Sea of Stone

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘No,’ said Emil. ‘We can hold you for twenty-four hours without going to see a judge. And given your previous attempt to run away from us, you’ll spend the night in the cells right here.’

  Ollie winced and closed his eyes.

  ‘We’ll talk again,’ said Emil. ‘But if it isn’t later on today, have a good night.’

  Back in the incident room, Emil got Björn to check on Ollie’s phone records. And on Villi’s as well – that gap in Reykjavík needed to be substantiated. And he told him to take another look at the Hvalfjördur tunnel cameras, in case it was possible to identify the time that Villi’s rental car passed through the tunnel.

  Baldur strolled in, carrying a cup of coffee, and took a seat opposite Emil.

  ‘How did it go with Ollie?’ he asked.

  ‘He was lying,’ said Emil. ‘I think that he and the school-teacher meant to lure Hallgrímur out to Arnarstapi to kill him.’

  ‘Any proof?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Emil didn’t want to talk too much more about Ollie’s actions on the Sunday; it was more relevant to Hallgrímur’s death than Aníta’s shooting. ‘How about Gabrielle?’

  ‘She was very angry with Aníta, although she’s distraught now that Aníta’s been shot. At least she seems to be.’

  ‘What was the argument about?’

  ‘What you guessed. Her husband figured out that she was the source of the leak to us about his dispute with Hallgrímur over the loan. She had no idea that Hallgrímur had lost the fortune Ingvar had made him. So she was angry about that and she was really angry with Aníta for coming to us.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Emil.

  ‘It’s a pity your guy let out Gabrielle was the source,’ Baldur said.

  Emil ignored the criticism. ‘Was she angry enough to shoot Aníta?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Baldur. ‘She claims that she drove straight back home. She doesn’t think anyone saw her, but we will check with neighbours.’

  ‘Do we know where Ingvar was at the time of the shooting?’ Emil asked.

  ‘He was seeing a patient out at a farm. We are checking with the farm now.’

  ‘And anything more on Villi?’

  ‘Trying to locate the witnesses. Villi thought they looked like tourists, so we are checking the local hotels. Nothing yet.’

  Baldur was asking the right questions, Emil thought.

  Baldur sipped his coffee. ‘Aníta is still an attractive woman, isn’t she? I’ve never met her, but I’ve seen her photograph.’

  Emil pictured the tall farmer’s wife with the clear skin and long blonde hair. ‘Yes, she is. She has a way about her.’

  ‘Could she be someone’s lover?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Is she?’

  Emil was taken aback by the question, and then immediately felt foolish. ‘I have no idea.’

  Baldur pursed his lips. ‘What about Gabrielle? She has a certain way about her too. And she’s French. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a lover as well.’

  Emil wanted to pick up Baldur on his shameless stereotyping, but the inspector had a point. A good point.

  ‘Maybe Aníta had a lover?’ Baldur went on. ‘Maybe Gabrielle did? Maybe it was one of the brothers: Kolbeinn or Ingvar. Maybe there’s a love triangle, or love rectangle.’

  ‘I didn’t consider that,’ said Emil. ‘But even if that was the case, I don’t see what that might have to do with Hallgrímur’s death.’

  ‘People in town will know who is screwing who, won’t they?’ Baldur said.

  Emil nodded. ‘Talk to Rúnar. If he doesn’t know, he will know who does.’

  ‘I will.’ Then Baldur frowned. ‘You know, maybe there is someone else out there, someone we don’t even know about. A jealous lover with a rifle, looking for revenge.’

  *

  It was just getting dark when Ingileif pulled out of the Avis parking lot at Logan airport in her small hire car. She decided to trust her map reading rather than the mysteries of the GPS, and set off through the maze of tunnels and highways out of Boston.

  She had only been to America once before in her life, to New York, and she hadn’t driven then. She found the sheer scale of the place daunting. There were so many cars, so many people, and, as she got out of Boston, so many trees. She could feel her confidence waning as she neared the exit for Duxbury. What if this Jim Fearon guy flat-out refused to speak to her? What would she do then? Just turn around and drive back to Logan? She thought of the time and the tens of thousands of krónur she would have wasted.

