Where the Shadows Lie fai-1

by Michael Ridpath

  From a car parked across the street, Diego watched her. Checked a photograph on his lap. It was the same girl all right.

  By the way she was dressed she was going out for a while. That would give him plenty of time to sneak into the building and then into her apartment without being seen.

  There was still the problem of the lone cop sitting in his patrol car right outside the building. But if Diego knew anything about cops the guy would be getting hungry.

  Sure enough, once the woman disappeared down the street, the patrol car started up and pulled out.

  Time enough to grab a pizza or a burger before the girl returned.

  Diego got out of his car and crossed the street.

  Magnus walked back to his new place in Thingholt from police headquarters. He needed the exercise and the fresh air. And you could at least say this for the air in Reykjavik, it was fresh.

  His mind was buzzing with the day’s events. It was way too early to tell, but according to Professor Moritz, there was nothing in the translation of Gaukur’s Saga to suggest it was a forgery. The professor was clearly desperate to believe that the saga was authentic, but he admitted that if anyone could forge a saga, Agnar could.

  Which raised another interesting possibility. Perhaps Steve Jubb had somehow discovered that the document Agnar was trying to sell him for so many millions of dollars was a fake, and he had killed him because of it.

  Magnus still wasn’t convinced that Ingileif was telling the whole truth. But she had seemed much more sincere when he had spoken to her that afternoon. And he had to admit that he found her mixture of vulnerability and determination attractive.

  He smiled when he remembered Officer O’Malley’s wise words of advice when Magnus started on the job: ‘Just because a girl has a nice ass, it don’t mean she’s telling the truth.’

  There was no doubt Ingileif had a nice ass.

  Steve Jubb wasn’t going to give them anything, especially if he was as guilty as Magnus thought he was. They needed to get on a plane to California and talk to Isildur. Threaten him with a conspiracy to commit murder rap and let him sing. Magnus could do that, he was sure he could.

  ‘Magnus!’

  He was in a little street not far from Katrin’s house, quite high up the hill. He turned to see a woman he vaguely recognized walking hesitantly towards him. She was about forty, short reddish hair, a broad face with a wide smile. Although the hair was a different colour, her face reminded him strongly of his mother. Especially here, so close to the house in which he had grown up.

  She stared at him closely, frowning. ‘It is Magnus, isn’t it? Magnus Ragnarsson?’ She spoke in English.

  ‘Sigurbjorg?’ It was a bit of a guess on Magnus’s part. Sigurbjorg was his cousin on his mother’s side of the family. The side that he had hoped to avoid in Reykjavik.

  The smile broadened. ‘That’s right. I thought it was you.’

  ‘How did you recognize me?’

  ‘I noticed you walking along the street. For a second I thought you were my father, except you’re a whole lot younger and he’s in Canada. Then I realized it must be you.’

  ‘We haven’t met for what, fifteen years?’

  ‘About that. When you came to Iceland after your father’s death.’ Sigurbjorg must have seen Magnus grimace. ‘Not an enjoyable trip for you, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I apologize for Grandpa. He behaved appallingly.’

  Magnus nodded. ‘I haven’t been to Iceland since.’

  ‘Until now?’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘Let’s get a cup of coffee and you can tell me all about it, eh?’

  They walked down the hill to a funky cafe on Laugavegur. Sigurbjorg ordered a slice of carrot cake with her coffee, and they sat down next to an earnest man with glasses who was plugged in to his laptop.

  ‘So you came back from Canada?’ Magnus said. ‘Weren’t you in graduate school?’

  ‘Yes. At McGill. Actually, I had just finished when I saw you. I stayed on in Iceland. Got a law degree: I’m a partner in one of the law firms here. I’ve also picked up a husband and three kids.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Dad and Mom are still in Toronto. Retired, of course, now.’

  Sigurbjorg’s father, Magnus’s Uncle Vilhjalmur, had emigrated to Canada in the seventies and worked as a civil engineer. Like Magnus, Sigurbjorg had been born in Iceland but spent most of her childhood in North America.

