Where the Shadows Lie

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Ah, of course,’ said Magnus. ‘Anything in the papers on the desk?’

  ‘It’s mostly academic stuff, essays from students, draft articles on Icelandic literature, that kind of thing. We need to go through it more thoroughly. There was a fartölva which the forensics team have taken away to analyse.’

  ‘Sorry, what is a fartölva?’ asked Magnus, who was unfamiliar with the Icelandic word. He knew the difference between a halberd and a battleaxe, but some of the newer Icelandic words threw him.

  ‘A small computer you can carry around with you,’ explained Baldur. ‘And there is a diary with an entry; it tells us who was here last night.’

  ‘The Commissioner mentioned an American,’ Magnus said. ‘With size forty-five feet, no doubt?’ He had no idea what that was in US shoe sizes, but he suspected it was quite large.

  ‘American. Or British. The name is Steve Jubb and the time is seven-thirty yesterday evening. And a phone number. The number is for the Hótel Borg, the best hotel in Reykjavík. We’re picking him up now. In fact, if you’ll excuse me, Snorri, I have to go back to headquarters and interview him.’

  Magnus was struck by the informality of Icelanders. No ‘Sir’, or ‘Commissioner Gudmundsson’. In Iceland everyone called everyone else by their first names, be it a street sweeper speaking to the president of the country, or a police officer speaking to his chief. It would take a little getting used to, but he liked it.

  ‘Be sure to include Magnús in the interviews,’ the Commissioner said.

  Baldur’s face remained impassive, but Magnus could tell that he was seething inside. And Magnus couldn’t blame him. This was probably one of Baldur’s biggest cases of the year, and he would not appreciate doing it under the eyes of a foreigner. Magnus might have more experience of homicides than Baldur, but he was at least ten years younger and a rank junior. The combination must have been especially irritating.

  ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Árni to look after you. He’ll drive you back to Headquarters and get you settled in. And by all means come and chat to me about Steve Jubb later on.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ Magnus said, before he could stop himself.

  Baldur’s eyes flicked towards Magnus, acknowledging the evidence of this faux pas that Magnus wasn’t a real Icelander after all. He called over a detective to escort Magnus, and then left with the Commissioner back to Reykjavík.

  ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ said the detective in fluent American-accented English. ‘My name’s Árni. Árni Holm. You know, like the Terminator.’

  He was tall, painfully thin, with short dark hair and an Adam’s apple that bobbed furiously as he spoke. He had a wide friendly grin.

  ‘Komdu saell,’ said Magnus. ‘I appreciate you speaking my language, but I really need to practise my Icelandic.’

  ‘All right,’ said Árni, in Icelandic. He looked disappointed not to be showing off his English skills.

  ‘Although I have no idea what “the Terminator” is in Icelandic.’

  ‘Tortímandinn,’ said Árni. ‘Some people call me that.’ Magnus couldn’t resist a smile. Árni was on the weedy side of wiry. ‘OK, not many, I admit,’ said Árni.

  ‘Your English is very good.’

  ‘I studied Criminology in the States,’ Árni replied proudly.

  ‘Oh. Where?’

  ‘Kunzelberg College, Indiana. It’s a small school, but it has a very good reputation. You might not have heard of it.’

  ‘Uh, I can’t say I have,’ said Magnus. ‘So where to next? I’d like to join Baldur for the interview of this Steve Jubb.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE FIRST THING Magnus noticed was that Steve Jubb wasn’t American. He had some kind of British accent, from Yorkshire, it transpired; Jubb was a truck driver from a town called Wetherby in that county. He was unmarried, living alone. His passport confirmed he was fifty-one.

  Magnus and Árni were watching the interview on a computer screen down the hall. All the interview rooms in Reykjavík police headquarters were installed with tape recorders and closed-circuit television.

  There were four men in the interview room: Baldur, another detective, a young Icelandic interpreter and a big, broad-shouldered man with a beer belly. He was wearing a denim shirt open over a white T-shirt, black jeans and a baseball cap, under which peeked thin greying hair. A neat little grey beard on his chin. Magnus could just make out the green and red swirls of a tattoo on his forearm. Steve Jubb.

