Where the Shadows Lie (33 page)

‘I realized that we were on the rim of a cliff, and he had slipped over. I could see him about twenty metres down, lying at an odd angle. I had to move a fair distance along the cliff top to find a route down, and even then it was very difficult in the snow. I slid and fell myself, but my fall was cushioned by the snow.’

The pastor paused and fixed Ingileif with his deep-set dark eyes. ‘When I found your father he was still alive, but unconscious. He had hit his head. I took off my own coat to keep him warm, and then rushed off to find help. Well, “rushed” is hardly the word for it in the snowstorm. I should have taken it more slowly: I got lost. It was only when the snowstorm ceased that I saw a farm in the distance. I was
very
cold by then – remember I had given my coat to your father.’

‘The farm was Álfabrekka?’

‘That’s right. There were two farmers there, a father and a son, and they both came back with me to look for Ásgrímur, while the farmer’s wife called mountain rescue. By the time we got to your father, he was dead.’ The pastor shook his head. ‘When the rescue team eventually arrived they said he had been dead for a while, but I still wish I hadn’t got myself lost in the storm.’

‘Did the police find any evidence that the doctor’s death wasn’t accidental?’ Magnus asked.

‘Of course not!’ the pastor protested, his voice booming. ‘You can check on the file. There was never any doubt about that.’ The pastor glared at Magnus, commanding him to accept his assertion. Magnus didn’t flinch. He would make up his own mind.

He was beginning to understand what Ingileif had meant when she said the pastor was creepy. The man had an aura of power about him that reached out towards Magnus, urging him to bend to his will.

It was a power that Magnus was determined to resist.

‘Did you continue looking for the ring after my father’s death?’ Ingileif asked.

The pastor turned to her and relaxed slightly. ‘No. I let all that drop. I must confess it was fun working on the puzzle with your father, but once he had died then I lost all interest in the ring. Or the saga.’

Magnus glanced at the walls. There were three different prints of a volcano erupting. Hekla. ‘So how do you explain those?’

‘I have made quite a study of the role of the devil in Icelandic ecclesiastical history,’ said Hákon. ‘Hekla was known throughout Europe as the mouth of hell. That, as you can imagine, intrigues me.’

He paused. ‘I must admit that from that point of view,
Gaukur’s Saga
is very interesting. As far as I am aware it is the earliest mention of Hekla in that role. And also the first recorded ascent of the mountain. Until now we thought that no one dared climb Hekla until 1750. But of course Ísildur and Gaukur were climbing it before the big eruption of 1104, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so frightening then.’

‘You spoke to my colleague a few days ago about a visit here by Professor Agnar Haraldsson,’ Magnus said.

‘That’s true.’

‘And what did you tell her he wanted to speak to you about?’

The pastor smiled, a mass of wrinkles appearing around his eyes. ‘Ah, I wasn’t entirely honest with your colleague. I take the confidences of my parishioners very seriously.’ He looked pointedly at Ingileif.

‘So what did Agnar really talk to you about?’

‘
Gaukur’s Saga
, of course. And the ring.’ The pastor pulled at his beard. ‘He told me that Ingileif had asked him to act for the family in the sale of the saga.’ He frowned at Ingileif. ‘I must admit that I was quite shocked by this. After all the years that the family had successfully kept the saga a secret. Centuries even.’

Ingileif reddened at the admonition from her pastor.

‘I hardly think that’s for you to judge,’ said Magnus. ‘In fact, you should have told my colleague the truth first time around. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.’

‘Ásgrímur was a very good friend of mine,’ said Hákon sternly. ‘I know what he would have wanted me to do.’

‘What you did was obstruct a murder inquiry,’ said Magnus. ‘Now. Did Agnar have something specific to ask you?’

‘Ingileif had just discovered the letter to her grandfather from Tolkien which referred to the discovery of the ring. Agnar came straight here and asked me much the same questions as you did just now. I gained the very strong impression that he wanted to try to find the ring himself. Of course, I couldn’t help him.’

