She would know which of her son or her husband had killed the doctor. She would know.
So Ingileif drove her old Polo out to Hella, a town about fifty kilometres to the south of Flúdir, which is where she knew Erna lived with her second husband.
The drive was unpleasant in the fog, but at least there wasn’t much traffic on the road. She listened to the news on the radio, hoping for more information about Tómas, or possibly the arrest of the Reverend Hákon. There was none of that. But there was something about shots being fired in 101, a policeman being wounded and taken to hospital and an American citizen being held by the police.
For a moment, a dreadful moment, Ingileif thought that the policeman was Magnus. But then they named him as Detective Árni Holm and she breathed again.
She was absolutely sure Magnus was involved somehow, though. Perhaps he was the American citizen they had locked up.
Hella was a modern settlement that lined the bank of the West Ranga river, the next one along after the Thjórsá. Ingileif had looked up Erna’s address from the national phone-directory website: her house was a single-storey building only thirty metres from the river, surrounded by a green garden. Ingileif had no idea whether Erna would be out at work, after all most Icelandic women had a job, but when Ingileif rang the doorbell, Erna answered.
She recognized Ingileif immediately and ushered her in. Erna’s blonde hair was still blonde, but dyed nowadays, and she had put on weight. But her blue eyes still twinkled when she saw Ingileif, although they swiftly clouded again with worry. ‘Have you heard the dreadful news about Tómas?’ she said, as she busied herself in the kitchen organizing coffee.
‘I have,’ said Ingileif. ‘You can hardly miss it. It’s all over the papers. Have you seen him?’
‘No. The police won’t let me. I’ve spoken to his lawyer on the phone. She says that the police don’t have enough evidence to prove anything. I didn’t even know he knew this Agnar fellow. Why on earth would he murder the man? The lawyer said that it all had something to do with a manuscript the professor was trying to sell. Here, Ingileif, let’s go through and sit down.’
The sitting room boasted a large picture window opening out on a view of the river, barely visible through the mist. Ingileif remembered that Erna’s husband was a manager in one of the local bank branches. He had obviously done well. Ingileif wondered, in the way that Icelanders had since the kreppa, whether the man had granted himself a hundred per cent mortgage in the boom times.
‘It has to do with our family, Erna. And with your husband.’
‘Oh. I feared as much.’
‘The manuscript is an old saga that had been in my family for generations. Gaukur’s Saga. Did Hákon ever mention it to you?’
‘Not directly. But that’s what he spent so much time discussing with your father, isn’t it?’
‘That’s correct. And when my mother died at the end of last year—’
‘Oh, yes, I’m so sorry about that. I would have gone to the funeral if I could.’
‘Yes. Well, after she died, I decided to sell the saga, through Professor Agnar. And the police think that it was for this saga that Agnar was killed.’
‘I see. But I still don’t understand what this has to do with Tómas.’
Except that Ingileif could see in Erna’s face that she was beginning to understand.
‘It all goes back to my father’s death.’
‘Ah. I thought it might.’ Erna was wary now.
‘I’m sure that the police will ask you questions about it soon. Perhaps today,’ said Ingileif. ‘And I promise I won’t tell them what you tell me.’ This promise was easier to make now that Magnus had made an idiot of himself. ‘But I want to know what happened to my father. I need to know.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Erna. ‘Hákon witnessed it. A terrible accident. There was a police investigation and everything.’
‘Did your husband tell you what he and my father were doing that weekend?’
‘No. He was very secretive about all that, and frankly I wasn’t interested. They were researching something, I’ve no idea what.’
‘Did he ever mention a ring?’
‘A ring? No. What kind of ring?’
Erna seemed genuinely puzzled. Ingileif took a deep breath. The questions were going to get more painful, there was no way of avoiding it.
‘It was a ring that was mentioned in Gaukur’s Saga, the manuscript the professor who was murdered was trying to sell. You see, the police believe that my father and your husband found the ring that weekend.’
Erna frowned. ‘He never mentioned it. And I never saw a ring. But it is just the kind of thing that would fascinate him. And there was something. Something hidden in the altar in the church. I saw him sneak in there several times.’
‘Did you ever look to see what it was?’ Ingileif asked.
‘No. I told myself that it was none of my business.’ Erna shuddered. ‘But the truth is I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know. Hákon had rather unconventional interests. I was scared about what I might find.’
‘The police think that my father may have been killed for the ring,’ said Ingileif.
‘By whom?’ said Erna. ‘Not by Hákon, surely?’
‘That’s what they think.’ Ingileif swallowed. ‘That’s what I think.’
Erna looked shocked. Shock turned to anger. ‘I know that my ex-husband is eccentric. I know that all sorts of strange stories are told about him in the village. But I am absolutely sure he didn’t kill your father. Despite all his fascination with the devil, he wouldn’t kill anyone. Ever. And …’
A tear appeared Erna’s eye.
‘And?’
‘And your father was the only true friend Hákon ever had. Sometimes I think, well I know, that Hákon was fonder of him than of me. He was quite broken up by your father’s death. It almost destroyed him.’ She sniffed and dabbed her eye with her finger. ‘He started behaving even more strangely, neglecting his parish duties, listening to Tómas’s dreadful music. He became impossible to live with after that. Impossible.’
