But Magnus didn’t go home. He signed out a car and drove out towards Gaukur’s abandoned farm at Stong. The further east he drove the worse the weather became. A grey damp cloud had settled on Iceland, and he was driving through it. Even once he dropped down from the lava fields on to the broad plain around Selfoss, visibility was poor. Horses looked miserably out of sodden fields towards the road. Every now and then a church or a farm would loom out of the mist on a little knoll.
There was certainly no sign of Hekla, not even as he turned up the road that ran along the banks of the River Thjorsa.
He had no idea whether he really would find anything at Stong or Alfabrekka. But he sure as hell didn’t want to hang around Reykjavik doing nothing. He had tried to put himself inside the pastor’s strange mind. It was difficult to do, he couldn’t pretend that he understood the man, but he thought his hunch wasn’t bad as hunches went.
He thought about the Police Commissioner’s request that he stay on in Iceland. It was more of a command, really.
He was sure that once back home he could persuade Williams to let him remain in Boston. But the Commissioner’s appeal to Magnus’s sense of honour was shrewd. The Icelandic police had provided him with sanctuary. One of them had almost given his life to save Magnus’s. The Commissioner had a point; he did owe them.
When he had first arrived in Iceland he had immediately felt the urge to return to the violent streets of Boston. But perhaps Colby was right, what kind of life was that, anyway? Solve one murder, look for the next. A frantic, never-ending search to discover who he was, to make sense of his past, of his father’s murder, of himself.
There was a good chance the answers to those questions didn’t lie in Boston, but here, in Iceland. If he wanted, he could try to continue running away from his Icelandic past, from his family. But he would be running away from himself. He would spend his life running, moving from dead body to dead body in the South End. Perhaps if he stayed in Iceland for a couple of years he could begin to answer those questions, to find out who he really was.
And even who his father was. For the last few days he had successfully crammed Sigurbjorg’s disclosure that his father had been unfaithful to his mother back into its box. But it wouldn’t stay there quietly for the rest of his life. That knowledge was part of him now. Just like his father’s murder, it would haunt him.
Although he was driving through a short straight stretch of road, Magnus braked.
His father’s murder.
That puzzle had tormented him wherever he went, whatever he did. The police hadn’t found the murderer and neither had he, no matter how hard he had tried. But perhaps they had all been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps he should look in Iceland.
As soon as he thought of the idea, Magnus tried to dismiss it. He knew how much anxiety pursuing that line of thought would cause him, how he could become swallowed up in yet more fruitless investigation. But the idea, once thought, couldn’t be unthought.
His mother’s family hated his father and now he knew why, Sigurbjorg had told him. They blamed him for destroying her. They wanted revenge.
The answer was in Iceland. The answer to everything was in Iceland.
*
Petur watched the small team of Poles go at his car, scrubbing, washing, polishing. He had overcome the urge to pay them double to do a good job; he didn’t want them to remember him. The fact his BMW four-by-four was white helped. It meant it was easier to spot any dirt they left. He decided that he would go at it himself once they had finished.
Petur usually kept a cool head, but he had almost missed the dirt. If the police had stopped by his apartment the night before and impounded his car, their forensics people would have been able to tell where he had been the previous afternoon.
And the problem with a white BMW four-by-four was that it stuck out, even in the land of expensive four-by-fours. Inga had certainly noticed it: his eyes had met hers for a fraction of a second as he had sped past her the day before.
Which was why he had called her mobile immediately and asked her not to mention it.
He hoped she hadn’t said anything. He hoped to God she hadn’t said anything.
Searching for comfort, his hand closed around the object stuck deep in the warm pocket of his coat.
A ring.
The ring.
But Ingileif hadn’t told anyone. She had been surprised when she had seen Pesi driving up the Thjorsardalur, she couldn’t think of any reason why he should be there. But her instinct was not to mention it to Magnus. She didn’t know why.
She told herself it wasn’t important, and indeed, why should it be important? But she didn’t go the further step of asking herself why, if it wasn’t important, she hadn’t said anything.
She was frustrated by Magnus’s behaviour. She liked to think that she had a pretty down-to-earth view of sex and relationships. Despite what Magnus implied, she didn’t jump into bed with every man she fancied. There might be the odd night with Larus, but everyone knew there was nothing in the odd night with Larus. Or everyone in Reykjavik did anyway.
She had liked Magnus. And she had trusted him. Then suddenly he had pulled a girlfriend out of nowhere and more or less called her a slut.
Jerk.
The problem with the sudden deterioration in their relations was it made it more difficult for her to find out from Magnus whether Hakon really had killed her father, or indeed whether it was Tomas. She thought it unlikely that it was Tomas, but she didn’t know.
She did know someone who would. Tomas’s mother.
