Sea of Stone

by Michael Ridpath

The redness spread down towards her chin. Emil reeled her in patiently. He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I must have missed it. Although I didn’t notice a missed call.’

  ‘He spoke for seven minutes.’

  ‘Did he?’ Ingileif looked away at a painting of Mount Esja on the wall. ‘Perhaps he was leaving a message.’

  ‘For seven minutes? Did you hear one?’

  ‘I didn’t check.’

  ‘Can you check now?’

  Ingileif pulled out her phone and began to press buttons. Then she sighed and put it down. ‘OK. Yes, he did call me.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  She looked at him. Opened her mouth and closed it again.

  ‘Ingileif, this is a murder inquiry,’ Emil said gently. ‘We already have plenty of evidence against Magnús, probably enough to convict him. There will be a trial and this phone call will be a key piece of evidence. You will have to take the stand and tell the court what Magnús told you. If you lie, it won’t get him off the hook. But you will be charged with perjury. In fact, if you lie now, I will charge you with obstructing a murder inquiry. So think hard before you speak.’

  Ingileif said nothing. The redness drained from her face. Then she bit her bottom lip and nodded.

  ‘So what did Magnús say?’ Emil asked again.

  Ingileif coughed. ‘He said he had just killed his grandfather.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  January 2010

  THE HOUSE IN Wellesley Hills didn’t look big from the road, but as Magnus drove up the short driveway, he saw it was expensive. Snow lay across the carefully landscaped yard, and upon the cover of the fenced-in swimming pool.

  It had taken him nearly an hour to find his stepmother’s address. The process had involved using a public computer in Duxbury’s library and calling her first husband, the one before Ragnar, whose name Magnus could remember. Kathleen was now Mrs Lichtburg, and she had clearly done well for herself. According to her former husband, Mr Lichtburg ran an investment-management boutique, whatever that was.

  Magnus rang the doorbell. It was almost five o’clock and he had no idea whether Mrs Lichtburg would be in, but after a few seconds the door opened.

  She was probably over fifty now, but she hadn’t changed much. Red hair – coloured now, no doubt – a little make-up, expensive top and jeans. Well-groomed, thinner than Magnus remembered her.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’ She clearly didn’t recognize him.

  ‘It’s Magnus.’

  ‘Magnus?’ She almost smiled, and then frowned. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To talk to you about Dad.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you. I was hoping I would never set eyes on you again.’

  Magnus was about to protest vigorously when he stopped himself. She would just slam the door in his face. He forced a lopsided grin.

  ‘Aw, Mom. That’s not very nice! I’ve missed you.’

  The idea of Kathleen being his mom struck both of them as absurd. Although for a couple of years she had indeed been his stepmother, he had never called her ‘Mom’, nor had she expected him to.

  She laughed. ‘Oh, all right. Come in. But only if you have a glass of wine.’

  He followed her through into a large kitchen. There were photographs of kids graduating from something or other.

  ‘These yours?’ Magnus asked, although he knew that they were too old to be hers.

  ‘They are Brian’s. Stepchildren, you could say. Although I get on with them a whole lot better than I did with you.’

  ‘Oh, you got on with Ollie OK, didn’t you?’

  Kathleen had her back to him as she took a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. When she turned she checked his eyes to see whether he meant anything significant. Magnus gave no sign that he did.

  ‘I was glad to get rid of the both of you,’ she said, pouring two glasses. ‘I was going to say, haven’t you been able to forget your dad, but that’s a bit cruel even for me. What is it? His estate? No, I know. You’re still trying to solve his murder, aren’t you?’

  She sat at a stool at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and Magnus sat opposite her.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve just been to see the detective who investigated the case down in Duxbury.’

  ‘And he confirmed my innocence, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was quite sure where you were.’ Magnus looked around the house. ‘I see you didn’t end up in Pembroke.’

  ‘No, I most certainly didn’t end up in Pembroke,’ Kathleen said. ‘Actually, I like where I am now.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Magnus.