  But at least she would have tried.

  She took the Duxbury exit and paused several times to study the print-out from Google Maps she had brought with her. Fearon’s address had been easy to find: there was only one entry under that name in Duxbury in the directory she had consulted on the Internet. He lived in a place called Tinkertown, which seemed to be a neighbourhood in Duxbury reached through a twisted network of wooded roads.

  She finally came to the address and pulled up outside a small, neat wooden house with a boat on a trailer in the yard. She took a deep breath and rang the bell.

  The door was answered by a forbidding woman in her sixties, tall, thin with blonde hair and a lined, freckled face. But when she saw Ingileif, she smiled, an unexpected burst of warmth.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘My name is Ingileif. Ingileif Gunnarsdóttir. May I speak to Jim?’

  The woman yelled over her shoulder. ‘Jim! There’s a young woman to see you.’

  Jim Fearon eyed Ingileif with suspicion. He had grey hair, a silver moustache, and a comfortable middle.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello, Mr Fearon,’ said Ingileif, holding out her hand and launching into her prepared spiel. ‘I am Magnús Jonson’s girlfriend and I have just flown in from Iceland today to talk to you. May I come in?’

  ‘My, what a long way!’ exclaimed Mrs Fearon. ‘Of course you can come in.’ But the suspicion in her husband’s eyes deepened.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said, and led Ingileif into the living room. ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘Is this some kind of police business?’ said Mrs Fearon.

  ‘I expect so,’ said the former detective.

  Ingileif smiled at the woman and nodded.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Mrs Fearon said, and withdrew to the kitchen area, but she was still within earshot.

  ‘So you are Magnus’s girlfriend?’ said Fearon.

  ‘Yes. We’ve been going out for almost a year. Since he arrived in Iceland.’

  ‘Lucky guy,’ said Fearon.

  Ingileif smiled.

  ‘You’re not a lawyer or a police officer, then?’

  ‘No. No, I promise you I’m not.’ But Ingileif could see that Fearon didn’t trust her assurances. ‘As you may know, Magnús is in custody in jail at the moment, accused of murder. He heard that you had some important evidence for him, some lab results, and he asked me to get them from you.’

  ‘Did he?’ said Fearon.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. She swallowed. She could feel her cheeks warming up. Damn it! Why did she always blush when she lied?

  The detective noticed. Of course he noticed.

  ‘He can’t come himself, you see,’ Ingileif added unnecessarily.

  ‘Did he tell you who I am?’ Fearon asked.

  ‘Yes. You are the detective who investigated Magnús’s father’s murder here thirteen years ago.’

  ‘Did he tell you I am retired?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Ingileif unconvincingly.

  ‘And did he tell you what the lab results were about?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But he said they were important. So please can you give them to me, so that I can take them back to Iceland and pass them on to him?’

  Fearon studied Ingileif’s face carefully. Ingileif became more uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m sorry, Inga…’

  ‘Ingileif.’

  ‘Yes. Ingileif. I’m so
rry, Ingileif. I just don’t believe you. I don’t know why you are here, but I do know you are not telling me the truth.’

  Ingileif’s shoulders slumped. The optimism and energy that had lifted her over the Atlantic left her. It was late, she was tired, and she had made an enormous fool of herself.

  She sighed. ‘You’re right. I went to see Magnús this morning at the jail in Iceland. They wouldn’t let me in to see him – he’s in solitary confinement. One of his police colleagues told me about the lab results and that you wouldn’t release them without proper authorization, and I thought I could persuade you. I am persuasive, you know. Usually.’

  Fearon smiled for the first time. ‘I don’t doubt it. But you are not a very good liar.’

  Ingileif returned his smile, nervously. ‘No. But I suspect you were a good detective.’ She felt a tear appear in the corner of her eye. ‘I’m not even Magnús’s girlfriend any more. We’ve split up.’

  Fearon got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry you’ve wasted your journey.’

  Ingileif rose also and nodded. ‘And I’m sorry I wasted your time, Mr Fearon.’

  She held out her hand and Fearon shook it. He ushered her towards the door.

