‘Thanks,’ said Magnus, and he and Emil left the girl, Magnus feeling guilty that they still hadn’t told her about Villi.
It was raining as they hurried through the farmyard back to Emil’s car. They sat in the vehicle and stared out across the meadows to the little church where the first murder had taken place only three days before.
‘Villi’s dead. Hallgrímur’s dead. Kolbeinn is in Reykjavík. I was talking to you in cosy Stykkishólmur police station,’ Magnus said. ‘So that leaves one person who could have shot Aníta.’
‘Who?’
‘Ingvar.’
‘Ingvar?’ Emil rubbed a chin. ‘He was seeing a patient at a farm somewhere at the time of the shooting.’
‘Was the alibi checked out?’
‘Vigdís was going to check it this morning,’ said Emil.
‘Give her a call,’ suggested Magnus.
Emil pulled out his phone. Magnus leaned over so that he could hear both sides of the conversation.
‘Hi, Vigdís. It’s Emil.’
‘Did you find the postcard?’ Vigdís said.
‘Sylvía took it with her to Ingvar’s house,’ Emil replied. ‘We have a question about Ingvar’s alibi for when Aníta was shot. Did it check out?’
‘Not very well,’ said Vigdís. ‘I went up to the farm earlier this morning. It’s over towards Grundarfjördur, only about seven or eight kilometres from Bjarnarhöfn. The farmer is ancient, well over eighty. His wife was the one Ingvar was visiting. She is bedridden with lung cancer; I don’t think she has long to live. The husband was definite that Dr Ingvar had visited them in the last couple of days, but at first he thought it was on Monday. Then he changed his mind to Tuesday, and said it was some time in the morning. His wife had no idea. He’s unreliable; a defence lawyer could easily drive a truck through his statement. And rightly so, the old bastard.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘He called me a monkey. A police monkey. He thought it was funny. I know some of these people have never seen a black person before, but that’s no reason not to treat me like a human being.’
‘Nice,’ said Emil.
‘It’s Ingvar, isn’t it?’ said Vigdís.
Emil glanced at Magnus, who nodded. ‘It’s looking that way,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll go along to Ingvar’s house now.’
Ingvar lived in a neat blue house with a white metal roof in the middle of Stykkishólmur, on the old main street that sloped down to the harbour. Gabrielle answered the door. The doctor wasn’t at home, but Sylvía was. She was in the living room, knitting. She looked out of place among the doctor’s stylish furniture; a solid countrywoman perched on the edge of an expensive leather armchair. Outside was a view over brightly painted rain-swept roofs to the fishing boats bobbing in the harbour.
‘Hello, Magnús,’ Sylvía said. To Magnús’s surprise, she gave her grandson a small smile.
The two detectives sat next to each other on a white leather sofa. Magnus glanced at Emil, who nodded.
‘I have some bad news, I’m afraid, Amma.’ Magnus could feel Gabrielle tensing. Sylvía frowned. ‘Villi is dead. He was shot at Swine Lake this morning.’
The news seemed to physically strike Sylvía. She reeled backwards, dropping her knitting needles. She brought her fist to her mouth and bit it. Villi was her eldest son. Magnus wanted to put his arm around his grandmother, but couldn’t quite bring himself to. Even in her grief, Sylvía’s demeanour said ‘hands off’.
‘My God,’ said Gabrielle. ‘You police must really catch the man who is doing all this. Who is next? Ingvar? Sylvía? Me? I want this house protected.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Emil. ‘Although we are using every man available to try to solve this case.’
‘Well, you are not doing a very good job of it,’ said Gabrielle.
‘Amma?’ Magnus said softly. ‘Amma? I have a question for you.’
Sylvía blinked at her grandson. Her mouth was open, her face white. But she knew him and she knew what he was saying.
‘Aníta said you had a postcard from Uncle Villi to Afi in the box under your bed. Can we see it? I think it might be important.’
‘Snooping in my things, was she?’ Sylvía said.
‘Yes. We think it might be why she was shot,’ Emil said.