‘How did he behave?’ Magnus asked.

‘Agitated. Excited. Aggressive in his questioning.’

‘Did you tell him anything you didn’t tell us?’ Magnus asked.

‘Absolutely not.’

Magnus paused, examining the pastor. But the man wasn’t about to say any more. ‘See, the day after he saw you, Agnar sent a message which implied that he knew where the ring was.’

‘Well, he certainly didn’t seem to know when I saw him.’

‘Did you tell him where you looked for it that day in 1992?’

‘No. He asked, but I told him I couldn’t remember. But of course I can.’

Ingileif showed the pastor the map that she had found among her father’s papers. ‘Is that the place?’

Hákon peered over. ‘Yes, that’s it. And there’s the farm, Álfa-brekka. I suppose I could have told Agnar where it was, wasted his time. I’m sure the ring is not there. At least it wasn’t there seventeen years ago, and I doubt it could have got there since.’

‘Are you certain it wasn’t there?’ Magnus asked. ‘I wonder if Agnar discovered clues to the location somewhere else and found something you missed.’

‘I’m absolutely certain,’ said Hákon. ‘Believe me, Ásgrímur and I scraped every inch of the cave, and it wasn’t very big.’

‘Did your son know anything about this?’ Magnus asked.

‘Tómas? I don’t think so. He was, what, thirteen at the time? I didn’t tell him about the saga or the ring either then or afterwards. Did you, Ingileif?’

‘No,’ said Ingileif.

‘Then why was he speaking to Agnar the day he died?’ Magnus asked.

Hákon shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I had no idea they knew each other.’

‘Interesting coincidence, don’t you think?’

Hákon shrugged. ‘Maybe. I suppose so.’ Then he leaned forward, his eyes boring into Magnus. ‘My son is not a killer, young man. Remember that.’

‘God that man gives me the creeps,’ Ingileif said as they drove back towards Reykjavík.

‘Was he always like that?’

‘He was always weird. We didn’t go to church much, but when we did his sermons always used to scare the wits out of me. Lots of fire and brimstone, the devil behind every rock. As you can
imagine, hearing that sort of thing while you are actually sitting in Hruni church is pretty frightening for a kid.’

She laughed to herself. ‘I remember one Monday morning, after one of his services, I gave back the hair clip I had “borrowed” from the girl I sat next to in class. I was so scared I was going to be swallowed up by the earth or struck by a bolt of lightning.’

‘I can imagine that.’

‘So, Mr Detective, was he telling the truth?’

‘I don’t think so. We know he lied to Vigdís about Agnar. I’m pretty sure he was lying about Tómas. He must have told him about the saga and the ring; why else would Tómas be talking to Agnar? It’s good I got him to deny that. Bad decision on his part.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because when I get Tómas to admit that he heard about the saga from his father, we will have caught Hákon out in another lie. From then on he’ll be struggling to keep his story straight. What did you think?’

‘I think he killed my father. And I think he’s got the ring. Couldn’t you search his house?’

‘We’d need a search warrant.’

‘Are you going to get one?’

‘Possibly.’ Magnus would have loved to do that. But he would have to persuade Baldur, and that would not be easy. Not until he had broken Tómas’s story. He was looking forward to getting back to police headquarters to interview him.

‘Can we drop by that farm that Reverend Hákon went to for help?’ Ingileif asked. ‘Someone there might remember something.’

‘I’d like to get back as soon as possible to interview Tómas.’

‘I understand. But it might shed some light on my father’s death.’

Magnus hesitated.

‘Please, Magnús. You know how important it is to me.’

‘What was the name of the farm? Álfabrekka. He showed us on that map.’

‘That’s right. We’d have to go up Thjórsárdalur.’

‘But that would be fifty kilometres out of our way, there and back.’

‘At least.’

