Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

It worked. He was still gasping, his pulse felt like it had hit two hundred, but a steady flow of oxygen was reaching his lungs.

He looked around him. Beccari was floating face down about ten yards away. The rocky shore was close, but there seemed nowhere to cling on safely. A better bet was the motorboat a little further out to sea. Maybe Magnus would be able to climb on board. If not, he could at least hang on to the mooring line.

He began to take some tentative strokes towards Beccari. After the initial shock, where the cold had felt like a blow, now it was painful. Magnus could see why Beccari had surfaced face down; he must have gasped for air as he had plunged beneath the surface, and filled his lungs with seawater. Magnus had been foolish to jump after him, but now he was in, he would do his best to extricate Beccari.

It was difficult to swim or to make any forward progress at all. He found himself making swift, useless strokes; once again he tried to calm himself, to swim slowly and deliberately.

After what seemed like an age, he reached Beccari. He was exhausted. He reached out to grab Beccari’s clothes to try and turn him face up, but his fingers wouldn’t grasp him. He got closer, reached out again. Beccari sank underwater. Surfaced. Magnus just couldn’t grip; his fingers wouldn’t obey instructions from his brain. His body was shutting down, extremities first.

He gave up trying to get a hold of Beccari, and instead pushed Beccari’s side upwards, trying to flip him over on to his back.

It took him four attempts, but eventually he succeeded.

Beccari wasn’t breathing. He had drowned; it was probably too late to resuscitate him, but Magnus was in the water now, he may as well try. It wasn’t far to the motorboat.

Off Duxbury Beach in Massachusetts, Magnus could have grabbed Beccari under the chin and pulled him the distance in less than a minute. But here, in Greenland, with both of them fully clothed, Magnus was making no progress.

Not just that, but his limbs were beginning to ignore messages from his brain. It was only with the greatest of difficulty that he could move his arms and his legs at all. It was bad.

And it was going to get worse.

In another couple of minutes Magnus would lose the ability to keep his own face above water. He had to get to the boat before that.

He let go of Beccari and struck out for the boat. But he was losing strength; not just strength, he was losing control over his body. For the first minute or so he made some progress, but then even that stopped. There was a tiny current which was gently tugging him away from the boat. Once again, in normal circumstances, he could easily have overcome it, but now all he could do was keep his head above water.

He wasn’t going to be able to do that for much longer.

He was going to drown.

His left arm went first. It would no longer move, and his right was barely making any upward pressure.

He was going to drown.

His life didn’t flash in front of his eyes, but he did think: Who would care? His parents were dead. His brother Ollie would be pleased. Vigdís and Árni would be upset, it was true, as would Ingileif.

And then he thought of the little boy with the red hair peering over the wall at him on Borgartún, with those piercing blue eyes.

He sank beneath the surface.

He flailed his remaining failing arm and kicked with both legs. His face met the air and he took a gulp.

And then he sank.

His right arm wasn’t working properly now, but he summoned all the strength he could in his legs for one more surge. He broke the surface, another gulp and under again.

A hand grabbed him under the chin and yanked. This time his face broke the surface and stayed out of the water.

‘Come on, Magnus, you big bastard, keep swimming!’ It was Paulsen’s voice. ‘You can do it. Help me now.’ He could feel her body in the water bumping behind him.

He tried, pushing downwards with his one arm, kicking feebly with his barely responsive legs.

He tried to say something to Paulsen, but all he could do was gasp for air. She was tugging him along towards the moored motorboat. He kicked and paddled, trying to do his bit to keep moving, keep his mouth and nose above the surface, keep alive.

His eardrums were underwater and he heard the urgent buzz of an engine. It became louder and half a minute later a large bright orange shape surged into his peripheral view.

‘Grab this,’ said Paulsen as she shoved a red and white plastic ring into his arms. He clutched it. It floated.

He floated.

Several strong arms grabbed him and heaved him upwards and over the edge of the boat. He was shivering uncontrollably as someone thrust a blanket over his shoulders.

Paulsen sat next to him. Her uniform was sodden, her long black hair hanging in damp strands down her broad face, but she was barely even shaking. She was a Greenlander: built to dive into near-freezing water and emerge unscathed.

Magnus wasn’t.

Paulsen flashed him that unexpected sweet smile. ‘Are you OK?’

Magnus tried to answer, but his teeth were chattering so much, he settled for a nod.

He fought to control his jaws. ‘Where’s Beccari?’

‘We’ll fish him out next,’ said Paulsen.

‘Good.’

Paulsen put a hand on Magnus’s shaking arm. ‘You know, Magnus? He wasn’t worth it.’

‘So, Inspector Magnús, who did you think was most likely to have killed Carlotta Mondini when you took on the case?’ Eygló looked up at Magnus, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted as if the words he was about to utter would be the most fascinating she had ever heard. They were standing on the strip of green that ran beside the bay in front of the National Police Commissioner’s Office, more photogenic than the police headquarters, which was a squat office block around the corner by the bus station.

He couldn’t help responding with warmth. Suzy had told him not to act like a policeman following best procedure, but rather like an inquisitive sleuth. Magnus understood the difference, and Eygló made it easy. ‘I didn’t know. You always have to keep an open mind. It could have been a local who had never met her before: there had been a series of rapes in the north of Iceland. Or it might have been someone from her past life in Italy. But a tourist murdered in this way is unheard of in Iceland.’

‘Yet the cause of her death turned out to be an Icelandic woman who had been dead for nearly a thousand years.’

Magnus grinned. ‘That’s not so surprising. There were plenty of murders in Gudrid’s day. Iceland was a much less peaceful place.’

‘Cut!’ shouted Suzy. ‘That was great, Magnus.’ She glanced at Siggi, the new Icelandic cameraman, who nodded. ‘Ajay?’

‘It’s good,’ said the sound man.

‘That’s a wrap, then. Glaumbaer tomorrow!’

Suzy had come up with ingenious ways of interweaving the hoax and its discovery, as well as the murders of Carlotta and Nancy, into the existing documentary. The BBC had loved it when she had pitched it over the phone. The Greenland takes would have to stay as they were, but a few new scenes involving Magnus in Reykjavík and Glaumbaer should set the scene for the murder investigation. The National Police Commissioner had been more than happy to release Magnus for the job. The Ministry of Tourism was keen that Carlotta’s death should be seen as something other than the random murder of an unlucky tourist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carlotta’s parents had given their blessing too, and had even returned to Iceland to be interviewed.

Kelly had agreed to talk about her grandmother; in fact she had been eager to. Nancy Fishburn was emerging as a heroine of the story, a tragic heroine, given her death. Magnus had his qualms about murder as entertainment, and about bailing Suzy out after her attempts to keep the knowledge of the hoax to herself. But it was a story that should be told, and Magnus was enjoying his part in telling it.