  ‘Wait a moment, young lady,’ said Mrs Fearon. ‘Did you really come all the way from Iceland this morning?’

  Ingileif nodded. ‘I drove here straight from the airport.’

  ‘And where are you going now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose I will find a hotel somewhere.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Ingileif had been too tense to eat anything on the plane. She shook her head. ‘Not for hours.’

  ‘Then why don’t you stay here? I’ve got some meatloaf left over from dinner. Do you like meatloaf?’

  Ingileif had no idea what meatloaf was, but nodded.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Jim?’

  Fearon smiled, unwilling to stand up to his wife’s hospitality. ‘As long as we don’t talk about lab results.’

  And they didn’t. They sat in the kitchen as Mrs Fearon, or Pattie as she asked to be called, warmed up the meatloaf. Ingileif liked Pattie, who had all kinds of questions about Iceland. She had a friend who was nuts about Icelandic knitting patterns, and she had tried some herself. Ingileif knew a lot about the subject, and the conversation became quite detailed. Pattie claimed that she had always wanted to travel to Iceland and hinted that it was only her husband’s lack of imagination that had stopped her.

  The meatloaf turned out to be delicious. Jim Fearon clearly thought so, helping himself to more. Ingileif found herself relaxing in the warm welcome of the kitchen. The Fearons were parents and grandparents. Ingileif had lost both her own parents and her brother. She had left her homeland to go to live in Germany. She suddenly realized how much she missed family, home.

  ‘It’s strange thinking of Magnús growing up here,’ she said. ‘I never know whether to think of him as an Icelander or an American. Neither does he, for that matter.’

  ‘His father’s death hit him badly,’ said Fearon.

  ‘He hasn’t got over it,’ said Ingileif. ‘It drives him on in almost everything he does. I sometimes worry that if he ever did really discover what happened to his dad there would be a huge hole in his life. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself.’

  ‘Tell me about him,’ said Pattie. ‘I can see you are very fond of him.’

  ‘Can you?’ said Ingileif. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ She paused. ‘He’s a good man. He cares about me. I mean really cares about me. I tease him about it sometimes, about how serious he can be, but I suppose I like it really. I just can’t admit it to myself.’ She pulled herself up short, marvelling about how she was saying things to these two perfect strangers that she could scarcely say to herself. But thousands of miles from home in this little house in the Tinkertown woods she felt safe.

  ‘I was having a bad time when we met last year. Magnús helped me a lot. He’s a private person and I’m not really, but I think the two of us understand each other. I’ve had lots of relationships, but Magnús is different. He knows who I am. And he likes who I am.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I must not be making any sense.’

  ‘Oh, yes you are,’ said Pattie. ‘So what went wrong? If you want to tell us.’

  Ingileif did want to tell them. She wanted to tell someone.

  ‘It was my fault. I went to work in Germany. I think Magnús wanted to continue the relationship, but I didn’t. I don’t like to be tied down. I sort of think Magnús does. And now… Now he’s locked up in jail and they think he murdered someone. Which he didn’t, by the way. I’m quite sure he didn’t.’

  She paused to see whether she had convinced the retired detective. He showed no sign of it, although he was listening closely.

  ‘So I came over here to help him. To show him and me that I…’ She stopped. The Fearons stayed silent, letting her say what she wanted to say. ‘I suppose that I love him.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m an optimistic person; I believe in myself usually. It never really occurred to me that you wouldn’t give me the lab results. But of course there’s no reason why you should. I don’t know if they are important, anyway. It may not even matter.’

  ‘Oh, I think they are important,’ said Fearon quietly.

  Ingileif glanced at him. ‘Oh, I wasn’t trying to get you to tell me, I promise.’

  Fearon laughed. ‘I know.’ His blue eyes, suspicious before, now twinkled. ‘That’s the point. But I will tell you. And you should find a way to tell Magnus.’

  Vigdís went to bed early. She was staying in the same small hotel in Stykkishólmur as Ollie. In fact, her room was only two down the corridor from his, empty for the night. Despite her early start that morning, and several nights of poor sleep, her brain was tumbling. Davíd, Magnus, Baldur. Although technically she was restricted to working with Baldur on the attempted shooting of the farmer’s wife, she had picked up some information about Hallgrímur’s murder and Magnus’s supposed role in it.

