Sea of Stone

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Good. In that case you will know that I believe there is a link between the murders of Benedikt Jóhannesson in 1985 and my father in 1996.’

  ‘Same MO,’ Emil said. ‘Stabbed in the back and then the chest.’

  ‘Right,’ said Magnus. ‘You may or may not have discovered that I recently asked a retired detective in the town in America where my father was murdered to go back and reanalyse a strand of hair found at the scene.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He did so and now has the results. It turns out that the DNA belongs to a close relative of my mother – but not me. Or Ollie, for that matter.’

  ‘I see,’ said Emil.

  ‘I’m sure you have met Villi, my Canadian uncle. I understand that he suddenly showed up here the day Hallgrímur was murdered. You have probably interviewed him.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘He has lived in Toronto for many years. He lived there when my father was murdered. It’s easy to get from Toronto to Boston, or easy by North American standards. It’s a quick flight, or if you wanted to make sure there were no records of your trip, you could drive it. Probably take nine or ten hours, something like that.’

  ‘You’re saying that your uncle Vilhjálmur left the hair in the house where your father was murdered? Are you also saying he flew over to Iceland to murder Benedikt Jóhannesson?’

  ‘Benedikt was killed a few days after Christmas in 1985. Villi and his family came to Iceland that year. They stayed with us at Bjarnarhöfn. With my grandfather, who hated Benedikt and hated my father.’

  ‘That is interesting,’ Emil said. ‘But how does that relate to Hallgrímur’s murder?’

  ‘It can’t be a coincidence that Villi suddenly shows up from Canada the day Hallgrímur is killed, can it?’

  ‘It could be,’ said Emil. ‘Let’s just say for the sake of argument that you are right. Villi killed your father and Benedikt. And let’s assume that he did that with the encouragement of your grandfather. That would give you a motive to drive up to Bjarnarhöfn to kill Hallgrímur.’

  ‘But why would Villi suddenly show up?’ Magnus said.

  ‘Villi says he was still in Reykjavík when Hallgrímur was killed,’ Emil said.

  ‘And was he?’

  ‘We’re checking it. But right now you remain the number-one suspect for murdering your grandfather.’

  ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  Magnus hesitated. He had to deny murdering Hallgrímur or how could he possibly get Emil to take his Villi theory seriously?

  ‘No.’

  ‘And why should I believe that?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you about a conversation I had with Ingileif on Sunday shortly after I discovered my grandfather’s body,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m sure you have already spoken to her about it.’

  Emil didn’t answer. He just waited.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Magnus. ‘You probably heard that I told Ingileif I had just killed my grandfather.’ He glanced at Emil. No response. ‘Well, that wasn’t true.’

  ‘You lied to your girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Now why on earth would you do that?’ said Emil.

  This was getting difficult. Magnus couldn’t admit to trying to take the police off the scent of Ollie, since that would be committing a crime in itself. But he was becoming doubtful that Ollie had in fact killed Hallgrímur.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said in the end.

  ‘You don’t know! That’s absurd,’ said Emil. ‘You confessed to the murder, Magnús. I’ve got to have a better reason to ignore that confession than “I don’t know”.’

  He had a point. But he was also smart enough to figure out what Magnus was doing, that Magnus was covering for his brother. Magnus couldn’t make that link too overtly. But…

  ‘How’s my brother?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s right here in the police station helping us with our inquiries,’ Emil said.

  ‘A helpful guy, Ollie,’ said Magnus. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘What did he say about what?’

  ‘What did he say about our grandfather’s murder?’

  Emil snorted. ‘Magnús, you are a detective. I’m not going to tell a suspect what a witness said.’

  ‘Unless it’s in your interests to do so,’ Magnus said.

  ‘And why would it be in my interests?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Magnus. ‘Is Ollie a witness or a suspect?’

  Emil paused, easing the flesh of his gently wobbling chins. Adam, the young detective, looked at his boss in bemusement. But Magnus knew that Emil knew that Magnus was covering for his brother. And Emil realized that Magnus couldn’t admit to it.

  The detective came to some sort of decision.