‘It might be,’ said Sylvía. She hesitated, pursing her lips, gathering scrambled thoughts. Her eyes focused, brightening. ‘You know, Magnús, you were the best of the bunch after all. Hallgrímur said so, when you were a boy. I think he actually liked the way you stood up to him, at least at first. But when you went off with Ragnar he took it as a betrayal. Which makes no sense. You were only twelve.’
‘And you, Amma? What did you think of me going?’
The old woman sighed. ‘I didn’t think anything of it. That’s what I did then. I didn’t think.’
The room was silent. Gabrielle was listening intently to her newly awakened mother-in-law.
‘I’ve changed now. Too late, but I’ve changed.’ She looked directly at Magnus. ‘It was our little church at Bjarnarhöfn that did it. Strange, it had been standing there for over sixty years of our marriage, and I had ignored it, but one day I was cleaning it and I was tired and I just sat there. It was peaceful. I looked at the cross and the old Dutch painting, and I began to think. I felt brave enough to think.’
‘Think about what, Amma?’ Magnus asked.
The old lady smiled. ‘About everything. About our family. About you, Óli, my sons. Margrét. And about my husband. I thought a lot about my husband.’ She chuckled. ‘I even started going to the church at Stykkishólmur and praying. Can you imagine me, Magnús, praying?’
She got to her feet. ‘So the answer is yes, I can show you the postcard.’
She left the living room and they heard her making her way up the stairs.
‘This is extraordinary,’ Gabrielle said. ‘This is the best I have seen her since Hallgrímur died. It’s as if the news of Villi’s death has unscrambled her brain. Is that possible?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Emil. ‘My father had Alzheimer’s, and although he had good and bad days, he never made this much of a recovery.’
Sylvía returned within a couple of minutes, clutching an envelope. She passed it to Magnus. The envelope sported a United States stamp and was addressed to Hallgrímur Gunnarsson in block capitals. Although the postmark was smudged, Magnus could make out the year: 1996. Inside was a postcard. The picture was of Harvard Yard in Cambridge. Magnus flipped it over and read:
Óli very scared but will keep quiet. No one knows Ingvar was here. Magnús has no idea but is talking about going to Iceland to see you. I still think it was wrong – wrong and unnecessary. I will keep Óli in line. He seems to listen to me.
Villi.
Magnus glanced at his grandmother. ‘You know what Villi means when he says, “I still think it was wrong”, don’t you?’
Sylvía didn’t respond. She was waiting for Magnus to say it. So he did.
‘He’s talking about my father’s murder.’
She nodded. ‘I think he is.’
‘When did you find this?’
‘Only a couple of weeks ago. I went through Hallgrímur’s old papers. There was this and some other letters from Villi to him over the years. The card is in Villi’s writing, but the address is disguised in block capitals, so I wouldn’t recognize it when it came in the post, presumably.’ She sighed. ‘I wasn’t really surprised. I had seen all this going on in front of my eyes for years. This was just proof of what I had denied to myself.’
Gabrielle stood up and looked over Magnus’s shoulder to read the card. ‘But it mentions Ingvar. It says he was in Boston with Villi!’
‘When my father was murdered,’ Magnus said.
‘That can’t be right,’ said Gabrielle.
‘Can you remember where he was that summer?’ Magnus asked her.
‘No, not specifically. He used to go to the occasional conference in t
hose days. And a couple of those were in the United States. Florida. New Jersey. I don’t remember Boston.’
‘Do you keep your old passports?’ Magnus asked. ‘In those days they stamped entry and exit dates, I think.’
Gabrielle nodded. ‘Yes. They are all in a drawer in our bedroom.’
‘Can you dig out Ingvar’s from that time?’ Magnus asked.
Gabrielle hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I should.’
‘Look, we can get a warrant for it if we need to,’ said Emil. ‘But if your husband was never in the US when Ragnar was murdered, the old passport will prove it.’
‘All right.’ Gabrielle left the room.
‘So what happened?’ asked Emil.
‘Ingvar travelled to the United States to murder my father,’ Magnus said. ‘No doubt with Hallgrímur’s encouragement. It looks as if Villi was a reluctant accessory.’ He hesitated. ‘And it also looks as if my brother knew about it. It was Villi’s job to make sure he kept quiet.’