Her name was Erna, and Ingileif trusted her. She was a small woman with blonde curly hair, who had originally come from a village in the West Fjords where she had met Hakon when he had been serving as a priest there. Ingileif remembered the way Erna used to look up to her husband, not just literally, for Hakon was almost half a metre taller than his wife, but also how she seemed to submit to his will. But Erna was basically an honest, kind, sensible woman who had ensured that Tomas hadn’t grown up an emotional wreck. It must have taken a lot of courage for her to leave her husband when she did, but it was definitely a wise decision.
She would know which of her son or her husband had killed the doctor. She would know.
So Ingileif drove her old Polo out to Hella, a town about fifty kilometres to the south of Fludir, which is where she knew Erna lived with her second husband.
The drive was unpleasant in the fog, but at least there wasn’t much traffic on the road. She listened to the news on the radio, hoping for more information about Tomas, or possibly the arrest of the Reverend Hakon. There was none of that. But there was something about shots being fired in 101, a policeman being wounded and taken to hospital and an American citizen being held by the police.
For a moment, a dreadful moment, Ingileif thought that the policeman was Magnus. But then they named him as Detective Arni Holm and she breathed again.
She was absolutely sure Magnus was involved somehow, though. Perhaps he was the American citizen they had locked up.
Hella was a modern settlement that lined the bank of the West Ranga river, the next one along after the Thjorsa. Ingileif had looked up Erna’s address from the national phone-directory website: her house was a single-storey building only thirty metres from the river, surrounded by a green garden. Ingileif had no idea whether Erna would be out at work, after all most Icelandic women had a job, but when Ingileif rang the doorbell, Erna answered.
She recognized Ingileif immediately and ushered her in. Erna’s blonde hair was still blonde, but dyed nowadays, and she had put on weight. But her blue eyes still twinkled when she saw Ingileif, although they swiftly clouded again with worry. ‘Have you heard the dreadful news about Tomas?’ she said, as she busied herself in the kitchen organizing coffee.
‘I have,’ said Ingileif. ‘You can hardly miss it. It’s all over the papers. Have you seen him?’
‘No. The police won’t let me. I’ve spoken to his lawyer on the phone. She says that the police don’t have enough evidence to prove anything. I didn’t even know he knew this Agnar fellow. Why on earth would he murder the man? The lawyer said that it all had something to do with a manuscript the professor was trying to sell. Here, Ingileif, let’s go through and sit down.’
The sitting room boasted a large picture window opening out on a view of the river, barely visible through the mist. Ingileif remembered that Erna’s husband was a manager in one of the local bank branches. He had obviously done well. Ingileif wondered, in the way that Icelanders had since the kreppa, whether the man had granted himself a hundred per cent mortgage in the boom times.
‘It has to do with our family, Erna. And with your husband.’
‘Oh. I feared as much.’
‘The manuscript is an old saga that had been in my family for generations. Gaukur’s Saga. Did Hakon ever mention it to you?’
‘Not directly. But that’s what he spent so much time discussing with your father, isn’t it?’
‘That’s correct. And when my mother died at the end of last year-’
‘Oh, yes, I’m so sorry about that. I would have gone to the funeral if I could.’
‘Yes. Well, after she died, I decided to sell the saga, through Professor Agnar. And the police think that it was for this saga that Agnar was killed.’
‘I see. But I still don’t understand what this has to do with Tomas.’
Except that Ingileif could see in Erna’s face that she was beginning to understand.
‘It all goes back to my father’s death.’
‘Ah. I thought it might.’ Erna was wary now.
‘I’m sure that the police will ask you questions about it soon. Perhaps today,’ said Ingileif. ‘And I promise I won’t tell them what you tell me.’ This promise was easier to make now that Magnus had made an idiot of himself. ‘But I want to know what happened to my father. I need to know.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Erna. ‘Hakon witnessed it. A terrible accident. There was a police investigation and everything.’
‘Did your husband tell you what he and my father were doing that weekend?’
‘No. He was very secretive about all that, and frankly I wasn’t interested. They were researching something, I’ve no idea what.’
‘Did he ever mention a ring?’
‘A ring? No. What kind of ring?’
Erna seemed genuinely puzzled. Ingileif took a deep breath. The questions were going to get more painful, there was no way of avoiding it.
‘It was a ring that was mentioned in Gaukur’s Saga, the manuscript the professor who was murdered was trying to sell. You see, the police believe that my father and your husband found the ring that weekend.’
Erna frowned. ‘He never mentioned it. And I never saw a ring. But it is just the kind of thing that would fascinate him. And there was something. Something hidden in the altar in the church. I saw him sneak in there several times.’
‘Did you ever look to see what it was?’ Ingileif asked.
‘No. I told myself that it was none of my business.’ Erna shuddered. ‘But the truth is I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know. Hakon had rather unconventional interests. I was scared about what I might find.’