Magnus knew he should tell Baldur about his interview with Hákon as soon as possible. And he wanted to do that in person rather than over the phone so he would be able to confront Tómas himself.

He glanced at Ingileif. It was true, he did know how important her father’s death was to her.

‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Get the map out and tell me where to go.’

A
S THE AIRPLANE
began its descent into Keflavík Airport, Diego licked his lips. He was nervous. It wasn’t the hit, he was looking forward to that. And it wasn’t flying, he had been on many airplanes. But he had never been to Europe before. Spain he could have handled, Italy maybe, but Iceland?

From what little he had been able to find out about it, it was one weird country.

He was expecting snow and ice, Eskimos and igloos. The cold he could probably cope with. Since the age of fifteen he had lived in the town of Lawrence, about twenty miles north of Boston. It got pretty cold there in winter.

The cold had been one hell of a shock when he had first arrived in the States, aged seven. His family were from the town of San Francisco de Macorís in the Dominican Republic. They had crossed the hundred-mile Mona Passage to Puerto Rico by boat, and with fake ID purchased there flew to New York. They spent several years in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, where his father had plied his trade as a mule. He got caught, went to prison, died there ten years later. His mother had taken Diego and his two sisters up to where her cousin lived in Lawrence.

There, Diego had begun his narcotics career in logistics, before taking up an enforcement role, at which he was very successful. He wasn’t quite as gratuitously violent as some of Soto’s other enforcers, but he was smart, and often that counted for more. He
was certainly the best guy to go find a Boston cop among a bunch of Eskimos and off him.

They landed, and were out of the plane in no time. Immigration control wasn’t a problem, the official glanced quickly at Diego’s fake US passport and stamped it. Then in the arrivals hall he looked for and found a sign saying
Mr Roberts
. The guy holding it was stocky, with close-cropped brown hair and what sounded a bit like a Russian accent, although actually he was Lithuanian. He led Diego out to the car park and a Nissan SUV.

There had been very little time to prepare for Diego’s trip. But Soto had managed to find out from his wholesale suppliers who the big guys in drugs in Iceland were, and to make an introduction. They were Lithuanians, which was some kind of country in Russia, and they would help him.

He looked out over the black wasteland. No snow. Certainly no igloos. And not even a goddamned tree. The place already gave him the creeps.

After half an hour or so of driving, they pulled up in the parking lot of a Taco Bell. Sweet. Diego insisted on getting himself a burrito, even though it was early. When he returned to the car, there was another man waiting for him in the back seat. Thirties, also short-cropped hair, small blue eyes.

‘My name is Lukas,’ he said, by way of introduction, in a strong accent that wasn’t quite the Russian that Diego knew from Boston.

‘Joe,’ said Diego, shaking the proffered hand.

‘Welcome to Iceland.’

‘Have you got the piece?’

Lukas hesitated and then pulled a Walther PPK out of a black shoulder bag. Diego examined it. It looked like a PPK/S but it had a blue-steel finish. Some European model, perhaps. It was in good condition. Serial number filed off. Not a revolver, but this job would be bang bang and outta there.

‘Be careful with this,’ the Lithuanian said. ‘There are no handguns in Iceland. This one was bought in Amsterdam and smuggled in.’

‘Other than the cops. They got guns, surely?’

‘Cops don’t have guns either. Except at airport.’

Diego smiled. ‘Man, that’s cool. And the ammo?’

Lukas handed it to him.

‘How about the getaway?’

Lukas reached into his bag and took out a mobile phone. ‘Take this. The first name on the address list is “Karl”. Call that when you want to get out. If you are for real, say “Can I speak to Óskar?” Got that? Otherwise we think cops have you and you are on your own.’

‘What happens then?’

‘We’ll meet your car. Get you out of Iceland.’

‘Will it be quick?’

‘It will be very quick. Trust me, we don’t want you caught. And if you do get caught, don’t tell them we help you. We don’t want start war with police.’