  Baldur was a good interviewer, relaxed and confident and more approachable than he had been with Magnus earlier. He even smiled occasionally, an upward twitch of the corners of his lips. He was using the traditional cop’s technique, taking Jubb backwards and forwards through his story. Trying to get him to slip up on the details. But it meant Magnus was able to catch up on what Jubb had done that evening.

  The interview was slow and stilted; everything had to be translated back and forth by the interpreter. Árni explained that this wasn’t just because Baldur didn’t speak good English – it was a requirement if anything said in the interview was to be admitted in court.

  Jubb had plenty to explain, but he explained it well, at least at first.

  His story was that he had met Agnar on a holiday to Iceland the previous year and had arranged to look him up on this trip. He had hired a car, the blue Toyota Yaris, and driven out to Lake Thingvellir. Agnar and he had chatted for a little over an hour and then Jubb had driven straight back to the hotel. The receptionist remembered his return. Since her shift ended at eleven, his timing was corroborated. Jubb hadn’t seen anything or anyone suspicious. Agnar had been friendly and talkative. They had discussed places in Iceland that Jubb should visit.

  Jubb confirmed that he had drunk Coca-Cola and his host red wine. He had kept his shoes on in the summer house: his shoe size was ten and a half under the UK measurement system. Jubb wasn’t sure what that was in Continental sizes.

  After half an hour of this Baldur left the room and found Magnus. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘His story holds up,’ Magnus replied.

  ‘But he’s hiding something.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘I think so too, but it’s tough to tell from in here, I can’t really see him. Can I speak to him face-to-face? Without the interpreter? I know anything he tells me won’t be admissible, but I might loosen him up. And if he lets something slip, you can zero in on it later.’

  Baldur thought for a moment and then nodded.

  Magnus wandered into the interview room and took the chair next to Jubb, the one that had been occupied by the interpreter. He leaned back.

  ‘Hey, Steve, how’s it going?’ Magnus said. ‘You holding up OK?’

  Jubb frowned. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Magnus Jonson,’ Magnus said. It seemed natural to slip back into his American name when he was speaking English.

  ‘You’re a bloody Yank.’ Jubb’s Yorkshire accent was strong and direct.

  ‘Sure am. I’m helping these guys out for a spell.’

  Jubb grunted.

  ‘So, tell me about Agnar.’

  Jubb sighed at having to repeat his story yet again. ‘We met a year ago in a bar in Reykjavík. I liked the bloke, so I looked him up when I came back to Iceland.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘This and that. Places to visit in Iceland. He knows the country pretty well.’

  ‘No, I mean what did you talk about that made you want to see him again? He was a university professor, you’re a truck driver.’ Magnus remembered Jubb’s unmarried status. ‘Are you gay?’ Unlikely, but it might provoke a reaction.

  ‘Course I’m not bloody gay.’

  ‘Then what did you talk about?’

  Jubb hesitated, then answered. ‘Sagas. He was an expert, I’d always been interested in them. It was one of the reasons I came to Iceland.’

  ‘Sagas!’ Magnus snorted. ‘Give me a break.’

  Jubb shrugged his bro
ad shoulders and folded his arms over his belly. ‘You asked.’

  Magnus paused, assessing him. ‘OK, I’m sorry. Which one is your favourite?’

  ‘The Saga of the Volsungs.’

  Magnus raised his eyebrows. ‘Unusual choice.’ The most popular sagas were about the Viking settlers in Iceland during the tenth century, but the Saga of the Volsungs was set in a much earlier period. Although written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, it was a myth about an early Germanic family of kings, the Volsungs, who eventually became the Burgundians: Attila the Hun had a role in the story. It wasn’t one of Magnus’s favourites, but he had read it a few times.

  ‘OK. So what was the name of the dwarf who was forced to give his gold to Odin and Loki?’ he asked.

  Jubb smiled. ‘Andvari.’

  ‘And Sigurd’s sword?’

  ‘Gram. And his horse was called Grani.’