Ingileif realized she would get no further on the subject of Hákon. She would leave grilling Erna to the police. She still thought Hákon had killed her father, but she was convinced that Erna didn’t, and she didn’t feel the need to argue with her.
‘But what has all this got to do with Tómas?’ Erna asked.
‘The police think he was there with Hákon and my father. The sheep farmers who Hákon went to for help saw him. Or at least they saw a boy, who the police think was Tómas.’ Ingileif didn’t want to confuse the issue with talk of hidden people.
‘Oh, that really is too absurd,’ said Erna. ‘Do they think Tómas killed Dr Ásgrímur? But he was only twelve then!’
‘Thirteen,’ said Ingileif. ‘And yes they do think he was there. He might have witnessed what happened at the very least.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Erna. ‘It must have been someone else.’ And then her eyes lit up. ‘Wait a minute. It can’t have been Tómas!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he was with me that weekend. In Reykjavík. He was singing in the Hallgrímskirkja with the village choir. I went to listen. We stayed with my sister in Reykjavík that Saturday night.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure. We didn’t get back until Sunday evening. I can remember seeing Hákon when we arrived home. He had only just got back from the hills. He was in a terrible state.’ She smiled at Ingileif. ‘You see. My son is innocent!’
The three men were squashed into Axel’s car, parked a hundred metres down the road from the house which Ingileif had entered. Axel was at the wheel, Isildur was in the back, and Gimli was in the passenger seat, a computer opened on his lap. With expense no object, Axel had planted four bugs on Ingileif when he had broken in in the small hours of the previous night. One in her bag, one in her coat, one in her studio bedroom – that had been the trickiest – a
nd one in the car. The bug in the car doubled as a tracking device, and the location of the car was flashing on the GPS map on the computer.
The tracker had allowed them to follow Ingileif at a safe distance all the way from Reykjavík to Hella. They had driven by the house at which she had stopped and then parked out of sight. The bug in the coat was transmitting loud and clear, but in Icelandic, through a receiver which was plugged into the laptop. Axel mumbled half-translations as he listened, but they were frustratingly incomplete.
When Axel started muttering about a ring, Isildur couldn’t contain his impatience to find out more, but Axel refused to explain further, not wanting to miss any of the conversation.
As soon as Ingileif left the house, Isildur asked Axel for a translation.
‘Shouldn’t we follow her?’ said Axel.
‘We can catch her up later. The tracker will show us where she is. I want a full translation, and I want it now!’
Axel pulled the computer off Gimli’s lap and tapped some keys. The conversation was recorded on the computer’s hard drive. He went through the whole thing slowly and methodically.
Isildur was beside himself with excitement. ‘Where’s this church?’ he demanded. ‘The place where the ring is hidden?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Axel. ‘The nearest church to Hella is a place called Oddi. It’s not far.’
‘It sounds like they were neighbours when Ingileif was young,’ said Gimli. ‘This Hákon is obviously Tómas Hákonarson’s father. Do we know where he was born? Where he grew up? Or for that matter where Ingileif grew up? It might not have been Hella. It sounded to me as if this Erna woman had moved out, or moved away.’
‘Google him,’ said Isildur. ‘You got Google in Iceland, right?’
‘Google who?’
‘Tómas Hákonarson. If he’s a big star in this country, there will be a bio on him somewhere.’
Axel called up the search engine, tapped out some words, clicked and scrolled. ‘Here he is. He was born in a village in the West Fjords, but was brought up in Flúdir. That’s not too far from here.’
‘Well, let’s go to Flúdir church, then!’ said Isildur. ‘Get a move on!’
Axel handed the laptop back to Gimli and started up the car.
‘Hruni is the nearest church to Flúdir,’ said Axel. ‘This man must be the pastor of Hruni.’ He grinned.
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘Let’s just say it fits.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
AS MAGNUS DROVE up the valley of the Thjórsá towards Mount Hekla, lurking behind the cloud somewhere to the south-east, the landscape became progressively bleaker. Grass gave way to black rock and mounds of sand, like the detritus of a massive abandoned coalfield. The river flowed past the rounded lump of stone several hundred feet high known as Búrfell, home to trolls in the old folk tales. Just beyond, the road crossed a smaller river, the Fossá, a tributary of the Thjórsá, but still powerful, and Magnus came to a junction and a sign. Well, two signs. One said Stöng. The other Road Closed.
Magnus turned. It wasn’t a road. It wasn’t even a track. There were twists, turns, steep hills, sharp drops. At one point the road was nothing but black sand. Mist swirled around Magnus as he cajoled his car through the blackened terrain. Below and to the left, the Fossá surged. Fingers of snow reached down from the mountains above, and indeed the road would have been completely impassable a couple of weeks earlier, before the snow had melted. Once or twice, Magnus debated turning back. But of course Hákon’s four-wheel-drive would have had an easier time of it.
Then he rounded a bend and saw it. The red Suzuki. It was parked on a brief stretch of road fifty feet above the river. Magnus pulled up next to it and checked the plate. Definitely the Reverend Hákon’s vehicle.