  ‘And you? I had no idea you were in Iceland. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Only two days,’ Magnus replied. ‘I stayed in Boston. Became a cop. Homicide detective. Then my chief got a call that the National Police Commissioner of Iceland wanted a body to come over here and help them. He picked me.’

  ‘Picked you? You didn’t want to come?’

  ‘Let’s say I had mixed feelings.’

  ‘After your last visit?’ Sigurbjorg nodded. ‘That must have been rough. Especially just after your dad died.’

  ‘It was. I was twenty and I had lost both parents. I wasn’t handling it well – I was drinking. I felt alone. After eight years I had almost fit in the States and suddenly it felt like a foreign country again.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Sigurbjorg. ‘I was born in Canada, but my family are Icelanders and I live here. I sometimes think everywhere is a foreign country. It’s not really fair, is it?’

  Magnus glanced at Sigurbjorg. She was listening. And she was the one member of his family who had shown any sympathy during that awful couple of days. She was the one he had felt closest to, perhaps because of their common North American experiences, perhaps simply because she had treated him like a normal human being.

  He wanted to talk.

  ‘I needed some kind of family, other than just my brother Oli. All Icelanders do, you know that. It might be OK for Americans to live out their lives alone, but it wasn’t for me. I had lived with Grandpa and Grandma for a few years and I guess I thought they would welcome me back after what had happened. I thought they’d have to. And then they rejected me. More than that, they made me feel like I was responsible for Mom’s death.’

  Magnus’s face hardened. ‘Grandpa said Dad was the most evil man he had ever known and he was glad he was dead. That brought back all the pain of those last years before Dad took me away with him to America. I was glad to leave and I swore I’d never come back.’

  ‘And now you’re here,’ said Sigurbjorg. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘I guess I do.’

  ‘Until you met me?’

  Magnus smiled. ‘I do remember how sympathetic you were to me, even if the rest of the family wasn’t. Thanks for that. But do me a favour. Don’t tell them I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, they can’t do anything to you now. Grandpa must be eighty-five, and Grandma’s not much younger.’

  ‘I doubt they’ve mellowed in their old age.’

  Sigurbjorg smiled. ‘No, they haven’t.’

  ‘And, from what I remember, the rest of the family was just as hostile.’

  ‘They’ll get over it,’ said Sigurbjorg. ‘Time has passed.’

  ‘I don’t see why they were so angry,’ Magnus said. ‘I know my father left Mom, but she made his life hell. Remember, she was an alcoholic.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point,’ said Sigurbjorg. ‘She only became an alcoholic after she discovered the affair. And it was from that that everything else followed. Your father leaving. Her losing her job. And then that awful car crash. Grandpa blames your father for all that, and he always will.’

  A noisy group of two men and a woman sat down next to them and began to discuss a TV programme they had seen the night before.

  Magnus ignored them. His face had gone blank.

  ‘What? What is it, Magnus?’

  Magnus didn’t reply.

  ‘Oh my God, you didn’t know, did you? Nobody told you!’

  ‘What affair?’
/>
  ‘Forget I said anything. Look, I’ve got to go.’ She began to stand up.

  Magnus reached out and grabbed her hand. ‘What affair?’ The anger surged through his voice.

  Sigurbjorg sat down again and swallowed. ‘Your father was having an affair with your mother’s best friend. She found out about it, they had a god-awful row, she started drinking.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Magnus said.

  Sigurbjorg shrugged.

  ‘Are you sure it’s true?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Sigurbjorg. ‘But I suspect it is. Look, there must have been other problems. I used to really like your mother, especially before she started drinking, but she was always a bit neurotic. Given her parents, that’s hardly surprising.’

  ‘It is true,’ Magnus said. ‘You’re right, it must be. I just find it hard to believe.’

  ‘Hey, Magnus, I’m really sorry you heard this from me.’ Sigurbjorg reached out and touched his hand. ‘But I’ve got to go now. And I promise I won’t tell the grandparents you’re here.’

  With that, she ran away.

