Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

Somehow it didn’t surprise Magnus that Suzy had her migraines under control.

‘Do you know what time you left the other two?’

Suzy shook her head. ‘It was during the main course — I left half my plate. We met at eight-thirty, I think. Maybe nine-fifteen? I don’t know.’

Magnus glanced at Vigdís. That meant Einar and Eygló were alone in the restaurant for at least half an hour.

‘There won’t be any problem with us going to Greenland on Friday, will there?’ Suzy asked.

‘There might be,’ said Magnus. ‘Especially Einar.’

‘That’s not acceptable,’ said Suzy, her dark eyes boring into Magnus’s. ‘Getting on that plane is vital. There are only a couple of flights a week from Iceland to Greenland, and the weather there is suspect. We’re nearly into September, and if it starts snowing, we’re screwed.’

‘Wouldn’t the snow look good?’ Magnus asked.

‘It’s Green land, for God’s sake!’ Suzy said. ‘That’s the whole point. We want to show that Erik the Red found lush farming territory there. We need good weather. And we’re scheduled to go to Rome next month — if we miss Greenland now, we won’t get there until October, and that will be a disaster.’

‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘But this is a murder investigation. Someone died, someone Einar knew well. It’s going to be inconvenient.’

Suzy scowled, but then seemed to take a decision to change tactics. She smiled.

‘Look, the BBC is backing this project, as is the Canadian broadcaster, but I run an independent production company. And we are in a difficult situation.’ She hesitated. ‘Financially.’

‘I thought Viking Queens was a big success?’ Magnus said.

‘Yes, it was, and so will The Wanderer be if you let us film it on schedule. We got involved in a major documentary last year that got pulled at the last minute, and let’s just say I really need the cash flow from this one.’

Suzy was clearly an expert at getting things done, and at getting her own way, but Magnus had some sympathy with her. ‘I understand, but the needs of the investigation must come first,’ he said.

‘You know we didn’t kill Carlotta,’ Suzy said. ‘We were all having dinner together in Saudárkrókur. There are witnesses. Let us go to Greenland and then you can talk to us again when we return to Iceland if you have to. And we need Einar. He discovered the wampum in Greenland; he has to be in those scenes.’

‘Actually, it was Carlotta who discovered the wampum.’

This news seemed to irritate Suzy. ‘We can hardly interview her, can we? We need Einar.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Magnus. ‘In the meantime, can we have the film you shot at Glaumbaer and in Nantucket and Newfoundland?’

‘Don’t you need a warrant for that?’

‘I can get one if you like. It’s no problem in this country. But I thought you wanted to cooperate?’

‘All right,’ said Suzy. ‘I’ll get Tom to give you a copy.’

Suzy departed unhappy, but that was the best she was going to get.

‘You’ll think about it?’ said Vigdís. ‘You mean “no”, don’t you?’

Magnus shrugged.

‘I’m not convinced they all have an alibi,’ Vigdís went on. She consulted her notebook. ‘Suzy left Eygló and Einar alone from nine-fifteen. Maybe Einar left the restaurant then and drove down to Glaumbaer and Eygló is just covering for him. Again.’

‘He says he was waiting in the church square at ten-thirty to meet Carlotta. He wouldn’t have had time to drive to Glaumbaer, kill Carlotta and return to Saudárkrókur.’

‘He had an hour at least.’

Magnus shook his head. ‘It would take almost that long just to drive there and back.’

‘OK. But who saw him leaving the hotel at ten-thirty? Eygló. Again.’

Vigdís was right. They needed independent verification, more than just Eygló’s word. ‘Let’s have a chat with the cameraman.’

Tom Loudon had little to say, but he had noticed Einar hanging around in the church square when he was on his way back from a bar. He wasn’t sure what time that was, just late. Having been assured by Suzy that it was OK, he downloaded the film footage on to a memory stick for Magnus in a format that Magnus could view on a computer.

‘So now we have Tom’s word that Einar was in the church square as well as Eygló’s,’ said Magnus.

‘He wasn’t certain of the time, though,’ said Vigdís.

‘Let’s see what the sound man says.’

Ajay had no alibi for that evening, or not much of one. He had gone out to get a slice of pizza which he had brought back to the hotel, and he had gone up to his room to eat it. He’d spent the evening reading a book, and then gone to sleep at about eleven. He hadn’t seen Einar or any of the others all evening.

He said he hadn’t known any of the crew before being interviewed in London a month before. He had got the job through his tutor at university who knew Suzy was looking for a good intern. He had found Tom an excellent teacher, but difficult to talk to. He enjoyed the work; it was great experience.

He claimed he had no idea who Carlotta was. He had never visited Italy. He did have a driving licence, however, so in theory he could have driven the rented Land Cruiser back to Saudárkrókur that evening.

Magnus and Vigdís stayed on at the police station: Vigdís wrote up the interviews, and Magnus studied the unedited rushes from Glaumbaer. He went over them three times, but he couldn’t spot anything of interest. No sign of Carlotta, or of her car, or of Einar looking furtive or worried.

On the screen, Eygló told a good story. Magnus watched the Newfoundland footage, as much out of curiosity as anything else. Much of it was filmed at L’Anse aux Meadows, a remote site on the north-eastern coast of the island, which wasn’t even connected to the outside world by road until the 1960s. Eygló was once again fascinating, supported by Einar and a Canadian archaeologist. There was much speculation about whether L’Anse aux Meadows was actually the Leif’s Booths mentioned in the sagas. They visited the possible locations of other places mentioned in the sagas, such as Straumsfjord — ‘Stream Bay’, Straumsey — ‘Stream Island’ and Kjalarnes — ‘Keel Point’. No mention of Hóp — lagoon. Perhaps they were saving that for the Nantucket episode.

They were...

Eygló was perched on the gunwale of a heeling sailing boat, a taut tan sail straining behind her. She read from a sheet of paper fluttering in the breeze.

From Straumsfjord head south along the coast for six days past a cape with strong currents to an island just out of sight of land. On the eastern side of the island, there is a lagoon with sandbars next to the sea which it is only possible to sail into at high tide. There are fields of self-sown wheat and grapevines growing on the hills. The lagoon is teeming with fish.

She looked up. ‘So those are the navigational instructions Christopher Columbus wrote to his brother; the instructions he had been given in Iceland. They are similar to the directions found in the Saga of Erik the Red , but more detailed, suggesting they might have come from another version of that saga, now lost.

‘We are in Nantucket Sound.’ She pointed out to starboard ‘Over there, just out of sight beyond the horizon, is Cape Cod.

‘You can see from the chop just here that there are strong currents; this stretch of water has been notorious with sailors since the first fishermen came here from Europe five hundred years ago. Maybe even earlier.

‘And over there...’ She turned towards a stretch of low-lying land over her left shoulder. ‘Over there is the island of Nantucket.