‘I come here to think about Jóhannes,’ the woman said. ‘To get away from that monster at home.’
Grána had had enough. She pinned back her ears and reared. Aníta kept her balance and fought to bring the mare back under control. The horse wheeled around a couple of times before Aníta calmed her down.
When she looked back into the lava field, Marta was gone.
*
Emil surveyed the police officers sitting around the table in the conference room in Stykkishólmur police station, which had been turned into an incident room. Someone had placed a large whiteboard along the wall opposite the door. It was empty; no one had had the time to write on it.
It was eight o’clock and none of the officers had got much sleep after the goings-on at Bjarnarhöfn. There was Rúnar, Páll and three more of the local police constables. Then the two detectives who had arrived the evening before to reinforce Emil: from Keflavík a small man in his twenties with prematurely thinning fair hair named Adam, and Björn from Akureyri, who was pleasingly chubby, at least to Emil’s eyes. With Reykjavík out of bounds as a source of detective manpower, there were precious few other places to go for help.
Then there was Edda, the head of the forensics unit. At least Emil had been allowed to use them, even though they were based in Reykjavík. She was a head taller than him, with long legs, short blonde hair and an air of calm competence. Emil had worked with her on one of her first major cases, when she had spotted some fibres on a fence in the garden of a house in Akranes whose owner had been brutally assaulted by a burglar. It had led to a conviction that otherwise would probably never have been made. She was gorgeous then. And she was gorgeous now, even though she looked as tired as the rest of them.
Emil’s stomach rumbled. The hotel in Stykkishólmur had been overwhelmed with the sudden influx of policemen and forensics technicians, and hadn’t been able to come up with much of a breakfast that early in the morning.
‘Let’s start with the fire,’ Emil said. ‘How badly burned is the property?’
‘The structure is still standing,’ said Rúnar. ‘The inside is badly burned, especially the kitchen and the living room. The desk has gone, as well as the computer. Plenty for forensics to work on,’ he said to Edda.
‘It’s pretty clear that the old woman started it,’ said Emil. ‘She seemed to think that she was cooking supper for her husband. She still doesn’t understand, or refuses to understand, that he has been murdered.’
‘Did she say how exactly the fire started?’ Edda asked.
‘No. I asked her, but I didn’t get an answer that made any sense. We’re relying on you to answer that question.’
‘We’ll work on it as soon as we get up to the farm this morning,’ said Edda.
‘Is it Alzheimer’s?’ Rúnar asked.
‘Probably,’ Emil replied. ‘I spoke to Aníta, who said that Sylvía had been displaying signs of memory loss over the last few months, but nothing this bad. She has deteriorated rapidly since yesterday. I assume it was the shock of her husband’s death.’
Emil remembered his own father, who had died only the previous year in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. At first, the old man, a widower, had done his best to hide his condition from his children. But as his memory loss had become more obvious, he had become increasingly angry and impatient with anyone trying to help him. Against Emil’s wishes, he had insisted on going out fishing in his boat by himself. One evening he had fallen in and spent half an hour in Faxaflói Bay clinging to his boat before a fellow fisherman found him, near death from the cold. The shock had definitely accelerated his decline.
The memory brought back for Emil the familiar feelings of guilt, anger and powerlessness. It would have been difficult, but Emil should have done more for his father. He hoped he wouldn’t live long enough to suffer from Alzheimer’s himself. Then he thought of his last consultation with his doctor: little risk of that, apparently.
‘Can Aníta look after her?’ Rúnar asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Emil replied. ‘I don’t think she should be staying at the farm, at least for the next few days.’
‘Páll, get on to Hanna at social services,’ Rúnar commanded. ‘And see if Dr Ingvar can help.’
Páll nodded.
That really is a very fine moustache, thought Emil. ‘Do we have anyone at the farm now?’
‘Yes,’ said Rúnar. ‘There’s been a constable up there all night. Or at least since the fire.’
