Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

A police vehicle and a pickup pulled up outside the building and disgorged the TV crew: Eygló, Suzy, Tom, Ajay and the Greenlander, who must have just returned from Brattahlíd over the water. Two police officers led them inside.

Magnus asked to interview the crew one by one after Paulsen and her colleagues had finished with them. They agreed that Paulsen would speak to them about Rósa, and Magnus about Nancy Fishburn. He was given a classroom to himself for the purpose, the grey breeze-block walls brightened by a collage of posters and kids’ pictures.

First up was Suzy Henshaw. Magnus and she perched on two ludicrously small children’s chairs with an undersized table between them.

She looked harried, dark smudges underpinned her dark eyes, and the lines in her face had deepened, but she sat upright and defiant on the little plastic chair.

‘I’m so sorry hear about Rósa,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘That’s what I’m going to find out,’ said Magnus. ‘With your help.’

‘It can’t have anything to do with us,’ said Suzy. ‘But I will answer your questions, obviously.’

‘Did you meet Nancy Fishburn on Thursday morning at the Hótel Búdir on Snaefellsnes?’ Magnus asked.

Suzy hesitated, examining Magnus before answering. Gauging how much she could say.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘She wanted to talk about the documentary. About Gudrid. We had interviewed her in Nantucket and she had been very helpful.’

‘Did she have anything to tell you?’

‘Not really,’ said Suzy. ‘Nothing important. She had some ideas about Gudrid; she had written a book about her back in the seventies. Nothing that we could use.’

‘Did you know she was murdered on Friday? In Reykjavík?’

Suzy’s eyes widened. She swallowed. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘And do you still say she had nothing to tell you?’

‘No,’ said Suzy, swallowing again, the confidence visibly draining from her face.

‘So she didn’t mention that she had placed the wampum at Brattahlíd? Or that her Italian book-dealer friend had forged the Columbus letter?’

‘No.’ Suzy drew herself up, but Magnus could tell she was on the verge of cracking.

‘Suzy. I know this whole thing is a hoax. The world will know very soon. It’s over. It’s all over.’

Suzy blinked.

‘The secret is out. But this is a murder investigation — three people have died. I don’t know why, and you have to help me. So, I ask you again, what did Nancy tell you?’

Suzy’s back bowed a little, but then she raised her chin in an attempt to hang on to her defiance. ‘You are right. Nancy told me it was all a hoax. That she, her husband and their Italian friend had cooked the whole thing up. I didn’t believe it at first, I thought she was just a scatty old lady, but she was very convincing with the details.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘I was furious. I asked her why she hadn’t said anything when the wampum was found. Why she hadn’t told Einar when he tracked her down in Nantucket last year, or why she hadn’t admitted it to us when we had asked her about the Columbus letter on camera. I mean she screwed us well and truly. My house is on the line. My marriage is on the line. I need this to work; I need the cash or it’s bankruptcy. I told her all that.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘To be fair to her, she was upset. She understood. I asked her what she was planning to do, and she said she would leave it up to me. She said she was very sorry; it was her duty to tell me what she had done, but it was up to me to decide what to do. She would keep quiet.’

‘And you decided to ignore it all, and carry on making the film?’

Suzy nodded. ‘Basically, yes. What choice did I have?’

‘Didn’t you think it would come out eventually?’

‘It might have done. But as long as I had been paid I would survive. And maybe I would seem like the innocent victim, as long as Nancy kept quiet. I am an innocent victim.’

‘“As long as Nancy kept quiet”?’ Magnus said. ‘She’s quiet now.’

‘Oh no,’ said Suzy, her voice gaining strength. ‘I know what you are doing now. You’re going to blame me for killing her!’

‘Did you?’ said Magnus.

‘No! No way.’

‘Where were you between nine a.m. and eleven on Friday morning?’

Suzy paused. ‘That was the morning we flew here, wasn’t it? I met up with the others at our hotel. The Centrum in Reykjavík. We met at eight-thirty for breakfast to discuss what we were going to do in Greenland. We talked for about three hours. Then we went back to our rooms and packed, and I got a taxi with Tom and Ajay to the City Airport. We got there a bit over an hour before the flight left — just after twelve-thirty I would guess.’

Magnus did some calculations. Kelly had first knocked on Nancy’s door at about eleven that morning. The Hótel Centrum was near the Parliament downtown, about a kilometre away from Nancy’s hotel in Thingholt. If the others confirmed Suzy’s story, then Suzy hadn’t killed Nancy. And it did agree with what Einar had told him.

‘The hotel staff at the Centrum would remember it,’ Suzy said. ‘We kind of took over the dining room.’

‘What about Einar?’

‘Einar wasn’t there. I had asked him to come along, but he didn’t show up. He sent me a text saying he had things to do. I was pissed off with him and told him so.’

‘Had you told anyone else about what Nancy had said about the hoax?’

‘No.’

‘Einar? Eygló? Professor Beccari?’

‘No. None of them. And certainly not Beccari. Eygló had had some suspicions in Nantucket; she had spoken to Nancy Fishburn’s granddaughter who had had some doubts about the wampum, but I managed to convince Eygló that they were blown out of proportion.’

‘Did you have your own doubts?’

‘I was worried, yes. But I couldn’t afford to have doubts.’

She turned away from Magnus and stared at a poster on the wall showing a brightly coloured map of Denmark, with a piglet grinning at its centre. Her shoulders slumped.

‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s the end of Moorhen Productions. It’s all over.’

She pursed her lips. ‘This is going to be a nightmare. I’m going to have to call my husband. I deserve it, though. When Nancy told me it was all a hoax I should have called the whole thing off right then. Then maybe she would still be alive.’ She paused. ‘Who do you think killed her? And what has Rósa’s death got to do with this?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Magnus. ‘But I will find out.’

Magnus spoke to Tom next and then Eygló. Tom was surly and uncommunicative, beyond confirming that he, Suzy, Eygló and Ajay had met at the Hótel Centrum the morning Nancy was killed.

Eygló was distraught to hear that Nancy had been killed. ‘I really liked her,’ she said. ‘She was very smart and her book on Gudrid is great. Who did it?’

Everyone had the same question. Magnus didn’t have the answer.

Eygló was also devastated to hear that the letter and the wampum were fakes, although — as Magnus knew — she had suspected it.

Last up was Ajay. He had less at stake in the success of The Wanderer than the others, but he was overwhelmed by the murders taking place around him. He corroborated the others’ story about the Friday morning meeting, but as Magnus dismissed him, he hesitated.

‘What is it, Ajay?’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said. ‘But when we were filming in Iceland, I overheard Tom talking to Eygló. We were carrying our equipment back to the vehicle, and she joined us. It sounded to me like he was threatening her.’