  ‘We’ve heard back from the phone company,’ he said. ‘At 10.25 a.m. Ollie made a call from his mobile to the phone in Hallgrímur’s cottage. He was on the D54 about twenty kilometres to the west of Vegamót when he made that call. He made another call at 11.49 a.m. from a location near Arnarstapi, which is about fifty minutes to an hour’s drive from Bjarnarhöfn. We know that Hallgrímur was murdered sometime before 11.29 a.m. when you called 112 after discovering his body. The timing is too tight – it is physically impossible for Ollie to have driven to Bjarnarhöfn, murdered Hallgrímur, and then driven off to Arnarstapi.’

  A wave of relief washed over Magnus. His little brother wasn’t a murderer after all.

  ‘So it was Uncle Villi.’

  ‘Or you,’ said Emil.

  Árni walked the familiar corridors of the National Hospital. It was only a couple of hundred metres from the police station on Hverfisgata, and it was a regular haunt for officers seeking victims or perpetrators recovering from the effects of their crimes.

  ‘Hi, Árni, how are you?’

  Árni recognized the surgeon who had patched him up a year before, a woman in her mid-forties.

  ‘I’m OK. No leaks.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. Duct tape works every time.’

  ‘How is the victim?’

  ‘She’s in a worse way than you were. It was a hollow-point bullet. It’s made a mess. She’s conscious and she should pull through, but she’s tired. Ten minutes only.’

  ‘But I need to take a full statement,’ Árni protested.

  ‘Ten minutes. I agreed to the interview so that you can ask the key questions. A full statement comes later.’

  Baldur wouldn’t like that. But although Baldur wasn’t a good man to displease, he was up in Stykkishólmur, and Árni liked to do what doctors told him.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll be quick.’

  Aníta was lying in a bed surrounded by tubes and instruments. A large man with a tired face was sitting on the chair next to her. He stood up to let Árni take the seat.

  ‘Are you a detective?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Árni Holm. And you are Aníta’s husband?’

  ‘Kolbeinn,’ the man muttered, every inch a farmer out of his element.

  ‘I just want a word with your wife. I won’t be long. Would you mind waiting outside?’

  Kolbeinn paused to protest, thought better of it, and bent down and kissed his wife. ‘Back in a moment, love,’ he said.

  ‘Hi,’ Árni said after Kolbeinn had left.

  ‘Hi,’ the woman replied. Her face was creased and smudged with fatigue. And pain, probably.

  ‘Just a couple of questions,’ Árni said. ‘Did you see who shot you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know where the shots came from?’

  ‘Somewhere in the lava field.’

  ‘OK.’ Árni wrote down the reply. ‘Did you notice anyone in the lava field before the shots were fired?’

  Aníta nodded. ‘I saw a woman there yesterday.’ She paused, looking confused. ‘What day is it? I mean the day before I was shot. Marta.’

  ‘I see,’ said Árni. ‘And who is Marta?’

  ‘Marta is Hal
lgrímur’s mother.’

  Árni stopped writing. ‘Hallgrímur Gunnarsson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But she must be over a hundred?’

  ‘No. She was a few years younger than me.’

  ‘Ah. OK. Do you have any idea who might have shot you?’

  ‘Hallgrímur, perhaps.’

  Árni blew out through his cheeks. ‘Aníta, Hallgrímur died on Sunday. He was murdered.’

  A frown of frustration creased Aníta’s brow. ‘I know, I know. I mean his ghost. Perhaps his ghost fired the rifle.’

  Árni nodded. ‘Perhaps.’ He had stopped writing. The woman was clearly raving. But in a panic Árni realized that he should still write everything down, even if it didn’t make sense. This was a statement that people would definitely want to see. So he resumed scribbling.

  ‘Er, have you any idea why someone would want to kill you?’

  ‘No,’ said Aníta. ‘I thought Hallgrímur liked me.’

  ‘Yes. OK.’ Árni wrote down the words. ‘Could the person who killed Hallgrímur have shot you?’

  The woman blinked twice. ‘I don’t know. Isn’t that your job to find out?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course,’ Árni said. He was getting flustered. He knew his dumb questions would be written down for all to see as well as the witness’s dumb answers. Also, time was running out. ‘Did you know anything? Had you discovered anything that might lead to the killer’s identity?’

