Michael Ridpath: Edge of Nowhere

‘I see,’ said Magnus. ‘And they told you this in a dream?’

‘They did.’

‘Who did?’ said Magnus.

‘One of the hidden people.’

‘Which one?’

Rós looked a little confused by the question.

‘I’m investigating who killed Gústi,’ Magnus said. ‘I need names.’

‘Actually, I don’t have a name,’ said Rós uncertainly.

‘All right,’ said Magnus. ‘Then how about a description?’

‘A description?’

‘That’s right. Of the hidden person who told you this. In the dream.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rós. She cleared her throat and frowned. ‘She was a woman, maybe thirty years old, long, fair hair.’

‘Height?’

‘Height?’

‘How tall was she?’

‘I don’t know.’

Magnus allowed himself to frown at the witness. ‘OK. Dress?’

‘A long blue dress. Plain.’ Magnus raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s all I can say, really. Her hair was braided.’ She paused. ‘She was beautiful. She is beautiful.’ The woman’s eyes glowed in rapture.

Magnus wrote the words down. ‘And did she mention Gústi by name?’

‘No,’ said Rós. ‘But she wanted me to tell everyone in town that if construction went ahead on the tunnel, there would be trouble. Nobody took any notice, of course, even after all their equipment was broken. So they built the tunnel anyway. I hoped that the apology we gave the hidden people on Sunday would have worked, but it obviously didn’t.’

‘Obviously not,’ said Magnus. ‘What was this apology?’

‘We had a little ceremony, a lot of the people in Bolungarvík came, including the pastor. He said a prayer. It was an important thing to do.’

‘I see that,’ said Magnus. He spent another ten minutes asking Rós about the hidden people and their habits, before finally putting his pen down. He had two sides of notes on his pad. ‘OK, thank you for coming forward, Rós,’ said Magnus.

The red-haired woman smiled, in her stride now. ‘Not at all. I’m glad the police are finally listening to me.’ Her eyes flicked to Tómas sharply.

‘One other thing,’ Magnus said. ‘Did you ever leave anything out for the hidden people?’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘A gift of some kind,’ said Magnus.

‘A stuffed polar bear, for instance?’ said Tómas. Magnus concealed his irritation: that was a detail he wanted to keep to himself. Now everyone in Bolungarvík would know. Until then, Tómas’s actions had been very professional, but Magnus had forgotten that the constable wasn’t a detective.

‘Did you find one where Gústi was killed?’ Rós asked.

‘Did you leave anything for them?’ Magnus repeated.

‘No,’ said Rós.

‘Do you know anyone else who might have?’

‘There are a lot of people in town who are angry on behalf of the hidden people,’ she said. ‘It could have been anyone.’

‘Why a polar bear?’ Magnus asked. ‘Do the hidden people here like polar bears?’

‘That’s a ridiculous question,’ said Rós. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Magnus smiled apologetically. ‘Thanks again, Rós. And next time you see your hidden woman, ask her her name, will you?’

‘Why did you take her so seriously?’ Tómas asked, after Rós was safely out of the police station.

‘To shut her up, mostly,’ said Magnus. ‘And her friends. If the hidden people are as popular in town as you say they are, we could waste a lot of time dealing with people who want us to take them seriously. Now they know we do.’

‘You don’t believe any of this crap, do you?’ said Tómas.

‘Don’t you?’

‘Of course not. I was brought up in this town and I’ve heard it all my life. That woman is a nutcase. There aren’t any hidden people here or anywhere else. It’s only because we are all stuck in the middle of nowhere that it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve heard about you. You lived in America, didn’t you? Don’t tell me you believe her.’

‘I spent twelve years working as a cop in Boston, and you’re right I didn’t come across any elves there,’ said Magnus. ‘I was in Homicide; elves would come under Narcotics.’

Tómas smiled.

‘I was also curious about the bear,’ Magnus said. ‘I thought she might have put it there.’

‘It’s the kind of whacko thing she’d do,’ said Tómas.

‘By the way, when we are interviewing someone together, leave the disclosure of information to me,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s always good to hold some details back.’

Tómas blushed. ‘Oh. Oh, I see. I’m sorry.’

‘We still have the ribbon,’ said Magnus. ‘I wonder what that was for?’

Tómas thought a moment. ‘So Gústi could see the white bear in the snow?’

‘Possibly,’ said Magnus. ‘But why a polar bear?’

‘They are popular in this town,’ the constable said. ‘There’s a stuffed one in the Museum. It was shot north of here when it arrived from Greenland on an ice floe. It’s very famous.’

‘Of course,’ Magnus couldn’t help smiling. He was getting used to Icelanders craving attention. Even in this far corner of this remote island, there was something of world renown. There had to be. It wasn’t quite as strange as the Penis Museum in the small town of Húsavík further to the east, but a polar bear was better than nothing. ‘Sorry, Tómas. Let’s take a quick look at Gústi’s house and then pay a visit to Arnór.’

Gústi’s house was little more than a run-down shack on the edge of town next to the river. For someone involved in the construction industry, he had spent very little time on his own dwelling. Outside, paint was peeling on the concrete walls and the roof was rusting. Inside, there was a hole in the ceiling.

Tómas had the key he had taken from Gústi’s body. Magnus and Tómas walked slowly through the small house, made up of two bedrooms (one little more than a closet), a kitchen, a living room and bathroom. It was clear that Gústi’s wife was long gone. The bed was unmade, there were coffee cups and the signs of an early breakfast by the sink. The surfaces in the bathroom were covered in a layer of brown scum.

Gústi liked vodka. There were four bottles in the house, three of them empty. He also liked Manchester United. The posters tacked to the walls showed teenage enthusiasms; a programme from a match against Blackburn Rovers at Old Trafford ten years before had pride of place in his bedroom, next to a giant poster of a semi-naked Icelandic model Magnus had never heard of.

Magnus poked around: bills; payslips from the construction company; fishing gear; lots of tools, many of them in bad condition; an old desktop computer with an ancient screen in the bedroom; no notes of any interest; an address book, in which most of the dialling codes were local. Magnus checked the room for photographs. Icelandic homes were full of family photographs; Icelanders had large families and usually everyone had to be represented. But not in Gústi’s house.

‘Where is his wife?’ asked Magnus.

‘In Ísafjördur,’ said Tómas. ‘With his kids.’

‘Any other family in town?’

‘Just a brother. They didn’t really get on.’

Magnus grunted. They should interview the wife. Spouses were always suspects, even long-gone ones. Although somehow Magnus suspected no one was going to inherit very much from Gústi.

Magnus went back into the bedroom. He glanced at the computer. Next to it was a small stand-alone webcam. Magnus picked it up. It looked new, certainly newer than the other equipment.

‘Tómas, can you get a warrant for us to impound the machine?’ he said.

‘Why don’t we just check it out now?’ said the constable, reaching for the on switch.