Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

They had decided to keep Rósa’s death out of it. It complicated things, and Eygló and Suzy had no desire to pile more pressure on Einar.

Rósa’s death had broken him. He didn’t care about the discovery of the hoax; he didn’t care about his academic reputation or even his post at the university, who had given him a term’s sabbatical. Eygló made sure she saw him every day, and did her best to convince Einar he had always done his best for Rósa.

‘That was very good, Magnus,’ said Suzy. ‘You and Eygló seem to have some real chemistry going, don’t you think, Halla?’

Halla was in charge of press relations for the Metropolitan Police, and was keeping an eye on proceedings. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, grinning at Magnus. For a press officer, she was not known for her discretion.

‘Magnus is a true professional,’ said Eygló neutrally.

‘Of course,’ said Suzy. ‘You’re sure you can give us a lift to Glaumbaer tomorrow, Magnus?’

‘No problem.’

Production costs had been cut right down to the bone. Tom had been sent back to England, never to work with Suzy again. Eygló had begged a friend of her sister’s to do the camera work for no payment up front and the risk of no payment at all. Ajay was still providing his labour free. Suzy was staying on Eygló’s sofa, and Ajay with one of her sisters. There would be post-production costs, but Suzy was doing this on a shoestring. Half a shoestring.

‘Have you got time for a walk?’ Eygló asked.

‘Sure,’ said Magnus. He was still working his way through the paperwork, or computerwork, brought about by three murders in two jurisdictions committed by a dual citizen of a third and a fourth. The paperwork wasn’t going anywhere.

The sun was out, at least temporarily, and a fresh breeze skipped in from the bay. On one side of them, manic Icelandic drivers misguided tons of metal in unpredictable directions along the Saebraut. On the other, a crowd of ducks, cormorants and swans went about their city business. On the far shore, Mount Esja overlooked it all, its rocky flanks glowing a soft, splendid gold.

‘You know this would all be so much more difficult if Professor Beccari had survived,’ said Magnus. ‘The investigation would have taken months; we would have had to stop you broadcasting anything that might have been prejudicial to his defence.’

It turned out that Beccari had suffered a fatal heart attack after leaping into the sea at Qaqortoq. The shock of the cold that had set Magnus’s heart racing had been too much for him. What wasn’t clear, and would never become clear, was whether his decision to jump in had been an ultimately successful suicide attempt, or a desperate bid to reach the motorboat and escape.

If the latter, it was never going to work. The boat’s engine needed a key, which was not on board.

‘He deserved it,’ said Eygló. ‘I’m just glad that you didn’t die too. That was a stupid thing to do, Magnús.’

‘I can’t argue with that.’

They were strolling past the elegant white Höfdi House, standing alone in a patch of green lawn, the former British Embassy where Reagan and Gorbachev had taken the first steps towards agreeing they had better things to do than blow up the world.

‘How was lunch with Ingileif?’ Eygló asked, as if reading Magnus’s mind. Outside the Höfdi House was where Magnus had had one of his first conversations with her, and since then the building had always been associated with her in his mind.

‘Polite. Civilized. Awkward.’

‘Did you ask her about Ási?’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

Magnus glanced across the ruffled bay at the broad shoulders of Esja. ‘I asked whether he was mine. She tried to laugh it off and asked me where I got that idea. I said Vigdís. She went quiet: she knows as well as I do how Vigdís is observant at that kind of thing. She wouldn’t actually say he was mine, but she didn’t deny it.

‘I asked if I could see him. She said no. I pushed it. She looked like she was going to cry, but she didn’t — she’s tough, Ingileif. She said her husband was leaving her. He’s gone off with a third-rate model, not much more than a schoolgirl really. She said she understood the irony.’

She had actually said more than that. During their constantly shifting relationship, Ingileif had had difficulty remaining monogamous. She had chided Magnus for caring about her occasional lapses. Now, she said, she knew what it felt like to be on the other end of it. She knew it felt bad.

There had been a long silence at the lunch table: they were in a quiet café in Thingholt. Ingileif had looked up at him, her face tight, her eyes tough yet pleading. Pleading for him to come back to her.

Magnus had paid the bill and left. Ingileif’s last words were: ‘I’ll think about Ási.’

Magnus and Eygló turned inland towards Borgartún and the route back to police headquarters.

They were approaching a café, a Kaffitár. Magnus was about to suggest they nip in for a quick coffee when he saw two figures emerge. They were still about fifty metres away. One, the woman, turned away from Magnus and Eygló to her car parked a little further down Borgartún. She had the rolling gate of a woman with a false leg. Thelma.

The other, an older man, headed towards Magnus and Eygló, frowning. He only recognized Magnus when he was ten metres away.

He hesitated, and then growled as he passed: ‘Move along now. Nothing to see here.’

But there was. Magnus was damned sure there was.

‘Magnús?’ said Eygló. ‘That was Tryggvi Thór, wasn’t it? What did he mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

Eygló slipped her fingers into his.

Magnus squeezed gently. Then he relaxed. He smiled. He forgot about Tryggvi Thór.

For the first time in a long time, he felt... good.

Norse explorers from Iceland really did discover Greenland and North America around the year ad 1000. It is all outlined in The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red , although the descriptions of where the adventurers, including Gudrid and her husband, actually landed are tantalizingly obscure. Until the 1960s some historians believed these sagas were just myths, but then the Norwegian archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Greenland is littered with Norse archaeological sites, including Erik’s farm at Brattahlíd.

A history of the discovery of America by Bartolomé de Las Casas written in the sixteenth century quotes a letter from Columbus to his patrons Ferdinand and Isabella describing in enigmatic terms a visit to Iceland in 1477. There is an oral tradition that an Italian nobleman stayed on Snaefellsnes near Ólafsvík, which had been a major port for trade with Greenland. At the time, the sagas, including the two Vinland sagas, were popular in Iceland — many of the greatest saga manuscripts were transcribed in the fifteenth century. If Columbus did spend any length of time in Iceland, and asked the locals about the western ocean, he would have learned all about Greenland and Vinland. Which I find interesting. But there is no evidence that he wrote a detailed letter to his younger brother about it; Emilio made that up.

I have used the traditional English versions of the names in the sagas rather than the modern Icelandic or Old Norse. So Gudrid is Gudrid, not Gudrídur (Icelandic) or Gudrídr (Old Norse). There are many ways of spelling Erik the Red in English; I picked the most prevalent. Many places in Greenland have two or even three names: modern Greenlandic, slightly older Danish and very old Norse. So Qaqortoq used to be called Julianehåb. I have gone for clarity rather than consistency here, so I use the Greenlandic Qaqortoq and Narsarsuaq and the Old Norse Brattahlíd (modern name Qassiarsuk) and Erik’s Fjord (Tunulliarfik Fjord). Inspector Paulsen would probably refer to Brattahlíd as Qassiarsuk, but she doesn’t because I don’t want to confuse the reader.