  ‘No, I don’t just mean the money. Brian’s a good man. And I think I’m a better person. There was ten years there where you could say I made some poor life choices.’

  ‘Like marrying my dad?’

  ‘And other things. Mind you, it was a mistake we both made. I thought he was good-looking, exotic, exciting. But it turned out that your father was dull. The only things he was interested in were math and Iceland.’

  ‘That might be enough for some people,’ said Magnus, who had been fascinated by his father.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Kathleen. ‘But not me. And I could see him falling out of love with me in front of my eyes. I didn’t like that.’

  ‘So you started sleeping around?’

  ‘As I say, I made some poor choices.’

  ‘Including sleeping with my brother?’

  Kathleen winced. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Jim Fearon just told me. The Duxbury detective.’

  ‘He promised me he wouldn’t,’ Kathleen said. ‘But I guess it’s a long time ago. To answer your question, that was a particularly poor choice of action.’

  ‘And Dad found out?’

  Kathleen nodded. ‘He knew I had been sleeping with someone else. I told him it was his son. I was really angry with him about something, I can’t remember what precisely now. Of course, what I was really angry with was that he didn’t love me any more and I had been dumb enough to marry him.’

  ‘And how did he take that?’

  ‘He was furious. With me. With Ollie. He shut himself away with his math. It was all very unpleasant. And then someone killed him.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea who?’

  Kathleen flashed her green eyes at Magnus. ‘No, Magnus, I have no idea who killed him. Ollie was at the beach; I was with the air-con guy. And if you think I hired someone to kill him, which, by the way, your detective friend seemed to believe for a day or two, you’re wrong. I felt trapped, but there was an easy way out. Divorce. I had done it before – I knew how. We hadn’t discussed it, but we would have done. I’m sure if your father hadn’t died we would have been divorced within a year.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing any Icelanders around in the days before my father died?’

  ‘Icelanders?’ Kathleen was surprised by the change in tack. ‘No. What sort of Icelanders?’

  ‘My mother’s family, perhaps?’

  Kathleen shook her head. ‘No. Ragnar hated the whole lot of them, didn’t he? And he didn’t have much of his own family left. I never saw any of them.’ She sipped her wine. ‘I mean, he had a couple of Icelander friends in Boston. You might remember them. Gylfi at Boston College. That guy who worked at one of those biotech companies on Route 128, Haraldur, I think his name was? A couple of others he saw occasionally. I didn’t have much to do with them.’

  Those weren’t the kind of Icelanders Magnus meant. He examined the woman whom he had hated so much for so long.

  He still hated her.

  He put down his glass of wine. ‘I’ve got to go, Kathleen. I doubt we will see each other again.’ He stood up.

  ‘You don’t like me, do you?’ Kathleen said.

  Magnus shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’

  For a moment there was something close to sympathy in his stepmother’s eyes. Then it vanished.

  ‘Well, you’d better fuck off then.’

&
nbsp; Magnus sat in his car on Stanton Street in Medford. He had been there for two hours. It was dark and it was quiet. His feet were beginning to feel cold, so he turned on the engine. What would he do if Ollie didn’t come home at all? His brother could easily be out with some woman all night. Magnus had decided not to give Ollie advance warning of his presence in Boston. He wanted the conversation that he knew would ensue to take place face-to-face, not over the phone from Iceland.

  It had begun to snow, gently.

  Two figures approached along the sidewalk, a man and a woman. Even though he couldn’t see the man’s face, Magnus could tell from his walk that it was his brother. The woman’s arm was hooked through the man’s. They were both wrapped up in coats and hats.

  They stopped outside a small white clapboard house and Ollie opened the door. Magnus gave them five minutes, then rang the bell.

  ‘Hey, Magnus!’ Ollie said, his face splitting into a huge grin when he saw his brother. ‘What the hell are you doing here, man?’ He gave Magnus a hug. Magnus couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Ollie said.

  Magnus followed Ollie into the familiar ground-floor apartment. He had stayed there himself a couple of times, most noticeably when the Dominican gangsters had been after him the year before. A blonde woman was sitting on the sofa. Very pretty. Very young.