Emil let the silence linger to the point where it became awkward. Technically Rúnar outranked him, but he knew and Emil knew that the chief superintendent had screwed up. The crime scene must always be guarded until it was released, even in rural areas where there were no spare resources to do it. There was a reason for the procedure.
Emil waited until he saw two pink spots of shame emerge on Rúnar’s cheeks and then moved on. ‘OK, let’s turn to the murder investigation. I interviewed Magnús yesterday afternoon, as well as his brother.’
Emil spent a few minutes recounting the results of the interview.
‘So Magnús is definitely our top suspect?’ Adam, the detective from Keflavík, asked.
‘Definitely,’ Emil replied. ‘But we should keep an open mind. Let’s go through the family.’
They ran through them one by one. Kolbeinn had dropped his son at basketball practice. Sylvía had been seen in the church at Stykkishólmur, where she had arrived at the ten-thirty service a little late. Ingvar had said that he was tinkering with his boat in Stykkishólmur harbour – that had still to be checked, but it should be easy to find witnesses. No one had seen Aníta on her horse, nor had anyone seen the daughter Tóta, who claimed, quite plausibly, that she was lying in bed on a Sunday morning.
In theory the neighbouring farm at Hraun had a clear view of the approach to Bjarnarhöfn over the lava field, and the farmer had been out on the home field checking his own fences before the lambing season. But the weather was so bad that he hadn’t been able to see anything. He couldn’t remember hearing Magnus’s car approach, or any other, and there was no chance that he could have seen as far as Cumberland Bay on the far side of the farm where Aníta claimed to have ridden.
‘OK, what about forensics, Edda?’
‘The crime scene is a joke. Blood has been trampled everywhere. There was a horse hanging around for twenty minutes. Magnús’s fingerprints are on everything, except those surfaces that have been wiped down.’
‘Wiped down?’
‘Looks like it to me,’ said Edda. ‘Unless the place was thoroughly cleaned very recently. There was a broom just outside the church with a set of Magnús’s prints on it and no one else’s.’
‘You mean Magnús swept the church?’ Adam asked.
‘No, that’s not what she means,’ said Emil, stroking one of his chins. ‘She means Magnús wiped the handle clean.’
‘A broom handle like that should be covered with the prints of whoever usually uses it,’ said Edda. ‘Presumably Sylvía, or perhaps Aníta. They should still be there under Magnús’s own prints. If they are not it means that someone wiped the broom handle down before Magnús touched it. Not necessarily Magnús. That’s up to you guys to decide.’
‘But he is an obvious possibility,’ said Emil.
‘The footprints are Magnús’s, and he has blood on his shoes. Also some blood on the cuff of his shirt. We assume that’s Hallgrímur’s, but we will check it, obviously. We’ll check his clothes more thoroughly in the lab back in Reykjavík.’
‘Did you find anything in the church?’
‘Some white hair, which is probably Hallgrímur’s, but we will need to check. It could be Sylvía’s. And this.’ She held up a small round silver earring. ‘The design is a flower. We need to find its twin.’
‘I’ll ask Sylvía and Aníta,’ said Emil. ‘The body has been taken to the morgue in Reykjavík. They’ll do an autopsy today. Our best guess at the moment is that Hallgrímur’s head was pounded into the flo
or by someone holding his hair. Which suggests anger rather than premeditation. A blunt instrument is a possibility, but we’ll know more once we have heard back from the autopsy.’
‘Could the broom have been the murder weapon?’ asked Adam.
‘I doubt it very much,’ said Edda. ‘It wouldn’t have left those wounds. And there would probably have been some signs of blood, even if it had been wiped down. We’ll take it down to the lab to be sure.’
‘I think Edda’s right,’ said Emil.
‘We started work on the cottage, but only in the kitchen,’ said Edda.
‘Magnús claimed he was washing blood off his hands and then took a drink from a mug. Aníta claimed she saw him washing it up.’
‘No sign of blood,’ Edda said. ‘But the mug had been washed up and there were Magnús’s prints on it.’
‘It wasn’t lost in the fire, was it?’