‘The police think that my father may have been killed for the ring,’ said Ingileif.
‘By whom?’ said Erna. ‘Not by Hakon, surely?’
‘That’s what they think.’ Ingileif swallowed. ‘That’s what I think.’
Erna looked shocked. Shock turned to anger. ‘I know that my ex-husband is eccentric. I know that all sorts of strange stories are told about him in the village. But I am absolutely sure he didn’t kill your father. Despite all his fascination with the devil, he wouldn’t kill anyone. Ever. And…’
A tear appeared Erna’s eye.
‘And?’
‘And your father was the only true friend Hakon ever had. Sometimes I think, well I know, that Hakon was fonder of him than of me. He was quite broken up by your father’s death. It almost destroyed him.’ She sniffed and dabbed her eye with her finger. ‘He started behaving even more strangely, neglecting his parish duties, listening to Tomas’s dreadful music. He became impossible to live with after that. Impossible.’
Ingileif realized she would get no further on the subject of Hakon. She would leave grilling Erna to the police. She still thought Hakon had killed her father, but she was convinced that Erna didn’t, and she didn’t feel the need to argue with her.
‘But what has all this got to do with Tomas?’ Erna asked.
‘The police think he was there with Hakon and my father. The sheep farmers who Hakon went to for help saw him. Or at least they saw a boy, who the police think was Tomas.’ Ingileif didn’t want to confuse the issue with talk of hidden people.
‘Oh, that really is too absurd,’ said Erna. ‘Do they think Tomas killed Dr Asgrimur? But he was only twelve then!’
‘Thirteen,’ said Ingileif. ‘And yes they do think he was there. He might have witnessed what happened at the very least.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Erna. ‘It must have been someone else.’ And then her eyes lit up. ‘Wait a minute. It can’t have been Tomas!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he was with me that weekend. In Reykjavik. He was singing in the Hallgrimskirkja with the village choir. I went to listen. We stayed with my sister in Reykjavik that Saturday night.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure. We didn’t get back until Sunday evening. I can remember seeing Hakon when we arrived home. He had only just got back from the hills. He was in a terrible state.’ She smiled at Ingileif. ‘You see. My son is innocent!’
The three men were squashed into Axel’s car, parked a hundred metres down the road from the house which Ingileif had entered. Axel was at the wheel, Isildur was in the back, and Gimli was in the passenger seat, a computer opened on his lap. With expense no object, Axel had planted four bugs on Ingileif when he had broken in in the small hours of the previous night. One in her bag, one in her coat, one in her studio bedroom – that had been the trickiest – and one in the car. The bug in the car doubled as a tracking device, and the location of the car was flashing on the GPS map on the computer.
The tracker had allowed them to follow Ingileif at a safe distance all the way from Reykjavik to Hella. They had driven by the house at which she had stopped and then parked out of sight. The bug in the coat was transmitting loud and clear, but in Icelandic, through a receiver which was plugged into the laptop. Axel mumbled half-translations as he listened, but they were frustratingly incomplete.
When Axel started muttering about a ring, Isildur couldn’t contain his impatience to find out more, but Axel refused to explain further, not wanting to miss any of the conversation.
As soon as Ingileif left the house, Isildur asked Axel for a translation.
‘Shouldn’t we follow her?’ said Axel.
‘We can catch her up later. The tracker will show us where she is. I want a full translation, and I want it now!’
Axel pulled the computer off Gimli’s lap and tapped some keys. The conversation was recorded on the computer’s hard drive. He went through the whole thing slowly and methodically.
Isildur was beside himself with excitement. ‘Where’s this church?’ he demanded. ‘The place where the ring is hidden?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Axel. ‘The nearest church to Hella is a place called Oddi. It’s not far.’
‘It sounds like they were neighbours when Ingileif was young,’ said Gimli. ‘This Hakon is obviously Tomas Hakonarson’s father. Do we know where he was born? Where he grew up? Or for that matter where Ingileif grew up? It might not have been Hella. It sounded to me as if this Erna woman had moved out, or moved away.’
‘Google him,’ said Isildur. ‘You got Google in Iceland, right?’
‘Google who?’
‘Tomas Hakonarson. If he’s a big star in this country, there will be a bio on him somewhere.’
Axel called up the search engine, tapped out some words, clicked and scrolled. ‘Here he is. He was born in a village in the West Fjords, but was brought up in Fludir. That’s not too far from here.’
‘Well, let’s go to Fludir church, then!’ said Isildur. ‘Get a move on!’
Axel handed the laptop back to Gimli and started up the car.
‘Hruni is the nearest church to Fludir,’ said Axel. ‘This man must be the pastor of Hruni.’ He grinned.
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘Let’s just say it fits.’