  Magnus stared at his coffee cup, still a quarter full. He needed a drink. A real drink.

  It wasn’t far to the bar he had drunk in the night before, the Grand Rokk. He ordered a Thule and one of the chasers all the other guys at the bar were drinking. It was some kind of kummel, sweet and strong, but OK if gulped down with the beer.

  Sigurbjorg had just turned his world upside down. The whole story of his life, who he was, who his parents were, who was right and who was wrong, had just been inverted. His father had never blamed his mother for what had happened, but Magnus had.

  She had driven away his father. She had ignored Magnus through drink and then abandoned him through death. Ragnar had heroically rescued his sons, until he had been cruelly murdered, possibly by the wicked stepmother.

  That was the story of Magnus’s childhood. That was what had made him who he was.

  And now it was all false.

  Another beer, another chaser.

  For a moment, a calming moment, Magnus flirted with the idea that the affair was a fiction invented by his grandfather to justify his hatred of his father. One part of him wanted to go along with that idea, to try to live the rest of his life in denial.

  But in his time in the police department Magnus had seen enough squalid family disintegrations to know that what Sigurbjorg had told him was all too plausible. And it would explain the depth of his grandfather’s hatred.

  He had assumed that his father’s refusal to blame his mother for the mess she had made of all their lives was nobility on his part. It wasn’t. It was a recognition that he was partly responsible. Wholly responsible?

  Magnus didn’t know. He would never know. It was a typical family mess. Blame all over the place.

  But it meant that his father was a different man than he thought he was. Not noble. An adulterer. Someone who abandoned his wife when she was at her weakest and her most vulnerable. Magnus had known all along that if he really thought about it he would have realized that his father must have started his affair with Kathleen, the woman who became his stepmother, while she was still married to someone else. So Magnus hadn’t really thought about it.

  It was true that Icelanders had a more relaxed view of adultery than the prudish Americans, but it was still wrong. Something that lesser mortals might dabble with, but not Ragnar.

  What else had he done? What other flaws had he concealed from his sons? From his wife?

  Magnus’s beer was still half full, but his chaser was empty. He caught the shaven-headed barman’s eye and tapped the glass. It was refilled.

  He felt the liquid burn his throat. His brain was fuzzing over pleasantly. But Magnus was not going to stop, not for a long time. He was going to drink until it hurt.

  That was how he drank in college, after his father died. He got wildly horribly drunk. And the following morning he would feel wretched. For him, that was half the reason why he drank, the feeling of self-destruction afterwards.

  He had lost most of his friends then, other than a few hardened drinkers like himself. His professors were dismayed, he went from close to the top of his classes to scraping along the bottom. He almost got thrown out of the university. But no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t quite manage to destroy his life totally.

  Unlike his mother, of course. She had succeeded very well.

  It was a girl who pulled him out of it, Erin. Her patience, her determination, her love, that made him realize not that he was destroying himself – he knew that already, that was the point after all – but that he didn’t want to destroy himself.

  After college she had gone her way, teaching in inner-city schools in Chicago, and he had gone his. He owed her a lot.

  But now he wanted to drink to his mother. He raised his beer glass. ‘To Margret,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s Margret?’ said a tall man in a black leather jacket, on the stool next to him.

  ‘Margret’s my mother.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said the man, with a slur. He raised his beer. ‘To Margret.’ He put down his glass. He nodded towards the beer in front of Magnus. ‘Bad day?’

  Magnus nodded. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘You know they say that drink doesn’t solve anything?’ the man said.

  Magnus nodded.

  ‘That’s balls.’ The man laughed and raised his glass.

  Magnus noticed for the first time that chess sets were glued upside-down to the ceiling. Huh. That was kind of cool.

  He looked around the bar. The patrons were all ages and sizes. They carried on a desultory conversation interrupted with bursts of chuckles and wry laughter. Many were unsteady on their feet and inaccurate with their gestures and back-slapping. At one end of the bar two college-age American girls were perched on stools, entertaining a succession of loquacious Icelanders. At the other end a thin man with grey hair sticking out under a flat cap suddenly burst into a rendition of a tune from Porgy and Bess in a mellifluous baritone. ‘Summertime – and the livin’ is ea-easy…’

  Good singers, these Icelanders.

