Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

Magnus introduced himself in English. ‘I have just come from Glaumbaer where your daughter was killed,’ he said. ‘First off, do you have any questions about what happened to Carlotta?’

They did, and Magnus answered them carefully, very aware as he did so how little progress the investigation had achieved to date. Signor Mondini took the dominant role in asking the questions, but his wife’s English was better. Magnus explained that the Mondinis couldn’t see Carlotta until the autopsy had been performed, but that should happen later that afternoon.

‘Now, I have some questions for you,’ he said. ‘Tell me about your daughter.’

‘She was beautiful,’ said Signor Mondini. ‘And I don’t just mean physically. She had a beautiful soul. And she was very intelligent.’

‘She had so many friends,’ said her mother. ‘Everybody loved her, all her friends. They all knew they could turn to her when they were in trouble.’

Magnus let them talk, talk through the generalities of what a wonderful daughter Carlotta had been, and then talk about her childhood, her school, her teachers, her school friends, her university career, her love of history and archaeology. Naturally she had had boyfriends, decent men; what man would not be interested in Carlotta? She had had a glittering career in academia ahead of her, if she wanted it, although really there were many fields in which she could have excelled.

Through all this tears fell, from both the mother and the father.

They loved to talk about her, and Magnus was finally building up a picture of a kind, clever girl, who could be stubborn and liked to get her own way.

‘Presumably Carlotta had a computer?’ Magnus asked.

‘Of course,’ said her father. ‘An HP laptop.’

‘Do you know if she took it with her to Iceland?’

‘She was certain to have. She took it with her everywhere. Why?’

‘We haven’t found it,’ Magnus said. ‘Nor her phone.’ The murderer must have taken her laptop too. Presumably from her car. The detailed forensic analysis of the car hadn’t come back yet: maybe it would show something.

‘Why do you think Carlotta picked Iceland for a vacation?’ he asked.

‘Oh, she loved Iceland,’ said Signora Mondini. ‘She was always talking about it.’

‘Had she been before?’

‘No, never,’ said her mother. ‘But she had always wanted to go. She had been to Sweden. Norway with us. Even Greenland.’

‘So she liked Nordic countries?’

‘Oh, yes. And of course that was her speciality. The Vikings. Viking archaeology. She loved all that ever since we took her to the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo when she was twelve.’

‘She much preferred the Vikings to the Romans,’ said her father. He smiled. ‘She was like that. She liked to take the opposite point of view to everyone else. Including me.’ He took a deep breath, fighting back the tears.

‘Ah.’ Stupidly, Magnus had assumed that an Italian archaeology student would be interested in Italian archaeology. ‘Had she ever been on a dig in Iceland?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘No,’ said Signora Mondini with more conviction. ‘Not Iceland.’

‘Where, then?’ said Magnus.

‘Sweden. And Greenland. Six years ago, when she was an undergraduate. She loved it.’

‘I see,’ said Magnus. ‘And do you know where this dig was in Greenland?’

‘It was where that famous Viking came from. The one that they say discovered America.’

‘Leif Erikson?’ said Magnus. Gudrid’s brother-in-law and Erik the Red’s son.

‘Yes. That’s the name.’

Magnus felt excitement building. Here was the lead he had been waiting for. Could it be a coincidence that a TV crew at the murder scene were planning to travel to a place where the murder victim had worked several years before?

Actually, it could. Maybe the same thing that had brought Eygló and her colleagues to Glaumbaer had brought Carlotta: an interest in Gudrid.

‘Did Carlotta have any friends in Iceland?’

‘Not that we know of,’ said Signor Mondini.

‘What about that man she met in Greenland?’ said Signora Mondini to her husband. ‘The director of the site. Do you remember him? He was from York University in England, but I’m sure he was an Icelander.’

Her husband shook his head.

‘Yes, you do. She used to talk about him sometimes. She thought he was a very clever man. Inspiring.’

‘What was his name?’ said Magnus.

‘I can’t remember,’ said Signora Mondini. ‘Wait a moment. Erik? Enrik?’

Magnus waited. He would prefer it if she could come up with the name herself. In the end he helped her.

‘Was it Einar? Dr Einar Thorsteinsson?’

‘Not much progress on the Italian tourist case, I see?’

Detective Superintendent Thelma was examining her computer screen, which was no doubt filled with reports from Saudárkrókur. Magnus had been called into her office as soon as he had finished with the Mondinis.

‘I need hardly tell you that this is a high-profile case and will remain so until it’s solved. Tourists don’t come to Iceland to be murdered; there are plenty of places they can go in the United States for that.’

Thelma had recently started wearing reading glasses, and she was working on her stare over the rims. She was doing a good job.

She had a reputation for being tough — any woman rising as high as she had in the ranks of the Metropolitan Police would have to be — but she was also smart. She had taken over from Magnus’s old boss, Baldur, following a reorganization while Magnus was in Boston, and had been in the job for three years. She was in her early forties — not much older than Magnus — with short blonde hair and a square jaw. She walked with a barely perceptible limp on the false leg she had acquired when she was a junior police officer after a car chase on Saebraut that went wrong.

Unlike her predecessor, Thelma appreciated Magnus’s experience and didn’t seem threatened by him. Magnus wasn’t sure whether this was because she was impressed with his talent, or because she thought it wise to support the Commissioner’s pet ideas. Probably the latter.

Magnus ignored the crack about the States. It was more accurate than many he had received over the years. ‘Actually, we might have had a breakthrough. I’ve just been speaking to the victim’s parents, and it turns out there is a connection between Carlotta and one of the TV crew who were filming at Glaumbaer. Einar Thorsteinsson.’

‘Connection?’

‘The mother says they were friends. After Carlotta went on an archaeological dig in Greenland supervised by Einar in 2011.’

‘Just friends?’

‘We’ll see,’ said Magnus. ‘I’m going up to Ólafsvík to interview him this afternoon. I’m taking Vigdís.’

Thelma raised her eyebrows. ‘Who have you left in charge of the investigation in Saudárkrókur?’

‘Árni Holm.’

More raised eyebrows, this time with some justification. Magnus knew that the senior investigating officer was supposed to stay at the physical heart of the investigation.

‘Jón Kári will help him — he knows what he is doing. I feel it’s more likely that Carlotta was killed by someone known to her. If that’s the case, then we need to track down everyone Carlotta knew who is in Iceland. And she knew Einar.’

‘You feel ?’

Fair question. ‘I’m not ruling out that she was killed by a stranger. In fact, that’s what most of the team are working on now.’

Magnus waited as Thelma examined him. Then she nodded. ‘Keep me informed. I’ll need answers when the Commissioner asks me about progress.’

‘I will.’

Magnus got up to leave the office. He hesitated at the door. ‘Thelma?’