  Jubb knew his stuff. He might be a truck driver, but he was a well-read man. Not to be underestimated. ‘I like the sagas,’ Magnus said with a smile. ‘My dad used to read them to me. But he was Icelandic. How did you get into them?’

  ‘My grandfather,’ Jubb said. ‘He studied them at university. He used to tell me the stories when I was a lad. I was hooked. Then I found some of them on tape and I used to play them in the wagon. Still do.’

  ‘In English?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘They are better in Icelandic.’

  ‘That’s what Agnar said. And I believe him. But it’s too late for me to learn another language now.’ Jubb paused. ‘I’m sorry he’s dead. He was an interesting bloke.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’ It was a question Magnus had asked all sorts of people during his career. He didn’t expect an honest answer, but often the reaction the question provoked was useful.

  ‘No,’ said Jubb. ‘Of course I bloody didn’t!’

  Magnus studied Steve Jubb. The denial was convincing, and yet … The lorry driver was hiding something.

  At that moment the door opened and Baldur burst in, followed by the interpreter. Magnus couldn’t conceal his irritation; he thought he was beginning to get somewhere.

  Baldur was clutching some sheets of paper. He sat at the desk and laid them in front of him. He leaned over and turned a switch on a small console by the computer. ‘Interview recommences at eighteen twenty-two,’ he said. And then, in English, staring at Jubb: ‘Who is Isildur?’

  Jubb tensed. Both Baldur and Magnus noticed it. Then he forced himself to relax. ‘I’ve no idea. Who is Isildur?’

  Magnus asked himself the same question, although he thought the name sounded familiar from somewhere.

  ‘Take a look at these,’ Baldur said, returning to Icelandic. He pushed three sheets of paper towards Jubb and handed another three to Magnus. ‘These are printouts of e-mails taken from Agnar’s computer. E-mail correspondence with you.’

  Jubb picked up the sheets of paper and read them, as did Magnus. Two were simple messages confirming the visit Steve had suggested on the phone and arranging a date, time and place to meet. The tone was more businesslike than an informal arrangement to meet up for a chat with an acquaintance.

  The third e-mail was the most interesting.

  From: Agnar Haraldsson

  To: Steve Jubb

  Subject: Meeting 23 April

  Dear Steve

  I’m looking forward to seeing you on Thursday. I have made a discovery that I think you will find very exciting.

  It is a shame that Isildur can’t be there as well. I have a proposal for him that it would be good to discuss in person. Is it too late to persuade him to come?

  Kind Regards,

  Agnar

  ‘So – who is Isildur?’ Baldur asked once again, this time in Icelandic. The interpreter translated.

  Jubb sighed heavily, tossed the papers on to the desk and crossed his arms. He said nothing.

  ‘What was the proposal Agnar wanted to discuss with you? Did he discuss it with you?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Did he tell you what the discovery was?’

  ‘I’m not answering any more questions,’ said Jubb. ‘I want to go back to my hotel.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Baldur. ‘You’re staying here. You are under arrest.’

  Jubb frowned. ‘In that case, I want to speak to someone from the British Embassy.’

  ‘You are a suspect in a murder inquiry. We can inform the British Embassy that we are holding you, but you don’t have the right to see them. We can get you a lawyer if you wish.’

  ‘I do wish. And until I’ve seen him, I’m not saying anything.’ And Steve Jubb sat in his chair, a big man, arms folded tightly across his chest, lower jaw jutting out, immovable.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BALDUR RAN A brisk morning meeting, brisk and efficient. Half a dozen detectives were present, plus Magnus, the assistant prosecutor – a young red-haired woman called Rannveig – and Chief Superintendent Thorkell Holm, the head of the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police CID. Thorkell was in his early sixties, with a round jovial face and shiny pink cheeks. He seemed at ease with his detectives, happy to blend into the background and listen to Baldur, who was in charge of the investigation.

  There was an air of expectancy around the table, enthusiasm for the task ahead. It was a Saturday morning. A long weekend of work to come for everyone, but they seemed eager to start.

