Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

But it hadn’t always felt like that in his first month back. Reykjavík was a small town compared to Boston, there was no way around that. And once again he felt like a foreigner. It had been good to see Árni again, and Vigdís had been pleased to see him. But most of the others, even some of those whom he had got to know quite well during his previous stint in the country, seemed to treat him with a certain reserve.

They weren’t exactly unfriendly, but they weren’t friendly either. Icelanders had so many ties that bound them together: their families, which were vast thanks to the propensity of many of the older generation to have up to nine children; people they knew from school, or from college or university; people from their neighbourhood or the place in the countryside where their grandparents had come from; people they knew from their choir, or the band they used to be in, or the theatre they performed in or the football team they played for, or the host of part-time activities that all Icelanders took part in.

Magnus fit into none of these networks, or virtually none.

He was a foreigner. An Icelandic-speaking Kani Cop .

He had expected this, had been determined not to let it bother him, but it did.

And he still missed Ingileif. It was she who had made Iceland fun, exciting, sexy.

They had managed nearly three years together, but the inevitable had happened and she had drifted off with an airline pilot. Magnus knew she was attracted to him, she might even have loved him, but Ingileif couldn’t stay with just one person for ever. Or even for three years.

She had always explained to Magnus that that was the Icelandic way, but he knew it was just an excuse she used. Certainly Icelanders had a more relaxed view of marriage and fidelity than Americans, but there were plenty of them who could sustain a relationship for more than a few years — for life, even. Just not Ingileif.

A week after returning to Reykjavík, Magnus had heard that she had married someone, a wealthy businessman, one of her interior-design clients. Apparently they had a son.

So much for the airline pilot. Maybe she had finally found someone she could be committed to for the rest of her life. Somehow Magnus doubted it. She would find someone else. Perhaps she already had.

Magnus knew that someone else could be him. He hadn’t forgotten her, and he was sure that she hadn’t forgotten him. If and when they did meet the spark would be rekindled. The fact she was now married would only make it more exciting for her, as would his return to Reykjavík. It would be hard for either of them to resist.

The poor bastard who was her husband would suffer. As would her son. And, inevitably, Magnus.

So he was keeping well clear of her.

His phone rang. It was the hotel in Reykjavík he had been staying at for the last month. He hadn’t given up his room for his quick jaunt up to the north.

‘When will you be checking out this morning?’

Magnus recognized the manager’s voice.

Damn! He had forgotten the previous night was supposed to be his last one.

‘Ah, yes, I’m sorry. I’ve been called to investigate a murder. I haven’t had time to arrange something else. Can I stay another three nights?’

‘No, Magnús, that is not possible. The hotel is fully booked tonight. And we already gave you an extra week.’

Magnus argued, but lost. It was lucky he hadn’t stayed up in Saudárkrókur. He pulled over to the side of the road and dialled the shopkeeper in Breidholt.

‘I am sorry, Magnús, I have let the room to someone else. I had not heard from you for several days and she was desperate.’

‘But we agreed! I told you I would need the room from the twenty-third.’

‘She has already moved in. There is nothing I can do.’

Magnus hung up and stared out of the window of the car at a black-faced sheep, who stared back. He had pulled over at the edge of an old lava field, folds of grey and black stone, nibbled at by green and yellow mosses and lichens. No sign of human habitation as far as the eye could see. Just a couple of sheep.

What now? He didn’t have time for this. Finding another hotel room at short notice in peak tourist season would be a pain; it might even be impossible. It would certainly take time, time he didn’t have. Could he sleep on someone’s floor? Vigdís? He knew she had an apartment in Hafnarfjördur, a few kilometres on the other side of Reykjavík. That might be awkward — there had been a time many years ago when he and Vigdís had overstepped professional boundaries.

Tryggvi Thór.

Why not?

Because Magnus didn’t know him. Because there was definitely something fishy about the assault the previous day. Because the nature of that attack suggested he might even be connected to organized crime.

So what? He was a former cop. He had offered. It was a very nice house with a great view of the sea. And it might be interesting.

Magnus called him.

‘Tryggvi Thór? You know you said yesterday I could stay with you for a few days? Did you mean that?’

‘Certainly,’ said the old man, his gruff voice tinged with enthusiasm.

‘I’d like to take you up on it.’

‘By all means. When would you be coming?’

‘Tonight.’

Magnus stopped off at the hotel to pick up his stuff and then went straight to police headquarters on Hverfisgata. The Mondinis were waiting for him in one of the fancier conference rooms in the National Police Commissioner’s Office, just around the corner. Detective Constable Róbert had met them at the airport with Vigdís: his English was much better than hers. They had been taken straight to the Commissioner, who had spent half an hour with them to assure them the police were doing everything they could to find the killer. It was a nice touch: murders were uncommon in Iceland, and the murder of a tourist even more so.

Magnus took Vigdís into the interview with him. Vigdís’s black skin, which she had inherited from an unknown US serviceman at the NATO base at Keflavík, prompted many Icelanders to assume she was foreign, or at any rate not properly Icelandic, and they frequently tried to speak to her in English. Vigdís was stubborn, and determined that she was as Icelandic as the next blonde-haired blue-eyed pasty-face, and so she refused to converse with anyone in English. Which was sometimes frustrating in police investigations. But over time Magnus had realized that although she didn’t speak the language, she did understand it. He valued her opinion on the Mondinis, and he wanted to get her involved in the investigation.

Signor Mondini was a bald man with lively blue eyes and acne-ravaged cheeks. His wife was slightly taller than him, with shoulder-length dark hair and her daughter’s long straight nose. She was heavily made up, but she couldn’t hide the redness around her eyes. They were both wearing jeans, expensive jeans, and well-cut designer jackets.

Wealthy, comfortable, totally devastated.

Magnus’s heart went out to them. However many grief-stricken parents he met — or husbands or wives or girlfriends or boyfriends — it always did. Having lost his own father to murder, he understood what it felt like and how important it was to bring the killer to justice. It wasn’t really to provide vengeance, or retribution, and it would never bring the victim back to his or her family. But they needed to know that justice had been done.

When he had finally solved his own father’s murder, and justice had been done, some of his determination to find other victims’ murderers had diminished. But now, watching these two people who had lost a daughter, he felt it come back. It was strange how the empathy which seemed to have left him in Boston was returning. He wasn’t sure why.