He turned off his engine and climbed out of his car.
The damp air hit his nostrils. After the whine of his own car engine and the clanking of stones and rock against the chassis, everything seemed quiet, damply quiet. Except there was a low roar, the sound of water rushing by below.
Somewhere in the fog a duck quacked. Odd to hear the sound of a living thing in that landscape.
Magnus walked over to the Suzuki. Empty. He tried the door handle. Unlocked. No keys in the ignition.
He looked around. Visibility was only a couple of hundred feet. He couldn’t see Hákon. Mist swirled around the pinnacles of twisted lava all about Magnus, odd grotesque shapes, volcanic gargoyles. Under his feet was black grit and chips of obsidian, rock melted into black glass deep within the earth and then spewed out on to the very spot where he stood.
Perhaps Hákon had abandoned the car here to walk on to Stöng on foot? A possibility, Magnus could not see far enough along the road to evaluate its quality. But Hákon was an Icelander and he was driving a four-wheel-drive. He was unlikely to give up that easily.
The man was crazy, Magnus knew that. He could have set out on a long hike to God-knows-where over the bleak landscape. To the cave near Álfabrekka, perhaps? To Mount Hekla? He could be away for days.
Magnus looked around the Suzuki for footprints. There were some, but they were muddled. He moved away from the vehicle in expanding circles, but the ground was too hard to betray which direction Hákon might have gone. He did find something of interest, though.
Tyre marks. About thirty feet away from the Suzuki on a small patch of soft ground. Another car had parked there. But when?
Magnus had no idea of the last time it had rained at that particular spot. It had been beautiful in the Thjórsárdalur when he and Ingileif had driven to Álfabrekka the previous day. It was possible that it might not have rained since then. Or it could have rained twenty minutes before.
He debated whether to drive on to Stöng. He recalled the abandoned farm from his childhood. It lay in a small patch of green by a stream. But first he had to report what he had seen to Baldur.
He pulled out his phone. No signal, which was hardly surprising. And there wasn’t a police radio in the car.
So he decided to drive back towards the main road until he found a signal to make the call.
After a bone-shattering two kilometres, his phone, which he had placed on the seat beside him, began to ring.
He pulled over and picked it up. He couldn’t drive with only one hand on that road.
‘Hi, Magnús, it’s Ingileif.’
‘Hello,’ said Magnus, wary, yet pleased that it was her.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘It’s just I heard on the radio this morning that there had been a shooting. A police officer was in hospital. An American had been arrested. I assumed one of the two was you.’
‘Yeah, it happened right after I went to your place last night. My partner Árni was shot. I got the guy who did it.’
‘And he was after you?’
‘He was after me.’
There was a brief silence. Then Ingileif spoke again. ‘I’ve just been to see Erna, Tómas’s mother. She lives in Hella.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘She is sure that Tómas didn’t kill my father. He couldn’t have been there. He was singing with the village choir in the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík that weekend.’
‘Or so she says. She is his mother, remember?’
‘That can be checked, though, can’t it? Even seventeen years later?’
‘Yes, it can,’ admitted Magnus. Ingileif was right. It was an unlikely lie. ‘What did she say about Hákon?’
‘She’s certain that he didn’t kill Dad either. But she doesn’t have any evidence.’
‘I think we can safely ignore that,’ Magnus said.
‘I suppose so,’ said Ingileif. ‘But she did sound convincing. She also told me where Hákon hides the ring.’
‘In the altar in the church?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Tómas told me yesterday.’
‘Have you found him? Hákon?’
Mag
nus looked back up the road. ‘No. But I did find his car a few minutes ago. On the road to Stöng. He must have gone on a hike or something. Or met someone. I found another set of tyre tracks nearby.’
There was silence at the other end of the phone. For a moment Magnus thought the connection had been dropped. The signal was still poor. ‘Ingileif? Ingileif, are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here. Bye, Magnús.’
And she was gone.
Pétur was under his car, wiping the chassis with a cloth. He had driven home from the car wash, grabbed a cloth and a bucket and then parked in a residential street a kilometre away. He didn’t want his neighbours to see him washing his car so carefully.
His phone, stuffed in his jeans pocket, rang. He rolled out from under the BMW and answered it.
‘Pési? It’s Inga.’
He scrambled to his feet. He need to gather his wits for this conversation.
‘Inga! Hi! How are you?’
‘Why didn’t you want me to say I saw you yesterday?’
‘You were with that big cop, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes. We had just been to see the sheep farmers who went to look for Dad with Hákon. Pési, I am pretty sure that Dad was killed. It wasn’t an accident.’
Pétur realized she had given him the opportunity to go on the offensive. ‘I thought we had agreed to leave all that alone,’ he said. ‘Why were you talking to the cops about it? What could it achieve?’
‘Pési, where were you going yesterday?’
Pétur took a deep breath. ‘I can’t say, Inga. I’m sorry. Don’t ask me any more.’
‘That won’t do, Pési. I need to know what’s going on here. Were you going to meet Hákon? On the road to Stöng?’
Where the Shadows Lie Page 29
