimes think I spend every day trying to answer those kinds of questions about my own father.’
He considered her request. It was certainly not part of the standard investigative procedure to take one witness along to interview another, just to satisfy her curiosity. ‘Yes,’ said Magnus, smiling. ‘That would be fine.’
Ingileif returned his smile. There was a silence that was and was not uncomfortable.
‘Tell me about your father,’ Ingileif said.
Magnus paused. Drank some wine. Glanced at the woman opposite him, her grey eyes warm now. It wasn’t standard investigative procedure. But he told her. About his early childhood, his parents’ separation, his own move to America to join his father. About his stepmother, his father’s murder and his failed attempts to solve it. And then about his recent discovery of his father’s infidelity.
They talked for an hour. Perhaps two hours. They talked a lot about Magnus, and then they talked about Ingileif. They finished the bottle of wine and opened another.
Eventually Magnus got up to leave. ‘So you still want to come with me to Hruni? To see the Reverend Hakon?’
‘I’d like to,’ said Ingileif, with a smile.
‘Good,’ said Magnus, putting on his coat. Then he froze. ‘Wait a minute!’
‘What?’
‘This pastor. This Reverend Hakon. Does he have a son?’
‘Yes. As a matter of fact I saw him only this morning. He’s an old friend of mine.’
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