Magnus fought to control the anger that he could feel erupting within him. All those years when Magnus had been trying so desperately hard to figure out what had happened to his father, Ollie knew. It was unbelievable. But he could think about that later. Right now he had to keep his thoughts together, his mind clear.
‘Did you know all this, Amma?’
‘I slowly came to realize it,’ she said. ‘It was only when I found that postcard that I was absolutely sure.’
‘So why didn’t you tell the police?’ Emil asked.
Sylvía looked at him steadily, but didn’t reply.
‘The Alzheimer’s was all a sham, wasn’t it?’ Emil said. ‘It was just a means of covering up what you knew. And was that why you started the fire?’
Sylvía put her hands together on her lap and stared ahead. You could almost feel the stubbornness spreading through the room.
Gabrielle returned, clutching a bright blue Icelandic passport with the corner clipped.
‘I haven’t looked,’ she said, handing the passport to Magnus.
Magnus flipped through the pages. ‘Here we are. “U.S. Immigration. 210 Newark. July fourteenth 1996.”’
Gabrielle’s eyes opened wide. ‘Newark is in New Jersey, isn’t it? That must have been the conference there I was telling you about. It’s not Boston.’
‘You can easily get to Boston from Newark on the Amtrak,’ Magnus said. ‘Or hire a car. Or fly.’
‘Yes, but that’s not proof that Ingvar actually did it,’ Gabrielle said.
‘You were living here in 1985, weren’t you?’ Magnus said. ‘I remember seeing you at Bjarnarhöfn when I was a kid.’
Gabrielle frowned and nodded. ‘Yes, we moved here in 1980. But that’s hardly suspicious, is it?’
‘And is your husband left- or right-handed?’
‘Right,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Just like everybody else. So what?’
‘So you are saying Ingvar killed Benedikt Jóhannesson?’ Emil asked Magnus.
‘And my father. With Hallgrímur’s encouragement. And he shot at Aníta. And he killed Villi this morning.’
‘What about Hallgrímur?’ Emil asked.
‘Probably him too,’ Magnus said.
‘No!’ Gabrielle protested. ‘You are making too many assumptions here!’
‘Shush, Gabrielle,’ Sylvía said. ‘They are right, my dear. I’m afraid you are married to an evil man. Just like me. You must accept it. Don’t deny it like I did for so long.’
‘Ridiculous!’ exclaimed Gabrielle.
‘Where is your husband now?’ Emil asked her.
‘At the clinic, I think.’
Emil pulled out his phone and called the station.
CHAPTER THIRTY
TEN MINUTES LATER Emil and Magnus pulled up outside the hospital car park. Detective Björn had come from the police station to sit with Gabrielle and Sylvía to make sure that neither of them warned Ingvar. Emil had taken Gabrielle’s mobile phone. The four members of the Viking Squad were in their van outside the hospital.
Emil turned to Magnus. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing dragging you around everywhere with me, but it’s been useful so far.’
‘I can’t go in with you, can I?’ Magnus said.
‘No. I’d like to leave you here. Will you give me your word you won’t run?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. But I’d better cuff you. I hope you understand.’
Magnus did understand. Emil grabbed some handcuffs from the boot of the car and secured them on Magnus’s wrists. Then he took one of the Viking Squad with him into the hospital, leaving the others in the van outside.
They were out in five minutes. The squad member ran to the van, and in a few seconds it was speeding up the hill. Emil waddled out at a slower pace. He opened the car door on Magnus’s side.
‘Not there?’ Magnus asked.
‘He told his receptionist he was going to see that farmer’s wife with lung cancer again.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Magnus. ‘Especially if he was actually at Swine Lake. He could well have gone straight on to the farm to establish his alibi. Are we going?’
‘No,’ said Emil. ‘If he’s there, they’ll bring him in. But he might well not be. And I want to think.’
‘Never a bad thing to do.’
Emil unlocked Magnus’s cuffs. ‘Walk with me.’
Magnus climbed out of the car and stretched. It had stopped raining and the grey clouds had been tugged like a torn curtain eastwards, leaving a clean blue sky. A breeze blew in from the sea. They walked slowly down to the harbour.
‘We still don’t know who killed Hallgrímur,’ Emil said.
‘Ingvar’s alibi is solid?’