  ‘Hey, Brandy, this is my brother Magnus.’

  ‘Hey,’ said the girl, giving Magnus a sulky glance. She didn’t seem overexcited by the company.

  ‘Hi, Brandy,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Can I get you a beer?’ said Ollie. ‘I got Sam Adams.’

  ‘Great,’ said Magnus, taking the armchair.

  ‘Brandy, could you get us some beers, please?’

  The girl went to do as she was told.

  ‘How old is she?’ whispered Magnus as the girl headed through to the kitchen.

  ‘Old enough,’ said Ollie. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Tenant?’ Magnus knew that Ollie owned a few properties that were rented by students at Tufts, the university just up the hill from his street.

  ‘Tenant’s best friend,’ Ollie replied. ‘So what are you doing back in Boston? You got your old job back?’

  ‘Just here for a couple of days. Checking in with headquarters. Thought I’d drop by.’ The girl returned with three bottles of beer and an opener. ‘Is it OK if I stay the night?’

  Ollie glanced at the girl, whose sulky expression deepened. ‘Sure. You got a car out there?’

  ‘Yeah. My stuff’s in the trunk. I’ll bring it in later.’

  ‘How come you didn’t call?’ Ollie asked, turning back to Magnus. But there was a hesitancy in his tone, which suggested he could guess the real answer.

  ‘Wasn’t sure of my plans,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Huh,’ said Ollie.

  Magnus cracked the beer and took a swig. It was good.

  ‘So, where you been today?’ Ollie asked, with the look of someone who had a fair idea of the answer.

  Magnus drew in his breath. ‘Duxbury.’

  ‘Duxbury, huh? Now why would you want to go there?’

  The girl on the sofa was watching the two brothers carefully. She had noticed the tension rising.

  ‘I had a chat with Sergeant Detective Fearon. You remember him?’

  ‘Oh, man! Can’t you just leave all that alone?’

  ‘He told me something very interesting.’

  ‘What?’ Ollie framed the question in a tone that suggested he didn’t want to know the answer.

  ‘That you slept with our stepmother.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  The girl roused herself. ‘You slept with your stepmother?’

  ‘It was thirteen years ago,’ said Ollie. ‘I was just a kid.’

  ‘And that makes it better? Isn’t that, like, incest? Yuk.’

  ‘Yeah, yuk,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Hey, I think I’ll leave you two guys to chat about old times,’ said Brandy. ‘Later, Ollie. Maybe.’

  Ollie let her go.

  ‘Nice girl,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Magnus, what the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to tell you I am going to ask questions. About Dad’s murder. Back in Iceland and here.’

  ‘Oh, man! We’ve been through this before.’

  ‘What, are you afraid I’m going to discover something unpleasant? Like you banging our stepmother?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, Magnus. You’ll drag it all up. Me sleeping with Kathleen. Dad getting killed. Kathleen having her affair. And then you’re going to bring up Grandpa and all that family of weirdoes. Mom’s death. God knows what else.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time to face it,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve held off for years for your sake, but I can’t do it any more. I’ve got to know who killed Dad. Don’t you understand that, Ollie? It’s been eating me up ever since it happened. It’s the one big enormous unresolved issue that is destroying my whole life.’

  ‘Magnus, you’re strong,’ said Ollie. ‘You know that and I know that. And believe me, I appreciate it. You’ve helped me out so many times in the past. I need your strength.’

  Magnus was quiet, watching his younger brother.

  ‘But I’m not strong, Magnus. Never have been. Of course I’m ashamed of screwing Kathleen. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve done in my life, and God knows there are a lot of those. You know what’s behind all this, Magnus, for you and for me?’

  ‘Yeah. Dad’s death.’

  Ollie shook his head. ‘No. It’s Afi.’ Magnus noted that his brother used the Icelandic name for their grandfather, rather than the American ‘grandpa’, which they had slipped into soon after they arrived in the States.

  ‘Afi screwed me up. Screwed us both up. It was him who messed up Mom.’