  Another beer. Another chaser. The anger dissipated. He began to relax. He struck up conversations with the men on either side. With the American girls, although he put on a heavy Icelandic accent for their benefit. He thought that was pretty funny. In fact, he thought he was pretty funny. He played a game of chess and lost.

  Another beer. Another chaser. Two chasers. How many chasers did that make? How many beers? No idea.

  Eventually it was time to go home. Magnus lifted himself off his stool and bade an emotional goodbye to his new buddies. The room lurched wildly. The guy with the flat cap briefly became two guys with flat caps, before resolving himself into a single individual again.

  Boy, was Magnus drunk. Drunker than he had been for a long time. But it felt good.

  He strode out of the bar and straightened up in the cold night air. It was way past midnight. The sky was clear, stars twinkled icily above him. A three-quarter moon was reflected in the bay below. He took a deep breath.

  He liked Reykjavik. It was an innocent little town, and he was glad of that. He would do his part to keep it that way.

  He was proud to be one of Reykjavik’s finest.

  There was no one on the streets. The contrast between a Sunday and a Saturday night in Reykjavik was marked. But as he headed up the hill towards home, Magnus spotted a cluster of three men in an alley. The tableau was so familiar.

  Drugs.

  Magnus scowled. Low-lifes in Toytown.

  He would sort them out. ‘Hey!’ he shouted, and headed down the alley. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’

  The guy selling the drugs was small and dark, possibly not even Icelandic. The guy doing the buying, was taller, wiry, with a woolly hat. He had a friend, a great big Nordic block with short blonde hair and a tiny little blonde beard. Bigger even than Magnus, and showing off bulging biceps under a black T-shirt on this col
d night.

  ‘What has it got to do with you?’ said the drug pusher. He said it in English, because Magnus had hailed him in English.

  ‘Give that to me,’ said Magnus, holding out his hand and swaying. ‘I’m a cop.’

  ‘Piss off,’ said the pusher.

  Magnus lunged at him. The guy ducked and struck him in the chest. But there was no power in it and Magnus laid him out with a single blow to the jaw. The Nordic hulk grabbed Magnus and tried to drag him down to the floor, but Magnus shook him off. For a few moments the adrenaline overcame the alcohol, and Magnus landed two good blows, before getting an arm lock on the big guy. ‘You’re under arrest!’ he shouted, still in English.

  The pusher was on the ground, moaning. The thin guy with the woolly hat started running.

  ‘Get the hell off me,’ growled the hulk in Icelandic.

  He swung round and crashed backwards into the wall, crushing Magnus. Magnus let go. The big guy turned and struck Magnus twice, once in the head and once in the stomach, but Magnus dodged the third blow and hit him with an uppercut.

  The big guy reeled. Another crunching punch from Magnus and he went down.

  Magnus stared at the pusher who was pulling himself to his feet. ‘You’re under arrest too.’

  But then the alley started to sway and spin. The blow to his stomach did its stuff, and Magnus doubled up to retch. He tried to stand up straight, but he couldn’t. He swayed. Staggered.

  The little guy was about to run, when he saw the state that Magnus was in. He laughed and head-butted him in the face.

  Magnus dropped.

  He lay on the cold tarmac for a while. Seconds? Minutes? He didn’t know.

  He heard sirens. Good. Help.

  Rough hands picked him up. He tried to focus on the face in front of him. It was a cop wearing the uniform of the Reykjavik Metropolitan Police.

  ‘They went that way,’ said Magnus, in English. Waving indeterminately.

  ‘Come with us,’ said the cop and pulled Magnus over to the waiting car, with its lights flashing.

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ said Magnus. ‘Look, let me show you my badge.’ All this still in English.

  The patrolman waited while Magnus pulled out his Commonwealth of Massachusetts driver’s licence from his wallet.