  Aníta slowly shook her head. Then she blinked again. ‘Wait a minute. I found a postcard. It was from Boston. It’s in a box under Sylvía’s bed at the farm. It could be that.’

  The doctor returned. ‘That’s enough, Árni. You can see Aníta is tired.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Árni said. ‘What did the postcard say, Aníta?’

  ‘It was from Villi. I don’t remember the exact words. Go find it. You can read it yourself.’

  ‘No more questions,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Just a couple more—’

  ‘I said no more questions, or I’ll use that duct tape on your mouth. Now please leave.’

  Árni knew when he was beaten. He closed up his notebook. ‘Thanks for your help, Aníta,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for a longer chat later on.’

  Constable Páll drove down the by now very familiar track towards Bjarnarhöfn. He had been detailed to pick up Villi and he had two armed members of the Viking Squad accompanying him. He was nervous, but also excited. He was confident he could handle whatever situation developed.

  The farmyard was empty. The forensics people had finished with the cottage and the church for the time being and were out in the lava field with a couple of uniformed officers. Police tape still surrounded Hallgrímur’s burned-out cottage.

  Villi’s car was not visible. Páll debated with the two members of the Viking Squad what to do. In the end they decided that he would go into the farmhouse alone, and the other two would wait for him. If Villi was armed, then waving weapons around would alert him. Otherwise there was no real reason to think this wasn’t just another in the long line of visits to the farm by the police over the previous few days.

  Páll knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, opened it and shouted, ‘Hello!’

  ‘Wait a moment!’ It was a girl’s voice. After a few seconds, Tóta appeared. ‘Hi. Sorry, I was upstairs.’

  Her eyes were rimmed with red. Poor kid, thought Páll. He imagined how his own children would feel if their mother was in hospital.

  ‘I took the day off school,’ Tóta said. ‘Because of Mum. It was stupid, really. She’s in Reykjavík in hospital and Dad won’t even tell me how she is. His phone is switched off. Have you heard anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Páll, trying a smile. ‘And that’s good news. I would have heard if something bad had happened. And your father has probably been told to keep his mobile phone switched off. They think it interferes with hospital equipment.’

  ‘All he needs to do is step outside and call me,’ Tóta said.

  Páll didn’t answer her. She was right. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll get a message to the hospital to ask him to give you a ring.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tóta.

  ‘Is your uncle here?’

  ‘Villi? No, he’s gone off somewhere. He left about an hour ago.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No. He said he would be back in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Páll thought. ‘Did you see him leave?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Do you know whether he had packed a bag?’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Tóta asked, her eyes widening. ‘As I told you, he said he would be back.’

  ‘Can I just have a quick look in his room?’

  Tóta looked as if she was about to argue, but seemed unable to summon up the energy to go through with it. She shrugged and led him up to a bedroom. It was neat, except for a suitcase on the floor containing a pair of shoes and a couple of items of clothing. Páll opened the closet. A jacket was draped on a hanger.

  ‘Is this your uncle’s?’

  ‘I think so,’ said the girl.

  No sign of departure, Páll thought. He returned to his colleagues in the car and radioed in to the police station.

  ‘Let’s try Swine Lake,’ said Páll. ‘He might just have decided to go there for another walk, like he did yesterday.’

  They drove back to the main road and then down to the northern tip of the lake where Páll knew Villi had parked the day before. Nothing. As they were driving back to the main road, they passed a lone walker.

  It turned out he was German, but he spoke English. He said he had noticed a car parked down by the other side of the lake. He had not seen anyone near it, but then it had been about a kilometre away. Oh, and he had heard what sounded like a shot about half an hour before.

  Páll drove rapidly back over a rough track. In a few minutes he spotted the car – he recognized it as Villi’s hired white Peugeot.

  As Páll drove closer towards it one of the Viking Squad cried out and pointed. There was something floating in the lake behind the vehicle. It looked a bit like a log.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was a body.

