Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

Paulsen threw him a worried glance. Greenlanders were hunters; she knew what the ravens meant. ‘There are no sheep here.’

Magnus set off at a trot through the grass and bushes, followed by the inspector. It could be any animal. A fox. A very lost sheep. Another bird.

Or it might be Rósa.

He pushed his way through the low willow bushes, yelling and waving his arms to scare the ravens away. They were reluctant to leave their feast.

It was Rósa. And the birds had got to her.

There were only two police officers to deal with the crime scene: Magnus was out of his jurisdiction. Paulsen left Frandsen to guard the scene and keep the birds off, and she and Magnus sped back to Narsarsuaq in the car, with Paulsen calling Qaqortoq on the radio in urgent Greenlandic for reinforcements.

There was one obvious suspect and Paulsen named him. ‘From what you’ve told me, Einar had a motive to murder his wife if he thought she had killed Carlotta. Revenge.’

‘That’s true,’ said Magnus.

‘OK. We’ll pick him up now and ask him a few questions. Then I’ll need to coordinate the other officers from Qaqortoq when they get here. There should be a police doctor on his way as well.’

‘What about forensics?’

‘They’ll come down from Nuuk.’ Nuuk was the capital of Greenland, a few hundred miles up the coast.

Einar was no longer sitting outside the tourist office café. One of the staff said they had seen him go into the small US airbase museum next door. They found him there, staring at large wall-mounted photographs of Bluie West One, as Narsarsuaq airfield was called during the Second World War, teeming with aircraft and servicemen. He was the only visitor in the room.

‘Einar!’ Paulsen said.

He turned, a spark of irritation disappearing rapidly when he saw the two police officers’ expressions.

‘I am sorry to tell you we have found your wife. She is dead.’

Shock struck Einar hard in the face.

Paulsen and Magnus waited and watched. The surprise looked genuine, but Magnus had seen surprise faked just as well many times in the past.

‘Where?’ Einar said.

‘In the Blomsterdalen.’

‘How? Was it an accident? Or...’

‘She was stabbed,’ said Paulsen. ‘At least we think she was stabbed.’ It looked as if her chest had been slashed, but the ravens had made a mess of the area, and of her face, so it was hard to be certain.

The little colour there was in Einar’s face left it, and his mouth opened. He seemed dazed.

‘Can you come with us, please, Einar? We have a few questions.’

The police hut was close by. Paulsen sat Einar down on one side of a crowded desk while she took the other, and Magnus took a seat on the side of the little room. For a moment Magnus was worried that she would do the interview in Danish, which Einar probably spoke, but she kept to English for his benefit.

‘Did you kill your wife, Einar?’

That was direct, thought Magnus.

‘What? You think I killed her?’ Einar looked in disbelief at Paulsen and Magnus. ‘Fair enough you might think I killed Carlotta, but not Rósa. She’s my wife, for God’s sake! Why would I kill her?’

‘Answer the question, Einar,’ Paulsen said. ‘Did you kill Rósa?’

‘No,’ said Einar. ‘No, no, no !’ The last word was shouted.

‘All right,’ said Paulsen calmly. ‘I want you to tell me your precise movements from when you left your colleagues at Brattahlíd this morning until when we saw you this afternoon.’

Einar closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and muttered, ‘I can’t believe this,’ in Icelandic.

‘Please speak English, Einar,’ said Paulsen. She had a pen and notebook ready. ‘What time did you get the boat across the fjord?’

Magnus could see what Paulsen was doing: getting down the details which could be quickly checked by her colleagues when they arrived, before she started asking questions about motive and Einar’s relationship with his wife.

Einar’s description of his movements that day was incoherent. It looked as if he was having difficulty thinking straight, but of course he might just have been trying to confuse Paulsen — it was impossible to say. He claimed he had started out to follow Rósa to the Blomsterdalen, but had got as far as the site of the old US military hospital and given up and turned around. On his way back he had climbed the steep hill above the airport and sat up there for a while. Then he had descended to the village and stopped in the café for lunch. And that was where Paulsen and Magnus had found him. During this whole period he hadn’t looked at his watch, or so he claimed.

‘What about your clothes? Have you changed them today?’

Einar was wearing jeans, boots, a T-shirt, a cardigan and a jacket. ‘No.’

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

‘Let me look,’ said Paulsen. ‘Stand up.’

He did so, as did she, and she inspected his clothing and his hands, looking for blood or other evidence. Magnus couldn’t see anything and neither could she. No doubt the forensics people would examine everything much more thoroughly later.

‘Empty your pockets.’

Einar did as he was instructed. A wallet, Danish and Icelandic change, a phone, two scrunched receipts and some keys. No knife.

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘Not yet,’ said Paulsen. ‘But I am going to handcuff you and ask you to stay here.’

Paulsen slapped a pair of cuffs on Einar, and then beckoned Magnus to follow her out of the police hut.

‘Can you watch him for me? By all means ask him questions if you write his answers down, but probably best to leave off anything he did today until I get back? Is that OK?’

Magnus nodded.

‘My police officers will be here soon, and I need to organize things. Oh, and Magnus?’ Paulsen looked at Magnus’s large frame.

‘Yes?’

Paulsen looked at Magnus’s large frame. ‘If you need to restrain him, do.’ She grinned.

‘I will,’ said Magnus and joined Einar back in the police hut.

They sat in silence. Magnus didn’t know whether Einar had killed Rósa. It was certainly a possibility and it was natural for Paulsen to detain him.

Einar glared at Magnus for a few seconds. Then his face cracked, he bowed, put his head in his cuffed hands and sobbed. Magnus watched.

Eventually, the sobbing stopped and Einar sat up. His eyes were red and he wiped his nose with his sleeve. They had been real tears. But Magnus had seen men who had killed their wives and wept afterwards.

‘You know Rósa followed Carlotta to Glaumbaer the evening she was murdered?’ said Magnus in Icelandic.

Einar’s eyes burned through the tears with anger. With hatred, even.

‘Did you know that?’ said Magnus.

Einar didn’t reply.

‘I think you did know that.’

Nothing.

‘Do you think Rósa killed Carlotta?’

Magnus waited. Einar held his eye for a few moments and then looked up at the ceiling. He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. He was in pain. There was no doubt that if he hadn’t killed his wife, this conversation would be painful. But then it might be just as painful if he had killed her. The fact he was an emotional mess didn’t tell Magnus anything.

He met Magnus’s eyes again, the hatred subsiding. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’d like to think she didn’t, but I just don’t know.’

Magnus had only known Einar a week. At the start of that week, his lined face could have been described as rugged. Now it was ravaged. His eyes were red, the sockets blackened as if they had been bruised. The cocky self-assurance had gone. Einar was falling apart.