  It didn’t look good. And however long she tossed things around in her sleep-deprived brain, it didn’t become any better.

  She must have gone to sleep eventually because her mobile phone’s insistent tone woke her up. She checked her watch before answering. One-thirty.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Vigdís? It’s Ingileif.’

  Vigdís sat up, the urgency and excitement in Ingileif’s voice jolting her to wakefulness. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m in America. In Duxbury.’

  ‘You’re where?’

  ‘Yeah. I, er, I flew to Boston this afternoon. And now I’m at Jim Fearon’s house. The detective who worked on Magnus’s father’s murder.’

  ‘OK,’ said Vigdís.

  ‘He can’t give me the lab results he had for Magnus, but he did tell me what’s in them. If I tell you, can you get the message to Magnus?’

  ‘Um. Yes. I can call Sibba, his lawyer. She can go see him at Litla-Hraun.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ingileif. ‘Because I think he’ll want to hear them.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Wednesday, 21 April 2010

  SIBBA WAS FIDGETING with her pen as Magnus walked into the interview room at Litla-Hraun. She smiled when she saw him, and stood up to kiss him on the cheek, but Magnus could feel the tension.

  ‘You’re early,’ he said. It was barely past eight o’clock.

  ‘I’ve got some news. Lots of news,’ Sibba said.

  ‘Good, I hope.’

  Sibba sat down and looked Magnus in the eye. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Aníta was shot yesterday. She was taken down to the National Hospital in Reykjavík. She’s alive but in a bad way.’

  ‘Shot? Where? By who?’

  ‘In the Berserkjahraun on her horse. A rifle. And they have no idea who shot her. At first they thought it was Ollie, but it turned out it couldn’t have been.’

  ‘Will she make it?’

  Sibba shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She was sh
ot in the chest. It was Kolbeinn’s rifle, but they know he wasn’t responsible; he was working on the farm in view of the police at the time. And Ollie was on an island in Breidafjördur.’

  ‘What was he doing there?’

  ‘Hiding from the police. They caught him, though.’

  ‘I’m sure they did. Is he under arrest?’

  ‘He is being held for questioning. About Grandpa’s murder.’

  Magnus paused, taking it in. He liked Aníta. In fact, with the exception of Sibba, she was the only one of what remained of the maternal side of his family he did like. Why would anyone want to shoot her?

  ‘You seem to have good information,’ he said.

  Sibba glanced at a computer on her right. ‘Do you know how to work this thing?’ she said. ‘Is it switched off?’

  ‘You mean is anyone listening?’ The computer controlled the recording equipment in the interview room. They both knew that it was absolutely forbidden for the police to listen in to discussions between client and lawyer, but they also knew of a recent case where the recording equipment had ‘accidentally’ been left on in an interview room. Magnus got up to check the computer.

  ‘It’s off,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ said Sibba. ‘I don’t want anyone to hear this. You’re right – I do have a good source. They’ve drafted in Inspector Baldur to investigate Aníta’s shooting, and he has taken Vigdís with him up to Stykkishólmur. She told me.’

  ‘She should be careful,’ Magnus said. ‘She could lose her job.’

  Sibba nodded. She took another deep breath. She was definitely anxious.

  ‘There is something else Vigdís told me.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ingileif is in America. Duxbury. She saw the detective you spoke to.’

  ‘In America! How the hell did she get there?’

  ‘She seems quite resourceful, your girlfriend.’

  ‘She is,’ Magnus said. ‘Don’t tell me Jim Fearon gave her the results?’

  ‘He did,’ Sibba said. ‘Or at least he told her what was in them; he didn’t give her a hard copy.’

  ‘And?’

  Sibba paused. ‘The mitochondrial DNA suggests that the hair found in the house where your father was killed belonged to a close relative on your mother’s side, and it wasn’t you or Ollie. As you probably know, the DNA in hair only allows analysis of the mother’s genes.’