  ‘Yeah, and I have a strong suspicion that he was behind Dad’s murder as well,’ said Magnus. ‘That’s why I need to find out more. And if he was responsible, he should pay, even if he is in his eighties.’

  Ollie sighed. ‘You know it was about this time last year when that psycho came round here, looking for you? Put a gun in my mouth.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Well, I don’t doubt you are used to hit men sticking guns in your mouth, but I’m not. It shook me up. I did a few more drugs than I should of. I got drunk. I let things slip.’

  Magnus nodded. He wasn’t surprised. But that familiar feeling of guilt which was always lurking somewhere at the back of the room whenever he was talking to his brother was beginning to slink out into the open.

  ‘Then a girlfriend told me I should go and see a shrink again. I said no, but she made me. So I went to this therapist. She spent the summer trying to get me to tell her about Afi and the farm and I spent the summer trying not to. Then you called up last September all excited because you had found some Icelandic links to Dad’s death. You remember that?’

  Magnus nodded. ‘I do. But then you asked me not to investigate any more, and I said I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And thank you for that. It helped. Even so, things got weird back here. But it turned out this shrink knew what she was doing. I’ve started talking to her about Bjarnarhöfn. And you. And Dad. In fact, I saw her this afternoon.’

  ‘Does it help?’

  Ollie nodded. ‘Yeah. I think for once in my life I might finally be getting my shit together. And that’s big for me. I think I’m a pretty successful guy, really, but when things are going right, I screw them up, like I was doing it on purpose. Like in 2007, I could have sold all my properties for a big gain, but what did I do? I turned down the offer and borrowed money to buy more. I knew it was dumb, but I did it anyway. And that’s what my shrink said to me. I won’t let myself succeed.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ said Magnus. ‘If I don’t back off you’ll take drugs again? Or are you saying that I’m responsible for your greedy real-estate investments?’

  Ollie took a sip of beer and looked at his br
other coolly. ‘No. I’m saying that I was on the edge, but now things are going well. I’m saying if you leave me alone to work on this, I can straighten myself out. And then you won’t have to pick up the pieces any more. Here you are, trying to avenge Dad. But think what he would have done, what he would want you to do. It’s your call.’

  Magnus was facing the familiar situation. He, the strong, competent one, was being manipulated by his brother’s uselessness. But it had to stop. He had made the decision that it had to stop. He just had to go through with it.

  ‘Ollie. When I get back to Iceland I am going to ask more questions. I’m going to find out whether Afi was behind Dad’s death, and if he wasn’t, I’m going to find out who was.’

  ‘Please,’ said Ollie.

  Magnus stared at his brother. And shook his head. ‘No. Sorry, Ollie. No.’

  Ollie closed his eyes. ‘In that case, fuck off. Just get the hell out of here.’

  Magnus was about to say sorry again but stopped himself. It was time to stop saying sorry. He drained his beer, stood up and left.

  He didn’t go back to the car, but walked up the hill towards the university campus. Snowflakes were falling steadily. A thin layer of slush lay on the salted sidewalk, but on the verges soft new snow gently refilled the footprints that had been formed over the previous few days. There was scarcely anyone around.

  That was twice in a few hours he had been told to fuck off by members of his family. He genuinely didn’t care about Kathleen. And he had expected trouble from Ollie.

  He was glad Ollie was getting somewhere with a therapist. Their father had sent him along a couple of times when Ollie was a teenager, but he had never really cooperated and so had achieved nothing. Ollie was probably right: their grandfather was behind his psychological problems. And although Ollie said that Magnus was stronger than him, there was no doubt that Magnus had his own issues. His obsession with his father’s death went way beyond a natural desire to see justice done. It wasn’t even revenge. Magnus wasn’t really sure what it was. An attempt to restore order to his world? Some kind of guilt he felt towards his father, or his mother, or even Ollie?

  A therapist would have a field day. If Magnus ever let one near him. Oddly, the one person who had gotten closest to understanding his obsession was Ingileif, and now she was gone.