‘Of course not,’ said Edda. ‘It’s safe in our van.’
‘Good. Can you check for Magnús’s DNA around the rim?’
‘To see whether he drank from it? Yes. It will take a while to get the results. Especially with the volcano doing its stuff.’
DNA needed to be flown to a lab in Sweden for analysis. Turnaround was frustratingly slow at the best of times. With the airspace full of ash, who knew when they would get the sample there, let alone receive it back?
‘It might be useful for the trial.’
‘You’re pretty sure Magnús was lying about the mug?’ Rúnar asked.
‘I’m pretty sure Magnús is lying about a lot of things,’ said Emil. ‘I’ve arranged a hearing with the judge in Borgarnes this morning, and then we’ll send him down to Litla-Hraun.’
Litla-Hraun, meaning ‘Little Lava Field’, was Iceland’s only major prison, and it was where suspects on remand were held. It was on the south coast of the country, about a three-hour drive away on the other side of Reykjavík, which was going to be inconvenient.
‘But, as I said, we need to keep an open mind. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Magnús’s brother Ollie is also involved in this somehow. Do you two speak English?’ Emil asked his new assistants.
‘I do,’ said Adam confidently.
Björn shrugged, not wanting to admit to poor language skills.
‘Good, because he seems to have forgotten all his Icelandic, and we may want to interview him again later. I’ll go back to Bjarnarhöfn after the hearing with you, Adam. Then I’ll head down to Reykjavík. I’d like to be present at the autopsy. And I need to find out more about Magnús.’
‘What about the press?’ said Rúnar. ‘There’s a guy from Morgunbladid downstairs. And RÚV have just arrived.’
Emil sighed. There was no way of avoiding the press interest; a murder was a big deal.
‘Will you talk to them? But keep them away from the farm.’
He turned to the two detectives. ‘Adam and Björn, double-check everyone’s alibis. Look for any other witnesses. Björn, check the cameras on the Hvalfjördur tunnel.’ Any car driving up from Reykjavík would be bound to go through the tunnel under the deep Whale Fjord, which had a toll at its northern entrance, with cameras. ‘Look out for Magnús’s Range Rover, and also Jóhannes Benediktsson’s car.’ He turned to the blank board behind him, staring at him with white insolence. ‘And someone write something on that.’
As they broke up, Edda approached Emil and touched his sleeve.
‘Do you know Magnús?’ she asked him.
‘No. I’ve never worked with him before.’
‘Well, I have,’ Edda said. ‘Just last week I was up at a crime scene with him on Eyjafjallajökull. He seems like a good guy to me and I find it hard to believe that he’s a serious suspect for this. But if he is, you should know that he is smart. Very smart.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
January 2010
MAGNUS OPENED HIS eyes.
Colby was lying next to him. Smiling. ‘You were asleep.’
‘Was I? For how long?’
‘Only ten minutes or so.’
‘Jet lag. Plus I went out last night with Stu and the boys.’
‘Huh.’ She raised herself up onto her elbows, leaned over and kissed his lips. Her breast brushed his arm. ‘You think I’m a manipulative bitch, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Magnus protested.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Colby. ‘But you know why I went to bed with you?’
‘Er…’
‘It wasn’t to get you to leave Iceland and come back to Boston. It wasn’t because I want to start something again.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ She grinned. ‘It’s because I wanted a really good fuck.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, really. And you know what?’
‘What?’ said Magnus.
‘Now I want another one.’
An hour later, Magnus was heading south on Route 3. He was grinning. He couldn’t help it. He remembered why he liked Colby.
She was right; he had thought her manipulative. When they were living together it was clear that she wanted to change him, get him to quit the police and become a lawyer, then earn a lot of money. She had wanted to marry him; he didn’t want to be the man she would have insisted he become, so their relationship had broken up.
That, and the gangsters trying to kill her.
Magnus had to admit she had been pretty forgiving about that. He smiled again.