‘I think so. My detective Adam checked it out. The harbour-master here and two others saw Ingvar working on his boat all Sunday morning.’
‘Which leaves?’
‘You, Magnús.’ Emil frowned at him. ‘It still leaves you. You were at Bjarnarhöfn when Hallgrímur was killed. No one else was, except maybe Tóta. It’s conceivable that Aníta could have doubled back from riding, but I don’t see why she would want to kill the old man. But you had a motive. And everything we learn makes that motive stronger.’
‘I didn’t kill him, Emil.’
‘Help me here, Magnús. You’ve got to do better than that.’
‘Are we going to see the harbourmaster now?’
‘I am,’ said Emil.
The harbourmaster’s office was on the quay by the harbour itself. Emil left Magnus and went in. Magnus waited outside and watched him through a large window, chatting with a bearded man in his fifties.
Magnus understood what Emil meant. In his position, he would conclude that Magnus was the only suspect as well.
He gazed around the harbour at the fish factories, the harbour wall, the tall island of basalt that acted as protection from the sea, the big ferry waiting to go out to the island of Flatey and the West Fjords beyond, the host of little boats and, back up the hill, the brightly coloured houses of the town.
You couldn’t actually see the space-age church of Stykkishólmur from the harbour, but it was up there, behind the convent and the hospital from where they had just come.
The spark of half a thought ignited in his brain.
Emil emerged from the harbourmaster’s office. ‘You didn’t run,’ he said.
Magnus grinned. ‘I wondered why you didn’t cuff me.’
‘There is nowhere to go,’ Emil said. ‘But if you had run, I would have known you were guilty.’
‘Not much I can say to that,’ said Magnus. ‘Any holes in the harbourmaster’s statement?’
‘No. Ingvar was definitely at his boat between ten-thirty and eleven-forty-five on Sunday, and possibly longer. That’s his boat there.’ Emil pointed to a jaunty little craft about fifty yards from the harbourmaster’s office. ‘Which still leaves you.’
Magnus took a deep breath. His half thought was growing. ‘What about my grandmother?’
‘Sylvía? What about her? You don’t think she killed her husband.’
‘You said she wasn’t at the farm. Where was she? At church?’
‘Yes,’ said Emil. ‘At church here in Stykkishólmur.’
‘Are you sure?’
Emil frowned. He pulled out a notebook. ‘Yes. She did go to the service. It starts at ten-thirty. Apparently she was a little late.’
‘How late?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Emil. ‘But that little old lady can’t have been strong enough, surely?’
‘I remember her being a very strong middle-aged lady,’ Magnus said. ‘And Hallgrímur was a very old man.’
‘With leukaemia,’ said Emil. ‘Blood tests at the autopsy showed he had undiagnosed leukaemia. So he would have been physically weak.’
‘Shall we go up to the church?’ Magnus suggested.
The vicarage wasn’t far from the large white church with its swooping bell tower, and the pastor was in. She was a plump, dark-haired woman of about thirty-five who knew who Sylvía was, and had noticed her arriving late at the service.
‘How late?’ Emil asked.
The woman concentrated. ‘I remember the hymn we were singing. That would have been about forty-five minutes in.’
‘So that would have been when? Eleven-fifteen?’
‘Yes, about that,’ said the pastor.
‘That’s not “a little late”,’ said Emil. ‘That’s very late.’
The pastor nodded. ‘I do remember something else.’
‘What was that?’
‘Sylvía was flustered. She’s usually so calm, almost cold. But she seemed in a bit of a rush. And she spilled some hymn books as she came in. That’s why I remember it.’
‘Did you speak to her afterwards?’
‘No. She did stay in her seat praying for quite a long time after the service. Everyone else had gone and I went to talk to her. When people pray, there’s often a reason. But she didn’t really answer me, and left. That’s fine. I’m here if my congregation wants me, but I don’t want to get between them and God.’
‘Thank you,’ said Emil.
They left the vicarage. Emil paused by his car and pulled out his notebook. ‘OK, so let’s look at the timings. You called in finding the body at eleven-twenty-nine.’ Emil hesitated. ‘I believe you told us that you made the call right away. I’m not asking you to change your statement right now. But for these purposes, what time can we assume is the latest that Hallgrímur was alive?’
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