  Emil knocked on the door of the room that Baldur had requisitioned as his office. It was lucky that the Stykkishólmur police station was undermanned. It had been built in more bountiful times, when it was assumed that the Snaefells Peninsula would need a well-staffed headquarters. Since then, following the kreppa, police numbers in the region had been cut. But they still had the desks and the chairs.

  Vigdís was sitting with him.

  ‘I just spoke to Magnús,’ Emil said.

  ‘On the video link with Litla-Hraun?’ Baldur said. ‘I thought he wasn’t talking.’

  ‘No, right here. And he decided to talk.’

  ‘You brought him up here?’ said Baldur, beefing up the incredulity.

  ‘He wanted to talk; I let him.’

  Baldur shook his head. ‘Watch him, Emil, or he’ll run rings around you.’

  Emil ignored the comment. Baldur was right: there was a chance that Magnus was manipulating him. On balance, he didn’t think so. He perched his backside on a desk. It creaked, but Emil was confident it was strong enough to hold him.

  ‘He told me about his uncle, Villi.’

  ‘The Canadian? I spoke to him yesterday.’

  ‘Magnús suspects him of murdering Magnús’s father and Benedikt Jóhannesson.’

  ‘So what?’ said Baldur.

  Emil told the inspector about the evidence from the retired detective in Duxbury, and the fact that Villi was visiting Iceland when Benedikt was murdered.

  Baldur seemed unimpressed. ‘None of this is corroborated. We just have Magnús’s word for it.’

  ‘True, but we can corroborate it, and Magnús knows that.’

  ‘So are you suggesting that Villi killed Hallgrímur? I thought you had Magnús’s confession for
that.’

  ‘Which he denies now.’

  ‘He denies it? Of course he denies it! What murderer wouldn’t?’

  ‘He doesn’t deny making it. He just denies that it is true. He says he misled his girlfriend.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Baldur muttered.

  Emil noticed Vigdís smiling at this. He realized that he had gone too far discussing the case against Magnus with the police from Reykjavík.

  ‘My point is, we know that Magnús didn’t shoot Aníta because he was tucked up in Litla-Hraun at the time. And we know that Villi was in this area. So he might be a suspect in your investigation.’

  ‘We should bring him in,’ said Vigdís.

  Baldur scowled at her.

  ‘I’ve sent Páll out to Bjarnarhöfn to fetch him,’ said Emil.

  ‘And you expect me to interview him?’ said Baldur.

  ‘We both should, probably,’ said Emil. ‘But I would have thought—’

  Baldur’s mobile phone rang. He answered it before it had a chance to ring twice. Emil watched.

  ‘Yes… Yes… Yes…’ The corners of Baldur’s mouth pointed even further downwards. ‘You think it’s suicide? Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right over.’

  Baldur looked up to Emil and gave him a quick, joyless grin. ‘Villi was found floating in Swine Lake. He had been shot once by a rifle fired from close range. The rifle is at the scene. Páll says it looks very much like suicide.’

  Emil watched speechless as Vigdís and Baldur grabbed their coats and headed for the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MAGNUS HAD BEEN alone in the cell for two hours, but already he was finding it more difficult than the two days he had spent at Litla-Hraun. His brain was buzzing. Villi had killed Benedikt and his father and probably Hallgrímur too. Ollie was off the hook, yet Magnus still didn’t understand what the hell he and Jóhannes were doing on the Snaefells Peninsula. Magnus himself was still very much on the hook, although he believed he had gone a long way towards persuading Emil that he was innocent.

  Ingileif had done her stuff, as he always knew she would. The false confession had achieved its purpose of keeping the focus of the investigation away from Ollie and on to Magnus, but it now turned out that the whole thing had been unnecessary. Magnus would have to be careful how he extricated himself. His attempt to mislead Emil had clearly obstructed the investigation; if Emil chose to make an issue out of it, Magnus would be out of a job in Iceland, and they might not take him back at the homicide unit in Boston after all. At least he hadn’t lied directly to Emil, as had been his first idea; confessing through Ingileif was much less of a sin. And it was easier to claim later that he had lied to his girlfriend than that he had lied to the police. Or at least so he hoped.