In Iceland he had met Ingileif and she had seemed to be everything that Colby wasn’t. She didn’t care what he did for a living, she didn’t seem to take herself or him very seriously, and she was fun to be with. In fact, she teased him about what she called his rigid American views on what a relationship should be.
But that meant that when she had been offered a good opportunity in a gallery in Hamburg, he couldn’t really stop her. Even though he wanted to.
While he had been growing up in America, Magnus was sure that Iceland, the country of his birth, was his spiritual home. And there was a lot he loved about the place. But was it really home? Was he really an Icelander? People like Baldur could never accept him as such. Whereas here he had friends, a lover. And the familiar day-to-day rhythm of homicide investigations.
But exactly how healthy was it to need that?
The snow was piled thick on the sides of the highway. The outskirts of Boston gave way to white trees with occasional glimpses of marsh. He was heading to the town of Duxbury, just a few miles north of Plymouth, and the place where his father had been murdered.
His father had been a mathematics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The family – Ragnar, Magnus, Ollie and Ragnar’s newish second wife Kathleen – lived in a small house in Cambridge, but for two summers, 1995 and 1996, Ragnar had rented a property in Duxbury from a colleague at MIT.
Magnus turned off the highway and along a winding tree-lined road towards town. Duxbury had been a prosperous shipbuilding centre two hundred years before, but then the bay had silted up and industry had left, leaving only the clapboard houses of the wealthy ship owners. Since then, not much had changed. The town was a network of small roads passing beautiful wooden houses and white churches, with occasional views of the marshes or the bay. It was the sort of place that would be called sleepy, yet even in winter there were runners and cyclists on the roads. An active bunch, the citizens of Duxbury.
Magnus drove past the harbour and the small group of stores bunched around a flagpole that constituted the centre of town, out on to Standish Point. This was a promontory in Duxbury Bay named after Captain Myles Standish, the leader of the Mayflower colony at Plymouth, who had built himself a house there. There were some fine large houses, but the property belonging to Ragnar’s colleague was small and simple, clad in weathered grey wooden shingles, built sometime in the 1920s. It perched on the edge of the bay, facing out to Clark’s Island – where the Mayflower had first made landfall – and the inland edge of the seven-mile spit of sand that was Duxbury Beach.
Magnus parked opposite the house. The air was crisp, but still. The sun shone brightly off the snow and the blue bay. An old Volvo stood guard outside the house; Magnus had no idea if the place was still owned by the MIT professor or his family.
Magnus himself had been in Providence at the time of his father’s death, waiting tables. Ollie had been at the beach with his girlfriend. Kathleen had been… Well, Kathleen had been busy elsewhere. And Ragnar had been in the living room with a view over the bay, working on his math.
That’s why they were there, really, so that Ragnar would have time to think. His subject was Riemann surfaces, an esoteric branch of topology, and he liked to link up with a couple of collaborators around the world. He had fixed up a modem so that he could exchange ideas with a British and a Canadian mathematician. Afternoons were his mathematics time.
Someone had come and knocked on the front door. Ragnar had let the person in. This didn’t necessarily mean Ragnar knew him or her; in a small town it would be natural to let in a friendly-looking stranger with a plausible story. Ragnar had turned his back on his visitor, who promptly stabbed him.
No one had seen the murderer. Magnus looked up and down the small lane that led down to the water. It was hidden by trees and bushes that would have been even thicker in summer. He doubted whether he himself could be seen by anyone at that moment.
A neighbour had seen a man with a beard, whom Magnus had eventually tracked down, but this had turned out to be a bird watcher from Worcester, a small city to the west of Boston.
Magnus looked around. Had he missed anything? Had Sergeant Fearon, the detective who had led the investigation all those years ago, missed anything? Even now, with his years of experience, Magnus couldn’t figure out what that might be.
Apart from one small piece of evidence. Which was why he had made an appointment to see former Sergeant Detective Jim Fearon.
The ex-policeman was sitting waiting for Magnus in the bakery just by the town’s small harbour. He was in his early sixties with a grey moustache, a belly peeking out over his pants and kind blue eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
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