  Magnus felt himself caught up in the excitement. Árni had driven him back to his hotel the night before. He had grabbed something to eat and gone to bed – it had been a long day, and he was still exhausted from the shooting in Boston and its aftermath. But he slept well for once. It was good to be out of reach of Soto’s gang. He was eager to get a message to Colby, but he would have to arrange access to a computer for that. In the meantime the investigation into the professor’s murder intrigued him.

  And he intrigued the detectives around him. They stared at him when he entered the room: none of the smiles you would expect from a group of Americans welcoming a stranger. Magnus didn’t know whether this was the typical initial reserve of Icelanders, a reserve that was usually replaced by warmth within ten minutes, or if it was something more hostile. He decided to ignore it. But he was glad of the uninhibited friendly smile of Árni sitting next to him.

  ‘Our suspect is still saying nothing,’ Baldur said. ‘We’ve heard from the British police: his criminal record is clean apart from two convictions for possession of cannabis in the 1970s. Rannveig will take him before the judge this morning to get an order to keep him in custody for the next few weeks.’

  ‘Do we have enough evidence for that?’ Magnus asked.

  Baldur frowned at the interruption. ‘Steve Jubb was the last person to see Agnar alive. He was at the scene of the crime at about the time the murder was committed. We know he was discussing some kind of deal with Agnar but he won’t tell us what he was doing there. He’s hiding something, and until he tells us otherwise, we’re going to assume it’s a murder. I’d say we have enough to hold him, and so will the judge.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Magnus. And it did. In the US what they had would not be nearly enough to hold a suspect, but Magnus could learn to like the Icelandic system.

  Baldur nodded curtly. ‘Now, what have we got?’

  Two detectives had interviewed Agnar’s wife, Linda, at their house in Seltjarnarnes, a suburb of Reykjavík. She was devastated. They had been married seven years and had two small children. It was Agnar’s second marriage: he was divorced when they met – like his first wife, Linda had been one of his students. He had gone to the summer house to catch up on some work – apparently he had a deadline looming for a translation. He had spent the previous two weekends there. His wife, stuck alone with the children in Seltjarnarnes, had not been too happy with that.

  Agnar’s laptop had not revealed any more interesting e-mails to Steve Jubb. There was a jumble of Word files and Internet sites visited, all of which would be analysed. There were piles of
working papers in his office at the University and at the summer house which would be read through.

  Forensics had found four sets of fingerprints in the summer house: Agnar’s, Steve Jubb’s and two others as yet unidentified. None from Agnar’s wife, who had stated that she had not visited the summer house yet that year. There were no prints on the passenger door of Jubb’s rented Toyota, confirming his claim that he had visited Agnar alone.

  They had also found traces of cocaine use in the bedroom, and a one-gram bag of the drug hidden in a wardrobe.

  ‘Vigdís. Any luck with the name Isildur?’ Baldur asked.

  He turned to a tall elegant black woman of about thirty, who was wearing a tight black sweater and jeans. Magnus had noticed her as soon as he had walked into the room. She was the first black person Magnus had seen since he had arrived in Iceland. Iceland didn’t do ethnic minorities, especially blacks.

  ‘It seems that Ísildur, with an “í”, is a legitimate Icelandic name.’ She pronounced the Icelandic letter with a long “ee” sound. ‘Although it is very rare indeed. I have searched the National Registry database, and only come up with one entry for that name in the last eighty years, a child named Ísildur Ásgrímsson. Born 1974, died 1977 in Flúdir.’ Flúdir was a village in the south-west of Iceland, Magnus dimly remembered. It was pronounced Floothir, the ‘d’ being the Icelandic letter ‘’.

  Vigdís had a perfect Icelandic accent, Magnus noticed. It sounded very odd to him, he had worked with plenty of black female detectives in Boston, and he was half expecting a laconic Boston drawl, not a lilting Icelandic trill. ‘His father, Ásgrímur Högnason, was a doctor. He died in 1992.’

  ‘But no sign of anyone alive today with that name?’

  Vigdís shook her head. ‘I suppose he might be a vestur-íslenskur.’ She meant a Western Icelander, one of those Icelanders, predecessors of Magnus himself, who had crossed over the Atlantic to North America a century before. ‘Or he could live in England. If he was born overseas he won’t be on our database.’