Майкл Ридпат: The Wanderer

The old man grunted. ‘Nineteen ninety-six. Over twenty years ago. Like you, I left Iceland.’

‘Africa?’ All living rooms in Iceland were heavily populated with family photographs, and Tryggvi Thór’s was no exception. Magnus had spotted several pictures of Tryggvi Thór in a much hotter climate, in many of which he was accompanied by a black woman with a mischievous smile, maybe twenty years younger than him.

‘Uganda. I only came back last year.’

‘With your wife?’

‘No. Charity died. Cancer. She was fifty-two. That’s why I returned. We had run a school together, but when she died, I gave it up. My mother also died last year and left this house empty. It was where I grew up; I decided I’d rather live in it than sell it.’

‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ said Magnus. ‘And your mother too.’ He drained his coffee. ‘Are you sure you won’t cooperate? I wasn’t kidding. This guy, whoever he was, might try again with one of your neighbours.’

‘I think the neighbours are safe,’ said Tryggvi Thór.

‘Why do you say that?’

Tryggvi Thór said nothing.

‘This wasn’t a random attack, was it?’ Magnus said. ‘Someone came here who you knew. You let them in, they beat you up and then they took something. And you know why. But you’re not telling me. Perhaps you’re scared? I’d be surprised. Perhaps you’re hiding something that you don’t want coming to light? More likely. Something illegal?’

The old man was looking at him steadily.

‘Something illegal?’ Magnus repeated the question. He was looking for a tiny nod. Or a shake of the head.

The old man didn’t move a muscle.

‘All right,’ Magnus said. ‘I can’t waste any more of my time here.’ Magnus got to his feet and fished out a card. ‘But if you change your mind, or...’ He hesitated. ‘... if you think you are about to get another visit, give me a call.’

Tryggvi Thór took the card and hauled himself out of his chair, wincing as he did so. He saw Magnus to the front door.

‘You know,’ he said as Magnus stepped outside. ‘You can always stay here, if you like. There is just me in the house, and there’s plenty of room.’

Magnus turned in surprise. Tryggvi Thór raised his eyebrows. He meant it.

Odd.

‘No, that’s OK, thanks,’ Magnus said. ‘As I told you, I think I’ve lined up somewhere in Breidholt.’

‘Well, if you prefer there to here, that’s your choice.’ And the old man shut the door.

The fog had lifted as Magnus drove along the narrow isthmus between Álftanes and Reykjavík. To his left stood the large farmstead of Bessastadir, the official residence of the president of Iceland, a collection of white buildings and a church alone in a meadow. Behind that, across a narrow body of water, rose the jumble of white and grey buildings that was the capital, crowned by the smooth grey concrete missile of the Hallgrímskirkja spire on top of its little hill. Mount Esja, behind the city, was still shrouded in cloud. The desolate black lava flow of the Reykjanes peninsula stretched away to the right. On both sides of the road, the sea glistened and glimmered in the newly liberated sunshine.

Iceland looked washed, clean and pristine. For a moment, Magnus felt his spirits rise. Maybe he had made the correct decision to return after all.

He had been brought over to Iceland from Boston’s Homicide Unit at the request of the National Police Commissioner in 2009 to help the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police deal with the big-city international crime that the Commissioner feared was going to become more prevalent in the capital. As America’s only Icelandic-speaking homicide detective, he was uniquely qualified for the job. And Magnus had done as he had been asked, breaking a number of difficult cases. The secondment was meant to have been for a two-year period, but Magnus had got an extension to three years. Then things had fallen apart with his girlfriend, Ingileif, and Magnus had returned to Boston.

There, life had been tougher than he had expected. Ever since he had first arrived in America as a child, Magnus had never been sure whether he was Icelandic or American. The three-year stint in Iceland hadn’t helped that: he had just become more confused.

But the real problem was Magnus’s father.

It was Magnus’s father, a professor of mathematics, who had brought Magnus and his little brother Ollie over to America when his mother died. And it was Magnus’s father who had propelled Magnus into the police department.

Because, when Magnus was twenty, his father had been murdered in the small town of Duxbury just south of Boston. The police had failed to find the killer and, after years of trying, so had Magnus. Which was why he had joined the Boston Police Department and become a homicide detective. He was very good at his job: it was as if every murder was his father’s murder.

Then, in Iceland, he had finally figured out how his father had died and the people who had been responsible. One way or another they had been brought to justice.

In many ways, many important ways, this had brought relief. Relief from the anger, the disequilibrium, the feeling that life was not quite right, that had gnawed at Magnus since he was twenty. But it had also dampened his obsession for the job, tramping the streets of South Boston from one murder to the next. He was still a good detective, but he had lost his edge. If a case was too difficult, if he had worked through all the angles and still not made a breakthrough, he would let it go. Move on. He would never have done that in the past, before he had resolved his father’s murder.

Without his all-consuming desire to solve every crime that came his way, the downsides of the job became more apparent. The long hours, the endless paperwork, the human misery.

And, without Ingileif, without the enthusiasm to find another Ingileif, he was lonely.

When the National Police Commissioner called him one morning, asking Magnus to return to Iceland on a permanent basis, Magnus politely refused.

Then he called again. And a third time.

The third time was the day after Magnus had visited his little brother Ollie, who only had four more months to go at the Massachusetts correctional facility at Norfolk and was eager to right what he considered to be past wrongs as soon as he got out.

Those past wrongs involved Magnus, at least as far as Ollie was concerned.

So the third time the Commissioner called, Magnus said yes.

Things had changed in Iceland. When he had left, the country was still struggling with the damage caused by the financial crash of 2008 that had almost bankrupted it. Now the economy was booming, fuelled by an unprecedented influx of tourists and Icelanders’ ability to look to the future with optimism. Much of this optimism had led to more borrowing, more expensive SUVs bought with other people’s money, more speculative buildings going up. So maybe things hadn’t changed after all.

Magnus returned to his old department within CID with the rank of detective inspector. Baldur, the previous head of the Violent Crimes Unit, had been promoted to head up Traffic, and had been replaced by Detective Superintendent Thelma Reynisdóttir. Magnus’s old colleague Vigdís was still there, still a detective constable, but Árni had got married, been promoted to detective sergeant and moved north to Akureyri. Magnus didn’t know whether Vigdís’s failure to be promoted was because she was black or because she was a woman. He did know it was not because she wasn’t good enough.

He wondered what she would make of Tryggvi Thór. Magnus was sure he was hiding something. He knew who had attacked him, and he knew why.

Normally when someone didn’t want to press charges after they were assaulted it was because there was some kind of criminal activity lurking in the background which they didn’t want to be uncovered. Drugs, usually, possibly people trafficking, something involving organized crime or gangs. A turf war, an unpaid debt, a contractual dispute.